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the scouring of the shire 1329
of them obeyed, but were immediately set on by their fellows.
A score or more broke back and charged the waggons. Six
were shot, but the remainder burst out, killing two hobbits,
and then scattering across country in the direction of the
Woody End. Two more fell as they ran. Merry blew a loud
horn-call, and there were answering calls from a distance.
‘They won’t get far,’ said Pippin. ‘All that country is alive
with our hunters now.’
Behind, the trapped Men in the lane, still about four score,
tried to climb the barrier and the banks, and the hobbits were
obliged to shoot many of them or hew them with axes. But
many of the strongest and most desperate got out on the west
side, and attacked their enemies fiercely, being now more
bent on killing than escaping. Several hobbits fell, and the
rest were wavering, when Merry and Pippin, who were on
the east side, came across and charged the ruffians. Merry
himself slew the leader, a great squint-eyed brute like a huge
orc. Then he drew his forces off, encircling the last remnant
of the Men in a wide ring of archers.
At last all was over. Nearly seventy of the ruffians lay dead
on the field, and a dozen were prisoners. Nineteen hobbits
were killed, and some thirty were wounded. The dead ruffians
were laden on waggons and hauled off to an old sand-pit
nearby and there buried: in the Battle Pit, as it was afterwards
called. The fallen hobbits were laid together in a grave on the
hill-side, where later a great stone was set up with a garden
about it. So ended the Battle of Bywater, 1419, the last battle
fought in the Shire, and the only battle since the Greenfields,
1147, away up in the Northfarthing. In consequence, though
it happily cost very few lives, it has a chapter to itself in the
Red Book, and the names of all those who took part were
made into a Roll, and learned by heart by Shire-historians.
The very considerable rise in the fame and fortune of the
Cottons dates from this time; but at the top of the Roll in
all accounts stand the names of Captains Meriadoc and
Peregrin.
* * *