But henceforth would he hold all still till
he should have tidings of Folk-might; so nought was done thereafter
save the warding of the Dale, from the country of the Shepherds to
the Waste above the Eastern passes.
But Face-of-god himself went up amongst the Shepherds, and abode with
a goodman hight Hound-under-Greenbury, who gathered to him the folk
from the country-side, and they went up on to Greenbury, and sat on
the green grass while he spoke with them and told them, as he had
told the others, what had been done and what should be done. And
they heard him gladly, and he deemed that there would be no blenching
in them, for they were all in one tale to live and die with their
friends of Burgdale, and they said that they would have no other word
save that to bear to the Great Folk-mote.
So he went away well-pleased, and he fared on thence to the
Woodlanders, and guested at the house of a valiant man hight
Wargrove, who on the morrow morn called the folk together to a green
lawn of the Wild-wood, so that there was scarce a soul of them that
was not there. Then he laid the whole matter before them; and if the
Dalesmen had been merry and ready, and the Shepherds stout-hearted
and friendly, yet were the Wood-landers more eager still, so that
every hour seemed long to them till they stood in their war-gear; and
they told him that now at last was the hour drawing nigh which they
had dreamed of, but had scarce dared to hope for, when the lost way
should be found, and the crooked made straight, and that which had
been broken should be mended; that their meat and drink, and sleeping
and waking, and all that they did were now become to them but the
means of living till the day was come whereon the two remnants of the
children of the Wolf should meet and become one Folk to live or die
together.
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