A Beautiful, Restful Night
By Pippin
If only I had spoken with him longer, instead of saying that I would help him find a way to look at it in the morning. If I had occupied his time a little more, perhaps he could have waited until dawn, when Gandalf wouldn't let him near the foul thing, much less touch it. And now he's gone and done what I did not think could be done - he has outdone me, a Brandybuck, in terms of inquisitiveness!
I can't even turn to face him, for it frightens me - he is my friend, my comrade! He wouldn't fall so easily, he couldn't! Why, back in the Shire, I was the one to pry and wheedle until my curiosity was sated, I am a Brandybuck after all! Yet he is the one who has been swayed by some thing darker than I can imagine and fouler than I can think of - or can I? If my dearest friend could fall, how difficult could it be for me to do the same?
Would I not have done the same thing, if I had been the one to touch it first?
I awoke to hear his shrill, sharp cry, and instantly I knew, and just as instantly I felt the surge of knowing come about me that even as this evil ate away at Boromir, it has sunk its fangs into my friend. My foolish friend, he's gone and done it now. There's a part of me that says he should just be turned to stone as a warning - stone for stone - but there is too much worry in me to let that thought linger longer than a moment.
He speaks to Gandalf now, and still I cannot turn to face him, for I fear this has somehow also been my fault. If only I had talked until he slept, had convinced him to wait, had retold all of the old jokes we used to tell in The Green Dragon, had remembered our past days when the worst falls we took were the ones when we tumbled down the grassy hills, back in the days when the only thing we had to fear was Farmer Maggot's reaction if we were caught stealing mushrooms. I could have made Pip laugh, I could have made him forget about that thing pulling at him, surely I could have done something to prevent his fall!
Why can't it still be mushrooms, why did it have to be Orthanc-stone?
He'll be all right, I know he will be, he has to be! He can't fall to that power, he can't go down Boromir's path and leave me all alone here! For I fear that it could happen far too easily.
I listen as I stare at the wall before me, hearing my friend's earnest voice tell Gandalf all he heard and tell him that he didn't give up our information. And for the first time, perhaps, I hear it - the change in his voice that silently tells me that it will never be mushrooms again, not even if the fields survive.
And what is this, for I look around and see that Pip's been left alone and Gandalf is speaking with Aragorn, and what? I watch in shock as Gandalf tells my friend that he is to go with him on Shadowfax! Well certainly Pip's all right now, but after doing what he did, he gets rewarded for his foolish deed? Has Gandalf gone mad? Dumplings and gravy, Pip nearly gave us all away and now he gets the very thing he desired - to ride with Gandalf! What luck, what wonderful, awful, unjust luck! Why, I'm of half a mind to tell the fool to come down from that steed at once and beg the company's forgiveness!
Oh fiddlesticks. I do hope Pip causes Gandalf some trouble at least, well, more than he's caused already because I suppose the reason he's going is because of what he's done, but really! That would show the wizard to give unjust rewards. I really am of a mind to talk to Aragorn and question whether he thinks Gandalf has lost his wits.
Pippin shut his eyes and shivered, but said nothing. They all stared at him in silence, except Merry who turned away.
-The Two Towers, chapter XI
"A beautiful, restful night!" said Merry to Aragorn. "Some folk have wonderful luck! He did not want to sleep, and he wanted to ride with Gandalf - and there he goes! Instead of being turned into a stone himself to stand here for ever as a warning."
"If you had been the first to lift the Orthanc-stone, and not he, how would it be now?" said Aragorn. "You might have done worse. Who can say? But now it is your luck to ride with me, I fear. At once. Go and get ready, and bring anything that Pippin left behind. Make haste!"
-The Two Towers, chapter XI