Chapter 17. Lessons in Shelter-Finding
For the most part, Ferdi and Estella maintained silence as they made their way down the hillside into the valley through the sheltering darkness. At one point, he stopped and stooped to the ground, coming up with a long, straight stick of about the same thickness as his walking stick, though it was longer, about as tall as a staff. He tapped his heavy walking stick in Estella's hand, then tapped the "staff", and she quickly understood that he wished to exchange sticks with her, that he might have his old familiar prop (and weapon?) in his hand once more.
As before, Estella wasn't quite sure how the Fox managed it, but he seemed able to find the best footing on the most stable part of the slope, or so it appeared to her. Leaning on him as she was, limping along with her staff in her other hand, instead of following close behind while grasping his cloak (rather like walking a dog on a lead, some irreverent part of her mind whispered), she had a clearer sense of her companion's use of his sturdy walking stick, prodding the ground before them.
She began to notice subtle sounds; she'd feel Ferdi reach forwards, and divined even through the darkness that he tapped gently to the left, straight ahead, and to the right of them, adjusting their course according to whatever it was he discerned with his probing. The ground underfoot was relatively even, she realised. Her guide must be avoiding holes and large rocks and stumps. When he detected tree roots or fallen trees, he'd stop, take her arm, and help her hobble over the obstacle with the aid of her stick. Then he'd slip his arm around her again and they'd proceed along the path he chose, at least until the next obstacle presented itself.
Thankfully, they encountered no ruffians as they made their cautious way down the hillside. But Estella began to notice she could now see the shapes of trees looming around them as the slope began to level out, indicating they'd reached the valley.
Ferdi turned his head and whispered, his warm breath tickling her ear. 'Dawn will be here soon.'
'And shelter?' she whispered back.
It had grown light enough for her to see him shake his head. 'No shelter,' he whispered, reminding her that he'd established no hiding places in this part of the Wood, and his next secure place of concealment was too far to reach before full daylight was upon them, just as she remembered him mentioning earlier. 'We'll have to make our own luck.'
There were many questions she wanted to ask, but that would only slow them down, and who knew how well sound might carry in this part of the Woody End, bringing unwanted attention from wandering Men? So, instead, Estella concentrated on scanning their surroundings, looking for... she wasn't quite sure what they were looking for, but at least when Ferdi indicated that they'd found it, what ever it might be, she'd know what to look for in future if she ever found herself alone and in similar straits.
Before the first shafts of sunlight pierced through the trees, she felt more than heard her companion take a deep breath, and then Ferdi's arm squeezed briefly tighter. 'Here we are,' he murmured. Though he spoke so low it was difficult to hear any emotion in his voice, she had the impression he was relieved to have found what ever it was they had found.
'Here...?' she whispered.
He nodded. 'What's good for rabbits...' he quoted.
Estella frowned, for she'd heard the rest of the saying often enough from Cook: ...is good for the pot! Something to do with the seasoning, she thought, though no one had ever explained the matter to her.
But Ferdi was tugging at her arm. 'Get down,' he whispered. There was no urgency in his tone or actions, which Estella took to mean a ruffian wasn't about to blunder into them, so she crouched down rather than throwing herself to the ground.
Ferdi moved ahead of her, making small rustling sounds. Peering through the shadows ahead, Estella realised they'd nearly blundered into a sizeable bramble patch, and she shuddered, thinking of the scratching, stabbing thorns they'd avoided.
On second thought, Ferdi did not seem to be finding a path around the brambles but was addressing the thorny undergrowth directly, his walking stick in one hand, lifting the nearest thorny vines, and his knife in the other, and he was doing something... She wasn't quite sure what it was...
And then he paused and beckoned her forward, and seeing the gesture, she realised how quickly the forest was lightening around them. 'Get out your knife,' he said as she ducked under the vines he was bracing over their heads, making a tunnel of sorts. He gestured with the blade in his hand. 'Pull your hood up! Now, trim the thorns on the low branches, so...' He also had her lay down her staff, for the long stick was a little too long for convenience at the moment.
With them both working to trim away the thorns, they penetrated quickly into the briar patch. Astonishingly, Estella found that even when she missed some thorns, they glided over her rabbit-fur cloak and hood without penetrating. And now Ferdi's What's good for rabbits... began to make sense to her.
Ferdi did not signal a rest until they had worked their way deep into the brambles, whereupon he cleared a small space of ground, just large enough for a hobbit (maybe two) to sit or curl up in sleep. 'There,' he whispered. He sat down and patted his lap. 'Close quarters, but it cannot be helped,' he said. 'We don't want to clear away too many vines and make ourselves visible to someone passing by. But take your pack off first and set it to the side.'
Estella sat down and drew up her feet to keep them from the thorns pressing in all around them. She noticed Ferdi gently extricating his cloak from some nearby thorns. 'What's good for rabbits...' he repeated, and she clearly saw the wry twist of his mouth since the dawn had fully arrived as they worked and she was sitting sideways on his lap. (What ever would her grandmother say to that? A wedding on the morrow! Sooner, if at all possible! no doubt.)
Shhhh... His warning was more of a sibilance than an actual shushing noise. As Estella stilled, she was aware of Ferdi hurriedly pulling his hood over his head and then wrapping his dark-green cloak around the two of them, even taking pains to cover their feet. Then he laid his walking stick down beside him, and the brambles overhead settled over and around them, offering extra motivation to keep completely still.
She heard the Men's voices, then, approaching, and soon their heavy footsteps were audible. Estella held her breath, but as she might have anticipated, the ruffians gave the thorny brambles a wide berth – though Ferdi would likely have said "steered clear of" instead of using a Brandybuck term more suited to sailing, for Tooks were, as a rule, suspicious of water in its untamed state.
At last, the footsteps and voices had faded completely away, and Estella relaxed.
Ferdi relaxed too, but quickly stiffened again as she heard a quickly suppressed Oooch! from him.
'Is aught amiss, "Uncle"?' she whispered.
'Naught, only a thorn or three,' he answered low. 'I'll have to get me a rabbit-fur cloak before I venture into the Wood a second time.'
'Frankly I'm astonished you ventured into the Wood a first time so unprepared!' she answered, staying in character.
Instead of the typical Tookish O aye! – which Rosemary Bolger had been at some pains to eliminate from her children's vocabulary, Ferdi sounded rather like a hobbit from Bywater or perhaps Hobbiton as he said, 'Isn't that the truth!'
And then he said, 'Let me have your hood, if you wouldn't mind too much, Nephew...'
'Indeed I would mind, Uncle!' Estella said, untying the loop that held the hood secure. 'Yet I am a good-hearted sort, and so I will have pity on you, poor creature that you are, this time at least. But do not let me catch you so unprepared again!' she added as she pulled the hood from her head and put it in his hand.
'You are a good-hearted sort,' Ferdi agreed, easing the rabbit-skin hood over his head and shoulders, 'even if you must say so yourself.'
Since he was taller than Estella, it made good sense for him to protect his head and neck and the top of his shoulders from the thorns pressing down on them from above. Estella suppressed a giggle at the thought that the brambles were their shelter, the hood was his shelter, and his head was her shelter!
'That's better,' Ferdi murmured with a sigh. He rested his chin on the top of her head, and his arms tightened around her. 'Are you warm enough?'
'Plenty warm!' Estella assured him.
'Good,' he said, loosening his hold. And then one hand fell away, and she realised he'd laid his pack down beside him as he'd sat down, even before telling her to take off her pack and sit herself in his lap. 'Here,' he said, reaching up towards her face.
At the smell of food, Estella realised she was ravenously hungry. She'd have liked to snatch the food from Ferdi's hand and cram it in her mouth! But mindful of the thorns all around them, she eased her hand out of her lap, took hold of the bread-and-dried meat he'd dug out of the pack, and brought it slowly to her mouth, lest an incautious action should result in a painful scratch.
'Mmm,' she said. 'That just suits.'
'Mmm-hmm,' he answered, for he'd dipped into the pack again and brought up another serving of travel rations for himself, and was now applying it where it would do the most good.
As they ate, Ferdi whispered to her of the necessary change in their plans. 'We'll hide here like wise little rabbits until your ankle is fully healed.' She did not interrupt him to debate the wisdom of rabbits. Though the little creatures were certainly wary and elusive, she wouldn't exactly call them wise! But Ferdi was, after all, a hunter, and so he might have a broader perspective of the creatures. 'I can forage for more food – there will be a few roots to be found, and some spring greens, and maybe even mushrooms should fortune favour us.'
'Pity it's not the season for bramble-berries,' Estella said. 'I deem 'twould be like sleeping in the larder!'
'I thought your folk didn't have larders!' Ferdi whispered, pretending surprise.
'O' course we don't have larders, are ye daft? ...But we do know what they are! Such an impractical, inconvenient idea, to dig a hole and keep yer food innit rather than carry your victuals with you and have them handy when ever hunger should strike!'
'Well I never claimed to be practical,' Ferdi defended himself.
Estella allowed herself a soft snort. 'Good thing, too, or I'd have to call you a liar!'
They also indulged themselves with a few of the mushrooms they'd gathered. Estella was much less fastidious than in the past in terms of brushing off every speck of dirt; she found the shrooms delicious in spite of that fact. Finally, Ferdi allowed them each a few sips of water, and then he said, 'I cannot keep my eyelids open much longer.'
'Old gaffers need their sleep,' Estella answered, though her own eyelids felt heavy, and her body was relaxing after the long, difficult – dare she say harrowing? – descent with only three good feet between them. She was rewarded by his chuckle.
'Very well,' Ferdi said. 'I'm going to ease us over and down now...'
Estella helped as much as she could, considering her cloak kept her relatively intact, whilst Ferdi's cloak provided only concealment and cover from casual discovery by passing Men.
When they were resting on their sides at last, still curled uncomfortably close together, or so it felt to her, Ferdi whispered. 'We can dare to sleep now, just so long as we don't snore...'
'I'll be sure to waken you when your snoring starts, old Uncle,' Estella murmured.
'Be sure that you do, my young grub,' Ferdi replied. 'I'm sorry we cannot stretch out more comfortably, but rabbits is as rabbits does...'
'So rabbits must,' she agreed. 'G'night.'
'Good morning, you mean.'
'Whatever.'
***