Note to the Reader:
This story is set the autumn after the finding of the Thain's treasure (see "StarFire" for details), several months before King Elessar met his friends and Counsellors at the Brandywine Bridge.

In the Greening of the Year

Chapter 1. To Be Back in Time for Tea

It usually takes four hours to ride from Whittacres Farm to the Great Smials, if one does not stop to make a picnic along the way, or if rain has not muddied the track, or if snow does not lie upon the Green Hills, beautiful but very slowing to travellers. On this day the track was muddy from storms crossing over the Shire in waves over the course of the previous fortnight. The sky above was grey and overcast, but no rain fell at the moment.

 ‘ ‘Tis a good thing we left early!’ Eglantine Took said stoutly, patting the neck of her gentle mare as that beast made her careful way along the track. ‘Foot by foot, dear,’ she bent to whisper. The brown ear twitched to hear the words and the mare’s pace slowed as one hoof slipped. ‘At this rate it’ll be after teatime before we arrive!’

 ‘If the going is too difficult, Mistress, I could take you back to Whittacres. I know Mistress Pearl would be happy to send you by way of the Road in comfort and safety,’ Tolibold answered. He was not happy about Eglantine’s insistence on riding across the countryside as she had in years past, instead of on solid, dependable roads.

 ‘The long way round!’ Eglantine snorted. ‘And miss Pimpernel’s birthday breakfast on the morrow!’ It could take the better part of a week to travel by road to Waymeet, over the East-West Road to the Brandywine, south to Stock, and finally westwards once more, to Tuckborough. A new road was planned between Bywater and Tuckborough, but that was all it was as of yet—a plan.

 ‘I could take your message to her, Mistress,’ Tolly said. He didn’t mind so much travelling these muddy tracks, but Eglantine was well advanced in years and he hated the thought of facing Thain Peregrin should any mishap befall her.

Eglantine heeded him not at all, but began to sing in a high, reedy voice as she pressed her mare forward on the widening track. ‘Should a lassie fair be married in the greening of the year, greening of the year, greening of the year...’

Tolly sighed and set himself to follow. Stubborn, the Mistress was. It was the way of all Tooks. It was his own way as well, actually. He permitted himself a grin, though he was in the midst of serious business: escorting the mother of the Thain over slippery trails with more rain threatening. Truth be told, he was in a hurry to reach home and hearth, himself—his Sweetie and his own tiny babe a-waiting. He raised his voice to join in the song.

Should a couple’s love be growing in the warming of the year,
warming of the year,
warming of the year,
Should a couple’s love be growing in the warming of the year,
Then we’ll sing the song and carry it along!

Should a bouncing babe be borning in the turning of the year,
turning of the year,
turning of the year!
Should a bouncing babe be borning in the turning of the year,
Then we’ll sing the song and carry it along!

A lengthy song it was, with many verses, and a fine rollicking tune that made the ponies prick their ears and lift their heads. Were the footing less muddy it would surely set the ponies to prancing as well, but they continued to pick their way with care as their riders sang them along.

Should the farmer be a-ploughing in the greening of the year...

They reached the place where the track dipped down into the valley of the Tuckbourn. The stream was swollen to the size of a river, churning along with a loud and boisterous voice. Tolly urged his pony abreast of Eglantine’s gentle mare, catching at the reins to bring both ponies to a halt just shy of the spread of water. ‘Over her banks,’ he said.

 ‘True,’ Eglantine said, her eyes narrowing as she regarded the old bridge that would take them across the stream, leaving them a bare hour of travel to reach the Great Smials.

 ‘Over the footings,’ Tolly said in tacit protest.

 ‘ ‘Tis a sturdy old bridge,’ Eglantine answered. ‘Been there since I was a faunt! My own father helped the Brandybuck engineers who built it after the old bridge washed away!’ Brandybucks were responsible for most of the bridges in the Shire, with their unnatural affinity for water.

 ‘Well this one looks to be on its way to washing away,’ Tolly said, not releasing his grip on Eglantine’s reins.

 ‘Are you afraid of getting your pony’s feet wet?’ Eglantine chided.

 ‘It’s not my pony’s feet I’m worried about,’ Tolly said.

 ‘The stream’s been higher than this and the old bridge stood through it all,’ Eglantine said. ‘See, even though the bridge itself is ankle-deep, the railings are standing firm and proud.’

 ‘You let me be the judge of that, Mistress,’ Tolly said. ‘You wait here.’

He slid from his saddle, handed his reins to Eglantine, and waded into the shallow water separating them from the bridge, shuddering at the feel of it around his ankles. He enjoyed a bath as much as any other hobbit, but to wade into water, deliberately, and cold water at that! Not to mention that it was water from a river, and Tooks knew that rivers were treacherous things at best.

Reaching the bridge, he grabbed at the railing as the current sucked around his knees. The bridge rose in a shallow arc, but even the middle was submerged, at least ankle deep if his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

He turned to call back. ‘We might lead the ponies acrost, Mistress, but I wouldn’t chance riding them!’ Hopefully the prospect of wading knee-deep in the muddy water would deter Eglantine. He ought to have known better.

 ‘Very well!’ she called back, and started to ride forward.

He held up a commanding hand. ‘Stay!’ he shouted. ‘I haven’t made absolutely sure it’s safe yet!’

 ‘Safe and solid, I warrant!’ she called back, but she obediently pulled the ponies to a halt.

Grasping the handrail for dear life, Tolly waded onto the bridge. 

Chapter 2. Hobbit Hospitality

This is madness, Tolly thought as he reached the centre of the bridge. The water rushed over his feet and past his ankles, giving him the illusion that he was the one in motion. He froze, clutching the railing in a white-knuckled grip. The world tilted and threatened to spin. Madness. Why was he here? He had been going to show the Mistress... show the Mistress... show...

Tolly! Eglantine’s sharp summons reached him in his motionless panic. Tolly! He shook his head to dispel the roaring in his ears and let out a long-held breath.  He was dizzy... and then he realised that he’d not taken a new breath since stepping onto the bridge. Now despite his fear he forced air in and out, and his head began to clear.

There was a splashing behind him and he turned to see Eglantine and the ponies reach the edge of the bridge. ‘Go back!’ he cried.

 ‘Come, Tolibold!’ Eglantine was no less determined. ‘Come at once, do you hear?’

Though he knew he could not stand there on the bridge forever, it was difficult to pry his hands loose from their death-grip on the railing. To move in either direction along the bridge was to welcome the water’s embrace as it slowly rose to encompass him... Reluctantly he sloshed down the slope of the bridge into ever-deepening, swift-running water. It was a relief to reach his pony and haul himself up into the saddle.

 ‘Come along,’ Eglantine said crisply, maintaining her hold on Tolly’s reins. She directed her mare back to unflooded ground, pulling Tolly’s pony after.

Before the shamefaced escort could apologise, Eglantine said firmly, ‘You had the right of it, Tolly. Much too dangerous. We’ll have to go to the Stone Bridge and hope for better luck.’

The next crossing was the high stone bridge outside of Tuckborough. The Great Smials were not far as the crow flies—perhaps an hour from where they stood, were one to leave the stream and travel through the Green Hills. From the far side of the Tuckbourn, however... the stream swung in a wide loop along its course here, leading away from Tuckborough for a good way before turning back. Three more hours’ journey was before them, if not more.

 ‘Go on, Mistress?’ Tolly said numbly.

 ‘You heard aright,’ Eglantine answered. ‘It’s just as far to go back to Whittacres as it is to go forward. Three hours or so either way, so we might as well go forwards as back.’

 ‘Yes, Mistress,’ Tolly muttered.

Eglantine looked sharply at him. The best thing for a hobbit in Tolly’s state was food, but they’d already eaten the meal packed in their bags some time ago. There was nothing for it but to press on. ‘Very well then,’ was all she said. ‘Time’s wasting.’ She turned her pony’s head and started along the track that followed, more or less, the Tuckbourn’s course towards Tuckborough.

They’d been riding the better part of an hour when Eglantine reined in her mare, turning to address her faithful shadow. ‘Smoke!’ she said, pointing an imperious finger. Indeed, a thin wisp of smoke rose into the sullen skies from behind the great hill they skirted. ‘Shall we stop and beg a cup of tea?’

 ‘As you wish, Mistress,’ Tolly said. Accordingly they left the main track when they reached a side-branching trail, and soon pulled up before a cosy smial dug into the side of the hill. Warm lamplight spilled out of the shining round windows, late geraniums waved from window boxes and smoke rose from the chimney in a column of promise.

Tolly dismounted and knocked.

 ‘Someone’s at door!’ came a shout from within. ‘Bert! Bert! The door!’

The round bright-yellow door was jerked open, presumably by Bert, a short, fat hobbit with rosy cheeks and a wide grin. ‘Here now!’ he cried. ‘ ‘Tis a good thing you thought to bake an extry cake this day, Mira!’

 ‘If you please,’ Tolly began, but got no further as Bert hauled him bodily through the door and passed him to a slightly younger hobbit with the same apple cheeks and bright eyes. The latter immediately began to divest Tolly of his cloak, chattering cheerily of the weather and the extra cake Mira had fortuitously baked for tea.

Tolly needn’t worry about Eglantine. Bert had hurried to help her from the saddle while calling a teen to take the ponies.

Mira bustled from the kitchen to greet them, and upon recognising Eglantine she was all smiles and courtesies, bubbling over with the honour of being of service to “the Mistress of Tookland and all!” And all meant Tolly perhaps; he was seized from all sides and led to the second-best chair, plonked down and given a steaming mug of tea before he could utter another word. Eglantine was shown to the best chair, of course.

And so the travellers enjoyed much more than a single warming cup of tea. Indeed they were invited to stay the night, but Eglantine firmly declined. ‘My daughter’s birthday is on the morrow,’ she said. ‘We always celebrate a birthday breakfast in our family! I wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ All rose as she stood up from her chair, and Bert directed two of the tweens to fetch the ponies once more.

At the door, Eglantine paused to say, ‘Thank you for a lovely tea!’ Tolly bowed to Bert and his brothers and their families, adding his thanks. He quite felt himself again, with the warmth and food and laughter.

 ‘Come, Tolly!’ Eglantine said crisply. ‘If we leave now we should come to the Stone Bridge by eventides.’

 ‘Aye, Mistress, you have the right of it,’ jolly Bert said heartily. ‘Just two hours or so... are you sure you won’t stay the night and start out again, early-like?’

 ‘Quite sure,’ Eglantine said with a gracious smile. ‘My daughter will be expecting me, you see, and if I don’t arrive by nightfall she’ll be dreadfully disappointed, thinking I’m not to come at all!’

The good farm family stood in the yard and sang them on their way. Tolly was feeling quite a bit more cheerful, and Eglantine positively glowed. The rest had done her good and renewed her indomitable energies. Not even the lowering clouds could dampen her mood. Besides, if all went well, they’d reach the Great Smials well before the next storm arrived.

 ‘Nearly there,’ Eglantine sang when they’d been riding perhaps an hour. The track had been cut into a steep hillside here, and she had to turn to call over her shoulder to Tolly, leaving her mare to pick her way along.

 ‘Aye,’ Tolly returned. What else was there to be said? Below them the Tuckbourn surged through the valley; above them trees hugging the hillside trembled in a freshening breeze. Odd, Tolly thought, that the breeze should be so stiff up there, and scarcely felt here, halfway down the hill.

His pony tossed an uneasy head and snorted, and Tolly looked all about, his senses alerted to something out of place. But what could it be? Eglantine rode ahead, her gentle old mare placing each step with care. The stream coursed well below them. The trees trembled above as in a breeze... suddenly Tolly realised that rather more than a breeze was troubling the trees. They were...

 ‘Walking!’ he gasped. ‘Walking trees!’ He thought of the stories he’d heard Pippin tell, and for one wild moment the trees assumed the guise of walking huorns on their way to battle, until he realised the truth of the matter. Saturated by the recent heavy rains, the hillside was coming down.

 ‘Mistress!’ he shouted, drawing his unstrung bow from his back. ‘Hold fast!’

Eglantine’s eyes widened as she looked around and divined his purpose; she scarcely had time to grab at her saddle before the escort brought the flexible wood down on the rump of her mare with a resounding thwack. The mare jumped forward and bolted, nearly spilling her rider. Tolly desperately kicked his own pony as the hill began to slide away from under and over them with a rumbling that grew ever more intense. His pony seemed to stumble beneath him, or perhaps its footing had disappeared; in any event, he found himself falling as he lost sight of Eglantine. He was falling with the dirt and rocks and trees that fell around him, sliding down towards the fearsome waters that waited to claim him. He’d escaped their clutches at the wooden bridge, but now there was no turning back.

Chapter 3. Blunt Talk

Eglantine roused, not sure of where she was. Actually, she was fairly convinced that she had not wakened, but was still gripped in nightmare. She was gripped, anyhow, on all sides by something clammy and cold as the clay; her breath was stifled, and panic stirred her to scream, useless as it might be.

Instead of the silent scream of the nightmare that had haunted her after her husband’s burial, a thin keening assaulted her ears before it turned to a cough of amazed disgust, for in opening her mouth, she tasted dirt! She forced herself to breathe through her nose, even as she unsuccessfully tried to spit out the encroaching dirt. The nightmare had come true: she was buried alive!

She struggled, then, and her hand thrust through a thin layer into what felt like clear air... she pulled herself upright, dirt trickling from her head and shoulders in a filthy cascade. She was completely caked with mud, and frustrating it was to try to clear her vision when the hands she lifted to her mud-covered face had their own coating. At least she was able to disgorge the dirt from her mouth. Ah, for a drink of water to clear away the taste! The water bottle was attached to her saddle-pad, as she recalled, and her pony...

 ‘Tolly!’ she cried. ‘Tolibold!’ If he was nearby he could be of assistance, but seeing as how he’d been behind her, more directly in the path of the falling hillside, she suspected he was rather more in need of assistance than in a position to give it.

Fumbling with the fastenings of her cloak, she was able to get the mud-caked garment open. She wiped her face on the relatively clean inside surface. Much better! Now she could look around, to see a jumble of mud and rock and fallen trees. Below the valley was filling with water, for the slide had neatly dammed the stream. Someone ought to warn the farmers! ...but that someone was not going to be Eglantine, more’s the pity. Her own plate was rather full at present.

 ‘Tolly!’ she cried again. The dusk was beginning to descend, or else the lowering clouds made it seem so. Rain would be welcome, to wash away the mud, but only after she was off this treacherous slope and on solid ground once more.

She saw some carrion birds winging nearby, flying in circles above a fallen tree, and her heart constricted. ‘Tolly!’ she screamed, but there was no answer. Perhaps one of the ponies...

She scuttled carefully across the slope, not wanting to set off any more slides. When she was nearly there she saw a movement amongst the birds that had landed and now hopped ever closer to their quarry; several flapped back, even as there was a weak cry. That was no pony! ‘Tolibold!’ she shouted, moving as quickly as she dared. She flapped her hands at the crows, and the creatures hissed at her unpleasantly as they took to the air, robbed of their sport.

 ‘Get away,’ the escort was half-sobbing when she reached him. ‘Get away!’ There was a note of hysteria in his voice; Eglantine could see why. The tree bole split into two heavy parts that lay across Tolly’s legs and torso; his arms were trapped and he was helpless to wave away the hungering birds.

 ‘Tolly,’ Eglantine said softly, reaching out her muddy hand to touch the bleeding cheek. ‘They’re gone.’ She pulled a nearly-clean handkerchief from her pocket and gently dabbed at the wound. The escort jerked his head away and she made a soothing sound. ‘Steady now, lad. It looks as if one tried to take a bite of your cheek.’

 ‘Tried to take my eye, more like,’ Tolly gasped, turning his muddied head again to look at her. ‘Is it really you, Mistress?’

 ‘Who else would it be?’ Eglantine said crisply.

 ‘Cannot... cannot move,’ Tolly said, swallowing hard.

 ‘But you’re breathing, so that great tree hasn’t crushed you,’ Eglantine said. Not yet, anyhow.

 ‘Don’t leave me,’ Tolly said, his eyes leaving her to follow the carrion birds circling above them. ‘Please, wait until I’m sleeping...’

 ‘I haven’t the slightest intention of leaving you, asleep or no, lad,’ Eglantine said. She emphasised the word asleep as sleep, and not death as Tolly had meant it. ‘Help will just have to find us here, and don’t you worry! Why, if I’m not at Pimpernel’s birthday breakfast she’ll turn out the Tooks to find us!’

 ‘Aye,’ Tolly whispered, his eyes closing again.

 ‘Stay with me, Tolly,’ Eglantine ordered. ‘Perhaps I can dig your hands free...’

 ‘Cold,’ Tolly muttered, his eyes still closed. ‘But not as cold as the water would be.’

Eglantine was carefully scraping away the dirt under the branch on Tolly’s downhill side. It wasn’t long before she felt the fabric of his cloak, and grasping this firmly, pushing hard until she felt the solid arm beneath, she got a good hold of cloak and coat-sleeve and pulled. Tolly’s arm came into the open, and she grasped his muddy hand in her dirty ones. ‘There,’ she said, ‘That’s better.’

 ‘Sleepy,’ Tolly murmured.

 ‘Don’t you go leaving me, now, Tolly,’ Eglantine said. ‘You’ve got to promise to wait with me until our rescue comes. You’re my escort, you know, and I’ve not released you from your duties!’

 ‘Mistress,’ Tolly said, so quietly she could hardly hear him.

 ‘Tolly!’ she snapped, but he gave no sign of heeding.

She bent close, and in desperation said, ‘You cannot be letting yourself slip away so, you son of a Took!’

Even this epithet did not rouse the escort, but Eglantine added, remembering suddenly, ‘You cannot leave your little babe, and your missus, with a new one due in the greening of the year, or shortly thereafter!’

Tolly opened his eyes at that, the whites gleaming palely against the mud that masked his face. ‘New one?’ he said faintly.

 ‘Aye!’ Eglantine said. ‘The new one!’

Tolly shook his head. ‘She never told me...’ he said. ‘Sweetie never... How would you know?’ His eyes grew more aware as he fought away the encompassing mist.

 ‘She has the look about her,’ Eglantine said with a sniff, chin high in the air. ‘Woodruff and I were just gossiping over our teacups last week, as a matter of fact, and speculating when Meadowsweet would “catch on” to the fact that she was likely expecting again. She never had the all-day-long illness that so many suffer, with her first... and what with her nursing she might not notice aught...’

Tolly’s eyes were wide at such blunt talk about mums’ matters, but at least she was keeping him awake!

Chapter 4. Tea and Conversation

Eglantine kept talking—it was something she’d never had any trouble with at all, in her long life. Her cheerful talk was one of the things that had attracted Paladin’s attention in years past, the contrast between her bustling, noisy family and his own taciturn father. She’d learned over the years that her tongue was a weapon she could use for good or ill, and now she brought all her forces to bear on Tolly.

She was in the midst of an anecdote about chasing Pippin all about the farmyard when the escort interrupted. ‘Don’t let them.’

  ‘Don’t let them what?’ she said, sitting back in surprise.

 ‘Take my legs,’ he said. ‘Don’t let them take my legs.’

 ‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?’ she huffed in exasperation.

The muddy head moved restlessly before the eyes turned to her once more. ‘Don’t let them,’ he repeated. ‘Please. I’d rather not go on, if I don’t have the legs to go on.’

The play on words was Tolly all over, Eglantine thought, even as she grasped his meaning.

 ‘What sort of nonsense...?’ she began.

 ‘I saw... I saw them take the legs off a hobbit, stuck under a tree,’ he said. He gulped and made a face at the taste in his mouth. ‘Is there any water?’

 ‘I’m sorry, lad, there’s all the water in the world,’ Eglantine said, looking at the spreading floodwaters below them, ‘and none fit for the drinking.’ She stroked the mud-caked hair back from Tolly’s forehead. ‘Who took the legs off a hobbit?’

 ‘Da, and Mardi,’ Tolly said, and Eglantine nodded. Tolly was the son of a healer, and his oldest brother had followed in their father’s footsteps. The escort closed his eyes. ‘I helped,’ he said in a bitter whisper. ‘We couldn’t get the tree off, and Elber’s legs were crushed anyways... I helped to hold down his shoulders whilst they sawed away...’

Dumb with horror, Eglantine merely nodded.

Tolly gave her an earnest look and closed his eyes again, turning his face away. ‘Don’t let them,’ he repeated.

Eglantine found her tongue. ‘Or what?’ she snapped. ‘Or Meadowsweet must go through life with no husband to help her raise those hobbits you helped her to make?’

Tolly opened his eyes and turned to her again, helplessness and defeat in his expression. ‘She’d be better off,’ he whispered.

 ‘We’re feeling O-so-sorry for ourselves!’ Eglantine hissed. ‘Half a hobbit isn’t better than none, I take it? And when my husband took to his bed, do you think I should have turned away from him, for the fact that he could no longer make half his body answer to his will?’

Tolly stared at her, wordless.

 ‘If Sweetie were the one lying here, would you not do all in your power to save her, to keep her with you, even if it meant a long life of being her servant forever more?’

 ‘I am her servant,’ Tolly said, stung. ‘Her least wish is my...’ He’d moved injudiciously and the words ended in a wince.

 ‘And would you stop loving her, serving her, showering her with blessing should she lose her legs, or her tongue, or those long, lovely curls that you love to run your fingers through?’

For all he was a hobbit grown, Tolly blushed. ‘How did you...?’ he asked.

 ‘Don’t change the subject,’ Eglantine snapped. ‘Would you stop loving her?’

 ‘No,’ Tolly whispered, closing his eyes again.

 ‘Then pay her the same courtesy that she’d pay you,’ Eglantine said more gently. ‘Now where was I...? O yes, little Pippin had the cat in such a tight grip that she was scratching him something awful, and he was screaming and trying to run away, and I was chasing him shouting at him to let the cat go...’

***

Pimpernel had not been all that disturbed when her mother did not arrive in time for tea; Pippin and Ferdibrand saw to that. They diverted her with tales that made her laugh until she protested, holding her side, and then Ferdi put an arm around her and glared at Pippin.

 ‘Shameful, the way you carry on,’ he mock-scolded the Thain. ‘Why, the poor lass is breathless and still you must continue the tale...’

 ‘No I mustn’t!’ Pippin countered, even as his beaming gaze moved from his wife’s flushed and laughing face to his sister’s. ‘For it’s you who usually tells from this point on, as I—ahem!—was stuck in the well and did not see the panic that ensued in the farmyard!’

 ‘I never thought I’d laugh at that memory,’ Pimpernel wheezed. ‘Why, we thought you dead and drowned, and Mother was weeping and Vinca was screaming and Da bellowing and...’

 ‘...and they were looking in the wrong well,’ Ferdi said, sitting back and sipping at his cup. ‘You cannot blame Folco that he said a grey door rather than a green on the abandoned smial; he doesn’t see all colours, you know!’

 ‘Who’d have a grey door?’ Diamond asked in astonishment.

 ‘Ah, the paint had all weathered away and the wood turned grey from age,’ Pippin explained, taking a sip of his own tea.

 ‘And so they were looking in the wrong well?’ Diamond said.

 ‘Aye,’ Pimpernel gasped. ‘And it really was not funny at the time!’ Pippin easily evaded the ladylike kick she aimed at his ankle.

 ‘Of course it wasn’t, my dear,’ Ferdi said, in perfect satisfaction at this evidence of the raising of his wife’s spirits.

There was no raising of Pimpernel’s spirits at the eventide meal, however. She was fighting tears, and ate nothing, barely sipping at her tea. ‘It’ll be dark in an hour,’ she said, resisting Ferdi’s blandishments and attempts to tempt her with her favourite sweet. ‘Truly, with the clouds lowering it seems dark already.’

 ‘I’d wager they took the long way round, what with all the rain we’ve had this past week,’ Ferdi said.

Pimpernel gave him a sharp glance. ‘And another storm on the way, I think.’

 ‘Eh? What’s that?’ Ferdi asked.

 ‘You have that look about your eyes... your head is giving you pain. Don’t look at me that way! I know you hide it from Pippin, and perhaps even Regi doesn’t know, for all his attention to detail, but I know you too well, Ferdi-love. Whenever the weather changes your head hurts you.’

 ‘At least we’ll never be surprised by a change in the weather,’ Ferdibrand said, capitulating suddenly as was his wont with Nell, if no one else. He could never keep anything from her... but he could try to keep her from her worry. ‘But I’m sure they took the long way round, by way of the roads, instead of across the Green Hills. Tolly is far too canny a hobbit to ride a dangerous trail, not even at the insistence of the Thain or his mother!’

 ‘Are you sure of that?’ Pimpernel said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I can remember a time or two Pippin persuaded him...’

 ‘They were much younger, then,’ Ferdi said dismissively. ‘In any event, I’m sure they took tea at the Cockerel this very day and are, even as we speak, riding to the Great Smials, into the darkness if need be, just so that your mother may be here for your birthday breakfast.’

 ‘I hate to put her to such trouble,’ Pimpernel said perversely.

Ferdi shook a finger at her. ‘You put her through a deal more trouble at the start of all this birthday business,’ he said sternly. He sealed her surprised laughter with a kiss.

Best of all, she began to eat the food he’d set before her.

Chapter 5. Bedtime Stories

Eglantine had just finished singing a many-versed song in her high, reedy voice when Tolly pulled his hand free from her grasp. ‘Dark,’ he said.

 ‘Yes, it is getting dark,’ Eglantine agreed, recapturing the hand and giving it a firm squeeze. ‘I’m here, Tolly. I won’t leave you.’ Her cheerful tone belied the chill in her heart, more than the chill of the autumn evening descending on her, damp and muddy as she was. She’d heard such before, from dying hobbits as the light left their eyes. She hoped Tolly wasn’t injured badly enough to be dying now—but how could she tell, with him pinned beneath the branching bole of a heavy tree as he was?

He shook his head and tried to pull his hand away once more. ‘No,’ he said fretfully. ‘Go now, while you can still see the ground. Go to safer ground. Leave me; the birds are gone.’

 ‘I am staying right here,’ Eglantine said with a decisive nod. ‘You may order me about all you like, but it won’t do any good. I’ve slipped the escort.’ So many times her son had evaded the hobbits assigned to ride with him, a part of their duty to the son of the Thain. Tolly himself had been on water rations more than once for such “neglect” of his duty: Though it was Pippin’s fault, the hobbits of the escort were assigned the blame. There was something wrong with this state of affairs, Eglantine pondered. She ought to take it up with Pippin before Farry grew old enough to seek mischief.

Tolly’s eyes widened, and suddenly he was choking. Eglantine soothed and fussed until she realised that, rather than dying, he was fighting laughter.

 ‘Go on with you,’ she said with a gentle push to his shoulder.

 ‘Mistress,’ he gasped, closing his eyes and breathing as deeply as he could against the pressing weight, until he mastered himself once more. Opening his eyes he was sober again.  ‘Go,’ he said, raising his head slightly to emphasise his words. ‘I’m responsible for your safety...’

 ‘Seems as if I ought to take a little more responsibility, myself,’ Eglantine countered. ‘If aught happens to me, Tolly, it’s not your lookout. You did your duty.’

 ‘My duty,’ he said bleakly, all laughter gone. ‘I’ve failed, and miserably. Look at us, stranded here on a landfall, and if the land slips again we’ll be drowned, more than likely.’ He moved his head, frustration twisting his features. ‘Please Mistress, take yourself to safety at least.’

 ‘And who says it would be safety?’ Eglantine demanded. ‘I’m as safe here as anywhere. More so, for what if I were to slip, trying to make my way across the fall, and end up in the water? At least here you can keep half an eye on me!’

In the gathering gloom she could just see that Tolly had closed his eyes once more. ‘Duty,’ he whispered, and was still.

Eglantine fumbled for his throat, holding her breath until she found the life-pulse beating there. She let her breath out in a sigh and shuddered more deeply into her cloak, taking the escort’s hand in both of hers once more. ‘Duty,’ she said softly. ‘You were ever one to do your duty, lad. From the day you could walk you were watching over your younger brother, and when you grew up you became escort to the Thain and his family. Bless you, lad, for your lifetime of loyal service, and may it not end here in the mud! But now even though you’re trapped, and helpless, your duty is not ended—it is to be obedient as ever, and listen to what I tell you, and hold on with all you have until our rescue comes. For once let someone else watch over you...’

He didn't answer, but Eglantine squeezed his hand and launched into young Pippin's favourite bedtime tale.

***

Pippin and Diamond sat together on the hearthrug with Faramir sharing both their laps as the Thain told his young son a bedtime story.

 ‘Attercop! Attercop!’ the lad shouted with delight. ‘Tomnoddy!’

 ‘Pippin,’ Diamond remonstrated, though she was laughing at the tangled-up legs of the furious spiders as her husband embroidered upon Bilbo’s tale. ‘Do you think he ought to learn such words, at his tender age?’

 ‘It’s all part of the tale,’ Pippin said with a wink. ‘D’you think he’s going to forget his manners and go about insulting the spiders of the Smials?’

There was a flurry at the door to the sitting room, and then an apologetic servant was bowing before them. ‘Beg pardon, Sir, but something’s come up...’

 ‘Thain’s business is never done,’ Diamond sighed.

Pippin distributed kisses between wife and son and rose. ‘What is it, Sandy?’ he said. ‘It’s well after eventides...’

 ‘Come, Farry, it’s past your bedtime,’ Diamond said, lifting the little hobbit.

 ‘But I want my story!’ Faramir protested. 'Bilbo hadn't got away from the spiders, not yet! I want to hear the rest!'

 ‘Do you now, young master?’ Sandy said, having finished a quick low-voiced exchange with the Thain. ‘Well, it seems I know that story of Bilbo-and-the-spiders just as well as any Took, and maybe better, since I heard the old gentlehobbit himself telling the tale in my youth! Got it straight from the pony’s mouth, so to speak! You come along with me, now, and I’ll give it to you word-for-word as he told it...’ He took the lad from his mother and, still talking, walked out of the sitting room.

Diamond joined Pippin, who’d taken his cloak from the peg by the door and was ready to help her into her own heavy cloak. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

 ‘A messenger from the Greentuck Valley,’ Pippin said. ‘Floodwaters are rising fast; many have come away with their lives alone. Their smials, their storeholes, their byres and barns...’

 ‘How could a flood come up so fast?’ Diamond said. Surely if a flood had come down the Greenvale stream there’d have been disaster closer at hand in Tuckborough, for the Greenvale emptied into the Tuckbourn not long before that stream passed through the outskirts of the town.

 ‘Evidently the stream’s been dammed,’ Pippin said. ‘The waters are rising in the Greenvale towards Vale and the Tuckbourn towards Tookbank, so they figure the blockage is not far from Tuckborough.’ He gave her a squeeze through her cloak. ‘In any event, I must be off with the engineers to find the source of the trouble, and you, my dear, have a number of mouths to feed!’

 ‘We’ll have to air out the blankets in storage,’ Diamond said, already thinking of the flood of refugees that soon would inundate the Great Smials. ‘They’re sure to be soaked to the skin...’

Reaching the Thain’s study, they found Regi pouring a second cup of tea for the dripping farmer who shivered before the fire that roared upon the hearth. At the Thain’s entrance, the farmer turned and bowed. ‘Beretrand Took, at your service, Sir,’ he said with automatic courtesy, though he'd met the Thain on a previous occasion. He was a far cry from the cheerful “Bert” who’d entertained the mother of the Thain and her escort earlier that day.

Chapter 6. Settling Matters

Eglantine wasn’t sure how long she’d been talking and singing to an unresponsive Tolly. She never loosed her hold of his hand, and she listened to his breathing in the darkness when she paused to take a breath of her own. The latest pause lengthened as she listened anxiously: yes, there was a change. He was breathing faster, she thought, and they were shorter breaths. She squeezed his hand and was rewarded by an answering squeeze. He had wakened!

 ‘Tolly?’ she said softly.

 ‘Mistress,’ he whispered, pain in his voice.

 ‘What is it, lad? What’s happened?’

 ‘Tree,’ he grunted.

 Exasperated, she said, ‘I’m not daft, I know you’re under a tree... but what’s happened since then? Your breathing...’

 ‘Tree...’ he said again, forcing out the words though he could scarcely draw breath. ‘Settling... heavier...’

Eglantine closed her eyes and bowed her head, cursing herself for a senile old hobbit. She ought to have realised; on this soft, unsettled ground, the heavy tree would settle faster than the hobbit. Tolly was being slowly crushed, and there was nothing she could do! She was just an old hobbit, suited to knitting by the fireside and telling stories.

But if she was to die upon this hillside, she’d try, at least, to die well.

 ‘I could try to dig you out,’ she said with determination.

 ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Please... Mis... tress...’

She groped along the line of his arm to his torso and began to pull the dirt out from under his shoulders, though she had no shovel and it really wasn’t the sort of work a grandmother is suited to. She couldn’t bear to hear the painful gasps; she would not sit by and listen to the lad expire, and do nothing!

***

Late supper was already being prepared in the kitchens and Diamond sent orders for the cooks to prepare kettles of soup, hot and hearty, in addition. Great Smials Tooks were doubling up in their apartments, leaving empty quarters for the expected refugees; great coppers of water were heating so that baths would be ready on a few moments’ notice; extra blankets were warming and holekeepers were going through the storeholes, bringing out clothing in a variety of sizes. The first of the refugees were expected at any time.

 ‘How are they coming?’ Pippin said. ‘Woodbridge or Stonebridge?’

Bert was better able to talk, now that he had some hot tea inside and the fire on the hearth had warmed him somewhat.

 ‘The path to the Stone Bridge runs along the Tuckbourn for some ways, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s all underwater, at least near the Greenvale it is. We turned towards the Wood Bridge and found the going better, even though we had to wade across that bridge; the water’s over your ankles at the top of the arch!’

 ‘The Tuckbourn’s over her banks,’ Everard agreed, holding a sheaf of reports from scouts on fast ponies who’d been sent to check river levels.

 ‘The flooding’s come up that far from the blockage?’ Pippin said. He was thinking furiously about his experiences with floods in Buckland. The Brandybucks regularly fought flooding of the great Brandywine. Tooklanders’ rivers were much more sensible. They ran in deep courses, for the most part, at the bottoms of valleys winding through the Green Hills, and even at flood stage seldom crept far past their banks. Smials were dug above the highest known flood stage in most communities, for Tooks were no fools. There hadn’t been a disastrous flood in Tookland since the time of Thain Fortinbras!

 ‘She was already to the top of her banks, near to spilling over, at teatime outside of Tuckborough,’ Everard said. ‘We were keeping a close eye, but with no rain today the waters were already receding. We didn’t even need the sandbags we had ready.’ He looked to Bert. ‘I can well imagine the Wood Bridge being underwater; I’m surprised it hasn’t been carried away.’

 ‘My grandfather Banks helped to build that bridge,’ Pippin said proudly, ‘with help from the Brandybucks, who’re canny about such things as rivers and bridges.’

 ‘It’s standing steady,’ Bert affirmed, ‘though the hobbits crossing it are tied together with ropes, just in case the stream decides to sweep the bridge away.’

Ferdi entered the Thain’s study, Pimpernel at his side. Fortuitously they had met as he was on his way from the stables and she was on her way from the linen storeholes. ‘The ponies are ready, and the chief engineer is waiting for you in the yard.’ he reported. ‘We can ride out at any time.’

 ‘The guest quarters are ready, and we’ve squeezed everyone together to make more,’ Pimpernel said. ‘Fresh linens are on all the beds and we’ve bedwarmers in place. The little ones can sup and be put straight to bed when they arrive.’

 ‘Thank you, Nell. Ferdi, how high is the water at the Stone Bridge?’ Pippin asked.

 ‘Hardly a trickle,’ Ferdi answered. ‘It’s as if the stream has dried up!’

Everard nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s as we thought; the blockage is on the Tuckbourn somewhere below the Greenvale.’

Ferdi shook his head. Streams were tricky and treacherous things.

 ‘We’ll find you a dry cloak, Bert, and you can ride with us to find the trouble,’ Pippin said, ‘unless you’d like to ride back to the Wood Bridge to look after your folk.’

 ‘Thankee, Sir, but my brothers have all well in hand,’ Bert said.

Pippin nodded. Beretrand was unofficial “chief” of the farmers in the Greentuck Valley, and the Thain had no doubts that his sons and his brothers and their sons had been instrumental in raising the alarm and getting the hobbits of the valley out before the rising floodwaters could claim lives in addition to property.

‘And I do hope the Mistress is well,’ the farmer added.

 ‘I am well indeed, Bert,’ Diamond said, taking his empty teacup from his hand.

 ‘No, I’m sorry, Mistress,’ Bert said with a bow, ‘I meant the Mistress, of course. She took tea with us this afternoon, and...’

 ‘The Mistress?’ Pippin echoed stupidly, looking from Bert to Diamond, and then his breath came short as his face lost all colour.

Reginard was as quick to catch the implication. ‘Mistress Eglantine took tea with you?’ he said tightly. ‘This afternoon?’

 ‘Aye,’ Bert said, ‘and glad I was that she passed through before all this flooding started! Why...’ He stared from face to face and lost his smile. ‘She did pass through,’ he insisted. ‘We sang her along just after teatime. It was only two more hours’ ride for her to reach the Stone Bridge, and...’

 ‘Nell!’ Ferdi said sharply, catching his wife just in time as she slumped, white-faced. He caught her up in his arms and laid her gently in a chair, fanning her face, while Diamond stepped forward to take one of Pimpernel’s hands in hers, slapping it gently with her other hand.

 ‘Nelly, we’ve no time for this,’ Pippin snapped, though he felt like swooning himself. To Regi, he said, ‘Call Woodruff!’ Regi jerked open the door to send a hovering servant for the head healer.

 ‘She’s coming round,’ Ferdi said. He’d forgotten the flood momentarily; all his attention was on his wife.

Pimpernel shook her head, sat up in the chair and pushed him away. ‘Of all the stupid things to do,’ she said tearfully. ‘Don’t mind me! There are homeless hobbits on the way, and floodwaters rising, and Mum...’ She took a deep breath and seized Ferdi’s arm. ‘You’ve got to find Mum!’

 ‘If she was travelling through the valley when the stream was blocked,’ Everard said slowly, ‘and that was some hours ago... and she has not yet arrived...’

Pippin closed his eyes and swallowed hard, while Pimpernel stared at the engineer wide-eyed. She began to shake her head in negation, even as Everard looked from Pippin to Pimpernel and said heavily, ‘I’m sorry.’

 ‘A landslip, you think?’ Pippin said, opening his eyes, controlling himself with great effort and speaking matter-of-factly, though his head was whirling and his heart had plummeted to his toes.

 ‘It’s the logical explanation,’ Everard said, forcing himself to speak as dispassionately as the Thain. ‘Aldebrand thought to find the blockage and relieve it somehow, not so that the water would come down on Tuckborough in a flood wave, mind, but a small hole in the dam, to let it out gradually if we can.’

 ‘We’ll have to find the blockage first,’ Pippin said, swallowing his grief and fastening his cloak. ‘Somewhere between the Greenvale and the Stone Bridge... We’ll ride that path, and...’ his eyes met his sister’s, and he tried to infuse his voice with hope though none was in his heart, ‘...look for signs of my mother and Tolly along the way.’

 ‘Yes, Sir,’ the other hobbits chorused.

 ‘Come along then,’ Pippin said. ‘Time’s wasting.’ He swept from the room without a backwards look, Regi, Everard and Bert following.

Diamond understood. She knew what a tight hold he had on himself. Her duty was to stay behind, to deal with the expected flood of refugees, and to keep Pimpernel from falling apart from grief and worry.

 ‘Go, Ferdi,’ she said as that hobbit hesitated. ‘Nell will be fine.’

 ‘I will be,’ Pimpernel said, standing to her feet and throwing her arms about her husband. ‘I know just how much hope there is... or isn’t... You go and do what you have to do, and when the emergency is over there’ll be time for grieving. I only hope my mother’s end was quick, and that she suffered neither fear nor pain.’

 ‘Meadowsweet,’ Diamond said suddenly, and Pimpernel turned to her.

 ‘O no,’ she said softly. ‘How will we ever tell her the news?’

 ‘We won’t,’ Woodruff said from the doorway. ‘She’s busy seeing about beds at the moment. Until we’re surer of what happened, we’ll keep this to ourselves.’

Ferdi gently kissed his Nell on the cheek and strode from the room.

(Yes, I know it's a terrible pun. Sorry.)
 

Chapter 7. Come Hail or High Water

As she dug, Eglantine kept up a steady, if slightly breathless, stream of talk, partly for Tolly’s benefit, and partly for her own. ‘Dirt,’ she was saying now. ‘We go back quite a ways, you know. Why, dirt and I have had a long acquaintance, from the first time my mother picked me up from the dirt of the yard and bewailed the fact that I’d mussed my best clothes while we were waiting for guests to arrive. Ah, but that was fine dirt, and from what I’m told it tasted fine, too, to a little hobbit... I rather lost my taste for dirt in later years, at least for eating it!’

Tolly’s breath was laboured and she paused to say, ‘Hold on, lad, we’ll win you some breathing room.’

 ‘Aye,’ he gasped, and she shoved her hands further in under his torso, wrestling the heavy, wet dirt free.

 ‘Then there’s the dirt from the kitchen garden, ah, friendly dirt it was. Black and rich, that spoke to me as I blessed the seeds and planted them, in its wet and promising smell. The feel of it on my fingers, now, as I coaxed the weeds out, roots and all. You have to pull out the whole weed, for if you leave the root it’ll grow back, you know.’

Tolly made an assenting noise, and Eglantine continued. ‘We were great friends, we were. I always remembered to say “thankee” as I harvested the riches nurtured by that dirt, for what it provided to nourish my loved ones. Such fine dirt it was...’

She rested her forehead on Tolly’s shoulder for a moment, then went on digging and talking. ‘Friendly dirt it was, too—great friends with little Pippin! They may say that a bath no oftener than weekly is healthful, but that lad... sometimes a daily bath wasn’t enough for him. I’d just get him clean and he’d be dirty again!’

She moved around to Tolly’s side, reaching as far as she could under him, where the great bole pressed down upon his chest, scooping handfuls of dirt away though her own breath came with difficulty, and her shoulders and arms screamed protest. ‘And there was the dirt on the floors, ah, all good dirt I’m sure, but it was where it didn’t belong and so I restored it to its rightful home with sweeps of my broom, I did!’ She swept the last of the dirt that she could reach from under Tolly and pulled her arms free, letting him settle... and heard him sigh. ‘Better, lad?’

 ‘I can breathe,’ Tolly whispered. ‘Much better, Mistress. My thanks.’

 ‘I only wish I could reach further, and dig your legs free,’ she said, dissatisfied. ‘Had I a shovel, perhaps... but then, my mother was always saying, “If wishes were ponies, gaffers would ride.” So long as I’m wishing, I might as well wish the rescuers to arrive already, or better yet, us safe in the Smials.’

Tolly’s breathing still sounded strained to her, as she groped to find his hand in the darkness. She hoped the tree hadn’t done deadly harm before she’d thought to dig him some relief.

 ‘How about another song?’ she asked when she’d settled herself as comfortably as she could. My but she’d ache in the morning!

 ‘A goodly idea, Mistress,’ Tolly said. ‘But perhaps you’d be kind enough to do the singing?’

Eglantine chortled, weak as the joke had been. ‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Happy to oblige.’ She launched into a song that Pippin had brought from the Southlands, and was well into it when she felt the first raindrop.

 ‘Did I hear you wishing for water, earlier?’ she said. ‘Don’t look now, but you’re about to get it!’

She felt Tolly’s arm stiffen under her hand, and when he spoke again the anxiety was back in his tone. ‘Please, Mistress,’ he said. ‘You ought to try to make your way to safer ground. With more rain, I don’t know how long this hillside will stand.’

 ‘Too dark, lad,’ she said. ‘Even if I wanted to leave you here, I couldn’t.’ More drops came, and still more, and then a downpour. She hovered over Tolly, spreading her cloak over them both, but she also pulled her handkerchief free and held it in the deluge, wringing it out several times until she thought it might, just might, be clean. When it was soaking again, she brought it to Tolly’s mouth. ‘Sip on this, dearie,’ she said. ‘And when that’s gone I’ll pour you another drink.’

Tolly sucked the moisture from the handkerchief and gave a sigh. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Nearly worth the risk.’

 ‘I’m sure,’ Eglantine said, and she continued to soak the handkerchief and place it, dripping, on Tolly’s lips until Tolly told her he’d had enough. After that she soaked the handkerchief and wrung the contents into her own parched mouth. She’d tried to catch the cascading rain by looking up with open mouth, but while it washed the mud from her cheeks, it didn’t satisfy her thirst.

Lightning flashed, briefly lighting the hills around them and the spreading lake below, and thunder grumbled. The first hailstones took Eglantine by surprise, but she soon understood what was happening and hunched under her cloak once more, covering Tolly as best she could, as the punishing ice-rocks rained down upon them with bruising force.

***

They rode grimly through the pouring rain, most of them forcing their ponies up the rain-slick slopes to the top of each hill and down, and up again, in never-ending struggle. The chief engineer had argued the Thain into taking this course. ‘I’ll ride along the stream,’ Aldebrand had said, ‘and I’ll keep a sharp eye out for signs of the Mistress and her escort, but if the dam bursts and a flood comes down, I don’t want it to wash away anyone else!’

At last he’d conceded that Ferdi could ride along with him, though he’d said sceptically. ‘So you know how to swim, Ferdi? An oddity amongst Tooks, for one thing, but for another, what could you do in the torrent that follows a dam bursting?’

 ‘Not much,’ Pippin had said, who’d had some experience with such, ‘but he might be able to do just enough to keep you from drowning.’

And so the main body of hobbits rode up hill and down, while Ferdi and Aldi rode along the near-empty stream bed, flashing their lanterns from one side to the other. They could see the torches and lanterns of the hill-riders high up and somewhat behind them, for their way was much faster, if more fraught with peril.

 ‘I dunno,’ Ferdi said. ‘Fraught with peril? Seems to me climbing up and down great hills would be more perilous than riding on the flat. Why, their ponies might slip, and it’s tiring work for the poor beasts. At least we’ll hear the water coming, and be able to ride for high ground, I hope.’

 ‘The roar of the rain sounds like thundering waters to me,’ Aldi said morosely.

 ‘That’s thunder,’ Ferdi said, catching a flash of light in the skies. ‘And now I know we have the safer path... if they’re on a hilltop when lightning strikes...’

 ‘Perhaps we ought to invite them to share our peril,’ Aldi said. His pony nearly bolted as hailstones began to pelt down. He and Ferdi were forced to dismount and lead their beasts, head bent against the onslaught.

 ‘Had enough yet?’ Ferdi shouted. ‘Shall we go home and come back in the morning?’

 ‘Let’s not, and say we did!’ Aldi returned at the top of his voice, and heads down, they struggled onwards, no longer looking towards the hills to see the progress of the Thain’s party. ‘I only hope we find that blockage soon!’

 ‘You’re not the only one!’ Ferdi shouted in reply.

Chapter 8. Casting About

Eglantine had taken up the thread of the never-ending story, once the hail ended its assault and she could, albeit painfully, raise herself to a sitting position again. It was for her own benefit, more than Tolly’s, now. She feared that if she slept now, she might never waken again on This Side. Not that it mattered, for she welcomed the anticipated reunion with her beloved Paladin. The sticking point was that she’d ruin Pimpernel’s birthday forever more if she were to die this day. So, stubborn to the last, in a cracked whisper, she doggedly told the tale.

 ‘...and so Folco, with all the wit he possessed—that not being much at the time, what with him being a great tween and all, or was he just a teen? For the life of me, I'm that muddled! ...and more interested in filling his stomach with food than his brains with wisdom—proposed that they have a contest, and cast stones in the well to see whose splash was the biggest.’

Tolly’s hand squeezed hers reassuringly as she paused.

 ‘They were never allowed to throw things into a well at home, y’know, or anyone else’s home for that matter, and for very good reason! But this smial was abandoned, no one living there to shoo them away or invite them in for tea and cakes. Folco, knowing his manners at least, allowed that Pippin as youngest ought to cast the first stone. Which he did, with a respectable splash for he put some muscle into it. I never saw such a lad for splashing! When he was in the bath...’

Her eyes were closing in spite of herself, and she heard her own voice trailing off in a drunken slur though she’d had no benefit of drink to put her in such a state. She jerked herself awake and resumed the story.

 ‘Folco laughed and said, ‘Is that all you can do? Why a pollywog could do better, but you’re not much bigger than a pollywog, are you, little cousin?’ He proceeded to throw a much bigger stone into the well, still laughing fit to drive little Pippin to distraction—ah but he were a heedless tween, Folco, for all he’s grown into a fine figure of a hobbit now...’

She stopped to cough shallowly. She’d welcome some of that rain again, but it had stopped and there was no more drinking of the bounty of the sky.

 ‘A great splash his stone did make, but little Pippin, he wasn’t having any! His cousins teased him, sometimes, that he was short for his age—I think it was because he was busier getting into mischief than growing, myself, but they meant no harm by it, really. Well, he lugged a stone that was near as big as himself from the falling-down garden wall, dragged it all the way to the edge of the well, and somehow he lifted it up, for he was going to use his muscles to give it more oomph! ...but he overbalanced, and into the well he went, stone and all!’

She continued to tell of Folco’s running back to Whittacres Farm, full of visitors for Paladin’s birthday, yes, even the famous Bilbo Baggins, and the ensuing panic when Folco led them to the wrong smial.

 ‘That lad never had a sense of direction,’ Eglantine said. ‘I understand he wanted to go along with Frodo, but Merry wouldn’t let him, fearing he’d have a fit of stubbornness and insist on leading—and lead them to the Lonely Mountain instead of the other way!’

On and on she told, chuckling a little to herself at times, and feeling the occasional squeeze of Tolly’s hand, until she reached the end of the tale. She had the feeling that it would be her last, and so she ended with an exhausted flourish.

 ‘And so Merry came up, at the end of the rope, clutching little Pippin, cold, wet, half-frozen—a bit like you’re feeling at the moment, I’ve no doubt, for I feel the same!—but alive!’ She stopped to savour the memory. ‘Ah, he were alive, my stubborn little lamb. I thought Merry’d be bringing him up that we might lay him out for his burial, but he’d clung to those cold, slippery rocks the whole time we were sending Merry down into the wrong well to dredge him up from the bottom... held on until we discovered our mistake and ran to the right well—how my sides ached from running, and the tears I wept that day...’

She wiped away a trace of a tear, echoing the tears of remembering, and straightened again. ‘And that old Bilbo Baggins! Why, the first thing he said when he saw the lad alive and looking about from the circle of Merry’s arms...’

 ‘What did he say?’ It was the barest whisper, but a whisper it was, and sign that Tolly was still fighting his own battle.

At that moment, Eglantine’s eyes were drawn by bobbing lights. She blinked and peered into the darkness, fearing that her eyes were playing her tricks, or that a will-o’-the-wisp had come out to play, but, no! Lights they were!

 ‘Lanterns, Tolly!’ she hissed. ‘They’ve come!’

She heard his sharp intake of breath a second before the vibration of the hill below them caught her attention. She took hold of Tolly’s arm with both her hands, holding with as tight a grip as she could manage. She wouldn’t let herself be separated from him again, not even if the new slide took them down into the flood-formed lake below to drown at last. She only wished she might have seen her dear childrens’ faces once more.

***

 ‘Did you hear something?’ Ferdi said, reining his pony to a stop. He looked behind, and up; the Thain’s party was well behind them now. Perhaps they ought to wait a bit, to let them catch up. They had a much harder road, as it was.

 ‘Hear something?’ Aldi said. ‘No, but then you’ve the ears of a fox and I’m just an old badger who tunnels deep. What do you hear?’

 ‘I thought I heard voices,’ Ferdi began, but then Aldebrand interrupted.

 ‘Not voices, but earth moving!’ he said, and urged his pony forward, towards the sound!

 ‘Are ye daft?’ Ferdi demanded, but he followed automatically.

The sound died away before they reached the fall. Aldi dismounted and threw his reins to Ferdi, scrambling excitedly up the mound, as nimble as any hobbit-child. He reached the top and Ferdi heard a low whistle as he watched Aldi’s lantern swing this way and that.

 ‘What is it?’ he called.

 ‘Come and see!’ the engineer called back. ‘It’s a sight worth seeing!’

Ferdi knew his own pony would stand without tying, but would Aldi’s? He solved this problem by tying Aldi’s reins to his own saddle, and with a pat and soft word to his pony, he hung his lantern at his belt and toiled up the slope after Aldi. Reaching the top, he understood. A shining lake spread before them in the lantern light, the little ripples on its surface astonishingly higher than the trail they’d ridden in the valley below.

 ‘It’s deep,’ Ferdi said.

 Aldi laughed. ‘Aye,’ he returned. ‘No doubt this is the cause of all that flooding that’s going round. What shall we name it? Lake Peregrin?’

 ‘How about Bilbo Lake,’ Ferdi said, ‘seeing as how it’ll be vanishing, if you do your job properly.’ He cast his light as far as he could, but there was no sign of Tolly, or of Eglantine. He hadn’t expected there to be. Likely their bodies would be found after the lake was drained, if they were to be found at all.

Chapter 9. Darkest before the Dawn

While Ferdi waited nervously for the Thain’s party to reach them, Aldi paced up and down the obstructing dam, stopping occasionally to stamp a foot or bending to scoop up a handful of earth and rock. Ferdi had the eerie feeling that more of the hillside would come down; there had been several small falls already, and though he couldn’t see them, hearing them was nerve-wracking enough. He also regarded the water with suspicion, expecting the earthen dam to give way from under his feet at any second, sweeping him away. He watched the slow progress of the riders’ lanterns with the feeling that they were crawling over the hills instead of riding ponies.

The engineer, of course, had only thought for the task set before him, and with typical single-mindedness he paid no mind to the lapping waters nor the rumbling of moving earth, save to add them to his calculations. When the Thain’s party reached the edge of the fall and hailed him, he didn’t even notice. Ferdi had to jog over the dam to where he crouched, examining the soil, and when nudged, Aldi said only, ‘What, here already?’

He rose and followed Ferdi to the edge of the dam and then they toiled to where the Thain and his party waited.

 ‘Any sign of them?’ Pippin demanded.

Ferdi shook his head. ‘Difficult to search by lantern-light,’ he said. ‘We saw nothing along the banks or in the streambed on our way here.’

 ‘As soon as it’s dawn we’ll call out all the Tooks in Tuckborough to search,’ Pippin said grimly. Tolly’s brothers nodded at his side. It was obvious that Mardi and Hilly wished to start searching at once, but there was little point in the darkness, with the moon covered by cloud and mist arising to obscure things further.

 ‘And once the level of the water goes down...’ Aldi began. Realising what he’d said, he immediately apologised.

 ‘Never mind,’ Pippin said shortly. He turned the talk at once to practicalities, pushing down the overwhelming sense of loss that hovered at the edge of his senses. ‘How will you accomplish it?’

Aldi patted his breast pocket, hidden beneath coat and cloak. ‘Black powder,’ he said. Before he’d left on an elven-ship, Gandalf had given King Elessar the secret of making black powder, that the magic of fireworks should not be lost from Middle-earth. The King, on consideration, had shared the secret with the Master of Buckland, for he deemed the hobbits, with their peaceful nature, unlikely to abuse the substance. A close-kept secret it remained, its nature and properties understood only by the engineers of the Master and Thain, used mostly for excavation, though there was also the occasional display of fireworks in the Shire. Bless the old wizard, wherever he might be!

  ‘Send off to the Smials?’ Pippin said.

 ‘I have a tube of it right here,’ Aldi said.

 ‘A tube?’ Pippin said in irritation. He swept his hand towards the dark bulk of the dam. ‘Against that?’

 ‘We don’t want a flood to come down upon Tuckborough,’ Aldi said patiently. ‘I studied water, and its properties, from the time I first began as an apprentice. You don’t know how often we have to deal with water in our diggings! In any event, a small, carefully placed charge will burst a hole right where we want it, and safely, too, without hobbits risking being swept away, digging away at the dam... The water will do the rest. The trick will be to make it small enough that the water doesn’t get too excited about helping bring down the dam... water’s tricky stuff, you know, and rivers are downright treacherous.’

All the hobbits nodded gloomily.

Aldi and several of his assistants, including Everard, walked away to pace the perimeter of the dam and talk over their calculations. Aldi wanted to wait until first light before making a final decision; he wanted a good look at the great hill that loomed above them in the darkness, that had shed so much of itself into the valley. After all, it wouldn’t do for him to set a carefully determined charge, only to have more of the hillside come down!

After sending a messenger back to Tuckborough, Ferdi pulled firewood from one of the pack-ponies and soon he had a cheery fire going. ‘Sit yourself down,’ he told Pippin. ‘Won’t do Tookland or the Mistress any good, you catching your death of cold.’

Mardi, ever the healer, pressed food upon the Thain, and then the rest of the party, from the other pack-pony. Very practical creatures, hobbits, and so they could have a warm fire and food for the searchers and those dealing with the dam, and two ponies to carry the bodies back to the Great Smials once they were found... for in truth, though all spoke cheerfully of their hopes, no one honestly expected to find Tolly and Eglantine alive. Even were they lying injured after the landslide, surely the rain and cold temperatures would have finished them off in the night. Eglantine was old, after all, and Tolly strong and stubborn enough to carry her to the Smials on his own back, if something had happened to their ponies... had not something happened to him. The landslide was only an hour or so from Tuckborough, if one walked along the stream, and there’d been no sign of Tolly or Eglantine thus far.

Though they didn’t feel much like it, the hobbits told stories to pass the last hours before dawn. More fires sprang up on the hilltops around them, hobbits summoned to join the search that would begin at dawn. They’d been warned that a wall of water might come down the Tuckborn, and so they settled to wait on the hilltops. Meanwhile, in Tuckborough, Reginard directed crews setting sandbags and barriers against the flooding expected, should Aldi’s plan go awry.

The refugees from the Greentuck Valley had arrived at the Great Smials and been warmed and fed, and once assured that their wives and children were safe, the farmers joined the exodus of searchers. Mistress Eglantine would have been surprised and touched at the stir her disappearance had caused, but she was well-beloved by Tooks and Tooklanders.

At last the sky in the East began to lighten. The night of waiting was nearly over. Pippin was in the midst of a story as Mardi filled his cup a last time. He doubted he’d be able to persuade the Thain to rest and eat, once the light came. Come to think on it, he was twice Pippin’s age and he had no desire to eat or rest, himself—not until he found his younger brother, in any event. The thought of Tolly, lying out there somewhere, injured, was more than the healer could bear. He worried, too, about his youngest brother Hilly, who had followed Tolly around from the time he first began to crawl as a youngling, and who had remained uncharacteristically silent ever since word had come that the Mistress was missing with her escort.

Pippin broke off suddenly as his hand shook and the steaming liquid missed the cup.

Mardi gave an exclamation of dismay. ‘I’m that sorry, Sir!’ ...but Pippin was jumping to his feet, casting half-filled cup to the ground, running over the grassy hillside to the start of the slide.

 ‘Pippin!’ Ferdi shouted, leaping after him. ‘Pippin, don’t—it’s too dangerous!’

The Thain paid him no heed, toiling up and over the treacherous ground, heedless of the little slides of rocks and mud set off by his feet.

Ferdi, following more cautiously, looked beyond Pippin, to see a scrap of white in the jumble of rocks, mud and fallen trees. ‘Mardi!’ he shouted. ‘Mardi! Hilly! It’s them, I think!’

Pippin, when Ferdi reached him, had fallen to his knees in the mud, and then sat himself down, taking Eglantine in his arms. ‘Mum,’ he was sobbing. ‘Ah, Mum, if only we’d known. Warm fire, warm drink, and only a few paces away...’

 ‘You oughtn’t to be moving her,’ Ferdi said quietly as he crouched to examine Tolly. Eglantine still clutched the escort’s arm. The tree had slid with them as the ground moved, but by some miracle it had not crushed either. Indeed, Tolly had ended with only his legs pinned, which Eglantine would have proclaimed a great improvement, had she been wakeful.

Mardi toiled across the unstable ground, Hilly steadying him. ‘Tolly!’ he cried as he reached them, unslinging his healer’s bag from his shoulder.

 ‘He’s alive,’ Ferdi said, looking up. ‘Heart’s strong, though he’s not breathing well.’

Mardi knelt stiffly to begin his examination. ‘Cracked ribs,’ he said at last. ‘Tolly, can you hear me? We’re going to try to pull you out.’ He gave swift instructions to Ferdi and Hilly, and then moved to examine Eglantine. Pippin had wrapped her in his own cloak and was chafing her wrists, entreating her to waken.

 ‘Very cold,’ Mardi said. ‘We’ve got to get a warm drink into her. And your hand, Sir...’ He gestured to the red burn showing on Pippin’s wrist above the glove, from the spilled cup.

 ‘It’s nothing of importance,’ Pippin said dismissively. ‘We’ll get you to the fire, Mum, and get a hot drink...’ He started to lift Eglantine, but was stopped by the tethering effect of her hold on Tolly. ‘Leave hold now, Mum,’ he coaxed, but at last he had to settle to the ground again. ‘She won’t let him go,’ he said. ‘Mum! Wake up! All’s well. We’ll get Tolly out, but you’ve got to leave hold...’

Tolly had given the ghost of a moan as his rescuers tried to ease him from under the tree. Worse yet, the ground shifted under him, and all froze, waiting to see if more of the hillside would come down. Aldi reached them shortly after.

 ‘We’ve got to get this great tree off him,’ Pippin said, looking up. ‘What can you do, Aldi?’

Sadly the engineer shook his head. ‘I’m no forester,’ he began, ‘but I can tell you, as an engineer, the tree itself is holding its weight off him. If you cut it up, to move it, you’ll crush him! And on this bad ground I cannot see a way of hauling it off him.’

 ‘What about digging?’ Mardi asked, an edge in his tone.

Aldebrand shook his head again. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said. ‘D’you want to save him, or kill him trying?’

 ‘We cannot leave him here!’ Pippin said in frustration.

 ‘Of course,’ Aldi said. ‘We cannot...’ He locked gazes with Mardi. ‘It’s unstable enough, and with all our weight on it, it’s worse. I’m going back, to relieve it of my weight at least, and I’d suggest you get him out of there just as soon as you can.’

Hilly grabbed at Mardi’s arm. ‘No,’ he pleaded under his breath.

Mardi took a shuddering breath, swallowed hard, steadied himself with an effort. ‘Hildibold,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Take his shoulders. You, too, Ferdi. Hold tight; keep him just as still as you can. He’s likely to waken and fight us.’ To Pippin he said, ‘Can you get her free? I wouldn’t want her to waken to such a nightmare.’

Pippin had been trying to pry Eglantine’s fingers away from Tolly’s arm. ‘She’s got a death-grip on him,’ he said. ‘And she won’t hear anything I say to her. I suppose we’ll have to carry them out together.’

 'Very well,' Mardi muttered. Without another word, he settled beside his brother to make the necessary preparations.

Chapter 10. Cut to the Quick

Pippin looked away as Mardi used a sharp, short-bladed knife to tear away the fabric of Tolly’s breeches and then began to tie a constricting band around one of Tolly’s legs, that he might not bleed to death as things proceeded. Too well, Pippin remembered seeing Elladan cutting away the legs of a screaming soldier of Gondor who was trapped beneath a fallen Oliphaunt on the Pelennor. Sickened by the memory, he closed his eyes.

 ‘Pippin?’ Ferdi said, watching his cousin closely, though he maintained his hold on Tolly.

 ‘I am well,’ Pippin lied, opening his eyes again and forcing himself to look over. ‘He and his family will want for nothing, I promise it.’

 ‘Thain’s charity,’ Ferdi said bleakly, and Pippin shook his head.

 ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ he replied, using the words to anchor himself against the roiling of his innards. ‘There’s a great deal of work to be done that doesn’t require legs for the doing.’

Mardi had tightened the second constricting band to his satisfaction, had finished pouring strong spirits from a little flask over the bared skin and the blade of the saw, and now he set the teeth against the flesh of Tolly’s leg. Before he could begin, Tolly’s eyes flew open at the touch of cold, serrated steel, and with the strength of desperation he wrenched free of Hilly’s grasp. Pulling against Ferdi’s restraining hands and Eglantine's grasp, he sat up, grabbing at Mardi, and, ‘No!’ he cried. ‘No!’

Any indecision on Mardi’s part was severed by the rattle of rocks above them; they were pelted by a minor fall of dirt and stones, and he lifted the saw into the air, saying through gritted teeth, ‘Hold him!’

Hilly took hold once more, but Ferdi drew off one of his sturdy leather gloves and held it before Tolly’s mouth. ‘We’ve no choice,’ he said to his helpless friend. ‘We’ve got to get you and the Mistress out of here, and she won’t let you go. Bite down on this, now.’

 ‘Please, no,’ Tolly whispered, and then with a hopeless look he took the glove between his teeth and sank back in the grasp of brother and cousin.

 ‘Ready,’ Ferdi said, looking into Tolly’s eyes. Tolly squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and nodded.

Mardi had been waiting for this signal; setting his lips in a thin line, he once more brought the saw to bear.

Again he was interrupted, this time by Eglantine. She’d been roused by Tolly’s protest, and had lain, blinking, in Pippin’s embrace while she got her bearings. When she realised what she was seeing she pulled herself up by virtue of her grasp on Tolly’s arm, saying with all the imperiousness she could muster, ‘Stop! Stop at once, do you hear?’

 ‘Mum!’ Pippin cried, torn between joy and grief, but she had eyes only for Tolly. She’d promised! Deep in the night, when he’d begun to fret again... and from his gasping, it seemed to her that it would be best to humor him and calm him, promise anything to keep him quiet, to keep him fighting though each breath came at a higher cost. Deep in the night, as she had tried to dig out more of the dirt from under him, she’d given in to his hopeless whispered pleas, and promised, rather out of breath herself from the digging, that she wouldn't let ‘them’ take his legs.

 ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said in her iciest tone, and Mardi froze for a long moment.

At last, looking up, the healer said plaintively, ‘If you please, Mistress, we’ve got to get the two of you out of here. Another slide could come at any time, and...’

 ‘With all the time I imagine you wasted arguing before I wakened, you might have had the lad dug out from under that tree by now,’ Eglantine said. ‘You will not take his legs, not even if it means we're to die here. You can either leave us here on the slope until you figure something better to do, or you can begin digging him out!’

 ‘Mother,’ Pippin remonstrated, but she turned on him, as overbearing as old Lalia had ever been towards her son Ferumbras, in the days when he was Thain in name only and she ruled Tookland.

 ‘Do as I say!’ she snapped, but at the sight of his face her look softened, and she took one hand from Tolly’s arm to cup her son’s cheek. ‘Forgive me, Pippin, but I promised him he’d keep his legs, and I’ve never broken a promise so long as I’ve lived. And so long as breath remains to me, I never intend to go back on my word.’

Mother and son shared a long look and then Pippin said, ‘Dig, Mardi, Hilly. Dig, Ferdi, dig with all you’ve got. Let’s get off this cursed slope.’

Mardi stowed the saw and released the constricting bands, stowing them hastily as well, and shoving his healer’s bag to one side he joined the others in scooping away dirt from underneath his brother.

All the while Eglantine spoke encouragement, to Tolly, to the diggers, to her son who still cradled her. Stones and dirt showered down around them, but they dug as doggedly as a terrier when its quarry has gone to ground, and at last Eglantine released her hold and they were able to draw Tolly, with great care, out from under the bole of the tree. He gave a cry of pain as he was pulled free, but immediately after he was able to hand the muffling glove to Ferdi, saying, ‘Did you misplace this?’

 ‘Seemingly,’ Ferdi said, drawing it on again. He and Hilly lifted Tolly between them and they started across the treacherous slope to safety, where the watching hobbits’ gloom and grief had turned to wonder. A cheer arose as the rescuers reached the edge of the slide.

 ‘Come lad, it’s our turn,’ Mardi said, and he steadied Pippin as the Thain rose, still bearing his mother in his arms. They crept across the slide, pausing once as the ground moved beneath their feet, and then moving cautiously to the edge, where eager hands were waiting to pull them onto the solid ground.

Tolly had been laid on a blanket, and Mardi, after a fervent hug, bent much more cheerily to his examination. ‘Wrenched knee,’ he said, ‘broken ankle.’

 ‘I can live with that,’ Tolly said with a nod.

 ‘I’m sure you can, lad,’ Mardi said, tousling his brother’s curls as if he were once more the bright-eyed little hobbit that Mardi’d ridden on his back, playing “ponies” long ago in the sunny garden. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘bring hot drinks to the Mistress and her escort, and then let’s put them on litters and carry them home.’

 ‘Yes, let’s!’ Eglantine said. ‘I’m belated for my daughter’s birthday breakfast as it is!’

 ‘We cannot have that,’ Pippin said, laying a kiss against his mother’s forehead. ‘You have a lovely breakfast, and tell her I’ll hope to see her at teatime. We have a dam to dismantle.’

 ‘I’m sure you’ll do a fine job of it, dearie,’ Eglantine said. She took the steaming cup and sipped at it greedily. ‘Ah, that was just what was wanted,’ she said.

 ‘What did Bilbo say?’ Tolly said, after a gulp of his own satisfyingly hot tea.

Eglantine’s laughter rang out, and Pippin closed his eyes a moment to savour the sound that he thought he’d never hear again. ‘Ah, that’s right, we never did get to the end of that story, did we, lad?’

 ‘No, we didn’t,’ Tolly said.

 ‘Well now, let me think. Ah, yes, I remember. He said, “I trust, young Pip, that you made the biggest splash!”’

Pippin laughed. ‘I did, as a matter of fact, with my great stone and myself,’ he said, ‘but I think I’m about to better my record.’

And so he did.

***

Chapter 4.
The story of Eglantine chasing little Pippin and the cat around the farmyard can be found in The Mathom.

Chapters 4 and 8.
The story of Pippin having a splashing contest with Folco and falling in the well can be found in A Healer's Tale, chapters 11 and 13.

(Just in case you wanted to know...)

Epilogue turned sequel
A sequel to this story is in the works (Family Matters), and on the schedule to be published in full once some of the current WIPs are published to the end.