The three rabbits were returning down the bank of the stream and had not yet seen Hazel and the others. They passed below them, into the narrower part of the field between the two copses, and it was not until Acorn had been sent half-way down the slope to attract their attention that they turned and came up to the ditch.
"I don’t think there’s going to be much to trouble us here, Hazel," said Bigwig. "The farm’s a good way away and the fields between don’t show any signs of elil at all. There’s a man-track -- in fact, there are several and they look as though they were used a good deal. Scent’s fresh and there are the ends of those little white sticks that they bum in their mouths But that’s all for the best, I reckon. We keep away from the men and the men frighten the elil away."
"Why do the men come, do you suppose?" asked Fiver.
"Who knows why men do anything? They may drive cows or sheep m the fields, or cut wood in the copses. What does it matter? I'd rather dodge a man than a stoat or a fox."
Richard Adams, from Watership Down
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