To read or not to read...a #Furread!
The Readwatchplay theme for August reading is #furreads, a theme that includes books about animals! This classic book is one you are sure to have heard of, it may well be one of your favourite reads!
To read or not to read... that is the question! Read the opening paragraphs of this book and you decide!
The primroses were over.
Towards the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to
an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale
yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side
of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit-holes. In places
the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry
droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards
away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide,
half-choked with king-cups, water-cress and blue brook-lime. The cart-track
crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate
in the thorn hedge. The gate led into
the lane.
The May sunset was red in clouds, and there was still half an
hour to twilight. The dry slope was dotted with rabbits-some nibbling at the
thin grass near their holes, others pushing further down to look for dandelions
or perhaps a cowslip that the rest had missed. Here and there one sat upright
on an ant heap and looked about, with ears erect and nose in the wind. But a
blackbird singing undisturbed on the outskirts of the wood, showed that there
was nothing alarming there, and in the other direction along the brook, all was
plain to be seen, empty and quiet. The warren was at peace.
At the top of the bank, close to the wild cherry where the
blackbird sang, was a little group of holes almost hidden by brambles. In the
green half-light, at the mouth of one of these holes, two rabbits were sitting
together side by side. At length the larger of the two came out, slipped along
the bank under cover of the brambles and so down into the ditch and up into the
field. A few moments later the other followed.
The first rabbit
stopped at a sunny patch and scratched his ear with rapid movements of his hind
leg. Although he was a yearly and still below full weight, he had not the harassed
look of most “outskirters”-that is the rank and file of ordinary rabbits in
their first year, who lacking either aristocratic parentage or unusual size and
strength, get sat on by their elders and live as best they can-often in the
open-on the edge of their warren. He looked as though he knew how to take care
of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked
around and rubbed both front paws over his nose. As soon as he was satisfied
that all was well, he laid back his ears and set to work on the grass.
To keep reading this book, request it from the Library!
