'I'd settle for any decent, dry bank, myself,' he thought, 'as long as there was some grass and no men with guns. And the sooner we can find one the better.'
Hawkbit was the last to return and as he came up Hazel set off at once. He looked cautiously out from among the beans and then darted into the hedgerow. The wind, as he stopped to sniff it, was reassuring, carrying only the scents of evening dew, may and cow-dung. He led the way into the next field, a pasture: and here they all fell to feeding, nibbling their way over the grass as easily as though their warren were close by.
When he was half-way across the field, Hazel became aware of a hrududu approaching very fast on the other side of the further hedge. It was small and less noisy than the farm tractor which he had sometimes watched from the edge of the primrose wood at home. It passed in a flash of man-made, unnatural colour, glittering here and there and brighter than a winter holly tree. A few moments later came the smell of petrol and exhaust. Hazel stared, twitching his nose. He could not understand how the hrududu could move so quickly and smoothly through the fields. Would it return? Would it come through the fields faster than they could run, and hunt them down?
As he paused, wondering what was best to be done, Bigwig came up.
'There's a road there, then,' he said. 'That'll give some of them a surprise, won't it?'
'A road?' said Hazel, thinking of the lane by the notice-board. 'How do you know?'
'Well, how do you suppose a hrududu can go that fast? Besides, can't you smell it?'
The smell of warm tar was now plain on the evening air.
'I've never smelt that in my life,' said Hazel with a touch of irritation.
'Ah,' said Bigwig,' but then you were never sent out stealing lettuces for the Threarah, were you? If you had been, you'd have learned about roads. There's nothing to them, really, as long as you let them alone by night. They're elil then, all right.'
'You'd better teach me, I think,' said Hazel. 'I'll go up with you and we'll let the others follow.'
They ran on and crept through the hedge. Hazel looked down at the road in astonishment. For a moment he thought that he was looking at another river - black, smooth and straight between its banks. Then he saw the gravel embedded in the tar and watched a spider running over the surface.
'But that's not natural,' he said, sniffing the strange, strong smells of tar and oil. 'What is it? How did it come there?'
'It's a man-thing,' said Bigwig. 'They put that stuff there and then the hrududil run on it - faster than we can; and what else can run faster than we?'
'It's dangerous then? They can catch us?'
'No, that's what's so odd. They don't take any notice of us at all. I'll show you, if you like.'
The other rabbits were beginning to reach the hedge as Bigwig hopped down the bank and crouched on the verge of the road. From beyond the bend came the sound of another approaching car. Hazel and Silver watched tensely. The car appeared, flashing green and white, and raced down towards Bigwig. For an instant it filled the whole world with noise and fear. Then it was gone; and Bigwig's fur was blowing in the whack of wind that followed it down the hedges. He jumped back up the bank among the staring rabbits.
'See? They don't hurt you,' said Bigwig. 'As a matter of fact, I don't think they're alive at all. But I must admit I can't altogether make it out.'
As on the river bank, Blackberry had moved away and was already down on the road on his own account, sniffing out towards the middle, half-way between Hazel and the bend. They saw him start and jump back to the shelter of the bank.
'What is it?' said Hazel.
Blackberry did not answer and Hazel and Bigwig hopped towards him along the verge. He was opening and shutting his mouth and licking his lips, much as a cat does when something disgusts it.
'You say they're not dangerous, Bigwig,' he said quietly. 'But I think they must be, for all that.'
In the middle of the road was a flattened, bloody mass of brown prickles and white fur, with small, black feet and snout crushed round the edges. The flies crawled upon it and here and there the sharp points of gravel pressed up through the flesh.
'A yona,' said Blackberry. 'What harm does a yona do to anything but slugs and beetles? And what can eat a yona?'
'It must have come at night,' said Bigwig.
'Yes, of course. The yonil always hunt by night. If you see them by day they're dying.'
'I know. But what I'm trying to explain is that at night the hrududil have great lights, brighter than Frith himself. They draw creatures towards them and if they shine on you, you can't see or think which way to go. Then the hrududu is quite likely to crush you. At least, that's what we were taught in the Owsla. I don't intend to try it.'
'Well, it will be dark soon,' said Hazel. 'Come on, let's get across. As far as I can see, this road's no good to us at all. Now that I've learnt about it, I want to get away from it as soon as I can.'
By moonrise they had made their way through Newtown churchyard, where a little brook runs between the lawns and under the path. Wandering on, they climbed a hill and came to Newtown Common - a country of peat, gorse and silver birch. After the meadows they had left, this was a strange, forbidding land. Trees, herbage, even the soil - all were unfamiliar. They hesitated among the thick heather, unable to see more than a few feet ahead. Their fur became soaked with the dew. The ground was broken by rifts and pits of naked, black peat, where water lay and sharp, white stones, some as big as a pigeon's, some as a rabbit's skull, glimmered in the moonlight. Whenever they reached one of these rifts the rabbits huddled together, waiting for Hazel or Bigwig to climb the further side and find a way forward. Everywhere they came upon beetles, spiders and small lizards which scurried away as they pushed through the fibrous, resistant heather. Once Buckthorn disturbed a snake, and leapt into the air as it whipped between his paws to vanish down a hole at the foot of a birch.
The very plants were unknown to them - pink lousewort with its sprays of hooked flowers, bog asphodel and the thin-stemmed blooms of the sun-dews, rising above their hairy, fly-catching mouths, all shut fast by night. In this close jungle all was silence. They went more and more slowly, and made long halts in the peat-cuts. But if the heather itself was silent, the breeze brought distant night-sounds across the open common. A cock crowed. A dog ran barking and a man shouted at it. A little owl called 'Kee-wik, kee-wik' and something - a vole or a shrew - gave a sudden squeal. There was not a noise but seemed to tell of danger.