Will-o'-the-Wisp
Chapter Five

Rorimac got no sleep that night, and neither did Frodo. It was dark and cold and creepy in the Forest. He regretted his rashness, running away like a baby, but it had been so unfair! He was only helping... Frodo swallowed the thoughts that came to him. 'So life isn't always fair', he told himself firmly, 'and a good person can be in the wrong place at the wrong time'. He squared his shoulders and turned about, trying to find the path he had been following, the path that had disappeared like magic when his lantern had sputtered out in the draft.

This seemed to be unquestionably 'the wrong place'. The trees towered over him, and their closely woven branches kept the light of the moon from helping the forlorn hobbit to see. He felt the silence of their enmity but he ignored them as best he could, focusing on trying to find a familiar turn or trunk to lead him back before he was missed, and oh! would he be in trouble then!

He walked about until he was shaking with chill and exhaustion. Miserably, he seated himself on the sawed ring of a tree-trunk that he had found in a clearing, and looked up at the little patch of stars that the trees grudgingly permitted to shine down into their domain.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the light again, or thought he did. That had been what had drawn him out on this wild quest; he had thought that it had been Elves, traveling through the Forest. He had told himself that if he could see them, just one of them, then it would be worth spending the night in the Forest. But the lights had vanished and not reappeared, until now. Frodo stood up in excitement, his teeth chattering, and he saw that the light did not disappear; it was coming toward him!

It could have been old Rory with Farmer Maggot and all three of his dogs, for all Frodo cared; he hurried toward the bobbing light. But it was not they, or anyone Frodo had ever seen before. It was an old grey man, tall and thin, but bent over and unthreatening. And in his hand was Frodo's lantern, relit and sparkling brightly.

"What's this?" said the old man, "What's this? You are a little young to be out in the Forest alone, waiting to guide old travelers to the gate. What is your name?"

"F...F...Frodo, S...s...sir!" stuttered Frodo through his chattering teeth. "L...lost, s...sir! Help?" The old man immediately wrapped his grey cloak around the shivering child, and lifted him easily in his arms.

"I must say how much I appreciate your coming to escort me. Without your lantern I should have been hopelessly lost." The old man spoke softly to Frodo, who was trembling so violently that he could not respond. The man continued to speak softly to him, and gradually as his chill lessened, he relaxed and then fell asleep against the warm shoulder.

……

"Gandalf the Grey, at your service, Master Rorimac."

The old man re-seated himself in the chair next to the fire, where a very relieved Rory Brandybuck was serving him tea. Master Brandybuck had taken his sleeping nephew from Gandalf's arms after he had heard the knock on the door in the grey hour before sunrise. Now he looked at the old man again, his memory teased by the name.

"Not Gandalf the Wizard!" Rory remembered tales from his childhood of a wandering old man who had displayed the finest fireworks describable.

"Yes, I am Gandalf," said the old man with a gleam of amusement in his eye.

"I can't thank you enough for rescuing my nephew. We had searched everywhere, and I was going into the Forest first thing in the morning..."

"You would have been too late, Master Rorimac." said Gandalf solemnly. "What happened to drive him into the Forest?"

The wizard's reprimand and shrewd question abashed Rorimac, and he confessed to the wizard his troubles with the boy.

"Maybe I should let old Baggins take him in," muttered Rory at the end of his discourse. "Not that I don't love the boy, I know now that I do! But I don't want to pass on a problem, when it is of my own making."

Gandalf looked kindly at Rorimac, but his voice was stern. "This is not a 'problem', it is a young boy, a boy who needs guidance and understanding. From what you tell me, Bilbo has a way with the child, and it just might be the best thing for the lad. For you and Bilbo, too," the old wizard added softly, as if to him self.

"You know Bilbo Baggins?" asked Rory. He had never much given his attention to any of Bilbo's tales beyond the few he told regarding Buckland and directly relevant to himself.

"As well as any, I suppose." said the wizard with a laugh. "He is a good sort, a real gentlehobbit, a cut from the finest cloth." Rorimac nodded, for he agreed that Bilbo was, despite his strange adventurous tendencies, a hobbit of the highest caliber.

"I shall give serious thought to this," Rory said, and he did. And the more he thought about it, the wiser the words of the old wizard sounded.