Book IV, Chapter IV: Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit- Read LotR Aloud
South and west it looked towards the warm lower vales of Anduin, shielded
from the east by the Ephel Dúath and yet not under the mountain-shadow,
protected from the north by the Emyn Muil, open to the southern airs and
the moist winds from the Sea far away. Many great trees grew there,
planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless
descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent
terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and
thymes that grew in bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in
deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue
flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys,
and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam. The
grots and rocky walls were already starred with saxifrages and
stonecrops. Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and
asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the
grass: deep green grass beside the pools, where falling streams halted in
cool hollows on their journey down to Anduin.
The travellers turned their backs on the road and went downhill. As they
walked, brushing their way through bush and herb, sweet odours rose about
them. Gollum coughed and retched; but the hobbits breathed deep, and
suddenly Sam laughed, for heart's ease not for jest. They followed a
stream that went quickly down before them. Presently it brought them to a
small clear lake in a shallow dell: it lay in the broken ruins of an
ancient stone basin, the carven rim of which was almost wholly covered
with mosses and rose-brambles; iris-swords stood in ranks about it. and
water-lily leaves floated on its dark gently-rippling surface; but it was
deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far
end.
Here they washed themselves and drank their fill at the in-falling
freshet. Then they sought for a resting-place, and a hiding-place: for
this land, fair-seeming still, was nonetheless now territory of the
Enemy. They had not come very far from the road, and yet even in so short
a space they had seen scars of the old wars, and the newer wounds made by
the Orcs and other foul servants of the Dark Lord: a pit of uncovered
filth and refuse; trees hewn down wantonly and left to die, with evil
runes or the fell sign of the Eye cut in rude strokes on their bark.
Sam scrambling below the outfall of the lake. smelling and touching the
unfamiliar plants and trees, forgetful for the moment of Mordor, was
reminded suddenly of their ever-present peril. He stumbled on a ring
still scorched by fire, and in the midst of it he found a pile of charred
and broken bones and skulls. The swift growth of the wild with briar and
eglantine and trailing clematis was already drawing a veil over this
place of dreadful feast and slaughter; but it was not ancient. He hurried
back to his companions, but he said nothing: the bones were best left in
peace and not pawed and routed by Gollum.
`Let's find a place to lie up in,' he said. 'Not lower down. Higher up
for me.'
A little way back above the lake they found a deep brown bed of last
year's fern. Beyond it was a thicket of dark-leaved bay-trees climbing up
a steep bank that was crowned with old cedars. Here they decided to rest
and pass the day, which already promised to be bright and warm. A good
day for strolling on their way along the groves and glades of Ithilien;
but though Orcs may shun the sunlight. there were too many places here
where they could lie hid and watch; and other evil eyes were abroad:
Sauron had many servants. Gollum, in any case, would not move under the
Yellow. Face. Soon it would look over the dark ridges of the Ephel Dúath,
and he would faint and cower in the light and heat.