Chapitre 5: Entr’actes

On returning to his companions, Samouard distributed rings to all of them: three for Elves, seven for Dwarves, and nine for Mortal Men.  The contrebandiers thus entered his service and became his most trusted servants, with Guillaume de Ferni at their head, and he made them Chevaliers de Monte Fato and Fantômes du Ring.  Thereafter, Gamgès established a splendid court on the island of Monte Fato.  After receiving a complete makeover that rendered him both unrecognisable and incredibly good-looking, he travelled throughout Terre-moyenne, especially le Harade, where the stars are strange and the seragli are stranger, and where he picked up such charming Sudron habits as opium and slavery.  He went in many guises, and won renown under many names, as Frodia had foretold.  He rode in the host of the Rohirrois, and swashbuckled Gondor by land and by sea; in the guise of Albert le Moupet, he even penetrated the forbidden city of Escargot.

~~~

Buttrebeurrousse, meanwhile, had declined since the halcyon days of the Pony prançant.  He now let rooms in L'Auberge abandonnée, which was located in a distinctly less fashionable part of town; and for some unknown reason (probably financial), he had married a rather sickly and avaricious lady who was even more d’un certain âge than he was, and whom he called la Carcharotte.

One day, he saw a horse and rider approaching from the East; never before had he seen such an accord between horseman and mount, and had he been a travelled man, it might have reminded him of the Elvish way with all good beasts.  The rider, who was dressed in the grey cloak of a priest, advanced towards the door of the auberge and knocked on it.  Buttrebeurrousse opened the door somewhat diffidently.

“Are you monsou Buttrebeurrousse?” asked the priest in a strong Lottalorian accent.

“I am,” replied the innkeeper.  “Barlimand Buttrebeurrousse, at your service.  Would Your Reverence care for some refreshment?”

“If you have Vieux Vignobles, I would gladly partake,” replied the abbé.  “And then we can resume our conversation.”  The priest kept his left fist closed, as if he were holding some mysterious object; but Buttrebeurrousse durst not inquire.

“Are you alone?” asked the abbé when Buttrebeurrousse had served him.

“Yes, monsieur, unless you count my wife la Carcharotte, who is unwell and cannot aid me in much, save in eating.  I am not rich, monsieur, but que voulez-vous?  It is not enough to be honest, in order to prosper in Terre-moyenne.”

The abbé gave Buttrebeurrousse a piercing glance, and said, “Sooner or later, I am firmly convinced, the honest man is recompensed and the wicked punished.”

“It is your state that makes you say that, Your Reverence, for you abbés need no mushrooms,” replied the innkeeper bitterly.  

“You are wrong,” replied the priest.  “And perhaps I myself, tout à l’heure, will prove the veracity of my statement to you.”

“What do you mean?” asked the innkeeper.

“First I must verify that you are the person with whom I am concerned.  Did you know a sailor named Gamgès?”

 “Gamgès!  Did I know him!  I should think so, le pauvre Samouard!  He was even one of my best friends!” cried Buttrebeurrousse, while the clear and confident eye of the priest seemed to dilate to cover in entirety him whom he interrogated.  “And what happened, monsieur, to le petit Samouard?   Do you know him?  Is he alive?  Is he happy?  Is his pipe-weed properly seasoned? Is he bound up with the fate of Arda?”

“He died in prison, more wretched and desperate than the Orcs who labor in the salt-mines of Morie,” replied the abbé.  

A deathly pallor took possession of Buttrebeurrousse’s visage, and the priest saw him wipe away a tear.  “Ah, pauvre petit!” he murmured.  “Voilà encore a proof of what I told Your Reverence just now, that the good Érou is only good to the wicked.  Ah!” he continued in the colorful language of the Briois, “the world goes from bad to worse, and may the Dagueur Dagourat blow it up in fire and gunpowder, and the story come to its end, sans appendices!”

There was a moment of silence, during which the priest did not cease for an instant to interrogate the mobile if rotund physiognomy of the innkeeper.

“I was called to his deathbed to offer him the last solaces of religion,” continued the abbé, devouring Buttrebeurrouse with the fixity of his gaze.  “His last charge was that I remove any blemish his name might have received by proving his innocence of everything but underage smoking.

“A rich Forodois (or bonhomme de neige) who shared part of Gamgès’s imprisonment, possessed a silmaril of great worth, which he left to Gamgès, who in turn kept it secret.  For, should he ever be freed from prison, his fortune was made.”

“It was of great value, then, this silmaril?”

“Everything is relative,” replied the abbé.  “It is worth less than the entire Shiré and everything in it; but more than Brie.  However, you yourself will judge of its value, for even now I am holding a silmaril in my hand.”  He slowly opened his left hand, and exposed to Buttrebeurrousse’s marvelling eye a thrice-enchanted globe of crystal by immortal gleam illumined, lit by living splendor and all hues’ essence, their eager flame.

“I am Samouard Gamgès’s sole executor,” continued the priest.  ‘I had three good friends and a fiancée,’ he said.  One of these friends was Buttrebeurrousse.”  (Buttrebeurrousse trembled.)  “The others were Sacqueville-Danglars and Pippand de Touc.  I have forgotten the name of the fiancée …”

“Rosédès,” interposed the innkeeper, still staring at the silmaril.

“Oui, c’est ça,” murmured the abbé, somewhat distractedly.  After a brief pause, he continued, “The poor unfortunate ordered that the silmaril be divided in five parts …”

“For four people?” interrupted Buttrebeurrousse.

“The fifth was to go to his old gaffier.”

“Dead!” cried Buttrebeurrousse.  “Dead of hunger!”

“Of hunger!” cried the priest.  “The vilest animals do not die of hunger!  The Orcs in the southern deserts do not die of hunger, though such viands be not for us!  Even the most wretched gangrel creatures find a compassionate hand to toss them a fish or a bit of half-eaten lembas!  And a hobbite of the Shiré died of hunger, abandoned among thousands of hobbites like him!  It is impossible!”

“Monsieur, neither Rosédès nor M. Morrie, Samouard’s shipowner and patron, abandoned le vieux Hamphât Gamgès; but that Pippand, whom Your Reverence names among Samouard’s friends …” The innkeeper smiled ironically.

“Barlimand, Barlimand,” came a rasping female voice from a nearby room.  “Pay attention to what you are saying.”

Buttrebeurrousse replied with a gesture of impatience, and continued, “How can one be a friend while coveting another man’s wife? And she was Pippand’s cousin as well.  The Eldar wedded not those so near akin; but that didn’t stop him.  Poor Gamgès had no idea, and it is better thus, for the malediction of the dead is a dreadful thing that makes the blood run cold and the pipe-weed taste like sauerkraut.”

“Ninihammier!” said la Carcharotte.  “These people could crush you with one gesture of rejection and denial.”

“What?” exclaimed the abbé.  “Have they become rich and powerful?”

“Barlimand, you are master of wood, water, and hill, or you would be, if we could afford the rent, but if I were you …” murmured the woman. The innkeeper looked uncertain.

“You are, sans doute, right,” said the priest offhandedly.  “So I’ll just divide up this silmaril …”

“A silmaril?” said la Carcharotte.  “What is this?”  She entered the room and was dazzled at the mingled light of the Two Cheeses.  “Ah, the beautiful jewel!” she cried.

“A fifth of the value of this diamond will go to your husband,” said the abbé. “That is, when I have sold it.  So I had better be on my way to see Thorinowitz the moneychanger.”

“But no,” said Buttrebeurrousse.  “It would be a profanation to reward treachery, perhaps even crime.”

“This changes everything,” said the woman, after exchanging glances with Buttrebeurrousse.  “Do as you will.”

“Are you decided, then?” asked the abbé.

“Yes,” said the innkeeper.  “I will tell you everything.”

The woman retired after nodding to her husband.

“Avant tout, monsieur,” began the innkeeper, “I must ask Your Reverence to promise never to reveal that it is I who have told you these things.  For the people of whom it is a question have become so rich and powerful, that they will smile, and with their little fingers crush me like a fly that has tried to sting them.”

“Be tranquil,” said the abbé.  “Not for the Ring, not even for the favors of Luthienne would a priest of Lottaloria betray a confidence.  But pray resume your account of the fate of the gaffier.”

“Bien, he was inconsolable, and would stay up all night pacing and weeping and praying, so that I, who lived below, could barely shut my eyes at night.  I made an attempt to console him with a rabbit casserole – in vain. Rosédès begged him to move in with her, but he refused, even after they demolished Rue Baguechotte to make room for the Count de Pérégrin’s palace, thereby constraining him to move into the inn, and ruining his pommes de terre.  He would wait for his son to return, said he, be it until the end of the Third Age.”

“Pauvre gaffier!” murmured the priest.

“Often M. Morrie and Rosédès came to see him, but he made no response, although I was certain he was there,” continued Buttrebeurrousse.  “And he became more and more like that; his face resembled a window with the shutters inside, like an automme sans printemps, a Gauloise sans absinthe.  Meanwhile, in order to live, he sold all his herbe à pipe …”

“Grand Érou!”

“He became ill, and the doctor ordered him to abstain from mushrooms.  He now had all the excuse he needed, and all supplications on the part of M. Morrie and Rosédès were vain … His last words to them were, ‘If you see my son again, tell him he was but a ninnihammier to take to sea, for it is boats that have brought us to this pass.’”

The abbé sighed.

“This tale concerns you much,” observed the innkeeper.

“Yes, it is attendrissant,” replied the abbé.  “Now tell me,” he continued menacingly, “tell me who made the son die of despair, and the father of hunger!”

Buttrebeurrousse related everything he had seen on that fateful evening at Le pony prançant, when Sacqueville-Danglars and Pippand de Touc drew up the act of accusation that sent Samouard to durance vile.

“O Frodia, Frodia, how deep are your insights into the abysm of evil of the human heart, more noisome than the fleur-de-Morgoule!” murmured the abbé.

“Monsieur?” inquired Buttrebeurrousse.

“Nothing, just a psalm of Gandault,” said the priest.  “But tell me: why did you not oppose this infamy?”

“Monsieur, I was so drunk I could barely distinguish Shirdonnay from Vieux Vignobles, and I was blundering about in a fog.  Later, I did try to speak, but Sacqueville-Danglars prevented me.”

“I see,” said the abbé.  “You simply practiced laissez-faire.”

“Yes,” said the innkeeper.  “And remorse devours me.  I have tasted for many years the bitterness of the cup of vin ordinaire I mixed for myself, always fearing yet worse in the dregs.  For Samouard will never forgive me; his spirit will turn me into something unnatural, like a faithful husband.”

“You have spoken frankly; confession merits forgiveness.  But you have spoken of M. Morrie; what role did he play?”

“That of an honest, courageous, and chic hobbite, monsieur.  Twenty times he petitioned Sharcoléon for Samouard, and never less than impeccably clad, so that at the restauration he was fort persecuted as a Sharcoléoniste.  To say nothing of his efforts on behalf of le vieux Hamphât.”

“Does M. Morrie live yet, and if so how, what life does he lead?”

“He lives, but ill; he is on the verge of misery, and worse yet: dishonor.”

“How?” gasped the abbé.

“He lost four ships off the coast of Numéneur in an extraordinary whirlpool, and his pipe-weed and mushroom crops were ruined by a blight that, not surprisingly, spared the property of Sacqueville-Danglars.  Of course, his creditors make no allowance for his misfortunes, nor does pity stay their hand.  Unless the Pharazon succeed where his other ships have failed, M. Morrie, his wife Paraphernalie, and his children Meurtrier and Bilbette are without any doubt lost.”

“Horrors!” exclaimed the abbé.

“Your Reverence sees, then, how Érou rewards virtue and punishes sin: the good Morrie is on the verge of destitution, while the criminals Pippand and Sacqueville-Danglars wallow in gold, like Scrouge Macducque in the play by Elrond.”

“And how is that?”

“Sacqueville-Danglars had some ideas rather bizarres,” replied Buttrebeurrousse.  “He wished to own everything, and use his wealth to command others.  He already possessed more than was his due, and he was always buying more pipe-weed and mushroom concessions, mills, factories, and what have you, though how he obtained the money wasn’t always evident.  Since then, he’s played the stock market, and his worth has tripled.  He married Mme de Braceguirdelle, widow of the chamberlain of the current king, and, having become a millionaire, was naturally made a baron.”

“And Pippand?”

“Pippand joined the army, serving at Byouatier, where he conspired with a power-hungry general named Bouffinger, and ambushed the Sharcoléonists with secret aid from orcs.  That which would have earned a court-martial under Sharcoléon served as a recommendation to the Telbourbons.  He returned to the Shiré with the rank of boundier.  Bouffinger’s protection did not abandon Pippand; in 1827 he became captain, and, in alliance with Sacqueville-Danglars (who had need of wood for yet another financial scheme), led a force into the Old Forest and cut down hundreds of trees, and made a great bonfire in the Forest, and burnt all the ground in a long strip east of the Haye.  His Brandiboucque connections proved invaluable in this little adventure, and he was rewarded with the office of shirrife and the title of count.”

“Destiny, destiny!” murmured the abbé.

“Nor is that all, for Pippand took to adventuring in Harade, and participated in the war between the Sultan of Minas-Morgoule and the defenders of Quirithe-Oungallant.  Soon afterwards, it was learnt that the Count de Pérégrin, as he called himself, was in the service of Ala-Pallando who, before being slain, recompensed Pippand’s services with the hoard of Sqathah le Ver, with which Pippand returned to the Shiré, and was duly elevated to the rank of third maréchal, so that now he owns the entire Rue des Chandeliers.”

“And Rosédès, who I heard has disappeared?”

“Disappeared, yes,” returned the innkeeper, “as the leaf of Laureline la belle disappeared, to rise again more splendidly as the ship of Arienne that sails the heavens.”

“Has she made her fortune as well?” inquired the priest with an ironic smile.

“She is now one of the grande dames of Annuminas.”

“Continue,” said the abbé.  “I seem to be listening to the account of a dream, and a dream from Brie at that; but I have seen so many incredible things that this is almost banal by comparison.”

“Rosédès was at first desolate at the disappearance of Samouard,” resumed Buttrebeurrousse.  “I have mentioned her efforts to aid le vieux gaffier; moreover, she went with M. Morrie to petition Villefaramir for Samouard’s release.  Another misfortune struck her amidst her sorrow: Pippand, whom she regarded as a brother, departed; she was alone.  Three months she spent with none but the gaffier; and her part seemed more ignoble than the cheap pipe-weed whereof he partook.

“And so, when Pippand reappeared, Rosédès embraced him with a transport that the latter took for love, though it was but joy that she was no longer alone.  Besides, Pippand wasn’t hated; he simply wasn’t loved, save as one loves a shadow and a thought, while another, Samouard, held her heart as securely as the rope of Lottaloria.  This other was gone; he had vanished, even as the horse and the rider, and the horn that was blowing the can-can d’antan; perhaps, as the gaffier repeated unceasingly, Samouard was dead … this idea took hold of her consciousness, devouring it, as a dragon devours a chevalier that it has swallowed whole.  She broke into tears unnumbered as the summer tempests of the remoter Harade.

“Pippand returned after Hamphât’s trépas, knowing well that she could never turn to him while the old hobbite was there as a silent reproach to her infidelity.  At his previous return, he had not uttered a word about love; now he reminded her that he adored her even more than the most luscious mushrooms.  Rosédès asked for six more months to await Samouard …”

“In fact,” said the abbé, “that makes eighteen months all together; what more could a lover ask?”  Then he murmured sotto voce the words of the Forodois poet: “Frailly, ty name ees vouman!”

“Six months later, the two were wed at the church des Fallochides …”

“The same church where she was to wed Gamgès,” remarked the priest.  “There was but a change in bridegrooms; voilà tout … Did you see her again?”

“Yes, in Froguemarteau, where Pippand had left her to educate her son.”

The abbé shuddered. “Her son?”

“Yes, le petit Réginard.”

“But to educate her … son, she would have had to have some education herself, and from what Gamgès told me, she was wise but unlearned, writing no books but singing many songs, after the manner of the childhood of our people.”

“How little he knew his own fiancée,” said Buttrebeurrousse.  “She could have been a queen among other queens, a mistress of willing slaves, if crowns descended not merely on those possessed of the financial acumen of the Dwarves, but beauty, wisdom, and exquisite culinary tastes.  Her knowledge grew with her fortune, and she learned painting, music, ring-lore – she learned everything.  I think she did it to distract herself; she was rich, she was a Countess, and yet she was unhappy.  I know this because I saw her toss me a purse from a window when her husband, forgetful of our friendship, refused to see me, and the look in her eyes was that of one without hope who goes in search, if not of death, then at least of absinthe.”

The abbé sighed.  After a brief pause, he added, “What of Villefaramir?  What role did he play in Samouard’s misfortune, and what became of him?”

“I know nothing of M. de Villefaramir, save that, after having Samouard arrested, he married Finduilette, the daughter of the Marquis d’Imrahil; and that after that lady’s death he remarried Mlle Béruthielle, a sombre woman with several abominable aristocats. Fortune has smiled on him as on the others; while I alone am wretched and abandoned by the Valards.”

“You are mistaken, friend.  The justice of Érou and the Valards may sleep, but a moment always comes when it remembers, and in token thereof, this silmaril is yours; for you alone were loyal to Samouard, when all his friends betrayed him.  It is worth 50, 000 floquerins.”

Buttrebeurrousse gasped with amaze; but his guest had mysteriously vanished.

“50, 000 floquerins,” murmured la Carcharotte.  “It’s money; but it’s not a fortune.”

~~~

M. de Boromir, inspector of prisons, opened the door to find a Forodois with a carrot nose, and two eyes made out of coal, clad in a tweed jacket, a deerstalker, and a strange and decidedly tasteless cardboard cape bewritten atom bombe.

“I am Lord Adam Madeupname the Snowman of the firm of Bombadil and Forn,” said the stranger in the characteristic Forodois accent (missing Rs, weird diphthongs, and all).  “I am come to buy your investment in the company of M. Morrie.”

“Take it and welcome,” replied Boromir, making out the form with alacrity.  “I’ve never seen such a drug on the market in all my born days.  Neither myself nor any of the other creditors has much hope of being repaid – except, no doubt, the sturdy dwarves.”

“I will pay in cash, double the amount you feared to lose on account of M. Morrie’s embarrassment,” said Lord Adam.

“This can’t be very profitable for you,” observed Boromir.  “From M. Morrie you may be able to dig out an heirloom, but hardly the riches of the Kings of Men.”

“That is Bombadil and Forn’s concern, not mine,” replied the Snowman.  “Perhaps they seek to hasten the fall of a rival house, or perhaps they have obtained world dominion through the power of the Ring.  It is nothing to me.  I ask only one thing.  Can you give me any documented information about the abbé Frodia?  He lent me boats once; and I heard later that he had somehow ended up in Locqueholles.”

“Alas, he is dead,” replied Boromir, opening a cabinet and removing some papers.  “He died last Nénimôse, believing to the last in a remarkable treasure that would give irresistible power to whosoever should gain it.  It seemed to me for the most part old wives tales, such as we tell our children.  For everything south of Lottaloria is so distant that fancy wanders freely there.”

“You remember the circumstances of his decease well,” said Lord Adam.

“I remember it because the decease of the poor hobbite was accompanied by an extraordinary event … involving another prisoner, a dangerous criminal whose face of utter evil I will never forget: Samouard Gamgès.”

Lord Adam smiled imperceptibly.

“This Gamgès had excavated a tunnel to the abbé’s cell, and doubtless the two planned to escape together.  The abbé having died, Gamgès took his place, probably hoping to be buried and to use his diabolical engines of sorcery to escape.  Unfortunately for him, the guardians of Locqueholles simply toss their prisoners in the sea; and so he drowned.”  Boromir laughed.  The Forodois also laughed, but in the manner of his nation, that is, from the tip of his carrot nose.

Boromir handed Lord Adam the register, and the latter leafed through it, as Boromir went out to attend to some necessity or other; but it seems that the story of Gamgès had interested the Forodois so much, that he continued to read until he came to that criminal’s file, where he read:

“SAMOUARD GAMGES: Fanatical Sharcoléonist; took an active part in the return of the usurper from the isle of Isengard; to be kept in secret and under the strictest surveillance.”

Elsewhere, in the same handwriting, he found a note praising Samouard for his loyalty to the Sharcoléonist cause.  There could be no doubt that Villefaramir had written both, and that the praise was meant for Telbourbon eyes, that yet another black mark might besmirch Samouard’s name.  The file also contained Sacqueville-Danglars’s accusation.  Lord Adam hastily placed these items in his pocket, and closed the register as Boromir returned.

“Thank you,” he said.  “I have everything I need.  It is time for me to keep my promise.”  He immediately handed a flabbergasted Boromir 48543884485356 floquerins, took the document that Boromir had written regarding Morrie, and left.

~~~

Gloom pervaded the house of M. Morrie, once so fortunate that precious stones were as marbles with which his children played, but now fallen into a sombre and bitter despair, broken only by the strangely discordant singing of the creditors, who feasted and revelled, believing that the house of Morrie was overthrown and that nothing remained but to take the spoils.  For, unlike Morrie himself, they were not of the altruistic sort.  No longer profitable was the pipe-weed concern Morrie had obtained from Tobaud Hornebloueur.  Morrie’s sole hope in Middle-earth was the return of the Pharazon; returned that vessel not with good tidings, must the house of Morrie perish, and none could foresee its rising again.  With Morrie remained only his wife, his son, his daughter, her fiancé Armalvéguil, and Morrie’s faithful - if accurate to a fault – bookkeeper Céléborne.  

It was in this state that affairs rested when the representative of the firm of Bombadil and Forn arrived.  He was received somewhat less than enthusiastically by Armalvéguil and Bilbette, whom every new face terrified, for every new face meant yet another creditor gibbering over his prey like a very crow of Saroumand.  Nevertheless, they did not hinder his approaching M. Morrie.  The latter was in his studio, where the Forodois found him unmanned before his ledger, laid low by debts that turned the minds if the living to madness and horror, so that into Morrie’s mind a blackness came, and he thought only of hiding and crawling, and of death.  Even mushrooms had lost their delight.  Such was M. Morrie when Lord Adam Madeupname, the representative of Bombadil and Forn, entered his presence.

“Monsieur,” began the Snowman with almost brutal clarity, “the firm of Bombadil and Forn has bought from M. Boromir, inspector of prisons, a debt in your name for 200, 000 floquerins.  In addition, we have bought your debts from the firms of Azaghâl, Thorinowitz, and Chubbes, adding up to a total of 287, 500 floquerins and a pound of flesh.  And, without casting doubt in your probity, the rumor in Hobbitonne is that you are no longer in state to carry out your affairs with expensive women.”

M. Morrie bowed his head in shame, and murmured, “I feared it was so.”  

“Will you pay these bills?”

“Monsieur, I must reply frankly.  I will pay if my vessel the Pharazon comes as the songs tell us it will.  But should the prophecies fail …” Morrie broke off, his face wrung with pain, as if he had been stabbed in the heart; tears were in his eyes.

“No other hope remains?”

“None.  A fool’s hope, my creditors tell me.”

At this moment, Bilbette rushed in.

“Forgive my interruption at this moment, and still more since I am the bearer of ill news!” she cried.  “The Pharazon has gone under, and the eagles of Manvre encircled its mast in cruel mockery as it sank!”

“And the crew?” said Morrie.

“Saved,” said the young woman.  “They succeeded in landing on the back of an enormous turtle and remained there till the ships of Cirdant rescued them.”

M. Morrie looked towards heaven with an expression of resignation and gratitude.

As cold-hearted as the Snowman seemed, a tear trickled down his cheek.

“There were two hogsheads of avastward on the mainsail, they told me,” continued Bilbette.

“Not enough,” remarked Lord Adam.  “I would have belayed four hogsheads and glogged the hoser until it took off.”

That firm, resonant and unexpected voice made the girl tremble.  And now suddenly she was aware of him, tall and noble as an heir of kings, wise with a certain number of winters, hiding a power that yet she felt.  “They did better than that, monsieur; they charged the Guernsey with a codpiece and belabbered the gnarr.  But the vessel was too old for the strain, and the wrath of the Valards fell upon it.”

The Snowman nodded.

M. Morrie handed Bilbette a sack.

“Pay the sailors with this,” he said.  “Légolon will refuse to accept any money, but don’t listen to the faithful old bo’sun.”  He smiled sadly.  She nodded, as burning hot tears fell down her innocent face of pure devotion and utter goodness, lovely as a daffadowndilly painted by Hacheberri in ecstasy.

“And tell them … that they may seek other emlpoym…” M. Morrie could not finish, but wept more than he had for any loss of pipe-weed.  ”Now,” he added when he had recovered, “leave me for the moment; I must speak to monsieur.”

Bilbette bowed her head, and departed, not without lancing in the direction of the Snowman a sublime look of supplication, to which he replied with a smile that a stolid observer would have been astonished to see blossom on that face of ice and snow.

“I see,” said Lord Adam, “that another disaster, unmerited as the others, has whelmed you in its waves.  This fact strengthens me in the intention I had already had, to treat you with such kindness as I can find in my wise heart.”

“Oh, monsieur!” cried Morrie.

“I will grant you a delay of three months,” said the Forodois.  “That gives you until eleven o’clock on March 25.”

“Monsieur, you have saved my honour and my life,” effused Morrie.  “You will be paid, or” (he whispered) “I shall die.”

Having received Morrie’s most fervent benedictions, the stranger took leave.  On the stairway he met Bilbette, who cried, as was evidently the fashion of the time, “Oh, monsieur!”  He whispered to her, “Mademoiselle, you will receive some day a letter from Éarendeau le marin; do exactly what it says, down to the smallest detail, including nail polish, even if it seems completely bizarre.”

“I promise, monsieur.”

“Excellent.  Remain always the good and holy and queenly daughter you are, and Érou will reward you with a good husband and many, many succulent mushrooms.”

Bilbette blushed, and before she could recover, the Snowman was gone, leaving only a small pool of water and a heart that melted with gratitude as the very Beaujolais of beatitude.

Unfortunately, Bombadil and Forn was far from being the only firm to which Morrie was indebted, for hordes of creditors came out of the east in great wains, stirred up by emissaries of Sacqueville-Danglars.  Nor was this all, for the baron was obtaining weapons from Saroumand in exchange for high-quality weed, and Morrie’s investments in the Farthing-Midi had failed completely.  Céléborne continued to enter payments with scrupulous exactitude and an unshakeable faith that Morrie would prevail against the seemingly invincible army, but Morrie knew in his heart that against the Power that had now arisen there was no victory.  Some of the more insolent creditors laughingly predicted that he would soon be a beggar in the wilderness, or quite possibly a beggar in the Vin-Cognac River with very chic new cement overshoes.

For Sacqueville-Danglars, who could have saved Morrie without spending a mathme, simply by guaranteeing a loan, had sent the good ship-owner away under the humiliation of a refusal.

At eight o’clock on March 25, Morrie’s son Meurtrier returned from abroad, greeted joyfully by Paraphernalie and Bilbette, who had barely slept all night.  As Meurtrier ran upstairs, a mysterious stranger in a travel-stained cloak and a hood that covered his face, and smoking a long-stemmed pipe, accosted Bilbette, while Armalvéguil looked on, mildly jealous.  “Are you mademoiselle Bilbette Morrie?” he inquired in a pronounced Brie accent.

“Yes, monsieur,” said Bilbette hesitantly.

“Read this letter; your father’s life depends upon it.”

She seized the letter and read it with the liveliest zeal:

“Go this minute to the Rue Silencieuse, enter house no. 13, and ask the concierge for the key to the fifth floor, being sure to utter the password ‘Idrille Piaf.’ Go to the fifth floor, enter the apartment, and take from the mantelpiece a little grey box of wood, unadorned save the rune S upon the lid, and take it to your father.  He must receive it before eleven o’clock.  I need not remind you of your promise to obey me blindly.

“All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost.

                “ÉARENDEAU LE MARIN

“PS. Never mind the nail polish.”

Bilbette uttered a cry of joy; but the stranger was gone.

As she left, accompanied by Armalvéguil, Meurtrier, the son of Morrie, entered the latter’s studio.  Morrie, having seen the black ships of his most pitiless creditors, had reached the final stage of utter and complete despair.

“Meurtrier!” he cried, astonished.

“Father!” exclaimed Meurtrier in horror.  “Why have you built a funeral pyre in your studio, and why have you poured oil upon it?”

“Better to burn sooner than late, for burn I must, since nothing can save me from bankruptcy.  I go now to my pyre.  To my pyre!  No tomb for Morrie, to be defaced by the mockery of my creditors, exulting in my ruin.  No tomb!  I will burn like the incredibly unfashionable monarchs before ever a ship sailed hither from the West.  My house has failed.”

“Authority is not given you, father, to order the hour of your death,” replied Meurtrier gravely.  “And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in their pride and despair.”

Morrie pointed to the ledger, which showed in excruciating detail just how desperate his circumstances were.  “But half an hour remains before the hour of doom,” he said.

“Can’t you simply feign your death, or persuade your distant and vaguely Teutonic cousin to take your place?”  Morrie shook his head.

“I see,” said Meurtrier.  “Then let me die with honor by your side.”

“Nay, for who will nourish your mother and your sister?  My creditors will devour all the mushrooms for themselves.”

Meurtrier bowed his head and said, “Quaplât!”

“I do not fear death,” said Morrie, “but a cage, wherein the bankrupts are exposed, according to the ancient customs of the hobbites, to the mockery and rotten tomatoes of all. Dying, however, I may yet be worthy of a song.  

“Heed the words!  The representative of Bombadil and Forn alone has shown mercy on my adversity; be it then the first to be repaid when fortune smiles on you again, as smile it will, even as Luthienne smiled upon Béren when she beheld the erotic toys he had bought her.  And let it always be said of me: he was a burnt hobbite.  My will is in the 117th tobacco-jar.  Receive now my blessing!“

Weeping, Meurtrier bowed and departed.

The minutes passed ineluctably, until Morrie no longer counted by the minute, but by the second.  He lit a torch, thrust the brand amid the fuel, and laid himself upon the pyre.

“Stay!” cried a stentorian voice.  “Stay this madness!”

He beheld to his wonderment Lord Adam, the snowy representative of Bombadil and Forn, and beside him Bilbette, who immediately doused the flames with the bucket of water that, speedily forewarned by Meurtrier, she had seized from a bemused Céléborne, who had been using it to clean the tiles that one of the creditors had defiled.

“Father!” cried Bilbette.  “You are saved!”  And she handed him the box.  Trembling, he opened it, and beheld not only the total sum of his debt to Bombadil and Forn, but also one of the lesser rings of power, with a tag that read “Bilbette’s Dowry.”

Just then, Armalvéguil rushed in, crying, “The Pharazon!  She enters the port even now!”

Morrie fainted, overcome with emotion and pipe-weed.

Indeed it was the Pharazon that entered the Hobbitonne harbour, beautiful in the likeness of a swan, and marked THE PHARAZON by Saradoc Morrie, and the faithful captain Thrandouille gave orders, and the faithful Légolon waved at M. Morrie.

 “Be happy, noble heart,” murmured a mysterious stranger in a travel-stained cloak and a dwarf-mask.  “Be blessed with abundant pipe-mushroom harvests for the good that you have done and will do, and let my good deed be shrouded in oblivion, even as Luthienne was cloaked in the bat-fell – very chicly, or so the songs tell us – when she seduced Morgot.  You will be the maire, and will read out of your ledger book, so that people will remember the Great Danger, and love their beloved ship all the more.”

“And now,” he concluded, “farewell goodness, humanity, gratitude, all feelings that cause the heart to swell!  I have taken the place of the Valards to reward the good; let now the Érou of vengeance suffer me to punish the wicked, make them crawl!”