IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part Two; Chapter Three "The Walk to Waymeet"

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   Gilley was right in her assessment of their way ahead; for the new settlement of Waymeet was five leagues or more west of the Farthing Stone near to where the four friends were having their early supper. She knew that they would make good time on the Road, for as night came on all of the Shire-hobbits would be at table and hearth enjoying the first evening of the Summerdays festival. It was unlikely that they would meet anyone on their walk or to be asked any uncomfortable questions, and in this way, or so Gilley hoped, they might slip away from the areas of Buckland and Hobbiton-by-the-Water quite undetected.

   ‘Now, Poppy, this is very important,’ Berty had said to them all just two days before, ‘your gaffer must not say anything to our parents until after we are gone. All of them will be at Sarehole for the day I’m sure, for your family has been welcome there before I was old enough to sit at a table. We three will give to him sealed letters from each of us which he can deliver to our parents at the feast and after we are well on our way. Write whatever each of you wish, but in this way they will know that we’ve gone on a good purpose, to help our friend Poppy, and, more importantly, they will learn of it well after it is quite too late to stop us.’

   So it was that these letters were written by Youngbuck, Gilley and Bovo just two days before the holiday and delivered very secretly to Poppy’s grandfather, Old Noakes. They were quite secure with him for, not being able to read them himself, he was honoured by the task of bearing such auspicious letters to such important people.

   Sadly, we are left with none of these letters except Berty’s to examine. In it we see the first, and perhaps best, description of the “Tookish nature” which he and all his heirs would be accused of for many generations to follow.

 

*****

Beloved mother and Dearest uncle,

   As you receive this letter at the onset of Summerdays you will likely be worried as to where I am. Please, do not blame Old Noakes for his part in my Plan; he is an unaware accomplice bearing the upsetting news which this letter contains and I dare say that if he could read it himself he might’ve clubbed me over the head and brought me home in his old rusty wheelbarrow. But he is a sweet old hobbit and will no doubt blame himself when the news of my departure comes out. Please see to it that he knows that I am sorry to have used him in this way and will always think gratefully of his kindness to myself and to our family.

   I am leaving the Shire for a time and I do not yet know where my travels might take me. West first, for I mean to introduce poor Poppy to uncle Clooty that he might find employment in the Delvings. As you read this I and my friends are on the Old Road and expect to come to the settlements there on the next morning. Poppy may be clumsy of foot but he is very skilled at hand, a fine carpenter, and I am certain uncle Clooty will find good use for him. I’m happy to have helped my friend and his family in this way, for, as you both have taught me, a friendly deed, unexpected and unasked-for, rewards both giver and recipient with community and faith. But I must also confess that this deed is not entirely selfless and, in my mind at least, it became a ruse for my own purposes. I am happy to take Poppy to the Delvings and to see uncle Clooty again, but I will be gone from the Delvings before sunset tomorrow.

   Bovo and Gilley are travelling with us and, as you read this, letters from them will have likewise reached their parents. Please tell them not to be unhappy with their children, for my friends came at my invitation and to serve, as good friends will, both Poppy and myself. They do not yet know my Plan of leaving and I do not know what they will do when it is finally revealed. It's very likely that Gilley will assign herself the same duty that Old Noakes would have done; to club me on the head and drag me back home. She does not much like the idea of change and tends to meet it head on and with fists raised. Bovo is more calculating and suspicious in his manner, as you both well know, but no less a cautious friend; he will try to argue me away from my Plan, of course. He is as headstrong as Gilley is heavy-handed; I can only imagine what they both will say when my true Plan is revealed. Again, Dear mother and Dear uncle, I ask you to forgive them for any complicity they may have had in my leaving, for they are loyal and true and should not be held responsible for helping me in schemes which they knew nothing about. Do not make your own minds up about decisions they have not yet faced. If they decide to follow me further or to drag me home to you, no matter which, they shall always remain as good friends to me no matter the turnings.

   But I do not mean to return. Not for some time. I am not sure how to explain my feelings in this matter without insulting you both, but I shall try; I do not feel as if I have the makings to be any of those things which you have raised me to be. I’ve no head for accounting, no desire for diplomacy, and little ability or interest in writing. I do not see myself as a ‘townfather’, the role you both would like me to fill as you both have so amply done. I am proud to come from a family who has accomplished so many great and important things for the Shire, but I am no policy-maker, no adjudicator and no governor. I feel that for all my life I have been trained for jobs which I have never wanted and now, coming of age as I must, I begin to realise how ill-suited I would be for such positions. I do not mean to sound ungrateful for all that you both have taught me, but I feel there is something inside me which resists all the careers that your training has set before me. I simply do not wish to be the master of any house which I did not build for myself.

   I know that you have both prepared a place for me within the government of the Shire and the ownership of our own lands. I do not wish to sound ungrateful but I do not want these things. I have tried to be a good and dutiful son to the both of you but, as I come of age and now make choices for my own life, I confess that being a landowner was never important to me. ‘Berty’s Hill’ was never really mine and should, I hope, come into the ownership of my siblings. Please, if I might make one request, call it ‘Sarehole’ as our land was called in my father’s day so that every one of my brothers and sisters will remember that name.

   I will go to the western edge of the Shire for a time. Maybe I will see Elves there and maybe I will hear news of my father. I have sworn to you both that I will not enter the western lands and I will hold to that oath; seeking news of my father is not my goal. I would simply like to begin the decisions of my own life from where he left his own behind. I do not go to seek the father I have never known. Despite all of the wonderful stories I have been told of the Oldbuck over the years I could never have wished for a better father than you, uncle Twoody.

   I wish to see the mountains. I have looked at drawings of those western mountains for so many days of my life and, often and in secret, I have dreamed of walking west to lay in their shadow. But I have promised you, and so I will not go into the west.

   Perhaps I will go north. Maybe I might find my way to the halls of Norbury and see the towers and gardens of the King which uncle Twoody has described. I think that would be very fine; to sit in those gardens of the King at the end of the day as Twoody and my father have done and make plans for some undiscovered and yet unknowable future. That might be very fine indeed.

   Or I may turn about and go east toward the Bree-land; for that is the furthest I have ever been from home and I feel a calling to visit the Inn of the Four Greenfields again. I might camp beside the Crossroads for a time, listening to the wind for a call telling me ‘North’ or ‘East’ or ‘South’. I do not mean to be coy and keep my destination from you but, as of this moment, I have still not decided on one and hope that chance will come along to guide my feet.

   I will not say that this is goodbye, for I love you and all of my family very greatly and I know myself well enough to understand that this love will draw me home again in the future. I did not know my father, but perhaps there is more of him in me than any of us had expected; for I feel an inner decision has occurred, one made not with the cautious thinking in my head which you both have taught me to do, but in the clutching weight of my chest that you have always taught me to respect; I feel that I have no choice but to go and see the world and therefore understand this part of myself better.

   Nothing that I can write will ever convey the love and thanks I have for you both. But the strength which I have found to make this decision comes from all that you both have taught me and that is a gift which I will keep forever.

Your son, Berty

 

   If any of Berty’s companions ever saw this letter we do not know. It remained among Twoody’s possessions for many more years and then, much later, among Berty’s own. But it was kept. The envelope it was delivered in was still intact. If it was read more than once, by Twoody, Alaura or Berty himself, we have no way of knowing.

 

*****

   So with sunset of the first day of Lithe, the start of the Summerdays on what we now call the 20th of June, in the Twenty-ninth Year of Shire-reckoning, the four friends left the Farthing-stone and set out along the Old Road west.

   At this time in the early development of West-farthing farmers and settlers tended to keep their holes set rather far back from the Old Road, whether from fear or for privacy none may say, but the travellers knew that there would be no homes or public squares in sight until they came to the little collection of wagons and shops that was called Waymeet. They could see lights up on some of the small hills and occasionally a bit of music or laughter would come to them down the wind but, on the Road itself, things were very quiet and they saw no one. Under Gilley’s direction and set for Poppy’s hopping pace they all walked and talked casually, happy at just being together under the bright light of starry skies. That night they were truly free of responsibility and agreeably charting their own futures. Among them it was only Berty who had the vaguest notion of a Plan which was older than their dinner; they talked excitedly about where they might go and what they might see together as if going on an unexpected, and quite unpermitted holiday. Gilley knew better than the rest about how to plan for their undertaking and what lay immediately ahead. She knew that while it was not quite a town yet, Waymeet would have hobbits enough who might ask them many questions. She knew that they would need to have a rather serious talk with Berty about going there, but yet she still felt it was the best choice of their new Plan. Yet Waymeet was many miles off and for now they had time to discuss other practicalities and enjoy one another’s company.

   ‘Well it is certainly a pleasant enough night for walking,’ Poppy said, ‘even if our destination has changed.’ He ambled along beside the others at a good pace despite his bad leg, happy to be heading further away from home than he had ever been before.

   ‘I could’ve done with a heartier meal to begin such an enterprise,’ Bovo said glumly. He walked with his head high just as he usually did but with his unstrung bow resting across his shoulders and a quiver of arrows across his back he looked more like an adventurer than any of them. ‘But we still have some nice rashers and cakes for when we camp and I’ve also brought three highly praised bottles of wine from deep in my father’s cellar.’

   ‘We won’t be camping for long, Bovo,’ Gilley replied, ‘and we may have to enjoy those cakes of yours cold and your father’s wine from the bottle while walking.’

   ‘Oh, now that strategy is simply too much, Gilley!’ Bovo said with feigned excitement. ‘These are the very last vestiges of our original Plan, our Stolen Feast. I thought we were meant to be enjoying ourselves on this holiday excursion together, not living like soldiers on a forced march.’

   ‘Yes, well, the Plan has changed, Bovo, has it not?’ Gilley replied, smiling at his irritation.

   ‘I should think there will still be time for rest, Gilley,’ Berty said. ‘After all, I had never meant to thwart our enjoyment of the trip with any plans of my own.’

   ‘Ah,’ Gilley said. She was still taking charge in her rather direct way which all of them noticed but none of them had ever come to question. Even Bovo, though he would certainly never admit to it, knew that if they were indeed on an unexpected adventure then they would all come to better ends left in Gilley’s capable hands.

   ‘Youngbuck,’ she asked, ‘ other than coercing the rest of us to join you, I must say that I don’t think that you have quite thought this Plan of yours through. It is said to be twenty leagues and more from the Farthing-stone to Greenholm but, tell me, have you yourself ever been there?’

   ‘To Greenholm? Never,’ Berty replied. ‘I know something of how to get there. I’ve been told that there is a great stand of dense trees south of the Road as we pass the last hills of the Far Downs and that moving due southwest through that bit of forest, along what is probably now a very old path, brings us to the hollow-tree settlement where my uncle and my father first encountered the Elves. But I don't know of anyone other than my uncle who has ever gone there.’

   ‘So you’ve no idea how far off the Road or where exactly we should turn?’ Gilley asked calmly.

   ‘No, I do not. Still,’ he looked lost in thought about their way forward. ‘Our original Plan was to go to the Delvings and on from there. Uncle Twoody and I went to the Greater Delving last autumn to visit my uncle Clooty. We left two hours before the dawn on that day and arrived three hours after sunset. It was a very pleasant bit of travel along the Road and I thought we might do the same tomorrow.’

   ‘Oh, “a pleasant bit of travel” was it? And did you carry packs?’ Gilley asked.

   ‘No, not really,’ Berty replied. ‘Uncle had his pouch of contracts and such, and I carried a haversack of bread and jams, cheeses and also two winesacks.’

   ‘“Cheeses and two winesacks?” Very pleasant indeed, I should think,’ Gilley replied with a laugh and a smile. ‘And tell me, Youngbuck, how many meals did you and your kindly uncle enjoy along the way?’

   ‘Only three,’ Berty said. ‘And they were indeed quite spare. I remember mentioning it to uncle Twoody, cautiously of course, and he laughed and once more recounted tales of my father and how lightly they both had travelled through the early days of the Shire. But as it had been my job to carry the food, I remember thinking, it should have been my decision whether or not I might carry more, my father's past methods notwithstanding.’

   ‘Well there’s wisdom in that,’ Bovo said coldly. ‘For if I’ve gone through the trouble of appropriating good wine and provisions from my own father’s cellars I believe that I should have some say in when to unpack it and a restful place to enjoy it.’

   ‘You should listen more carefully to the lessons of your father and your uncle,’ Gilley said, ignoring Bovo and with a cautious jibe to Berty (whom they all knew was sensitive on this issue). ‘We are all of us packed for the earlier version of our Plan and not for your previously undisclosed Secret Purpose. We carry bedrolls for two expected nights of sleeping and extra, and to my mind rather too fine, clothing for some party with your uncle Clooty which we will no longer attend. Poor Poppy even brought his tools! We also carry provisions for a rather fancy cooking of tonight’s dinner, which is also now not likely to happen-’

   ‘And that is only through your design, Gilley,’ Bovo interrupted, ‘which I frankly disagree with.’

   ‘Well certainly you do, Bovo,’ she said, ‘but perhaps you will give me time to explain my design in a manner that even you will understand.’

   Knowing he had been bested but waiting for another opportunity to complain, Bovo chose to be quiet.

   ‘We are each of us carrying,’ she continued, ‘considerably more than you, Youngbuck, had on your last leisurely trip to the West. It also sounds to me as if that autumn day was quite “pleasant” and mild. Good for you! But we will now be going much farther and walking with our laden packs for an unknown number of days in high summer; so I shouldn’t think the going to be quite so easy. And you are right, we might still make the Delvings by supper tomorrow as originally planned and take a loan of new supplies from your other uncle there. But if you really wish to make it to Greenholm without further restraint from your family I believe that we should be more cautious with who we meet; we should skirt the Delvings where questions will indeed be asked, and head straight on to the borders. Poppy has already said he does not wish to let us go on without him, so the Delvings are no longer our true destination. Are we all agreed in this?’

   ‘Well,’ Berty said, looking a bit sheepish, ‘if the truth be told I had always worried about lying to my uncle Clooty. If I was to get provision for a trip from him there it would, as you say, lead to many questions. I don’t think he would let me go west.’

   ‘Oh, he would certainly not,’ Bovo added laughing. ‘Your uncle Clothair is no fool, Youngbuck, and while he loves you just as much as the rest of we poor fools do, if he should ever hear of your proposed adventure he would lock you in his toolshed and send a letter off to your mother that she might come and collect you like an errant umbrella.’

   Berty and the others laughed at this image, for all of them knew it to be true.

   ‘So,’ Gilley continued with the logic of her argument for moving forward, ‘as Poppy has decided to come with us into the West and the Delvings are no longer part of our Plan, I think that particular stopover destination is to be avoided and we will need another place to provision ourselves for travel.

   ‘I have been to the Delvings, but I also know the Road from Buckland to there very well. It is fair and even as I remember it, but not very shady. We’ll do better walking by night rather than camping and enjoying ourselves, or Bovo’s delicacies, overmuch. I’m sorry we shall miss your expected meal and fireside songs, Bovo, but the sleep and merriment which we will be spare of tonight will serve us as we move forward tomorrow.

   ‘I believe that if we take only a few short rests we might come to the Waymeet at dawn.

   ‘Now beyond that-’

   ‘But why go to Waymeet?’ Poppy asked, interrupting Gilley’s thoughts. ‘I mean, if we’re meant to escape notice from Youngbuck’s family should we not avoid all... the settlements along the way?’ He said this somewhat sheepishly, but Berty did not seem to notice.

   Poppy and Bovo both seemed to think this was an excellent question and awaited Gilley’s response. Unsurprisingly, she had one ready to hand.

   ‘Waymeet is barely a settlement, Poppy,’ she said. ‘There is a large open valley there with a good spring running through it for fresh water and, as most of us in the West-farthing have heard, there is to be a new road running far into the north and then away towards the west side of the Great Smials that will cross the Great Road at Waymeet. Is that so, Youngbuck?’

   ‘It is,’ he replied. ‘In my regrettable position at my uncle’s office I reviewed documents on that very important and completely boring topic this very afternoon.’

   ‘No wonder you want to run away,’ Bovo said with his usual comic dourness.

   ‘Waymeet is little more than a collection of wagons turned into storefronts, Poppy,’ Gilley continued to explain. ‘But storefronts and provisions we will certainly need if we’re going on to Greenholm. If we are to avoid discovery by Youngbuck’s family in the Delvings then our last chance for supplies will be found in Waymeet. Indeed, some merchant traders have set their shops there to feed supplies to all of the folk moving into the Delvings. But our biggest danger is that Youngbuck’s own black sheep relatives run the Waymeet and are there making a tidy bit of business for themselves.’

   There it was then, the thing which Poppy had carefully alluded to, put right out onto the table.

 

*****

   Uncle Twoody’s older brother, Childebrand, had, many years before, been forced to abandon his holdings in the first settlement uproad from the Stonebows bridge. The events leading up to this had made that hobbit the most hated individual in the land and the first criminal of the Shire. But in Year Fifteen, to pay off debts to him which other Shirehobbits had collectively incurred, an agreement had been reached which parcelled much of the undeveloped south of the Shire to Childebrand’s family, who were now called the Swiftooks. In Year Twenty-one, just eight years ago, the children of Berty’s uncle Childy came back to claim those lands. The public ousting, if not outright exile, of the Swiftooks had happened while Berty was still a fawn and the details were seldom discussed among his other family members. To Berty, his uncle Childebrand was a distantly remembered face further clouded by little-discussed family intrigue.

   It was said that all of Childebrand’s cunning had made him the first “Landlord” of Shire history and that all of his claims had led to the first system of tacit hypothec, later called mortgage laws, in all of Middle-earth. This dispute of land ownership came to have great and lasting effects on hobbits and other people of the north for many, many generations and some might say that those disputes have never been rightly resolved. But it can also be said, and with greater certainty, that in any culture the first landlord gives birth to the first lawyer; a position Berty’s uncle Twoody had taken upon himself and which Berty now rejected with all of his youthful energy.

   When the Swiftooks returned across the Bridge they were led by Childebrand’s first-born son Reginard. He had finally come to claim his father’s land and, to do so, he held a signed copy of the proposed agreement in his hand. Histories tell us that Reginard Swiftook led eighty hobbits behind him, all watchful but weaponless, and that they also brought three dozen carts of building equipment driven by twice as many ponies. Reginard was the only one among them to speak to the Bridge-wardens and that speech was later recounted in THE SHIRE-RECKONING for all to see:

   “I RETURN to the LANDS which MY FAMILY and MY FATHER HAVE BUILT and which WERE PROMISED by WORD OF THE KING and by the CONTRACT OF HIS SUBJECTS. HERE, in these DESIGNATED LANDS. MY FAMILY will BUILD and will GROW and we will offer OUR FRIENDSHIP and OUR ASSISTANCE to ALL OF OUR NEIGHBOURS who would have it.

   “LET old DISAGREEMENTS be PUT ASIDE, old DAMAGES be DIFFERED and old ARGUMENTS be ENDED. WE, MY FAMILY and MY FATHER’S, have come to TAKE UP OUR RIGHTFUL CLAIMS and to BUILD NEW KINSHIPS despite OLD DISPUTES.”

   They were, of course, allowed to pass the Bridge and, keeping quietly to themselves along the way, they turned immediately south along the road to Stock. They crossed the Stockbrook and continued toward the Marish. At the southern edge of that land they crossed a second river which Gondo and his friends the Mugworts had discovered. It had been unnamed until that time, but Reginard Swiftook was the first to call it “the Shirebourn”.

   They did not stop there however. They continued on until they found the same ford which Gondo had and there built their first settlement beside the banks of the river, far away from any of the earlier settlements of the Shire.

   Eighty hobbits and three dozen wagons did not seem like much to settle all of the Tookland’s thousands of allocated acres. In fact they were not heard from again for another three years and the Shire-hobbits who lived in fear of the Swiftook’s revenge were very glad for the silence even as they were puzzled by the mystery of this southern colony of strangers.

   But in the early spring months of Year Twenty-four some of the Bucklanders living in the southernmost part of what Gondo had called the Green Hill Country noticed many campfires in the lower valleys. This was reported to Bovo’s father Horris Bunce, Chief Constable for the Shire, and he himself took all of his twenty Reeves to investigate. They saw, even from a distance, a great settlement there of over two hundred hobbits. In Horris’ usual manner, they marched boldly forward to the encampment until they came to the remnants of an ancient road. On the other side of this landmark more than one hundred of these strangers, seeing Horris and his deputies approach, stood with shovels and pick-axes and other tools in hand. This was the first official meeting of the Shirefolk with the representatives of the Swiftooks since the Battle of the Bank in Year Fifteen and, as we are told in his grandson’s book, Horris Bunce was once again at their head.

   Once more, Horris the Firebrand, undaunted by the scars of former strife, led his twenty companions boldly into the jaws of peril. The famed axe—its blade blackened by the fury of past flames—he bore still, but, wounded grievously in the First Battle of the Shire, he leaned upon it more as a staff than as a weapon. Yet such was his spirit that his fellow hobbits, steadfast and resolute, followed him without hesitation, their own arms gripped tight and a stern resolve blazing in their eyes.

   Never before had the Firebrand and Reginard—son of the Landlord—stood face to face; yet each, by some deep intuition of destiny, knew the other for his rival. With the weight of their peoples’ hopes upon their shoulders, the two leaders strode forth, meeting at last upon the ancient, grass-grown stones of the old Broken road. There, beneath the watchful sky, they paused—adversaries drawn together by the inexorable currents of fate.

   “You and your people have journeyed far from the southern ford, Master Swiftook,” said Horris, his tone measured yet edged with curiosity. “Truly, it astonishes me to behold so great a company gathered here, when not long past but a handful crossed the Stonebows. Whence sprang these numbers, and what wind has driven so many strange Southron hobbits to this meeting ground?”

   “We hobbits flourish where our resources are strong, Constable,” replied Reginard, his words carrying the easy confidence of one accustomed to wide holdings. “Here, in the southern marches of the Shire, the land stretches broad and open before us, and it is our lot—and perhaps our duty—to make it thrive with the presence of our kind.”

   “That may indeed be so,” answered Horris, his gaze steady and searching. “Still, you now stand upon the very edge of Buckland, far indeed from those places where we believed your folk to have found their home. Tell me, Master Swiftook, what cause has drawn you and yours to these distant bounds?”

   “Your words have merit,” allowed young Swiftook, inclining his head with measured courtesy. “Yet remember, Constable, that the border of Buckland upon your side is the very same as the boundary of Tookland upon ours. This road, ancient and once well-trodden, runs from the Ford and is in the rightful claim of our lands. Here we have chosen to settle, as is our due. Tell me, then—does any among you claim that we trespass where we have no right?”

   “Neighbours found where one least expects them are not, by that token, trespassers—nor does their sudden presence render them unwelcome, Master Swiftook,” said Horris, his tone measured and grave. “Yet let us not pretend that such unheralded arrivals do not breed a measure of unease, for any new friendship may be tested when it springs from surprise. Would you not agree, master Swiftook, that un-looked for surprises can make for uncomfortable beginnings?”

   “I would indeed, Constable Bunce,” replied the hobbit, his voice grave and unwavering. And at those words, a subtle change swept through the gathered folk: on either side of the ancient road, hobbits set their feet more firmly upon the turf and tightened their grip upon their staves, as if bracing themselves for whatever fate the next moment might bring."

   Thankfully a greater confrontation was avoided as both parties agreed that this old broken roadway was indeed set as the border between the West-farthing and the Tookland to the south. So it was there that the Southrons built their first commercial centre and some careful trade then began between the two. “Whitwell” they called their new town, for they had found an ancient stone well there which Horris and Twoody had overlooked in their own examinations of the countryside. How they knew that this well existed or, indeed, just how many hobbits had come up from the south over the ford, was a surprise to the Bucklanders and a subject for further suspicion.

 

*****

   ‘Your ever-enterprising uncle Childebrand and his folk have expanded west farther and faster than any had imagined, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said, continuing the story. ‘Their settlements in the south end of the Shire are small, from the little that any of us have heard, but there are many. At Waymeet, just as at Whitwell, the Southrons build their small camps swiftly to lay claim to the land. Some rumours I have heard around my fathers deputies say that the Swiftooks had come to both places four or five years ago.’

   ‘I’ve no knowledge of my uncle Childy,’ Berty said. ‘If I ever had any contact with him then I was much too young to be remembered by him now.’

   ‘Oh, but he might remember you, Youngbuck,’ Gilley said. ‘And that would be every bit as bad for your Plan as visiting your other Uncle Clooty in the Delvings now seems. Worse even. For he has quite a grudge against your parents and all of ours. But if we can get past him...’

   ‘I see! Without him noticing who Youngbuck is! Hah! That is an adventure!’ Poppy added with excitement. ‘Gilley’s new Plan would seem both daring and sound, even to me. We certainly will need some equipment if we are to set out further to the west. How long do you intend to spend in Greenholm, Youngbuck?’

   Berty was silent for a time because he truly did not know how to answer. None of the others pushed him in any way, but the conversation stopped as this question lay between them all.

   The letter which he had written to his mother and uncle had been quite final; Berty did not intend to return to the Shire, or at least to Buckland, for many years but had shied away from confessing this to his friends. If he told them now he feared they would try to dissuade him and that all their Plans would change again.

   ‘Perhaps,’ he answered after a long hesitation, ‘perhaps a month or more.’

   ‘A month!’ Bovo laughed dryly. ‘Well, our parents will certainly come to miss us all by then!’

   ‘A month in Greenholm?’ Gilley asked Berty again with suspicion. ‘Youngbuck, that is a great amount of time to live in the wild and, to be frank, not something which you are prepared for.’

   ‘Well, yes, but that’s why I wish to do it, Gilley,’ Berty answered as earnestly as he could. ‘I have been taught no skills for hunting or foraging; only bookkeeping, cartography, cost assessments and letter-writing. I know more about the price of fox skins than I do about the hunting or the skinning of foxes. I can cook a meal or clean a hole as well as any hobbit, but I’ve never planted a vegetable garden nor built myself so much as a footstool. I know more about how to set up a ledger book than how to install a doorknocker! How shall I, if I am ever to choose my own path in life, know how to take care of myself in some new town or settlement?’

   ‘Well, why you should ever want to learn how to do any of that is beyond my imagination,’ Bovo said. ‘Really, Youngbuck, you are, or stand to be, one of the wealthiest hobbits in the Shire. I don’t see that the pioneer life truly suits you nor that you should have any need to become suited to it.’

 

   This comment may have been a bit unkind, but Bovo often pushed at the edge of common courtesy in his conversations among friends. The other three understood that behaviour for what it was, sheer provocativeness on Bovo’s part, and they took his occasional barbs of this kind in stride; for they had recognized it as his way of pushing others away whom he did not care for. They had seen that very often over their years together. But when the same behaviour came out among them, his close friends, whether out of love or discomfort, they chose to let comments like this fall aside; for Bovo was frank in speech beyond all of his other defenses and his friends knew the value of his frankness where others might only see the lack of courtesy.

   It was widely known that Berty’s uncle Twoody, as a chief investor in the earliest days of banking and real estate for the Shire, had become one of its richest citizens. Bovo’s own father, Horris Bunce, had made a tidy sum from developing and then parcelling farmland in Buckland and the West-farthing to some of the more recent settlers; the family of the Firebrand was wealthy well beyond his sheriff’s salary. Gilley’s parents had become quite successful in sharecrop farming on their own substantial bit of property south of Buckland. Her father Emmon was another of Gondo’s early Pioneers and so he held wide and fertile lands in the family name while he and his children worked hard to manage their own. It was really only Poppy, son and grandson of generations of labouring gardeners, artists and tradesmen, who would need to fret about money in their future; the Noakesburrows always had plenty of work but had, quite unluckily, never become “landed” as other hobbits were.

  The first settlers of the West-farthing, if we see them represented by the parents of these four friends, had done quite well for themselves and for their children. Yet hobbits, like most genteel folk, detest open talk of money and seldom comment on one another’s economic status. If Berty was stung at all by Bovo’s comment it did not show. He looked away and, rather simply, replied;

   ‘So you mean to say that the banker’s life might suit me well enough.’

   ‘Well, I-’ Bovo began to say.

   ‘Is that what this is all about, Youngbuck?’ Gilley asked, saving the two from the impending argument. ‘I must say that I didn’t fully believe you when you claimed that it wasn’t about your missing father and I now guess that I wasn’t wholly wrong in that; do you really wish to learn some of the skills your father was known for?’

   ‘Well, not in the way you mean it but, yes, Gilley, I do,’ Berty replied carefully. ‘Or I feel that I should. I am thankful for the very comfortable life I’ve been given in the Shire but, as I think about my own way forward, I’ve come to believe that I, well, that part of me I have been told to be proud of, has become rather too complacent and perhaps too soft to deserve such comforts.’

   None of Berty’s friends said anything in response to this. They were together walking west along the wide Road, all four abreast, and, just as Gilley had recounted, there was little tree cover to either side that might shade their way. The Sun had set some two hours or so ahead on their path and a wide open and star-filled sky now rested quietly above their heads. There was a stillness in the starry sky, and Berty had felt its quiet calling tonight just as he had many times before when he would sit on the hilltop of his home back in the Buckland. Now he wished that his friends could feel that quiet urge too and, understanding its call, would not question him further. But part of him knew that this would not be so; they did not listen to the stars as he did and instead they simply waited, as good friends will, for him to explain himself further.

   And so he did.

   ‘My family has done things,’ Berty said after some long minutes of walking and hoping that the subject might become changed, ‘things which I am rightly- no, I should say genuinely- proud of. I doubt that I shall ever match them and believe that my trying to do so would not be anything but arrogant folly.

   ‘But I do not wish to be an inheritor of someone else’s success. Forgive me if that seems too proud and too ungrateful. But I’d like to live in a hole which I have dug for myself and, at the end of a long day’s work, whatever my job might be, I would like to sit in a chair which I had made for myself. My parents have not taught me these things, how to make a chair or to plant a vegetable garden, this kind of self-reliance, and I hope, dear friends, that you will share some of your own teachings for our short time alone together before I must decide my future. I am sorry that I haven’t made this more clear or been more upfront about my intentions; but, despite what Bovo may think of my planning, I am not sure that I have ever fully realised or understood this for myself until now.

   ‘I don’t want to be what they want to make me,’ Berty said softly and finally. ‘At least I do not want it if I can not figure out a way to do it for myself.’

   There was another pause at this and all three of Berty’s friends looked at the ground as, together, they walked further along the Road west. The stars shone brighter still and it was maybe twenty minutes or more before anyone spoke.

   ‘Well, Youngbuck, I don’t know why you could not have told us that sooner,’ Poppy said, breaking the tension. ‘I can certainly show you how to build a footstool or cane a comfortable chair. If you had told me sooner then we needn’t go all the way to Greenholm for such a lesson.’

   ‘Cold cakes and wine while walking it will be then,’ Bovo said with his usual glum kindness. ‘Let us hope the rashers will keep for breakfast and that Gilley will allow us a small fire by that time.’

   ‘A month or more it is to be then,’ Gilley said, smiling her broad grin. ‘Well, you have our support in this even if you have gone the longabout way toward asking for it. But I feel you will have to get to know your uncle Childebrand’s family a bit better, Youngbuck, if we are to be provisioned, all four of us, for that much time in the wild.’

   ‘Yes, Gilley,’ Berty replied with a mischievous smile of his own. ‘While I had not considered any of that before, I believe that I now have a Plan for the Swiftooks as well.’

 

end of chapter three

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Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  I have been using the word “Delvings” here rather freely and should explain why. I mean this to be the same area which would later be called Michel Delving and the de facto capital of the Shire in Frodo’s day. “Delving” means “excavation” and, at this early day of the western expansion to the Shire, I think that word might have been used for all of the early constructions that had not yet grown names of their own.

2)  While the location here was called “the Sarn Ford” in Frodo’s day and, earlier in this text, I believe that title would have come from the Númenóreans, I don’t think hobbits would’ve named it as such just yet. As said in my previous note, there is a connection between this name and a famous battle of the First Age so the name could’ve come down from the Dunedain or through the Elves. But hobbits would not know it.