'Na, na. Ees close, in vood.'
'Splendid. We can find this crossing in daylight?'
'Ya, ya. I show you pridge.'
The rabbits had gone only a short distance through the wood when they sensed that they were already near the river. The ground became soft and damp. They could smell sedge and water. Suddenly, the harsh, vibrating cry of a moorhen echoed through the trees, followed by a flapping of wings and a watery scuttering. The rustling of the leaves seemed also to echo, as though reflected distantly from hard ground. A little further on, they could distinctly hear the water itself - the low, continuous pouring of a shallow fall. A human being, hearing from a distance the noise of a crowd, can form an idea of its size. The sound of the river told the rabbits that it must be bigger than any they had known before - wide, smooth and swift. Pausing among the comfrey and ground elder, they stared at each other, seeking reassurance. Then they began to lollop hesitantly forward into more open ground. There was still no river to be seen, but in front they could perceive a flicker and dance of mirrored light in the air. Soon afterwards Hazel, limping ahead with Fiver near him, found himself on a narrow, green path that divided the wilderness from the river bank.
The path was almost as smooth as a lawn and clear of bushes and weeds, for it was kept cut for fishermen. Along its farther side the riparian plants grew thickly, so that it was separated from the river by a kind of hedge of purple loosestrife, great willow-herb, fleabane, figwort and hemp agrimony, here and there already in bloom. Two or three more of the rabbits emerged from the wood. Peering through the plant-clumps, they could catch glimpses of the smooth, glittering river, evidently much wider and swifter than the Enborne. Although there was no enemy or other danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt of those who have come unawares upon some awe-inspiring place, where they themselves are paltry fellows of no account. When Marco Polo came at last to Cathay, seven hundred years ago, did he not feel - and did his heart not falter as he realized - that this great and splendid capital of an empire had had its being all the years of his life and far longer, and that he had been ignorant of it? That it was in need of nothing from him, from Venice, from Europe? That it was full of wonders beyond his understanding? That his arrival was a matter of no importance whatever? We know that he felt these things, and so has many a traveller in foreign parts who did not know what he was going to find. There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvellous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.
The rabbits were uneasy and confused. They crouched on the grass, sniffing the water-smells in the cooling, sunset air: and moved closer together, each hoping not to see in the others the nervousness he felt in himself. As Pipkin reached the path a great, shimmering dragon-fly, four inches long, all emerald and sable, appeared at his shoulder; hovered, droning and motionless, and was gone like lightning into the sedge. Pipkin leapt back in alarm. As he did so there came a shrill, vibrant cry and he caught sight, between the plants, of a brilliant, azure bird flashing past over the open water. A few moments later there came, from close behind the plant-hedge, the sound of a fairly heavy splash: but what creature might have made it there was no telling.
Looking round for Hazel, Pipkin caught sight of Kehaar, a little way off, standing in a patch of shallow water between two clumps of willow-herb. He was stabbing and snapping at something in the mud and after a few moments pulled out a six-inch leech and swallowed it whole. Beyond him, some distance down the path, Hazel was combing the goose-grass out of his coat and evidently listening to Fiver as they sat together under a rhododendron. Pipkin ran along the bank and joined them.
'There's nothing wrong with the place,' Fiver was saying. 'There's no more danger here than anywhere else. Kehaar's going to show us where to get across, isn't he? The thing to do is to get on with it before it gets dark.'
'They'll never stop here,' replied Hazel. 'We can't stay and wait for Bigwig in a place like this. It's unnatural for rabbits.'
'Yes, we can - calm down. They'll get used to it quicker than you think. I tell you, it's better than one or two other places we've been in. Not all strange things are bad. Would you like me to take them over? Say it's because of your leg.'
'Fine,' said Hazel. 'Hlao-roo, can you get everyone along here?'
When Pipkin had gone, he said, 'I feel troubled, Fiver. I'm asking so much of them, and there are so many risks in this plan.'
'They're a better lot than you give them credit for,' replied Fiver. 'If you were to -'
Kehaar called raucously across, startling a wren out of the bushes.
'Meester 'Azel, vat for you vait?'
'To know where to go,' answered Fiver.
'Pridge near. You go on, you see.'
Where they were, the undergrowth stood close to the green path, but beyond - downstream, as they all intuitively felt - it gave way to open parkland. Out into this they went, Hazel following Fiver.
Hazel did not know what a bridge was. It was another of Kehaar's unknown words that he did not feel up to questioning. Despite his trust in Kehaar and his respect for his wide experience, he felt still more disturbed as they came into the open. Clearly, this was some sort of man-place, frequented and dangerous. A short way ahead was a road. He could see the smooth, unnatural surface stretching away over the grass. He stopped and looked at it. At length, when he was sure that there were no men anywhere near, he went cautiously up to the verge.
The road crossed the river on a bridge about thirty feet long. It did not occur to Hazel that there was anything unusual in this. The idea of a bridge was beyond him. He saw only a line of stout posts-and-rails on either side of the road. Similarly, simple African villagers, who have never left their remote homes, may not be particularly surprised by their first sight of an aeroplane
: it is outside their comprehension. But their first sight of a horse pulling a cart will set them pointing and laughing at the ingenuity of the fellow who thought of that one. Hazel saw without surprise the road crossing the river. What worried him was that where it did so, there were only very narrow verges of short grass, offering no cover. His rabbits would be exposed to view and unable to bolt, except along the road.
'Do you think we can risk it, Fiver?' he asked.
'I can't see why you're bothered,' answered Fiver. 'You went into the farmyard and the shed where the hutch-rabbits were. This is much less dangerous. Come on - they're all watching while we hesitate.'
Fiver hopped out on the road. He looked round for a moment and then made his way to the nearer end of the bridge. Hazel followed him along the verge, keeping close beside the rail on the upstream side. Looking round, he saw Pipkin close behind. In the middle of the bridge Fiver, who was perfectly calm and unhurried, stopped and sat up. The other two joined him.
'Let's put on a bit of an act,' said Fiver. 'Make them inquisitive. They'll follow us just to see what we're looking at.'
There was no sill along the edge of the bridge: they could have walked off it into the water three feet below. From under the lowest rail they looked out, upstream, and now, for the first time, saw the whole river plainly. If the bridge had not startled Hazel, the river did. He remembered the Enborne, its surface broken by gravel spits and plant growth. The Test, a weed-cut, carefully-tended trout stream, seemed to him like a world of water. A good ten yards wide it was, fast-flowing and smooth, spangling and dazzling in the evening sun. The tree-reflections on the even current were unbroken as on a lake. There was not a reed or a plant to be seen above the water. Close by, under the left bank, a bed of crowfoot trailed downstream, the wheel-like leaves all submerged. Darker still, almost black, were the mats of water-moss, their thick masses motionless on the bed of the river and only the trailing fronds waving slowly from side to side. Waving, too, were the wider expanses of pale-green cress-weed; but these rippled with the current, lightly and quickly. The water was very clear, with a bed of clean, yellow gravel, and even in the middle was hardly four feet deep. As the rabbits stared down they could discern, here and there, a very fine scour, like smoke - chalk and powdered gravel carried along by the river as dust is blown on the wind. Suddenly, from under the bridge, with a languid movement of its flat tail, swam a gravel-coloured fish as long as a rabbit. The watchers, immediately above, could see the dark, vivid spots along its sides. Warily it hung in the current below them, undulating from side to side. It reminded Hazel of the cat in the yard. As they stared, it swam upwards with a lithe flicker and stopped just below the surface. A moment later its blunt nose thrust clear of the stream and they saw the open mouth, pure white inside. Rhythmically, without haste, it sucked down a floating sedge-fly and sank back under water. A ripple spread outwards in subsiding circles, breaking both the reflections and the transparency. Gradually the stream grew smooth and once more they saw the fish below them waving its tail as it held its place in the current.
'A water-hawk!' said Fiver. 'So they hunt and eat down there too! Don't fall in, Hlao-roo. Remember El-ahrairah and the pike.'
'Would it eat me?' asked Pipkin, staring.
'There may be creatures in there that could,' said Hazel. 'How do we know? Come on, let's get across. What would you do if a hrududu came?'
'Run,' said Fiver simply, 'like this.' And he scurried off the farther end of the bridge into the grass beyond.