Chapter 11. Don’t Put All Your Herbs in One Basket

‘Here now, Ted-lad, he’s slipping down—he’ll be drowning himself if you don’t pay better heed. Ned! You, lad, take your brother’s place, and Ted, you may go out in the cold and chop more wood for the fire if you’re going to fall asleep, sitting on watch!’

‘I was watching!’

‘Aye, watching ‘im drown, more likely than not. That’s it, Ned, just cradle his chin, lift his face well above the water, lad—aye, pull his head back, aye, more. He’s not comin’ round as I thought, a little bit ago, but at least he’s warming nicely.’

***

Tolly did not smile as a childish hand—large as his own, actually, though it belonged to a child—cupped his chin and gently pulled upwards, to raise his head from its bowed position. ‘Here now!’ the young voice said. ‘What’s all this? The woods are dark, 'tis true, but dappled with sunshine and laced with trails, as my dad likes to say, and deep, just asking for our feet to trace their paths...’

‘ ‘Tis true,’ Tolly agreed, forcing a smile. ‘Perfect for a warm and lazy day.’ He looked down at his gathering basket, only half-full.

‘Would you like me to help you fill it, then?’ the boy said, sitting down. Though he was only nine, his eyes were on a level with the hobbit’s. ‘Then we can take time to play.’ He sobered. ‘This’ll be the last time, my dad says. You’ll come of age soon, and have no more time for play, he said. You ought to have seen little Toddy’s face...’ His own face was sober, remembering his smaller brother’s sorrow at the prospect of losing Tolly’s companionship.

‘I’ll still come to visit you on occasion,’ Tolly said, his smile more genuine at the mention of young Toddy, who’d become his firm friend and shadow, whenever he came to the Woody End. ‘More than likely I’ll be gathering with my da for years to come, and then when Mardi takes over I’ll be helping him.’

‘Will the Thain spare you so oft?’ the boy said in astonishment. ‘Riding with the escort, and all...’

Tolly shook his head, gloom descending once more. ‘I won’t be riding escort,’ he said, and then he could sit there no longer. Restlessness drove him to his feet, and he scooped up the basket and moved to a patch of coltsfoot growing by the verge of the road, kneeling to collect the leaves as his father had tasked him.

‘But wait! Isn’t that Butterbur?’ the lad said in alarm.

Tolly shook his head. ‘Don’t you remember, I showed you the difference last summer,’ he said. ‘There is the difference in the leaves... and then there is the fact that Butterbur grows in marshy ground, while Coltsfoot...’

The boy listened politely, nodding, though he was more interested in trees than herbs. His younger brother, Toddy, of course, would hang on every word the Took cared to speak, and sometimes surprised his mother with his knowledge of herbs.

And the boy began to harvest the leaves, and added to Tolly’s basket, so that it was not long before the basket was full.

‘...and now you have time to play,’ the boy said, well pleased, ‘for I know your father won’t expect you back before elevenses!’

‘Teddy,’ Tolibold said, ‘I’m growing too old for games...’

‘But I have a new bow,’ the boy said, nearly dancing in his eagerness. ‘And you said you’d teach me to shoot, if I got a bow of my own! My dad traded with old Sandybank for a hobbit bow and arrows, and I’ve been watching out for you to come harvesting, for neither Dad nor Uncle can hit a mark. They can aim axes, just fine, but they’ve no use for arrows.’

‘Then why’d your dad trade for such?’ Tolly wanted to know.

‘He says I can learn to hunt, and bring home fresh meat for the pot,’ the boy said importantly. ‘You’ve already taught me to snare rabbits, and Mum’s glad for the extra meat, that we don’t have to trade for, when we’ve eaten up all of this year’s pigs, and the chickens are laying and ‘twould be a shame to be eating any of them...’

‘A fine idea,’ Tolly said, breaking into the flow of words.

The woodcutters' cottage was not too far away, and Teddy seized Tolibold’s hand and drew him along home, where the smell of baking wafted on the air.

Tolly received a warm greeting from the woodcutter’s wife and daughter, and their young son Tod, rescued by Tolly when he’d wandered in the chill fog some years earlier.

‘Tolly!’ little Toddy cried, running from the doorway where he’d been playing in the sun. He bestowed an enthusiastic hug, thumped the hobbit on the back, and pushed himself away, to measure himself against the visitor. ‘Look!’ he crowed. ‘I’m up to your shoulder! Soon I’ll be a hobbit grown!’

‘Toddy!’ his mother remonstrated. ‘Sorry, Master Took, he means no disrespect...’

‘No offence taken,’ Tolly said, reaching up to ruffle little Toddy’s curls. ‘He does look a bit like a hobbit, at that—all he needs is curls on his feet to match his head, and he could be a tween!’

‘D’you hear, Mum?’ little Toddy said in excitement. ‘I could be a tween!’

‘Youngest “tween” in the history of the Shire,’ his mother said dryly. ‘Well, Master Tolibold, if you’ve time to stop, the baking’s about to come out of the oven...’

‘I’ve time,’ Tolly said with a grin, and Teddy laughed outright, and the two shared a wink.

The bread was good, indeed, warm out of the oven and slathered with melting butter. Tolly remembered his manners and ate only as many slices as one of the family might, though he could have eaten thrice the amount, or even four times, without any trouble at all. Still, he didn’t want to put a strain on the woodcutters’ larder.

The woodcutter’s wife sat herself down with a sigh, to sip at a cup of tea, though she ate none of the bread. She smiled on occasion as her sons and daughter chattered, but when young Teddy announced he was going out to the shed to fetch his bow, she immediately suggested that he take brother and sister with him, to set up a target for shooting, and she’d send Tolly right out as soon as he’d had one more slice.

‘And would you like honey, this time?’ she asked as the children were leaving, and then seeing them well gone, she turned her back to the door and went to one knee before the hobbit, who sat on the low footstool, using one of the benches for his table as was his custom when visiting the woodcutters. ‘Tolly,’ she said, adopting the familiar name for the moment.

‘What is it, Missus?’ Tolly said, putting down his bread-and-butter, for there was a serious look in the honest eyes that gazed into his. ‘Is there something the matter?’

‘We—we heard, about the Thain,’ she said, stumbling a little on her words. ‘About Thain Ferumbras, that is, and the new Thain...’

‘Thain Paladin,’ Tolly said, nodding.

‘I’m very sorry to hear about Thain Ferumbras,’ she said. ‘He was always fair in his dealings with my husband.’

Tolly nodded again.

‘This new Thain,’ she said. ‘It’s said he has little use for Men, and we fear...’

‘He wouldn’t turn you out, Missus!’ Tolly said. ‘Why, your husband and his brother cut more wood than...’

‘He might,’ she said. ‘From what we hear, he might very well.’ She leaned forward. ‘But I thought, if perhaps you put in a good word for us...’

‘Good word!’ Tolly said, startled. ‘I don’t understand...’

‘You’ll surely win the Tournament again, this year,’ she said, ‘from what we’ve heard, you’ve won every year, shooting with the tweens the last few years, and earned the right to serve on the Thain’s escort—but if you win this year, having come of age, you’ll become “head”! At your tender age, it’s a wonder...’

For while Tolly would turn three-and-thirty this year, if he won the Tooks’ archery tournament, he’d supplant a well-seasoned hobbit who was current head of escort. It was nearly unheard of! —but it was also custom for the winner of the Tournament to be rewarded with responsibility and status, in addition to the purse he’d carry away.

‘Anyhow,’ the woman said, licking dry lips in her nervousness, ‘I wanted—we wanted, that is, to ask if you’d put in a good word with your Master, for us. He’d listen to his head of escort, he would, and...’

But Tolly was shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

The woodcutter’s wife stopped mid-plea and swallowed hard. ‘I—I was afraid it might be too much to ask,’ she said tremulously. ‘It’s only that—this has been our home, since the dark dread drove us out of the Greenwood. “Mirkwood” they call it now, but we called it home, until it became too dreadful and dangerous...’

Tolly shook his head. He didn’t know Greenwood—or Mirkwood—from the Chetwood in the Breeland, never having been farther from Tuckborough than the Woody End. But he’d given the wrong impression, that he was unwilling to help the Big Folk, when reality was that he’d be unable. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, putting a hand on the woman’s arm. ‘Missus Anemone, I’d like to help you, I really would...’

‘Too much trouble,’ Anemone whispered, brushing at her eyes.

‘It’s not that,’ Tolly said desperately. ‘It’s just that...’ And his own despair rolled over him like a wave, so that he had to put a hand to his face to shield his eyes for a moment, as if the light pouring in through the doorway troubled him. ‘It’s just that...’

‘Why, what is it, lad?’ she said, arrested by the misery in the hobbit’s expression.

‘It’s just that I won’t be serving the new Thain, Missus,’ Tolly said low. He cleared his throat, tried to assume a matter-of-fact air. ‘You see, Thain Paladin sees no use for the escort, at all. He’s discharged the lot of them, even the head, who served Ferumbras faithfully for years, first as a member of the escort, and then as head, when Isumbold was struck down by the wild boar.’

‘Sees no use...’ Anemone stuttered, ‘when Isumbold nearly gave his life, defending Thain Ferumbras?’

‘Thain Paladin’s a farmer, not a hunter,’ Tolly said. ‘And as he’ll be sitting behind a great desk, and not even walking behind a plough any more, he sees no need for an escort to be watching over him.’

‘But what about messages?’ Anemone said. ‘The escort have always...’

‘There’s the Shirepost,’ Tolly said. ‘And Thain Paladin says that anything more urgent than a letter, or quick post, well, the hobbit might as well come to speak to him in person.’

‘O Tolly,’ the woman breathed, laying a sympathetic hand on his. ‘I’m that sorry...’

‘It’s all right,’ Tolly said stoutly, straightening his shoulders. ‘I’ll win a nice little purse, shooting in the Tournament. It’ll be good pocket money. And of course I’ll keep busy, helping my da and my brother with their healing. I can run messages for them, or take potions to patients in the outlying farms, or even gather herbs and roots...’

He’d never be a healer himself, of course. His mind was not tuned to such an endeavour. He’d held a hapless hobbit, pinned under a tree, as his father and brother had sawed off the miserable fellow’s legs, and he’d barely kept from swooning. In point of fact, he’d lost the contents of his stomach shortly after, and hadn’t been able to eat anything for the rest of the day. No, healing was not for him. But he could, as he’d said, run messages. At least he could do that, if not for the Thain, then for his father.

It was a living, anyhow.

Teddy returned, beaming, and ushered Tolly to the yard, where they’d set up a target in a stack of hay-bales, and he proceeded to teach the young boys, and their sister into the bargain, how to shoot.

And then it was nooning, though he didn’t have to eat the food packed away in his bag, for the woodcutter’s family invited him to stay to the noontide meal, of course, and afterwards he went out to cut nettles with a full stomach to work on.

Toddy and Teddy accompanied him, though they did not have heavy leather gloves like he did, and so they only sat and watched and chattered away.

At last his basket was again full, this time of nettles, and he was expected for tea at the inn where they were staying while herb-gathering in the area, and so he took up his basket after walking the boys back to their home.

‘How long will you be staying?’ Toddy wanted to know. ‘Will you come every day?’

‘Every day,’ Tolly promised. ‘For the better part of a week, it’ll be, just like always.’

‘Hoorah!’ the boys shouted, and Tolly had to smile.

At least there was a silver lining to the cloud. If he wasn’t serving on the Thain’s escort, if he was working for his father, he’d be coming to the Woody End several times a year, for the rest of his life, to gather herbs.

The glow of friendship served to warm the dismal prospect of living his life out as a healer’s assistant, and he was almost resigned to his lot, though not quite cheerful, as he took his leave.