IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part Two; Chapter Fourteen "The Far Downs"

   On the morning after the Summerdays, the First of After-lithe as Shirefolk called it, Youngbuck and the pioneers left Greenholm behind. Gilley and Olo had departed hours before, taking Olo’s own pony, Hum, so that they might carry more provisions on their return to the Far Downs. Although he had sat the early watch with Youngbuck, and had a reputation as a devoted sleeper, Bovo was awake to see them go.

   ‘Now, Olo,’ he had said, ‘I am sorry we won’t have the chance to hunt together this morning as planned, but you’ll learn that with this little fellowship of hobbits the Plans we make together are as flexible and uncertain as a bow of willow-wood.

   ‘I hope that you won’t need to test your own bow on this little expedition,’ he continued, ‘but if trouble should arise, listen carefully to Gilley here; for you are taking our best representative of common sense with you. I can’t speak for your brothers, but between Poppy, Youngbuck and myself we have very little good sense to contribute in difficult situations and we will miss her own abundance of this very greatly. I myself have argued against her wisdoms and her tempers in the past and, while I’ve enjoyed most of those arguments, I have generally followed her advise with only a modicum of my usual grumblings. Pay no heed to my example. Such grumbling is not a strategy which I would suggest for staying in her good graces, coming to a good end, or avoiding a well-deserved box on the ears.’

   Gilley, who was not far off (whether Bovo knew this or not) stood listening with her face as red as an autumn apple. While all the others present waited to see what might happen next, she did not. She walked straight up to Bovo as if no one else was present. Taking his left hand in her right and putting her left hand on his collar, she pulled his face toward her own. The kiss was both cautious and deliberate, too short and more than meaningful. Their foreheads met afterwards in a way that felt both unfamiliar and assured.

   ‘I’ll be back with sixty hobbits to help settle this Faralong land before you know it,’ Gilley said. Then, their pony saddled and their course set, she and Olo set out before the dawn.

   Therefore at Greenholm, an hour or two later, the other ponies took on the extra burden as did the remaining hobbits. They were only an hour or two from their destination, a wide hill on the Far Downs just north of the Road that they had spied before which had been proposed for their first encampment. Bovo led the others on, for he knew that Youngbuck needed a moment to himself to last look upon the little house in the tree.

   ‘We’ll take nothing away from here,’ Youngbuck told his friends. ‘It is to remain my uncle Twoody’s property to do with as he wishes. It seems fitting that this should remain the westernmost home in the Shire; vacant as he left it until he should choose otherwise.’

   The hill they had selected for mapping was but forty or fifty ranga north of the Road. It sloped nicely up on its southern end while the western side was more steep and afforded them a long view into the misty downs and forests below and off to the great towers beyond. Once they arrived there and Poppy and the others began to set their camp, Bovo walked to the top of this hill, looking west and east to check its defenses. On its crest there was a small copse of ash trees and Bovo thought that, should there indeed ever be danger from the West, a lookout might stand here and see many miles into that distance. There in the morning light the towers gleamed. Ancient, he thought they must be, but fresh-looking, like morning milk. He wondered how, or why, anyone should come to make such an awe-inspiring thing. Hobbits, and particularly Shire-hobbits who had never lived in high places, did not care much for tall buildings. Bovo did not fear the towers, for they were very far away, but he could not understand them or reconcile their existence with his own. Why would anyone ever want to go into such a high place above the sheltering earth?

   It was then that he first heard the sound of bells but could not place them. A light cling-clanging that came over the wind, but from what direction he could not tell.

 

*****

   Berty upon their arrival at the hill, went promptly to bed. He took a moment or two to explain himself to his friends; ‘As Poppy has rightly guessed, I have been awake now for many hours; since our meeting with master Undundol and all of last night. But, I must tell you, we have, together as friends, accomplished all the things that I had meant to and many more which I did not expect through your grace and care. I cannot thank you all enough; but I would like to rest now, complete in those tasks, before I begin anew our Plans.

   ‘Gormadoc, tomorrow we will walk out together through the land here north of the Road and look for streams, the potential of wells and other features. If you have seven sons and six daughters as you have said, they will need wide lands to grow into!

   ‘Marcoul, after these lands north of the Road are charted, you and I will travel south and do the same. In order for these lands to be properly registered with the Shire-hobbits in Buckland or the Delvings there must be a clear report of the land’s features and this, by name, reputation and some small skill, I may provide for you.

   ‘In determining Olo’s deeds we will also ride south so that the land there might abut Marcoul’s own and begin to run back towards the open meadows. But for land holdings that the three of you should be able to claim, it will be several days of survey. Knowing the size of your families now, something the Young Took carefully did not mention, this will take more than the three days which I promised him. Likely a week, I should think; and then we will be ready to deed your claims at the Assayer’s Office in the Delvings.

   ‘It might also be days yet before your families arrive to begin the building of these homesteads in earnest, but that is something which Reginard could not have expected and will go much against his plans. By the time these deeds are filed in your own names and your own families are settling them, the Young Took will have no claim over you.’

   And, after all of this was agreed upon, Youngbuck took his rest in the shade of some nearby trees while the others set up their first real camp. They led the ponies around the eastern slope and carefully took down their provisions; Poppy and Marcoul, serving as property masters, began to take stock of all that they had brought and how it might be used. There were four stout shovels to be had, three long handled axes, numerous hand saws of differing sizes, four mallets, many boxes of nails and coils of good rope for when they would begin their building. Taking up one of the shovels, Gormadoc went a short way up the southern slope of his hill and, behind the cover of some trees, began to break ground on his new home; smiling all the while. Meanwhile Poppy and Marcoul, after seeing to the comfort of the ponies, took axes and saws and began to gather up what wood they could use for fire and for building.

   While Bovo had no skill for map-making or well-digging, he did have excellent skill in the woods. ‘Gormadoc,’ he said, ‘I’m going to scout and hunt a bit over these next few hills to the north and the east, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to undermine any great discoveries that you or Youngbuck might find tomorrow, but I think we will need to build up our stores if your own families of Lausa-folk enjoy food as much as we Bucklanders do.’

   And so, taking a little haversack for his lunch, his canteen, his quiver and his bow, Bovo set out for the next tall hill to the north, promising to return for supper. The deep valley to the west of the hill rose slowly here and began to crest into five more hills equally as tall as the one they had chosen for Gormadoc’s new home. Beyond those were slopes covered with sombre trees like dark clouds, for there lay the Northlands beyond the Shire that few hobbits had visited or even heard about. But all the area about him north of Gormadoc’s hill was like a tumbled heathland, grown with ling and broom and other plants and shrubs which Bovo could not identify. Here, nearer to the hills, there were knots of tall pine trees; not wholly unfamiliar, but rare in Bovo’s own part of the Buckland. It excited him to wander through this land so far from his home, encountering his own adventures. The air was fresh and fragrant and his heart was high.1

   Between the hills the mountains to the east seemed further off, bending into the west in a long curve that was lost in the distance. At the edge of his vision Bovo could see small groves of resinous trees, fir and cypress and others which he did not know and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. Small streams he found, where fronds pierced moss and mould over wet rocks and larches were green-fingered, their small flowers opening in the wet turf, and above them birds were singing. Bovo, like most of the hobbits who were knowledgeable hunters, did not disturb birds in the wild but followed them into places where other small game was plentiful; hedgehogs and foxes, voles and squirrels, both red and grey. He took a few of these that he encountered at ease with his bow, but had only a small coil for carrying the game and no real means of curing them back at their encampment. Plentiful as the land was, it would not do to be wasteful. Therefore he wandered after this was accomplished, hoping to see what other game or tracks might be found in these wooded vales. In and beside the small streams he discovered evidence of beavers and numerous large fish and, best of all, muntjacs, which the hobbits called “barking deer”, a good-sized animal which could provide a hobbit family with many winter meals.

   A little way back from one such stream and in the later part of the afternoon Bovo was taking his lunchtime meal in a deep brown bed of last year’s ferns, feeling quite assured of the peace he found in these lands and thinking about returning to his friends. He had not, in his ambling through the vales, gone up to any of the neighbouring hills yet, hoping not to deny his friend Youngbuck his own chance of discovery. But as he lay at rest drinking water from a cool clear stream, the sounds of birds and insects around him seemed to cease and the woods grew uncommonly silent. From the wind in the northwest once again came the sound of bells; cling-clang, cling-clang; they were soft but, or so Bovo perceived it, not far off.

   If there were farmers or settlers or, worse even, Elvish folk here in the Far Downs then the hobbits would need to know of it. Bovo might have returned to his friends then and told them what he had heard and, if he had, they all might have gone together to the north hills on the following days. Surely Gilley would have thought that this was the more prudent and “common sense” approach. But Bovo, confident in what he had discovered already and more assured of his skill with a bow than of the skill his friends had, decided to investigate on his own.

   The southern face of the next hill had little glades of ash and pine and, between, some tall shrubberies of holly, box and foxglove. Bovo, with bow nocked, was able to swiftly and secretly make his way towards the hilltop under cover of these plants. He stopped often, hoping that he might hear voices on the wind rather than just the cling-clanging of the bell.

But the hilltop itself was bald and Bovo’s covering ran out before he could see what was on the crest. The cling-clang cling-clang came undeniably from the hilltop and Bovo knew he must break cover to see where the noise was coming from. ‘Well, Gilley,’ he said to himself silently, ‘I’m quite certain you will chastise me for this rather ridiculous maneuver should I ever live long enough to report it. But I’m not nearly as smart nor as practical as you and, lacking your better planning, can only make do with action.’

   And so it was that Bovo Bunce, his bow drawn back and his blood high, charged the crest of the hill to find himself fallen into a dream.

   The hilltop was bare of all but a few flowering herbs and shrubs. Looking left upon his arrival Bovo encountered the same view of the towers which he had seen two nights before in the dream which he had recounted to Gilley. Indeed, on the western slope below him he could, through memory of that dream, see exactly where the paddock for their livestock would be and where their little barn and their vegetable gardens would, within the dream, one day be placed. He was high above the western door, or the place where that western door would be when they would one day call this hill their home. He could now, in his memory of an experience which he had not yet had, see the place where Poppy and Clooty and he had worked so hard and diligently to dig their household well. He felt his bow go slack in his hand and the arrow drop to the ground as he remembered, no, encountered here in his fragile immediacy some future memory displaced, of Gilley with their firstborn child Gordo in her arms, coming out to laugh at the disorganized way in which three of the most famous hobbits in the Shire had begun their task of digging a well. He saw little Gordo in her arms then, memory or enchantment, and felt that there was something terrible, something ominous, that would yet happen; if he could remember what it was he might leave the hill and rush back to his friends, thereby preventing this future disaster. But he had only memories of happiness in his dream of this place and only the most vague notion of how it had come to them through sorrow.

   But despite the seriousness of what this glimpse of the future hinted at, Bovo was unwilling to leave. For somehow he was assured that he was(?) would be(?) happy here and one day, not far off, at the edge of the Shire, and here his life would be his own. No, that wasn’t a fully accurate interpretation of his dream; his life, that future life which he had glimpsed, was with Gilley and far away from the Buckland. ‘Little wonder we’ll come to call it the Faralong,’ Bovo thought in that moment of reflection. ‘For here we are both far away from our homes in the Buckland and far along with making our lives into something brave and new. It was a beautiful dream which I entered two nights ago, but even now, seeing it before me, I do not see how we came to it.’

   And then, behind him as Bovo looked out to the west, came once again the cling-clanging of bells. He turned sharply around, his bow still idle in his hand, to see a great brown cow feeding upon the open grasses of the hilltop. She took a moment from her feed to look up at Bovo and, cocking her head, her round brown eyes offered both mystery and acceptance. Twice she blinked at him and then, without a noise walked forward to meet his hand.

   Around her neck there was a purple ribbon of some material Bovo could not identify. From it hung a small brass housing and inside that were two smaller silver bells.

   ‘Belle, we shall call you,’ Bovo said with awkwardness and certainty, ‘and it is a pleasure to meet you at last.’

 

*****

   Just as he had promised, Bovo returned to the camp in time for supper, bringing his new friend Belle with him. The other hobbits were surprised and more than a little alarmed.

   ‘Where did you find her?’ they asked, and, ‘does this mean we have neighbours?’ accompanied by, ‘Bovo, you can’t just take a neighbour’s milkcow,’ or, more sadly, ‘has someone else made their home here before us?’ or, ‘does this mean our whole plan is to be aborted?’ Bovo could answer none of these questions, of course. After finding Belle he had done what he could in terms of investigation; he had looked out from the top of the hill for any sign of a settlement and saw nothing. There were no trails or paddocks, no evidence of shepherds or herdsmen, no smoke fires to indicate houses or settlements in any of the neighbouring lands.

   Indeed, he told his friends, the land there was more wooded, so if someone had set up a cow pasture somewhere nearby he certainly would have been able to notice it from that high hilltop. Nor could he discover tracks upon the hill of any other creatures beside Belle and himself.

   ‘I can’t explain it through any evidence, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said to his friends, ‘but I believe that I was meant to find her. Or she to find me.’

   ‘I see,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Well, it is too near dark for us to do anything about it now. But I suspect we should set watches again tonight in case some angry herdsman comes a-looking for her. And Bovo, you’ll take the dawn’s watch so you’ll be on hand to explain things.’

 

*****

   With the first light of the Second day of After-lithe Youngbuck was very eager to begin their survey. After a short breakfast made from Bovo’s recent catch of squirrels, they met around the cookfires to discuss the day’s business. Youngbuck was sitting at ease as they gathered, sanding his new walking stick which he had taken from the black tree of Greenholm. ‘Despite Bovo’s unusual discovery to the north,’ he began, ‘cousin Gordo and I will go west first along the Road. I would like to establish, as best as I can at this distance, the very western edge of the King’s Agreement and set some marker there if we may.

   ‘Cousin Gordo,’ he continued, ‘the Young Took was quite wiley is his choice to place you and your brothers on the Western border; for land grants in the Shire are based upon the size of the family and the three of you, having no conflicting neighbours, beginning in unsettled farmlands rather than the establishment of township, well, I should think that you would be in your rights to choose one hundred long furrows worth of land to be deeded in your family name.’

   ‘Why, that’s nearly the size of Frogmorton!’ Poppy said.

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘I think that this was the plan of the Young Took all along, Poppy. You see, the Zaragamba family is nearly sixty hobbits strong; a deed here would be like transplanting a small town right to the Shire’s edge. He showed us three “bachelors” to chart lands for but never told us the size of their families.

   ‘Now these lands can be on both sides of the Road of course, and, if we put the deed in three names to begin with, then you and your brothers may parcel it amongst yourselves and to your direct relatives as you see fit.’

   ‘That sounds very fine, I should think,’ Gormadoc said in his usually amiable way, but also scratching at his wooly head to indicate that he did not understand all of what Youngbuck was saying.

   ‘Here in the Shire,’ Youngbuck went on to explain, ‘we measure land by what a good hobbit farmer, with a pony or a stout pig pulling an iron-shod plow, might easily turn in an hour. Do you use rods as a measure in the South-farthing?’

   ‘Aye, we do!’ Marcoul said, interrupting but happy to offer anything which might make the hobbits understand one another better.

   ‘Excellent!’ Youngbuck said. ‘So the typical long furrow is about forty rods, or, as we sometimes say, proud of our own system of measurement, about six hundred and sixty feet. One hundred of these units is a great sized farm indeed! Imagine it as spanning twelve miles in either direction.’2

   Youngbuck could tell from the way in which the Zaragamba brothers were looking at him that this idea of so much open space was not something they could understand. So he decided to just go on with their plan and get the expedition under way.

   ‘Poppy, Marcoul and Bovo,’ he said, ‘I suspect that it will take cousin Gordo and I about three days to accurately survey the land north of the Road. We’ll take one bow with us if we may, but I’d rather leave the others behind with you in case any unexpected neighbours might come in search of their cattle. We’ll take some dry store of meats and cheeses, for neither of us are as skilled at hunting as Bovo here. I trust that he can keep you all well supplied.

   ‘You’ll want to finish the work of a rough paddock for the animals, Poppy,’ he continued, ‘for we don’t know how long it will take for Gilley, Olo and the other Zaragambas to join us here nor what they will bring with them in terms of supplies and livestock. But, more importantly, you’ll want to continue the front door excavation which Gordo has already started; for the SummerDays are past and rain will no doubt follow them here in the west just as it does back in Buckland. I think we shall take Cinders with us to carry some provisions, but the other two ponies will be of greater service to you here.

   ‘From the westernmost point adjacent to the Road, cousin Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘we will proceed a league or so south and determine another border. That area, as it leads toward Greenholm looks to be more heavily wooded. I think that the better farmlands will be found in hills due north. I will make every attempt to draw these borders around physical landmarks like hills and streams or outcroppings. There is a deep valley there, Gordo, and streams or seasonal rills should be plentiful. Barring any difficulties we should make the northwest corner of your land by sunset tomorrow.

   ‘But then, heading north,’ he continued, ‘worries me a bit more. From Bovo’s description the land is rougher there, filled with more trees and wild-growing shrubs and, going uphill as we will be doing, we might be met with many twistings and turnings. Also, if there are neighbours there we will need to meet them. I’m sorry, Bovo,’ he said to his friend, looking at him with all earnestness, ‘for I know you think that discovering your friend Belle is some portent of good things to come but, despite what your bold heart tells you, my cautious hobbit head must prepare against worse fates.’

   ‘While caution has never been a defining trait for me, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said, ‘I think that you’ll agree that I have a nature which has always been well prepared for disappointments.’

   Youngbuck responded with a broad smile, ‘and I hope that I have done what I can to bolster your assuredness against your usual nature. Here we are, my friend, making our own futures for ourselves! We are on the very edge of the Shire planning and building homes that no other hobbit had thought or dared to do. And all of it without having our parents think we have been eaten by bears!’

   Poppy and Bovo and Youngbuck all laughed heartily at this and the Zaragambas, who knew nothing of this joke, simply scratched their woolly heads in waiting.

   ‘So,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘I have a proposal which might reinforce your usual expectations for disappointment, Bovo, but, rest assured, it is only a Plan against the worst.’

   ‘Well, yes.’ Bovo replied. ‘The best method which I have found for being prepared for disappointment requires a careful examination of how things could be worse. I actually pride myself on my ability to assess how much more terrible a thing may be; for that mathematic has often brought me the comfort of being right. Tell me, Youngbuck, how will your Plan further disappoint me?’

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck said, ‘I will need you, and your friend Belle, to join us on the hill where you found her shortly after the dawn three days hence. Just you and Belle, mind you. If we do have neighbours to the north I would rather not have them know our numbers just yet.’

   ‘And this plan to meet you will disappoint me how?’ Bovo said, though the resigned look on his face showed that he had already guessed the answer.

   ‘Because if Belle does belong to some undiscovered neighbour of ours, any neighbour which cousin Gordo and I might encounter in our survey,’ Youngbuck said, ‘you will need to give her back or otherwise address the misunderstanding.’

   ‘You are right as usual, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said. ‘This is indeed another Plan of yours which I don’t much care for.’

 

*****

   It did not take Youngbuck and Gormadoc, setting out early, very long at all to reach the western edge of the Shire that morning traveling west over the Great Road. They brought Youngbuck’s pony Cinders with them carrying their supplies to make their walking lighter. Youngbuck was hopeful that there would be some kind of indicator of the border to be seen on the Road, whether set there by his father and his uncle or earlier in the Road’s long history. And he was correct in this guess, though they were lucky to have noticed it.

   As they followed the gentle slope of the Road into the wide misty vale the way leveled off and was surrounded by vast meadows of wildflowers on either side. The Road itself was no wider here than anywhere else but, quite by chance, Youngbuck noticed that it was flanked at this one spot by two tiny benches, long ago cracked and overgrown with ivies and mosses which sat on an unadorned and small stone bridge over a shallow river. The benches were Manish in their height, but very simple and also unadorned in any way. They were perhaps a mile or two west from where Gormadoc had begun to dig his home.

   ‘Yes, this looks about right,’ Youngbuck said, walking over to give one of the benches a closer look. For no particular reason he chose the one on the northern side of the Road, its seat had been cracked and ivy now climbed all across its surface. Youngbuck was no hunter or tracker like his friend Bovo, but if anyone had sat here on this bench within the past two hundred years he would be quite surprised to hear of it.

   ‘What is it that you see here, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked, for he could not fathom what had drawn Youngbuck’s attention.

   ‘Well, to be honest, Gordo, I don’t really know,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘I’ve walked parts of this old Road through the Shire many times, encountering a few small bridges such as this, but I have never seen it change in the Road’s width or adornment to suggest a stopping point; not a watering trough nor any evidence of a signpost. In fact one of the earliest arguments between my mother and my uncle Twoody that I remember overhearing had to do with whether signposts should be added to the Great Road,’ and he smiled gently at this memory as if he understood and appreciated the depth of the argument much better now.

   ‘You and I met at Waymeet, cousin,’ Youngbuck went on to say, ‘but that townname, such as it is, is just a convenient word for a very old custom when two travelers meet on a road; “Ricfried traveling East and Gerold traveling West” in a tale my mother used to tell. A waymeet has a much older tradition than your Young Took gives it.

   ‘You’ll notice that these stones are made of the same material as the Road itself, built in the long ages past, and it has likely been long, long years since any travellers have met here. This little stream seems to have greater significance. I believe this is likely the waymeet between the Elves and the Sea-kings and the border which they may have accepted between their lands. Perhaps. But I don’t have any way to know this to a certainty.

   ‘No, cousin,’ Youngbuck said. ‘I wish it were better marked, like our own Farthing-stone is perhaps, but I think we must accept and respect this spot as the very westernmost border of the Shire and, if you will have it, the very edge of your home.

   ‘Let us take an early lunch here at the bridge,’ he continued, ‘and then turn our attention northwards leaving our western neighbours in peace. We can use the stream as a guide.’

   And so they did, with Youngbuck taking great pains to accurately draw the two benches and their relative position to the Road so that he may indicate them in the Gormadoc’s claim.

   But if vague chance and the recent memory of one of his mother’s old lessons had allowed him to recognize the importance of this site, Youngbuck’s desire to render it accurately rather than examine it further was less propitious. For if he had more closely examined the old stone benches, particularly that one on the southern face of the Road, perhaps running his hands through the clusters of ivies and nettled flowers which had grown there, he would have found a beryl stone, rather recently placed, and had the opportunity to wonder at what that may portend.

 

*****

   The digging and the building was going well and Bovo was rather glad to be removed from most of the labour. It was generally agreed upon that the surrounding lands needed more exploring and that Bovo was best suited to this task. So after Youngbuck and Gormadoc left Bovo took his bow and his quiver and went exploring. He was still curious about the five hills to the north where he had found Belle, but he had promised Youngbuck that he would leave more discoveries there for later days. He went east and south of the Road over the next few days, finding tracks of small game, little streams, small clusters of tall trees and wide fragrant meadows. Youngbuck had wanted to set an eastern border for all three of the Zaragamba properties along a common stream if one could be found. Bovo did not have the eye for plants and tillable earth that Youngbuck had acquired from his own parents but, in his love of solitude he had learned his woodcraft in lands like these and knew that they would be at no loss for food or fresh waters. But more importantly, he saw no sign of any neighbours who walked on two feet.

   Poppy and Marcoul fell into an easy camaraderie working together. Both were equally industrious once a task was determined and joked and laughed with one another once they set to it. They listened to Youngbuck’s advice regarding the paddock and set about the felling of a few small trees on the southern end of the hill which would afford them a better view of the Road. With some of that wood they built a corral near to where Gormadoc had set the door and under the shade of some taller trees. Using this lumber and the rounded lids and hoops of a good-sized barrel which the Zaragambas had brought from Waymeet, Poppy fashioned a very solid workbench and, on that, a good wheelbarrow by midafternoon of the day after Youngbuck and Gormadoc had left. With that, the hobbits truly had the base tools to start building in earnest.

   Despite Youngbuck’s other suggestion, they chose not to dig much further into the hill itself; for Marcoul felt certain that this was a task which his brother Gormadoc would like to undertake for himself. So they roughed it out just enough that they might take shelter there if rain did indeed come, and then turned their attention to the building of a proper outdoor stove. Stones were cleared from nearby- between the Road and the new door of the hill they would want clear ground- and these were used to build a fire pit. Poppy was able to assemble a clever wooden spit on a turning brace above the fire for now, but plans were laid into the design for an iron grate to make a proper stovetop. When Bovo showed them a nearby stream which he found just east of the hill Poppy and Marcoul made plans for setting a little lane from the door to that place over the most level path. So before the dawn of the third day, when Bovo was preparing to take Belle to the north hill to meet with Youngbuck, the two other hobbits had made a very fair start on their encampment.

   And they had done so while remaining completely undisturbed.

 

   As for Youngbuck and Gormadoc, their way along the western border was easier and less time consuming than they had expected. Youngbuck had found the old meeting place, the spot he designated as the very edge of the King’s Agreement, much sooner and more easily than he had expected. He strictly adhered to his vow to not go further west than this point, but that vow did not keep him from lingering for just a bit. The two hobbits spent a long lunch at that place as Youngbuck worked to get proper drawings to submit with Gormadoc’s deed. If Youngbuck did expect or in some far off way imagine to see Elves or Dwarves or some rumour of the West to come up the Road and meet them while he tarried there no one can say. But no one came and no one could be seen west along the Road as it disappeared into those grey-green mists below the Towers.

   So, with Cinders walking happily beside them, the two hobbits set out northward perhaps three hours after midday, keeping on the eastern side of the little stream they had discovered. They had not gone more than forty ranga that way when Youngbuck stopped them again, spying a large rock which he felt should be included in his map-making.

   ‘Tumbled on its side though it is,’ he explained to Gordo as he sketched away, ‘it still looks very much like the Farthing-stone planted at the center of the Shire. Quite distinctive, really. When we have the time and the help of more than one pony, we should come down here and move it to the Road at the very border of the Shire to serve as our border. Do you know about the Farthing-stone, cousin?’

   Gormadoc, who was so happy for all the honesty and assistance he had found from Youngbuck and the others, was very interested in any information about the Northerners and their settlement of the Shire; he did not know much about how the clans of hobbits, those in the Shire and those in the Tooklands, had become so sundered, but he had learned to trust this distant cousin of his and the stories he told.

   ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not. Will you tell the story to me while you draw? I would enjoy hearing it.’

   ‘Well, cousin,’ Youngbuck said, comfortably leaning back into both the drawing and the story, ‘while I am still a young hobbit with no real tale of my own yet to share, you and I have many uncles of great repute. It is said that two of my mother’s brothers, Marcho and Blanco, were the first hobbits to explore the Shire. They crossed at the old Stonebows bridge. Do you know it?’

   ‘I do,’ Gormadoc answered eagerly. ‘For I was among the first party to come that way eight years ago with the Young Took.’

   ‘Ah,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Then you know it better than I, for I only traveled over it twice, and as a very young hobbit at that. We’ve brought much activity to that edge of the Shire and to cross the Stonebows now, or so I am told, is a chance to see more hobbits living all in one place than has been seen anywhere else in the world.’

   ‘It felt that way to me, cousin Youngbuck,’ Gormadoc replied. ‘The warrens of the Lausa in the Weather hills each held very large family units, but we remained underground for our safety’s sake. When we crossed that great Bridge and saw hobbits, our own folk and distant relatives, roaming openly about the roads and hillsides, when we heard that they had built inns and bathhouses, public meeting places, broad farms and small villages with little shops, we were amazed at the idea of such a thing.’

   ‘Were you in any way jealous, cousin?’ Youngbuck asked mildly.

   ‘Some of us were, perhaps,’ Gormadoc said, thinking hard on the depth of the question. ‘Yes, some certainly were, I should say. And some were, I think, prepared with that kind of response by what the Old Took had told us; “there is a land there which has been freely given to all hobbits,” he had said, “and all hobbits, having no safe lands of their own, should take it. But there are some hobbits, many of them less hardy and deserving than yourselves, who may try to hinder you.” I think many of the Lausa were told to be suspicious of our neighbours and, or so it seems to me, suspicion and jealousy make for bad beginnings.’

   ‘I could not agree more, cousin,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Marcho and Blanco, as I was saying, crossed the Stonebows on their own over thirty-five years ago when there was no Shire here, no farms nor public houses, but only a vacated and lonely land. They were following the Dwarf-road, as our grandfathers once called it, towards the west and upon seeing the Stonebows bridge thought that they must have certainly, in only two day’s brisk walk from the Bree-land, discovered a great Dwarven kingdom. My mother used to say that her brothers “went hoping to discover the richness of the dwarves but were hopelessly disappointed to find only their own future.”’

   ‘For there were no dwarves of course, and the land was completely empty then,’ Youngbuck continued. ‘And my uncles, or so I have been told, were ill-equipped to deal with such emptiness. They traveled twenty leagues, more or less, along the Road before their intrepidness was quite exhausted and they decided to turn back. There is a small rise in the Road where they halted and, on a clear morning one can see the white caps of those western mountains there peeking above the grey mist of this valley. Sitting here now with you, another twenty leagues and more than they ever dared to come, I wondered if they were simply overwhelmed by the sheer size of this land. I must indeed take after my father, for such a challenge within me it only makes me wish to go further.’

   ‘Not I, cousin Youngbuck,’ Gormadoc said. ‘I shall be quite contented to live whatever life I am given in a home under some good hill with all of my family about me and never stand at the foot of a mountain or go climbing the long stairs in some elfish tower.’

   ‘And I am pleased to help you accomplish that, cousin,’ Youngbuck said.

   ‘So, a little over thirty-five years ago, not far from the Road, our uncles Marcho and Blanco found a large standing stone, not much larger than that one there,’ he said pointing again with the charcoal stick which he was using to draw, ‘and moved it as close to the Road as they could. “The Far Stone” they called it; the farthest spot they or any other hobbit had ever visited in this land.

   ‘By the time my father and my uncle Twoody came to map the land that was given to us by the King’s Agreement, that old marker had become the centerpoint of the Shire. Uncle Twoody and my father used it to divide the open lands into four districts, or “farthings” as they chose to call it, jutting out from that stone. So now we call it not “the Far Stone” any longer but “the Farthing-stone”. I find it particularly interesting that the stone over there, laying just across this little stream and at the edge of the Shire, resembles the Farthing-stone in such a way. If we could move it to the side of the Road, as my uncles did with their own Far Stone, we might set a clear marker between our lands and the Elvish folk beyond. The “Farthest Stone” we might call it?

   ‘But that is a task for another day,’ Youngbuck said, folding up his drawing and taking up his walking stick once again. ‘It is of fair size and very similar shape so that, if placed at the side of the Road and on the corner of your land all our folk would know to go no further. What the folk in the West might think of such a marker I cannot guess.’

   ‘If you’ve no guess then certainly I’ll not venture one,’ Gormadoc said, looking carefully at the stone. There was a long moment of silence between them after he said: ‘but I see no harm in moving it.’

   Over the remaining days, while Bovo was exploring the east and the south, and Poppy and Marcoul were busily preparing the base camp, Gormadoc and Youngbuck made their way carefully north along the Shire’s western border. By mid afternoon of the second day, which was the Third of After-Lithe, they had found a high stance of old fir trees which Youngbuck thought made an excellent northwest border for the proposed property. The wood there was old and dense and came rising out of the valley’s mist toward the northeast. While it might provide a useful resource in hunting, it would not be easily cleared for farmland. Youngbuck made a few drawings and indications on the map he had been forming, but now he felt it was time to turn east to the five hills which Bovo had described.

   ‘Do you think there are folk, Big Folk or even Elvish Folk, living there?’ Gormadoc asked, pointing north. ‘For the finding of this milkcow seems most...’

   ‘Unexpected? Uncommon? Portentous?’ Youngbuck replied, laughing just a bit. ‘Oh, all of those, I should think, but all of those words do seem to describe most of what has happened in our little adventure over the past five days, and I am therefore learning to adjust my behavior to all things unexpected, uncommon and portentous. I am sorry if I sound glib, cousin, for I do not have a better answer. Bovo tells me, well, he’s become uncommonly tight-lipped and tells me very little on this subject for some reason, but he tells me that he dreamed of some future with this milkcow on the night when we all came under master Undundol’s protection.’

   ‘Well, if I may, I would say that occasion changed many of our minds about going west,’ Gormadoc replied carefully. ‘But, if you don’t mind my saying so, cousin Youngbuck, I have noticed that you have also been “tight-lipped on the subject”. May I ask, if it is not too unwelcome, what happened to us? And, indeed, who was master Undundol?’

   Youngbuck stopped his going forward for a moment then, not out of surprise, but out of some desire to collect his thoughts before speaking them. He looked down for a moment at the black wood of his own recently carved walkingstick, then away to the skies and far-off lands to the north, then to the east and then to the south; but unlike the time they spent the other day at the roadside meeting place, he did not look west. Stopping beside the two hobbits, Cinders, Youngbuck’s pony, pricked up her ears as if to listen in.

   ‘No, cousin,’ he said calmly. ‘Those questions are neither unfair nor unwelcome, although I may not have answers which you might find to be satisfying. But I’ll take the second one first; master Undundol, I believe, was a very special kind of messenger at a time when we needed him. And, as to the first question about what happened to us, well, cousin, we chose to receive that messenger. That is not a very good explanation, I know, but I don’t have one which is more detailed nor more sure than that.’

   And so the two stood together for a moment. Youngbuck knew that what he was saying was more vague than would satisfy the curiosity of most hobbits. His kindness caused him to await any further questions but, beyond that, he hoped that this distant cousin of his would understand the openness of the idea he presented.

   Whether or not Gormadoc fully understood Youngbuck’s analysis was much less important than what he himself made of it. There were a few long moments shared between the hobbits then. Gormadoc, doffing his cap and scratching at his wooly head, looked away south and east, presumably to the hill they had chosen to be his new home. Youngbuck, waiting patiently and unwilling to prompt his cousin’s eventual answer, looked away south toward something far away.

   ‘Aye,’ Gormadoc said, ‘for a message, or so it seems to me, often comes without caring about the information it brings. We take it or we don’t, believe it or not, but it says what it says, and, like it or not, affects our purpose.

   ‘Very well,’ Gormadoc said resolutely. ‘Let us go and see this land which I believe will be the home of my family for many generations to come.’

 

*****

   The land which Youngbuck and Gormadoc examined moving north sloped generally upward out the misty vale of the west. This was very encouraging, for it had attractive little hills and at least two good sized creeks cutting through it that looked promising for fishing. The water of these little streams was clear and fresh and there were little lanes of trees running alongside them at times. They followed the course of one of these lanes upstream for a while; Youngbuck thought that its meandering turns made it yet another useful border to the northern edge of Gormadoc’s claim. The trees near the stream were not thick and, while the two hobbits were now traveling in a way that made them wary of sudden encounters, they clung to cover as they could. As they walked, Youngbuck spoke quietly about the land.

   ‘My father and my uncle Twoody never really wrote down much of their experiences with the High-king up in Norbury,’ he began. ‘My father had little time for such writing it seems, and uncle Twoody thought it was crass and boastful to share such memories with other hobbits. But they were there in the king’s own court, in the high places of his great castle, for many months during which they heard much of this land’s history; most of which never interested many Shirefolk other than my mother, myself and a few of my siblings. My mother used to tell tales to we younger hobbits, cautionary tales to be certain, about the people who once lived here.

   ‘Many, many centuries ago, or so it is told,’ he continued as they walked quietly in the shade following the little stream, ‘this was the great farmland of the Tall-men who came from the Sea; part of the old kingdom that they called Arnor. And a very vast kingdom it was, stretching from here far away into the east to be bordered by the Misty mountains, north to the ice plains, for which we hobbits have no name nor report, and then south to the river Greyflood where many other of our far-distant relations once dwelt. The Sea-kings of those days were friends with all of the Elven-folk of Middle-earth and had learned many skills through that friendship. Here in the safety of this land they built great orchards and gardens, stone-houses and stone-roads, which have now been lost to time.

   ‘For sixteen hundred years ago, as the stories go, The Sea-kings and the Elven-folk went to war in the south and many of them never came back.’

   If Youngbuck knew or had more to say about this it was not forthcoming; the two walked for awhile before speaking again.

   ‘We Lausa have seen much of the wars of Men in the Weather hills,’ Gormadoc replied, ‘and they seem to go stretching back into a history which none of us can recount. Elves we do not know nor have we seen, but Men have proudly trampled continuously over our homes and our safety throughout many generations in pursuit of war.’

   ‘I have met and seen only a few of the Big Folk,’ Youngbuck said. ‘For in my youth I traveled once with my mother and my uncle Twoody to his father’s funeral in the Bree-land. I remember thinking that they seemed rather, well, clumsy and not altogether warlike or unkind. But our recent escorts have shown me otherwise; for they seemed very dangerous indeed.’

   ‘Oh, yes,’ Gormadoc said. ‘We Lausa have avoided contact with Men for as long as anyone remembers and we were surprised that the Old Took had found a dozen or so to do his bidding.’

   There was a pause as the two hobbits and their pony kept walking in the dappled sunlight under the trees listening to the soft sound of the little creek running beside them. ‘A dozen or so?’ Youngbuck asked.

   ‘Perhaps we should have been more distrustful than surprised,’ Gormadoc finally said.

   ‘I think that if you were to ask most of the Shire-hobbits of my parent’s generation how they feel about the Old Took,’ Youngbuck replied kindly, ‘they might now say the same thing.’

   And so they carried on walking together for a time in silence. Youngbuck would occasionally bend down lower to the ground to take special notice of some plant or insect and, each time the lane of trees would bend, he would halt a moment to go to the edge of their shadows and examine the surrounding scenery. There they saw great open meadows. While the land had been steadily rising they were now approaching the chain of hills which Bovo had described and these lower lands were, in high summer awash with colour, the late afternoon light casting shadows in the deeper mass of shrubs and tall grasses. Youngbuck did not even try to draw it, for his hand with charcoal was a poor tool for capturing such beauty of light and colour. He wished that he had learned more about plants from his mother or from his sister Ganda who had a genuine talent for gardening. Lacking the means to draw them, he recorded descriptions and some of the names which he did know as part of the document of Gormadoc’s Claim:

   “The hills are still low here and there is a gentle flood plane which feeds these meadows and eventually runs into the old creeks and rills and, I suspect, down into underground streams. These lands are filled with many delightful and fragrant flowers which, at the end of the day, blaze with a brilliant yellow gold from buttercups and cowslips and another plant which looks much like knapweed. But that illusion of golden fields is a simplification seen from afar. For to any who enter into the land the truth of its colour and abundance comes immediately alive. All around there are ox-eye daisies adding a splash of white, tall burnet with their blood-red heads, meadow thistle and meadow saffron with pink and purple flowers which grow lower to the ground. There are sages and rosemarys, purple-headed thyme and ragged robin which lend their peaceful odours to the countryside and invite the buzzing of bees, small birds and game. There are tall ryegrasses and cocksfoot and red fescue for animal grazing; much if not all of these things must have been planted here long centuries ago before the King’s Agreement yet still thrive as Men have left the land untended. Untended, yes, but ideal for development.”

   And so in the late afternoon, looking up to the tall hill where they were to meet Bovo the following morning, Youngbuck and Gormadoc decided that here, close to the stream, they should take their rest for the night. Having seen no sign nor heard any indication of nearby neighbours they decided to stay within the tree line and look out at the gorgeous meadow while the Sun was lowering in the west. Youngbuck had been writing in his journal while Gormadoc took Cinders to water and prepared a simple meal of the supplies they had left.

   Afterward, as the Sun found the tips of the distant Elf-towers and set the slopes of the meadow into its last glorious light, Gormadoc found his voice again to ask his cousin a hesitant question:

   ‘You have stopped your stories of the Sea-kings, cousin,’ he said, ‘and perhaps it is because you don’t know more about those folk than what you have already told me. And you have told me, or so I think, as much as you know about their going off to war so many, many generations ago. Or at least that is how I understand it.’

   But Gormadoc stopped there and just seemed to look out to the beauty of the meadow in the glow of last light.

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Cousin, you have a question in your voice, but I cannot know it before you ask.’

   ‘Why?’ Gormadoc replied. ‘“Why” is my question. Why would the people who farmed and tamed this land leave it and why, so many generations later, why would a king of great wealth and power give such a land to hobbits who have nothing?’

   ‘Uhmn,’ Youngbuck heard himself saying. ‘Why, indeed, cousin?’ Youngbuck said nothing for a few moments and, if Bovo or Gilley had been present, they might have caught their friend’s hesitancy as not only the careful choosing of his words but, as his parents had taught, also a desire to be forthright among friends. He smiled then and, scratching his head as he had seen Gormadoc do many times over the past few days, he offered an answer.

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck said, ‘if I may again answer the second question first; I have always been told that the King in Norbury offered the Shire to hobbits because he believed we would be good custodians of the land and return it to its former use as a great farmland just as it had been of old. I am also told, and this is mostly by my uncle Twoody who, it must be said knows best, that the High-king felt we hobbit-folk had some greater part to play within his realm. Now I do not understand that nor, as I am told, did my father nor my uncle. But I am told, by that honest hobbit who met him, that we were given this land because the king believed we might make something wonderful and whole of it again.’

   Gormadoc didn’t respond right away, hoping more answers would come forth. When they did not, he realized the Youngbuck was waiting for a response. It took some time for Gordo to wrap his head around this notion of some High-king in a castle doing such a service to hobbits. But if Youngbuck said it he imagined it must be true.

   Comfortable in one another’s company they sat, the Sun slowly sliding down and the day darkening, before Gormadoc replied. ‘Imagine that,’ he said, ‘hobbits to be so honored by kings. Imagine that.

   ‘But, as to my first question;’ Gormadoc continued, ‘why did they leave this beautiful place empty for so long?’

   ‘That answer is both sadder and easier to understand,’ Youngbuck said. ‘The Sea-kings and their folk died to defend these lands against a Great Enemy, cousin. And when those wars were done and their borders secured there was no one left to do the farming.’

 

*****

   They did set watches for the night, for they were near to the place that Bovo had described and wondered still how a moo-cow had been found there with no other farms anywhere to be seen. Berty offered to take the first (and a longer) watch so that he might complete his writings for Gormadoc’s claim. He had never attempted anything like this before, though his time clerking for his uncle Twoody made him quite well-versed on what a proper deed request should provide. As he sat writing beside the light of their small fire Berty heard (or somehow felt) a hush in the meadow and in the trees beside their campsite. He saw Cinders the pony prick up her ears and look to the eastern sky. Doing the same Berty saw the stars awakening and his gaze was drawn to one in particular; brighter and lower than the other, like a herald or guide to all the rest. It had a warm glow of red-orange that seemed both comforting and wholly unfamiliar. Surely he had seen this same evening star many times at night in his young lifetime, but never could he remember feeling so captivated by its beauty.

   The world around him also seemed to watch the star. For long minutes Berty could hear only the occasional crackling from the fire, the rippling running of the stream nearby and the gentle snoring of his cousin Gordo. Eventually he drew his eyes from the stars and went back to work.

   If sharp-eared Cinders the pony heard anything more no one but her could say.

 

*****

   Youngbuck and Gormadoc rose early, just before dawn on the Fourth day of After-lithe, for the last leg of their journey. They followed the stream a bit further north hoping to come up the hillside on its western slope. They saw a fox and a few small deer out for morning meals but there was still no indication of any other two-legged neighbours. As they prepared to leave the stream and go uphill, Youngbuck’s careful eyes caught another detail. ‘Wait, cousin,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘Stay here a moment with Cinders. I’ll be right back.’ With that, and no other explanation, he went quickly and silently through the trees along the stream as it turned to the west.

   After a few moments (which felt incredibly long to Gormadoc), Youngbuck called out:

   ‘It's quite safe, cousin,’ he said. ‘Follow the sound of my voice along the stream’s edge.’

   Gormadoc did as he was asked, picking a delicate way through the trees for the pony and himself until he saw Youngbuck standing on a high rock by the water’s edge. Coming into the little clearing by the stream, Gormadoc saw what had caught Youngbuck’s eye; the remnants of an old stone bridge. It was much higher than the stream, as if it had been built in its time to span a much wider river. Some part of its road, now covered in ivies and wild grasses, crossed the stream before falling away. There the stonework on the other bank had long ago tumbled down and was covered with mosses of varying colours, but from those stones they saw that this bridge had once run directly east and west.

   ‘Another important marker, I should say,’ Youngbuck told Gormadoc as he reached into the pony’s saddlebags. ‘I’ll spare a few moments to sketch it before we go to meet Bovo. But be encouraged, cousin. The fallen rocks here have made a good little ford to the stream, but I can find no sign of anything on two feet who have made a crossing. It is an ancient land, just as we’ve been told, but vacant too, I would say. You have no neighbours here to the north from what I can see.’

   ‘Then where do you think master Bovo’s cow came from, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked.

   ‘I am afraid that this is a question for which I have no answer,’ Youngbuck said as he sat himself down upon a rock to eagerly begin sketching. ‘Though I suspect that Bovo will be happy to hear of it.’

 

*****

   Bovo, anxious though not exactly eager for the news of Youngbuck’s exploration, had awakened well before dawn on that same morning. He had a quick bit of breakfast for himself and packed a few more provisions for later. Then, taking Belle from the new paddock they had built at Gormadoc’s burrow he began going easily to the north to meet his friends on the further hill. He had put a small lead of rope around Belle’s neck but, just as before, he had no need to drive her anywhere; he would give only a simple and gentle pull of the lead and she would fall in step behind him with her little silver bells cling-clanging.

   Moving over the most direct and easy paths he could find for Belle’s sake, Bovo came to the hilltop about two hours past the dawn. It was already a bright morning in the east and the sky north of them was filled with big clouds of pinks and blue-greys. Rain would hold off for a day or so, Bovo thought, but not much longer. Looking to the west Bovo could see the tops of the towers lit up like milky-white torches rising out of the mists below. Beyond them a jagged horizon of snow-white and deep lavender; the mountains at the edge of the world just catching the first light of the new day.

   Bovo had thought to explore a bit, hoping that it might awaken more of the wonderful future-memories he had of the hill. Future-memories? Such an outlandish thing to say and he found he hadn’t been able to explain it, not even to Youngbuck. But Bovo knew they were true and, more importantly, he knew that Gilley did too. He wondered what she would say when she returned and saw Belle. He was convinced that he knew what their future was because he could remember it so vividly. But of what would come next he could offer no guess. He took the lead from around Belle’s neck to let her roam and she nuzzled at his head and then licked his face appreciatively. Bovo looked into her deep brown eyes and changed his plan of exploring further.

   ‘You’re right of course, Belle,’ he said. ‘The future will come whether I go looking for it or not.’ And so, taking one of the last summer apples from his pack, he sat down and looked out into the west to await Gormadoc and Youngbuck.

 

   They were not long in coming. From his vantage point atop the hill Bovo saw the two hobbits and their pony leave a little lane of trees along the hill’s northern foot and begin a leisurely climb. Glad to see that they still traveled alone he waved to them but did not call out. As the morning was quite bright he used his time waiting to look further into the direction from which they came. Bright as the morning was he saw nothing other than more hills of fir and ash trees and what looked to be a wide forest. Beautiful country from what he could see of it, but wild and open.3

   ‘Hallo, Bovo,’ Youngbuck said as they crested the hill, ‘a lovely lookout spot you have here. But, more importantly, tell me you have brought us more of those apples.’

   ‘I have, of course, Youngbuck,’ Bovo replied, ‘but if you had been any later in coming you would have found the supplies much lessened. Hallo, Gormadoc,’ he continued, pulling two bright red apples from his sack and presenting them to his friends. ‘How did your sightseeing expedition go?’

   ‘Quite well, I think, master Bovo,’ Gormadoc said appreciatively, ‘but cousin Youngbuck can say better than I. The land itself is wide and beautiful and generous. I can hardly believe my good fortune!’

   ‘And you found no sign of neighbours?’ Bovo asked, keeping his voice rather flat, trying to sound disinterested. ‘No insulted cattle herders or cheese farmers who find themselves short of a cow?’

   ‘None,’ Youngbuck replied with a smile, ‘but you can hardly fault me for being too cautious, Bovo, for I have no idea how your friend Belle came to be here. I know very little about moo-cows of course, but she is a beautiful creature and, with those bells around her neck and all, she certainly shows the signs of being well-tended. She’s no wild thing, Bovo, and certainly came here from somewhere. I cannot guess as to the reason.’

   Bovo Bunce had never been the kind of a hobbit that one might say was reflective or deliberate. He had a droll way of speaking whatever came to his mind and often did so without care as to who it might hurt; for Bovo was sharp-witted in speech and blunt in humour. Berty, who felt (somewhat unfairly) that he had been groomed for public speaking all of his life, found Bovo’s directness to be one of his most appealing qualities. So he was surprised to see his friend look out to the surrounding landscape without any jape or immediate response; clearly careful in the choosing of his next words. And the moment seemed to stretch on in a way that began to make Berty worry about the sudden change in his friend.

   ‘If she came from somewhere I am sure that I cannot say where, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said finally. ‘Everyone, even cows I suppose, do come from somewhere. We came from Buckland and Gormadoc there from the Tookland, but I daresay that each of us here, having come into the West, feel very different about ourselves since we arrived here and much less defined by our origins, making it the worry of how we got here seem less to the point. I know that’s no answer and I freely admit that I can’t make better sense for a response than that. But certainly I can say that Belle was here for a reason; and that reason is that I was meant to find her. Six nights ago I dreamed of her and this hill and the home and family which Gilley and I would, will, come to have here. It is like a memory of my future for which Belle seems the proof. And that is why she is here.’

   ‘Six nights ago?’ Gormadoc asked. ‘When we fell under the spell of-’

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck interrupted. ‘Six nights past is when we sat with master Undundol south of the Chalk hills and drank his libation.’

   ‘That was the night, yes,’ Bovo said.

   ‘There was some enchantment in or about that hobbit, if hobbit he truly was,’ Gormadoc said.

   ‘I have no doubt that he was indeed a hobbit, cousin,’ Youngbuck said, raising a calming hand, ‘but I also have little doubt that he had other- oh, shall we say qualities? -as well.’

   ‘Here it is,’ Berty thought to himself, ‘the conversation which I knew would come but which we all have managed to avoid. The shock of that night has passed; the beauty and, yes, the enchantment of this place has caught all of us up in a way so that the incredibleness of things which happened here have not felt so uncommon. But now, with that shock gone we, like all good and practical hobbits should do, we will now spend our time trying to put sense to it all. And my friends will look to me to explain it. I cannot blame them for this, for I’ve taken it upon myself to lead them. Or maybe that was also just the further workings of master Undundol’s enchantment? Whatever the cause, they deserve what answers I might give.

   ‘But,’ Berty continued thinking to himself, ‘if they are going to ask me things now because they feel like they are waking from a dream which they would like to hear explained, well, then I do not think I can answer clearly or in a satisfactory way. How does one reason away enchantment? None of them sat and spoke to master Undundol as I did; no one entered into the Bargain but I. So I know him better than they do, and I suspect that I know him better than he thinks I do. But I do not have reasons to support anything which I believe to know; I believe it beyond the support of reason.

   ‘They will ask me about magic,’ Berty knew, ‘because, for them, they are losing their ability to live in enchantment while their good hobbit-sense, preparing them for new responsibilities, goads them to seek reason. But if they are to live this close to the West, well, I must try to get them to rely upon reason less and trust in their belief more.’

   They waited for Younbuck’s response. It might have been a silent few moments except for the fact that Bovo, used to his friend’s lengthy pauses, decided to pull a third apple from his bag and take another loud bite.

   ‘Gilley and you?’ Youngbuck asked his friend, smiling.

   ‘That’s what we saw. Yes,’ Bovo said, and his face became more red and more joyful looking than Youngbuck could ever remember seeing it.

   ‘Both of you saw this?’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘And you both saw Belle too? And you’ve spoken together about this?’

   ‘Yes and no and, I believe, yes; we did not speak in detail so much as understand what each of us has seen,’ Bovo said smiling.

   ‘Oh, I am so happy for you both,’ Youngbuck said, the joy of his friend’s feelings spreading to his own face, ‘and I eagerly await the day when Gilley sees Belle, herald of your future, just as you have and knows to trust her way forward. Who might ever have believed that all of our former Plans should lead to this?’

   This last blessing proved a bit much for the usually droll and placid Bovo. He stood, ignoring the tears coming to his eyes, and said, ‘thank you, Youngbuck. I didn’t know how to speak of it, but knew that you would understand.’ And with that he walked off toward Belle, rubbing behind her ears and offering her the rest of his apple.

   ‘So are you saying,’ Gormadoc then began asking, ‘that the things we dreamed or saw or remembered from that night with master Undundol are true visions of the future, cousin? Were they magic or prophecy or portents? Can they not be avoided or altered or proved wrong?’

   ‘I am not saying what I cannot know, cousin,’ Youngbuck answered. ‘Of magic and prophecy I know nothing and have no advice to give. But I know my friends Bovo and Gilley very well and I trust that something happened for them both that night which has set their feet upon a path. Having no other idea where this cow may have come from, I’m inclined to believe as Bovo does; that this hilltop and the finding of this cow are part of that path.’

   Gormadoc had been listening closely to Youngbuck's explanation but during the whole time his eyes were watching Bovo and the cow, registering the calm they both had in one another’s company. He watched Belle eat and enjoy the apple out of her master’s hand, her tail swishing happily for the treat. He watched as, finishing, she nuzzled the hobbit’s wooly hair appreciatively while he stroked her ears, the little bells around her neck went tinkling on softly.

   ‘Cousin,’ Youngbuck asked, breaking the silence, ‘tell me; did you also have some vision that night? Is that what troubles you now?’

   Gormadoc did not take long in responding, though his voice was strange. Youngbuck could not tell if this is because Gordo was having trouble remembering his vision or was in some way unwilling to share it all. But there were tears in his eyes when he finally spoke.

   ‘I did, cousin,’ he said. ‘And in that vision my sons and my daughters and my grandchildren for many many generations did, or will, live happily on this land that you have led us to. Indeed, some of those grandchildren, some number of hundred years from now will even become respected amongst all of the Shire-hobbits and build one of the Shire’s finest holes in all of the West-farthing. They will accomplish great things for many, many generations in my future, this I saw and, I suppose, having seen Bovo and his dream of this moo-cow, this much I believe. Or I wish to believe. And they will, all of these children and grandchildren and great great grandchildren, be happy and enjoy great comfort here in the Shire. And I remember knowing that some of those, the most famous amongst them, will suffer greater adversity and trial than any hobbit has ever known. It will be many hundreds of years from now but I seem to know it somehow as memory; as Bovo said- some future memory tells me so. And yet, even if their trials go unrecognized among our own people, they will be honoured by many, many other folk in the wider world who have previously deemed hobbits to be foolish and childlike.

   ‘Can you imagine that, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked. ‘That the Lausa, we who have spent so much time hiding from the world outside, that we might do something so honourable that it might place us in the venerable legends of the world? What father or grandfather or great great great great grandfather might ever ask for more?’

   And if Gormadoc had more that he could say of these “future-memories” he did not share it with his cousin. Perhaps the joy he found in the presages of his family's future outstripped the darker memory of how he had come to see it. Perhaps he thought he might still alter the course of his own future while maintaining the vision he had of his family.

   We cannot know. And by not telling Youngbuck all of his dream, as Bovo had, he did not have the wisdom of friends to guide him.

 

end of part two

Chapter End Notes

Notes (10/12/2025)

1) Some of the language in this paragraph and the next is a direct imitation of when Frodo, Sam and Gollum enter into Ithilien in the chapter “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”. I love Tolkien’s descriptive voice in that chapter and there is one passage in particular which I needed to imitate here; “Beyond it were slopes covered with sombre trees like dark clouds, but all about them lay a tumbled heathland, grown with ling and broom and cornel, and other shrubs that they did not know. Here and there they saw knots of tall pine-trees. The hearts of the hobbits rose again a little in spite of weariness: the air was fresh and fragrant , and it reminded them of the Northfarthing far away.” Copying that seems a way of planting the memory of that reading into the imagination of my readers.

2)  Okay, math time again. Tolkien used the old medieval farming practice for his measurements and the “long furrow”, which became the English “furlong” is slightly different from our modern measurement of an acre. That bit about rods and feet is accurate, but the furlong math here, which comes directly from the Professor’s letters, makes a Shire acre equal to about 1.2 acres now. So Gormadoc’s allotment would be, in our current understanding, roughly 100 acres of farmland. That is a sizable future for himself and his family. But it also brings up the point of the size of hobbit feet; for nowhere in Tolkien’s direct writing does it state that the feet of hobbits are disproportionate to their height. For a creature that seldom exceeded thirty-six to forty-eight inches in height a twelve inch foot would be surprising. So therefore, their measurement of length in feet is based upon the feet of Men.

3)  For anyone curious about using those maps I’ve included, this forested area is where the villages of Tighfield and Gamwich will one day be. Sam Gamgee’s folk hail from there, but that is some 1400 years in the future and no hobbits, other than Bovo here, have ever thought to go so far yonder.

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