Chapter 9. In which young hobbits discover the perils of a watery grave, and have a narrow escape

Little Ferdi wakened, stretched, looked all around. Was he dreaming? He felt then, more strongly, the urge that had brought him to wakefulness... But where was this place? How did he come to be here?

...but the sound of running water was an agony to him, in his present state, and so he jumped up, wrapped his special blanket more snugly around his neck, and hurried a little way away, to relieve his discomfort, and when he finished, he looked about again, wide-eyed and wondering.

That was Merry, it was, slumbering in the grass beside the chuckling stream, but where were all the grown-ups?

He remembered then, that they were nearly to Michel Delving, to right a grievous wrong. He went to Merry and pushed at his shoulder, but his cousin just slapped at him with a sleepy murmur.

Bright pebbles sparkling in the bed of the stream caught Ferdi’s eye just then, and he ventured closer. That was a pretty one, there, just the colour of his mother’s milky mare... He touched a cautious foot to the trickling water and shivered. It was cold! But wouldn’t his mother’s eyes shine when he held out to her such a pretty stone! She always cooed at him when he brought her a present, whether stone or crumpled flower or bright leaf.

He eased his foot into the water and followed with his other foot, feeling in amazement the flow of the water around his ankles. Why, what was dangerous about a stream? It simply wanted to play a game of tug with him, no more than that!

He reached down to fish the milky stone from its bed. It was smooth and rounded in his fingers, and he hefted it in satisfaction before slipping it into a pocket. Next a coal-black stone, like his father’s second-best stallion, and then a dappled stone, and a grey-and-red stone...

Before he knew it, he was up to his knees in the water, and the stones were harder to find but all the more precious for the effort. But it was hard to keep his balance, with the water pulling at him.

And then there was a shout, and a splash behind him, and he lost his balance then and fell, and for a moment he flailed in a panic, before he realised that something was gripping him tight, at the shoulder of his shirt, and a childish voice was yelling, scolding, shouting at him. In his fear and confusion he spun towards that illusion of safety, something to grab onto; he grabbed, felt cloth in his hands, and then something pushed him down in the water. His head went under and his terrified scream was abruptly cut off. He gasped and instead of air, choked on water. Blackness swam before his eyes.

And then the sun was shining in his eyes, dazzling him, and he felt solid ground under his back, and the uncomfortable lumps of the stones he’d collected in his pockets, and his coughing brought him air, sweet air, and he thought he’d never get enough of the stuff.

The sun was blotted out, suddenly, and Merry was there, bending over him, shouting unintelligible words.

Ferdi tried to push him away, and suddenly, incomprehensibly, Merry had fallen on him and was hugging him tight. He didn’t feel like wrestling, and so he yelled, ‘Get orff me! Get orff!’

Merry got off, pulled him up by his shirt, and slammed him to the ground again. ‘You blasted Took,’ he was sobbing, and he slapped Ferdi hard as he spoke, scarcely knowing what he was doing. ‘Tooks don’t go in the water, don’t you know that? Tooks don’t swim! What were you thinking? You might have drowned yourself... might have drowned us both!’

‘I wasn’t swimming!’ Ferdi protested.

Merry stopped his slapping and sat back, wide-eyed, gulping back his tears. And then, inconceivably, he began to laugh, a wild and ragged edge to his laugh to be sure, but laughter it was. ‘You certainly weren’t!’ he gasped at last, before falling upon Ferdi again in a hug, saying as he arose again and sat back on his haunches, ‘I thought I’d lost you, that the stream was about to carry you away...!’

‘It was only playing,’ Ferdi said in surprise. ‘It was only playing a game of tug, and I-hide-and-you-seek-me with the pretty stones...’

‘The stream... playing...’ Merry echoed, and then, very sober, he shook his head, and taking Ferdi’s hands in his, he looked deep into his littler cousin’s eyes, making sure he had Ferdi’s full attention. ‘Never trust a river,’ he said earnestly. ‘Not ever, Ferdi! It can seem to be playing, chuckling, all friendly-like, and then you miss your step and it sweeps you away, and you never see your Mum again, or your Da, or your sister, or your Gran, or... or... or anyone, ever again!’

‘I never...’ Ferdi whispered. He knew his mother wouldn’t let him anywhere near the Water, which ran along the edge of the larger pony field, but he’d never known why.

And then both lads were sitting up straighter, starting to their feet. For there were voices on the wind, the plaintive sound of a horn, voices calling their names!

Merry said something under his breath, something that sounded like one of the hired hobbits when he’d hit his thumb with a hammer while making repairs on a shed a few days past.

Ferdi stared at him, uncomprehending, until an explanation came to him. They were in trouble! He’d gone splashing in a stream and the evidence was all over himself, and all over Merry! They were soaked to the skin, and their clothes were wringing wet, even Ferdi’s blanket was sopping, cold and wet and not its usual comfort.

‘We’re so close!’ Merry hissed. ‘They cannot take us back now, not yet!’

He seized Ferdi’s near hand, and Ferdi held on to his blanket with his free hand, and of one accord the two sprinted, as fast as their legs could carry them, toward the woods looming at the western edge of the meadow. So fast did they run, that they hardly took note of the dark shadows of the trees reaching out as if to devour them, as they ran under cover of the forest's eaves, and good hiding.