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O The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night  by Lindelea

Chapter 7. In which two young hobbits set out in search of justice, that a wrong may be set right again.

Merry looked all about, but he ought to have looked behind as well, for hobbits creep very quietly indeed when they wish to do so, and Ferdi got his start early in life...

What’s that supposed to mean, I ask you?

It means that the ruffians who tried to trespass in the Tookland didn’t have a chance of going unnoticed, though they never knew they were being watched... until the trap was sprung, that is.

Ah. Well then.

Had Merry looked behind him, he’d have seen that he was being followed by a small skulking shadow, fingers in mouth and special soft blanket over shoulders. (What a baby you were at the time, Ferdi, I still have no idea how you were canny enough to form a sleeping hobbit with a rug and all our spare clothing, nor how you worked up the courage to follow me into the Wilds...) In any event, he didn’t look behind him, but only to the sides, to make sure that none of the hired hobbits were about, and as luck would have it, they were working in the far fields at that moment. And Auntie Aggie was humming to herself in the kitchen, and all was quiet.

No, he didn’t discover his shadow until he’d reached the little wood on the far side of the cabbage field, where he went to earth to consider. He nearly fell over when he heard a voice behind him. ‘So, where are we going?’

‘We?’ he said in outrage, and then remembered to keep his voice low. ‘We? There was to be no “we” in the matter!’

‘But you said,’ young Ferdi protested, and in his distress at Merry’s rage his fingers went back into his mouth and his wide eyes glistened in dismay.

Merry, turning back to the farm, saw one of the hired hands leading a plough pony into the yard. Dragging Ferdi back and leaving again would not be possible, and leaving such a young hobbit here alone was unthinkable, and sending him back across the cabbage field would alert the adults that Merry had wandered, and they’d never give him another chance, not this year, anyhow! ‘Very well,’ he said, forcing calm. ‘You’ll have to come along.’

Ferdi nodded solemnly. That’s what he’d thought was supposed to happen. He’d been a part of the trouble, spoiling the pretties in the mud, and so it weighed on him to be part of the solution.

‘Well now,’ Merry said, getting his bearings. He led them away from the farm, to the opposite side of the little wood, and stepped out onto the verge of a field of waving hay. The Sun was still in the morning part of the sky, and so he must turn his back on her, to be facing to the West, and then he must turn a half-quarter or so to the right, to be bearing northwards. He made a note of his shadow—his truly shadow, that is, the one cast by the Sun and not the one that dogged his steps, asking in a plaintive voice, every so often, if they were “there yet?” It would serve as a guide of sorts, he thought, trying to remember what Frodo had taught him on their walks in Buckland.

They crossed the hayfield through high stalks taller than their heads, and an adventure it was, to be sure. At the end of the hayfield was a hedgerow, and forcing their way through they came to a small and dusty lane. It went in the right direction for a fair distance—at least, they’d walked long enough that the Sun was overhead in all her glory when the lane crooked so that it looked as if it might go to the North Farthing—how far was it to the North Farthing, Merry wondered?

‘This way,’ he said, indicating the hedgerow to their left. They stepped through, into another field—potatoes, Merry thought. It was hard work, going across the tangled plants, but Ferdi didn’t complain and of course Merry would not.

After that field, there was a hedgerow, and a lane no wider than a track, and beyond another field, this one of grain. They plucked barley from the heavy heads and chewed the corn as they went, and felt all the stronger for it. Next was a field of marrows with their twisting, ankle-catching vines, and they must go carefully. At last they climbed over a stony wall into a sheepfield, and across, and such a long way they'd gone already! Then it was through a stile on the far side, into a field ploughed but perhaps not yet planted, for no plants were showing their green yet, and at the end of that field another copse, and after the copse, a wide and rolling expanse of meadowland. Ferdi stared, and Merry muttered, ‘I had no idea the Shire was so big.’

‘Are we nearly there?’ Ferdi said, tugging at Merry’s sleeve.

‘Bound to be,’ Merry said. ‘We’ve walked ever so far. Come,’ he said, taking pity at seeing the weariness in his littler cousin’s face. ‘Let us sit down, by the stream there. I’ve a little put by in my pocket, and we might as well eat it before it’s battered to crumbs. Why, it’s long past noontide! Look at the Sun, halfway down the sky—goodness me, it’s teatime already! But I think we’ll be in Michel Delving by eventides, or even before.’

Ferdi followed Merry to the stream and immediately plopped down with a sigh. Their “tea treats”, stale as they were and seasoned with what’s found inside pockets, especially pockets of little lads, tasted like a feast, and the water from the stream that they lifted in cupped hands was the finest draught they could imagine. “As good as the Hall’s finest!” Merry pronounced, and as far as Ferdi was concerned, Merry ought to know.

Well, he ought.

At such a tender age?

Have you never heard the epithet, “Drunk as a Brandybuck”?

Ferdi!

As a matter of fact, I had had a taste or two in my life, strictly medicinal in nature, of course.

Of course.

Enough, Ferdi. Now, Merry, if you’d be so kind... You were saying...





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