[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Fordogrim nearly jumped out of his skin when Marcho called out to him from the dark of the forest. “Hello yourself!” he cried out as crossly as he could to cover the relief that he felt at their return.

“Father?!” Harold exclaimed in surprise. “What are doing out here?” His son and daughter-in-law hurried to where the old hobbit stood. “And Fredigar?” Fred opened his mouth to reply but Fordogrim had recovered from his shock sufficiently to interrupt the younger hobbit with his own response. Placing his feet apart and adopting the pose he assumed when dispensing solid advice that he knows nobody wants, he began his prepared speech to Harold.

“Senseless. Yes, it’s what I said – senseless! Running about in a forest such as this with naught to see by but the glow of your own eyeballs. No good hobbit that had the sense his mother gave him would have done what you did this night, and I’ll not hear of either of you a-taking off like that again! What business you had abandoning your children to follow around after that crack-brain Marcho Bolger I’ll never know, but I expect there’s much about this journey I’ll never understand and you’ll never feel like explaining to me. And as for you, young Master Bolger. . .” but Marcho had taken the opportunity to slink away to his own camp. Fordogrim, not to be deterred, returned to his attention to Harold and Sarah. “Well, what’s over is done. You’re back and you’re unharmed so that’ll be an end of it. . .you are unharmed aren’t you?” He tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the last vestiges of concern out of his voice.

Harold smiled and, taking his old father’s arm in his own, helped him walk out of the forest. “We’re both fine Father. We did have a bit of an adventure with Sarah getting separated from us and all, but as you said, ‘what’s over is done.’”

“Separated!” Fordogrim gasped. “What? In there?” He turned to Sarah. “You were alone in there?” Sarah assured Fordogrim that it had been far from an alarming experience, and to prove it she showed him the mushrooms that she had collected. Fordogrim was stunned. To be alone in that forest at night, and to have thought of nothing more than collecting mushrooms – such grit was well beyond what he had thought he could expect of her. He turned his attention to Harold again, saying. “Well you are a wooden-headed ninny if ever I’ve known one! What kind of a husband goes and loses his wife in a place such as that?” Harold made a non-committal noise and directed his father’s steps toward their camp.

After a moment’s pause Fordogrim turned to Sarah and asked if she had any plans for the mushrooms. Sarah looked at him sideways and said slowly, “No, Father Chubb, I haven’t – not exactly. Why?”

“Well,” Fordogrim said as casually as he could, “I know that my Harold likes a mushroom pie, and I’ll not deny as I’m fond on them as well. I do realise that it would be hard to make one out here without a proper stove and all, but if you think you could manage it, I. . .well, Harold I mean. . .would be grateful. Wouldn’t you son?”

Harold nodded greedily.