Pippin and Diantha didn't notice him immediately, for they were laughing and joking together as they stood at the bar; Frodo sat with his back to them and watched the pair over his shoulder. As the innkeeper gave them their drinks, Pippin asked if there had been any messages for him. No, the innkeeper replied, "But Mr. Baggins was just asking after you lads," and he nodded in Frodo's direction.
The two young Tooks whirled to look around the room. "Frodo!" Pippin cried out when he caught sight of him. "Whatever are you doing here?"
"I've just been visiting your family in Tuckborough," Frodo answered. This much was true. "I meant to go back to Hobbiton tonight, but it looked like snow. I thought I'd better stop here for the night. But what are you doing here, Pip? Your mother and father think you're in Buckland. And it's quite a surprise to see you, Di."
They both laughed. "It's a secret," Diantha told him. "But you've got to promise not to tell."
"Tell what?" asked Frodo.
"Come back with us after we've had our ales," Pippin responded, "and we'll show you what!"
Frodo joined the pair at a table while they enjoyed their ales and listened while they chatted. He didn't wish to appear too curious about their secret; he knew the answer to it already and didn't want to put them on their guard by asking pointed questions. Both young hobbits, however, were eager to talk.
"I let Father and Mother think I was going to Buckland," Pippin said. "They thought I was going to see Merry when I left the Hall, and I didn't tell them otherwise." He sounded pleased at his own clever deception. "But what really happened was that I received a letter from a friend-"
"Friends," Diantha interjected with a grin.
"Friends," Pippin agreed with a laugh; the laughter of both Tooks increased when Frodo looked from one to the other with apparent perplexity. "Friends who were asking for my help, so I came here to help them."
"Who do you mean, beside Di here?"
"Can't you guess?" asked Diantha. "And you're supposed to be such a clever hobbit! Doesn't Pip tell you our news?" She lowered her voice to a hissing whisper, even though there was no one around except for the innkeeper and one or two newcomers at the bar on the other end of the common room. "Isigo Pumble! You remember him, Frodo? And now you'll be surprised--my cousin Di is here too!"
"Here?" Frodo looked around the room, and set the two young hobbits into another fit of gleeful giggles.
"No, not here," Pippin said in a conspiratorial tone. "I met all three of them here, since it was right on the road, but I couldn't let little Diamond and Isigo stay here, where they might be seen."
"It doesn't matter so much for me," said Diantha. "They'll be looking for two girls and a boy, and I've been dressed like a boy since we left the Cleeve."
"I've put them someplace safe in hiding," Pippin went on.
"But why?" Frodo asked.
"Isigo had to get away. It's been awful since Granduncle Brabantius died," said Diantha. "Uncle Alhazrus is the worst Thain that ever was, only I'm sure Ulfidius will be even worse when it's his turn. Aunt Di--Lady Diamanta, we must call her now--is unbearably high-and-mighty. And the rest of them are almost as bad. You never saw such snobby hobbits! We're hardly welcome in the Thain's house any more, Poppa and I, but we don't care to go anyway. We're Isigo's friends, and they can't bear it. He hardly has any other friends in the Cleeve.
"Oh, Frodo, they've been horrible to him. Uncle Alhazrus said he wasn't fit to be an agent, even though he's done a good job of it--said he wasn't to be trusted with money! As if he were a thief! Then he said Isigo had to leave the little cottage he'd been living in up north, since it's the Thain own property. Granduncle gave it to him, but Uncle Alhazrus took it back. Now that was stupid of them," Diantha spoke with contempt. "They wanted to make him go away, but the poor lad had nowhere else to go but to us! If they'd wanted to keep him away from my cousin Di, they'd have better let him go on working in the north. But they had to be as cruel to him as could be, and their own meanness turned and bounced back against them. Just what they deserved! We couldn't let poor Isigo starve to death under a hedgerow, could we? Poppa had him come live with us. That's why we aren't welcome at the Thain's Hall anymore. That, and I was always asking Di to come over. They could see each other almost every day, and if they weren't in love before, they are now."
Both Diantha and Pippin laughed triumphantly at this.
"They've run away together," Pippin said. "They want to be married. Isn't it wonderful? And I'm going to help them do it."
They were both so guileless and innocent of suspicion that Frodo felt guilty. It was as if he had already betrayed them.
After the two had finished their ales and gone back for another, Pippin said, "Come along, Frodo--we'll show you." They went out of the inn and through a flank of the pine wood to the east. The snow was coming down heavily now, but they were sheltered from it beneath the thickset evergreen branches.
"When we came here, Pippin said he knew the best place for us to hide," Diantha told Frodo as they walked. "His friends in the circus stayed there once."
"Mr. Grimmold's circus? You're not camping out in the woods in this weather?" Frodo was horrified for Diamond's sake; the other three might not mind sleeping rough, but she was a more delicate creature, accustomed to the most comfortable surroundings. He remembered that stony end of the little cavern where the circus had made their camp. Even then, it was a freezing and miserable spot.
Di laughed. "No--it's a farm."
"Noddy Ferndingle's!" Pippin, who was walking ahead of them, shouted back.
"He says he knows you, Frodo."
"Yes, he was once a client of mine. I remember the farm well." They had passed through the wall of pine trees and, as they left their cover, emerged on the top of a hill; the Ferndingle farm was snug in the little dell below. The fields and harvested meadows were white, and the thatched roofs of the barn and farm-cottage were covered with a fine dusting of snow. Smoke rose from the kitchen chimney.
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