“No, Pip, I don’t much think I will.” Merry tried to keep his tone light, but Pippin could hear the pain in it anyway.

Pippin stood up and glanced around the meadow in which they stood. They weren’t far from a large oak tree--one under which he and Merry had picnicked with Frodo once or twice when making the journey with him.

“I know that you need to keep off that foot, but it’s not too good for you to have to be laying out here while the Sun’s so high,” he said emphatically. That was something with which he had personal experience. “Can you lean on me and make it over there to the shade?”

Merry was going to protest leaning his weight on his smaller and slighter cousin, but a moment’s thought, and he realized he’d never make it by himself. And Pippin was right, they did not need to be out in the open in the height of summer unless they were moving along. And he knew better than to suggest Pippin seek the shade himself while he remained in the sun.

Together they hobbled the thirty feet or so to the tree. In spite of the fact that he was trying to put as little weight on his foot as possible, Merry’s face was pale and sweaty by the time they were under the welcoming shade. Pippin once more aided Merry to the ground. Then he took off his own pack, and Merry’s.

“Lie back, Merry,” he said. “One thing I know for sure is that you need to put your foot up.” He took Merry’s leg and laid it on top of his pack. “That’s what the healer made Sparrow do when he sprained his ankle trying to catch the pig when we lived at Whitwell.” Sparrow had been the Took’s farm hand before they had moved into the Great Smials. “She put cold compresses on it, too.”

He began to fumble in his own pack, and pulled out one of his spare shirts. Then he took his waterskin, and poured some water on it.

“What are you doing, Pip? That’s one of your good shirts.”

“So?” He folded it up carefully and draped it over Merry’s ankle, which had already begun to swell alarmingly.

Merry was leaning up on both elbows, watching his younger cousin in fascination, and trying to ignore his pain.

“Lie back down, Merry,” Pippin ordered. “Mistress Poppy told Sparrow he had to keep his foot higher than his heart.”

Merry chuckled. Pippin in a bossy mood was unusual. “All right, Pip. You do seem to know what you’re doing.” Merry was impressed, for everything his younger cousin was doing so far was right--Merry’s own father had seen to it that he knew how to deal with minor injuries, but as far as he knew, Pippin was simply going by something he’d observed several years ago. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen the year Sparrow had sprained his ankle, and it was clear that he had watched and remembered everything.

Merry laid back, and folded his hands behind his head. The cool wet cloth felt good upon his swollen ankle, he had to admit. But it still throbbed with pain. Pippin came and lay down next to him. He propped his head on his left arm, and with his right hand, he began to smooth the curls away from Merry’s brow. “My poor Merry! Does it hurt dreadfully?”

“Somewhat dreadfully. I am sorry, Pippin.”

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t mean to step in a rabbit hole, I’m sure!”

“No, I can’t say as I did. But I shouldn’t have been hurrying like that, and I shouldn’t have been rushing so. And it was my idea to go on and walk, instead of waiting for the carter to wake up.”

“I don’t think I’d have cared to ride with him anymore, anyway, Merry. He would have been awful cross, with a sore head, and there’s no telling how much longer we’d have had to wait for him to wake. I’m quite sure he would have been very unpleasant company.”

Merry pursed his lips. “I have to admit, those were my reasons. But this would not have happened, anyway, if I had not insisted on leaving. And I had hoped we’d be at Bag End in time for supper, if not for tea. We don’t have much food left do we?”

Pippin shook his head. “I don’t have any. What’s in your pack?”

“A couple of apples.”

“Oh.”
________________________________________________

Frodo paused for a moment and took a drink from his waterskin, and pulled an apple from his pocket. He’d no idea how far his cousins would have come, as the carter had not known what time they had left. But he was fairly certain of the route. The three of them had made a couple of walking trips between Buckland and Hobbiton before, and he was quite sure that would be the way Merry would have taken.

He munched his apple as he walked, and wondered if the two had much food with them. As growing tweens, they’d be ravenous. He’d packed some food along, knowing they’d probably be hungry when they met.

He could not get over how irresponsible the carter had been. Knowing Merry’s impatience, he could just imagine how things had gone this morning when Noakes had failed to wake. The journey on foot was a pleasant enough ramble, and he was sure that Merry would have been confident enough for them to attempt it. But the two of them had never made the trip without an adult along before. Merry was only four years from coming of age, but Pippin was only twenty-one, and far too young to make such a trek alone.

As much as he enjoyed his cousins’ visits, sometimes being responsible for them was wearing. He’d thought it would be pleasant to have a few days visit with them before they were all expected at the Great Smials for Lithe. He had to admit to himself that he’d missed them this spring. Their visits had been shorter than were usual. At twenty-nine, Merry was getting close to his majority, and Uncle Sara was beginning to give him more responsibilities. And Pippin was easily bored without Merry’s presence.

He’d been thinking of not going to Buckland this autumn; he didn’t always, but Merry’s disappointment when he stayed away was always acute.

He sighed. Well, he’d just hope he came across them soon. He just could not shake the feeling something wasn’t right.
__________________________________________________

Pippin wet the shirt one last time from his waterskin. They had been drinking from Merry’s. His belly rumbled. He was very hungry. Merry’s own stomach began to growl as well.

“Now see what you started,” said Merry wryly. But Pippin heard the discomfort in his voice.

Pippin shook Merry’s waterskin; it was nearly empty. “Merry, I’m going to have to go back to the stream and fill these. I think I shall pick up some firewood as well. Do you have your striker?” Pippin had lost his again.

“Of course,” said Merry, “my tinderbox is in my pack.”

Pippin gently moved Merry’s foot, and cringed himself as Merry winced and bit back a gasp of pain. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“ ‘s all right, Pip,” Merry gasped. “You do what you have to.”

Pippin nodded, biting his lower lip, and rummaged in Merry’s pack until the tinderbox came to hand. Then he carefully arranged his cousin’s foot again. In the early evening light, he could see how pale Merry was, and there was a little line of pain in the middle of his brow. “I wish I had some willow-bark tea or something for you Merry,” he said, laying his hand on his older cousin’s brow. Did it seem a bit warm? He hated to leave him, but they really needed a fire and even more, they needed water. There was a little stream about a quarter of a mile south of the tree where they now rested.

Pippin walked about the tree, and gathered enough fallen limbs and twigs to make a start, and quietly and efficiently laid a fire. Merry watched him without saying anything, glad that was something he had taught Pippin to do. When it was crackling away, he took the waterskins.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right, Mer?” he asked anxiously.

“I’ll be fine, Pip. Sooner you go, the sooner you’ll get back.”

As Pippin walked away, Merry let out a deep breath he did not realize he’d been holding, and gave in to tears of pain that he’d been holding off for fear of frightening Pippin. His ankle was throbbing with a deep pain, and he began to wonder if it were not sprained, but broken. And he had the beginnings of a headache from hunger.

It would be dark by the time Pippin got back. He hoped Pip would be all right.

Frodo must be worried sick by now.