Part II: Buckland
 
 
 

Chapter 1: Arrival at Brandy Hall
 
18 Rethe

When they had first begun making their plans for their visit to Brandy Hall, Pippin had suggested riding to Buckland. He had even offered to bring a couple of the Tuckborough ponies that Frodo especially favored. That would cut the travel time in half, and they could easily enough stay the night at The Floating Log Inn. They could even stop in Budgeford to visit with Fatty for a couple of hours.

But Frodo had not much liked the idea. He had, after all, been cooped up all winter, except for a brief visit to Great Smials earlier that month, and so was in a mind to stretch his legs a bit and see the country. He also had no desire for traveling the road and certainly not for staying in rowdy inns his cousin Paladin would strangle him for taking his tween son to. (He also secretly hoped they might chance upon some Elves out in the open country, and he could ask after news of his cousin Bilbo.) As for visiting Fatty, Frodo felt it best to wait until Merry was there to go with them. Then they could all enjoy a much longer visit together.

Pippin accepted this. After all, he didn’t want his older cousin to think him too soft for a three-day hike. But that didn’t seem to be any reason to go walking there like a pack pony, so he then suggested the use of at least one pony, to carry their gear and packs. To leave them free to enjoy the journey at their leisure, he wrote in his response to Frodo.

Again, Frodo would hear nothing of it. In his younger days, he had accompanied Bilbo quite often on minor treks throughout the Shire, and they had always carried their own packs. Frodo insisted his cousin have the same experience. “After all, you can’t really say you’ve taken a journey if you don’t have the pains to show for it,” he had written in his last letter to Whitwell. The sore shoulders, aching back and weary legs were all part of a proper trek, and he would not have his cousin be cheated on his first real venture out.

After that final letter, Pippin began to understand why sensible folk would call his dear cousin mad. Imagine, thinking sore muscles a good thing! But he had an adventurous spirit, being a Took and all, and had finally agreed to make the way by foot and burden. However, he was now wishing he had been more persistent about the pony. As they made camp that first night, out in the open fields of the West Farthing, he almost wanted to cry from exhaustion.

The walk had started off leisurely enough, and the cousins had chatted about the different goings-on in the Shire, or regaled each other with stories and tales. Pearl, Pippin’s eldest sister, was soon expecting her first child. The experience was not one Pippin was enjoying very much.

“She goes through these mood swings. One minute, she’ll be laughing, the next crying,” he explained. “Then there’s her food cravings: peanut butter and pickles, chocolate frosting and pickles. She’s craving pickles like she’s never going to have one ever again.”

Frodo gave his cousin a knowing look. “You tried it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Pippin admitted. “The chocolate and pickles was horrendous. For a minute there, I thought I would be ill. The peanut butter and pickles actually wasn’t so bad.”

Frodo laughed. “I remember when Aunt Esme was pregnant with Merry. I don’t recall any mood swings, but she went through this phase where everything had to be raspberries. Poor Uncle Sara had to scour Buckland top to bottom to keep Brandy Hall stocked in enough raspberry preserves. To this day, I’m convinced that is why they never had a second child.”

Now it was Pippin’s turn to laugh. “That at least explains Merry’s love for raspberries though.”

Frodo nodded. “He once got me to go out in the rain and hunt down raspberries for him. I was sick for a week and he never apologized. Of course, he had just broken his arm because of me, so I suppose I owed him one.”

“He told me about that. It had been raining then too he said. And he did regret that you were ill,” Pippin added.

This brought them to other misadventures in which rain had played a part. Pippin amused Frodo greatly with one such famous tale of ‘Took madness’ as Frodo called it: during the Great Storm some years back, the hills of the Tookland had become muddy enough for a great amount of fun to be had. Some of the youngsters, led by Pippin, had spent the storm outside rather than in, and much to their mothers’ displeasures as they had come back covered head to toe in mud from their antics. Frodo shook his head as Pippin concluded the tale by recounting how they had been caught sneaking back inside by his father. ‘And they call us Bagginses mad,’ he thought to himself.

But the tale brought Sam’s warning of rain back to his mind and Frodo picked up the pace as night approached. He kept a close watch on the sky, grey and gloomy above them, and felt certain that some sort of shower would be upon them before the night was over. While he was fairly certain it wouldn’t be anything to worry over too much, he had been caught in the rain before, and he had no desire to get caught again. They needed to find a suitable camp sight and set up shelter.

Frodo led them to a small but closely-knit batch of trees that stood in the middle of the plain. He had sheltered there once before and knew the trees would provide more than enough cover without the need for any extra work on their part. The small grove was farther than he remembered however, and he and Pippin were hard set to reach it in time. As it happened, they reached the protective, sheltering branches of the trees just as the first, fat raindrops fell from the sky.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Frodo and Pippin set down their packs and got to work making a fire to cook their evening meal, Frodo pestering after Pippin the whole time to keep the young Took from falling asleep before all the work was done. For his part, Pippin gamely set about collecting firewood without so much as a whimper of complaint. He was even obliged to use the hatchet, for just as Sam had predicted, there were not many branches upon the ground. By the time he chopped off enough of the lowest branches to make a fire with, Frodo had set up camp. He now started a fire while Pippin went to retrieve some food for cooking.

It was then Pippin discovered the truth of the prank Frodo had played on him. Their packs weighed exactly the same! Imagine, Frodo making him think he was carrying the heavier pack all this time. Then a thought struck him – he would be carrying the heavier pack before too long as Frodo was carrying all the food, and the more food they ate, the less his pack would weigh. Pippin stared at the packs bemusedly; he kept forgetting that Frodo could be devious in his own way.

‘Well,’ he thought to himself, ‘we’ll see whose pack weighs the most tomorrow.’ He took out the food to be cooked, then the pots and necessary cutlery from both their packs that they would need for their meal. Then, making sure Frodo wasn’t watching, he discreetly slipped a small frying pan from his pack into Frodo’s, closed the packs up tight and returned to the fire to start preparing the food.

They ate a meager supper (by hobbit standards) in silence, listening to the soft rainfall hitting the leaves above them. Frodo often caught Pippin looking at the laid-out sleeping rolls with longing, but when asked, he claimed he was not yet ready to call it a night. Occasionally, a raindrop or two would make its way past the maze of leaves and hit the ground around them. They debated the need for making a shelter and decided quickly against it. They would be dry enough for the night just as they were.

Soon after that, Pippin lost his battle to keep his eyes open and was snoring softly, curled up gratefully in his sleeping roll. Frodo stayed up only a little while longer, finishing his tea and thinking about how wonderful it would be to see Merry again, but he was beginning to nod off himself. After the fifth time jerking his head up in less than a minute, he laughed softly and admitted defeat as he yawned widely. He had driven them both too hard those last couple of hours. Hopefully, the rain would only last the night, and they would be able to slow the pace again tomorrow.

He built up the fire one last time and settled into his sleeping roll next to his cousin and fell asleep almost instantly.
 

19 Rethe

The rain did clear up by morning and after eating a hearty breakfast they broke camp. Frodo, feeling guilty about his trick on Pippin, had attempted to redistribute the items in their packs before setting off. He knew his pack would start weighing less with each meal they ate, and his cousin was really too young to carry such a weight for two more days. Pippin, however, had adamantly refused, insisting he could handle the weight just fine. So they shouldered their packs and were on their way again as the first soft rays of sun came up over the Shire, and Frodo allowed Pippin to set the pace as he pleased.

They were only an hour out when Frodo’s shoulders began to ache. A half hour later, his back was becoming sore as well. By the time they stopped for a late second breakfast and early elevenses, he was ready to collapse from the weight of his pack. One look at Pippin’s guilty face was all it took for him to figure out the cause of his discomfort. He laughed good-naturedly as he set down his pack and stretched his back and rubbed his shoulders.

“So you found me out did you?” he said and opened his pack. “What did you put in here?” He found not only the small frying pan, but both pots from the evening and morning meals, all the cutlery and the hatchet. He laughed again. “You scamp!” he exclaimed. “Get your pack over here and let’s distribute this all fairly.”

Pippin complied immediately. He hadn’t stopped to think that the extra weight might hurt his cousin, and he was feeling quite guilty about his attempt at payback. He was glad to see Frodo had a good sense of humor about it though. He was laughing also, as they began to play-fight over who had to carry what, taking things out of their own packs and shoving them into the other.

The play ended when their stomachs reminded them of their hunger. They quickly squared away the packs and sat down to enjoy a leisurely meal. Frodo even allowed himself the luxury of a mid-day pipe before they continued on their way.

They were now in the open plains of the East Farthing, were no hobbits lived. On the horizon due east only more flat grasslands could be seen. To the far north, past the Brockenborings and almost out of eyesight, could be seen the rocky terrain of the Hills of Scary. To the south lay The Water, a small ribbon of sparkling blue running softly through the land. Frodo pointed out the paths and trails he knew from his many wanderings through the Shire, many of which were the trails drawn on Bilbo’s map that hung in Bag End’s front hall.

“When will Merry and I get to come with you on one of your little adventures?” Pippin asked, not for the first time.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe this summer, or the next,” Frodo answered evasively, not for the last time.
 

Frodo had steered them away from The Great East Road the day before, keeping The Water in view but at a great distance. Now after dinner he began to take them toward the river once again. By nightfall, they could hear its whispering flow and could just make out the mark of the Buckland border, the Brandywine Bridge, and the larger, swifter Brandywine River on the horizon.

Frodo decided to camp there, just within view of his birth land. They managed to stay awake quite a bit longer this night, and talked for close to an hour of all the things they would do once they reached Brandy Hall. There were numerous cousins to catch up on, the gardens would be in their first bloom, the river seemed to be begging for fisherman and avid swimmers, and the whole countryside was waiting to be explored anew.

And of course there was Merry, Frodo’s dearest friend next to Pippin. Merry was the first true friend Frodo remembered having. He had known Merry from infancy and practically helped to raise him. They had grown nearly inseparable over the years, Frodo teaching his young cousin all the ways of making mischief without getting caught – and he knew many – and telling him the tales of their cousin Bilbo late into the night.

The parting had been sore for them both when it came time for Frodo to leave for Hobbiton, but they had kept in touch over the years, with endless letters and numerous visits. As time went by, they had set a sort of pattern. Merry would come to visit for Yule, again in the spring for the first two weeks of Astron, and of course in Halimath for Frodo’s birthday. Frodo would return the favor in Thrimidge for Merry’s birthday, then in summer for the Lithe and Midyear celebrations, and again at harvest.

Once Pippin became a permanent fixture in their group, right around the time of Frodo’s coming of age, the pattern had been rearranged to accommodate their young friend. They started spending Lithe in Whitwell and added to the schedule of get-togethers the first two weeks of Rethe for Pippin’s birthday. All the other dates for their visits remained the same, so that two weeks after Pippin’s birthday, they would meet again at Bag End. Until a few years ago that is, when Frodo made an unexpected announcement: he wanted to start spending the spring in Buckland.

The speculation for this abrupt change had been rabid. It was general knowledge that Frodo’s parents had died in the spring, and Buckland during that time did not hold pleasant memories for him. Though they pressed him endlessly, Frodo never gave more of an explanation than he had always enjoyed the Spring Feast given at Brandy Hall every year, and he sorely missed it. He was always careful to leave before the anniversary of The Day, which only caused the gossipers to speculate more.

Yet with or without this change, the cousins had finally arranged it so that they hardly went more than a couple of months without seeing each other, and they wrote constantly between visits. This year, however, Merry had been ill the first week of Rethe and had been unable to attend Pippin’s birthday. Nearly three months had passed since Frodo last saw his dear friend’s smiling face. Now at last, and none too soon, Frodo would be seeing his beloved cousin once again. He could hardly wait, now that the border was within sight.
 

20 Rethe

They broke camp early the next morning and ate a quick yet satisfying breakfast. Once again donning their packs, they set off on the last leg of their trip. Frodo took special care not to rush his cousin too much in his eagerness to get to their destination. He reluctantly allowed the youngster to once again set the pace, figuring they would arrive in time for dinner. But Pippin was also eager to see their journey’s end now that it was so near and he set a quick pace, so that they arrived at Brandy Hall just after teatime and therefore unlooked for. Or so they thought.

They entered Brandy Hall to find the entrance parlor quiet, with only a pair of older hobbits lounging about, both of them napping from their meal. They tiptoed through the parlor to the main tunnel and down the passageway toward the kitchens, where they hoped to find a couple of bites to scrap together before setting out to look for Merry. They had no sooner entered the dining hall and set down their packs, rubbing their shoulders in relief, when out of nowhere, a bundle of hobbit energy came bounding at them, knocking them both to the ground.

“Never prepared for an attack, are you?” their assailant asked in mock disbelief. “Or perhaps you had forgotten our little game: you’re It.”

“I had forgotten,” Frodo laughed, rubbing his elbow ruefully where the ground had rushed up to meet it. He put on his best stern face as he sat up to get a better look at the young Meriadoc Brandybuck, who had obviously recovered from his illness. “But now that you have reminded me, you best be on your guard. I will teach you not to take a poor old hobbit so unprepared.”

“Yes, you had better be doubly guarded,” Pippin said as he stood up and brushed himself off. “That was not what I would call a pleasant greeting, and I shall repay you for it before I leave.”

“Oh you shall, shall you?” Merry asked, eyes twinkling, as he helped Frodo off the ground. “Well, I shall be looking forward to it.” He then noticed Frodo’s wince as his cousin stood upright. “And I do apologize Frodo,” he said with genuine concern. “I forget you’re not as young as you look.”

“And you are not as innocent as you would have us believe,” Frodo replied. “There is no way you could have known to wait here for us unless you saw us approaching. You’ve managed to get away with such pranks in the past, but you’re about to meet your match. I have ways of sneaking you couldn’t possibly imagine.”

Merry did a good job of feigning anxiety, but he also noted the spark in Frodo’s eyes and knew the old hobbit wasn’t really serious. “Well, then, in that case, I should like to see them, Frodo. I’ve learned all other manners of sneaking from you and there’s no need for you to stop your lessons now.”

They all laughed then and hugged each other warmly. Frodo tousled Merry’s soft brown curls affectionately, as only Frodo was allowed to do, and Merry led them to a table. He left them to settle in as he went to the kitchen to alert the staff that two more hungry mouths had arrived seeking food. He returned only when the food was ready, carrying it out himself. When he entered the hall once more, he found his two cousins deep in whispered conversation. Upon seeing him, they stopped talking and looked at him with an air of innocence.

Merry placed the food upon the table and cast a knowing look at his cousins. “Now, you wouldn’t be thinking of doing anything so foolish as trying to get back at me now, are you?” he asked.

Pippin only smiled bemusedly before attacking the food, and Frodo shrugged in confusion. “I have no idea what you mean, dear Merry,” Frodo said before setting to his meal as well.

“You always were a horrible liar,” Merry said as he noticed the corner of Frodo’s mouth twitch upward ever so slightly. “I won’t be so easy to catch.”

But neither of his guests responded: they were far too busy with the all important task of filling their stomachs.

Merry kept them company until they finished their snack and then showed them to their sleeping quarters, where the travelers unpacked and the three friends made their plans for the following day.

 
 
 
 
To be continued...