It was late that night when every rabbit, including Kehaar and Hannah, were sleeping peacefully in their newly dug up burrows until Lily, who shared a burrow with Bigwig for obvious reasons, cocked an ear when she overheard two rabbits talking in one of the burrows. She recognized the voices belonged to Hazel and Fiver, as the two brothers were engaged in private conversation.
"I want her free, but Bigwig is right. The fear is taking all of me." Hazel was talking about Clover, and his failure to free her from that hutch of a prison.
"What are you afraid of, brother?" asked Fiver.
"It's Holly, ever since he told about what the humans did to the old warren, I've not been able to stop thinking about it. It follows me into my dreams. What if it breaks me?"
"I'll just have to put you back together again."
Lily smiled warmly at the younger brother's solace toward his elder brother. She wished of having a sister of her own to share secrets with or comfort her when there's trouble.
After a moment of silence, Hazel suggested, "I'd feel a lot better about going back in there if you'd see something."
"No, I don't want to go beyond anymore," Fiver refused. "Just as the weight of knowing what's past is crushing you, so am I crushed, by the weight of knowing what may become."
"All right," Hazel apologized. "I'm sorry."
"If I ask you of this, you'll never ask me again..." Fiver said, his voice oddly calm. "Leave me."
All of a sudden, Lily could hear Fiver drawing in a sharp gasp and started to moan in agony. The doe grew concerned, even though she knew the visions started in Fiver's head. If only she knew what vision he predicted, it would make her feel better. She was glad his voice didn't awaken the entire warren, probably every rabbit here is a heavy sleeper.
After what seemed like forever, Fiver ceased his moaning and groaning when Hazel managed to snap him out of it. "Fiver? FIVER! It's alright. What did you see?"
"I don't know... I don't..." Fiver stammered, seemingly trying to relax. "I couldn't see clearly enough."
"Just answer me this, if we go back, will we get the does out of there?"
There was a brief pause of silence, but then Fiver responded, "Yes."
Hazel breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you, Fiver. Now go and sleep." There was a movement of rustling and then Hazel's voice added in a sly tone, "It's going to be a busy night."
Lily's eyebrows lowered. Her leader was creating a secret plot, and Fiver knew something that he wouldn't confide in his brother about. If the hutch does were freed, would there be a devastating consequence to their farm raid. Instincts told Lily to go help Hazel in his secret midnight plan. Casting one last glance at the dozing Bigwig, she tiptoed out of her burrow and her movement startled Hazel for a moment.
"Oh! Lily, why are you awake?" he asked.
"I'm coming with you," she replied.
"Uhhh, to where?" Hazel pretended that he had no idea of what she talked about.
"To Nuthanger Farm," Lily responded, her brows furrowed. "I'm going to help you free those does. You can't do it alone."
"I appreciate your help, Lily, but you are not coming. I can't have you doing something foolish and Bigwigish." Hazel refused, trying to sound mature and stern at her.
"Frith forbid." Then, Lily began to smirk mischievously. "If you don't let me come along, I'll have to tell everyone by shouting it at the top of my lungs." She wriggled her eyebrows craftily.
Hazel gawked at the doe, appalled at her attempt to blackmail him. "You wouldn't dare! I'm trying not to risk other lives in case they get-" There was no use arguing with her as the doe opened her mouth to ready her loud announcement to the entire warren of his secret plan. Slamming a paw on her mouth, Hazel realized that he had no other choice but allowed Lily to tag along. "All right, you can come," he relented.
"Great! Let's go!" Ecstatic, Lily rushed out of the burrow while playfully shoving Hazel along.
Once outside the warren, Hazel halted to give the doe a stern lecture, warning, "But you need to be extremely careful, Lily! We need to be wary of cats or dogs or humans! Understand?"
Lily nodded in understanding. "I have grown up on a farm, so I might know some things on how to get in and out of it."
After trotting down the hill, Hazel felt that perhaps it was a good idea to have brought Lily along, given her experience of living on a farm, just so long as nothing will go wrong.
No sooner had the two rabbits have left Watership Down, Bigwig had woken up to find no warmth of his beloved doe's body beside him. Eyes shot open in alarm, believing something bad happened to her. Catching a whiff of her scent, it lead him out of the burrow to Hazel's and Fiver's burrow, where the runt made anxious groaning sounds in his sleep.
"Fiver, wake up!" the lion buck demanded, shaking the runt roughly to awaken him. "Where's Hazel? And where's Lily?"
Before Fiver could answer, his vision repeated as if he was in pain. "Run fast, run hard! The Black Rabbit races across the yard... a noise... blood spilling!"
Again, those words left Bigwig in a dreaded shock, but he kept his poker face on. "Does that have anything to do with Hazel and Lily?"
"I... I don't know..." Fiver sighed, "but I fear there will be danger when they-"
"They what?" Bigwig's eyes blazed savagely as he cornered the runt back against the wall, interrogating him. "Where did they go?"
"To the farm!" blurted Fiver, thankfully not loud enough to wake up the other rabbits. "I had a vision of broken human objects, a gunshot, the hutch rabbits running, long pieces of rope come shooting out of nowhere, blood dripping from an open hole where a rabbit lies inside!"
"And you didn't say one word of this to Hazel or Lily?!" Bigwig scorned, his emotions grasping at him if Lily was the mystery rabbit in the hole, probably bleeding to death.
"I never want to go beyond anymore! The weight of knowing what's past is crushing him, so I am crushed as well, by the weight of knowing what may become!" Fiver exclaimed, as he repeated what he told his older brother. "And I don't know if the bleeding rabbit in the hole is either Hazel or Lily!"
"Ugh! Just like all your visions, clear as mud!" Bigwig grunted, shaking his head disapprovingly. "Why did Hazel do it? What leader risks his life and others for nothing?"
"Not for nothing, but for Clover."
It was now Bigwig realized the reason for Hazel's reckless actions: his love for Clover. He's risking everything to free Clover and the does to ensure everyone's futures, especially his own future with Clover. Bigwig would have criticized Hazel's actions, but he thought back to his own selfish actions in the name of love when it comes to Lily. He risked everything to protect her, but he behaved like a possessive and jealous monster trying to keep her for himself. Luckily, Bigwig had seen the light when the mist lifted at Cowslip's warren. She risked everything to save his life in the name of love, and he was forever grateful to her.
"We must go after them," suggested Fiver.
"You're right." Bigwig nodded, his eyes gleamed in determination.
Arriving at Nuthanger farm, Hazel and Lily sneak past the open gate and entered the yard. No cats, so far. The two dogs snored in their kennels. Finding the shed where Hazel found the hutch does, the two rabbits were stunned to find the cage, where the does were contained, gone.
"What the Fr-" Hazel came close to a curse.
"Watch your language!" Lily scolded.
Climbing inside an empty hutch box, Hazel and Lily found the door open and started sniffing the hutch floor to find Clover's scent or the others. There was no scent. Looking around, the two rabbits discovered the cage containing the hutch rabbits has been moved into a greenhouse inside the farm house. Leaving the shed, both rabbits peeked in through the glass of the greenhouse. Their suspicions were correct; Clover and the does were inside their hutch. Tiptoeing past where the sleeping dogs lay, they crept inside the small doggie door that brought them to a kitchen.
Inside the house, Lily is aware of her surroundings of where to go and figuring out where to find the greenhouse, whilst Hazel remained deeply wary. Seven sets of shoes were set in place by the door beneath several coats or jackets. The humans who live in the house are known as the Cane family; the head farmer called Tom, his wife called Barbara, their son called Alan who is outside with two of his farmhands John and Billy, Alan's wife Kathy had already retired to bed upstairs, and the child of Alan and Kathy is known by all as Lucy. A strange music played on a nearby television in the living room, where Barbara sat in a comfy chair to doze. In the kitchen, Lily carefully backed away from a knife that stuck on the cutting board on top of the refrigerator, and Hazel gasped in horror at the picture of a dead, skinned rabbit hanging upside down.
"I hope Lucy doesn't grow up to be like the humans who raise her." Lily was disgusted at the humans for portraying such a photo when they have a child who loves rabbits, it's as if they're reminding her how they never cared about how she felt about the hutch rabbits.
The elderly human woman snored on the chair, and Tabitha was asleep in a basket by the warn fireplace. Keeping as silent as ever, Hazel and Lily crept passed the cat to reach the greenhouse, but a slight bit of noise woke up the surprised cat, who at first couldn't see anything around her.
Entering the greenhouse, Hazel ecstatically rushed toward the cage where Clover, who had slept until she woke up at the presence of familiar rabbits. Lily's tail wagged happily upon catching Clover's scent.
"Well, you just keep coming back, don't you?" the white and brown doe smiled.
"Well I suppose I must like you a little bit," Hazel replied, affectionately placing his nose at the cage wires to touch Clover's nose.
"Hello, Clover," Lily greeted, excitedly. "It's so good to see you again."
"Lily, I'm so glad you came back!" exclaimed Clover, her tail wagging as excitedly as the wild doe outside the cage.
Hazel interrupted as he wanted to cut to the chase. "I take it then you're in here because of what we did to the door."
"They pushed pieces of metal pegs in to hold it in place," Clover explained. "If you can get them out and we push it from inside, I think it will give."
Working together, Hazel and Lily removed the metal nails from the pegs.
"It's out." Hazel nodded.
"On the count of three, you does push the door open," Lily ordered.
"After three... one... two... three..." Clover gave command to the four does in the hutch.
The does pushed against the door with all of their strength, and the door gives way just a bit, though the noise could have alerted the humans or the cat, but no one came into the greenhouse.
"Come on, Clover. It's time," Hazel urged.
Hesitating for a moment, Clover crawled out of the hutch door and approached the two wild rabbits.
"We need to move quickly," Hazel cautioned. "The human and the cat are in the room with a fire."
"Mostly, it's called a living room and the small fire is called a fireplace," Lily corrected.
The does came out of the cage shortly afterword, although they started to sniff and explore their surroundings.
"So, we're free now?" asked Clover, hopefully.
"Not quite, we have to get outside to the fields. This isn't freedom yet." Hazel stopped, noticing the hutch rabbits sniffing at the random objects in the greenhouse. "What the Frith are you doing? Laurel, try and concentrate!"
Suddenly, the does had gone tharn. There was only one explanation for it. Tab had shown up upon entering the greenhouse. She hissed and growled at the intruders, threateningly. And she didn't care when threatening the hutch does included. Hazel and Lily stood protectively in front of the does.
Without hesitating, Tabitha pounced on Hazel, forcing him on his back, but the cunning rabbit used his back legs to kick her off. The cat lunged, but she missed when Hazel leapt aside. Hazel panted, the shock of the sudden ambush wearing off. Lily was about to make sure if he was alright, until the cat pounced and pinned the helpless Hazel to the floor. She hissed at the other does to stay back or she will kill him.
"Can you run?" Tabitha taunted, cruelly. "I think not... I think not." Her hissing combined to a sadistic chuckle.
"RAAAAAAWRRR!" a familiar battle cry erupted, catching the ferocious feline off guard.
Just then, Bigwig appeared as he tackled the cat, knocking her right off the helpless rabbit and knocking her against the wall. Fiver came in, soon after.
"Bigwig!" Lily and Hazel exclaimed in union, relieved to see the lion buck had arrived in time to rescue them.
"It's good to see you," added Hazel.
"Well, I can't let you have all the fun now, can I?" Bigwig stated, then he turned to the cat as she got back up on her feet, scorning, "You're not so tough when backed into a corner, are you?"
But Tabitha had an idea, so she used her feline agility to climb on the boxes to a drawer, then she leaped on to the shelf where a vase wobbles dangerously close the edge.
"Oh no," Fiver gasped in realization.
"Oh yes," sneered Tabitha.
"Everyone run, quick!" Bigwig ordered, urging every rabbit in the green house to make a run for it.
Smirking, the cat uses her bottom to knock the vase off the shelf and the vase smashes to the floor into pieces. That was loud enough to awaken the humans inside the house.
"Fiver, come on! What on earth are you doing?" Hazel shouted, snapping his little brother out of it in time.
From inside the living, Barbara woke up and shouted, "TOM! What have you done now?" She assumed her husband was responsible for breaking something as usual, until she found unwanted visitors rushing past her feet, taking the hutch rabbits with them. "OH! Oh, my God! Lucy, get in here! Your rabbits have gone out again!"
The group of rabbits raced through the kitchen to get to the doggie door, only their path was blocked by Alan and the farmhands entering the house the second noises and shouting reached their ears, shocked by what they witnessed.
"Mother, where did these wild rabbits come from?!" shouted Alan.
"Lucy's rabbits have gone out! Best get 'em quick!" added Billy.
Luckily, Clover knew a different way out beside the doggie door. "This way!" she ordered, directing the rabbits to run into the hallway.
"Come here, you!" Barbara had reached down and caught Cornflower by the scruff of her back, as the poor rabbit dangled helplessly in her grasp, which is not the right way to hold a rabbit. "Oh, I got you!"
Hazel glanced over her shoulder, shocked at losing one of the does to the humans. He knew that he didn't stand a chance of going back to save Cornflower because he couldn't fight a human. As for Lily, she knew of Lucy's kindness and will never harm her hutch rabbits, but hoped these older humans don't try to harm the hutch rabbits.
While the rabbits bounded through hallway, Clover shouted, "Up here, quickly!" as she lead them to the staircase, just as the distant voices of humans began calling for Lucy to come help catch her escaping hutch rabbits.
Tabitha catches up to them as she nearly caught Fiver through the bars of the staircase, but she missed as the rabbits hopped up the staircase and passed the bedrooms. Clover found Lucy's bedroom with an open window and jumped on the bed, heading for the window. Bigwig kept a close eye on the snarling cat, as he made sure the rabbits make it to the window, but the rabbits screeched to a halt. The window lead to the roof of the greenhouse. There was no way to go.
"Everybody, jump!" Lily yelled, as she ushered the rabbits to go forward.
The rabbits leapt for the roof, but the cat pounced on Bigwig, engaging the lion buck in mortal combat. But the rabbits started to slide down the slippery glass roof toward the edge. Down below, the two dogs woke up and growled viciously as they tried to catch Clover, who fell off the edge and grasped her claws to the ledge, hanging dangerously over two sets of teeth waiting to chomp them.
"Clover!" Hazel cried in horror, immediately sliding down the glass roof to reach Clover and pulled her back up to safety.
There was a screech and an agitated cry when Bigwig was shoved on the roof, with Tabitha still trying to dig her claws and teeth in his throat. Both adversaries came sliding down the roof and were about to come tumbling over the edge, where the two dogs continued to jump and snap their jaws at the rabbits stuck on top.
"Bigwig!" Lily called out to him, concerned.
However, Bigwig managed to use his strong hind legs to kick Tabitha off and hurling over the ledge, but in the process he accidently kicked the cat right into Fiver, who managed to land on the top of one of the dogs' roof kennels. The cat landed on her feet on the solid earth, but the dogs turned their attention on her, barking violently. Frightened, Tabitha fled the scene to avoid the dogs, though still tied to the kennels.
"Not so clever now, are you? You embleer pfeffa!" Bigwig cursed, mocking the scared-y cat before turning to the other rabbits. "Everyone scatter, quick!"
The rabbits leapt off the glass roof's ledge to reach the kennel rooftops, then jumped to the ground, making a run for it as the two dogs tried to snatch them. They barely missed the dog's sharp teeth as they dashed across the farm yard, passing the open gate and out on the dirt road. Just then, the farmer's car drove up in attempt to stop them, and Laurel goes tharn in front of the headlights.
"Don't look into the light!" Hazel tried to snap her out of it.
And then, Barbara came out of the car and reached down to grab Laurel. "Gotcha!" she exclaimed, picking her up and held the rabbit tightly to her bosom. As Tom stepped out of the car and brandishing his shotgun, she warned, "Just make sure you don't shoot any of our Lucy's!"
"If they get shot, they get shot!" Tom scoffed, heartlessly. "They've been a blooming nuisance." He began shooting at the runaway rabbits, not caring one bit if he shoots the rest of Lucy's escaped rabbits.
His words made Lily almost freeze in mortified shock. How could the farmer be so cruel to his own grandchild's pet rabbits? How could Lucy live with such uncaring and unloving relatives? She blocked out Bigwig's cries for her to keep running as he forcibly shoved her out of the spot where a bullet struck the ground. The sound of a gun brought her back to reality, tearing across the road to reach the field as they ran farther in the distance, but another gun shot separated the rabbits from each other, terrifying them.
"Get into the ditches! Come on, now! Hide!" Hazel shouted.
Lily's ears pricked at the sound of the farmer's thick boots moving closer to them as he continued shooting at the runaway rabbits. In the midst of the chaos, Hazel and Clover separated from their group. Hazel hid among some bushes, watching the angry farmer searching for him. Suddenly Tom discovered the trembling Clover hiding in a bush, and despite the darkness, he couldn't see if she was Lucy's rabbit or a wild rabbit, still not caring whether he shot the escaped hutch rabbits. He raised his gun in attempt to shoot her.
"CLOVER!" Hazel's voice screams in the darkness, horrified to see the danger his precious doe was in, rushing out of his hiding spot and knocks himself against the farmer's boot to distract him, and to allow his darling Clover to escape.
"What the hell was that?!" Tom exclaimed in surprise, then he aimed his gun at the culprit who struck his boot. "Right, you little...!"
Seconds after, a gunshot goes off. Hazel squeals in agony when a painful blast tore at his lower hip. The impact of the shot forced him tumbling into a ditch close to a drain pipe. Hearing the gunshot, the rabbits had frozen on the spot. Tom approached the ditch, shining his torch, or rather flashlight, to scan the area and make sure he got his target.
"Better not shoot one of Lucy's," warned Barbara, his wife.
"It was a wild one," huffed Tom, and then he found a trail of blood in the ditch, but no wild rabbit. "Blood... I told you I shot it."
"Come on, now. It's late," Barbara called. "If he's out there, you'll find him in the morning."
While the humans returned to the house with the recaptured Laurel and Cornflower, the escaped does remained in the field with a terribly worried Lily looking after them. Bigwig and Fiver kept searching high and low in the fields for Hazel, but there was no sign of him.
"We've searched everywhere," Bigwig reported. "There's no sign of him."
"Let's go back," Clover suggested, eagerly. "I'm going back. He might still be alive."
"No, not in the dark. Not tonight." Bigwig refused, before he gave Clover a stern lecture. "Tonight, we go back to the down. Hazel chanced his life to free you and we're not throwing that away by having you wander around in the shadow of a farmer's gun. You understand?"
"It's my fault." Fiver admitted, on the verge of tears as everyone looked at him. "I saw it... I saw it in my vision... I should've seen it was Hazel, but I didn't know."
Clover approached the heartbroken Fiver to assure him comfortingly, "The only one at fault tonight was the farmer, Fiver."
Lily shook her head in disappointed defeat. After living with Henry and his family all her life, she failed to see the truth how some humans are cruel and care nothing for wildlife or nature. Holly's story of Sandleford's destruction, Cowslip surrendering his people to hand of humans for sickening reasons, and losing Hazel to a wicked farmer was enough proof for her to open her eyes. "Hazel and Holly were right," she said brokenly, catching everyone's attention. "There's a terrible evil in the world, and it comes from Men. All other elil just do what they do to live on the earth to get food, but Men will never rest until they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals."
