|
“I used to imagine a place much like the one your parents are in,” Snaveling replied. “When I was a vagabond rogue wandering the land, my one desire was to find a place where I could build a home, and the means with which to build it. I always imagined it as a hunting lodge. It would have five rooms and a large porch out back, where I could sit of an evening and smoke my pipe. It would be in an out-of-the-way valley where the hunting and fishing were good, and far from the meddling interference of other folk. It was a lovely dream, but one that I outgrew. I have found that there are things in this world that are higher and better than that empty dream of ease, pleasant as it may be. But still I find that I cling to it for comfort, for it sustained me and gave me hope in blacker days, and on evil roads. And who is to say that dreams are false? I have known Elves, and they seem to me a folk who live in dreams more than they do in the waking world, and it is said among Men that when our time comes we too travel to a land where waking and sleep are but one and the same, and where the life we live is as the waking dream of the Elder race. So perhaps my hunting lodge awaits me yet in some secluded valley beyond the shores of Middle-earth. And perhaps your parents have their home upon the hills overlooking it, and long after our ways have parted we shall see one another again in that place, and laughing we will reminiscence about our conversation of long ago at the Green Dragon Inn!”
The lass smiled at him with gratitude, for he seemed clearly to understand what she had meant about the memory of her parents. Snaveling, softened by the memory of his hunting lodge, so long from his memory, smiled back. “But let us talk of this no more, for I have no appetite for melancholy. Tell me instead about your life now. I am an ill judge of ages among the Halflings for, I must confess, your size makes you all appear to me as children, but for the very aged and the very young. You seem yourself to be but a lass of no more than eight or ten, as such things are measured among my folk. Who cares for you now, and where do you live?”
|