A Note to My Readers

Well, we’ve come to where we have all been anxious to arrive: the end of, "While We Dwelt in Fear". I feel like many of you have said you feel, both glad for the end but sad for it as well.

I know some of you will not be too pleased at the ending I have chosen. Please bear in mind that the intent of this story was to deal primarily with occurrences in the Shire during the War of the Ring that Tolkien hinted at but did not cover in detail, as well as coming up with original events of my own that, as best as I’m able, fit into Tolkien’s narrative; for example: Tolkien says nothing about events in Buckland during this time so that is all original to this story. I will not be delving much into The Scouring of the Shire as Tolkien covers that rather thoroughly. I saw my task as getting the Travellers and the Hobbits of Buckland and the Shire from the beginnings of the Occupation through to the point of their reuniting.

For me, there were three major events concerning the Traveller’s return that Tolkien did not cover. Pippin getting through to Great Smials to raise the Tooks, Sam going and fetching the Gaffer to bring him to the Cotton’s, the return of Merry to Brandy Hall. These are to be found in my epilogue. Sam meeting Rosie isn’t covered in great detail by Tolkien, but it is covered, so I let that be.

And now, a final word of thanks to all who have read this story faithfully over the past year and a half. Whether you have never posted a "review" ( I prefer "response", sounds less intimidating :) ) or have been responding all along, I thank you. It has meant so much to me that this story has been read and enjoyed by so many readers. It was a thrill to have it win the MEFAward for Drama - Incomplete as that was voted on and awarded to me by readers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all, each and everyone.

Hugs and Gratitude,

Pearl Took

*Then World Behind and Home Ahead*

It was a strange feeling, once again walking through the gates of Imladris to leave it behind. But it was a cheerier event this time as they turned not toward the unknown, but the known. The hobbits were finally headed home.

It was a mixed journey, though mostly pleasant. Frodo ailed at first, haunted by his wound and vague memories of his flight at the Ford of Bruinen. But the ache and gloom passed away and most of the journey was a grand time for the hobbits and Gandalf. They took their time, enjoying the fresh autumn air and clear blue skies. If they came to a stream or pond that looked good for fishing, they stopped and fished it. If they crested a hill and the view was superb, they would camp there. They felt like hobbits again despite their finery. They played pranks on each other and Gandalf as well. They wrestled and tickled and rolled down hills. They sang as they rode, as they fished, as they sat around their camp fire in the evening. They kept moving closer to Buckland and the Shire.

The chill weather continued to shroud the Shire. The West wind brought moisture from the distant sea, the cold Ghost Winds mixed with the rains turning them to a dampness that penetrated even the most snug of hobbit holes. More hobbits were falling ill. The sick were still being brought covertly into Brandy Hall, so more hobbits were posted as sentries while the surprise inspections continued. It had now been a bit over a month since Esme had felt any sense of Pippin or Cullassisul anywhere near to her. She felt more alone than she ever had in the crowded smial. Saradoc had meeting after meeting. Meetings with Ruffians. Meetings with Bucklanders. Meetings with residents of Brandy Hall. Meetings with everyone it seemed except his wife.

Eglantine Took tended the sick as best she could. Her supply of herbs and medicaments was running low while the number of patients was rising. And Tooks were being shot at by the Ruffians and Sherriffs who patrolled the borders, shot and wounded. Shot and killed. Between illness and attack, there were an increasing number of young orphans being brought to Great Smials for care. Paladin was struggling. Everyone wanted him and they all wanted him first, they all wanted him now. Some offered sincere help, most complained. Heaviest of all was the burden of knowing that he hadn’t expected to be what he had become. He hadn’t been trained up for the task from the time he was a lad. Finally, he took to his bed, speaking to no one . . . not even his wife. At night he fell asleep clinging to Lanti while locked in his troubled silence.

Young Tom Cotton walked down the road that had once been Lobelia Lane. The sign had been taken down by one of Sharkey’s men and had not been replaced. He looked about cautiously before tossing a small packet underneath the bench in front of Widow Rumble’s shack. Another went under the Twofoot’s, the Gaffer’s and so on down the row. Behind him, furtive figures emerged from the hovels to sit upon the benches. They would reach down to tidy their foot-hair or look at something in the dirt before slowly getting up to go back inside. The packet would be gone. The small bit of ham and cheese wasn’t much, but the Cotton’s own supplies were running low. Young Tom didn’t realize that knowing someone cared about them was as important to the folks in the huts as the items of food themselves.

Weathertop rose above the horizon as the sun hastened to sink beneath it. The shadow of the ancient watch tower loomed across the road. Frodo bowed his head, his shoulders rounded and he bid Gandalf to hasten them away from the hill. Then the Shire’s cold and rain reached out for them, so by the time they reached the Prancing Pony the hobbits and Gandalf were wet, cold and more than ready to see the inside of Barliman’s house.

Frodo had felt his wound aching, felt the cold of the Witch King’s breath and blade. Sam was recalling the pain of not guarding, or adequately helping, his master and friend. Merry felt again the terror of falling to the ground, unable to move. Pippin was caught up by both memory and the present. He remembered that Weathertop was the first time on the Quest he had so keenly felt the presence of his aunt. He was suddenly pulled away from Frodo, Sam and Merry. His aunt’s heart was crying out to him. Pippin heard her sobbing as though it was carried upon the wind and the closer they came to Buckland and the Shire, the more sorrowful voices he could hear. He remembered that the Fairy, that Cullassisul, had said there were many of her green-eyed Tooks. Pippin began to wonder if he was hearing them all.

Things were more than different in Bree as well as at the Pony. The Gate Keeper was more guarded, the inn was nearly empty - even the common room. Bob, the stable-hobbit, went home in the evenings now while neither Nob nor Barliman himself seemed truly at their ease. The first night the hobbits and Gandalf were there they kept to their room and Mr. Butterbur came to them for a chat. The travellers told much about the things they had seen upon their journey while old Barliman seemed more in need of telling them of events in Bree. He told them of how outsiders, *"newcomers and gangrels" as he called them had begun to frighten away the nicer, more local, clientele. He mentioned the deaths from the fight just into the new year. *"It isn’t safe on the road and nobody goes far, and folk lock up early. We have to keep watchers all round the fence and put a lot of men on the gates at nights," he added. But, though this was a bit unsettling to the hobbits and the wizard, Bree wasn’t the Shire, and it had always been less sheltered.

The next day the hobbits walked about the town a bit, visiting various shops despite the ever-present rain. Word soon spread that those hobbits who had caused such a stir a year back were once again at the Prancing Pony. Once again, to Barliman’s delight, his common room was full of customers. Part way into the evening a lad called for a song, bringing a sudden silence to the gathering. His elders all too well remembered what had happened the last time these particular Little Folk had taken to singing. But the silence quickly passed as the room filled with happy chatter once again.

Early next morning, after a hot and hearty breakfast, the travellers packed up, ready to ride the last part of their journey that lay outside the borders of the Shire. With them came Bill the pony, who had found his way to Bree all the way from the West Gate of Moria. It was as they were leaving that old Barliman’s memory was nudged into remembering a further bit of news they all should hear. There was trouble in the Shire, if the talk some folk passed along was true. *"But one thing drives out another, and I was full of my own troubles. But if I may be so bold, you’ve come back changed from your travels, and you look now like folk as can deal with troubles out of hand. I don’t doubt you’ll soon set all to rights. Good luck to you! And the oftener you come back the better I’ll be pleased." With those words of warning and encouragement they took their leave of one another.

The travellers rode in silence until they were away from Bree, well on their way to the Shire. Then they began to discuss Mr. Butterbur’s parting words which had brought a shadow over the group that weighed more heavily upon them than did the steady rain. Sam said it had to be what he had seen in Galadriel’s mirror, the Shire in ruins. Merry added that whatever was amiss, it must reach as far as the South Farthing as Barliman had mentioned a shortage of pipe-weed from the Shire. Pippin, knowing more than he would say, named Lotho as the probable cause of it all. But the worst thought come from Gandalf. *"You have forgotten Saruman. He began to take an interest in the Shire before Mordor did."

The mention of Mordor chilled the hearts of Sam and Frodo. Well they knew what Sauron had planned for the Shire and all of Middle-earth. Merry and Pippin were both remembering where they had found two barrels of Longbottom Leaf. Pippin shivered as he remembered the dream he had after the company had left Isengard.

Eventually Gandalf left them, having the need and deep desire of a long talk with Tom Bombadil. Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, the four who had begun this journey together, were near to bringing it to its end. They felt even more strongly now the need to make the Shire before the day was ended.

In a plain building made of plain unpainted wood with plain uncurtained narrow windows, a fairly large group of hobbits sat all gathered up as close as they could to a hearth in which burned a fire much too small to heat both levels of the two-story building. There was no singing. There was no jesting. There was little talking. These were the hobbit Sherriffs responsible for guarding the gates on the Brandywine Bridge.

"Might there happen to be more of this soup to be had?" Hob Hayward asked Doggin Brandybuck, who had been the cook for that evening’s meal.

Doggin shook his head. "Ya ask that every meal, Hob, and every meal ya already be a-knowin’ the answer. Why do ya have ta do that? Give ya pleasure, do it, ta be always bringin’ ta mind that there be no more than what ya have there in that bowl?"

"Don’t know, Doggin." Hob sighed and looked sadly down at his empty bowl. "Might just be as that old sayin’ puts it: ‘Hope doth eternal spring." Somehow, well, it just don’t be feelin’ right to this old hobbit to be givin’ up for good ‘n for all."

His friend looked at his own empty bowl before draping an arm around Hob’s shoulders. "Aye." Doggin squeezed Hob, patted his back then rose to prepare for cleaning up.

Hob Hayward sat staring into the small fire. It would soon go out and the damp drafty building would become even more chill. Had it been all that long ago, he wondered, that there was wood enough for a fire to warm a room the whole night through? That there had been first and second breakfasts, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper . . . all with not only plenty, but enough for extra helpings or to be put aside for another meal? Why did it seem so hard to remember going to an inn or tavern of an evening for a half-pint or two to go with good talk, good singing, good games . . . the good company of good friends? Had that been some wonderful dream? Was this just a nightmare? Would he ever . . ."

Every hobbit in the building went tense. Someone was pounding on the far gate, hollering too. The Sherriffs all looked at each other . . . they were frightened, but they knew what they were supposed to do. Bothlo grabbed his horn and ran up the stairs where he would throw open a westward facing window and sound the alarm. Hob joined the others in dowsing the lights. Taglin Goodbody, as head of this unit, stuck his head out a window facing the Bridge.

*"Who’s that?" he hollered as loud as he could. "Be off! You can’t come in. Can’t you read the notice: No admittance between sundown and sunrise?"

Hob could hear a voice yelling in reply but he wasn’t near enough to the open window to be able to understand the words. Taglin slammed the window shut. Apparently the answer he’d received was not to his liking. The covered lanterns had been lit and handed out, at Taglin’s nod they all ran out the door, uncovered their lanterns and headed for the inside gate. Taglin had it unlocked in a flash then he, Hob, Doggin, Moro and Tad moved onto the bridge toward the far gate. Four figures, who sat upon ponies, were just beyond it. The Sherriffs slowed their steps. They had not seen the likes of these people before. The ponies wore rich trappings and the riders were well wrapped up in what obviously were long expensive cloaks. Two of them were rather large and appeared to have gauntlets with leather vambrace above them, cunningly tooled with strange devices. When the ponies shifted, the lantern light caught the gleam of metal upon their breasts. Suddenly one of the larger ones pulled back the hood of his cloak revealing that he wore a helm upon his head. He spoke, claiming to be Merry Brandybuck, calling to Hob by name.

*"Bless me! It’s Master Merry, to be sure, and all dressed up for fighting!" said old Hob. "Why, they said you was dead! Lost in the Old Forest by all accounts. I’‘m pleased to see you alive after all!"

The ensuing discussion did much to enlighten Master Merry and his companions. First they were refused admittance; orders they were told, orders from the Chief in Bag End. When Frodo heard "Bag End" his heart clenched, then anger began to smolder inside him. That could only mean one thing: he had sold Bag End to Lotho, so Lotho was the cause of it all. Frodo spoke out about the need for the Baggins family, meaning himself, to deal with the matter. The Sherriffs fell silent, their faces blanched in fear. *"It won’t do no good talking that way," said one. "He’ll get to hear of it. And if you make so much noise, you’ll wake the Chief’s Big Man."

That clinched it for Merry. He had heard quite enough and hearing that Lotho had brought in Men to do his dirty work was all he needed to take action. He and Pippin climbed the gate. The Sherriffs ran off the bridge as another horn call sounded. A Man appeared from out of one of the other plain drab buildings, storming onto the bridge to challenge the four hobbits. Bill Ferny it was and he was dealt with quickly. He chose not to test Merry’s ability with a sword, while a parting kick from his former pony, Sam’s Bill, seemed to be the final insult. Bill Ferny was never seen by any hobbit again.

The four Travellers came through the first gate and onto the bridge.

The Sherriffs approached once more, amazed at what they had just witnessed. Merry looked about, making sure he had been correct in what he had observed. He was. The Bridge Inn was gone. "You’ll have to put us up," he said to the gathered hobbits, only to be told that wasn’t allowed. No taking folk in. No sharing or eating extra food (the Travellers wondered what was meant by extra food). Pippin spoke up saying that they had food of their own which they would be happy to share, all they needed was a place to get out of the rain. None of the Sherriffs moved. Frodo’s heart went out to them, he would take charge so less fault concerning all of this could be assigned to them. He ordered that both the far and near gates be locked behind them. Frodo and Sam dismounted. With Merry and Pip they walked across the bridge. The gates were shut and locked.

Frodo Baggins, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took and Samwise Gamgee were back in the Shire at last.

The End

*all lines in italics are quotes for ROTK