With a sudden rush of feathers and beaten air, a large grouse exploded out of
a low lying bunch of shrubs.
WHAP!
The bird dropped senseless out of the air, struck by a stone from Brown's
sling. As it hit the ground, he dashed over and seized the bird before it
could regain consciousness. He dashed its head sharply against a tree to kill
it, then tied it by its feet to length of cord on his knapsack, where hung
three fattish quail.
He had been hunting opportunistically all that morning, as he walked along the
hedgerows and through the thin woodlands which bordered the fields. Like most hobbits, he was a good shot with a sling, and, as he walked quietly (except for when he whistled, which he did very loud and very well), he would often come upon small hedgerow creatures while they were yet unaware of his presence, or startle them suddenly out of their hiding places.
Presently, he was walking along a low stone wall that, though it now lay in shambles, had probably once marked the boundary of a farmstead. All that remained now was a broad, gently sloping field of green grass.
Hullo! There IS something else left. Ahead, where the wall appeared to make a right turn, was the remains of a small farm cottage. Its thatching had long since disappeared, and the windows were hollow and empty, but the sturdy stone walls still held their mortar.
Brown was well-travelled, and stone buildings did not give him much pause, as they might hobbits who had never passed out of the central regions of the Shire. The stone walls of the cottage and the long, low wall surrounding what had been the farm stood memorial to the battle between the farmer and the earth; the stones used to build the structures had evidently been pulled from the field in an attempt to make it fit for cultivation.
So many rocks...no wonder they left. I would. Give me the woods and the wild any day.
He stepped over a fallen beam through the doorway of the cottage. His foraging instincts, developed by years of rambling, insisted that he at least take a quick look around for anything of use, though the most he expected to find was perhaps an old stove or a rusty tea-kettle. And he proved to be absolutely right. He found both of these things, evidently abandoned in the defeated farmer's hastily beaten retreat.
And this brought up an issue rather dear to his, as to any hobbit's, heart:
Speaking of tea...I haven't eaten since breakfast. Thereupon he sat down in the midst of the fallen timbers and broken glass upon an old stool that must have been also overlooked, and removed his knapsack. He did not mind eating second breakfast cold, especially since he was in mid-hike at the moment. Besides, he was eating it rather before the hour this particular morning. It made sense to get in a meal while he could, since there might be some proper leftovers down at Fred and Tansy's, and he would then have the good fortune to have eaten a second second breakfast. This made him smile.
As he ate, he pulled an old book from the rubble, its leather cover warped and cracked. Munching on an apple, he opened the book on his knee and began to read from the first badly damaged and yellowed page.
MERIADOC BRANDYBUCK'S
LETTERS AND SPEECHES
with Elucidations
by
Carl Brandybuck
Vol. I-II