Chapter 18. Thain: Near Escape 

The flock had made the rounds twice over and were a day away from home and Gladdy when a lone walker traipsed around the hillside into the valley for that day’s grazing.

 ‘Halloo!’ the old shepherd hailed, raising a hand high.

 ‘Halloo!’ echoed back, and Pippin stood to his feet, shading his eyes as the figure trudged towards them. With a sudden glad cry, he ran down the hillside on feet lightened by joy. ‘Frodo!’

 ‘Pippin!’ Frodo returned, hastily setting down his sack to embrace the dancing youth.

 ‘Frodo! It’s been so long—What are you doing here?’

 ‘That’s just it: It has been so very long,’ Frodo said. ‘No young Tooks have appeared on my doorstep to eat me out of smial and home for ever so long. Why, I wrote to Merry to scold him for keeping you so long, and he wrote back in astonishment, saying he was thinking of scolding me for the same!’

As the old shepherd came up to them, Pippin released Frodo and half-turned, saying, ‘Shepherd Brockbank, I’d like you to meet my cousin Frodo Baggins.’

 ‘At your service,’ Frodo said at once with a polite bow.

The old shepherd nodded as he returned the greeting, keen eyes taking in every detail from the cut of Frodo’s coat to the fine linen of his shirt: every inch a gentlehobbit.

 ‘ ‘Tis a pleasure to meet you, sir,’ he said, ‘after hearing so much of you from the lad.’

 ‘Not all bad, I hope,’ Frodo said with a laugh.

 ‘Are you on one of your tramps?’ Pippin asked eagerly. ‘Have you been to see the Elves?’

The old shepherd repressed a snort at the thought of Elves, and Frodo laughed again and clapped his young cousin on the back.

 ‘I am on this tramp to see you, as a matter of fact,’ he answered. ‘I went to Whittacres, to ask after you, and Paladin directed me to the Brockbanks’ and then Mrs. Brockbank...’

 ‘Gladdy,’ the old shepherd interrupted.

 ‘Eh? What’s that?’ Frodo said, momentarily diverted.

 ‘I wager she told you to call her Gladdy,’ the old shepherd said solemnly, though there was a twinkle in his eye. ‘Missus Brockbank was my mother, you see.’

Pippin noticed that the old shepherd had left his rural speech and settled into the formal tones he’d used with Paladin and the travellers they encountered in their wanderings.

 ‘She did at that,’ Frodo admitted.

 ‘Then honour your elders,’ the old hobbit intoned. ‘My wife is “Gladdy”, and you may call me Bracken, if you please, sir.’

 ‘Only if you leave off the “sir” and call me “Frodo”,’ that hobbit said. ‘ “Mr Baggins” would be my Uncle Bilbo.’

 ‘Ah,’ said the old shepherd thoughtfully. Mr Frodo Baggins certainly didn’t seem to be speaking of the dead when mentioning the departed, though Mr Bilbo Baggins had disappeared a number of years ago and not been heard of since. ‘Well, sit yourself down, Mister—Frodo, and rest your feet. We’ll be moving the flock to the fold soon enough, and you’re welcome to a bed and a bite of supper if you like.’

 ‘My thanks,’ Frodo said. The three returned to the vantage point on the hill that gave a good view of the scattered flock.

Frodo caught them up on the news of Hobbiton, Overhill, Bywater, Waymeet and Whitwell. ‘Folco’s  in a bit of a bind,’ he said, naming his Boffin relation from the first family of Waymeet. ‘It seems he got in over his head at the honey vats and nearly drowned!’

 ‘How ever did he manage that?’ Pippin said, wide-eyed.

 ‘Someone evidently put it into his head that a little mead would never be missed if he got it from the vats before it was bottled or casked,’ Frodo said. Eyeing his mischievous young cousin, he added, ‘I’m not sure he’d’ve thought of it by himself.’

 ‘Where ever do you think he got the idea?’ Pippin asked, all innocence.

 ‘I shudder to think,’ Frodo said, with a mock shiver to emphasise his words. ‘Merry, perhaps...’

 ‘O not Merry!’ Pippin protested. ‘He’d think the whole idea quite ridiculous, I’m sure!’ As he had, when Pippin had proposed the idea in the first place.

 ‘Not Merry,’ Frodo agreed with a sidelong glance. Pippin, of course, remained the picture of innocence.

 ‘Near drowned in a vat of honey?’ the old shepherd said. ‘Sounds an unpleasant end. As bad as a bog, I’d reckon.’

 ‘Nearly as unpleasant surviving, I heard,’ Frodo said solemnly. ‘He was mired chin deep, as you can imagine, and they had to drain the vat to get him out. His father was not best pleased.’ He shuddered again. ‘Good thing it wasn’t you, Pippin. You’d’ve drowned for sure. Folco’s just enough taller than you, he was able to balance on his toes and keep his face clear until he was found.'

Pippin gave a shiver of his own. It had been his plan, and Folco’s, to sneak into the mead-works in the middle night to see what treasure they might find. Folco had evidently received word that Pippin’s visit had been put off, perhaps for ever, considering Paladin’s plan to apprentice his son, and so the young Boffin had decided to try Pippin’s plan by himself.

 ‘Must’ve been a mess to clear away,’ Pippin said nonchalantly.

 ‘In more ways than you know,’ Frodo said with a meaningful look. ‘And who’s going to buy the honey, after Folco was immersed in it, I ask you?’

 ‘Folco’s da, most likely,’ Pippin said with a grin. He ducked as Frodo tousled his head as if he were a much younger hobbit.

 ‘Boffin,’ the old shepherd said reflectively. ‘Boffins of the Yale?’

 ‘A branch of that family,’ Frodo said, and the rest of the afternoon was spent pleasantly pursuing genealogies and family connexions.

That night after a simple supper, Pippin went out for the last check on the sheep before turning in. ‘I’ll accompany you,’ Frodo said. The old shepherd nodded from his seat before the fire, as he tamped his pipe and prepared for a relaxing smoke to end the day.

The auld love, seeing Pippin’s lantern, came up to the gate for a good scratching, and he was happy to oblige. As she leaned against one side of the gate, Frodo leaned on the other side and looked from ewe to young cousin. ‘Is this what you want?’ he asked at last.

 ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Pippin said.

 ‘I could talk to Paladin,’ Frodo said. ‘Certainly, you’ve pulled your share of pranks, but don’t all young hobbits? It’s as if we’re born with a quota of mischief that we must spend before we reach three-and-thirty. I know I certainly did.’

 ‘I’ve spent more than my quota,’ Pippin said. ‘I do believe I was well into the red, as a matter of fact.’

 ‘What do you know about being in the red?’ Frodo asked in surprise. ‘I’ve never heard you take an interest in business before!’

Pippin laughed. ‘I help Gladdy with the records,’ he said. ‘Her hands are twisted and painful, and she finds it difficult to hold a quill any more, and the old hobbit doesn’t read or write. I’ve learned a fair bit about managing and making do, turning a profit and watching your expenses and keeping your losses to a minimum.’

 ‘Have you?’ Frodo said, bemused by this practical talk from his carefree young cousin.

 ‘O aye,’ Pippin said. ‘Half the sheep belong to my da, you know, and the other half to old Brockbank. But when he apprentices me, come midsummer, Da will sign half his sheep over, to be held in trust for me when I come of age. Why, I’ll have a flock of my own when I’m old enough...!’

 ‘A bright future,’ Frodo said quizzically. ‘You want to be a shepherd?’

Pippin threw back his head and laughed. ‘D’you think it bothers me, to be an oddity amongst hobbits? A wanderer born, going from place to place, coming home to smial every so many days... Why, I learned such habits from the best of hobbits!’

 Frodo protested, ‘I’m not away that often! Why, I spend weeks, months at a time at home...’

 ‘And then off you go,’ Pippin said, ‘without a word to anyone, and it’s anyone’s guess if you’ll turn up again, or disappear completely as Bilbo did before you!’

Frodo chuckled and slapped Pippin on the back. ‘Kindred spirits, we are,’ he said. ‘Me with my wanderlust, and you with your curiosity. P’rhaps some day we’ll go off together and have an adventure, Tooks that we are.’

 ‘You’d need me along of a certainty,’ Pippin said stoutly. ‘For I’m much more Took than you!’

 ‘I won’t argue with that,’ Frodo said, and paused. ‘But what will you do about your place?’

Pippin looked at him for a long moment, and deflated. ‘I nearly forgot,’ he said. ‘Of course I won’t be able to go off at a moment’s notice. My da’s about to sell me, and I must fill out my obligation.’ He sighed. ‘Seven years!’

 ‘Seven years,’ Frodo said soberly, ‘after which you’ll be freed...’

 ‘But not free,’ Pippin said heavily. ‘Why, I’ll be but seven-and-twenty, still under my father’s thumb for six years more, before I come of age and may do as I like.’

 ‘I could talk to Paladin,’ Frodo said again. ‘You’re not bound, not yet. If your father doesn’t need you on the farm, you could come live with me, learn mapmaking or some such, or you could spend part of the time at Brandy Hall and learn something of mastering...’

 ‘It sounds grand,’ Pippin said wistfully, ‘but my da would never countenance such a thing. He does want me on the farm, you know, learning the land, pulling my share. In a sense I’m pulling my share here, watching over his interest in this flock, learning record-keeping and responsibility.’

 ‘There are other ways of learning responsibility,’ Frodo argued, but his young cousin shook his head.

 ‘No, Frodo, and thank you for the kind offer, but I’ve grown to like this life,’ he said. ‘I’m never bored, you know; each day is a new adventure. There are dark foes to fight,’ he gestured expressively with his crook, as if fending off a vicious dog, ‘rivers to cross, mountains to climb, damsels to rescue,’ he rubbed a little harder at the auld love’s back and she half-closed her eyes in bliss. ‘It’s a good life, and the old hobbit’s been as good as a father to me, or better.’

Frodo nodded. He’d asked about, learned as much as he could about the old shepherd before seeking out Pippin, and all reports had been more than satisfactory.

 ‘D’you know,’ Pippin added reflectively, ‘he’s never raised his voice to me, not once, in all the time I’ve been with him. And I’ve done some of the stupidest things you can imagine...’ He sighed. ‘So if it’s a choice to go back to Whittacres, to go back to the way things were, with a respite here and there, a visit to Bag End or Brandy Hall to season the sauce, well, I’d rather just spend the next seven years here, if you don’t mind.’

 ‘I see,’ Frodo said slowly.

 ‘Do you?’ Pippin said candidly.

 ‘I do,’ Frodo said. ‘It’s rather how I felt about going to live with Bilbo. Certainly there was a lot of talk, a lot of gossip, an awful lot of unpleasantness from the Sackville-Bagginses. And I did some of the stupidest things you can imagine, and Bilbo never closed his heart to me, but always welcomed me as if I was of value.’

 ‘Frodo!’ Pippin said in shock. ‘Of course you’re valued...’

 ‘Hard to believe it sometimes,’ Frodo said reflectively, ‘bouncing from pillar to post, you know. No one looking after me, really, just another young one to scold, to push out the door, to grumble about being underfoot. “Go and play, lad, and do try to keep out of trouble for once in your life!” and “That poor Baggins lad, ah but he drives me to distraction! The Hall would be better off without such a rapscallion, I say—why he’s a shame and a disgrace to the Brandybucks, and the young Master so kind to him, almost as if the lad were his own!” ’

 ‘But Auntie Ally and Uncle...’

 ‘They were kind,’ Frodo said. ‘I don’t mean to dishonour them, Pippin, but Saradoc was busy with Hall matters and Esmeralda was so very ill after Merry was born, and for a long time after. I know that they loved me, but I never belonged to them. A lot of it was my fault, of course.’

 ‘Your fault?’ Pippin said, confused. He couldn’t imagine Frodo being at fault in any matter.

Frodo smiled and patted his shoulder once more. ‘My fault,’ he said firmly, ‘and let it stand there, Pippin. I never really felt wanted, until Bilbo picked me up and took me in like a stray kitten. Made me his heir, imagine that! One of the worst young rascals of Buckland!’

 ‘And so you turned over a new leaf, to please him,’ Pippin said.

Frodo laughed. ‘Not at all!’ he said honestly. ‘I was something of a rascal for quite awhile, testing him, seeing if he really meant it, if he really wanted me, and it turned out that he did.’

He smiled in recollection, looking into the distance, and then his eyes returned to Pippin. ‘So you see, young cousin, I know a thing or two about being wanted rather than found wanting.’

Pippin nodded.

 ‘Well, I suppose we’d better take our rest,’ Frodo said. ‘Morning comes just as early as ever, whether we seek our beds early or late.’

And so they turned away from the fold and walked slowly back to the little shelter.

Though the old shepherd tried to give up his own bed to the gentlehobbit, Frodo would have none of it. He rolled up in a blanket on the sheepskin rug before the banked fire, and despite the hardness of the floor, he was the first one asleep.