"But don't you realize," said El-ahrairah, "that barking kills the trees and that the men are bound to notice and do everything they can to--"
Burdock stood up and faced El-ahrairah. He had clearly lost his temper. "Do you think I'm going to be ordered about by the likes of you, a ragamuffin hlessi who's lost his tail and ears and works himself into a fright about every single thing he sees? You're nothing but a continual nuisance. You'd better take care I don't tell Celandine to have you set upon and finished with. You think because you led the way through the marsh you can tell us all what to do and lay down the law about everything."
"Very well," replied El-ahrairah quietly. "I won't bother you anymore."
When El-ahrairah said this he meant it, but that was before the cat.
The cat, black-and-white and short-furred, made its first appearance about two days later, in the early evening. It came wandering slowly down from the vicinity of the farmhouse, pausing from time to time and looking here and there at anything which attracted its momentary attention. Soon it reached the edge of the field of long grass and began walking along the verge, evidently with no particular purpose, for it went slowly and almost paw by paw. It wore a thin leather collar and had a sleek, well-fed appearance. It was certainly not hunting.
El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were dozing together on the bank above the marsh when they became aware of the cat's approach. They both grew alert and held themselves in readiness for instant flight. The cat, however, passed within a few yards without paying them the least attention. All the same, thought El-ahrairah, it might be as well to move a little further away. He was just about to do so when he found Celandine beside him.
Celandine was holding himself tensely. He was breathing fast and watching the cat with a vigilant, aggressive air. After a little, he said to El-ahrairah, "Do you see that damned pest out there?"
"Yes, of course," replied El-ahrairah.
"We're going to kill it," said Celandine.
"This year or next?" asked El-ahrairah, joining in what he took to be some kind of game.
"You don't believe me?" replied Celandine. "You may as well know that it won't be the first time our Owsla have killed a cat."
"I've never heard of rabbits attacking a cat," said El-ahrairah, "except perhaps a doe defending her litter."
"When we were living in the warren where you first joined us," said Celandine, "There was a cat which used to come hunting about and making a nuisance of itself, and after a bit our Owsla set upon it and killed it. That was when Betony was captain of Owsla and I was still quite young."
"And what happened?" asked El-ahrairah.
"What d'you mean, what happened?" answered Celandine.
"Did any human beings come looking for it? Did any of them take the body away?"
"No, nothing like that," said Celandine. "Rats disposed of the body, I suppose. Something did, anyway."
"And you want to show you're as good as Betony, and kill that cat?"
"Certainly. Three or four of my Owsla are mad keen."
"Well," said El-ahrairah, "I beg you, I implore you, to listen to me before you do anything else. From all you've told me, the cat your Captain Betony killed must have been a stray. It didn't belong to any human beings. It was just wandering on its own. But that cat out there belongs to the farmhouse. It's wearing a collar and it obviously gets plenty to eat. And it reeks of human beings. I could smell it from here when it went past just now. Drive it away by all means if you want to, but if you kill it the farmhouse human beings will come after you with everything they've got. As far as they're concerned, it'll be the last straw. You've ruined the vegetable garden and done a lot of damage in the cherry orchard. I'm surprised they haven't done their best to wipe you out already. Do take my advice, Celandine. Let the cat alone, for Frith's sake."
"I'll think about it," replied Celandine. "But the cat's asking for trouble, you must admit."
During the next two or three days, Celandine and three of his Owsla waited patiently in the long grass for the black-and-white cat, but it did not reappear. It was not until early evening several days later that it came sauntering along the verge and pausing to look here and there, as it had before.
From Celandine's point of view, the opportunity could not have been a better one. The cat lay down in the sun almost opposite where they were concealed, turned on its back and began washing its stomach. When the four rabbits leaped upon it, it was taken completely by surprise.
It fought, however, miawling and biting savagely. Its claws were more effective than the rabbits', and it was more used to using them. If it had not been for the reckless audacity of Celandine, it would almost certainly have got away. But lying on its back when he attacked it, it offered him the chance to use a rabbit's strongest weapon, its back legs. Leaping, Celandine landed on its chest, drove one of his back legs into its belly and kicked backward. This was decisive. Ripped open, horribly wounded, its guts trailing, it still struggled, scratching fiercely and clenching its teeth on Celandine's throat until he lay virtually at its mercy. But at this moment its strength failed. Gasping, it rolled over on its side and a few moments later lay dead. Celandine and his rabbits, covered with its blood and a great deal of their own, made off into the long grass.
It was almost dark before a girl from the farm found the body and, weeping bitterly, carried it away, all bloody as it was.
El-ahrairah did not himself see Celandine and his rabbits kill the cat; but Rabscuttle, who did, told him, and he also saw the weeping girl carry the body away.
"Shall we leave now, master?" asked Rabscuttle. "You surely don't want us to be mixed up with this place any longer, do you? We might be shot or ... or ... well, whatever the men are going to do."
"Yes, we'll leave, all right," replied El-ahrairah. "But I'm not ready yet. Just keep a lookout and tell me at once if you see the men doing anything unusual."
However, nothing happened on the following day and nothing the day after that. It was unusually early on the morning of the third day after the cat had been killed that Rabscuttle woke El-ahrairah and told him that a whole lot of men were coming into the long-grass field, most of them carrying sticks and one of them with a gun. El-ahrairah crept under a hawthorn bush to a place where both of them could watch the men, who at that moment were doing nothing except standing about, burning white sticks in their mouths and talking.
After some time, two of them went away and came back riding on the hrududu, pulling the grass cutter behind it. They drove it to a place at the outer edge of the long grass and began cutting the whole field in a circle, always going a little further inward as they came round. Meanwhile, the other men spread out and stood all round the edge, moving slowly inward as the grass was cut. Although El-ahrairah knew that the whole field was full of rabbits, he saw none come out. He realized that they wanted to stay hidden in the long grass and were creeping toward the center as it was cut.
At last the hrududu stopped and became silent. It had left a patch of long grass uncut, and this the men surrounded.
"Right, we'll go now," said El-ahrairah, and began to run as fast as he could away from the field, away from the farm and out into the open country beyond, with Rabscuttle hard on his heels. He did not want to hear the men shouting as they went forward, beating at the grass with their sticks. He did not want to see Burdock and his rabbits come scuttling out in all directions, to be clubbed and battered to death as they tried to get through the encircling men. One or two did get through, but the man with the gun did not miss them.
"Don't look back," said El-ahrairah to the trembling Rabscuttle, "and don't ever talk about it. We're going home--remember?--and something's telling me it's not very far now."
11
El-ahrairah and the Lendri
Tommy Brock ... was not nice in his habits.
He ate wasp nests and frogs and worms: and he
waddled about by moonlight, digging things up.
BEATRIX POTTER, "The Tale of Mr. Tod"
>
Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier
to act than to think.
HANNAH ARENDT, quoted in W. H. Auden, A Certain World
For a few days (said Dandelion) after they had left poor Burdock and his rabbits, El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle traveled on uneventfully through the long-grass meadows and the summer weather.
One evening, as they were making themselves comfortable in the straw on the floor of an old barn, Rabscuttle said, "We're not far from home now, master. I can feel it all through my body, can't you?"
"Well, I can't feel it all through your body," replied El-ahrairah, who was often unable to resist gently testing Rabscuttle, "but I can feel it, all right. All the same, I've got the notion that we may have to get past some big obstacle or other before we get there. We'd better keep a good lookout and go carefully. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, to stop running so close to home?"
It was getting late in the afternoon of the next day when they came in sight of a thick forest. It was no ordinary forest, as they could see. To right and left it stretched way into the distance, and there seemed to be no gaps or openings which might have been the beginnings of paths through the tangle of trees and undergrowth.
"I'm afraid there's no help for it," said El-ahrairah, when he had gazed at the forest and pondered for some time. "Through that nasty-looking place we'll have to go. I can tell that, can't you?"
"All too clearly, master, I'm afraid," answered Rabscuttle, sitting down in the grass and cleaning his face with his front paws. "But we can't do it on our own. We're going to need some kind of help. It would never do just to go plunging into a place like that by ourselves. We'd be lost in half an hour and dead in half a day."
"What sort of help, though?" asked El-ahrairah. "We'd better start by trying to find someone who knows a bit more about it than we do."
They had not gone far toward the forest before they came upon a huge rat, almost as big as El-ahrairah himself. It was sitting in the sun and no doubt, thought the rabbits, meditating on the details of some vile and murderous scheme. Neither of them liked the look of it at all, but all the same, thought El-ahrairah, as the rat eyed him silently with an evil and cunning expression, we've got to start somewhere. He greeted the rat politely and sat down beside it on the edge of a ditch.
"I wonder if you can give us some advice," he began. "We've got to get through that forest."
"What for?" asked the rat, its whiskers twitching unpleasantly.
"To get home," said El-ahrairah.
"Then how in bones and blazes do you come to be here?" asked the rat.
"It was on the orders of Lord Frith," answered El-ahrairah. "We had to undertake a long journey at his bidding. We're lucky to be alive. But now we're going home."
"You're not home yet," said the rat, showing its yellow teeth in an odious grin. "Not yet. Oh, no."
El-ahrairah made no reply, and for a little while there was silence.
"You'll never get through that forest," said the rat at length. "No one ever has, so far as I know."
"Do you know anyone who might help us, perhaps?" asked Rabscuttle.
"The only creature who might be able to help you, if he had a mind to it"--the rat sniggered--"would be Old Brock; but he'd be more likely to eat you than help you."
"Where can we find him?" asked El-ahrairah.
"He's not easily found," replied the rat. "He's always up and down along the edge of that forest, grubbing about. If you go up and down the edge too, he may find you. It's as good a way to be killed as any. Why should he help you? Have you thought of that?" It gave a sudden leap and was gone through the hedgerow.
It was getting on for ni-Frith on the following day before the two rabbits reached the outskirts of the forest. They were rough and wild, and to look further into it was not encouraging, to say the least. There seemed to be no big trees, which they took to mean that the trees were never thinned or cut back at all. The forest was an unkempt wilderness. The trees grew together so closely that even now, at midday, they shut out a great deal of the light. The undergrowth was thick; so thick; that even the rabbits, accustomed to creeping through difficult places, could not see any way through it. They went further along the edge and looked again, but saw nothing better. El-ahrairah, who was persistent and not easily discouraged, continued looking along the outskirts for a long time, but at length was forced to admit himself at a loss.
"I suppose we'll have to try to find that Old Brock the rat talked about," he said to Rabscuttle.
"But if he's as likely to eat us as help us?" said Rabscuttle.
"He won't eat me in a hurry," replied El-ahrairah. "I tell you, I'm determined to get through that forest, and if it can only be done with the help of Old Brock, then I'm going to find him. And I've just had a thought. We're probably more likely to find him by night than by day, confound it."
Rabbits do not care to be about in darkness, which frightens them. Dawn and evening are their natural activity times. That night, even El-ahrairah felt a good deal of apprehension about setting out along the outskirts of the forest. The waning moon gave very little light, and every slight night sound, its source only to be guessed, was like an alarm. They made little progress and startled continually. However, they were lucky (if a swift outcome to a search of this kind could be called "lucky"). The night was not half gone when El-ahrairah, crouched at the foot of a tree and listening carefully, suddenly felt himself held down by a great paw, while a deep but very low voice said, "What are you doing here? Why are you here at all?"
El-ahrairah was half smothered and could not speak. It was greatly to Rabscuttle's credit that he did not run away but answered, "We are looking for--er--Lord Brock. Are you he, my lord?"
The huge badger made no move to release El-ahrairah as it said, "If I am, what does it matter to you? Why have you been looking for me?"
"We have to go through the forest, my lord--through it to the other side. It's our only way home. We've been told that nobody but you can help us."
At this, the badger raised its paw and allowed El-ahrairah to crawl out and sit up. It looked at the rabbits with a grim and hostile expression.
"Why do you suppose that I'll help you?"
"We have come a long way and overcome many difficulties and dangers. We know you are the lord of this forest and can spare or kill whomever you choose. Pray, my lord, be patient while I tell you what we have undergone and how we come to be here."
And then, squatting in the waning moonlight at the feet of the lendri, El-ahrairah told it of King Darzin and the plight of his rabbits, of how Rabscuttle and he had confronted the Black Rabbit of Inle, and of the dangers they had encountered in their journeyings since that time. "And we beg you, my lord," he ended, "to grant us your protection and help to overcome this last obstacle between ourselves and a peaceful homecoming. If there is any way in which we can help you or be of service to you, we'll gladly undertake it. You have only to command, and we'll do your bidding."
"I have a sett near here," growled the lendri. "You had better come with me."
They went with it as best they could along the tangled forest verge until they came to a kind of shallow pit, in one side of which was a great hole. In front of this lay a pile of earth mixed with withered grass and bracken. The lendri went down the hole, and the rabbits followed.
It was a daunting place: a maze of tunnels, leading in all directions and extending, so it seemed, over long distances. Indeed, the tunnels were so long that the rabbits became exhausted and had to beg the lendri to let them rest. But after a short time it became impatient and went on without a word, so that they were forced to stumble along behind it as best they could or else be left alone in the dark.
At last it stopped at a place which seemed no different from any other in the tunnels, except for being lined with straw and dried grass and for the overpowering stench of badger. The lendri lay down, waited for the rabbits to come up and then said, "How do you suppose that you can be of use to me?"
"We can forage for you, my lord," said El-ahrairah.
"Tell us what you eat, and we'll find it and bring it to you."
"I eat everything. Chiefly worms; and beetles, caterpillars, grubs, slugs and snails when they're to be found."
"We'll bring you plenty, my lord, if only you'll guide us through the forest when you're ready."
"Then you can start now."
It led them back aboveground to the forest verge. And now began surely the strangest life that rabbits can ever have led. Each night they met the lendri and foraged with it, sometimes in the forest, but usually in fields and even in the gardens of nearby houses. It was a long and tiring business, for the lendri was voracious and kept them at work until daybreak and sometimes after. It was horrible work for rabbits. Often they dug in wet places for worms or, after rain, simply collected them aboveground. They carried them to the lendri in their mouths: not only worms but also slugs and snails and every small living creature they could find. Sometimes, although it was late in the season, they came upon pheasants' nests, and the lendri would crunch up the eggs with relish. Mice could often be caught, since by instinct they were not afraid of rabbits. At first the rabbits were nauseated by mouthing worms and slugs, but as they grew used to it, they ceased to be troubled at all.
Harder to bear was the dislike and contempt they incurred among their fellow creatures. As they became known in the fields and copses, they came to be universally hated and despised. For several nights, from tree to tree, a squirrel followed them, chattering, "Slaves! Lendri's slaves! Work harder or Master will be angry." On another night a wounded and helpless rat sneered, "I'm delighted to be of use to the cowardly rabbits." Owls gave warning of their approach, and voles squeaked insults from the safety of their holes. It was as depressing and unnatural a life as could be for rabbits, by nature gregarious and the least carnivorous of creatures. They grew surly and short-tempered with each other and often felt on the point of giving up the disgusting work and running away. And yet they knew the lendri was their only hope of getting home.
At the outset they had supposed that as they got to know the lendri it would treat them in a more friendly way. However, it did not. Its manner to them remained bleak and cold. It seldom spoke except to give orders or warnings of danger, or to find fault with something they had done. It never commended their work. Initially El-ahrairah did his best to converse with it, but was met only with silence or inattention. They grew less alert, less swift, less responsive to the countless signals that healthy rabbits continually receive from the wind, from scents and from noises and movement round about them.