"Men could destroy you all by giving you the Blindness. You know that?"
"They might, I suppose," replied Hazel, "but we don't think they will."
Flyairth said no more on the subject. As they went back down the hill, she returned to the question of how Bigwig had known her name and the name of Thinial. She evidently felt sure he could tell her more if he wanted to, but although he did not actually rebuff her, she got no more out of him.
Later on, when they were alone together, Hazel asked Bigwig how he had come to know in the first place that she was Flyairth, come from Thinial.
"Well, when Vilthuril was telling us the other night about Thinial and the doe who was Chief Rabbit, I formed a very vivid picture of her in my mind," replied Bigwig, "and then when we found Flyairth in our burrow, she looked and smelled exactly as I'd imagined."
"I can't help wishing you hadn't come out with it so sharply," said Hazel. "Now she thinks we're magic mind readers."
"Well, so we are," answered Bigwig, "thanks to Vilthuril. It won't do any harm to let Flyairth think so. I know she was afraid last night, but all the same, she's got a very strong mind of her own, that one. She'll be all over us if we're not careful."
The frost continued day after day, and there were more falls of snow. The rabbits were able to endure the cold but grew desperately hungry, until even Bluebell could not make a joke of it. Blackavar led a few of the does on an expedition to the farm, but they were able to pick up very little, chiefly on account of the cats. Most of the rabbits stayed underground, huddled together; even Holly and Bigwig were glad of a share in what little warmth was to be had.
One night, when Hyzenthlay, Vilthuril and Thethuthinnang were pressing together against Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig, Vilthuril said, "Has Flyairth told you how she left Thinial and came to be here?"
"No, she hasn't," replied Bigwig. "I was going to ask her, straight out, to tell us, only Hazel thought she'd be better left alone until she felt more settled here."
"Well, she's told me," said Vilthuril, "and she didn't ask me not to tell anyone else. I think she'd probably be glad if I did tell you, so that she didn't have to. She seemed almost ashamed of herself, somehow; though I couldn't see that she had anything to be ashamed of, and so I told her."
"Have you said anything to her yet about your secret river?" asked Hazel.
"No. But I'd rather she did hear it from one of us--the three of us who actually knew about it in Efrafa. At the moment, she can't imagine how we came to know about her, so naturally she feels--well, uneasy, with us knowing something about her as big as that, and her still in the dark about it."
"Yes, it'll be better if you tell her yourself," said Hazel. "But about her leaving Thinial, how did that happen?"
"Well," said Vilthuril, "You remember I told you how we learned from the secret river that she was furiously angry when some of the rabbits in Thinial brought the young family of that poor rabbit--what was her name--"
"Milmown," prompted Hyzenthlay.
"Yes, of course, Milmown. They brought her young family into Thinial and gave them a burrow. Flyairth tried to make them leave, but their friends were too many for her, and her position as Chief Rabbit was weakened by losing that argument. That was the last thing I ever learned from the river.
"Now she's told me herself that as the days went by she gradually lost more authority, not so much because of Milmown's family as because she couldn't think of anything but the White Blindness. She was obsessed by it and was continually putting forward ideas for preventing its getting into Thinial: ideas which most of her Owsla thought would be nothing but a nuisance; unnecessary things, they thought, which would only inconvenience everyone in the warren when there was no need. If only she'd dropped her obsession with the Blindness, they'd have forgotten about their quarrel with her.
"But she didn't. And one day when the Owsla had refused to accept an idea she'd proposed, she said something quite fatal. She said that if they wouldn't accept it she'd leave Thinial and take her family with her. Although they all felt she'd be a great loss, they still wouldn't accept what she was proposing, and so she had to go.
"It was late summer, quite warm, and she and her family were able to spend most nights in the open. And as for elil, she told me that she fought and killed a weasel herself. Somehow or other she'd heard of Efrafa, and she decided to go there. She didn't know what it was really like, of course. She'd only heard that it was a strictly run warren, and she thought that would suit her and that she'd be able to get herself accepted.
"Well, the next thing she heard was that Woundwort and the Efrafans had been beaten by us here. So she changed her plan and decided to come to us. But by the time she'd reached the foot of the Down, her young ones were worn out--they'd been wandering for hrair days, she told me--and when she happened to come upon these burrows down here, all clean and empty, she naturally decided to take one of them over. By the time you found her, she'd already been living here for quite a few days, and she'd come to consider the place her own. Still, she's happy enough with us, 'if only this terrible cold would let up,' as she said."
"We all like her very much," put in Thethuthinnang. "She really is the nicest rabbit anyone could hope to meet. She's made plenty of friends already. She's so good-natured and kind."
"If only she hadn't got this obsession with the Blindness," said Hyzenthlay. "I asked her the other day whether she didn't think that the time had come to forget about it, but she only asked me whether I'd ever seen a rabbit with the Blindness."
"And have you?" asked Bigwig.
"You know I haven't."
"I'm afraid of it too, come to that," said Hazel.
"Yes, but you don't think about it all the time. Flyairth does. It's her only fault, I'd say. What do you think, Fiver?"
"I think like her--if only this cold would let up," answered Fiver. "These are very harsh conditions we're living under. As soon as we can get back to our normal life, the sooner we'll be able to make up our minds about her."
"My mind's made up now," said Hyzenthlay. "I think she's one of the cleverest and most sensible rabbits I've ever known. Thinial--it's their loss and our gain, if you ask me."
A few days later Hazel and his veterans were much saddened by the death of Acorn, one of the original band who had come with him from Sandleford. The cold and hunger had finally proved too much for him. Even Bigwig, who had never particularly cared for Acorn, felt the loss keenly. "To think we brought him all that way, Hazel-rah, and he fought the Efrafans with us and came down the river on the boat, and now he stops running here. I shall miss him, I really shall."