Chapter 18. Trudge to the Ford, Day 1

'It's quite Tookish of you to be up and out of bed before your time,' Ferdi observed conversationally as they walked. 'For my part, I wouldn't have minded your staying in the bed at least as long as Taurion and Calendil seemed to think you ought to have stayed...'

'Really?' Haldoron said sceptically. 'I should think being surrounded by Men would be most unpleasant for you.' (He'd almost said, in a more familiar and friendly vein, would make you twitch, except he wasn't quite sure how the Hobbit would have reacted. Would he have taken the words literally, and perceived insult, or would he have understood the intended jest within the lightly-spoken phrase? Haldoron did not know Hobbits well enough to risk offending the Thain's representative at this point.)

'Usually it would be,' Ferdi admitted. 'Being surrounded by Men, as you so simply put it, has seldom – if ever! – come out well in the past. At least, not when I've been in such straits, for the most part.'

'How so?' Haldoron said, honestly curious. Ferdi's use of "straits" in the context currently under discussion clearly conveyed his opinion of Men in general, perhaps even more clearly than the Hobbit might be aware of himself.

'Let's just say that the ruffians were annoyed at the Tookish resistance to their charms. After trying – and failing – to get the Tooks into line, they lost patience with us. After that point, when they were able to catch a Took outside the Tookland, they hauled him off to the Lockholes.' He peered intently at Haldoron. 'Do you know what the Lockholes were?'

Haldoron nodded. 'We guardians of the Northlands and enforcers of the law and the King's decrees received a detailed description of the Lockholes and their doings,' he said shortly, 'to encourage us to show no mercy to any Lockholes guards we might capture, even years afterwards.' He breathed deeply, shoving down the memory, and then said, 'Were you a prisoner in the Lockholes, then?'

Ferdi laughed, a sharp, harsh bark instead of his usual merry chuckle. 'Not I! And not for want of trying – on the part of the ruffians, at least! But too many hobbits were made prisoners there, including some of my cousins.' He glanced at Haldoron again and then continued, staring straight forward as if he felt the need to concentrate on the relatively smooth ground they were currently treading. 'I was captured, and more than once, but I managed to escape. Sometimes with help. But I'll tell you this much: at some point, Lotho's Men began beating the hobbits they were taking to the Lockholes.'

'They beat you,' Haldoron said. He saw Ferdi's slight nod.

'Badly, too,' the Hobbit said. 'So badly that I and my companion at that time both thought I might not survive to reach the free Tookland, much less the march to the Lockholes had I not escaped them. As it was, I would not have escaped their clutches without that young Took's help.'

'Thain Peregrin?' Haldoron asked on impulse, but then he corrected himself almost instantly. 'No, of course not, for he was not in the Shire at the time.'

'Some other young Took, let us just say,' Ferdi answered, his glance encompassing the three younger Hobbits walking in front of them. 

Young Faramir and Robin Took-Bolger exchanged a knowing glance, for they had both been at the banquet at the Great Smials where the Tooks had recognised the Mistress of Buckland as a Hero of the Tookland. For some reason, Estella Took-Bolger, now Brandybuck, had asked the Thain to make sure the news went no farther. In their turn, the clannish Tooks had seen the request as eminently reasonable. Keep Tookish business inside Tookland's bounds! had long been a popular sentiment in the Tookish homeland.

For his part, young Pippin Gamgee had not been listening to the quiet conversation between Ferdi and Haldoron, for he had other rabbits to skin and stew, so to speak. 'This is not at all what I remember!' he said under his breath, and stared all the harder at the landscape they were passing through. 

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Heading southwards from Weathertop, they had crossed the Road, pausing briefly as Pip-lad reminded them of the cold cries the earlier Travellers had heard as they had crossed there, a cold voice calling and another cold voice answering.

Faramir had interrupted the Gamgee lad, but Ferdi had waved a casual hand to dismiss his nephew's concerns. 'I am well,' he said. 'I know that as they went, they were pursued, but as for me... the Sun is bright overhead, and any pursuing Shadows remain in the past, or in the Red Book, and we would all do well to remember that.'

He had then cocked an eye upward at Haldoron. 'I cannot speak for my companion, of course.'

'I am well enough,' Haldoron had said firmly. Deliberately turning the topic, he had gestured at the grove of stunted trees just past the, Road, the first of many in the valley they were entering. 'Plenty of wood for a fire tonight,' he had said. 'And since they had fires, to keep the injured Ring-bearer warm, I see no reason why we should not have the same.'

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'Should we direct the lads to gather sticks as they go?' Ferdi asked Haldoron as he trotted alongside the Man.

Haldoron smiled but shook his head. 'Plenty more where those came from,' he answered, deliberately employing the hobbity phrase he'd heard so often from his current companions. 'The Sun is still high in the sky, and the lads would have to carry that wood a long way, indeed, before we go to ground.' He looked at Ferdi out of the corner of his eye and added, 'In a manner of speaking, of course. For we will hardly be hiding from pursuit! If we were, I doubt we'd kindle fire, even in the interest of historical accuracy.'

Hearing this reminder that they'd have a fire at the end of the day distracted Pip-lad momentarily from the disorientation he was feeling, and he rubbed his hands together, saying, 'O good! That means hot meals!' He sounded quite a bit like an earlier Pippin who had once walked this way, had he only known it.

The Gamgee teen's confusion was easily understandable; the land looked significantly different in high Summer than it had to those earlier travellers in early October, and there were no threatening Ringwraiths to frighten the wild things and blight their surroundings, into the bargain. The area south of the Road where they now rambled could still be pronounced wild and pathless, with its wide featureless spaces studded with dense patches of stunted trees and bushes. However, the land was hardly barren, as Frodo had described it in his written account. Instead of scanty, coarse and grey, the grass grew green and lush in the open spaces, and the woody growth was decked in leaves sporting a multitude of green hues under the smiling Sun. This land now presented a pleasant appearance and was full of life; birds flitted from tree to tree or bush, and occasional rabbits could be seen browsing the grass. The wildlife displayed little wariness or fear of the Walkers, only seeking cover when the walking party approached within striking distance.

As the Sun approached the horizon, Haldoron called a halt. 'Even with our late start, we've travelled more than they did, that first day out of Weathertop. We've had hours more of sunlight, for one thing, and none of us is injured, for another. The packs they carried were also much heavier than ours since they had to divide amongst the party everything Frodo and the pony had carried before coming to Weathertop.'

'I don't know about that,' Faramir said softly to Pip-lad beside him. 'My pack feels awfully heavy, all the same.'

But the Man heard him anyhow, and said, 'We could have elected to go on short rations, as they did, and not take so much of what the King sent ahead to the outpost for us! Pity, we've an entire day of travel between us and the outpost now. There's no sense now in going back and lightening our load...'

'Look on the bright side,' Robin said cheerily. 'We can have a fire each night, so long as we're walking through this country with its supply of firewood – which is one reason why Elessar chose this course originally, as I think you said earlier, Pip? ...in order to keep Frodo warm after he was wounded, that is. Thus, the more we can cook and eat, the less we'll have to carry!'

'Just remember,' Haldoron warned, 'that if you do not exercise caution and restraint at the beginning, you'll end up having to tighten your belts – as those earlier Travellers did – when we run short of supplies. We have a long way to go to the next outpost where we can replenish our supplies, for while Messengers' horses are stationed every ten miles or so along the Road to allow messages to travel with all speed, we are currently cutting a large loop to the south of the Road. It would also be good to remember that after we come to the Road once more and cross the Mitheithel – the Hoarwell,' he added for Robin's and Farry's benefit, for he knew Ferdi had studied the maps, and Pip-lad had the journey by heart, 'we'll have rough going and difficult travel when our chosen path takes us to the north of the Road ­– that is, if the young Hobbits still deem it necessary to follow in the footsteps of our predecessors.'

'We must!' Farry said at once. Pip-lad echoed him, for even though today's effort had taken them through land so different as to be almost unrecognisable, he still clung to Mr Frodo's account and wished to see, at first hand, the path his dad – and Farry's! – had walked. 

Robin Bolger looked from one teen to the other and suppressed a sigh. 'I suppose we must,' he said, though he took no joy in anticipating the difficult path ahead.

*** 

Author's notes:

The story in which a young Estella Bolger travelled with Ferdibrand through ruffian-infested territory and helped him escape when he was captured is told in The Rescue. That story also describes her belated recognition as a Hero of Tookland after Pippin became Thain.

Some descriptive details in this chapter were drawn from 'Flight to the Ford' in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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