(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.