After the cousins
have parted from Sam at the road to Buckland…
At the end of their song, their voices trailed
away into silence. After a moment, Pippin said a little shakily, “Well,
cousin,
I must say that I have seen more pleasant occasions than this.”
Merry nodded. “I know, Pip. I’ll miss him, too.”
“If Gandalf had not told us, we would not have
known until Sam returned and told us himself,” Pippin said bitterly.
“Pippin,” Merry spoke carefully, “Frodo was only
trying to spare us pain…”
Pippin shook his head. “No, no, cousin, you
misunderstand me. We should have known before Frodo ever thought to
leave.”
Merry looked worriedly at his beloved younger
cousin as he tried to understand Pippin’s distress.
Pippin brushed his sleeve across his eyes.
“Before
we left on the Quest, we were close enough to Frodo to see that
something
was going on. We saw him go to all his favorite places to say goodbye;
you
saw Bilbo use the ring…and of course we had dear Sam listening at the
windows…”
Pippin swallowed hard as he fought the tears.
“This time…we didn’t see, Merry. We were all back here again; we worked
together
to cleanse the Shire; Frodo seemed to fit back into everything…and next
thing
we know, Gandalf tells us that Frodo sails to Valinor to find peace and
healing…”
Fresh tears spilled down the young Took’s face.
“And we didn’t notice, Merry! Frodo was hurting that much inside and we
didn’t
see it…at least I didn’t see it…and we are the ones who should have
seen
it first.” He hunched forward in the saddle as he wept uncontrollably.
Merry reached out and took Pippin’s pony’s
bridle
and stopped the animal with a soft “whoa”. With the other hand he
reached
into his pocket and extracted a handkerchief and held it out to the
other
hobbit. Pippin managed a chuckle before making use of the offered bit
of
cloth.
“This is as good a spot as any for a brief rest,
Pippin-lad, we’ve been riding for hours. Besides, I fear in your
current
state you would run headlong into a tree or a ditch.”
They dismounted from their ponies and found a
cool spot beneath a tree while Pippin composed himself. After a time
they
took the pipes and tobacco they carried always in their ponies’ packs,
and
smoked for a time in silence.
“Pip,” Merry said finally, “we’ve all changed
in the last two years. None of knew what lay ahead when we left
Crickhollow
with Sam and Frodo. We all learned things about ourselves that we
didn’t
know before, and did things that we never dreamed that we could do-and
if
we had known about them ahead of time, we likely would have run back to
Crickhollow
and hidden under our beds.”
Pippin smiled slightly.
“But I don’t think any of us could possibly know
what being the Ringbearer did to Frodo. On the outside, he WAS the same
Frodo-except
he had nine fingers instead of ten. But even Sam didn’t see this
coming,
Pip, and they lived in the same house! He could see that Frodo was
withdrawing
from life in the Shire, but he never dreamed that Frodo needed to put
it
all behind him in order to heal. He changed inside- where we couldn’t
see.”
Merry put an arm around Pippin and squeezed
hard.
“Frodo loved all of us, Pippin, and he knew we
loved him-and none of us loved him so much as Sam did. But he needs
more
than that to help him recover from what happened to him. He didn’t
leave
because we didn’t love him enough, or because he didn’t love us. By
going
to Valinor he has a chance to fully recover from what the Ring did to
him.
He’d never be able to do that here. But…it was probably just as hard
for
him to leave us, as it was for us to see him go, even though Bilbo and
Gandalf
went too.”
Pippin thought about this.
‘I hope Sam will be all right,” he said
solemnly.
“There’s more courage in Samwise Gamgee than in
all of us put together, Pippin. He’ll be all right. He has Rosie and
Elanor
and all the children to follow to help him along…and us, of course.”
Pippin rested his head against Merry’s shoulder,
a childlike gesture he had not employed for a long time.
“I’m glad you and I are still together, Merry. I
don’t know what I would have done if it had been you getting on that
ship.”
“You would have had to run both Tuckborough and
Buckland by yourself, I expect,” Merry said with a soft laugh.
But he drew Pippin closer to his side, and the
two hobbits silently sat and watched the sun slowly fade into the west.
