"Watership Down" by Richard Adams, Chapters 24-29

All round him was the quiet summer night, luminous with starlight but paling to dawn on one side.

Between Ecchinswell and the foot of Watership Down and about half a mile from each, there is a broad knoll, steeper on the north side but falling gently on the south—like the down ridge itself.

But beyond the light movements of birds and the first buzzing of the flies immediately around them, they could hear nothing but the continual susurration of the trees.

The sound, coming from the topmost branches, disturbed Hazel because it suggested some huge approach—an approach that was never completed: and he and Pipkin remained still for some time, listening tensely to this loud yet meaningless vehemence high overhead.

Hazel jumped lightly on it and from there to the thick planks, which were old and soft-surfaced, dusty and covered with chaff.

“I have come to talk to you. Can you understand me?”
The answer was in slightly strange but perfectly intelligible Lapine.
“Yes, we understand you. My name is Boxwood. Where do you come from?”

In his usual straightforward way he told about the predicament of his warren in having no does and how he had come to look for some.

The cat had stopped short and was licking one paw with a pretense of nonchalance.

“If it comes to the worst,” said Bigwig, “we can leave the hutch rabbits and bolt. Elil take the hindmost, don’t they? I know it’s tough, but if there’s real trouble we ought to save our own rabbits first. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, though.”

But there was nothing worse to contend with than Pipkin’s disappointment at being left behind; and this was dispelled when Hazel assured him that the only reason was that he had already done his bit.

Bigwig was bleeding from three deep, parallel scratches on the inside of one hind leg. The others gathered round, praising him, but he cut them short, looking round the dark yard as he tried to get his bearings.

It took him some time to realize that the leather hinges were soft enough to bite. Then he found that they lay so smooth and flush with the frame that he could not get his teeth to them.

The upright of the frame pressed tight against the lower strip of leather, but it held smooth and firm, offering no purchase for teeth.

No strip of leather held by only one broad-headed nail at each end can stand up for long to repeated twisting. Soon one of the nailheads was almost out of sight under the frayed edges.

When several creatures—men or animals—have worked together to overcome something offering resistance and have at last succeeded, there follows often a pause—as though they felt the propriety of paying respect to the adversary who has put up so good a fight.

When several creatures—men or animals—have worked together to overcome something offering resistance and have at last succeeded, there follows often a pause—as though they felt the propriety of paying respect to the adversary who has put up so good a fight.

After a good deal of delay, during which the cat left the woodpile and began to move stealthily round toward the side of the shed, Blackberry managed to get them out into the farmyard.

Then all four rabbits sat as though transfixed by the sudden, blinding light that poured over them like a cloudburst. Their very instinct was numbed in this terrible glare.

A moment later he smelled the lichen and cool moisture of one of the staddle stones.

A cold lassitude came over him and he passed into a dreaming, inert stupor, full of cramp and pain.

Dandelion was inconsolable to think that he might have stopped Hazel breaking from the ditch.

The dew and gossamer had dried early from the grass and by midmorning the finches had fallen silent.

The man turned to Fiver with the kind of amiability that an ogre might show to a victim whom they both know that he will kill and eat as soon as it suits him to do so.

In the livid, foggy twilight, Fiver stared at the board.

When Pipkin had planted in himself, like some somber tree, the knowledge that Hazel would never return, his bewilderment exceeded his grief: and this bewilderment he saw on every side among his companions.

Holly, gaunt, his staring pelt full of goose grass and fragments of burdock, was talking with the three hutch rabbits and reassuring them as best he could.

No one could say now that Hazel had thrown away his life in a foolhardy prank.

‘Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill, they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.’

She seemed more robust and less timid than Boxwood and Haystack and was evidently doing her best to adapt herself to warren life.

When Fiver’s urging had penetrated his dark, ebbing stupor, he had at first actually tried not to respond.

Holly had already come down the hill on the previous day to see Hazel and tell again the story of his escape from Efrafa. When he had spoken of his deliverance by the great apparition in the night, Fiver had listened attentively and asked one question, “Did it make a noise?”

When he had spoken of his deliverance by the great apparition in the night, Fiver had listened attentively and asked one question, “Did it make a noise?”

The kind of ideas that have become natural to many male human beings in thinking of females—ideas of protection, fidelity, romantic love and so on—are, of course, unknown to rabbits, although rabbits certainly do form exclusive attachments much more frequently than most people realize.

One or two had suggested that Kehaar must have found Hazel and told Fiver secretly. But Kehaar denied this and, when pressed, replied cryptically that Fiver was one who had traveled a good deal further than he had himself.

He was sniffed and tussled with and rolled over in the grass until he felt almost as though he were being attacked.