Watership Down by Richard Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

"Frithrah, yes, I see!" said an excited voice at his ear. It was Fiver. "Quick, Hazel, don't wait! Come on, and bring Pipkin!"
            It was Blackberry who bullied the stupefied Pipkin to his feet and forced him to limp the few yards to the gravel spit. The piece of wood, hardly bigger than a large rhubarb leaf, was lightly aground. Blackberry almost drove Pipkin onto it with his claws. Pipkin crouched shivering and Fiver followed him aboard.
            "Who's strong?" said Blackberry. "Bigwig! Silver! Push it out!"
            No one obeyed him. All squatted, puzzled and uncertain. Blackberry buried his nose in the gravel under the landward edge of the board and raised it, pushing. The board tipped. Pipkin squealed and Fiver lowered his head and splayed his claws. Then the board righted itself and drifted out a few feet into the pool with the two rabbits hunched upon it, rigid and motionless. It rotated slowly and they found themselves staring back at their comrades.
            "Frith and Inlé!" said Dandelion. "They're sitting on the water! Why don't they sink?"
            "They're sitting on the wood and the wood floats, can't you see?" said Blackberry. "Now we swim over ourselves. Can we start, Hazel?"
            During the last few minutes Hazel had been as near to losing his head as he was ever to come. He had been at his wits' end, with no reply to Bigwig's scornful impatience except his readiness to risk his own life in company with Fiver and Pipkin. He still could not understand what had happened, but at least he realized that Blackberry wanted him to show authority. His head cleared.
            "Swim," he said. "Everybody swim."
            He watched them as they went in. Dandelion swam as well as he ran, swiftly and easily. Silver, too, was strong. The others paddled and scrambled over somehow, and as they began to reach the other side, Hazel plunged. The cold water penetrated his fur almost at once. His breath came short and as his head went under he could hear a faint grating of gravel along the bottom. He paddled across awkwardly, his head tilted high out of the water, and made for the figwort. As he pulled himself out, he looked round among the sopping rabbits in the alders.
            "Where's Bigwig?" he asked.
            "Behind you," answered Blackberry, his teeth chattering.
            Bigwig was still in the water, on the other side of the pool. He had swum to the raft, put his head against it and was pushing it forward with heavy thrusts of his back legs. "Keep still," Hazel heard him say in a quick, gulping voice. Then he sank. But a moment later he was up again and had thrust his head over the back of the board. As he kicked and struggled, it tilted and then, while the rabbits watched from the bank, moved slowly across the pool and grounded on the opposite side. Fiver pushed Pipkin onto the stones and Bigwig waded out beside them, shivering and breathless.
            "I got the idea once Blackberry had shown us," he said. "But it's hard to push it when you're in the water. I hope it's not long to sunrise. I'm cold. Let's get on."
            There was no sign of the dog as they made haste through the alders and up the field to the first hedgerow. Most of them had not understood Blackberry's discovery of the raft and at once forgot it. Fiver, however, came over to where Blackberry was lying against the stem of a blackthorn in the hedge.
            "You saved Pipkin and me, didn't you?" he said. "I don't think Pipkin's got any idea what really happened; but I have."
            "I admit it was a good idea," replied Blackberry. "Let's remember it. It might come in handy again sometime."
     
     
    *Stinking--the word for the smell of a fox.
     
     
     
    9.       The Crow and the Beanfield
     
    With the beanflower's boon,
    And the blackbird's tune,
    And May, and June!
     
    Robert Browning, De Gustibus
     
     
    The sun rose while