Tales From Watership Down Read online

  "Have you ever been in there?" asked El-ahrairah.

  "Oh, yes; often, when I was young; but it's of no use to a rabbit."

  "Well," said El-ahrairah, "perhaps we might take a look round it tomorrow, before we go on, as long as the weather stays fine and it doesn't rain."

  The next morning was as fine as ever, and El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle began the day by finding their way into the deserted, overgrown garden. They were hoping that they might find something good to eat, but even in the vegetable garden they came upon nothing to attract them.

  "It looks as though a lot of other rabbits have been here before us, master," said Rabscuttle. "We might as well leave it to the mice and the birds."

  "Yes, we'll go back now," said El-ahrairah, "and see what we can find in that comical field."

  "Somehow or other I don't much like that field," said Rabscuttle, "but I can't tell why."

  "It's only because it's new to you," said El-ahrairah. "Natural rabbit suspicion. Anyhow, we won't stay there long. We have to be on our way."

  Greenweed was waiting to encourage them and see them off. He showed them the way in and came a few yards with them into the comical field.

  "Is there any particular way we ought to go to get to the middle?" asked El-ahrairah.

  "Not that I know of," said Greenweed. "As I understood it, that was what the men found amusing. They had to find their own way in and out. If they got confused, that was all part of the game."

  After he had left them they sat for a while, puzzling over which way to go. Finally they decided that one way was as good as another, and set off down one of the green paths leading between the hedges. For some time they seemed to be going round and round, and were beginning to find it monotonous. They were on the point of deciding to go back, when they unexpectedly found themselves at the center. There was a big, upright stone in the middle of a little grassy square, and to one side an old wooden seat.

  "This must be the center, all right," said El-ahrairah, "because there's only one way in. We may as well lie in the sun for a bit before we go back."

  They browsed awhile on the grass and then went to sleep in the sun. It was quiet and peaceful, and although El-ahrairah woke once or twice, he soon dropped off again.

  When they finally woke, the sun had gone in. It was late in the afternoon and turning chilly.

  "We'd better get back as quick as we can," said El-ahrairah. "That Greenweed'll be wondering where we've got to. We'd better stay the night with him now, and go on tomorrow."

  They had supposed it would be easy to get out, but they soon found that it was nothing of the kind. They had no idea which way to go and wandered up and down the green paths until they felt quite bewildered.

  It was during one of their puzzled halts that El-ahrairah became sure of something of which he had already been half aware for some time past. There was some other creature in the comical field as well as themselves--someone on the move like them. He could hear it: now far off; now, so it seemed, close by. This disturbed him, for rabbits, as you all know, by nature tend to be afraid of anything unfamiliar and particularly of any strange creature nearby which they cannot hear or see clearly. He and Rabscuttle remained perfectly still, staring at each other. They both felt alarmed.

  "Should we join it, do you think?" asked El-ahrairah after a while. "It might be able to show us the way out."

  "Don't make any mistake, master," replied Rabscuttle. "I don't know who or what it is, but I know it's searching for us, and if it finds us it means to kill us. We're being hunted."

  They both began to run then: a panic flight, one way and another, not knowing where they were going. It was like a nightmare, a flight without direction or purpose, against all rabbit nature. For as you all know, in the normal way a rabbit knows where the danger lies or where the enemy is, and runs in the opposite direction. But here, among the paths of the comical field, they could not tell where the danger lay; nor could they run directly away from their pursuer, for every path twisted, came to a dead end or turned back on itself. For all they knew, they might be running straight toward this unknown enemy, the dread of whom clutched at their hearts more direly with every moment that passed. Up and down, back and forth, they ran, feeling not only helplessness and terror but also growing exhaustion.

  At last, in the gathering darkness, they sank down together in a place where one of the hedges ended, leaving a gap which led into a straight path beyond.

  "I can't go any further, master," gasped Rabscuttle. "I'm worn out. And look, we're going in circles. We've been this way before. There's the hraka I passed, on the ground."

  At this, El-ahrairah realized the utter futility of their flight. He turned his head to look back at the way they had come, and it was at this moment that he saw for the first time, behind them, their approaching pursuer.

  In afteryears El-ahrairah would never describe what he saw, and only once did he ever speak of it. This was when some rabbit once said to him, "But you saw and talked with the Black Rabbit of Inle. How could this be worse?"

  "The Black Rabbit," replied El-ahrairah, "inspired a terrible, indescribable awe: helplessness and the fear of endless darkness. But he is not wicked, evil or cruel." And not a word more would he say.

  As the dreadful malignant horror broke into a run upon seeing him, El-ahrairah dashed through the gap beside them, with Rabscuttle hard on his heels. And there they saw before them the way out, which they must have overlooked when they came along that path earlier.

  "If that way out didn't move of its own accord," Rabscuttle used to say, "I'd still be ready to believe it did. I'd believe anything of that place."

  Once out, they ran fast over the open grass, yet instinctively they knew that they would not be pursued further. "It won't go beyond its own place," said El-ahrairah.

  Soon they saw Greenweed at silflay by himself in the last light. As they came up to him he jumped, stared at them with a kind of terrified incredulity and tried to run away. El-ahrairah pinned him down.

  "So it didn't work for once, Greenweed," he said. "You contemptible, lying creature. It's all clear enough now. That--that wicked being has allowed you to live here and protected you from the elil to suit himself. It was your business to seem to befriend any rabbits who came this way and encourage them to go into that place, simply for amusement, as they supposed. Then, when they had gone in, you told your master."

  The wretched Greenweed answered him never a word. He plainly thought El-ahrairah was going to kill him.

  "Well, you won't do it anymore," said El-ahrairah at length. "You'll come with us tomorrow and we'll find somewhere else for you to live out your days like a decent rabbit."

  Greenweed set out with them next day, and they left him in the first warren they came to. El-ahrairah said nothing to its Chief Rabbit about Greenweed's despicable treachery, saying only that he was too old to journey with them. They never heard any more of him.

  9

  The Story of the Great Marsh

  He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry

  clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

  PSALM 40:2

  It was not long after dawn on a fine, clear morning close to midsummer. El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were making their way over a low saddle between two hills of the grassy country they were crossing on their journey home. Clumps of oxeye daisies were already in bloom here and there, and there were patches of mauve sainfoin. As they stopped to nibble the fresh grass, a light breeze began to blow, bringing from below scents of sheep and river plants.

  Ahead of them lay the kind of country with which they were familiar. On the sunset side, however, the fields were bordered by marshland, extending north as far as they could see. A man was at work cutting reeds, but otherwise the whole valley was still and quiet.

  The rabbits, descending unhurriedly, came to a field that lay near the marsh and ended on the opposite side in a long bank topped by a hedge of hawthorn and elder. In t
his were a number of rabbit holes, and as they reached it two rabbits came out and halted, watching their approach. El-ahrairah greeted them and remarked on the fine weather.

  "Hlessil, are you?" said one of the rabbits. The other stared at El-ahrairah's mutilated ears but said nothing.

  "Yes, I suppose we are," replied El-ahrairah. "We've been wandering for quite some time, but now we could do with a few days' rest. Do you think we might be allowed to stay here? I like the look of this warren, and if it's not overcrowded, perhaps no one would mind if it's not overcrowded, perhaps no one would mind if we stopped for a bit."

  "That'll be for our Chief to say, of course," replied the second rabbit. "Would you like to come and meet him? I shouldn't think he'll mind you staying. He's very easygoing as a rule."

  The rabbits made their way along the bank, stopping beside a group of four or five holes at the further end.

  "This is where our Chief's usually to be found," said the first rabbit. "I'll go in and tell him you're here. His name's Burdock, by the way," he added before disappearing down the nearest of the holes.

  Burdock, when he came out to meet them, immediately struck El-ahrairah favorably. His manner was not at all unfriendly, and he seemed to think it only natural that a couple of hlessil should want to stay in his warren for a while.

  "We have hardly any trouble with elil here," he said, "and so far we've been left alone by men. I suppose you've come from quite a long way off, havent you? No other warrens anywhere near here, as far as I know. You can certainly stay here as long as you like.

  El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle settled in comfortably and found the warren so much to their liking that they felt in no particular hurry to move on. The rabbits were as friendly and sociable as anyone could wish. Burdock in particular showed himself glad of the visitors company and of the opportunity to learn more from them about the world they had come from. He and several of his Owsla often came to silflay beside them of an evening, and would ask them to tell of their adventures out in the Beyond.

  In his replies, El-ahrairah was always careful to say nothing about the Black Rabbit, and as their hosts were too polite to ask about his mutilated ears, he was able to avoid the whole subject of their reason for wandering and of whether they had any particular destination in mind. They obviously felt respect both for him and for Rabscuttle as rabbits who had traveled far and wide and survived all manner of perils.

  "I could never have done all you've done," said Celandine, the captain of Owsla, as they lay on the bank together one sunny evening. "I like to feel safe, myself. I've never felt any wish to go anywhere outside this warren."

  "Well, none of you have ever been driven to it, have you?" replied Rabscuttle. You've certainly been lucky there."

  "Why, have you been driven to it?" asked Celandine.

  Rabscuttle, catching a warning glance from El-ahrairah, merely answered, "Well, you could say so," and, as Celandine did not press him, left it at that.

  It was past sunset one evening a few days later, and most of the rabbits were about to end silflay and settle in for the night, when yet another hlessi, a total stranger, came limping along the bank and asking to be taken to the Chief Rabbit. When it was suggested to him that he might stop and feed first, he became frantic, insisting that his news was urgent, a matter of life and death. Then he collapsed on the grass, apparently exhausted. Someone went to tell Burdock, who came at once, accompanied by El-ahrairah, Rabscuttle and Celandine. At first they could not bring the stranger round at all, but after a time he opened his eyes, sat up and asked which was the Chief Rabbit. Burdock told him kindly to take his time before trying to talk, but this only agitated him still further.

  "Rats," he panted. "The rats are coming. Thousands of rats. Killers."

  "Coming here, do you mean?" asked Burdock. "Where are they coming from? Are you saying we're in danger from them? We're not afraid of rats as a rule."

  "Yes," answered the hlessi. "Your whole warren's in danger. You're all in deadly peril. This is a mass migration of rats. They're not more than a single day away from here. They're killing every creature they find in their way. It was long before dawn this morning--it was in the middle of last night--when all of us--every rabbit in our warren--woke up to find them in among us. No one had heard or smelled them coming. Some of us tried to fight, but it was impossible. There were a thousand rats to every rabbit. Some of us did our best to clear out and run, but I think I must have been the only rabbit who managed it. I couldn't see much in the dark, but when I got outside I couldn't hear any other rabbits. There were rats everywhere--every rat in the world, you'd have thought. There was no chance of looking for other rabbits. I simply ran. As it was, I had to run right through a whole crowd of them. I've got bites all over my legs. I don't know how on earth I managed to get clear. One moment I was kicking and biting--just frantically, no thought of anything except that I was terrified--and the next I realized they'd apparently left off and I was alone in the grass. I'm afraid I didn't stop to look for other rabbits, and neither would you. But later--a long time later--I looked down from where I'd got to and saw the rats down below me, crowds of them, coming this way. You couldn't see the grass for rats. I'd say they're bound to be here by tomorrow. Your only chance is to get out, and quickly."

  Burdock turned to Celandine with a look of dismay and uncertainty.

  "What are we to do, do you think?"

  But Celandine seemed equally daunted.

  "I don't know. Whatever you say, Chief Rabbit."

  "Should we call a meeting of the Owsla and put it to them?"

  At this, El-ahrairah, who had so far said nothing, felt that he must interpose.

  "Chief Rabbit, you haven't got the time to spare for a meeting. The rats will almost certainly be here before ni-Frith tomorrow. You've got to go, and quickly too."

  "If our rabbits will come," said Burdock. "They may refuse. They haven't heard anything about rats yet."

  "You've got no choice," said El-ahrairah.

  "But where can we go?" asked Celandine. "On two sides of this warren there's a river much too broad to swim. The rats would catch our rabbits on the bank. And on the sunset side there's nothing but the marsh."

  "How wide is that?" asked El-ahrairah.

  "None of us know. No one's ever crossed it. It wouldn't be possible to cross it. There are no paths. It's all pools and quagmires. We'd only sink in the mud. But the rats wouldn't. They're so much lighter, you see."

  "Well, from what you've told me, I think we'll have to try. Chief Rabbit, I'll undertake to lead them through the marsh myself, if you'll back me up and tell them they've got to follow me."

  "And what in Frith's name do you know about it?" said Celandine angrily. "A brainless hlessi, who's only been here a few days."

  "Well, please yourself," said El-ahrairah. "You haven't suggested anything else, and I'm ready to do my best for you."

  Then Burdock and Celandine began arguing with each other to no purpose whatever, impelled, as El-ahrairah could see, by nothing but their own fear and by a sort of panic-stricken notion that if only they could go on talking, something would happen.

  "Rabscuttle," he said quietly, "go round everywhere as quick as you can and tell the rabbits about the rats. Then tell them that you and I are going to guide them across the marsh and that we'll be starting fu Inle. Tell them they're all to meet me by that plane tree over there--do you see the one I mean?--and that there's no time to lose. If some of them say they won't come, you can't stand about arguing. You'll just have to leave them. And above all, don't let them think you're afraid. Act as calm and confident as you can."

  Rabscuttle touched his nose to El-ahrairah's and was off on the instant. El-ahrairah turned back to Burdock and Celandine, interrupted their argument and told them what he had done. He had expected them to blame and condemn him, perhaps even to attack him and beat him up, but to his surprise they did nothing of the kind. They were sulky and would not give him their approval, but he could tell that
inwardly they were glad to have responsibility for the frightening business taken off their backs. If it all went wrong, which they clearly thought it would, they could blame him, but if he succeeded against all likelihood, they could say that they had given him the authority to do his best.

  To El-ahrairah, it seemed to take an age for the news to spread over the whole warren; and then more trouble began. Rabbits came from all sides to talk to Burdock, to Celandine and to himself. Some did not believe in the danger and said they would not join with those who were leaving. Others--and these were does--said they had newborn kittens in their burrows and what were they to do? To these he could only reply that if they wanted to save their lives, they must leave their litters and follow him, at which they grew angry. Others again asked him how far it was across the marsh and how long it would take to cross it. He answered that he did not know but was determined to save their lives if he could.

  After some time he collected Rabscuttle and went across to the plane tree. He was surprised to find a great many rabbits waiting for him, among them Burdock and Celandine. He spoke to them as encouragingly as he could and praised them for making the right decision--to come with him. Then, as the moon began to rise at his back, he set off without hesitation into the marsh.

  Now, the truth was that El-ahrairah knew a little more about marshes than most rabbits, for he had once lived in the dreary marshes of Kelfazin. He had realized that to cross this marsh was the only chance for these rabbits and that since their Chief Rabbit could not, he himself would have to lead them. But he had not thought at all about what this would actually be like. Now, almost at once, he began to learn. He had gone only a little way into the marsh when he started to cross a patch of open ground and suddenly found himself sinking to the full length of his front paws. He pulled back just in time and bumped up against Burdock, whom he had told to follow him, so that it might at least seem to the rabbits that their Chief was leading them. He paused, considering, and then tried a few steps to his left. Again he found himself sinking and drew back. To his right, then? Thinking that it would be no better, he forced himself to try it. This time he went further before the ground gave way beneath him. He pulled himself clear, lay down and rolled completely over to one side, once and then twice before standing up. The ground was firm.