It took a long time to climb the hill. Hazel made them separate, himself remaining with Holly and Bluebell, while Bigwig and Dandelion went out to either side. Holly was forced to stop several times and Hazel, full of fear, had hard work to suppress his impatience. Only when the moon began to rise - the edge of its great disc growing brighter and brighter on the skyline below and behind them - did he at last beg Holly to hurry. As he spoke he saw, in the white light, Pipkin coming down to meet them.
'What are you doing?' he said sternly. 'I told Speedwell no one was to come down.'
'It isn't Speedwell's fault,' said Pipkin. 'You stood by me at the river, so I thought I'd come and look for you, Hazel. Anyway, the holes are just here. Is it really Captain Holly you've found?'
Bigwig and Dandelion approached.
'I'll tell you what,' said Bigwig. 'These two will need to rest for a good long time. Suppose Pipkin here and Dandelion take them to an empty burrow and stay with them as long as they want? The rest of us had better keep away until they feel better.'
'Yes, that's best,' said Hazel. 'I'll go up with you now.'
They ran the short distance to the thorn-trees. All the other rabbits were above ground, waiting and whispering together.
'Shut up,' said Bigwig, before anyone had asked a question. 'Yes, it is Holly, and Bluebell is with him - no one else. They're in a bad way and they're not to be troubled. We'll leave this hole empty for them. Now I'm going underground myself and so will you if you've got any sense.'
But before he went, Bigwig turned to Hazel and said, 'You got yourself out of that ditch down there instead of me, didn't you, Hazel? I shan't forget that.'
Hazel remembered Buckthorn's leg and took him down with him. Speedwell and Silver followed them.
'I say, what's happened, Hazel?' asked Silver. 'It must be something very bad. Holly would never leave the Threarah.'
'I don't know,' replied Hazel, 'and neither does anyone else yet. We'll have to wait until tomorrow. Holly may stop running but I don't think Bluebell will. Now let me alone to do this leg of Buckthorn's.'
The wound was a great deal better and soon Hazel fell asleep.
The next day was as hot and cloudless as the last. Neither Pipkin nor Dandelion were at morning silflay; and Hazel relentlessly took the others up to the beech hanger to go on with the digging. He questioned Strawberry about the great burrow and learned that its ceiling, as well as being vaulted with a tangle of fibres, was strengthened by roots going vertically down into the floor. He remarked that he had not noticed these.
'There aren't many, but they're important,' said Strawberry. 'They take a lot of the load. If it weren't for those roots the ceiling would fall after heavy rain. On stormy nights you could sense the extra weight in the earth above, but there was no danger.'
Hazel and Bigwig went underground with him. The beginnings of the new warren had been hollowed out among the roots of one of the beech trees. It was still no more than a small, irregular cave with one entrance. They set to work to enlarge it, digging between the roots and tunnelling upwards to make a second run that would emerge inside the wood. After a time Strawberry stopped digging and began moving about between the roots, sniffing, biting and scuffling in the soil with his front paws. Hazel supposed that he was tired and pretending to be busy while he had a rest, but at length he came back to them and said that he had some suggestions.
'It's this way,' he explained. 'There isn't a big spread of fine roots above here. That was a lucky chance in the great burrow and I don't think we can expect to find it again. But all the same, we can do pretty well with what we've got.'
'And what have we got?' asked Blackberry, who had come down the run while he was talking.
'Well, we've got several thick roots that go straight down - more than there were in the great burrow. The best thing will be to dig round them and leave them. They shouldn't be gnawed through and taken out. We shall need them if we're going to have a hall of any size.'
'Then our hall will be full of these thick, vertical roots?' asked Hazel. He felt disappointed.
'Yes, it will,' said Strawberry, 'but I can't see that it's going to be any the worse for that. We can go in and out among them and they won't hinder anyone who's talking or telling a story. They'll make the place warmer and they'll help to conduct sound from above, which might be useful some time or other.'
The excavation of the hall (which came to be known among them as the Honeycomb) turned out to be something of a triumph for Strawberry. Hazel contented himself with organizing the diggers and left it to Strawberry to say what was actually to be done. The work went on in shifts and the rabbits took it in turns to feed, play and lie in the sun above ground. Throughout the day the solitude remained unbroken by noise, men, tractors or even cattle, and they began to feel still more deeply what they owed to Fiver's insight. By the late afternoon the big burrow was beginning to take shape. At the north end, the beech roots formed a kind of irregular colonnade. This gave way to a more open, central space: and beyond, where there were no supporting roots, Strawberry left blocks of the earth untouched, so that the south end consisted of three or four separate bays. These narrowed into low-roofed runs that led away into sleeping burrows.
Hazel, much better pleased now that he could see for himself how the business was going to turn out, was sitting with Silver in the mouth of the run, when suddenly there was a stamping of 'Hawk! Hawk!' and a dash for cover by the rabbits outside. Hazel, safe where he was, remained looking out past the shadow of the wood to the open, sunlit grass beyond. The kestrel sailed into view and took up station, the black-edged flange of its tail bent down and its pointed wings beating rapidly as it searched the down below.
'But do you think it would attack us?' asked Hazel, watching it drop lower and recommence its poised fluttering. 'Surely it's too small?'
'You're probably right,' replied Silver. 'All the same, would you care to go out there and start feeding?'
'I'd like to try standing up to some of these elil,' said Bigwig, who had come up the run behind them. 'W
e're afraid of too many. But a bird from the air would be awkward, especially if it came fast It might get the better of even a big rabbit if it took him by surprise.'
'See the mouse?' said Silver suddenly.' There, look. Poor little beast.'
They could all see the field-mouse, which was exposed in a patch of smooth grass. It had evidently strayed too far from its hole and now could not tell what to do. The kestrel's shadow had not passed over it, but the rabbits' sudden disappearance had made it uneasy and it was pressed to the ground, looking uncertainly this way and that. The kestrel had not yet seen it, but could hardly fail to do so as soon as it moved.
'Any moment now,' said Bigwig callously.