"Yes," replied the heron. "Don't ever come back, will you?" And so saying, without waiting to be thanked, it flew away, mounting with great, slow strokes of its heavy wings.
El-ahrairah was up the bank in no time. The exposed roots of one of the chestnuts were bone dry under his paws. Rabscuttle was beside him. He had never felt so deeply relieved.
The next rabbit he saw was Burdock, sitting nearby to watch his rabbits as they clambered out of the marsh and up the bank. Burdock might have been a useless Chief Rabbit in a crisis, but now he showed that there was another side to him. He knew all his rabbits by name and greeted each one, congratulating him or her and praising their courage and determination. And they, for their part, showed plainly enough that they liked and respected him. He spoke, too, about the rabbits who were missing, and was clearly very sorry for their loss. "Yarrow and Kingcup," he said to El-ahrairah with obvious regret and sorrow. "Two of the best rabbits in the warren. We could have spared almost anyone but those two." El-ahrairah, who had not troubled himself to learn many of the rabbits' names, felt ashamed.
Climbing the bank, they found themselves on the edge of a wide, luxuriant meadow where the tall midsummer grass had not yet been cut. The exhausted rabbits crept into it, ate and at once fell asleep. "Let them do as they please," said Burdock. "They've earned it." El-ahrairah saw no reason to disagree.
10
The Story of the Terrible Hay-Making
In nature there are no rewards or punishments:
there are consequences.
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL, The Face of Clay
Most of the rabbits remained sleeping or resting in the long grass of the meadow until early morning of the following day. But before that, on the previous evening, El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle had been awake and looking over the surroundings. The first and most obvious thing, on which they were strongly in agreement, was that they were too close to a farmhouse and its yard and barns.
"I don't know what they'll decide to do," said El-ahrairah, "but they can't stay here for long, that's certain. A sudden invasion by a whole bunch of rabbits quite nearby--that's something the farm people are going to notice at once. And you know what that means: guns, dogs, even poison, perhaps--downright persecution, anyway. They'll have to get away from here."
"What, back through the marsh, master?" asked Rabscuttle. "Surely they wouldn't do it, would they?"
"Well, if they do, it'll be without you and me," replied El-ahrairah. "We have to be getting on with our little stroll home."
At this moment they were joined by Burdock and Celandine, who were full of praise and gratitude for the part El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle had played in the crossing of the marsh.
"We could never have done it without you," said Burdock.
"Do you mean to go back?" asked El-ahrairah. "I suppose the rats must have come through and gone by now."
Burdock was emphatic that nothing would induce him to go back across the marsh. "And I'm sure that goes for all of us," he said. "There'd be no point in it. I haven't really gone all round here yet, but there seem to be masses of food and just about everything rabbits could possibly wish for. There's a whole vegetable garden just along there, for a start."
"Well, it's not for me to advise you," said El-ahrairah. "We're just a couple of wandering hlessil. But do you mind me asking--have you had much experience of human beings and what they do to rabbits?"
"No, I haven't," answered Burdock. "I've hardly ever seen a human being, and I certainly haven't been near any. But rabbits can hide and rabbits can run. They can run a lot faster than human beings, I know that."
"True enough," said El-ahrairah. "But all the same, this place, where we are now, is too close to that farmhouse, and if you let your rabbits settle here and go traipsing in and out of that kitchen garden, you'll be letting them in for danger and death. Human beings hate all rabbits, and they're nearly always ready to kill them wherever they are, but rabbits in a vegetable garden they'll go to a whole lot of trouble to kill, believe me."
"Well, but I don't think I could stop my rabbits going in," said Burdock evasively. "What do you want me to do?"
"Look," said El-ahrairah, "I'm not Chief Rabbit and not trying to be. I'm just a passing visitor. But if you want my advice, I think you ought to take them off into open country, right away from the farm. Edge of a wood, an open hillside, somewhere like that. It's just that I know there'll be a whole lot of trouble if they stay here. Anyway," he went on, as Celandine came up and joined them, "let's all have a look round together and get ourselves an idea of the place, shall we?"
During the morning the four rabbits went over the farmland from end to end. It was very well tended and prosperous. There was a big field of cows and another of sheep, with all the hedges and fences very sound and efficiently maintained. There was another, bare field where the hay had already been cut and the ricks built. At its far end, cornfields, planted some with wheat and some with barley, extended out as far as distant woodland.
Coming back, they went through an orchard of young cherry trees, some way away from the vegetable garden. Burdock was looking for a convenient gap, when they smelled tobacco and heard a man approaching from the other side of the hedge. They were just in time to hide among some nearby nut-bushes before he came out through a small gate and set off toward the long-grass meadow where they had spent the night. As he tossed his white stick into the grass, a rabbit bolted almost under his feet. He stopped and watched it disappear among the scrubland and bushes bordering the orchard.
"See what I mean?" said Burdock. "Rabbits can run and rabbits can hide."
That afternoon, when El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were alone together, Rabscuttle said, "Do you think we'd do best to leave these rabbits now, master, before the trouble begins? Only at this rate, there's bound to be a whole lot of trouble, isn't there? And quite soon, I'd say. We don't want to be mixed up in it."
"You're probably right," answered El-ahrairah, "but I haven't altogether given up hope of getting them to see sense. If I can't, then I promise you we'll leave as quick as we can."
After a few days, virtually all the rabbits had discovered the vegetable garden for themselves. There were two or three ways into it, and near these, on both sides of the hedge, conspicuous rabbit paths had already begun to appear. El-ahrairah, forbidding Rabscuttle to risk his life anywhere near the garden, went in himself one fine evening toward sunset, to see what sort of a state it was in. He found the lettuces nibbled to nothing and the cabbages and cauliflowers showing all too plainly the effect of the rabbits' attentions. As he had expected, a good deal more had been spoiled than had been eaten. Finding a couple of youngsters among the carrots, he tried to tell them about their danger, but they had no mind to listen to him.
"Why, I think Celandine's in here himself," said one of them. "We know how to get away quick enough if any men come alon
g. This place is far too good to let alone. I'd never imagined there could be flayrah like this."