Chapter 20. Interlude on a Hilltop

'They reached this spot on the sixth day out of Weathertop,' Pippin Gamgee said. Faramir steadied him as he stood to his feet. 'O' course, Mister Frodo's injury slowed them considerably.'

At hearing almost the same words his Bolger cousin had used to rebuke him earlier, Farry shifted uneasily. 'I...' he began.

But the Gamgee lad flashed him a bright smile. 'You don't have to apologise again, y'know,' he said. 'We're good enough friends, that one time should suffice.' 

Heat crept up Farry's neck and into his cheeks. 'I've not been the best of...' he said.

'Put the past in the past,' Pippin-lad interrupted him. 'That's something my dad likes to say. Let the past tutor you but never let it rule over you.'

'Gamgees never hold grudges?' Farry asked in surprise.

Pip-lad shrugged. 'Well, some have,' he admitted, 'but from what my dad has told us, none of them was ever any better off for doing so.'

Farry shook his head in amazement. 'The Tooks could learn a thing or two from the Gamgees,' he mused aloud.

His friend surprised him further by laughing. 'As if they ever would!' Pip-lad chortled.

Farry felt the stirring of anger, but meeting the other teen's eye, he suddenly deflated. 'You have the right of it,' he said in chagrin.

'I beg to differ,' Ferdibrand said behind them, and both teens stiffened. One cardinal rule that Farry Took and Merry and Pippin Gamgee were careful to follow was that they never voiced or implied criticism of the Mayor or Thain (which caution extended to the Tooks most of the time) or Master in anyone else's hearing.

But the Thain's Chancellor simply placed a hand on each teen's shoulder and stood behind them. 'That's the Road,' he said, 'sweeping round the feet of the hills; but which of the rivers we can see from here is the Loudwater? And which is the Hoarwell?'

'The River Hoarwell, to our right, flows down out of the troll-fells north of Rivendell,' Pip-lad answered, glad for the change of subject. 

'The Ettenmoors,' Farry remembered. He added, 'Then the river in the distance has to be the Bruinen – the Loudwater.'

'Loudwater,' Ferdi echoed. 'I don't like the sound of that, knowing that we must cross it by way of a ford. The name evokes fast-moving water...'

'Well at least we brought rope with us,' Pip-lad said. With an apologetic look, he said to Farry, 'I know it's not what they did...'

'But your dad insisted, and had we not taken rope with us, he'd not have let you come on the journey; he felt that strongly about it,' Farry said, and shrugged. 'Must needs...'

'So tell us again, Pippin, where we'll be going from here,' Ferdi said. 'I think having the land spread out before us, I'll have a better idea than I got from just looking at the maps in New Annúminas.'

'In the morning, we'll descend this hill to the Road,' Pippin Gamgee said obligingly. 'They had to go upon the Road for a while in order to cross the Hoarwell, for the Road is the only crossing from here to its sources in the Ettenmoors.'

'The Last Bridge,' Ferdi said contemplatively. 'I wonder why it's called that?'

Pip-lad shook his head. 'The Red Book doesn't say,' he admitted. 'Mister Frodo described "the sound of water swirling against its three great arches" but did not say much else about it. Mister Bilbo called it an ancient stone bridge when he wrote about his journey with the Dwarves.'

'An ancient stone bridge,' Ferdi echoed, and sighed. 'After seeing the ruins on Weathertop, I begin to understand that the world is a much older place than I ever imagined. I wonder who built it, and why?'

'To get over the river, no doubt,' Pip-lad said practically. 'And Mister Frodo told my dad once that he thought the Elves or even Men and Elves together might've built the Bridge in the first place. He'd learnt in Rivendell that Elendil and Gil-galad ordered several bridges along the planned march of the Last Alliance built or strengthened before the Army marched to Rivendell to prepare for the great battle.'

'But he didn't write that in the Red Book?' Ferdi questioned.

'No,' Pip-lad said. 'And my dad heard Mister Bilbo say that the Lord Elrond ordered the repair or rebuilding of the Last Bridge when it was damaged by Trolls, for he kept watch over the stretch of the East Road from the Hoarwell to the Last Homely House. But neither he nor Mister Frodo wrote that in the Red Book, either.'

'I suppose if they had written down everything they saw or heard, the Red Book wouldn't be one book, but many,' Ferdi said.

'There are actually four* books,' Pip-lad said diffidently.

'Eh? Four?' Ferdi asked.

'Bilbo's diary, which Mister Frodo filled in with his account of the War of the Ring,' the Gamgee teen said, 'that's the original Red Book, but Mister Frodo had a red case made to hold that book and three more that Mister Bilbo gave him as a parting gift when he left Bag End for good.' He chuckled and shook his head. 'You ought to hear my dad and Mister Merry go on about it!'

'Go on about what?' Farry asked.

'About if the Red Book is a single book or four volumes! My dad has read us the one book all the way through from start to finish! But he says the other three books aren't the same thing at all.'

'What do you mean?' Ferdibrand asked, curious.

The Gamgee teen shrugged. 'He says I can read them when I'm older, if I'm interested.' He looked from one Took to the other and said, 'O' course, I haven't even read the Red Book myself yet! ...but my dad, he reads a little of the story to us almost every evening.'

Unexpectedly, he chuckled.

'What's the joke?' Farry wanted to know.

His friend shook his head. 'I supposed I'd miss the reading – it's been going on all my life, all our lives, that is, ever since Mister Frodo sailed away. For Dad started reading the Red Book to Mum and Ellie that very first evening when he came back from seeing Mister Frodo off at the Grey Havens, and he hasn't stopped since!'

'But you don't miss it after all?' Farry asked.

'Well I miss them,' Pip-lad said, but then he swept his hand out in front of him. 'But I must say, I'm living the Book now, and it has kept me so busy that I've hardly had time to feel homesick at all since we left Bree!'

'Nor I,' Farry said softly, and then he sighed. At his uncle's questioning look, he added, 'But they did not have the same luxury, did they? For they did not know what lay ahead of them, and they had no guarantees of coming home again.'

Under his breath, he whispered, 'What a fool I've been...'

'What do you mean, Farry?' Pip-lad said, honestly bewildered.

Faramir's lips tightened in a wry grin. 'For all my fussing about "authenticity",' he said, 'I never really thought the matter through at all, did I? Frodo Baggins did, though. You said it yourself, Pip: "Will I ever look down into that valley again?" he kept asking himself.' 

On seeing Ferdi's surprise, he emphasised, 'Yes, he said such things many times!' 

Turning back to Pip-lad, he added, 'And he told your dad, I'm glad you're here with me, Sam, here at the end of all things...'

'He did,' Pip-lad quietly confirmed.

'So Frodo set out upon a journey knowing full well he might never return,' Farry said. 'I'm not sure I'd ever have the nerve to do such a thing.'

'You're young yet, lad,' Ferdibrand said. 'When you're older, you may well find yourself faced with difficult choices.'

'Like you, Uncle, during the Troubles?' Farry said, suddenly remembering the Tookish scouts who had repeatedly ventured into the Outer Shire to collect information for the Thain. They had been fully aware that if Lotho's Men were to capture them and identify them as Tooks, they faced the Lockholes... or worse.

Ferdi would not meet his gaze, but looked off into the far distance. 'I suppose it would be easy enough just to sit down in a comfortable chair instead of setting out on a journey for some reason or another,' he said at last. 'But where would we be now if my cousin Frodo had taken that choice?'

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Author's notes:

The idea that the Last Alliance built the Last Bridge or strengthened or replaced an existing bridge comes from the Encyclopedia of Arda website. Additional information was drawn from the Tolkien Gateway website.

*According to the Note on the Shire Records section in the 'Prologue Concerning Hobbits, and Other Matters' chapter in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, a fifth book was added to the set in the Westmarch some years after this discussion takes place.

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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