Chapter 14. Back Again... and Safe

Farry awakened to an onslaught of sensations. First he became aware he was rocking, being held like a babe, he thought, as if several years had dropped away while he'd slept and he was once more a faunt. He heard a steady 1–2–3, 1–2–3 thudding, while his eyes perceived a moving ribbon of myriad greens and browns, and above him, a paling sky streaked with sunset colours. He was no longer in the shadowy byre, that was for certain, resting upon a soft bed of hay and blankets. A cool wind caressed his cheeks, but he felt warm and drowsy all over, except for one of his ankles that felt stiff and numb. That was better than throbbing, he thought.

And then he thought he heard Uncle Ferdi's voice. 'Nearly there, lad! Then you can sleep!'

'I was asleep,' he murmured, but heard his cousin Rudi's shout.

'I've no ambition to try sleep-riding at this late date, thank you very much! Sleep-walking is enough trouble, I should think!'

'Good thing you're not a sleep-walker!' Ferdi called back. His voice sounded closer than Rudi's, and Farry looked up then, and saw his uncle's face immediately above him. Ferdi was the one who was holding him! 'I just hope you don't take a chill! I want you in a warm bath just so soon as we've delivered our parcels!'

But where was Goldi? Farry moved, trying to look towards Rudi's voice, and felt his Uncle Ferdi adjust his hold, closer, firmer, more secure. Ferdi glanced down, smiled briefly to see Farry's eyes opened, and then looked up again, forward, in the direction they were going, Farry thought. 'Steady, lad,' he said 'You're almost home.'  

As the sky above them darkened, and stars began to emerge one by one, seeming to wink at him, Farry became aware that he was wrapped in Ferdi's cloak as well as his own; that's why he was so warm...

Rudi shouted. 'The lights of Tuckborough! I see lights ahead!'

Moments later, Farry felt his uncle sit up straight, and the pony's gait changed from a slow gallop to a fast, jolting trot, then slowed further and smoothed, while the thudding of hoofs that had earlier signalled their travel over the fields and their later transition to the unpaved New Road now changed to the sharp clopping of travelling over cobblestones.

No longer shouting, Ferdi called more quietly to Rudi. 'And the lass?'

Farry, who'd been drowsing again, coming close to falling off the ledge into sleep, blinked his eyes open and listened hard for the reply.

'Still sleeping!' the tween responded.

'Poor wee mite,' Ferdi murmured. 'Exhausted, I don't wonder.'

Ferry smiled. That was the idea, he thought to himself.

Come to think of it, he was himself very weary, wearier than he remembered being in quite a long time, wearier than even the time when... but his thoughts dissolved and blew away like mist on the wind, and he slept again.

*** 

When Faramir came to himself again, all motion had stopped, and hobbits were calling to each other around him.

'Aye!' his Uncle Ferdi answered, above him. 'Here, help me down... I don't want to jar him...'

'...tried to find her way back home,' Rudi was saying. 'She was that upset about the news from her parents. And the lad went after her... He knew it would be too dangerous for such a small child to cross the fields by herself. There's owls... and foxes...'

'He's not all that much older,' someone said.

'Aye, but ye ha' to credit th' lad for his courage,' another said, close at hand, 'if not good sense.' And then he added, 'Here, Ferdi, we've got yer elbows, just swing yer leg o'er and slip down.'

There was a sort of second-hand floating sensation, and then with a quick word of thanks, his uncle was carrying him over the flagstones of the wide yard separating the stables and other outbuildings from the Smials proper. Through half-open eyes, Farry saw Ferdi turn his head. 'Cool her out well,' his uncle said, 'give her just a few sips of water in the bottom of the bucket, to start, and bed her deep! We galloped all the way from Bywater...'

There were exclamations of astonishment all around. 'Bywater! The bairns walked all the way to Bywater!'

And then, after the voices fell away, and a door boomed behind them, marking their passage into the Great Smials, it seemed to be just Ferdi (and his burden) and Rudi (and his) walking along the corridor. Farry heard Rudi whisper, 'Bywater! Don't you mean the Three-Farthing Stone?'

Ferdi muttered in reply, 'No need to add fuel to the fire of the Talk that's already burning!'

'O aye,' Rudi said. Of course, the tween had come to live at the Great Smials less than a decade ago, after his Bolger father died, and so his intonation was more Bolger than Took. But Farry was too warm and drowsy to tease his cousin as he usually did when Rudi tried to talk like a Tooklander.

In his half-awake state, Farry wasn't sure how long he was carried along. It felt like forever; it felt like but a short time, and then...

'You've brought them back!' Sandy's voice meant they must have reached the innermost regions of the Great Smials, and the Thain's quarters.

'Well, it was either that or leave them where they were,' Ferdi said, then added absurdly, 'though I suppose we might have dropped them halfway between as another option.'

'None of your nonsense, now,' Sandy said, surprising Farry almost into wakening. For he almost never heard the hobbitservant speaking familiarly with anyone!

But then, Ferdi somehow lived on the same level as the hobbits around him, whether gentry or servants. Not for the first time, Farry wondered how his uncle managed the trick. He'd have to ask him sometime...

Evidently, they were still in the corridor and hadn't reached the apartments yet, for Ferdi said, 'Run ahead and tell the Thain and Mistress that I'm bringing their son to them, and ask Rus to arrange a hot bath for Rudi-here, if he wouldn't mind, and then go and fetch Woodruff from where ever she might be at this time, if you please, Sandy?'

'Someone's hurt?' the hobbitservant said.

'Nothing to worry about,' Ferdi answered. 'Just a turned ankle.'

They moved in silence now, the passing lamps in the wall of the corridor marking their progress, and Farry surmised that Sandy had hurried off to do his uncle's bidding.

Sudden bright light broke over them as Ferdi carried the lad through an open door into the large sitting room (Mistress Lalia had grandly styled it "The Receiving Room", Farry remembered idly) which was the entry to the Thain's suite of rooms, and as-sudden exclamations broke out all around them.

'Farry!'

'Goldi!'

'Where were they? Where did you find them?'

'Did you have to search half-way across Middle-earth?'

'Did you have to go all the way to Bag End?'

'I've sent word to the Gamgee children's minders.' That was his Auntie Nell. 'They'll be here soon. And Rusty is filling a warm bath for Rudi as we speak.' Her next words were obviously directed at her oldest son. 'Is it well with you, lad? Have you caught a chill?'

'I've caught something decidedly better than that!' Rudi said stoutly.

'Come,' Diamond said. 'Bring them through to our room – we'll lay them together on the big bed, and that way, Woodruff can look at them both at the same time... and Rudi? Are you in need of the healer's attention?'

'I'm well!' Rudi protested, laughing.

'Mum?' Farry said, trying to raise his head.

And then he felt Uncle Ferdi stop, and his mother's face was suddenly close, and her lips gently blessed his forehead. 'My brave little lad,' she said. But before Farry could respond, her face was gone again, and she was urging Ferdi into motion once more.

In no time at all, the feeling of being borne along like a babe in arms changed to a floating feeling that impelled him to grab at Ferdi's arm, prompting a murmured, 'Steady, lad. All's well.' He realised in the next moment that he'd been laid upon his parents' big bed, and Uncle Ferdi was unwrapping his cloak, after which it was eased out from under him, while Ferdi said, 'Come, Rudi, get your cloak out of the way. Woodruff's coming...'

'Yes, Da,' Rudi replied.

Sudden weight pressed down on Farry, and he felt warmer. He moved his fingers and felt the softness of finely spun wool, and he guessed that his uncle (or someone else) had laid a blanket over him, and probably over Goldi next to him, for he heard her sigh and murmur. 'Lovely.'

'There,' Uncle Ferdi said, his voice receding. 'I'll just see to my lad, and then...'

'How are they?' Thain Peregrin's voice was heard at the doorway to the bedroom, and Ferdi lowered his voice to answer, too low for young Faramir to hear.

Diamond, who was whispering to the children on the bed, suddenly broke off and got up again, saying with obvious relief, 'O Woodruff!' When Farry heard her voice again, it came from the doorway, where a conference of sorts seemed to be taking place between Pippin, Diamond, Ferdi, and Woodruff, the head healer at the Great Smials. 'Absolutely exhausted, poor dears,' Diamond was saying. 'Farry roused briefly and spoke, but I think he's fallen asleep again.'

And then a small warm hand clasped Farry's, and he looked over in surprise to see Goldi lying beside him, her face turned towards his, looking searchingly into his eyes.

'I know...' she whispered, stopped, and began again. 'I know what you did...'

His heart dropped, but he bravely answered, 'You do?'

She nodded. 'I do,' she said. 'And... I'm sorry.' She squeezed his hand, scootched a little closer to him on the bed, rolled on her side, and raised her head to lay a whisper-kiss against his cheek. 'Thank you.' And then she turned away and laid her head down once more; her hand squeezed his and released it, and she sighed and lay quiet again.

After glancing over and seeing Goldi's now-closed eyes, Farry lay quite still, stunned and wondering. He wanted to raise his hand to his cheek to feel if it was any different, somehow, but really, the bed was soft, and the fire on the little hearth in the bedroom was warming, and the low tones of the adults talking in the doorway, Ferdi explaining and the others asking questions, were so soothing in his ears – they were safe! – that without quite realising it, he dropped off to sleep once more.

***