Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory,Here's a wolf at your door,His teeth grinning white.
And his tongue wagging sore!
"Nay," said Dame Hickory, "Ye False Faerie!"But a wolf t'was indeed, and famished was he.
Walter de la Mare, Dame HickoryThe first thing that Hazel learned the next morning was that Thrayonlosa haddied during the night. Thethuthinnang was distressed, for it was she who hadpicked Thrayonlosa as one of the more sturdy and sensible does in the Mark andpersuaded her to join in the escape. After they had come through the bridgetogether, she had helped her ashore and fallen asleep beside her in theundergrowth, hoping that she might have recovered by the next day. But she hadwoken to find Thrayonlosa gone and, searching, had found her in a clump ofreeds downstream. Evidently the poor creature had felt that she was going to dieand, in the manner of animals, had slipped away.
The news depressed Hazel. He knew that they had been lucky to get so manydoes out of Efrafa and to escape from Woundwort without having to stand andfight. The plan had been a good one, but the storm and the frightening efficiencyof the Efrafans had nearly defeated it. For all the courage of Bigwig and of Silver,they would have failed without Kehaar. Now Kehaar was going to leave them,Bigwig was wounded, and his own leg was none too good. With the does to lookafter, they would not be able to travel in the open as fast or as easily as they hadon the way down from Watership. He would have liked to stay where they werefor a few days, so that Bigwig could recover his strength and the does find theirfeet and get used to life outside a warren. But the place, he realized, washopelessly inhospitable. Although there was good cover, it was too wet forrabbits. Besides, it was evidently close to a road busier than any they had known.
Soon after daylight they began to hear and smell hrududil passing, not so faraway as the breadth of a small field. There was continual disturbance and thedoes in particular were startled and uneasy. Thrayonlosa's death made mattersworse. Worried by the noise and vibration and unable to feed, the does keptwandering downstream to look at the body and whisper together about thestrange and dangerous surroundings.
He consulted Blackberry, who pointed out that probably it would not be longbefore men found the boat; then very likely several would be close by for sometime. This decided Hazel that they had better set out at once and try to reachsomewhere where they could rest more easily. He could hear and smell that theswamp extended a long way downstream. With the road lying to the south, theonly way seemed to be northward, over the bridge, which was in any case the wayhome.
Taking Bigwig with him, he climbed the bank to the grass track. The first thingthey saw was Kehaar, picking slugs out of a clump of hemlock near the bridge.
They came up to him without speaking and began to nibble the short grassnearby.
After a little while Kehaar said, "Now you getting mudders, Meester 'Azel. Allgo fine, eh?""Yes. We'd never have done it without you, Kehaar. I hear you turned up just intime to save Bigwig last night.""Dis bad rabbit, pig fella, 'e go fight me. Plenty clever, too.""Yes. He got a shock for once, though.""Ya, ya. Meester 'Azel, soon is men come. Vat you do now?""We're going back to our warren, Kehaar, if we can get there.""Ees finish here now for me. I go to Peeg Vater.""Shall we see you again, Kehaar?""You go back hills? Stay dere?""Yes, we mean to get there. It's going to be hard going with so many rabbits,and there'll be Efrafan patrols to dodge, I expect.""You get dere, later on ees vinter, plenty cold, plenty storm on Peeg Vater.
Plenty bird come in. Den I come back, see you vere you live.""Don't forget, then, Kehaar, will you?" said Bigwig. "We shall be looking out foryou. Come down suddenly, like you did last night.""Ya, ya, frighten all mudders und liddle rabbits, all liddle Pigvigs run avay."Kehaar arched his wings and rose into the air. He flew over the parapet of thebridge and upstream. Then he turned in a circle to the left, came back over thegrass track and flew straight down it, skimming just over the rabbits' heads. Hegave one of his raucous cries and was gone to the southward. They gazed afterhim as he disappeared above the trees.
"Oh, fly away, great bird so white," said Bigwig. "You know, he made me feel Icould fly, too. That Big Water! I wish I could see it."As they continued to look in the direction where Kehaar had gone, Hazelnoticed for the first time a cottage at the far end of the track, where the grasssloped up to join the road. A man, taking care to keep still, was leaning over thehedge and watching them intently. Hazel stamped and bolted into theundergrowth of the swamp, with Bigwig hard on his heels.
"You know what he's thinking about?" said Bigwig. "He's thinking about thevegetables in his garden.""I know," replied Hazel. "And we shan't be able to keep this lot away fromthem once they get the idea into their heads. The quicker we push on the better."Shortly afterward the rabbits set out across the park to the north. Bigwig soonfound that he was not up to a long journey. His wound was painful and theshoulder muscle would not stand hard use. Hazel was still lame and the does,though willing and obedient, showed that they knew little about the life of hlessil.
It was a trying time.
In the days that followed -- days of clear sky and fine weather -- Blackavarproved his worth again and again, until Hazel came to rely on him as much as onany of his veterans. There was a great deal more to him than anyone could haveguessed. When Bigwig had determined not to come out of Efrafa withoutBlackavar, he had been moved entirely by pity for a miserable, helpless victim ofWoundwort's ruthlessness. It turned out, however, that Blackavar, when notcrushed by humiliation and ill-treatment, was a good cut above the ordinary. Hisstory was an unusual one. His mother had not been born an Efrafan. She hadbeen one of the rabbits taken prisoner when Woundwort attacked the warren atNutley Copse. She had mated with an Efrafan captain and had had no other mate.
He had been killed on Wide Patrol. Blackavar, proud of his father, had grown upwith the resolve to become an officer in the Owsla. But together with this -- andparadoxically -- there had come to him from his mother a certain resentmentagainst Efrafa and a feeling that they should have no more of him than he caredto give them. Captain Mallow, to whose Mark -- the Right Fore -- he had beensent on trial, had praised his courage and endurance but had not failed to noticethe proud detachment of his nature. When the Right Flank needed a junior officerto help Captain Chervil, it was Avens and not Blackavar who had been selected bythe Council. Blackavar, who knew his own worth, felt convinced that his mother'sblood had prejudiced the Council against him. While still full of his wrongs hehad met Hyzenthlay and made himself a secret friend and adviser of thediscontented does in the Right Fore. He had begun by urging them to try to getthe Council's consent to their leaving Efrafa. If they had succeeded they wouldhave asked for him to be allowed to go with them. But when the does' deputationto the Council failed, Blackavar turned to the idea of escape. At first he had meantto take the does with him, but his nerve, strained to the limit, as Bigwig's hadbeen, by the dangers and uncertainties of conspiracy, had given way and in theend he had simply made a dash on his own, to be caught by Campion. Under thepunishment inflicted by the Council his mercurial spirit had fallen low and he hadbecome the apathetic wretch the sight of whom had so much shocked Bigwig. Yetat the whispered message in the hraka pit this spirit had flickered up again whereanother's might well have failed to do so, and he had been ready to set all on thehazard and have another shot. Now, free among these easy-going strangers, hesaw himself as a trained Efrafan using his skill to help them in their need.
Although he did all that he was told, he did not hesitate to make suggestions aswell, particularly when it came to reconnoitering and looking for signs of danger.
Hazel, who was ready to accept advice from anybody when he thought it wasgood, listened to most of what he said and was content to leave it to Bigwig -- forwhom, naturally, Blackavar entertained a tremendous respect -- to see that he didnot overreach himself in his warm-hearted, rather candid zeal.
After two or three days of slow, careful journeying, with many halts in cover,they found themselves, late one afternoon, once more in sight of Caesar's Belt,but further west than before, close to a little copse at the top of some risingground. Everyone was tired and when they had fed -- "evening silflay every day,just as you promised," said Hyzenthlay to Bigwig -- Bluebell and Speedwellsuggested that it might be worthwhile to dig some scrapes in the light soil underthe trees and live there for a day or two. Hazel felt willing enough, but Fiverneeded persuasion.
"I know we can do with a rest, but somehow I don't altogether like it, Hazel-rah," he said. "I suppose I've got to try to think why?""Not on my account," answered Hazel. "But I doubt you'll shift the others thistime. One or two of these does are 'ready for mudder,' as Kehaar would say, andthat's the real reason why Bluebell and the rest are prepared to be at the troubleof digging scrapes. Surely it'll be all right at that rate, won't it? You know whatthey say -- 'Rabbit underground, rabbit safe and sound.'""Well, you may be right," said Fiver. "That Vilthuril's a beautiful doe. I'd like achance to get to know her better. After all, it's not natural to rabbits, is it? -- onand on day after day."Later, however, when Blackavar returned with Dandelion from a patrol theyhad undertaken on their own initiative, he came out more strongly against theidea.
"This is no place to stop, Hazel-rah," he said. "No Wide Patrol would bivouachere. It's fox country. We ought to try to get further before dark."Bigwig's shoulder had been hurting him a good deal during the afternoon andhe felt low and surly. It seemed to him that Blackavar was being clever at otherpeople's expense. If he got his way they would have to go on, tired as they were,until they came to somewhere which was suitable by Efrafan standards. Therethey would be as safe -- no more and no less -- than they would have been if theyhad stayed at this copse; but Blackavar would be the clever fellow who had savedthem from a fox that had never existed outside his own fancy. His Efrafanscoutcraft act was getting to be a bore. It was time someone called his bluff.
"There are likely to be foxes anywhere about the downs," said Bigwig sharply.
"Why is this fox country more than anywhere else?"Tact was a quality which Blackavar valued about as much as Bigwig did; andnow he made the worst possible reply.
"I can't exactly tell you why," he said. "I've formed a strong impression, but it'shard to explain quite what it's based on.""Oh, an impression, eh?" sneered Bigwig. "Did you see any hraka? Pick up anyscent? Or was it just a message from little green mice singing under a toadstool?"Blackavar felt hurt. Bigwig was the last rabbit he wanted to quarrel with.
"Ye think I'm a fool, then," he answered, his Efrafan accent becoming moremarked. "No, there was neether hraka ner scent, but I still think that this is aplace where a fox comes. On these patrols we used to do, ye know, we--""Did you see or smell anything?" said Bigwig to Dandelion.
"Er -- well, I'm not really quite sure," said Dandelion. "I mean, Blackavarseems to know an awful lot about patrolling and he asked me whether I didn't feela sort of--""Well, we can go on like this all night," said Bigwig. "Blackavar, do you knowthat earlier this summer, before we had the benefit of your experience, we wentfor days across every kind of country -- fields, heather, woods, downs -- and neverlost one rabbit?""It's the idea of scrapes, that's all," said Blackavar apologetically, "New scrapesget noticed; and digging can be heard a surprisingly long way, ye know.""Let him alone," said Hazel, before Bigwig could speak again. "You didn't gethim out of............