Professing myself, moreover, convinced that the General's unjust interference,so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive toit, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to theirattachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern....
Jane Austen, Northanger AbbeyIt was a fine, clear evening in mid-October, about six weeks later. Althoughleaves remained on the beeches and the sunshine was warm, there was a sense ofgrowing emptiness over the wide space of the down. The flowers were sparser.
Here and there a yellow tormentil showed in the grass, a late harebell or a fewshreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal. But most of theplants still to be seen were in seed. Along the edge of the wood a sheet of wildclematis showed like a patch of smoke, all its sweet-smelling flowers turned to oldman's beard. The songs of the insects were fewer and intermittent. Greatstretches of the long grass, once the teeming jungle of summer, were almostdeserted, with only a hurrying beetle or a torpid spider left out of all the myriadsof August. The gnats still danced in the bright air, but the swifts that had swoopedfor them were gone and instead of their screaming cries in the sky, the twitteringof a robin sounded from the top of a spindle tree. The fields below the hill were allcleared. One had already been plowed and the polished edges of the furrowscaught the light with a dull glint, conspicuous from the ridge above. The sky, too,was void, with a thin clarity like that of water. In July the still blue, thick ascream, had seemed close above the green trees, but now the blue was high andrare, the sun slipped sooner to the west and, once there, foretold a touch of frost,sinking slow and big and drowsy, crimson as the rose hips that covered the briar.
As the wind freshened from the south, the red and yellow beech leaves raspedtogether with a brittle sound, harsher than the fluid rustle of earlier days. It was atime of quiet departures, of the sifting away of all that was not staunch againstwinter.
Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoyis feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They havefires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increasestheir sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men,winter is another matter. Rabbits, like most wild animals, suffer hardship. True,they are luckier than some, for food of a sort is nearly always to be had. But undersnow they may stay underground for days at a time, feeding only by chewingpellets. They are more subject to disease in winter and the cold lowers theirvitality. Nevertheless, burrows can be snug and warm, especially when crowded.
Winter is a more active mating season than the late summer and the autumn, andthe time of greatest fertility for the does starts about February. There are finedays when silflay is still enjoyable. For the adventurous, garden-raiding has itscharms. And underground there are stories to be told and games to be played --bob-stones and the like. For rabbits, winter remains what it was for men in themiddle ages -- hard, but bearable by the resourceful and not altogether withoutcompensations.
On the west side of the beech hanger, in the evening sun, Hazel and Fiver weresitting with Holly, Silver and Groundsel. The Efrafan survivors had been allowedto join the warren and after a shaky start, when they were regarded with dislikeand suspicion, were settling down pretty well, largely because Hazel wasdetermined that they should.
Since the night of the siege, Fiver had spent much time alone and even in theHoneycomb, or at morning and evening silflay, was often silent and preoccupied.
No one resented this -- "He looks right through you in such a nice, friendly way,"as Bluebell put it -- for each in his own manner recognized that Fiver was nowmore than ever governed, whether he would or no, by the pulse of that mysteriousworld of which he had once spoken to Hazel during the late June days they hadspent together at the foot of the down. It was Bigwig who said -- one eveningwhen Fiver was absent from the Honeycomb at story time -- that Fiver was onewho had paid more dearly than even himself for the night's victory over theEfrafans. Yet to his doe, Vilthuril, Fiver was devotedly attached, while she hadcome to understand him almost as deeply as ever Hazel had.
Just outside the beech hanger, Hyzenthlay's litter of four young rabbits wereplaying in the grass. They had first been brought up to graze about seven daysbefore. If Hyzenthlay had had a second litter she would by this time have leftthem to look after themselves. As it was, however, she was grazing close by,watching their play and every now and then moving in to cuff the strongest andstop him bullying the others.
"They're a good bunch, you know," said Holly. "I hope we get some more likethose.""We can't expect many more until toward the end of the winter," said Hazel,"though I dare say there'll be a few.""We can expect anything, it seems to me," said Holly.
"Three litters born in autumn -- have you ever heard of such a thing before?
Frith didn't mean rabbits to mate in the high summer.""I don't know about Clover," said Hazel. "She's a hutch rabbit: it may benatural to her to breed at any time, for all I know. But I'm sure that Hyzenthlayand Vilthuril started their litters in the high summer because they'd had nonatural life in Efrafa. For all that, they're the only two who have had litters, asyet.""Frith never meant us to go out fighting in the high summer, either, if thatcomes to that," said Silver. "Everything that's happened is unnatural -- thefighting, the breeding -- and all on account of Woundwort. If he wasn't unnatural,who was?""Bigwig was right when he said he wasn't like a rabbit at all," said Holly. "Hewas a fighting animal -- fierce as a rat or a dog. He fought because he actually feltsafer fighting than running. He was brave, all right. But it wasn't natural; andthat's why it was bound to finish him in the end. He was trying to do somethingthat Frith never meant any rabbit to do. I believe he'd have hunted like the elil ifhe could.""He isn't dead, you know," broke in Groundsel.
The others were silent.
"He hasn't stopped running," said Groundsel passionately. "Did you see hisbody? No. Did anyone? No. Nothing could kill him. He made rabbits bigger thanthey've ever been -- braver, more skillful, more cunning. I know we paid for it.
Some gave their lives. It was worth it, to feel we were Efrafans. For the first timeever, rabbits didn't go scurrying away. The elil feared us. And that was on accountof Woundwort -- him and no one but him. We weren't good enough for theGeneral. Depend upon it, he's gone to start another warren somewhere else. Butno Efrafan officer will ever forget him.""Well, now I'll tell you something," began Silver. But Hazel cut him short.
"You mustn't say you weren't good enough," he said. "You did everything forhim that rabbits could do and a great deal more. And what a lot we learned fromyou! As for Efrafa, I've heard it's doing well under Campion, even if some thingsaren't quite the same as they used to be. And listen -- by next spring, if I'm right,we shall have too many rabbits here for comfort. I'm going to encourage some ofthe youngsters to start a new warren between here and Efrafa; and I think you'llfind Campion will be ready to send some of his rabbits to join them. You'd be justthe right fellow to start that scheme off.""Won't it be difficult to arrange?" asked Holly.
"Not when Kehaar comes," said Hazel, as they began to hop easily back towardthe holes at the northeast corner of the hanger. "He'll turn up one of these days,when the storms begin on that Big Water of his. He can take a message toCampion as quickly as you'd run down to the iron tree and back.""By Frith in the leaves, and I know someone who'll be glad to see him!" saidSilver. "Someone not so very far away."They had reached the eastern end of the trees and here, well out in the openwhere it was still sunny, a little group of three young rabbits -- bigger thanHyzenthlay's -- were squatting in the long grass, listening to a hulking veteran,lop-eared and scarred from nose to haunch -- none other than Bigwig, captain ofa very free-and-easy Owsla. These were the bucks of Clover's litter and a likely lotthey looked.
"Oh, no, no, no, no," Bigwig was saying. "Oh, my wings and beak, that won'tdo! You -- what's your name -- Scabious -- look, I'm a cat and I see you down atthe bottom of my garden chewing up the lettuces. Now, what do I do? Do I comewalking up the middle of the path waving my tail? Well, do I?""Please, sir, I've never seen a cat," said the young rabbit.
"No, you haven't yet," admitted the gallant captain. "Well, a cat is a horriblething with a long tail. It's covered with fur and has bristling whiskers and when itfights it makes fierce, spiteful noises. It's cunning, see?""Oh, yes, sir," answered the young rabbit. After a pause, he said politely, "Er --you lost your tail?""Will you tell us about the fight in the storm, sir?" asked one of the otherrabbits, "and the tunnel of water?""Yes, later on," said the relentless trainer. "Now look, I'm a cat, right? I'masleep in the sun, right? And you're going to get past me, right? Now then--""They pull his leg, you know," said Silver, "but they'd do anything for him."Holly and Groundsel had gone underground and Silver and Hazel moved outonce more into the sun.
"I think we all would," replied Hazel. "If it hadn't been for him that day, thedog would have come too late. Woundwort and his lot wouldn't have been aboveground. They'd have been down below, finishing what they'd come to do.""He beat Woundwort, you know," said Silver. "He had him beat before the dogcame. That was what I was going to say just now, but it was as well I didn't, Isuppose.""I wonder how they're getting on with that winter burrow down the hill," saidHazel. "We're going to need it when the hard weather comes. That hole in the roofof the Honeycomb doesn't help at all. It'll close up naturally one day, I suppose,but meanwhile it's a confounded nuisance.""Here come the burrow-diggers, anyway," said Silver.
Pipkin and Bluebell came over the crest, together with three or four of thedoes.
"Ah ha, ah ha, O Hazel-rah," said Bluebell. "The burrow's snug, it hath beendug, t'is free from beetle, worm and slug. And in the snow, when down we go--""Then what a lot to you we'll owe," said Hazel. "I mean it, too. The holes areconcealed, are they?""Just like Efrafa, I should think," said Bluebell. "As a matter of fact, I broughtone up with me to show you. You can't see it, can you? No -- well, there you are. Isay, just look at old Bigwig with those youngsters over there. You know, if he wentback to Efrafa now they couldn't decide which Mark to put him in, could they?
He's got them all.""Come over to the evening side of the wood with us, Hazel-rah?" said Pipkin.
"We came up early on purpose to have a bit of sunshine before it gets dark.""All right," answered Hazel good-naturedly. "We've just come back from there,Silver and I, but I don't mind slipping over again for a bit.""Let's go out to that little hollow where we found Kehaar that morning," saidSilver. "It'll be out of the wind. D'you remember how he cursed at us and tried topeck us?""And the worms we carried?" said Bluebell. "Don't forget them."As they came near the hollow they could hear that it was not empty. Evidentlysome of the other rabbits had had the same idea.
"Let's see how close we can get before they spot us," said Silver. "Real Campionstyle -- come on."They approached very quietly, upwind from the north. Peeping over the edge,they saw Vilthuril and her litter of four lying in the sun. Their mother was tellingthe young rabbits a story.
"So after they had swum the river," said Vilthuril, "El-ahrairah led his peopleon in the dark, through a wild, lonely place. Some of them were afraid, but heknew the way and in the morning he brought them safely to some green fields,very beautiful, with good, sweet grass. And here they found a warren; a warrenthat was bewitched. All the rabbits in this warren were in the power of a wickedspell. They wore shining collars round their necks and sang like the birds andsome of them could fly. But for all they looked so fine, their hearts were dark andtharn. So then El-ahrairah's people said, 'Ah, see, these are the wonderful rabbitsof Prince Rainbow. They are like p............