"O El-ahrairah!" thought Hazel. "These are rabbits we're going to meet. You know them as well as you know us. Let it be the right thing that I'm doing."

"Now, brace up, Fiver!" he said aloud. "We're waiting for you, and getting wetter every moment."

A soaking bumblebee crawled over a thistle bloom, vibrated its wings for a few seconds and then flew away down the field. Hazel followed, leaving a dark track behind him over the silvered grass.

The corner of the opposite wood turned out to be an acute point. Beyond it, the ditch and trees curved back again in a re-entrant, so that the field formed a bay with a bank running all the way round. It was evident now why Cowslip, when he left them, had gone among the trees. He had simply run in a direct line from their holes to his own, passing on his way through the narrow strip of woodland that lay between. Indeed, as Hazel turned the point and stopped to look about him, he could see the place where Cowslip must have come out. A clear rabbit track led from the bracken, under the fence and into the field. In the bank on the further side of the bay the rabbit holes were plain to see, showing dark and distinct in the bare ground. It was as conspicuous a warren as could well be imagined.

"Sky above us!" said Bigwig. "Every living creature for miles must know that's there! Look at all the tracks in the grass, too! Do you think they sing in the morning, like the thrushes?"

"Perhaps they're too secure to bother about concealing themselves," said Blackberry. "After all, the home warren was fairly plain to be seen."

"Yes, but not like that! A couple of hrududil could go down some of those holes."

"So could I," said Dandelion. "I'm getting dreadfully wet."

As they approached, a big rabbit appeared over the edge of the ditch, looked at them quickly and vanished into the bank. A few moments later two others came out and waited for them. They, too, were sleek and unusually large.

"A rabbit called Cowslip offered us shelter here," said Hazel. "Perhaps you know that he came to see us?"

Both rabbits together made a curious, dancing movement of the head and front paws. Apart from sniffing, as Hazel and Cowslip had done when they met, formal gestures-except between mating rabbits-were unknown to Hazel and his companions. They felt mystified and slightly ill at ease. The dancers paused, evidently waiting for some acknowledgment or reciprocal gesture, but there was none.

"Cowslip is in the great burrow," said one of them at length. "Would you like to follow us there?"

"How many of us?" asked Hazel.

"Why, all of you," answered the other, surprised. "You don't want to stay out in the rain, do you?"

Hazel had supposed that he and one or two of his comrades would be taken to see the Chief Rabbit-who would probably not be Cowslip, since Cowslip had come to see them unattended-in his burrow, after which they would all be given different places to go to. It was this separation of which he had been afraid. He now realized with astonishment that there was apparently a part of the warren underground which was big enough to contain them all together. He felt so curious to visit it that he did not stop to make any detailed arrangements about the order in which they should go down. However, he put Pipkin immediately behind him. "It'll warm his little heart for once," he thought, "and if the leaders do get attacked, I suppose we can spare him easier than some." Bigwig he asked to bring up the rear. "If there's any trouble, get out of it," he said, "and take as many as you can with you." Then he followed their guides into one of the holes in the bank.

The run was broad, smooth and dry. It was obviously a highway, for other runs branched off it in all directions. The rabbits in front went fast and Hazel had little time to sniff about as he followed. Suddenly he checked. He had come into an open place. His whiskers could feel no earth in front and none was near his sides. There was a good deal of air ahead of him-he could feel it moving-and there was a considerable space above his head. Also, there were several rabbits near him. It had not occurred to him that there would be a place underground where he would be exposed on three sides. He backed quickly and felt Pipkin at his tail. "What a fool I was!" he thought. "Why didn't I put Silver there?" At this moment he heard Cowslip speaking. He jumped, for he could tell that he was some way away. The size of the place must be immense.

"Is that you, Hazel?" said Cowslip. "You're welcome, and so are your friends. We're glad you've come."

No human beings, except the courageous and experienced blind, are able to sense much in a strange place where they cannot see, but with rabbits it is otherwise. They spend half their lives underground in darkness or near-darkness, and touch, smell and hearing convey as much or more to them than sight. Hazel now had the clearest knowledge of where he was. He would have recognized the place if he had left at once and come back six months later. He was at one end of the largest burrow he had ever been in; sandy, warm and dry, with a hard, bare floor. There were several tree roots running across the roof and it was these that supported the unusual span. There was a great number of rabbits in the place-many more than he was bringing. All had the same rich, opulent smell as Cowslip.

Cowslip himself was at the other end of the hall and Hazel realized that he was waiting for him to reply. His own companions were still coming out of the entrance burrow one by one and there was a good deal of scrabbling and shuffling. He wondered if he ought to be very formal. Whether or not he could call himself a Chief Rabbit, he had had no experience of this sort of thing. The Threarah would no doubt have risen to the occasion perfectly. He did not want to appear at a loss or to let his followers down. He decided that it would be best to be plain and friendly. After all, there would be plenty of time, as they settled down in the warren, to show these strangers that they were as good as themselves, without risking trouble by putting on airs at the start.

"We're glad to be out of the bad weather," he said. "We're like all rabbits-happiest in a crowd. When you came over to see us in the field, Cowslip, you said your warren wasn't large, but judging by the holes we saw along the bank, it must be what we'd reckon a fine, big one."

As he finished he sensed that Bigwig had just entered the hall, and knew that they were all together again. The stranger rabbits seemed slightly disconcerted by his little speech and he felt that for some reason or other he had not struck the right note in complimenting them on their numbers. Perhaps there were not very many of them after all? Had there been disease? There was no smell or sign of it. These were the biggest and healthiest rabbits he had ever met. Perhaps their fidgeting and silence had nothing to do with what he had said? Perhaps it was simply that he had not spoken very well, being new to it, and they felt that he was not up to their fine ways? "Never mind," he thought. "After last night I'm sure of my own lot. We wouldn't be here at all if we weren't handy in a pinch. These other fellows will just have to get to know us. They don't seem to dislike us, anyway."

There were no more speeches. Rabbits have their own conventions and formalities, but these are few and short by human standards. If Hazel had been a human being he would have been expected to introduce his companions one by one and no doubt each would have been taken in charge as a guest by one of their hosts. In the great burrow, however, things happened differently. The rabbits mingled naturally. They did not talk for talking's sake, in the artificial manner that human beings-and sometimes even their dogs and cats-do. But this did not mean that they were not communicating; merely that they were not communicating by talking. All over the burrow, both the newcomers and those who were at home were accustoming themselves to each other in their own way and their own time; getting to know what the strangers smelled like, how they moved, how they breathed, how they scratched, the feel of their rhythms and pulses. These were their topics and subjects of discussion, carried on without the need of speech. To a greater extent than a human in a similar gathering, each rabbit, as he pursued his own fragment, was sensitive to the trend of the whole. After a time, all knew that the concourse was not going to turn sour or break up in a fight. Just as a battle begins in a state of equilibrium between the two sides, which gradually alters one way or the other until it is clear that the balance has tilted so far that the issue can no longer be in doubt-so this gathering of rabbits in the dark, beginning with hesitant approaches, silences, pauses, movements, crouchings side by side and all manner of tentative appraisals, slowly moved, like a hemisphere of the world into summer, to a warmer, brighter region of mutual liking and approval, until all felt sure that they had nothing to fear. Pipkin, some way away from Hazel, crouched at his ease between two huge rabbits who could have broken his back in a second, while Buckthorn and Cowslip started a playful scuffle, nipping each other like kittens and then breaking off to comb their ears in a comical pretense of sudden gravity. Only Fiver sat alone and apart. He seemed either ill or very much depressed, and the strangers avoided him instinctively.