Q

Quickly and quietly, the Hobbit hunter homed in upon his quarry.  The deer raised its muzzle, questing on the wind as to the nature of the possible danger.  But the forest had gone quiet, and the hunter was wisely downwind, and thus the deer’s querying had been fruitless.  Quietly the hunter raised his weapon and sighted, and quickly the arrow sped, and the quarry had fallen to its fate.

Quietude, after all, is one of the gifts of the Creator to the Hobbit.  No matter how many quirks a Hobbit displays, or how quixotic his temper, no matter how the many quaffs of beer or ale he might have taken makes him querulous or quarrelsome, the quality of quietude instilled within him from his birth still protects him from detection—as long as he chooses to remain quiet and still.

So the Big Men learned to their detriment.  They might easily find their quarry if he was angrily on his way to confront them, or if he was within his quarters.  But, let him be within a natural area, quiet and still, they might pass quite close to him and never have the chance to enquire as to the source of the stone or arrow that took them whilst their own quarrels were still within their crossbows’ mountings.

So, the Big Men quartering the banks of the Brandywine and the borders of the Tooklands found, as they found themselves quitted of their lives by the quietude of their intended quarry.