We clattered across a wooden bridge over the water filled ditch, and up through the gateway. As we entered, the various members of our party were claimed by friends and family members.

An older woman rushed up to Arador, where he sat still astride Flein, as the twins had begun to dismount. "My lord! You have come in the very nick of time, for your wife is already far gone in labour, and your father fears trouble with the birth!"

In a trice, he had dismounted, and began to run through the village. Elladan and Elrohir followed more slowly.

So far, not one person seemed to have noticed me yet.

I was loathe to dismount. I put Porridge into a trot, and followed the quickly vanishing forms of Elladan and Elrohir just as they turned a corner of one of the lanes. They had come to a cottage somewhat larger than the others, built right up against the mound on which the watchtower stood. Elrohir entered, but Elladan saw me approaching, and halted. "I am sorry, Trotter, that we forgot about you."

I shook my head. "No matter, I can see that this is urgent." I dismounted, and Porridge stood where I left him, lowering his head to crop a bit of grass that grow by the lane. I approached hesitantly. I had no other place to go, but at the moment, I was feeling dreadfully out of place.

I went in to a scene of chaos. A large room, was occupied by several shouting Big Folk-- which is to say, a Man surrounded by three women. A door at the other end of the room was ajar and I heard the familiar moans and cries of a woman in childbirth. I could see neither Arador or Elrohir, but I could hear Arador's voice in that room. I glanced back at Elladan, who was shaking his head.

"Argonui, if you do not send for that surgeon, we are likely to lose our daughter-in-law! He only left the village two days ago, on foot! I am sure a fast horse will catch him up!" This woman was nearly as tall at the one she called Argonui, her black hair braided and bound around the top of her head.

"No!" Another woman turned on the other. "No, Meldis! I will not have one of those monsters anywhere near my daughter!" She was shorter and stouter than the other woman, and very red in the face.

"Not all surgeons are like the one that attended your mother, Norniveth!"

"My ladies!" said the third woman, "I have given her red wine and valerian! Perhaps that will slow her labour. I know she had a difficult time with her first child, but we need to give it time to work! We do not know that this time will be as difficult, after all, and now her lord husband is here, perhaps he will calm her, and--"

"Peace, Glavror!" shouted the Man they had called Argonui. What more he might have said was interrupted by another cry from the room in which the labouring mother lay. All three women and the Man rushed to the room, but from another door, I heard a plaintive cry.

"Nana!" I turned to see a child, a little boy, a faunt or only just past it, by the look of him, standing in the doorway, his lip trembling. Elladan walked over and picked him up, but the child pulled back. "Nana's hurt!" he said.

"Peace, now, little one," Elladan said. "Elrohir is here. He will take care of your Nana now." The child nodded, and buried his face in the Elf's neck. After a moment, he peeked out and looked down at me.

"Who are you?" his eyes grew large as he looked me over.

I smiled. "My name is Trotter. I am a hobbit. What is your name?"

He bit his lip, and studied me for an instant longer, and then said, "My name is Ar'thorn."

"Well, Thorn, I am Trotter of the Shire at your service."

He wriggled to get down, much to Elladan's amusement.

When he came over to me, he was very nearly as tall as I was. "Will you play with me, Trotter?"