The Roots of the Mountains

  CHAPTER LII. OF THE NEW BEGINNING OF GOOD DAYS IN SILVER-DALE.

  ON the third day there was high-tide and great joy amongst all men fromend to end of the Dale; and the delivered thralls were feasted and mademuch of by the kindreds, so that they scarce knew how to believe theirown five senses that told them the good tidings.

  For none strove to grieve them and torment them; what they would, thatdid they, and they had all things plenteously; since for all was thereenough and to spare of goods stored up for the Dusky Men, as corn andwine and oil and spices, and raiment and silver. Horses were there also,and neat and sheep and swine in abundance. Withal there was the good anddear land; the waxing corn on the acres; the blossoming vines on thehillside; and about the orchards and alongside the ways, the plum-treesand cherry-trees and pear-trees that had cast their blossom and wereoverhung with little young fruit; and the fair apple-trees a-blossoming,and the chestnuts spreading their boughs from their twisted trunks overthe green grass. And there was the goodly pasture for the horses and theneat, and the thymy hill-grass for the sheep; and beyond it all, thethicket of the great wood, with its unfailing store of goodly timber ofash and oak and holly and yoke-elm. There need no man lack unless mancompelled him, and all was rich enough and wide enough for the waxing ofa very great folk.

  Now, therefore, men betook them to what was their own before the comingof the Dusky Men; and though at first many of the delivered thrall-folkfeasted somewhat above measure, and though there were some of them whowere not very brisk at working on the earth for their livelihood; yetwere the most part of them quick of wit and deft of hand, and they mostlyfell to presently at their cunning, both of husbandry and handicraft.Moreover, they had great love of the kindreds, and especially of theWoodlanders, and strove to do all things that might pleasure them. Andas for those who were dull and listless because of their many torments ofthe last ten years, they would at least fetch and carry willingly forthem of the kindreds; and these last grudged them not meat and raimentand house-room, even if they wrought but little for it, because theycalled to mind the evil days of their thralldom, and bethought them howfew are men’s days upon the earth.

  Thus all things throve in Silver-dale, and the days wore on toward thesummer, and the Yule-tide rest beyond it, and the years beyond and farbeyond the winning of Silver-dale.