As he drew near to Stock, Frodo lost the trail. It was now long past noon and there were many hobbits, carts, and ponies about in the vicinity of the town. The four sets of hoof-prints he had followed so diligently through the woods became obscured by a muddy melee. But Frodo wasn't dismayed. He believed that the party would stop here. With the lamed pony, they'd have to. Where they would go in the town was another question, but not a difficult one to answer. Pippin was familiar with Stock; on his way back and forth from Buckland, he always stopped here. Frodo had often heard his cousin speak with particular fondness for the fine ale brewed at the Golden Perch.
To the Golden Perch Frodo went. He first looked in at the inn's stable to see that his pony was fed and watered, and to ask the ostler a few questions.
The ostler confirmed that, yes, a group of travelers had come in at midday. There were four ponies in his stalls; he had brushed down them all and given them warm oats and blankets. He had also examined the bruised foreknee of one mare. The ostler felt sure that the pony was not badly hurt, and would soon be put to rights with a day or two of rest. The party of travelers? He had seen three lads, one also with bruised knees. He couldn't say for sure that they'd gone into the inn, but where else would they go?
Where else indeed?
Frodo next went into the inn for a chat with the innkeeper. Like the keeper of the Green Hill inn, the Golden Perch's owner knew Peregrin Took very well. Pippin had come in about midday with a group of friends, and they'd had luncheon in the private dining room.
"Are they still there?" Frodo asked.
"Mr. Took went out right after lunch with one of the lads, Mr. Baggins. The other two is still here--the youngest lad and a girl. Brother 'n' sister, I reckon, by the look o' them. I gave them a sitting-room to themselves, since the girl's a proper young lady and didn't like to be out in the public room with the rough lot o' lads we have hereabouts. Do you want me to tell `em you're here, Mr. Baggins?"
No, Frodo preferred to wait for Pippin's return. Since he hadn't eaten since leaving Noddy Ferndingle's farm that morning, he had a late lunch as he sat in a quiet corner where he could watch the door but would not be seen by anyone coming in.
It wasn't long before Pippin and Isigo came into the public room. From what Frodo could hear of their conversation, he gathered that they had just obtained another pony.
"...I'll come back for the other one later, after things have settled down," Pippin was saying. "We have to go on tonight."
"Tonight? But I thought we'd stop here for tonight. Diantha is hurt, though she says not, and all this riding in the cold is hard on Diamond."
"But we can't stay! Frodo won't be taken in by a trick for long. He's very clever. For all we know, he's right behind us."
"He is," said Frodo, who had risen and quietly approached the two younger hobbits while they were talking. Isigo and Pippin jumped and turned, startled by the sound of his voice so near. "Or did you think I'd go all the way to Woodhall?"
"Er- no," Pippin answered, dismayed. "I thought it'd take you off our trail for awhile. We couldn't hide anyplace with all this snow on the ground!"
Frodo shook his head. "It wouldn't have mattered. I knew last night that you intended to head for Bucklebury Ferry."
"How did you know?" asked Isigo.
"Pippin told me."
"I didn't!" Pippin protested, since Isigo was giving him a reproachful look. "I never said a word about Bucklebury Ferry."
"You didn't need to," said Frodo. "You said you were going to see Isigo and Diamond married. To do that, you'd need a magistrate to witness their signing their names in his registry book." The hobbit marriage ceremony was a two-part affair: the public hand-fasting, which was normally followed by an enormous party, and the signing of the book of births, marriages, and deaths kept by the local magistrate, or his clerk if he had one, officially recording the fact of the marriage. This signing could take place before or after the public occasion--in the case of a secret marriage, it might be months before. "What other magistrate in all the Shire could you turn to except for Merry? You wrote him, didn't you--that's why you were dallying about the Green Hill Inn, to wait for his answer before you headed to Buckland. Here it is, by the way." Frodo produced the letter the Green Hill Inn's keeper had given him and handed it to Pippin.
Pippin turned the letter over in his hands and noticed that Frodo hadn't broken the seal to read Merry's reply, then tucked it into his own coat pocket unopened. A door at the beginning of a corridor that led away from the public room opened and Diamond peeked out. She looked alarmed to see Frodo. Isigo went to her, leaving the door still slightly open.
Now that they were alone, Pippin grinned at Frodo. "You know Merry'll be as glad as I am to see Diamond married."
"That may be, but he couldn't do it."
"Of course he could! Merry's got as much right to register marriages as any other magistrate in the Shire."
"But he can't register a marriage between two people who are underage. It wouldn't be legal. The nuptials would be worthless. Enough of this nonsense, Peregrin Took." Frodo took him by the arm and led him back into the quiet corner where he'd been waiting; Pippin, dazed at Frodo addressing him in the same tone as his mother did when she scolded him, went without a struggle. "You say you want to help them, but I don't believe you care as much for their welfare as I do," Frodo said in a harsh whisper. "You treat this as if it were all a grand joke, but this is no laughing matter. Are you truly trying to do what's best for those two children, Pip, or are you only interested in what their marriage means for yourself? You'd like to shove that girl off onto anyone else, so long as it means your family will stop shoving her at you."
"Not anybody," Pippin said, stunned into meekness by Frodo's vehemence. "She's a sweet girl."
"So she is, and she deserves better treatment than this from you."
"She deserves a better husband than I'd ever be. Why can't I help her to get one?" Pippin asked plaintively. "It's not just me being selfish, Frodo. Honestly, it's not. I do want to help them. But if Diamond ends up married to a boy she truly loves, then it'll be good for me too. If I help her now, it'll show everybody how much I really mean it when I say I don't want to marry her myself. And maybe they'll stop nagging me about it." His brow furrowed with a frown. "Isigo is a nice lad. Don't you think so, Frodo? Won't they be happy?"
"I think he is a thoroughly decent boy and I hope he and Diamond will be happily married in the end. But, Pippin, they are both so very young and inexperienced. They aren't prepared for the problems they'll have to face as a married couple. With this beginning, a happy ending won't come so easily for them. Things naturally work themselves out for boys and girls who fall in love, especially when they have the support of their families, but that isn't true for them, any more than it is for people like us. We had to plan it all out, didn't we? You and Merry, before you could be happy together at Crickhollow? You remember how much trouble you had before you settled things. And me and Sam and Rosie." Frodo tried a different tack. "What if your intended prank came off just as you'd planned? You reached Buckland, met Merry, and had him register Isigo and Di as married--never mind whether or not it was legally done. Say that when her family learns of it, they disown her rather than drag her back to the Long Cleeve in disgrace. What would happen to the two of them afterwards? Isigo has no family of his own, and few friends."
"He has me. I'm his friend."
"And what can you do for him? When you are Thain, you can do much--give him work, a home anywhere in Tuckborough--but it'll be years before you're in a position to provide those things. If he marries Diamond, he will have to support a wife who's accustomed to a comfortable home. Unless the old Thain left him a fortune, his inheritance won't last long if that's all they have to live on. Will you support them on your allowance? What if they have children? Can you see that they're all looked after? If Diamond marries without her family's approval, they would refuse to aid her if she needed help in a year or two. Or they could insist she leave her husband and return home--you know they might very well do it. We have to consider all of that, Pippin. If this marriage is to come off properly, it has to begin in the right way."
"Frodo?" It was Diamond. During this urgently whispered conversation, she had emerged from the room where she had been hiding and was standing a few feet away. Frodo wondered how long she had been there.
But if she had overheard him speaking of "people like us," Diamond was too concerned with her own problems to be curious about what Frodo meant by it. "Frodo," she said again, shy now that she had his attention. "You don't have to go on chasing us. I will see Odonto. You can write and tell him where we are."
Isigo and Diantha had also come out of the room after her; Diantha leaned on the curved doorjamb, favoring one leg. Diantha let out a cry of protest, and Isigo said, "Di! You're not giving up, are you?"
"No-" She turned and held out a hand to him. Isigo rushed to seize it in both of his. "Oh, darling, no! I won't give you up, not ever! But Frodo's right." There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. "We can't go on running and hiding. I'm tired of running, and I can't hide away for two years, 'til I'm old enough. We can't be married without Mama's and Papa's approval."
"They won't ever approve of me."
"Di, you know they won't," her cousin added.
"We'll have to make them." Still clasping Isigo's hands, Diamond turned back to Frodo. "You'll help me, won't you?"
"Yes, of course," Frodo promised. It was what he'd hoped to do from the first.
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