My Godda bless, never I see sucha people.
Signor Piozzi, quoted by Cecilia ThraleIn the Honeycomb, Bigwig and Holly were waiting to begin the second meetingsince the loss of Hazel. As the air began to cool, the rabbits woke and first one andthen another came down the runs that led from the smaller burrows. All weresubdued and doubtful at heart. Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deepshock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life,that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he maywell fail to comprehend it and later ask -- perhaps more than once -- where thedead person is and when he is coming back. When Pipkin had planted in himself,like some somber tree, the knowledge that Hazel would never return, hisbewilderment exceeded his grief: and this bewilderment he saw on every sideamong his companions. Faced with no crisis of action and with nothing toprevent them from continuing their life in the warren as before, the rabbits werenevertheless overcome by the conviction that their luck was gone. Hazel was deadand Holly's expedition had totally failed. What would follow?
Holly, gaunt, his staring pelt full of goose grass and fragments of burdock, wastalking with the three hutch rabbits and reassuring them as best he could. No onecould say now that Hazel had thrown away his life in a foolhardy prank. The twodoes were the only gain that anyone had made -- the warren's only asset. But theywere plainly so ill at ease in their new surroundings that Holly was alreadycontending against his own belief that there was little to be hoped for from them.
Does who are upset and on edge tend to be infertile; and how were these does tomake themselves at home in strange conditions and a place where everyone waslost so poorly in his thoughts? They would die, perhaps, or wander away. Hebuckled once more to the task of explaining that he was sure better times layahead -- and as he did so, felt himself the least convinced of any.
Bigwig had sent Acorn to see whether there was anyone still to come. Acornreturned to say that Strawberry felt too ill and that he could find neitherBlackberry nor Fiver.
"Well, leave Fiver," said Bigwig. "Poor fellow, he'll feel better by himself for atime, I dare say.""He's not in his burrow, though," said Acorn.
"Never mind," said Bigwig. But the thought came to him, "Fiver andBlackberry? Could they have left the warren without telling anyone? If they have,what will happen when the others get to know?" Should he ask Kehaar to go andlook for them while there was still light? But if Kehaar found them, what then?
They could not be compelled to return. Or if they were, what good would that do,if they wanted to be gone? At that moment Holly began to speak and everyonebecame quiet.
"We all know we're in a mess," said Holly, "and I suppose before long we shallhave to talk about what's best to be done. But I thought that first of all I ought totell you how it is that we four -- Silver, Buckthorn, Strawberry and I -- have comeback without any does. You don't have to remind me that when we set out,everyone thought it was going to be straightforward. And here we are, one rabbitsick, one wounded and nothing to show for it. You're all wondering why.""No one's blaming you, Holly," said Bigwig.
"I don't know whether I'm to blame or not," replied Holly. "But you'll tell methat when you've heard the story.
"That morning when we left, it was good weather for hlessil on the move andwe all felt there was no hurry. It was cool, I remember, and looked as if it wouldbe some time before the day got really bright and cloudless. There's a farm not faraway from the other end of this wood, and although there were no men about soearly, I didn't fancy going that way, so we kept up on high ground on the eveningside. We were all expecting to come to the edge of the down, but there isn't anysteep edge as there is on the north. The upland just goes on and on, open, dry andlonely. There's plenty of cover for rabbits -- standing corn, hedges and banks --but no real woodland: just great, open fields of light soil with big whiteflintstones. I was hoping that we might find ourselves in the sort of country weused to know -- meadows and woods -- but we didn't. Anyhow, we found a trackwith a good, thick hedge along one side and we decided to follow that. We took iteasy and stopped a good deal, because I was taking care to avoid running into elil.
I'm sure it's bad country for stoats as well as foxes, and I hadn't much idea whatwe were going to do if we met one.""I'm pretty certain we did pass close to a weasel," said Silver. "I could smell it.
But you know how it is with elil -- if they're not actually hunting, they often takeno notice of you. We left very little scent, and buried our hraka as though we werecats.""Well, before ni-Frith," went on Holly, "the track brought us to a long, thinwood running right across the way we were going. These downland woods arequeer, aren't they? This was no thicker than the one above us now, but itstretched as far as we could see either way, in a dead straight line. I don't likestraight lines: men make them. And sure enough, we found a road beside thiswood. It was a very lonely, empty road, but all the same I didn't want to hangabout there, so we went straight through the wood and out the other side. Kehaarspotted us in the fields beyond and told us to alter our direction. I asked him howwe were getting on and he said we were about halfway, so I thought we might aswell start looking for somewhere to lie up for the night. I didn't fancy the open,and in the end we made scrapes in the bottom of a kind of little pit we found.
Then we had a good feed and passed the night very well.
"I don't think we need tell you everything about the journey. It came on to rainjust after the morning feed and there was a nasty, cold wind with it, so we stayedwhere we were until after ni-Frith. It brightened up then and we went on. Thegoing wasn't very nice because of the wet, but by early evening I reckoned weought to be near the place. I was looking round when a hare came through thegrass and I asked him whether he knew of a big warren close by.
"'Efrafa?' he asked. 'Are you going to Efrafa?'*"'If that's what it's called,' I answered.
"'Do you know it?'
"'No,' I said, 'we don't. We want to know where it is.'
"'Well,' he said, 'my advice to you is to run, and quickly.'
"I was just wondering what to make of that, when suddenly three big rabbitscame over the bank, just the way I did that night when I came to arrest you,Bigwig: and one of them said, 'Can I see your marks?'
"'Marks?' I said. 'What marks? I don't understand.'
"'You're not from Efrafa?'
"'No,' I said, 'we're going there. We're strangers.'
"'Will you come with me?' No 'Have you come far?' or 'Are you wet through?'
or anything like that.
"So then these three rabbits took us off down the bank and that was how wecame to Efrafa, as they call it. And I'd better try and tell you something about it,so that you'll know what a dirty little bunch of sniveling hedge-scrapers we arehere.
"Efrafa is a big warren -- a good deal bigger than the one we came from -- theThrearah's, I mean. And the one fear of every rabbit in it is that men are going tofind them and infect them with the white blindness. The whole warren isorganized to conceal its existence. The holes are all hidden and the Owsla haveevery rabbit in the place under orders. You can't call your life your own: and inreturn you have safety -- if it's worth having at the price you pay.
"As well as the Owsla, they have what they call a Council, and each of theCouncil rabbits has some special thing he looks after. One looks after feeding;another's responsible for the ways in which they keep hidden; another looks afterbreeding, and so on. As far as the ordinary rabbits are concerned, only a certainnumber can be above ground at one time. Every rabbit is marked when he's akitten: they bite them, deep, and under the chin or in a haunch or forepaw. Thenthey can be told by the scar for the rest of their lives. You mustn't be found aboveground unless it's the right time of day for your Mark.""Who's to stop you?" growled Bigwig.
"That's the really frightening part. The Owsla -- well, you can't imagine itunless you've been there. The Chief is a rabbit named Woundwort: GeneralWoundwort, they call him. I'll tell you more about him in a minute. Then underhim there are captains -- each one in charge of a Mark -- and each captain has hisown officers and sentries. There's a Mark captain with his band on duty at everytime of the day and night. If a man happens to come anywhere near, which isn'toften, the sentries give warning long before he comes close enough to seeanything. They give warning of elil, too. They prevent anyone dropping hrakaexcept in special places in the ditches, where it's buried. And if they see any rabbitabove ground whom they don't recognize as having the right to be there, they askto see his mark. Frith knows what happens if he can't explain himself -- but I canguess pretty well. Rabbits in Efrafa quite often go days at a time without the sightof Frith. If their Mark's on night silflay, then they feed by night, wet or fine, warmor cold. They're all used to talking, playing and mating in the burrowsunderground. If a Mark can't silflay at their appointed time for some reason orother -- say there was a man working somewhere near -- that's just too bad. Theymiss their turn till next day.""But surely it alters them very much, living like that?" asked Dandelion.
"Very much indeed," replied Holly. "Most of them can't do anything but whatthey're told. They've never been out of Efrafa and never smelled an enemy. Theone aim of every rabbit in Efrafa is to get into the Owsla, because of theprivileges: and the one aim of everyone in the Owsla is to get into the Council.
The Council have the best of everything. But the Owsla have to keep very strongand tough. They take it in turn to do what they call Wide Patrol. They go out overthe country -- all round the place -- living in the open for days at a time. It's partlyto find out anything they can, and partly to train them and make them tough andcunning. Any hlessil they find they pick up and bring back to Efrafa. If they won'tcome, they kill them. They reckon hlessil a danger, because they may attract theattention of men. The Wide Patrols report back to General Woundwort, and theCouncil decide what to do about anything new that they think may be dangerous.""They missed you on the way in, then?" said Bluebell.
"Oh, no, they didn't! We learned later that some time after we'd been broughtin by this rabbit -- Captain Campion -- a runner arrived from a Wide Patrol to saythat they'd picked up the track of three or four rabbits coming toward Efrafa fromthe north, and were there any orders? He was sent back to say that we were safelyunder control.
"Anyway, this Captain Campion took us down to a hole in the ditch. The mouthof the hole was a bit of old earthenware pipe and if a man had pulled it out, theopening would have fallen in and showed no trace of the run inside. And there hehanded us over to another captain -- because he had to go back above ground forthe rest of his spell of duty, you see. We were taken to a big burrow and told tomake ourselves at home.
"There were other rabbits in the burrow and it was by listening to them andasking questions that I learned most of what I've been telling you. We got talkingto some of the does and I made friends with one called Hyzenthlay.* I told herabout our problem here and why we'd come, and then she told us about Efrafa.
When she'd finished I said, 'It sounds terrible. Has it always been like this?' Shesaid no, her mother had told her that in years gone by the warren had beenelsewhere and much smaller, but when General Woundwort came, he had madethem move to Efrafa and then he'd worked out this whole system of concealmentand perfected it until rabbits in Efrafa were as safe as stars in the sky. 'Mostrabbits here die of old age, unless the Owsla kill them off,' she said. 'But thetrouble is, there are more rabbits now than the warren can hold. Any freshdigging that's allowed has to be done under Owsla supervision and they do itterribly slowly and carefully. It all has to be hidden, you see. We're overcrowdedand a lot of rabbits don't get above ground as much as they need to. And for somereason there are not enough bucks and too many does. A lot of us have found wecan't produce litters, because of the overcrowding, but no one is ever allowed toleave. Only a few days ago, several of us does went to the Council and askedwhether we could form an expedition to start a new warren somewhere else. Wesaid we'd go far, far away -- as far away as they liked. But they wouldn't hear of it-- not on any account. Things can't go on like this -- the system's breaking down.
But it doesn't do to be heard talking about it.'
"Well, I thought, this sounds hopeful. Surely they won't object............