Tales From Watership Down Read online

  He waited for Burdock and Celandine to join him and then set off along the edge of the ground where he had begun to sink. After covering some distance he turned again to his left, trying the ground step by step. This time he did not sink, and allowed himself to hope that he might have gone round the edge of the quagmire. If he had, he thought, he might be able to start going forward again, keeping the moon behind him.

  He went very cautiously, trying every patch of ground before putting his weight on it. Sometimes the ground bore him, and sometimes his paws sank in almost before he could withdraw them. Now that the full moon was giving him more light, he looked ahead very carefully, trying to see whether there was any difference, however slight, between safe and unsafe ground; but he could see no difference at all. Sniffing, however, proved another matter. The drier ground had a different smell from the swamp, and by nosing his way he was able to make a little headway, though only slowly and often crookedly. His westward advance was minimal, for often he had to go a long distance to right or left before once more inching his way forward. Once, he came upon a kind of broad, muddy pond, its standing water deep and still enough to reflect the moonlight. He went a long way round it, guessing that the edges would be nothing but watery mud.

  After what seemed half the night, he began to feel himself tiring. Constantly pulling his paws back out of the mire was bad enough, but on top of this was the continual strain of smelling and probing every foot of ground before entrusting his weight to it. How far across the marsh had they really gone, and anyway how wide was the marsh? He guessed now that they would not have crossed it by sunrise and would still be in it next day--perhaps all day and the next night as well. The rabbits would have to rest, and their rest could only be in the open, with not even a bush or a hedge for cover. They wouldn't like that, and neither would he. When and if they came out of the marsh, what sort of a place would they come to?

  He broke off these reflections to resume concentration on his next step. That was still the only way, he thought: one step, and then another, and another, and constantly pulling his paws back just in time. Twice he disturbed moorhens, which flew angrily and noisily away, no doubt feeling it against all nature that rabbits--rabbits!--should be here in the middle of the night.

  In aftertimes, El-ahrairah used to say that of all his adventures, this crossing of the marsh by night was the worst. Several times he thought that he would never get out of it alive. In a way he felt glad that there was no choice but to struggle on, because if there had been, he would have taken it without hesitation. The moon showed nothing on all sides but a desolate, empty place, fraught everywhere with horrible danger and offering no shelter or refuge at all. His body would not take long to sink under the slime, he thought. And what then? Rabscuttle would have to take over. He had better give him some instruction.

  When they set out, he had placed Rabscuttle in the rear, to look after stragglers and dropouts. He sent a message back down the line for him to come up and join him. Rabscuttle seemed to be a lifetime coming. When at last he appeared, El-ahrairah asked him what it was like at the back. How were the rabbits doing?

  "Better than I'd feared," said Rabscuttle. "No one's actually dropped out and had to be left behind. All of them still feel sure that they're going to get there--wherever it is. And as luck would have it, they've got a good storyteller. Rabbit name of Chicory. He's kept going with one story after another. So they don't drop out, because they want to know what happens next, you see. Anyway, what can I do to help you, master?"

  El-ahrairah explained, and stayed with Rabscuttle until he was sure he had got the idea. Then he left him to sniff his way forward, and remained to watch the rabbits go past. Rabscuttle, he thought, had been right. They were for the most part in good heart and certainly not tired out by simply going where they were led. His own fatigue and low spirits he could attribute only to the load of responsibility he had taken on himself: that, and the labor of sounding out the way, of finding dangerous ground and pulling back from it in time. He waited for Chicory and was amused to hear that he was telling the story of the King's Lettuce. At the far end of the column he found a small, very young rabbit, who was having difficulty in keeping up. He encouraged him warmly and accompanied him for a short distance before returning to Rabscuttle and Burdock.

  Rabscuttle, as he had expected, was fully up to the unpleasant job and doing very well--better than himself, he thought. He seemed to find it positively amusing when his front paws sank into the mud. He obviously did not think he was in any danger or, if he did, was concealing it very well. What was more, he seemed to be on excellent terms with Burdock and Celandine, and had even allowed Celandine to take over from himself for a short time. "Nothing to it, nothing to it," he kept saying, and "Oops!" when Celandine went in up to his shoulders.

  Soon the sky behind them began to lighten as daylight returned after the short summer night. When the sun rose, El-ahrairah looked ahead in the hope of seeing whatever lay on the other side of the marsh, but could see nothing except the same dismal wilderness. How long, he wondered, before they began to feel hungry and exhausted? If a whole day in the marsh lay before them, they would probably begin to split up into groups of the strong and not-so-strong; and, worse, to try to find food for themselves, wandering here and there. That would be fatal. He told Burdock and Celandine of his anxiety and suggested that they should fall back among their rabbits and do all they could to keep them together. "If only they'll do as I say," said Celandine. "They've all got used to pleasing themselves about that, you know. The truth is, we've had it far too easy for far too long." To this El-ahrairah could think of no answer.

  He was just about to take over the lead from Rabscuttle when a heron flew down nearby and began wading beside them. It was not disposed to be friendly. "What on earth are you wretched rabbits doing here?" it squawked to Rabscuttle. "This marsh belongs to me and my family. We don't want you rabbits here. Why don't you get out?"

  El-ahrairah explained that this was exactly what they were trying to do. He told the heron about the rats and about their forced march by night.

  "You mean you want to get out as soon as you can?" asked the heron. "If that's all you want, I'll be glad enough to show you the way."

  "We'd be more than happy to be guided by you," said El-ahrairah. "But don't forget that we can't wade, and mud you think of as safe, with your long legs, is deadly dangerous for us. Have we far to go to get out?"

  "Not far," replied the heron tersely.

  "That's the best news I've ever heard," said El-ahrairah.

  He himself took up a position immediately behind the heron, and as he had feared, it proved dangerous. In spite of what he had said, the heron simply did not understand that the rabbits could not wade, and when El-ahrairah tried to explain this, it grew first impatient and then angry. At last, after quietly enduring its insults and abuse for some considerable time, he persuaded it to lead them over ground into which they would not sink and to avoid places treacherous to rabbits though not to itself. Once it had grasped the difference, the heron's guidance proved helpful, though not altogether reliable. Its manner remained sharp and unfriendly, and El-ahrairah thought it felt that a few rabbits drowned in the bog would be neither here nor there. Its contempt for them was plain, and it was all El-ahrairah could do to keep his temper.

  They did make progress, however, and went faster than before; and he was forced to admit to himself that they went safely over ground which he would never have trusted solely on his own account. In spite of what the heron had said, they seemed to go a very long way. At ni-Frith they were still struggling among the reeds and tussocks, without a sign of anything better. El-ahrairah's gnawing dilemma was that he dared not entrust the leadership to anyone else, even to the almost exhausted Rabscuttle, and dared not a second time leave the front and drop back to encourage the rabbits and keep them up together. He himself felt as tired as he had ever been in his life, and in spite of Rabscuttle's best efforts to conceal it, he could
tell that he, too, was almost worn out. So what sort of shape could the other rabbits be in? He told Rabscuttle to wait for the last ones to reach him and then report what things were like at the back.

  He begged the heron to stop while they had a rest, but it did so with such bad grace that he feared it would leave them.

  "Why can't your confounded rabbits fly?" it asked. "You'd be out of here directly if you could fly, like any reasonable creature."

  "I only wish we could," replied El-ahrairah, "but it can only be by the will of Lord Frith that we can't."

  At this moment, he found Rabscuttle beside him. "Master, there are two rabbits missing. And now they're nearly all in pretty poor shape down at the back."

  Would the whole band fall to pieces? wondered El-ahrairah. They had better get on before it did. He begged the heron to be so kind as to continue.

  Then, in no time at all, or so it seemed, he saw a line of horse chestnut trees topping a green bank well above their own level. Soon they were scrambling upward, and the ground beneath their paws was dry. "We're across, aren't we?" he asked the heron. "We're out of the marsh?"

  "Yes," replied the heron. "Don't ever come back, will you?" And so saying, without waiting to be thanked, it flew away, mounting with great, slow strokes of its heavy wings.

  El-ahrairah was up the bank in no time. The exposed roots of one of the chestnuts were bone dry under his paws. Rabscuttle was beside him. He had never felt so deeply relieved.

  The next rabbit he saw was Burdock, sitting nearby to watch his rabbits as they clambered out of the marsh and up the bank. Burdock might have been a useless Chief Rabbit in a crisis, but now he showed that there was another side to him. He knew all his rabbits by name and greeted each one, congratulating him or her and praising their courage and determination. And they, for their part, showed plainly enough that they liked and respected him. He spoke, too, about the rabbits who were missing, and was clearly very sorry for their loss. "Yarrow and Kingcup," he said to El-ahrairah with obvious regret and sorrow. "Two of the best rabbits in the warren. We could have spared almost anyone but those two." El-ahrairah, who had not troubled himself to learn many of the rabbits' names, felt ashamed.

  Climbing the bank, they found themselves on the edge of a wide, luxuriant meadow where the tall midsummer grass had not yet been cut. The exhausted rabbits crept into it, ate and at once fell asleep. "Let them do as they please," said Burdock. "They've earned it." El-ahrairah saw no reason to disagree.

  10

  The Story of the Terrible Hay-Making

  In nature there are no rewards or punishments:

  there are consequences.

  HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL, The Face of Clay

  Most of the rabbits remained sleeping or resting in the long grass of the meadow until early morning of the following day. But before that, on the previous evening, El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle had been awake and looking over the surroundings. The first and most obvious thing, on which they were strongly in agreement, was that they were too close to a farmhouse and its yard and barns.

  "I don't know what they'll decide to do," said El-ahrairah, "but they can't stay here for long, that's certain. A sudden invasion by a whole bunch of rabbits quite nearby--that's something the farm people are going to notice at once. And you know what that means: guns, dogs, even poison, perhaps--downright persecution, anyway. They'll have to get away from here."

  "What, back through the marsh, master?" asked Rabscuttle. "Surely they wouldn't do it, would they?"

  "Well, if they do, it'll be without you and me," replied El-ahrairah. "We have to be getting on with our little stroll home."

  At this moment they were joined by Burdock and Celandine, who were full of praise and gratitude for the part El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle had played in the crossing of the marsh.

  "We could never have done it without you," said Burdock.

  "Do you mean to go back?" asked El-ahrairah. "I suppose the rats must have come through and gone by now."

  Burdock was emphatic that nothing would induce him to go back across the marsh. "And I'm sure that goes for all of us," he said. "There'd be no point in it. I haven't really gone all round here yet, but there seem to be masses of food and just about everything rabbits could possibly wish for. There's a whole vegetable garden just along there, for a start."

  "Well, it's not for me to advise you," said El-ahrairah. "We're just a couple of wandering hlessil. But do you mind me asking--have you had much experience of human beings and what they do to rabbits?"

  "No, I haven't," answered Burdock. "I've hardly ever seen a human being, and I certainly haven't been near any. But rabbits can hide and rabbits can run. They can run a lot faster than human beings, I know that."

  "True enough," said El-ahrairah. "But all the same, this place, where we are now, is too close to that farmhouse, and if you let your rabbits settle here and go traipsing in and out of that kitchen garden, you'll be letting them in for danger and death. Human beings hate all rabbits, and they're nearly always ready to kill them wherever they are, but rabbits in a vegetable garden they'll go to a whole lot of trouble to kill, believe me."

  "Well, but I don't think I could stop my rabbits going in," said Burdock evasively. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Look," said El-ahrairah, "I'm not Chief Rabbit and not trying to be. I'm just a passing visitor. But if you want my advice, I think you ought to take them off into open country, right away from the farm. Edge of a wood, an open hillside, somewhere like that. It's just that I know there'll be a whole lot of trouble if they stay here. Anyway," he went on, as Celandine came up and joined them, "let's all have a look round together and get ourselves an idea of the place, shall we?"

  During the morning the four rabbits went over the farmland from end to end. It was very well tended and prosperous. There was a big field of cows and another of sheep, with all the hedges and fences very sound and efficiently maintained. There was another, bare field where the hay had already been cut and the ricks built. At its far end, cornfields, planted some with wheat and some with barley, extended out as far as distant woodland.

  Coming back, they went through an orchard of young cherry trees, some way away from the vegetable garden. Burdock was looking for a convenient gap, when they smelled tobacco and heard a man approaching from the other side of the hedge. They were just in time to hide among some nearby nut-bushes before he came out through a small gate and set off toward the long-grass meadow where they had spent the night. As he tossed his white stick into the grass, a rabbit bolted almost under his feet. He stopped and watched it disappear among the scrubland and bushes bordering the orchard.

  "See what I mean?" said Burdock. "Rabbits can run and rabbits can hide."

  That afternoon, when El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were alone together, Rabscuttle said, "Do you think we'd do best to leave these rabbits now, master, before the trouble begins? Only at this rate, there's bound to be a whole lot of trouble, isn't there? And quite soon, I'd say. We don't want to be mixed up in it."

  "You're probably right," answered El-ahrairah, "but I haven't altogether given up hope of getting them to see sense. If I can't, then I promise you we'll leave as quick as we can."

  After a few days, virtually all the rabbits had discovered the vegetable garden for themselves. There were two or three ways into it, and near these, on both sides of the hedge, conspicuous rabbit paths had already begun to appear. El-ahrairah, forbidding Rabscuttle to risk his life anywhere near the garden, went in himself one fine evening toward sunset, to see what sort of a state it was in. He found the lettuces nibbled to nothing and the cabbages and cauliflowers showing all too plainly the effect of the rabbits' attentions. As he had expected, a good deal more had been spoiled than had been eaten. Finding a couple of youngsters among the carrots, he tried to tell them about their danger, but they had no mind to listen to him.

  "Why, I think Celandine's in here himself," said one of them. "We know how to get away quick enough if any men come alon
g. This place is far too good to let alone. I'd never imagined there could be flayrah like this."

  At night, most of the rabbits slept or lay up among the long grass of the meadow alongside the marsh. The fine weather continued without a hint of rain, and the only rabbits to do any digging were two or three does who knew themselves to be pregnant and going to give birth to litters. The loose earth and other signs of their digging, in the bank leading down to the marsh, were clearly to be seen and added to El-ahrairah's anxiety. He noticed, too, that Burdock and Celandine did not seem to like his company as much as formerly, and he had little doubt of the reason. Even if he did not actually talk about the vegetable garden, his manner had become constrained by the constant thought of it, whereas every other rabbit except Rabscuttle lived in a state of almost riotous high spirits and well-being.

  One afternoon, as he was lying in the sun, El-ahrairah saw two rabbits nearby setting off with a purposeful air in a direction opposite to that leading to the vegetable garden. He wondered what they might be up to, and followed them with as unconcerned an air as he could assume. He saw them go down the further end of the bank and make their way into the cherry orchard. He waited for a time and then went in himself, by a way different from theirs. He soon caught sight of them again and saw what they were doing. They were stripping the bark low down on one of the cherry trees. One or two trees nearby had been stripped already. And that was not all. At the far end of the orchard, two men were talking together as they walked slowly among the trees.

  El-ahrairah went back to the meadow and began asking every rabbit he met where he could find Burdock. At length he came upon him asleep in one of the nestlike refuges the rabbits had made in the long grass. He woke him up and told him what he had seen.

  "Well," said Burdock, "what do you expect me to do? I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to. They wouldn't leave the trees alone just because I told them."