Tales From Watership Down Page 14

  Later on, when they were alone together, Hazel asked Bigwig how he had come to know in the first place that she was Flyairth, come from Thinial.

  "Well, when Vilthuril was telling us the other night about Thinial and the doe who was Chief Rabbit, I formed a very vivid picture of her in my mind," replied Bigwig, "and then when we found Flyairth in our burrow, she looked and smelled exactly as I'd imagined."

  "I can't help wishing you hadn't come out with it so sharply," said Hazel. "Now she thinks we're magic mind readers."

  "Well, so we are," answered Bigwig, "thanks to Vilthuril. It won't do any harm to let Flyairth think so. I know she was afraid last night, but all the same, she's got a very strong mind of her own, that one. She'll be all over us if we're not careful."

  The frost continued day after day, and there were more falls of snow. The rabbits were able to endure the cold but grew desperately hungry, until even Bluebell could not make a joke of it. Blackavar led a few of the does on an expedition to the farm, but they were able to pick up very little, chiefly on account of the cats. Most of the rabbits stayed underground, huddled together; even Holly and Bigwig were glad of a share in what little warmth was to be had.

  One night, when Hyzenthlay, Vilthuril and Thethuthinnang were pressing together against Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig, Vilthuril said, "Has Flyairth told you how she left Thinial and came to be here?"

  "No, she hasn't," replied Bigwig. "I was going to ask her, straight out, to tell us, only Hazel thought she'd be better left alone until she felt more settled here."

  "Well, she's told me," said Vilthuril, "and she didn't ask me not to tell anyone else. I think she'd probably be glad if I did tell you, so that she didn't have to. She seemed almost ashamed of herself, somehow; though I couldn't see that she had anything to be ashamed of, and so I told her."

  "Have you said anything to her yet about your secret river?" asked Hazel.

  "No. But I'd rather she did hear it from one of us--the three of us who actually knew about it in Efrafa. At the moment, she can't imagine how we came to know about her, so naturally she feels--well, uneasy, with us knowing something about her as big as that, and her still in the dark about it."

  "Yes, it'll be better if you tell her yourself," said Hazel. "But about her leaving Thinial, how did that happen?"

  "Well," said Vilthuril, "You remember I told you how we learned from the secret river that she was furiously angry when some of the rabbits in Thinial brought the young family of that poor rabbit--what was her name--"

  "Milmown," prompted Hyzenthlay.

  "Yes, of course, Milmown. They brought her young family into Thinial and gave them a burrow. Flyairth tried to make them leave, but their friends were too many for her, and her position as Chief Rabbit was weakened by losing that argument. That was the last thing I ever learned from the river.

  "Now she's told me herself that as the days went by she gradually lost more authority, not so much because of Milmown's family as because she couldn't think of anything but the White Blindness. She was obsessed by it and was continually putting forward ideas for preventing its getting into Thinial: ideas which most of her Owsla thought would be nothing but a nuisance; unnecessary things, they thought, which would only inconvenience everyone in the warren when there was no need. If only she'd dropped her obsession with the Blindness, they'd have forgotten about their quarrel with her.

  "But she didn't. And one day when the Owsla had refused to accept an idea she'd proposed, she said something quite fatal. She said that if they wouldn't accept it she'd leave Thinial and take her family with her. Although they all felt she'd be a great loss, they still wouldn't accept what she was proposing, and so she had to go.

  "It was late summer, quite warm, and she and her family were able to spend most nights in the open. And as for elil, she told me that she fought and killed a weasel herself. Somehow or other she'd heard of Efrafa, and she decided to go there. She didn't know what it was really like, of course. She'd only heard that it was a strictly run warren, and she thought that would suit her and that she'd be able to get herself accepted.

  "Well, the next thing she heard was that Woundwort and the Efrafans had been beaten by us here. So she changed her plan and decided to come to us. But by the time she'd reached the foot of the Down, her young ones were worn out--they'd been wandering for hrair days, she told me--and when she happened to come upon these burrows down here, all clean and empty, she naturally decided to take one of them over. By the time you found her, she'd already been living here for quite a few days, and she'd come to consider the place her own. Still, she's happy enough with us, 'if only this terrible cold would let up,' as she said."

  "We all like her very much," put in Thethuthinnang. "She really is the nicest rabbit anyone could hope to meet. She's made plenty of friends already. She's so good-natured and kind."

  "If only she hadn't got this obsession with the Blindness," said Hyzenthlay. "I asked her the other day whether she didn't think that the time had come to forget about it, but she only asked me whether I'd ever seen a rabbit with the Blindness."

  "And have you?" asked Bigwig.

  "You know I haven't."

  "I'm afraid of it too, come to that," said Hazel.

  "Yes, but you don't think about it all the time. Flyairth does. It's her only fault, I'd say. What do you think, Fiver?"

  "I think like her--if only this cold would let up," answered Fiver. "These are very harsh conditions we're living under. As soon as we can get back to our normal life, the sooner we'll be able to make up our minds about her."

  "My mind's made up now," said Hyzenthlay. "I think she's one of the cleverest and most sensible rabbits I've ever known. Thinial--it's their loss and our gain, if you ask me."

  A few days later Hazel and his veterans were much saddened by the death of Acorn, one of the original band who had come with him from Sandleford. The cold and hunger had finally proved too much for him. Even Bigwig, who had never particularly cared for Acorn, felt the loss keenly. "To think we brought him all that way, Hazel-rah, and he fought the Efrafans with us and came down the river on the boat, and now he stops running here. I shall miss him, I really shall."

  "We all shall," answered Hazel. "I hope to goodness he's the only one we lose. They all look so thin and frozen that I wouldn't be surprised if more of them stopped running."

  However, Hazel was able to set his fears aside when, a few days later, a thaw began. The snow and ice patches melted into water, which first trickled and then came pouring off the Down to form a small stream at the foot. Everyone was for returning to the Honeycomb immediately, but Hazel waited another day, until he was sure that the thaw was complete and that the frost would not return.

  Once he had had the advice of Kehaar and felt certain of this, his first thought was for the resumption of the new warren project. With the gull's help in acting once more as go-between, he and Bigwig met Campion on the site. Campion having warmly approved of it, they agreed that rabbits from both warrens should meet there in two or three days' time. Groundsel (one of the former Efrafan officers who had been accepted into Hazel's warren after the defeat of Woundwort the previous summer) was to be Chief Rabbit, with Buckthorn, Strawberry and the Efrafan Captain Avens as the nucleus of his Owsla.

  There were probably about ten or twelve rabbits who made the journey from Watership, with Bigwig to guide them. On his return, he told Hazel that they seemed to have mingled with the Efrafans quite happily. The elil had so far left them alone. No one had been killed, and digging in the bank was off to a good start. Hazel felt content to leave the business to Groundsel, at any rate for the time being, and turn his attention once more to his own warren.

  Flyairth, he noticed, had apparently become the center of a group largely made up of the younger does who had escaped from Efrafa with Hyzenthlay. She looked cheerful in their company and seemed--or so he thought--to have won their respect. They appeared to be treating her deferentially and were clearly gratified by the warmth and
friendliness with which she answered them. Falling into talk with one of the does, a youngster named Flesca, he asked her how she got on with Flyairth.

  "Oh, we've all become good friends with her, Hazel-rah," said Flesca. "She's told us a lot about the warren she came from and how she and another doe started it. She was Chief Rabbit, apparently, and her Owsla were all does. I've never heard of anything like that, have you?"

  "No, I haven't," replied Hazel, "but I'm not altogether surprised. I'm glad you all like her so much."

  "Well, she's so amusing," said Flesca, "and she obviously likes being here with us. We've been telling her about the escape from Efrafa, and how Kehaar flew at General Woundwort to help us to get away. She said she wished she'd been there herself and had wings like Kehaar. A flying rabbit would really be something new, she said. And then she asked me whether I couldn't get her a pair of wings and another for myself, and we'd fly to Efrafa together. I couldn't help laughing."

  The prolonged frost had left so little edible grass near the warren that one afternoon Hazel took out a search party--anyone who wanted to come--along the Down to try to find something better. Flyairth was eager to join and brought two or three does with her, as well as her young family.

  Even along the crest of the Down the going was very wet, with small puddles everywhere. They found a good deal of coarse grass, which was edible if not particularly appetizing. While looking for fresh patches, they became quite widely scattered, but no one felt at risk. The Down lay empty all around, and the breeze brought no scent of elil but only the familiar smells of juniper and thyme. After the days of restriction in the frost-bound burrows, the spaciousness was exhilarating, and several of the rabbits began leaping and chasing one another almost like hares. Hazel felt the release as fully as anyone and joined happily in a mock fight with Speedwell and Silver in and out of the junipers. Running away from Speedwell, he ran down the steep north-facing slope, pulled up sharply in front of a thornbush and lost his balance, rolling over against a sodden tussock.

  Picking himself up, Hazel, with a shock, saw a dog racing uphill toward him, yapping with excitement. It was a smooth-haired fox terrier, white with brown patches, soaking wet and muddy from the ditches and furrows down below. Hazel turned, breaking into his limping run, but even as he put on his best speed he knew that he was not fast enough; the dog was gaining on him. Desperately he changed direction, dodging one way and another, and as he did he felt the dog's breath panting closer, almost on top of him.

  At this moment, another rabbit dashed down the slope and without pausing or checking its speed ran full tilt against the dog's left side. Both dog and rabbit fell, struggling together in a confused mass. As the rabbit broke free, the dog, taken completely by surprise, scrambled to its feet but then, off balance on the steep slope, fell again and rolled onto its back. The rabbit, more agile, regained its footing and ran off, while Hazel put a safe distance between himself and the dog.

  The dog, getting up once more, looked about with a bewildered air but then, as a human voice called from below, made off downhill, none the worse physically but plainly in no mood for any further pursuit of rabbits.

  Hazel felt scarcely less bewildered. The shock of the dog's sudden pursuit and its abrupt ending in his unexpected escape had left him confused. He limped a few steps uphill but then stopped, uncertain where to go and knowing only that he was safe. After some moments, he became aware that another rabbit was beside him and speaking to him. "Are you all right, sir? Would you like me to go along with you for a bit?" It was Flyairth.

  "Was it--was it you that knocked the dog over?" he asked.

  "Yes. Well, the slope was all in our favor, wasn't it?"

  "I've never known a rabbit to attack a dog before."

  "Well, it wasn't really an attack, was it? It was easy enough to knock it over, but I wasn't going to stay there to be bitten. Still, fortunately for us, its master called it away."

  "You saved my life."

  "Not too sure of that, but I'm glad to have helped you. Let's get back to the top, shall we? It must be about time we were going home."

  Back in his own burrow in the Honeycomb, Hazel slept for a time but then went in search of Bigwig and Fiver. He found them both in Bigwig's burrow, together with Hyzenthlay and Vilthuril.

  He told them what had happened.

  "That must have taken some courage," said Bigwig. "I don't know whether I'd have done it, even for you, Hazel-rah. She's got plenty of weight, of course. But Frith in the rain! To go for a dog! Woundwort tried it, and look what happened to him."

  "That was a much bigger dog," said Hazel. He turned to Vilthuril. "You had one or two things you wanted to ask her, hadn't you? About your secret river. I'll go and see if I can find her."

  "Chief Rabbits don't go themselves: they send someone," said Bigwig.

  Hazel made no reply but disappeared down the run outside the burrow.

  When Flyairth had settled down among them, Hazel said, "I've told these rabbits what you did for me this afternoon. You saved my life, and I shan't forget it."

  "I don't think any of us will forget it," said Bigwig. "Do you often do that sort of thing?"

  "I've never had the chance before," replied Flyairth. "It was just on the spur of the moment, really. I'm not at all sure I'd dare to do it again. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

  "Well, we've asked you to come here for Vilthuril to tell you about something completely different," said Hazel. "How much have you heard about what's been called the secret river in Efrafa?"

  "Practically nothing," replied Flyairth. "I've heard it mentioned once or twice, but not by anyone who claimed to know much about it."

  "Well, Vilthuril will tell you now."

  Vilthuril recounted again how she came upon the secret river and the extraordinary way in which she, Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang learned about Flyairth and Prake's starting the warren called Thinial, with its Owsla of does. She said as little as possible about Flyairth's preoccupation with the White Blindness, but spoke of Milmown and her litter and how after Milmown's death the young rabbits had been brought into Thinial against Flyairth's will.

  "And as you'll remember telling me yourself," she concluded, "you and your young rabbits left Thinial because the Owsla couldn't agreee with you about taking steps to guard against the White Blindness. You were going to Efrafa, but Frith be thanked you came here instead."

  For a time Flyairth said nothing, as though unable to take in the extraordinary nature of what Vilthuril had told her about the secret river. At last she said, "Of course what you say must be true, or else you couldn't have known about Thinial and about poor Milmown and the quarrel with my Owsla. And yet--and yet how can it be true? I've never heard of anything like your secret river. It's struck me all of a heap, to tell you the truth."

  "Thought transference," said Fiver. "Kehaar knows about it. He told me it's common among birds who live in flocks, like seagulls."

  "But to go all that distance--"

  "Kehaar told me that men have even more incredible ways of telling news to one another. Hrair miles through the air, he said."

  Seeing her still perplexed and also, he thought, a little petulant at not being able, like the other rabbits, to accept the idea of the secret river, Hazel said, "Well, let's not bother about it now. I'm sure I'm as much in the dark as anyone else. There were two questions we wanted to ask you, Flyairth, but I think we already know the answer to one of them. Was anyone in Thinial sending out knowledge, which our rabbits got from the river? The answer to that is, as far as you know, no one. And the second question is: How far away is Thinial? Where is it?"

  "It must be a long, long way from here," answered Flyairth, "toward the sunset. My family and I, we took hrair days getting here."

  "Neither you nor anyone else could go back there?"

  "Oh, no. Much too far."

  "Kehaar could probably find it," put in Bigwig.

  "But we don't need to know," said Hazel. "All I wanted to kn
ow was whether other rabbits from Thinial might turn up here. The answer is that that's extremely unlikely."

  "Hazel-rah," said Flyairth, "why was it that you didn't ask me whether I'd like to join Groundsel and the rabbits he took to the new warren? I'd gladly have gone with them, only I never heard anything about it. Once the thaw began they were gone so quickly."

  "Well, I'm afraid it never occurred to me to ask you," answered Hazel. "You see, we already knew which of our rabbits were going, before the frost began. The whole thing was settled and our rabbits would have left here before you'd joined us, if it hadn't been for the frost. When the thaw began, we just took the whole business up where we'd left off."

  "So few rabbits went with Groundsel," she said. "If it had been up to me, I'd have taken the whole warren."

  "Only you didn't happen to be Chief Rabbit, did you?" said Bigwig.

  "I'd gladly have gone with him myself." And then, after a pause, "Hazel-rah, there's something I want to say to your Owsla; something very important. Only, in this warren I can't make out who's in the Owsla and who isn't. I'm confused."

  "Well, that's our fault," replied Hazel. "You see, we came here together and went through all sorts of danger together, like beating General Woundwort; and we've never needed an Owsla for giving out orders and that sort of thing. We're all in the Owsla, really. It works, anyway."

  "Yes, I know it works," said Flyairth. "You're all so contented and get on with each other so well. No one has any enemies, as far as I can tell."

  "Well," said Hazel, "what is your important thing? You can tell us and we'll listen seriously, I promise you."

  "I think you already know what it is," replied Flyairth. "The White Blindness. None of you seem to know what it's like, or to realize your dreadful danger. None of you has ever seen a rabbit with the Blindness, or seen the Blindness spread in a warren. It's unbelievably horrible--by far the most horrible of all the things that threaten rabbits. Worse than all the Thousand put together. Rabbits still alive, turned into groping, rotting lumps of misery. I know you think I'm obsessed. So would you be if you'd seen what I've seen. How even men can be so cruel as to give rabbits the Blindness I can't imagine. Everything we plan, everything we do, ought to take into account the Blindness and how to avoid it."