The Lord of the Rings

come with me as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘I wish I could carry you. You aren’t fit to walk any further. They shouldn’t have let you walk at all; but you must forgive them. So many dreadful things have happened in the City, Merry, that one poor hobbit coming in from the battle is easily overlooked.’
    ‘It’s not always a misfortune being overlooked,’ said Merry. ‘I was overlooked just now by – no, no, I can’t speak of it. Help me, Pippin! It’s all going dark again, and my arm is so cold.’
    ‘Lean on me, Merry lad!’ said Pippin. ‘Come now! Foot by foot. It’s not far.’
    ‘Are you going to bury me?’ said Merry.
    ‘No, indeed!’ said Pippin, trying to sound cheerful, though his heart was wrung with fear and pity. ‘No, we are going to the Houses of Healing.’
    They turned out of the lane that ran between tall houses and the outer wall of the fourth circle, and they regained the main street climbing up to the Citadel. Step by step they went, while Merry swayed and murmured as one in sleep.
    ‘I’ll never get him there,’ thought Pippin. ‘Is there no one to help me? I can’t leave him here.’ Just then to his surprise a boy came running up behind, and as he passed he recognized Bergil Beregond’s son.
    ‘Hullo, Bergil!’ he called. ‘Where are you going? Glad to see you again, and still alive!’
    ‘I am running errands for the Healers,’ said Bergil. ‘I cannot stay.’
    ‘Don’t!’ said Pippin. ‘But tell them up there that I have a sick hobbit, a
perian
mind you, come from the battle-field. I don’t think he can walk so far. If Mithrandir is there, he will be glad of the message.’ Bergil ran on.
    ‘I’d better wait here,’ thought Pippin. So he let Merry sink gently down on to the pavement in a patch of sunlight, and then he sat down beside him, laying Merry’s head in his lap. He felt his body and limbs gently, and took his friend’s hands in his own. The right hand felt icy to the touch.
    It was not long before Gandalf himself came in search of them. He stooped over Merry and caressed his brow; then he lifted him carefully. ‘He should have been borne in honour into this city,’ he said. ‘He has well repaid my trust; for if Elrond had not yielded to me, neither of you would have set out; and then far more grievous would the evils of this day have been.’ He sighed. ‘And yet here isanother charge on my hands, while all the time the battle hangs in the balance.’
    So at last Faramir and Éowyn and Meriadoc were laid in beds in the Houses of Healing; and there they were tended well. For though all lore was in these latter days fallen from its fullness of old, the leechcraft of Gondor was still wise, and skilled in the healing of wound and hurt, and all such sickness as east of the Sea mortal men were subject to. Save old age only. For that they had found no cure; and indeed the span of their lives had now waned to little more than that of other men, and those among them who passed the tale of five score years with vigour were grown few, save in some houses of purer blood. But now their art and knowledge were baffled; for there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgûl. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly into an ever deeper dream, and then passed to silence and a deadly cold, and so died. And it seemed to the tenders of the sick that on the Halfling and on the Lady of Rohan this malady lay heavily. Still at whiles as the morning wore away they would speak, murmuring in their dreams; and the watchers listened to all that they said, hoping perhaps to learn something that would help them to understand their hurts. But soon they began to fall down into the darkness, and as the sun turned west a grey shadow crept over their faces. But Faramir burned with a fever that would not abate.
    Gandalf went from one to the other full of care, and he was told all that the watchers could hear. And so the day passed, while the great battle outside went on with shifting hopes and strange tidings; and still Gandalf waited and watched and did not go forth; till at last the red sunset filled all the sky, and the light through the windows fell on the grey faces of the sick. Then it seemed to those who stood by that in the glow the faces flushed softly as with health returning, but it was only a mockery of hope.
    Then an old wife, Ioreth, the eldest of the women who served in that