[piosenniel]

One fish, two fish, three fish blue
Sizzlin’ o’er the fire for my favorite crew;
One fish, two fish, three fish blue
And one fish more for my tummy too!

The smell of the fish skins, cooked nice and crispy, woke Ben from his sleep. He rolled over and sat up, knuckling the sleep from his eyes. ‘I thought I was dreaming!’ he said, standing up with a stretch and grinning at Mirabella. ‘I could hear this funny song, and almost taste the sweet brook trout on my tongue.’ He wandered over to the fire where Ferd was just turning the last of the fish and crouched down opposite him.

Reaching into a small pocket on the inside of his vest, Ben fished out a small fired-clay ocarina. He put it to his lips, but no sounds came out except an off key gurgling. Holding it a ways from him, he shook out the river water and blew a few experimental notes. When he found the one that met his needs, he hummed a little after it, then sang his own verse:

One fish, two fish, three fish yellow –
Ferd, as a cook, you’re a very fine fellow!
One fish, two, fish, three fish, white –
Now give us a fish for Ben to bite!

A chorus of groans from the other Hobbits, interspersed with calls of ‘Don’t egg him on!’ brought an end to the duet. But Ferd and Ben were quite pleased with each others’ impromptu performance, and Ferd gave Ben two fish as a compliment.

Old Bill was sitting a little apart from the Hobbits. And Ben, his natural curiosity overcoming any small sense of caution he possessed, took his skewered fish over the fellow and offered him one. Old Bill waved him a way with his pipe indicating he wished to sit in peace by himself. Ben shrugged and bit into his fish as he looked the old guy up and down.

‘That’s a great sword you have there, Mister!’ he went on, impervious to the fact that Bill did not care for his company. Ben sidled up close to the man and sat down beside him, his fingers reaching out to touch the blade lightly. A glaring look from Bill brought him back to his senses, and he snatched his hand back hastily. Still, he continued to blather on to the increasingly annoyed man.

‘Once,’ he said in a muffled tone, his tongue and teeth juggling a large piece of hot fish, ‘once my Da and I went over to see one of his old friends. You’ve probably heard of him. Farmer Maggot – best mushroom patches in the Eastfarthing.’ He paused, looking up at Bill, who looked at him in disbelief as he went on. ‘Anyway, they got to talking, forgot I was there, I think. Old Maggot was telling my Da this story he’d heard from some old guy he knew lived near the Old Forest.’ Ben scooted closer to Bill and lowered his voice. ‘A very scary story.’

Bill, his hip up against a small rocky rise in the campsite, could not move away from the chattering Hobbit. He rattled his pipe stem against his teeth and hoped against hope that this would be a short story. His hopes were dashed when he saw that Ben had laid his fish down on the grass beside him and had taken a big breath in preparation to continue.

‘Well, Mister, it was like this . . .’ Ben, whose range of adventure had only encompassed the area from Stock to Rushy, proceeded to tell his captive audience of the haunted place that the lay off south of the Great East Road between Hay Gate and Bree. There were jewels scattered thickly there he recounted, and crowns, and gold and silver objects of all sorts, all belonging to the ancient men of long ago. He pointed to Bill’s old sword. ‘And wonderful old swords, just like yours,’ he said in hushed tones, ‘like the ones that kings and princes of old bore in the great wars of the Big Folk.’

‘Well what’s so scary about that?’ said Bill, pretending his interest was piqued by tales of riches lying unguarded. His hands twitched a little nervously, thinking about tricking the nasty Hobbits into going there.

‘Old Maggot said this fellow who told him about it said the place was guarded by some fearsome beings – wights, he called them. Said they could sing a song that would chill your flesh and freeze your spirit, make it so cold you couldn’t move, then they’d keep you there forever, until you died and became a wight yourself.’

The sun was bright up above them, but Ben shivered as he thought about the gruesome creatures. Old Bill poked him with his pipe stem, bringing him out of his frightful reverie. ‘Where’d you say that was lad?’ He had brought his face close to Ben’s, looking every bit the snake with a mouse held in its gaze.

Ben shook the remnants of the unpleasant image of the wights and their victims from his mind. ‘Where it was?’ He frowned trying to place the directions Maggot had talked about. ‘On the eastern boundary of the Old Forest is what he said, the place where the Withywindle begins. The Barrow Downs, that’s what he called it.’

He looked up at Old Bill’s face. You heard of it Mister? Have you ever been there yourself?’ He dropped his voice to a low level, whispering, ‘Is it true about the wights . . .?’

[ June 17, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]