Watership Down - Adams Richard George - Страница 31

"We can all do that."

"Not when we're asleep: and we can't see in the dark."

"It's bound to be dark at night," said Hazel, "and rabbits have got to sleep."

"In the open?"

"Well, we can go on using these holes if we want to, but I expect a good many will lie out. After all, you can't expect a bunch of bucks to dig. They might make a scrape or two-like that day after we came over the heather-but they won't do more than that."

"That's what I've been thinking about," said Blackberry. "Those rabbits we left-Cowslip and the rest-a lot of the things they did weren't natural to rabbits-pushing stones into the earth and carrying food underground and Frith knows what."

"The Threarah's lettuce was carried underground, if it comes to that."

"Exactly. Don't you see, they'd altered what rabbits do naturally because they thought they could do better? And if they altered their ways, so can we if we like. You say buck rabbits don't dig. Nor they do. But they could, if they wanted to. Suppose we had deep, comfortable burrows to sleep in? To be out of bad weather and underground at night? Then we would be safe. And there's nothing to stop us having them, except that buck rabbits won't dig. Not can't-won't."

"What's your idea, then?" asked Hazel, half interested and half reluctant. "Do you want us to try to turn these holes into a regular warren?"

"No, these holes won't do. It's easy to see why they've been deserted. Only a little way down and you come to this hard white stuff that no one can dig. They must be bitterly cold in winter. But there's a wood just over the top of the hill. I got a glimpse of it last night when we came. Suppose we go up higher now, just you and I, and have a look at it?"

They ran uphill to the summit. The beech hanger lay some little way off to the southeast, on the far side of a grassy track that ran along the ridge.

"There are some big trees there," said Blackberry. "The roots must have broken up the ground pretty deep. We could dig holes and be as well off as ever we were in the old warren. But if Bigwig and the others won't dig or say they can't-well, it's bare and bleak here. That's why it's lonely and safe, of course; but when bad weather comes we shall be driven off the hills for sure."

"It never entered my head to try to make a lot of bucks dig regular holes," said Hazel doubtfully, as they returned down the slope. "Rabbit kittens need holes, of course; but do we?"

"We were all born in a warren that was dug before our mothers were born," said Blackberry. "We're used to holes and not one of us has ever helped to dig one. And if ever there was a new one, who dug it? A doe. I'm quite sure, myself, that if we don't change our natural ways we shan't be able to stay here very long. Somewhere else, perhaps; but not here."

"It'll mean a lot of work."

"Look, there's Bigwig come up now and some of the others with him. Why not put it to them and see what they say?"

During silflay, however, Hazel mentioned Blackberry's idea to no one but Fiver. Later on, when most of the rabbits had finished feeding and were either playing in the grass or lying in the sunshine, he suggested that they might go across to the hanger-"Just to see what sort of a wood it is." Bigwig and Silver agreed at once and in the end no one stayed behind.

It was different from the meadow copses they had left: a narrow belt of trees, four or five hundred yards long but barely fifty wide; a kind of windbreak common on the downs. It consisted almost entirely of well-grown beeches. The great, smooth trunks stood motionless in their green shade, the branches spreading flat, one above another in crisp, light-dappled tiers. Between the trees the ground was open and offered hardly any cover. The rabbits were perplexed. They could not make out why the wood was so light and still and why they could see so far between the trees. The continuous, gentle rustling of the beech leaves was unlike the sounds to be heard in a copse of nut bushes, oak and silver birch.

Moving uncertainly in and out along the edge of the hanger, they came to the northeast corner. Here there was a bank from which they looked out over the empty stretches of grass beyond. Fiver, absurdly small beside the hulking Bigwig, turned to Hazel with an air of happy confidence.

"I'm sure Blackberry's right, Hazel," he said. "We ought to do our best to make some holes here. I'm ready to try, anyway."

The others were taken aback. Pipkin, however, readily joined Hazel at the foot of the bank and soon two or three more began scratching at the light soil. The digging was easy and although they often broke off to feed or merely to sit in the sun, before midday Hazel was out of sight and tunneling between the tree roots.

The hanger might have little or no undergrowth but at least the branches gave cover from the sky: and kestrels, they soon realized, were common in this solitude. Although kestrels seldom prey on anything bigger than a rat, they will sometimes attack young rabbits. No doubt this is why most grown rabbits will not remain under a hovering kestrel. Before long, Acorn spotted one as it flew up from the south. He stamped and bolted into the trees, followed by the other rabbits who were in the open. They had not long come out and resumed digging when they saw another-or perhaps the same one-hovering some way off, high over the very fields that they had crossed the previous morning. Hazel placed Buckthorn as a sentry while the day's haphazard work went on, and twice more during the afternoon the alarm was given. In the early evening they were disturbed by a horseman cantering along the ridge track that passed the north end of the wood. Otherwise they saw nothing larger than a pigeon all day.

After the horseman had turned south near the summit of Watership and disappeared in the distance, Hazel returned to the edge of the wood and looked out northward toward the bright, still fields and the dim pylon line stalking away into the distance north of Kingsclere. The air was cooler and the sun was beginning once more to reach the north escarpment.

"I think we've done enough," he said, "for today, anyway. I should like to go down to the bottom of the hill and find some really good grass. This stuff's all right in its way but it's rather thin and dry. Does anyone feel like coming with me?"

Bigwig, Dandelion and Speedwell were ready, but the others preferred to graze their way back to the thorn trees and go underground with the sun. Bigwig and Hazel picked the line that offered most cover and, with the others following, set out on the four or five hundred yards to the foot of the hill. They met no trouble and were soon feeding in the grass at the edge of the wheatfield, the very picture of rabbits in an evening landscape. Hazel, tired though he was, did not forget to look for somewhere to bolt if there should be an alarm. He was lucky enough to come upon a short length of old, overgrown ditch, partly fallen in and so heavily overhung with cow parsley and nettles that it was almost as sheltered as a tunnel; and all four of them made sure that they could reach it quickly from the open.

"That'll be good enough at a pinch," said Bigwig, munching clover and sniffing at the fallen bloom from a wayfaring tree. "My goodness, we've learned a few things since we left the old warren, haven't we? More than we'd have learned in a lifetime back there. And digging! It'll be flying next, I suppose. Have you noticed that this soil's quite different from the soil in the old warren? It smells differently and it slides and falls quite differently, too."

"That reminds me," said Hazel. "I meant to ask you. There was one thing at that terrible warren of Cowslip's that I admired very much-the great burrow. I'd like to copy it. It's a wonderful idea to have a place underground where everybody can be together-talk and tell stories and so on. What do you think? Could it be done?"