[Mithadan]

Chapter V

MEAT PIES AND WIZARD'S BREW

Despite more cheerful tales around a crackling fire, and a mighty good supper, Elediriel Cotton slept fitfully, when she could sleep at all. Merry and Pippin slept like the old campaigners they were, hale and healthy enough even at their age to enjoy a night out of doors. Maddie breathed softly in her blankets beside her. The twins snored noisily, used as they were to camping, and glad to turn in after a day's ride made hard by their excesses of the night before.

Ellie had never slept outside of a snug little hobbit hole ever before in her life. The wind, breathing chill across the Downs, seemed laden with the threat of fear. The occasional movement of some night-beast would send her shivering into her blankets, though the night was not chill and the fire still burned. By its flickering light, she could sometimes see pairs of eyes not far away, green or red or yellow, glowing as they stared directly at her! She felt as if she had not slept at all, but she must have been dozing some, for the moon had now ridden high in his course and was heading towards morning. The cool air became misty, and a low layer of fog formed like a cloud just above the ground over the Downs in the moonlight. She dozed again, despite her fears of the night and began to dream.

She seemed to be alone in the mists, walking, and then running she knew not where or why. She felt that there was something following her, something looking for her, and she was mortally afraid that this something would find her and eat her, and this thought horrified her. She wildly looked about her for a hiding place as she heard snarling and growling from behind. She opened her mouth to scream and tightly clutched something to her breast but was too frightened to make a sound. Suddenly, a bell rang musically and the bestial noises stopped.

Turry was banging on a small pan most unmusically. "Wake up or you'll get none of our delicious breakfast!"

Turry and Furry had let the girls sleep in, while the elder hobbits had a smoke. The Twins, as if to make up for the day before, had themselves rebuilt the fire and cooked up a nice breakfast of bacon, toasted biscuits and jelly, and hard-boiled eggs (of course, as you probably knew very well, Maddie had only been joking about cooking up fresh eggs, because you shouldn't pack a bunch of raw eggs on an excursion on horseback). A pot of coffee was smelling fine as well.

Ellie and Maddie got up from their blankets and made sure to get their share. In the bright sun, with the Twins laughing and joking like their old selves, as she and Maddie ate a breakfast they didn't have to cook, while old Merry and Pippin already began talking about getting to Bree that night, Ellie almost forgot the dream of the night before. It at least did not seem so terrifying, though at the time it seemed more than real.

Furry and Turry insisted on cleaning up breakfast themselves (each making sure that Maddie noticed) while the girls packed all the gear, Ellie learning from Maddie how such things were done. Soon, they were off again, with Merry and Pippin on their horses in the lead, Turry and Furry riding behind, and the girls on Cider, leading the packhorse.

"Does he have a name?" asked Ellie.

"Does who have a name?" asked Maddie.

"The packhorse, of course," Ellie said, laughing.

"Oh! His name is Bill," said Maddie. Ellie laughed again and said that was wonderful.

"That's a pretty plain name if you ask me," said Turry.

"No one asked you," growled Pippin.

And that was the worst moment of the whole day. They rode for quite a while without meeting another soul on the road to Bree. Not long after they had stopped for lunch and were on their way again, they began here and there to see a farmhouse or two where Men had begun to settle. This happened more and more frequently until they reached the outskirts of Bree.

Once a sleepy forgotten village at the crossroads of the ancient kingdom of Arnor, the town had once again risen to prominence and was a vibrant bustling community. Elediriel had never seen Men before, Merry and Pippin were the biggest folk she had ever seen (other than the occasional Dwarf). But the Big Folk were very big! Even their horses were big, much bigger than the steeds that Merry and Pippin rode, and these were the biggest in the Shire or Buckland (though I must say that there were no finer horses in Bree). And there were all sorts of people. Short (at least shorter) men and women with dark hair and stout bodies, tall lean quiet folk with gray eyes and pale complexions, loud boisterous men in armour with blond hair singing in a rich tongue as they rode the most magnificent horses, and here and there, Little Folk just like themselves, going about their business as if they saw such things every day (which they did). The Bree Folk had grown numerous, with many additions to their population in recent years.

Pippin remarked that things had changed quite a bit from when he had first laid eyes on the town. Merry agreed. They led their small party straight into the oldest part of the town, past the new buildings that towered frighteningly over the narrow streets, to where the older buildings still stood. Ellie would have recognized the tallest of these old buildings, even if the painted sign hanging out over the street did not announce that they had found The Prancing Pony, by Heather Butterbur.

They found the stables for their ponies and horses, where a young hobbit named Cob promised to treat them well, and then went back around to enter the Common Room and to inquire for their night's lodgings. Walking in, Merry and Pippin found that, here at least, Bree was just as they remembered it. There were Dwarves, whose habits changed slowly, if ever, who still stopped at the Prancing Pony as they had since the days when it was one of the few inns to be found between the Shire and the Misty Mountains. There were a few of the local Big Folk, of the shorter darker variety. A couple of tall grey-eyed men talked softly together at a table in the back of the room. And there were plenty of hobbits here.

Indeed, one of the local hobbits actually recognized Merry and Pippin and made the traveller’s identity known to the whole room in short order. While not as highly esteemed in Bree as in the Shire, they were well thought of, if not as Heroes, at least as the leaders of the prosperous hobbit communities on the road to the West. Nothing would do but for them to have a round of drinks and for old Heather, the proprietor of the Prancing Pony to come out and meet the Shire-folk.

"Lands of wonder! Why it's been a long time, far too long since you've been guests here at the Prancing Pony, no mistake! Just look at the two of you! You haven't aged a day since last I laid eyes on you and I was only a thin young lass working as a barmaid!"

Heather Butterbur was no longer young, and was certainly no longer thin. And though related only by marriage, she seemed well able to keep up the endless stream of talk that most Butterburs were famous for. Her hair was more gray than black these days, and her round face was creased with the lines of a countenance in constant movement. Her fat, sturdy hands were buried in a towel attached to her apron, as she had just come from the kitchen.

"I've just been putting some meat pies in the ovens and I'll have those out shortly, if you'll pardon the expression. You will have to try our Wizard's Brew, the very best beer in Bree, if I may say so, and if you'll walk this way..."

Turry began an exaggerated waddle behind her, which made the hobbitry, and not a few of the other folk laugh, stopping just in time as she turned in her tracks.

"...I want you to sit here at this table. It was here, Master Merry, Master Pippin, as you may recall, that your friend Mr. Underhill did his disappearing dance right on this very table! Of course you recall better than me since I wasn't yet born, myself. But anyway, here it is and no doubt you'll find it to your liking. I'll have your old rooms made up in the hobbit wing and get that beer out to you right away. Well, I've got more to do than I can handle so if you will excuse me I'll be off to handle it." And with that, she indeed was off, waddling away breathlessly, still chattering to each person she passed, taking fresh orders from her customers, and calling out orders to her staff until she had vanished again into the kitchens. Ellie wondered how she could keep track of anything.

But keep track of things she did, and soon they were enjoying what was not only the finest beer in Bree, but Ellie thought it was the very best she had ever tasted. The boys agreed, sampling at first with some trepidation, remembering the results of two nights before, but soon draining their mugs and feeling much the better for it. Merry and Pippin enjoyed theirs as well and they all four gave the tasty meat pies the kind of attention that only hungry hobbits can muster after a day or two of riding and camping.

There was a natural rhythm to events in the Prancing Pony most evenings, and the travellers fell right in. In the corner of the Common Room where the hobbitry gathered most nights, the conversations fell to almost nothing as they fell to their suppers. This didn't stop them all from listening to such talk as they could hear from the other folk in the hall. Their time to talk and sing came later in the evening after the other folk's conversations had fallen off in their turn. Elediriel's quick ears pricked up at some talk nearby.

"I tell 'ee," said a squinty-eyed dark-haired young man to some of his friends. "If I could only get that piece of land just outside Bree, right there on the road to Fornost, and build a tavern like this, I'd be a rich man."

"But you got to be rich before yer can buy it," said a big nosed fellow. "Now what one can't do, two or three might do together."

"But someone's got to be Boss, like old Heather here," said an older man with a bald head. "If you can't brew beer and bake a meat pie like what this here is..."

"...then you can't have no inn whether yer can buy the land or not!" finished the man with the large nose.

"What one can't do, one can pays ter have done!" retorted Squinty Eyes (as Ellie named him in her thinking).

"That's your solution to everything. More money what none of us has got," replied Big Nose. "So I reckon we keep growing taters an' carrots for them what has got money. An' as long as I'm paying for someone else ter brew beer, I might as well pay them what knows how ter brew it!" He took a giant swig of his mug of Wizard's Brew.

The others laughed, but Squinty Eyes glowered and said, "That's the way of it I reckon. Some has no money, an' some has more than what's good for 'em." He was looking jealously at the visiting hobbits in their fine clothing as he said this.

Ellie quickly looked away and seemed to be paying attention to her meat pie with renewed interest, but she kept her hearing focused on what the men were saying.

Old Baldy was talking. "...but I keep telling yer lads, come on back with me. The King needs men what can work hard an' do what's wanted. And he pays generously too, what's more. A man could work a few years a'buildin' the new castle up at Fornost, an' have money enough ter buy land for a farm, or a tavern, or a family."

"Ee's right!" agreed Big Nose. "Times is a changin' what with the return of the King ter these lands. By the time our grandbabies has grandbabies, there'll be people all over the place. It'd be good ter leave them a little something, you know, before it gets bought up. We Bree folk have been here since before there was Kings. They come, had their Wars, went away, and have come back again. I says, if we want Bree-folk ter stay Bree-folk like what we always has, we has got ter change with the times!"

The other men generally agreed that this made sense. Elediriel smiled to herself, thinking there was something amusing about the last thing Big Nose said. But she caught the gist of it and thought that Big Nose may not have expressed himself well, but he was probably on the right track.

But Squinty Eyes was not satisfied and began talking about how Old Baldy and Big Nose were "selling out" the Bree-folk by taking up outlandish trades and trying to cozy up to the King's men.

"And what's more, them Dunlenders," Squinty Eyes almost spat. "Them Dunlenders, is all over that Fornost and what's the King going to do with them when the building's done, I wonder. Sell 'em land what ought to belong to us Bree-folk, I figure, soze 'ee can get back all them high wages what he paid 'em."

"Here now!" cried Old Baldy, with an eye on the tall grey-eyed men in the back of the tavern. "Bree-folk never lived that aways anyway, and the King's done right well by us. To the King!"

Old Baldy raised a mug and the other Bree-folk did the same. Squinty Eyes left the Prancing Pony in disgust and did not seem to be much missed by the other local men. Ellie turned to watch some Dwarves at the other end of the hall. She could not hear their low conversation, but she looked at them all the same. Dwarves she had seen before, but she never could help but look when she saw them, so different seeming they were, smaller than Men, larger than Hobbits, but built differently somehow. They were a little taller and much sturdier and broader, but not really fat at all (at least most of them weren't, although one rather famous dwarf was as fat as any hobbit that you ever saw). Rather, they seemed harder, craggier, as if they were quarried rather than born. She wondered then that she had never seen a lady-dwarf.

Maddie was pulling at Ellie's sleeve and directing her attention to the quiet men watching the room from the back wall. There were two of them, perhaps related, for they looked much alike. They were taller than everyone else in the room, and also leaner, as if they were a people who led very active lives and never over-indulged themselves at the table, as you or I might. They walked out without a glance to the right or the left, striding away on their long legs. But they stopped and nodded to Merry and Pippin, said a few words to the elder hobbits that Ellie could not make out, and were quickly on their way. The local hobbits took note, but said nothing.

Merry and Pippin both let their gaze linger on the door after the tall men left.

"Grandfather..." Maddie said.

"....hmmmm. What? Oh, I was woolgathering, my dear. What is it?" Merry said.

"Those were Rangers, weren't they?"

"Yes. Yes they were. In fact, they shall escort us all the way to Rivendell," Merry answered.

"How marvelous!" Maddie exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight. Turry and Furry looked at one another, but said nothing. Most hobbits did not know that the Rangers of Arnor had maintained a guard around the boundaries of the Shire, for it was against the King's Law for Big Folk to enter the Shire. This was the first time that the young hobbits had seen the tall rangers and they seemed to carry with them an air of mystery and adventure.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Merry and Pippin did much of the talking, and some of the singing. Many more hobbits crowded into the Common Room, having heard that both the Thain of the Shire and the Master of Buckland were traveling through Bree.

There were no uncanny disappearances on this occasion. After many songs, and many stories, much laughter (and much Wizard's Brew), the travelers bid the good folk of Bree, Big and Little alike, a good night.

Ellie slept well that night in a comfortable bed and knew nothing more until morning.




Chapter VI

THE ROAD TO RIVENDELL

The next morning began with a fine breakfast before dawn in the Prancing Pony. Turry and Furry marveled that they felt none the worse for all the beer of the night before. Ellie said that it might still have carried some lingering enchantment given by the wizard Gandalf. Merry and Pippin agreed that this was likely so and nothing would do, but for Ellie to tell the Took Twins, not to mention the rangers (who likely had heard the tale as told locally), the story as they rode along. She delighted to tell of how the blessing of Gandalf had enchanted the beer of the Prancing Pony in thanks to old Barliman Butterbur for his worthy service, though the honest innkeeper had made a mess of things in some ways. The beer had always been good there, but was especially so ever since. The morning sun broke over the horizon and their journey that day began in earnest.

That day and the next day were much the same as they rode their horses and ponies at a leisurely pace on the Road east, stopping often to rest themselves and their steeds. There was plenty to eat and to drink, lovely weather to enjoy, and a road that the tweenaged hobbits had never seen before, and that Merry and Pippin were glad to see again.

In more ways than one, the high-point of their journey to Rivendell, was a visit to the watch tower at Weathertop. The servants of the King had been busy in the years since Merry and Pippin had last been on the road. Atop the great hill, really a small steep mountain, where once had been a jagged crown of broken stone-works, was now erected a tall, slender tower that gleamed golden in the slanting rays of the sun as she started down toward day's ending.

Though it was a beautiful sight, the hobbits at first were not overly impressed, especially the Took Twins. But as the afternoon drew toward evening, and they themselves drew closer, the hill became a mountain to the hobbits' eyes, and the tower at its crown became more and more imposing.

Aradhel and Cairduin, the rangers, told them that the tower on Weathertop had taken ten years to build. Now, the construction crews were at Fornost, where the King was overseeing the rebuilding of his castle there. Elessar, King of Arnor and Gondor, intended to fortify the northern reaches of his united kingdom against such enemies as there still were in the world, or might be in the age to come. This tower had a marvelous view of all the countryside. It was said that from it's highest place the King had vision to see all that transpired in his northern realm.

Merry looked at Pippin knowingly, but neither of the elder hobbits said a word.

"Are we going up there?" Madrigal asked breathlessly of Aradhel, the ranger she rode nearest to. Turry and Furry looked on jealously, then noticed one another looking on, and guiltily turned their attention back to the tower.

"Yes, if you like, little Mistress. We are staying at the ranger post at the foot of Weathertop, on the north side. If you fancy the climb, we will ascend to the observation platform and you can see what the moon is kind enough to show."

"How wonderful!" Maddie exclaimed.

"It looks awfully tall," Ellie observed.

And it was awfully tall, indeed! The hobbits were glad enough for the end of the day's ride, and for a cheery fire and the company of the rangers. The rangers accorded Merry, and especially Pippin, the greatest respect and deference. As was their custom, they stood silently, regarding the setting of the sun as she returned to the sacred West.

The food was simple, but good, and plentiful enough even for the hungry hobbits. The wine was excellent and soon the hearts of the hobbits were as high as the tower and they treated the grey-eyed rangers with songs of the Shire. This was the merriest meeting that there had been for some time in that post! It would not be fair to say that the rangers were grim or dour exactly, but they seemed to be all of deep and serious minds. Nevertheless, they all laughed earnestly enough as Elediriel told the story of the Incident at the Green Dragon, and as the Took Twins sang the song they had made up for Madrigal.

The pretty young hobbit was in her glory! The rangers raised their glasses to the Terror of the Shire. Then, one of them, Cairduin, insisted on hearing the poem that started the Incident. Elediriel blushed, for she was much better at telling the stories of others, than at putting herself forward.

She became suddenly embarrassed, and lost her composure and timidly stammered and found herself forgetting the verses! Turry came to her rescue, and in his strong clear voice, recited from memory the entire poem. The rangers were silent, nodding their heads at parts, smiling grimly at the tale of the heroism of Samwise Gamgee. Ellie looked at Turry with bright eyes and a beaming smile. He smiled back, suddenly shy himself.

"That's as good as Frodo of the Nine Fingers!," said Cairduin. "Poetry is not the gift of the Elves alone! And as this poem reminds us, it was not for naught that good king Elessar had our fathers' labour to preserve and defend the lands of the halflings. Though we praise often enough the produce of their fields and the work of their kitchens, let it never be forgotten among us that valour also is grown in the Shire." And the rangers all said "Aye!" and raised their glasses again to the poetry of Elediriel and to the memory of Sam.

Merry and Pippin wiped their eyes, and drained their glasses. Then Merry called for a song from the rangers. "After all, we are your guests, and yet we have done all the labour this night!"

"Well then, Little Master!" cried Aradhel. "Let it not be said that the Rangers of Weathertop made their guests work over hard for their suppers! Bruin here can sing a rare song. Let's have one tonight for our honored guests and their young kin!"

A young ranger at one of the other tables stood to his feet and said, "I shall sing a song such as may not be heard in the Shire, a song of the days when King Elessar was only the Chieftain of the Dunedain, and not yet crowned our King."

Bruin sang this song, in his ringing young voice, to an old riding melody that made Elediriel think of horses galloping into war.

Rode the Rangers through the day
And through the night as well
Rode the Rangers, come what may,
Into the darks of hell.

The son of Arathorn was there
At need of kith and kin
And so they rode through places bare
Where fire and war had been.

They came in answer to a call
From the Lady of the Wood
And rode they hard and rode they tall
To do what deeds they could.

They found him in the fields of green
As Darkness gathered might
And rode with him where few had been
Among the Shades of Night.

The sons of elves and sons of men
And a son of dwarves they say
Left the world of sunlight then
And took a darker way.

The son of Arathorn gave cry
And called the Damned to him
He called the ones who could not die;
His need was fell and grim.

"The Oath you broke you must redeem!"
Commanded he that day,
And held aloft Anduril's gleam:
Their Oath he made them pay.

Rode the Rangers through the night
With Elves and Dwarf and Ghosts
To drive away the Dark Lord's might
And battle evil hosts.

The son of Arathorn did save
The City of the Guard
He came upon the river wave
With Rangers bold and hard.

Rode the Rangers home again
To Arnor as of old
Through blood and toil and mortal pain
For winged crown of gold.

The son of Arathorn is king,
Isildur's long lost heir,
Gone his Bane, the golden Ring,
But not the Ranger's care.

Ride the Rangers still today,
Lest Darkness should return,
We'll ever keep our Oath and Way!
May Anduril always burn!

The rangers and the hobbits all cheered and stood as one to hold their glasses high in salute to their King and Queen.

After dinner, Maddie insisted that they make the climb to the tower on the high hilltop. And so, Aradhel and Cairduin led them up a broad path paved with flagstones up to the summit of Weathertop. There, the Tower of the Western Guard rose high in a single straight thrust high into the starry night.

When Elediriel thought she could not lift her legs another step, Aradhel opened a door at the top of the winding tower stairs and the hobbits and Rangers stood at last on the observation platform high above all the lands about them.

Ellie looked out. The moon was ringed with a crown of colors and lit the landscape with his silvery glow. Cairduin looked at the moon and muttered that the weather was changing. The hobbits looked about them in wonder: even Merry and Pippin had not seen this sight. Far to the west were their own lands, lost in the far mists of great distance. The Old Forest could be seen somewhat nearer, a dark brooding patch that the moon seemed ashamed to give light. Closer still, were the Barrow-Downs, shrouded in a low fog with the occasional top of a rounded hill rising from the mysterious veil. Happier were the hobbits to see Bree Hill on the long line of the Road. Following the sight of the Road they looked upon it as it wound in great curves, over one gleaming river, and then another, lost to view in hidden valleys, found again rising across the rolling hills, until lost again altogether in the Misty Mountains, which stood hard and cold and snow-capped against the starry eastern sky.

"We shall ride almost to those mountains," said Cairduin. "In that region," he pointed with a long finger, "we shall guide you off the Road, and on the hidden path to Rivendell."

The wind had indeed changed, and blew chill from the north upon the heights of Weathertop and its tall tower. They finally left the breathtaking view, and though Elediriel was cold, she was not glad of the long climb back down. But it was much easier than the climb up had been, and soon enough, they all said their good nights and were sleeping deeply in warmth and comfort.

The next morning, they were off again with the sun as she rose. The sleepy hobbits had to take the rangers word for that. The weather had turned wet, as Cairduin foresaw, and though the rangers rode erect on their gray steeds, the hobbits and their own mounts did not enjoy this part of the trip at all.

There is not much to tell of the remainder of their journey to Rivendell. It was mostly following the green clad rangers on their gray steeds under the gray skies and a cold rain that belonged more to a rude autumn than to a kindly summer. The hobbits did not have the heart even to sing as they endured the dullest part of their journey.

There was one further event that was of interest to the weary hobbits. One afternoon, as the weather finally broke, and the sun gave light from the west, the rangers took them off the Road onto a worn trail, where they said that they would camp for the night. Merry spurred his mount even with the rangers, and had a quiet word. Aradhel smiled grimly and even Cairduin had a flicker of a smile cross his lips. Merry checked his steed and then whispered something to Pippin, which made the old Thain laugh but they said nothing more. The younger hobbits were just glad of the first sunlight they had seen in days and of a chance to stop and rest.

Elediriel asked if this were at last the path to Rivendell. Pippin only smiled and shook his gray head.

They rode along the path into a wood in the hills. Suddenly, they came around a bend of the path and were among three misshapen trolls crouching in threatening postures, ready to pounce upon them! I can tell you that it was the most frightening moment of the young hobbits' lives. Elediriel cut loose with a high piercing shriek, joined in a harmony of horror as Madrigal also screamed and Cider neighed and reared on high.

Turry and Furry cried aloud, but as one their hands moved almost faster than the eye and fitted arrows to their slender bows and the Took Twins launched their arrows together. The speeding missiles bounced back broken and a second flight shattered upon the stony trolls before the young hobbits realized that Merry and Pippin were laughing their heads off!

Madrigal was most definitely not amused. She heaped abuse upon her poor old grandfather until Merry was genuinely sorry for the joke. But Pippin and the Took Twins, and the Rangers themselves began to laugh at the sight of the angry hobbit maid, dressing down the dignified old hobbit as if he were a naughty little boy, and soon they were all laughing at what was, after all, an awfully funny situation.

After examining the old stone trolls, and recalling the story of how they had been turned to stone by the cleverness of the wizard Gandalf, the party remounted and rode a short distance to a small cavern that the rangers had made into a checkpoint and outpost. Two other rangers were on duty, and had come down the path to meet them, hearing the outcry, and then the laughter of the hobbits in the woods below.

They took to the Road again the next morning. The weather was a little better, and if there was not much light from the sun, at least the clouds withheld their rain. This was fine with the hobbits, for it was not too hot, and yet not miserably wet. But still, the day seemed to drag on forever. That afternoon, they left the Road, but if there were any paths here, they were invisible to the hobbits' eyes.

At last, late that evening, as the moon shed his light from high above them, they came unexpectedly to a hidden valley that seemed to open up suddenly where the traveler had only seen ever-larger hills ascending to the mountains beyond. It was Rivendell, where Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond, and Celeborn, Lord of the Elves west of the Misty Mountains, still dwelt in the Last Homely House. Many Elves still lingered before sailing the Straight Sea to Elvenhome in the eternal West.

I must say, excepting Elediriel, such lofty matters did not cross the minds of the hobbits, who were tired of the trail and looked forward to table, bottle, bath, and bed in that fabled mansion of the Elves, rather than musing over the strange paths and destinies of the Elder Race.

The scent of the warm piney woods was rich and deep and made the hobbits even sleepier. They were nodding on their ponies as they heard the singing of young elvish voices in the forest around them. None of the younger hobbits had ever heard elvish singing in the moonlight, and they looked in vain about them for the source of the enchanting voices. The voices called back and forth to one another from hidden places in the forest, and seemed to come from many different and changing directions.

"Hobbit children! How lovely!" said one, from behind.

"Most wondrous!" another agreed.

"How fearsome!" observed another, laughing.

"Mind that Turgon doesn't shoot the statuary!" called still another.

"Don't let Fingon put arrows through the paintings!" returned yet another.

"Quickly! Let Elediriel's tongue be found so we may hear a hobbit's poem!" cried the first voice, but from ahead this time.

"Hide the victuals! The hobbits are come!" shouted the second voice.

"Hide the wine! The Master of Buckland is upon us!" laughed another.

"Oy! Oy! Peace, good Elves!" cried Pippin. "We are weary from our journey, and you guess rightly that it is food and drink we ride for now! Lead us to Rivendell!"

"As you wish, Thain Peregrin," said a tall slender elf, stepping out into the path. "Indeed, the rangers have guided you well, for you are here!"

The silver-haired elf led the party across a narrow bridge, one by one, and around a turn in the path and they finally saw the Last Homely House.