Things seemed to have sorted themselves out, but for a day or two afterwards, Tansy felt nervous. Then she noticed that a few of the does had begun digging in earnest on the railway embankment, and that if anyone was helping them, it was Bramble. This came as a great relief, for the present situation and for the future of the warren.

Tansy kept an eye on Knapweed, and didn't see him digging with any does, but she noticed that he and Poppy often went out together to silflay. She didn't know whether they were going to mate with each other, but with only him and Bramble to choose between, it seemed very likely. As for herself, she was glad that her time had not come, for she couldn't imagine mating with either of those bucks, though for very different reasons. She began to wonder whether there might not be any more rabbits nearby, though it was hardly worth her going to search for them, as El-ahrairah had once done when all the does in the land were being kept prisoner by the infamous General. How did that story go again? He had befriended a great white bird, who had gone to find them...

'Tansy!'

Disturbed from her thoughts as she lay half-asleep in her burrow, Tansy looked up at the sound of her name. Poppy was coming down the run, with Knapweed behind her.

'Tansy,' Poppy said again, urgently, 'where's Willow-rah?'

'She's at silflay, I suppose, or else in some other burrow.' Usually, they shared this one, which they had dug together despite having no immediate idea of bearing litters. Then a horrible thought occurred to Tansy, and she woke fully. 'Unless you're afraid one of the cats...?'

'No, no!' Poppy was impatient. 'It's nothing so serious. Just a hlessi.'

'A hlessi?' Tansy put her head down. 'That is nothing serious. You've got yourself very worked up over nothing, Poppy.'

'She does that, you know,' said Knapweed. 'Still, I think Willow-rah should know about this rabbit. It looks like a buck...'

'Oh yes?' Tansy raised her head again.

'...but he isn't like 's... well, why don't you see for yourself?'

'I believe I will,' said Tansy.

She had imagined that seeing the stray rabbit would mean talking to him, but as it turned out, it wasn't as simple as that. He was feeding further out than any of the warren rabbits had dared to venture, at a patch of grass across one of the tracks that were trod often by humans and sometimes by hrududil. There was more than enough grass near the fence to prevent the rabbits from ever going near those tracks, much less crossing them.

'You see?' said Poppy. 'He doesn't seem to be afraid at all.'

'He looks a healthy specimen, doesn't he?' said Knapweed. 'You'd think anything hunting for food would want him. I suppose he might be a bit too big for a cat to bother about.'

'Strange colour, too,' said Poppy, for even at that distance, he was visibly white.

Tansy made up her mind. 'I'm going to talk to him.'

'You're going all the way over there?' said Knapweed.

'Why not?' said Tansy, trying to feel as brave as she sounded. 'The humans around here really aren't interested in us, and if you see anything dangerous, you'll stamp.'

So saying, she ran over to the white rabbit at speed, not giving herself a chance to change her mind. She stopped some yards distant of the strange rabbit, standing downwind, and took in his smell. He was a buck all right, and a healthy one, as Knapweed had observed. He didn't seem to have noticed Tansy, as he kept on nibbling the grass as though he hadn't a care in the world.

'Hello,' she said.

The rabbit stopped eating and twitched his could see now that he had a few black patches on his white fur. He was unlike any other rabbit she had ever known.

'Hello,' he answered in accented Lapine. 'Another rabbit, eh? I haven't seen one of those in... oh, I can't remember!'

'Really?' said Tansy. 'You are that much on your own?'

'They keep me on my own,' said the rabbit.

'Who do?'

'The humans.'

Tansy was struck dumb. The other rabbit thought nothing of this, but kept on feeding.

'I don't understand,' Tansy said at last. 'What humans?'

'They keep me in a box,' said the rabbit. 'In their garden.'

'Why?'

'The small one... I'm her rabbit, or so she thinks. But I can get out of the box very nearly as often as I like.'

Tansy thought for a moment. The humans, then, kept this rabbit as some kind of ward and looked after him, in their own inadequate way. The idea sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had heard it before.

'How many times have you been out of the human garden?' she asked.

'Hrair,' the white rabbit said carelessly.

'Do you always come here?'

'Often. I sometimes go to the other human gardens, but that means getting put back in my box more quickly. If I really want to stretch my legs, I come here. There's nowhere else.'

'I see,' said Tansy, although she wasn't at all sure that was true. 'But you don't have any holes to bolt to. Aren't you afraid of elil?'

'I'm not particularly afraid of anything.' He wasn't boasting, only stating a fact. 'What are elil?'

This was truly shocking. 'But you must know! The Thousand... dogs, cats, foxes, hrududil...'

'The hrududil stop for me,' said the rabbit.

'I don't believe you!'

'Don't you? It's true, all the same.'

Well, thought Tansy, perhaps it was. As for dogs, cats and foxes, he seemed to have no thought in his head about those, although he must have seen the cats and dogs kept by other humans, as his own humans kept him. Was he truly not afraid of them?

'What's your name?' asked Tansy.

'Snowy,' he answered.

'Snowy? As in, that dreadful stuff that covers the grass in winter?'

'The human child gave it to me. I've never seen another rabbit since she had me, so I've never needed a better name than hers. Won't it do for you?'

'Oh yes, it'll do,' said Tansy. 'My name is Tansy. Over there, watching us, are my friend Poppy and my brother Knapweed. We live wild here, in the bank on both sides of the fence.'

'I think I smelled you,' said Snowy. 'I wondered about it at the time.'

'You really have been the only rabbit around here, haven't you?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Well, now that we're here, we'd like you to be our friend.'

'That's kind of you,' said Snowy. 'Thank you.'

He sounded neither pleased nor displeased, just as he sounded about everything else. In fact, if anything, he sounded bored.

'I think I'll go back to my friends now,' said Tansy. 'You can come and see us any time you wish.'

'That would certainly make a change,' said Snowy. Then he wandered off to nibble at another patch of grass.

Tansy returned to Knapweed and Poppy, and told them about Snowy and his box. Knapweed was nonplussed, but Poppy thought she knew all about such things. She even had a special word for the box.

'El-ahrairah had some hutch rabbits to live with him once,' she said. 'Haven't you heard that story?'

'I don't think so,' said Tansy.

'Never,' said Knapweed.

'You must at least know about when the General had all the does prisoner,' said Poppy.

'Yes, of course,' said Tansy.

'Well,' Poppy went on, 'while Rabscuttle was at the General's warren, finding out about him, El-ahrairah got some does out of one of those hutches, just to get things started.'

'And to show off, I should think,' said Knapweed. 'El-ahrairah loves to do that.'

'This Snowy fellow can get out on his own,' said Tansy. 'And then he wanders round here until some human or other comes and takes him back.'

'Goodness!' said Poppy. 'But what about elil?'

'What about elil?' said Tansy. 'He's been very lucky, and he doesn't seem to realise it.'

'Human,' Knapweed said suddenly, retreating towards the fence a little. He was still wary of them, despite their lack of interest.

Really, the humans weren't at all interesting themselves, and most of the rabbits had come to regard them as a useless and unattractive part of the scenery. What this human did, however, was very interesting. It saw Snowy, frowned at him for some minutes, then walked over to him and lifted him into its arms. Snowy twitched and kicked for a moment, then went still. He was about to go unprotestingly back to his box.

'Do you suppose,' said Knapweed, as he watched the rabbit carried off by the human, 'he doesn't very much care whether he lives or dies?'

'If he doesn't,' said Tansy, 'then there really is very little true rabbit left in him.'

'I shouldn't think it's that,' said Poppy. 'I think he's probably just very, very stupid.'

Willow was told about Snowy during evening silflay, with Bramble by her had decided to content himself with being Captain of Willow's Owsla, to which no one had any objections.

'I suppose he isn't any kind of threat?' said Bramble. 'If he lives with humans, they won't think we're going to give him a disease or something, and wipe us all out?'

'How?' said Poppy. 'With the white blindness? That would be counter-productive.'

'It's been a long time since I've heard of any rabbit having the white blindness,' said Willow, 'and besides, these humans don't seem to care don't grow flayrah here, so they don't worry about what we'll do to it, I suppose. And as for this hutch fellow, I can't think he's a threat to us or we to him.'

'Not worth bothering about, then,' said Bramble. 'But I'll fight him if you want me to, Willow-rah.'

'Don't you dare!' said Tansy.

'He might be as big as you, Bramble,' said Knapweed, 'but I believe even I have more idea of how to fight than he does.'

'You fight him, then,' said Bramble. 'I'd be very curious to see that.'

'No one is to fight him,' said Willow.

'Pity,' said Bramble. 'Well, never mind. Things will liven up around here when my sons are grown.'

Unsurprisingly, a great many sons were born to Bramble that year, and daughters too. Poppy and Knapweed also produced a litter, and Knapweed worried about Bramble's young bucks bullying them, as they were sure to be small.

Poppy was dismissive of that. 'My kittens, bullied? Does that sound likely to you?'

As for Tansy, she gave birth to the last litter of the season, when the days were bright and the nights were cold. There was little evidence of their strange paternity, either in temperament or outward appearance, but one doe kitten had fur that grew both brown and white in patches. Tansy called her Snowdrop, a name similar to her father's yet traditionally Lapine. The other young rabbits wondered about her unusual colouring, and those inclined to bullying made much of it, but their mothers were always quick to quash such behaviour. Poppy in particular was fond of saying to her young, 'Don't you know that if you behave like that, the General will get you?'

Snowy reappeared every now and then, including at the start of the next mating season, at which time he seemed to cheer up considerably. Then, one day, Tansy realised she hadn't seen him for more than half a year. She spoke to Willow about it.

'I don't think we'll see him again now. In fact, I'm sure of it.'

'Perhaps they made his hutch stronger,' said Willow.

'I don't think so, Willow-rah,' said Tansy. 'I have a very definite feeling that he's dead.'

'You aren't usually one to go in for "feelings", Tansy.'

'I suppose not. Still, it seems likely, doesn't it?'

'Well,' said Willow, 'it doesn't matter to us. We've plenty of bucks here now. Some of them are his grandchildren. He was a help getting things started, wasn't he?'

'Yes,' said Tansy. 'Let's make sure he's remembered.