O out of terror and dark, to comeIn sight of home.
Walter de la Mare2, The Pilgrim"You're not too tired to silflay, are you?" asked Dandelion. "And at the propertime of day, for a change? It's a lovely evening, if my nose says right. We ought totry not to be more miserable3 than we can help, you know.""Just before we silflay," said Bigwig, "can I tell you, Holly4, that I don't believeanyone else could have brought himself and three other rabbits safely back out ofa place like that?""Frith meant us to get back," replied Holly. "That's the real reason why we'rehere."As he turned to follow Speedwell up the run that led into the wood, he foundClover beside him. "You and your friends must find it strange to go outside andeat grass," he said. "You'll get used to it, you know. And I can promise you thatHazel-rah was right when he told you it's a better life here than in a hutch. Comewith me and I'll show you a patch of nice, short tail-grass, if Bigwig hasn't had itall while I've been away."Holly had taken to Clover. She seemed more robust5 and less timid thanBoxwood and Haystack and was evidently doing her best to adapt herself towarren life. What her stock might be he could not tell, but she looked healthy.
"I like it underground all right," said Clover, as they came up into the fresh air.
"The closed space is really very much like a hutch, except that it's darker. Thedifficult thing for us is going to be feeding in the open. We're not used to beingfree to go where we like and we don't know what to do. You all act so quickly andhalf the time I don't know why. I'd prefer not to feed very far from the hole, if youdon't mind."They moved slowly across the sunset grass, nibbling6 as they went: Clover wassoon absorbed in feeding, but Holly stopped continually to sit up and sniff7 abouthim at the peaceful, empty down. When he noticed Bigwig, a little way off, staringfixedly to the north, he at once followed his gaze.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's Blackberry," replied Bigwig. He sounded relieved.
Blackberry came hopping8 rather slowly down from the skyline. He looked tiredout, but as soon as he saw the other rabbits he came on faster and made his wayto Bigwig.
"Where have you been?" asked Bigwig. "And where's Fiver? Wasn't he withyou?""Fiver's with Hazel," said Blackberry. "Hazel's alive. He's been wounded -- it'shard to tell how badly -- but he won't die."The other three rabbits looked at him speechlessly. Blackberry waited,enjoying the effect.
"Hazel's alive?" said Bigwig. "Are you sure?""Quite sure," said Blackberry. "He's at the foot of the hill at this very moment,in that ditch where you were the night Holly and Bluebell9 arrived.""I can hardly believe it," said Holly. "If it's true, it's the best news I've everheard in my life. Blackberry, you really are sure? What happened? Tell us.""Fiver found him," said Blackberry. "Fiver took me with him, nearly all the wayback to the farm: then he went along the ditch and found Hazel gone to groundup a land drain. He was very weak from loss of blood and he couldn't get out ofthe drain by himself. We had to drag him by his good hind10 leg. He couldn't turnround, you see.""But how on earth did Fiver know?""How does Fiver know what he knows? You'd better ask him. When we'd gotHazel into the ditch, Fiver looked to see how badly he was hurt. He's got a nastywound in one hind leg, but the bone isn't broken: and he's torn all along one side.
We cleaned up the places as well as we could and then we started out to bring himback. It's taken us the whole evening. Can you imagine it -- daylight, dead silenceand a lame11 rabbit reeking12 of fresh blood? Luckily, it's been the hottest day we'vehad this summer -- not a mouse stirring. Time and again we had to take cover inthe cow parsley and rest. I was all on the jump, but Fiver was like a butterfly on astone. He sat in the grass and combed his ears. 'Don't get upset,' he kept saying.
'There's nothing to worry about. We can take our time.' After what I'd seen, I'dhave believed him if he'd said we could hunt foxes. But when we got to the bottomof the hill Hazel was completely finished and he couldn't go any further. He andFiver have taken shelter in the overgrown ditch and I came on to tell you. Andhere I am."There was silence while Bigwig and Holly took in the news. At last Bigwig said,"Will they stay there tonight?""I think so," replied Blackberry. "I'm sure Hazel won't be able to manage thehill until he's a good deal stronger.""I'll go down there," said Bigwig. "I can help to make the ditch a bit morecomfortable, and probably Fiver will be able to do with someone else to help tolook after Hazel""I should hurry, then, if I were you," said Blackberry. "The sun will be downsoon.""Hah!" said Bigwig, "If I meet a stoat, it'd better look out, that's all. I'll bringyou one back tomorrow, shall I?" He raced off and disappeared over the edge.
"Let's go and get the others together," said Holly. "Come on, Blackberry, you'llhave to tell the whole thing, from the beginning."The three quarters of a mile in the blazing heat, from Nuthanger to the foot ofthe hill, had cost Hazel more pain and effort than anything in his life. If Fiver hadnot found him, he would have died in the drain. When Fiver's urging hadpenetrated his dark, ebbing13 stupor14, he had at first actually tried not to respond. Itwas so much easier to remain where he was, on the far side of the suffering hehad undergone. Later, when he found himself lying in the green gloom of theditch, with Fiver searching his wounds and assuring him that he could stand andmove, still he could not face the idea of setting out to return. His torn sidethrobbed and the pain in his leg seemed to have affected15 his senses. He felt dizzyand could not hear or smell properly. At last, when he understood that Fiver andBlackberry had risked a second journey to the farm, in the broadest of daylight,solely to find him and save his life, he forced himself to his feet and began tostumble down the slope to the road. His sight was swimming and he had to stopagain and again. Without Fiver's encouragement he would have lain down oncemore and given up. In the road, he could not climb the bank and had to limpalong the verge16 until he could crawl under a gate. Much later, as they came underthe pylon17 line, he remembered the overgrown ditch at the foot of the hill and sethimself to reach it. Once there, he lay down and at once returned to the sleep oftotal exhaustion18.
When Bigwig arrived, just before dark, he found Fiver snatching a quick feedin the long grass. It was out of the question to disturb Hazel by digging, and theyspent the night crouched19 beside him on the narrow floor.
Coming out in the gray light before dawn, the first creature Bigwig saw wasKehaar, foraging20 between the elders. He stamped to attract his attention andKehaar sailed across to him with one beat of his wings and a long glide21.
"Meester Pigvig, you find Meester 'Azel?""Yes," said Bigwig, "he's in the ditch here.""'E not dead?""No, but he's wounded and very weak. The farm man shot him with a gun, youknow.""You get black stones out?""How do you mean?""Alvays vid gun ees coming liddle black stones. You never see?""No, I don't know about guns.""Take out black stones, 'e get better. 'E come now, ya?""I'll see," said Bigwig. He went down to Hazel and found him awake andtalking to Fiver. When Bigwig told him that Kehaar was outside he draggedhimself up the short run and into the grass.
"Dis damn gun," said Kehaar. "'E put liddle stones for 'urt you. I look, ya?""I suppose you'd better," said Hazel. "My leg's still very bad, I'm afraid."He lay down and Kehaar's head flicked22 from side to side as though he werelooking for snails23 in Hazel's brown fur. He peered closely up the length of the tornflank.
"Ees not stones 'ere," he said. "Go in, go out -- no stop. Now I see you leg.
Maybe 'urt you, not long."Two shotgun pellets were buried in the muscle of the haunch. Kehaar detectedthem by smell and removed them exactly as he might have picked spiders out of acrack. Hazel had barely time to flinch24 before Bigwig was sniffing25 at the pellets inthe grass.
"Now ees more bleed," said Kehaar. "You stay, vait maybe vun, two day. Dengoot like before. Dose rabbits up dere, all vait, vait for Meester 'Azel. I tell dem 'ecome." He flew off before they could reply.
As things turned out, Hazel stayed three days at the foot of the hill. The hotweather continued and for much of the time he sat under the elder branches,dozing above ground like some solitary hlessi and feeling his strength returning.
Fiver stayed with him, keeping the wounds clean and watching his recovery.
Often they would say nothing for hours together, lying in the rough, warm grasswhile the shadows moved to evening, until at last the local blackbird cocked itstail and tuck-tucked away to roost. Neither spoke26 of Nuthanger Farm, but Hazelshowed plainly enough that for the future Fiver, when he gave advice, would haveno hard task to get him to accept it.
"Hrairoo," said Hazel one evening, "what would we have done without you?
We'd none of us be here, would we?""You're sure we are here, then?" asked Fiver.
"That's too mysterious for me," replied Hazel. "What do you mean?""Well, there's another place -- another country, isn't there? We go there whenwe sleep; at other times, too; and when we die. El-ahrairah comes and goesbetween the two as he wants, I suppose, but I could never quite make that out,from the tales. Some rabbits will tell you it's all easy there, compared with thewaking dangers that they understand. But I think that only shows they don'tknow much about it. It's a wild place, and very unsafe. And where are we really --there or here?""Our bodies stay here -- that's good enough for me. You'd better go and talk tothat Silverweed fellow -- he might know more.""Oh, you remember him? I felt that when we were listening to him, you know.
He terrified me and yet I knew that I understood him better than anyone else inthat place. He knew where he belonged, and it wasn't here. Poor fellow, I'm surehe's dead. They'd got him, all right -- the ones in that country. They don't givetheir secrets away for nothing, you know. But look! Here come Holly andBlackberry, so we'd better feel sure we're here just for the moment, anyway."Holly had already come down the hill on the previous day to see Hazel and tellagain the story of his escape from Efrafa. When he had spoken of his deliveranceby the great apparition27 in the night, Fiver had listened attentively28 and asked onequestion, "Did it make a noise?" Later, when Holly had gone back, he told Hazelthat he felt sure there was some natural explanation, though he had no idea whatit could be. Hazel, however, had not been greatly interested. For him, theimportant thing was their disappointment and the reason for it. Holly hadachieved nothing and this was entirely29 due to the unexpected unfriendliness ofthe Efrafan rabbits. This evening, as soon as they had begun to feed, Hazelreturned to the matter.
"Holly," he said, "we're hardly any nearer to solving our problem, are we?
You've done wonders and got nothing to show for it, and the Nuthanger raid wasonly a silly lark30, I'm afraid -- and an expensive one for me, at that. The real holehas still got to be dug.""Well," said Holly, "you say it was only a lark, Hazel, but at least it gave us twodoes: and they're the only two we've got.""Are they any good?"The kind of ideas that have become natural to many male human beings inthinking of females -- ideas of protection, fidelity31, romantic love and so on -- are,of course, unknown to rabbits, although rabbits certainly do form exclusiveattachments much more frequently than most people realize. However, they arenot romantic and it came naturally to Hazel and Holly to consider the twoNuthanger does simply as breeding stock for the warren. This was what they hadrisked their lives for.
"Well, it's hard to say, yet," replied Holly. "They're doing their best to settledown with us -- Clover particularly. She seems very sensible. But they'reextraordinarily helpless, you know -- I've never seen anything like it -- and I'mafraid they may turn out to be delicate in bad weather. They might survive nextwinter and then again they might not. But you weren't to know that when you gotthem out of the farm.""With a bit of luck, they might each have a litter before the winter," said Hazel.
"I know the breeding season's over, but everything's so topsy-turvy with us herethat there's no saying.""Well, you ask me what I think," said Holly. "I'll tell you. I think they'reprecious little to be the only thing between us and the end of everything we'vemanaged to do so far. I think they may very well not have any kittens for sometime, partly because this isn't the season and partly because the life's so strange tothem. And when they do, the kittens will very likely have a lot of this man-bredhutch stock in them. But what else is there to hope for? We must do the best wecan with what we've got.""Has anyone mated with them yet?" asked Hazel.
"No, neither of them has been ready so far. But I can see some fine old fightsbreaking out when they are.""That's another problem. We can't go on with nothing but these two does.""But what else can we do?""I know what we've got to do," said Hazel, "but I still can't see how. We've gotto go back and get some does out of Efrafa.""You might as well say you were going to get them out of Inlé, Hazel-rah. I'mafraid I can't have given you a very clear description of Efrafa.""Oh, yes, you have -- the whole idea scares me stiff. But we're going to do it.""It can't be done.""It can't be done by fighting or fair words, no. So it will have to be done bymeans of a trick.""There's no trick will get the better of that lot, believe me. There are far moreof them than there are of us: they're very highly organized: and I'm only tellingthe truth when I say that they can fight, run and follow a trail every bit as well aswe can, and a lot of them, much better.""The trick," said Hazel, turning to Blackberry, who all this time had beennibbling and listening in silence, "the trick will have to do three things. First, itwill have to get the does out of Efrafa and secondly32 it will have to put paid to thepursuit. For a pursuit there's bound to be and we can't expect another miracle.
But that's not all. Once we're clear of the place, we've got to become impossible tofind -- beyond the reach of any Wide Patrol.""Yes," said Blackberry doubtfully. "Yes, I agree. To succeed we should have tomanage all those things.""Yes. And this trick, Blackberry, is going to be devised by you."The sweet, carrion33 scent34 of dogwood filled the air; in the evening sunshine, theinsects hummed around the dense35 white cymes hanging low above the grass. Apair of brown-and-orange beetles36, disturbed by the feeding rabbits, took off froma grass stem and flew away, still coupled together.
"They mate. We don't," said Hazel, watching them go. "A trick, Blackberry: atrick to put us right once and for all.""I can see how to do the first thing," said Blackberry. "At least, I think I can.
But it's dangerous. The other two I can't see at all yet and I'd like to talk it overwith Fiver.""The sooner Fiver and I get back to the warren the better," said Hazel. "Myleg's good enough now, but all the same I think we'll leave it for tonight. Good oldHolly, will you tell them that Fiver and I will come early tomorrow morning? Itworries me to think that Bigwig and Silver may start fighting about Clover at anymoment.""Hazel," said Holly, "listen. I don't like this idea of yours at all. I've been inEfrafa and you haven't. You're making a bad mistake and you might very well getus all killed."It was Fiver who replied. "It ought to feel like that, I know," he said, "butsomehow it doesn't: not to me. I believe we can do it. Anyway, I'm sure Hazel'sright when he says it's the only chance we've got. Suppose we go on talking aboutit for a bit?""Not now," said Hazel. "Time for underground down here -- come on. But ifyou two race up the hill, you'll probably be in time for some more sunshine at thetop. Good night."
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1
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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nibbling
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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bluebell
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| n.风铃草 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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pylon
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| n.高压电线架，桥塔 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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snails
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| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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flinch
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| v.畏缩，退缩 | |
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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