"The only way we could manage that," said Fiver, "would be to forbid him to leave the warren at all, except to silflay."
"I'm not prepared to go that far," said Hazel. "It's a bit too much like Woundwort. We'll have to let him alone for the time being. But if anyone else fails to come back from going out with him, we shall have to do something."
Sandwort's next objectionable act took place only a day or two later. It was not serious, like the loss of Crowla, but nevertheless it amounted to deliberate insolence. Silver and Blackavar had been to the foot of the Down on some activity of their own and as they set out to return found that they were being followed by Sandwort and three or four other young rabbits. Silver and Blackavar had come to a half-closed gap between some thick tussocks of grass and were pausing, hesitant whether to push through it or to go round, avoiding the tussocks altogether. At this moment, Sandwort came up to them from behind and said, "Are you going through here?" Neither Silver nor Blackavar gave him any immediate reply. "Well, I am, anyway," said Sandwort, pushed them aside and went past them into the gap, followed by the other rabbits, one or two of whom did not bother to conceal their amusement.
Small incidents of this kind continued to occur, until it was plain that Sandwort was bringing them about deliberately whenever opportunity offered, usually in the presence of younger rabbits, who would gossip about them in the warren. On the only occasion when one of these led to blows, the older rabbit came off worse, Sandwort being strong and heavy. Another day, Holly overheard one of the youngsters talking about "Sandwort's Owsla." This, passed on to Bigwig, made him so angry that he had to be restrained from going to look for Sandwort then and there. "It wasn't him that said it," pointed out Hazel. "He'd only have a justified grievance against you and make all he could out of it afterward."
Before the whole matter of Sandwort's behavior could come to a head, however, it was eclipsed by an entirely different kind of crisis. One morning, an hour or two after sunrise, two young rabbits, Crowfoot and Foxglove, both friends of Sandwort's, came dashing into the warren in a state of panic, asking to speak to Hazel immediately.
"We were in the garden of the big house down the hill," said Crowfoot, "just the two of us and Sandwort. We were looking for flayrah, when all of a sudden this huge dog came dashing toward us, barking and growling. Sandwort immediately told us to separate, and we ran off in different directions as fast as we could. The dog didn't pursue us, so after a bit we came back to find Sandwort. And what's happened is that he's fallen into a kind of pit and can't get out."
"A pit?" said Hazel. "What sort of a pit?"
"It's a man-made pit," said Foxglove, "not quite so deep as a man's tall, and the sides are about the same length. The sides and the bottom are all perfectly smooth--smooth as a wall--not a foothold anywhere, and Sandwort's lying at the bottom."
"Injured?"
"We don't think so. We think he must have been running from the dog as fast as he could, like we were, and not looking where he was going, when he fell into the pit. There's hardly any water in it, and he's just lying there. He can't get out."
"And the sides are smooth and straight up and down, you say?" asked Hazel. "Well, if he can't get out by himself, I shouldn't think we can get him out, but I'll go and see. Blackberry, you come with me, will you, and Fiver? No one else is to come. I don't want a whole crowd attracting the dog back."
The three rabbits made their way to the foot of the Down, ran across the empty cornfield and the road, and went cautiously through the hedge into the big garden. It took them some time to find the pit of which Crowfoot had spoken. When at length they did, they could see nothing in the least likely to reassure them. The trench, about five feet by three and perhaps four feet in depth, was lined with smooth concrete. It had been dug out to serve the same purpose as a water butt. There were no steps down, but beside it lay a bucket attached to a rope. There were perhaps two or three inches of water in the bottom, and here Sandwort was lying on his side and holding up his head
to breathe. He did not see them.
On the edge of the trench they were completely in the open, and as soon as they had taken in the discouraging situation, they went back under the cover of some nearby laurel bushes, where they conferred.
"We'll never get him out of there," said Blackberry. "It can't be done."
"Not with one of your brilliant schemes?" asked Hazel.
"I'm afraid not. There's no scheme can get him out of there. If a man were to come for water, I suppose he'd take him out and probably kill him, but that's not likely, is it? There's very little water in there."
"So he'll stay there and die?"
"I'm afraid he will. And it'll take some time too."
The three rabbits returned to the warren in low spirits. Hazel always hated the loss of any rabbit, but to know that Sandwort was beyond help and could only be left to die slowly was depressing in the extreme. The news had quickly run round the warren, and so many rabbits wanted to go and see Sandwort's plight for themselves that Hazel felt obliged to forbid any of them to go even as far as the Iron Tree at the foot of the Down.
"So he'll just have to be left to die?" asked Tindra, one of the does who had been close to him. "It'll take a long time, won't it?"
"I'm afraid it may," replied Hazel. "Three days, four days. I've never known anything like this before, and I simply can't tell."
All that day and the next, the idea of Sandwort lying in the pit was never far from the rabbits' thoughts. Even those, like Silver and Bigwig, who had had good reason to dislike him would have helped him escape from his dreadful predicament if only they could.
On the afternoon of the third day after the news had been brought to the warren, Tindra and Nyreem deliberately disobeyed Hazel, going furtively along the crest of the Down and then, after they had gone a considerable distance, to the foot. Young and inexperienced as they were, they became lost and wandered one way and another for some time before stumbling more or less by chance through the hedge and into the garden of the big house.
It did not take them very long to come upon the pit. Sandwort, his eyes closed, was lying unmoving in the water. The flies were walking on his eyelids and ears, but every few seconds a minute release of bubbles showed that he was still breathing. Some sodden hraka lay by his tail.
The two does stared down at him. Although there was clearly nothing to be done, they remained in the open, fascinated and unmoving, for some time, until they were startled by the voices of approaching children. As they ran back into the laurels the children appeared, three or four of them together, pushing through the azaleas on the opposite side of the little glade. One of them, a boy of about eleven, broke into a run and jumped across the pit. On the further side he stopped and turned round to look down.
"I say, there's a dead rabbit down here."
A second boy joined him, peering. "It's not dead."
" 'Tis."
" 'Tisn't."