"I don't know why we didn't think of it before, " Pippin said.
"Who says I didn't?" Merry retorted.
"Then why didn't you mention it?"
"Because this is different somehow."
"I don't see how."
"I know you don't. But it is."
"Well, we're stuck, and we've got to try."
"Do you remember it?"
"Well..."
"Neither do I."
Pippin cleared his throat.
"Ho, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo,
By water, wood, and reed, by swamp, mead and willow..."
"No, no. There was no mead."
Pippin tried again. "By water, wood and stream, by the reed and willow..."
"No stream."
"River?"
"Maybe."
"Well, just sing the rest of it, " Pippin exploded.
"Ho, Tom Bombadil, Hearken now and hear us;
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us, " sang Merry.
They looked around, but saw no sign of blue jacket or yellow boots, and heard no nonsense rhymes approaching.
"Mead, then, " Pippin argued.
"There was no mead, " Merry countered.
Songo and Ned exchanged yet another baffled look, similar to the ones they had been exchanging since the conversation began. Bunco wondered how either of them had ever survived any war at all being as daft as they were.
******************
Tom and Toradoc awoke with a start at dawn because their ponies whinnied suddenly. An odd-looking, smiling, red-faced fellow with a blue jacket was looking down at them from a very fat pony.
"Heigh-ho, my hearties, how are you this morning?" he said with a smile.
Toradoc tried to leap up but his arm was still bound to Tom's with his belt, and he landed back near Tom in an awkward tangle. "Good day, sir, " he said respectfully as he untangled himself. "You would be Master Tom Bombadil, if I am not mistaken."
Bombadil laughed. "A Bounder Brandybuck, Toradoc by name if I'm also not mistaken," he laughed, and leaped off the pony and landed capering. "The sun is rising, the mist dispersing. There is something odd about you, Bounder, " Bombadil said. "Bones may rest in these barrows, but wanderers and travellers do not. Barrows are not for camping or sleeping! Unwary wayfarers quickly are waylaid! Reckless riders are robbed of their wits! Foolish I would call you. But Bounder Brandybuck was free, come the morning," he said with an odd look, studying Toradoc.
The belt was by now undone, and Toradoc was standing respectfully before Tom Bombadil. Tom Furrow listened with interest to the conversation; here at any rate was a flesh-and-blood creature and not a wight nor a wraith, who seemed to know something about the Downs.
"You camped through the night on the barrows without fear, " Bombadil prompted again.
"Well, not quite, " Toradoc laughed. "But I knew that I should stay, so I did."
Bombadil studied him, and slowly nodded. "You know the Master that Bolco knows; that is why you did not fear. It is well, " Tom said with a twinkle in his eye.
"You know Bolco?" Tom Furrow jumped to his feet.
"Did I say so? No, indeed. I do not know Bolco, I know his Master," said Bombadil with a caper and a merry laugh.
Tom and Toradoc exchanged puzzled glances.
"Come, " Bombadil said. "Tom is going topside! Trinkets and trasures are waiting." They trailed after him, as he walked toward the top of the hill. "Here they are! Grass is grown over them, but they are patient as well as fair, gold and silver glinting under green."
They looked where he was pointing. It was the sharp objects that they had discovered barefoot the night before. "Here is the barrow-treasure, " Bombadill laughed. "Choose one treasure each, and choose well. The Barrow-spell is broken, and they are free to all birds, beasts, and those who go on two legs. Choose, and think of your lady!" he said to Tom Furrow.
Furrow looked doubtfully down at the scattered golden and silver objects peeping out from the long grasses. "Master Bombadil, " he said, "I have a question to ask you."
"Some I help to choose, and some I choose not to help, " Bombadiil smiled. "This choice, Mr. Furrow, lies in your heart."
"But I want to ask you about Bolco, " Tom replied stubbornly. "Can you help us find him?"
"No indeed, " Bombadil replied.
"Do you know where he is?"
"I do, " Bombadil laughed.
"Then why can't you help us find him?" Tom exploded.
"Because you already have, " Tom laughed in return. "Come! Now choose, choose, my hearties; choose wisely; choose a gift for one you love, or a treasure for yourself. There is time enough for talking; now is a time for choosing."
Toradoc and Tom studied each other, baffled. Toradoc shrugged. The focus of the moment seemed plain enough, and he bent over the scattered treasure, puzzling. There were brooches, knives, rings, circlets, chains. He saw little of interest, and wondered if one of the trinkets might somehow be a clue to freeing Bolco, if he was indeed somehow trapped by the tree.
Furrow reached past him, and caught up a necklace, holding it up, measuring it with his eye. "For my queen. My Missus Pansy."
"Ah, " Toradoc replied, pondering and searching through the long grass, but seeing nothing like a mysterious key or a wizard's staff or an axe or a saw or anything that might induce the tree to free Bolco. He gave Bombadil another glance, and then sighed, and looked up at Tom, still pondering his necklace. "Well, in that case, how about this for the princess?" And he chose another necklace, and held it up, glittering, in the sun.
Bombadil laughed and danced. "Gifts for your treasures!" he shouted, and capered about the barrow-hill.
Toradoc fingered the necklace, and looked up at Bombadil. "Are you saying that the spell over this barrow has already been broken?" he asked.
"Indeed yes, " Bombadil replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye. "It was broken almost two years ago."
"Then if we've already found Bolco, " Toradoc frowned, looking back over his shoulder at the tree, "what spell holds him here?"
Furrow's jaw dropped and he held his breath; nor was he prepared for the sorrow that crossed Bombadil's face.
"The evil was not here; he brought the evil with him, " Bombadil said. "Sap of sorrow, root of bitterness, branch of disappointment and delusion. Wraiths of resentment and fear and many many regrets. You think the downs are evil, and they are; but this hill has been cleansed, this hill is free. All around the evil lies, but he found the one free place, and was trapped even there! No, my lads; no, my hearties; it was the evil rooted in him that rooted him here."
"Then what should we do to free him?" Furrow demanded. Toradoc looked back at the tree, looking for any sign of Bolco. He could see none.
"You have done what you can do; you have sung what you can sing. The green can't be made greener by adding green, but by a good rain and sunsine. And you have have watered and shone well."
"We have?"
"Aye, you have."
Toradoc's eyebrows went up.
"Yes indeed. You asked his Master for help, " Bombadil said to Toradoc. "And you," he said to Tom Furrow, "let Bolco know he was wanted, needed, missed, and deeply loved. Sunshine and showers, bright rays and soft rain. Your work here is done, my lads."
Tom and Toradoc exchanged glances. Toradoc cleared his throat. "But Master Bombadil, sir, I remember from the story that you freed Master Merry and Master Pippin from Old Man Willow by singing to them."
"No indeed, my lads! No, my hearties! " Bombadil replied. "I did not sing to them. I sang to The Willow Man. And my songs were stronger than his."
"But can't you sing to the tree now?"
"There is no need, no need indeed," Bombadil laughed, still capering. "Bolco knows what to sing. Tom can't sing for him! By water, wood and reed! Bolco answers to his own Master, and his Master has given him songs to sing; he must sing the song his Master has given him."
A sudden creaking, the first sound that had come from the tree since the company left the previous afternoon, caused them all to turn. Tom laughed like a bell, long and loud, and the tree's leaves rustled though there was no wind.
Tom capered some more. "You all go home, " he said, laughing and dancing. "Off you go now; north to the road. Take your ponies north-away, but leave a pony for Bolco, and let Bolco do his own singing. Come, my hearties! Hop along now! Gather your ponies, and off you go! Tom's got work to do; Tom's got fields to mind and paths to tread, and Goldberry, my lovely River-Daughter, my Lady of Laughter is waiting."
"Goldberry?" replied Tom Furrow, blinking.
"No time now, " Bombadil said. "My pretty lady is busy, and I must join her; my lady is waiting, my song of gladness, my shining river of golden laughter, clad all in silver-green. I must go now! And so must you. Hurry, my hearties! Ride north now!"
And with that, he waved at his fat pony, who came trotting over; he leaped on the pony's back, and with a wave, went singing over the hill.
Tom and Toradoc began tacking up their ponies, reluctantly, feeling that business was very unfinished indeed, and quite unsatisfied. Toradoc set his face to obey, but Tom grumbled. "I'd just as soon wait til Bolco figured out what song he was supposed to sing, and sings it, and shows up out of that tree, or wherever he is."
"I feel the same way you do, " Toradoc said firmly, "but he didn't ask us if we wanted to go; he told us to go. And he seems to know what's good for Bolco, so off we ride, northward ho." Toradoc smiled grimly. "Hop along, my hearties, " he said to his pony with a wry smile.
Their fingers were cold and stiff, and so was the leather; it took them longer than usual to tack up the ponies. But they finally swung into the saddles, and as they did, Merry, Pippin, Ned, and Bolco's brothers and father appeared on the horizon. They rode forward to meet them, and explained what they had seen and heard.
Pippin and Merry looked at each other, and nodded. "Northward, then. I wish we hadn't missed him! It would have done my soul good to see Old Tom again."
"Perhaps we should pay him a visit another time, " Merry agreed. "But for now, we ride back to the road."
"Oh, but you can't mean--" Bunco interrupted indignantly.
"Oh but we do, " Pippin and Merry replied. "Tom is Master; I'll not argue with him, " Merry added.
"Nor I, " said Pippin.
They rode away, Bolco's family quite reluctantly, but Merry and Pippin rode forward in earnest. "I've no desire to linger by that barrow any longer, cleansed or not, " Merry said with a shudder. "I thought it looked a bit familiar."
Pippin urged his pony into a faster trot.