Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [59]
Then Túrin sat in silence, and strove with his pride, which would not let him turn back; and he brooded on the years that lay behind him. But coming suddenly out of his thought he said to Beleg: ‘The elf-maiden whom you named: I owe her well for her timely witness; yet I cannot recall her. Why did she watch my ways?’
Then Beleg looked strangely at him. ‘Why indeed?’ he said. ‘Túrin, have you lived always with your heart and half your mind far away? You walked with Nellas in the woods of Doriath, when you were a boy.’
‘That was long ago,’ said Túrin. ‘Or so my childhood now seems, and a mist is over it – save only the memory of my father’s house in Dor-lómin. But why should I have walked with an elf-maiden?’
‘To learn what she could teach, maybe,’ said Beleg. ‘Alas, child of Men! There are other griefs in Middle-earth than yours, and wounds made by no weapon. Indeed, I begin to think that Elves and Men should not meet or meddle.’
Túrin said nothing, but looked long in Beleg’s face, as if he would read in it the riddle of his words. But Nellas of Doriath never saw him again, and his shadow passed from her. 12
Of Mîm the Dwarf
After the departure of Beleg (and that was in the second summer after the flight of Túrin from Doriath) 13 things went ill for the outlaws. There were rains out of season, and Orcs in greater numbers than before came down from the North and along the old South Road over Teiglin, troubling all the woods on the west borders of Doriath. There was little safety or rest, and the company were more often hunted than hunters.
One night as they lay lurking in the fireless dark, Túrin looked on his life, and it seemed to him that it might well be bettered. ‘I must find some secure refuge,’ he thought, ‘and make provision against winter and hunger’; and the next day he led his men away, further than they had yet come from the Teiglin and the marches of Doriath. After three days’ journeying they halted at the western edge of the woods of Sirion’s Vale. There the land was drier and more bare, as it began to climb up into the moorlands.
Soon after, it chanced that as the grey light of a day of rain was failing Túrin and his men were sheltering in a holly-thicket; and beyond it was a treeless space, in which there were many great stones, leaning or tumbled together. All was still, save for the drip of rain from the leaves. Suddenly a watchman gave a call, and leaping up they saw three hooded shapes, grey-clad, going stealthily among the stones. They were burdened each with a great sack, but they went swiftly for all that.
Túrin cried out to them to halt, and the men ran out on them like hounds; but they held on their way, and though Andróg shot arrows after them two vanished in the dusk. One lagged behind, being slower or more heavily burdened; and he was soon seized and thrown down, and held by many hard hands, though he struggled and bit like a beast. But Túrin came up, and rebuked his men. ‘What have you there?’ he said. ‘What need to be so fierce? It is old and small. What harm is in it?’
‘It bites,’ said Andróg, showing his hand that bled. ‘It is an Orc, or of Orc-kin. Kill it!’
‘It deserved no less, for cheating our hope,’ said another, who had taken the sack. ‘There is nothing here but roots and small stones.’
‘Nay,’ said Túrin, ‘it is bearded. It is only a dwarf, I guess. Let him up, and speak.’
So it was that Mîm came in to the Tale of the Children of Húrin. For he stumbled up on his knees before Túrin’s feet and begged for his life. ‘I am old,’ he said, ‘and poor. Only a dwarf, as you say, and not an Orc. Mîm is my name. Do not let them slay me, lord, for no cause, as would the Orcs.’
Then Túrin pitied him in his heart, but he said: ‘Poor you seem, Mîm, though that is strange in a dwarf; but we are poorer, I think: houseless and friendless Men. If I said that we do not spare for pity’s sake only, being in great need, what would you offer for ransom?