5.  Adventure and Peril

Four hours later, it was quite dark, and Bolo and Frodo were wandering in the woods that surrounded Buckland.  The boys had obtained the list from Miss Celosia and found most of the herbs fairly easily.  They had wandered quite far in search of the final item, and Frodo was beginning to suspect they were lost.

“What was that last thing again?”  Bolo asked, intensely annoyed by the necessity of having to cooperate with Frodo on this task.

“White horehound,” came the reply.  Frodo was quite tired by this time and wanted nothing more than to be home in his bed.  “It grows one to three feet high with small white flowers, and it’s covered by fine white hairs.” 

If truth be told, Frodo wasn’t any happier about the situation than Bolo was.  He wished his cousin could have left well enough alone, rather than getting them both in trouble with his silly effort at revenge.  Frodo smirked, remembering the expression on Bolo’s face when Amarantha had supported Frodo instead of him. 

Bolo the Beastly.  Bolo the Brutish and Beastly.  Bolo the-?  Frodo continued to amuse himself with the silly name game, happy in the knowledge that Bolo couldn’t possibly hear his thoughts.  He could keep this up for ages; his fondness for books had given Frodo an excellent vocabulary.

Bolo swung his lantern in an arc and scowled.  “We haven’t seen anything like that!”

“I think it grows nearer the river,” Frodo replied, giving up on his game for the moment.

“Well, where’s the river?!”

“I don’t know,” Frodo sighed.  For some time, they had been able to hear the river roaring in the distance, but it was too far away to tell what direction it was.  “I’m afraid we’re lost, Bolo.”

Bolo had suspected this for some time, but he nonetheless glared at his younger cousin furiously.  “This is all your fault, you know!”

“Really,” said Frodo listlessly.  Bolo the Blameless.  Perhaps Bolo the Barmy?  They had already had this argument many times this evening, and Frodo had no desire to repeat it yet again.  They should have gone back hours ago, but neither boy had wanted to admit defeat, and now they didn’t know which way was back.

The two boys finally sat down on a log.  Aha!  Bolo the Boring!  That was rather a good one.  Frodo set his lantern down by his feet and looked up at the stars he could see through the gaps in the trees.  Then his eyes came to rest on the tree spreading out directly above him. 

“Maybe if I climbed that tree, I could hear the river better,” Frodo suggested thoughtfully.  He really didn’t feel like climbing a large tree in the dark, but he couldn’t think of any better ideas.

“Fine, do it then,” snapped Bolo. 

It was too dark to see the expression on Bolo’s face, but Frodo suspected he was becoming a bit frightened by their situation.  Normally, Bolo would say something much nastier in response to any suggestion of Frodo’s. 

Bolo the Balding?  Hmm, that might be a good one to bear in mind for the future.  Aha!  Bolo the Belligerent!  Now why hadn’t he thought of that one before now?  Frodo shrugged and approached a nearby tree that appeared to be fairly tall, and began to climb.  He couldn’t see a thing in the inky darkness, so he went slowly and carefully.  When he was as high as he could safely go, perhaps twenty-five feet off the ground, Frodo held as still as he could and listened.  The forest was very quiet, but he could still hear the distant rushing of the Brandywine.

Frodo looked up at the stars.  They were beautiful.  Frodo smiled to see them so clearly, without the lights of Buckland to get in the way.  Then his gaze dropped, and he saw something he did not expect to see: lanterns moving, down near the forest floor!  They were perhaps a hundred yards away from him and Bolo, and they blinked in and out as they were concealed and revealed by thicker parts of the forest canopy.  Frodo’s heart began to pound.  He knew they were quite far from Buckland, probably very close to the Hedge that separated Buckland from the Old Forest.  Anyone out this far might not be a hobbit, especially this late at night.  They were likely Big Folk, wandering along the Hedge from the south.

Frodo quelled his panic with an effort.  He had never seen a Big Person before, and he knew there were many different types, but he had heard about the ruthless and warlike Men who sometimes passed to the southeast of the Shire.  Bilbo himself had told him such Men were dangerous. 

“Bolo!”  Frodo hissed, turning back to the ground.  “I think I see Men coming!  We mustn’t be seen!”

Bolo gasped and jumped up.  “Which way?”

“Straight ahead of you and a little to the left.”

Bolo immediately seized his lantern and ran back in the direction he’d come.  The other lantern remained on the ground, resting in a slight depression, but still lit and shining like a beacon to the approaching Men.

“Bolo!” cried Frodo.  “Put out the lanterns and help me get down!”

But the cowardly Bolo was already out of earshot. 

“Bolo the Bane of My Existence,” Frodo muttered to himself, feeling rather proud of that one. 

Realizing he would get no help, Frodo quickly started to climb down on his own.  It might have been better to hide up in the tree, but not with that lantern still giving him away down there.  He had to extinguish it!  He knew he should be careful, but he felt the urgency of the situation so keenly that he descended rather faster than was wise in the dim light cast by the lantern on the ground. 

Frodo gasped as he bumped into a branch directly in front of him that he hadn’t seen as he crawled rapidly toward the trunk.  It was too dark, he thought in frustration.  He could hear distant noises in the underbrush, as might be expected from a group of Big Folk walking in the forest.  Actually, they weren’t really very distant any longer.  Frodo couldn’t hear them talking, but he could see the lanterns still bobbing towards him.  They would be close enough to see his lantern in only moments.

Nearly panicking now, Frodo finally reached one of the thick, sturdy lower branches.  From the flickering lamplight below him, he estimated he was about five feet off the ground; surely that was low enough to jump?  His fingers were pressed into the rough bark so tightly that his small hands were beginning to go numb.

Deciding quickly, Frodo wriggled onto his stomach and eased himself off the branch, until he was hanging by his hands.  He was right next to the trunk; he could feel the rough bark grazing the side of his right leg.  Regardless, he was not strong enough to hold on very long.  The Men sounded close enough to see him any second now.  Squeezing his eyes shut, Frodo released his hold on the branch and allowed himself to drop.

First, Frodo felt his stomach flip-flop as he began to fall, and burning pain as his leg scraped along the trunk.  Immediately after that, Frodo felt the impact of an even sturdier branch on his small body.  Dazed by the pain along his torso, Frodo dimly realized his error: he hadn’t climbed down far enough!  There were more branches below the position he’d dropped from.  He was falling much too far, certainly more than five feet.  The flickering lantern seemed to rush up at him, and he felt a terrific impact on his hands and knees.  Then, quite suddenly, everything was startlingly dark and still.

For what seemed like an eternity, Frodo lay on the solid ground, hearing and feeling nothing except his heart pounding and his own gasping breaths.  Above the roaring in his ears, he suddenly heard rustling in the bushes on the other side of the path.  The Men!  Without another thought, Frodo scrambled back to his hands and knees and scurried under the shrubbery on the nearer side of the path.  He lay quite still under the bushes, amazed that he’d been able to move so quickly after a fall from such a great height.  The thought ‘Bolo the Berserk’ came to him with such astonishing clarity that he had to suppress a hysterical giggle.

Then, quite suddenly, the pain came crashing upon him as sensation was finally conveyed to his dazed brain.  It seemed to come from all over at once, and Frodo nearly cried out in his agony.  He could hear the Big Folk’s voices as though from a great distance, but he knew they were no more than two steps away from him, and he must not make a sound.

All along his back and legs, Frodo’s skin felt like it was on fire.  He knew he must have been badly scraped by the tree’s rough bark as he fell through the branches, but why was the hand that was awkwardly trapped under his back so hot and sticky?  Frodo moved his fingers experimentally, hardly daring to breathe for fear the Men would find him.  His back felt wet, for some reason, and his fingers kept bumping into what felt like small, sharp stones . . . or glass?  Frodo realized with a start that he must have fallen on his lantern.   Well, that was a relief!  Now the Men wouldn’t see the light and be looking for him!  Frodo let out a breath he’d been holding.  Maybe he was safe, then!

Frodo frowned, realizing he hadn’t heard any noises from the Men for awhile.  Had they moved on then?  Frodo lifted his tingling right arm and drew aside the bough of shrubbery in front of his face to see if the path was clear. 

Frodo lifted his head a little to have a look.  His azure eyes widened and his throat went dry as toast in an instant; Frodo found himself looking directly at an impossibly long, sharp-looking piece of steel.  Some distant part of his mind, which wasn’t involved in panicking at that moment, noted with fascination that this must be a sword he was staring at.  Frodo tried to swallow past a tongue that felt like a wad of cotton, and raised his round blue eyes slowly.