What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and HellIt was evening of the following day. The north-facing escarpment of WatershipDown, in shadow since early morning, now caught the western sun for an hourbefore twilight. Three hundred feet the down rose vertically in a stretch of nomore than six hundred -- a precipitous wall, from the thin belt of trees at the footto the ridge where the steep flattened out. The light, full and smooth, lay like agold rind over the turf, the furze and yew bushes, the few wind-stunted thorntrees. From the ridge, the light seemed to cover all the slope below, drowsy andstill. But down in the grass itself, between the bushes, in that thick forest troddenby the beetle, the spider and the hunting shrew, the moving light was like a windthat danced among them to set them scurrying and weaving. The red raysflickered in and out of the grass stems, flashing minutely on membranous wings,casting long shadows behind the thinnest of filamentary legs, breaking each patchof bare soil into a myriad individual grains. The insects buzzed, whined, hummed,stridulated and droned as the air grew warmer in the sunset. Louder yet calmerthan they, among the trees, sounded the yellowhammer, the linnet andgreenfinch. The larks went up, twittering in the scented air above the down. Fromthe summit, the apparent immobility of the vast blue distance was broken, hereand there, by wisps of smoke and tiny, momentary flashes of glass. Far below laythe fields green with wheat, the flat pastures grazed by horses, the darker greensof the woods. They, too, like the hillside jungle, were tumultuous with evening,but from the remote height turned to stillness, their fierceness tempered by theair that lay between.
At the foot of the turf cliff, Hazel and his companions were crouching underthe low branches of two or three spindle trees. Since the previous morning theyhad journeyed nearly three miles. Their luck had been good, for everyone whohad left the warren was still alive. They had splashed through two brooks andwandered fearfully in the deep woodlands west of Ecchinswell. They had rested inthe straw of a starveall, or lonely barn, and woken to find themselves attacked byrats. Silver and Buckthorn, with Bigwig helping them, had covered the retreatuntil, once all were together outside, they had taken to flight. Buckthorn had beenbitten in the foreleg, and the wound, in the manner of a rat bite, was irritant andpainful. Skirting a small lake, they had stared to see a great gray fisher bird thatstabbed and paddled in the sedge, until a flight of wild duck had frightened themaway with their clamor. They had crossed more than half a mile of open pasturewithout a trace of cover, expecting every moment some attack that did not come.
They had heard the unnatural humming of a pylon in the summer air; and hadactually gone beneath it, on Fiver's assurance that it could do them no harm. Nowthey lay under the spindle trees and sniffed in weariness and doubt at the strange,bare country round them.
Since leaving the warren of the snares they had become warier, shrewder, atenacious band who understood each other and worked together. There was nomore quarreling. The truth about the warren had been a grim shock. They hadcome closer together, relying on and valuing each other's capacities. They knewnow that it was on these and on nothing else that their lives depended, and theywere not going to waste anything they possessed between them. In spite ofHazel's efforts beside the snare, there was not one of them who had not turnedsick at heart to think that Bigwig was dead and wondered, like Blackberry, whatwould become of them now. Without Hazel, without Blackberry, Buckthorn andPipkin -- Bigwig would have died. Without himself he would have died, for whichelse, of them all, would not have stopped running after such punishment? Therewas no more questioning of Bigwig's strength, Fiver's insight, Blackberry's wits orHazel's authority. When the rats came, Buckthorn and Silver had obeyed Bigwigand stood their ground. The rest had followed Hazel when he roused them and,without explanation, told them to go quickly outside the barn. Later, Hazel hadsaid that there was nothing for it but to cross the open pasture and under Silver'sdirection they had crossed it, with Dandelion running ahead to reconnoiter.
When Fiver said the iron tree was harmless they believed him.
Strawberry had had a bad time. His misery made him slow-witted and carelessand he was ashamed of the part he had played at the warren. He was soft andmore used than he dared admit to indolence and good food. But he made nocomplaint and it was plain that he was determined to show what he could do andnot to be left behind. He had proved useful in the woodland, being betteraccustomed to thick woods than any of the others. "He'll be all right, you know, ifwe give him a chance," said Hazel to Bigwig by the lake. "So he darned well oughtto be," replied Bigwig, "the great dandy" -- for by their standards Strawberry wasscrupulously clean and fastidious. "Well, I won't have him brow-beaten, Bigwig,mind. That won't help him." This Bigwig had accepted, though rather sulkily. Yethe himself had become less overbearing. The snare had left him weak andoverwrought. It was he who had given the alarm in the barn, for he could notsleep and at the sound of scratching had started up at once. He would not letSilver and Buckthorn fight alone, but he had felt obliged to leave the worst of it tothem. For the first time in his life, Bigwig had found himself driven to moderationand prudence.
As the sun sank lower and touched the edge of the cloud belt on the horizon,Hazel came out from under the branches and looked carefully round the lowerslope. Then he stared upward over the anthills, to the open down rising above.
Fiver and Acorn followed him out and fell to nibbling at a patch of sainfoin. It wasnew to them, but they did not need to be told that it was good and it raised theirspirits. Hazel turned back and joined them among the big, rosy-veined, magentaflower spikes.
"Fiver," he said, "let me get this right. You want us to climb up this place,however far it is, and find shelter on the top. Is that it?""Yes, Hazel.""But the top must be very high. I can't even see it from here. It'll be open andcold.""Not in the ground: and the soil's so light that we shall be able to scratch someshelter easily when we find the right place."Hazel considered again. "It's getting started that bothers me. Here we are, alltired out. I'm sure it's dangerous to stay here. We've nowhere to run to. We don'tknow the country and we can't get underground. But it seems out of the questionfor everybody to climb up there tonight. We should be even less safe.""We shall be forced to dig, shan't we?" said Acorn. "This place is almost asopen as that heather we crossed, and the trees won't hide us from anythinghunting on four feet.""It would have been the same any time we came," said Fiver.
"I'm not saying anything against it, Fiver," replied Acorn, "but we need holes.
It's a bad place not to be able to get underground.""Before everyone goes up to the top," said Hazel, "we ought to find out what it'slike. I'm going up myself to have a look round. I'll be as quick as I can and you'llhave to hope for the best until I get back. You can rest and feed, anyway.""You're not going alone," said Fiver firmly.
Since each one of them was ready to go with him in spite of their fatigue, Hazelgave in and chose Dandelion and Hawkbit, who seemed less weary than theothers. They set out up the hillside, going slowly, picking their way from one bu............