Chapter 110. We contemplate descent by various means 

I am startled awake by the words of Our Big Man, observing that the night is getting old. He adds that the dawn is not far off. 

I shake my head, dislodging a fair covering of snow from my mane and the back of my neck, as the Dwarf voices my thoughts. If any dawn can pierce these clouds...

Truly, had Our Big Man’s voice not startled me awake, I would not know that I had dozed. The snow is still falling, and darkness surrounds us like a black wall. I suppose the fire is burning a little lower than it was, and I wonder that no one throws another faggot upon it. But then, from the relative lightening of the load I bear (for I tighten and then loosen again the muscles of my back, and indeed, my burden feels lighter than I remember it), perhaps there is no more wood to be burned.

Because I am already awake, I am not startled when the Other Big Man (the one with the shield) steps out of our circle. He shrugs and then moves his shoulders in circles as if warding off encroaching stiffness, then lifts his face to the sky. He stands for a long moment in silence as if listening intently to the darkness. ‘The snow is growing less, and the wind is quieter,’ he says at last.

A large flake lands upon my uplifted nose, and I sneeze and shake my head again. Yes. The snow is still falling, but it is now floating down upon us, taking the form of larger flakes, as if many small flakes have clumped together for warmth in the storm. A curious thought. But the floating motion of the snow speaks to the dropping of the wind, which earlier seemed determined to drive its icy blasts and snowy onslaughts right through our skins. But now it seems more whimsical in its approach, sending the large flakes in swirls as if feeling playful in depositing the snow it bears upon our persons and the cliffside itself. 

In the same moment as I realize that I am seeing the gently swirling flocks of floating snowflakes more clearly, I hear the Master murmur, ‘The wind has indeed fallen.’ 

He sounds as if he is just now wakening – indeed, still half-asleep – but his voice grows stronger as he moves to brush snow from one younger cousin and then the other, even as he continues to speak. ‘And look how large the flakes have become! It reminds me of a snowfall on the Hill once upon a winter’s day!’

The not-Merry hobbit yawns prodigiously, stretches, and taps Master lightly on his shoulder as if in thanks for being freed of the snow on his head and shoulders. He and Master both now turn to Youngest, supported though drooping between them, and join together to brush away the snow that has mounted up since the last time they did so.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Master is speaking as the two older cousins work to dislodge the snow that covers Youngest. Instead of making a snow hobbit, they are rather un-making one, it seems. ‘It was not just a little dusting of snow. Indeed, that snowfall covered the Hillside to my knees!’ 

‘Snow covering the Hill!’ not-Merry croaks, and then clears his throat. ‘Imagine such a thing!’

And of a wonder, Master chuckles low. ‘You ought to have seen it,’ he says in his cheeriest tones. ‘But of course, the Hill stands higher than the Hall, so the snow that we welcomed most likely fell as rain on Buckland, I’ve no doubt.’

‘No doubt,’ not-Merry echoes, and sighs. ‘And to think, in those days, I would’ve welcomed the snow.’

Master laughs softly again and continues as if not-Merry had not spoken, ‘Bilbo made a sled of sorts out of an old shield he’d hung up on the parlour wall, a relic of some battle or other, and he taught me to sit upon it and lean to one side or the other to direct its path as we slid down the Hillside at an amazing clip...’

‘How glorious!’ Youngest interjects, lifting his chin from his chest and striving to open his eyes as if the lids are too heavy. ‘I wonder why you never did so with me!’

Master tousles Youngest’s curls, dislodging a fair amount of fallen snow. ‘You may very well wonder,’ he says in a fond tone. But his answer does not seem to answer Youngest’s question at all, to my way of thinking.

But Youngest seems not to mind. ‘Would that we could do so now!’ he says, lifting a hand to indicate the mountainside below us, covered in humps and domes, the shapeless deeps concealed under mounds of snow. ‘Perhaps Boromir could lend us his shield, and we could...’

But my attention is caught by the Dwarf, who is saying that the Mountain has more snow to fling at us if we go on. He shakes his head as he adds, ‘The sooner we go back and down, the better.’

I nod my head in agreement, and my Sam pats my neck and murmurs something about standing steady, but his head is turned towards the way we came, the long climb up to the point where we stand, and it is as if I can hear him echoing the Dwarf in his thoughts, the sooner the better. Both of the two Big Men speak at the same time, almost in the same breath, similar-sounding words of assent, and the Fair One quirks a whimsical eyebrow but does not seem opposed to the notion of retracing our steps. 

Tall Hat seems deep in thought, but at Our Big Man’s quiet, ‘Well, Gandalf?’, his eyes lose their faraway look.

‘Not well at all, I’m afraid,’ Tall Hat replies. ‘It seems that we are allowed to go no further – as if Caradhras is shouting at us: You shall not pass!’

And something in the words, or perhaps the tone of his voice, seeming to echo from the cliffside as the wind ebbs momentarily, causes me to shudder. Though perhaps it is only the icy fingers of the wind that makes me do so, tickling against my skin as it renews its now-gentle gusts.

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Author notes:

Some thoughts here are derived from “The Ring Goes South” from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, along with a snippet of powerfully delivered dialogue from the film by the same name.

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