return of the king
the travelers now rode with more speed, and they made their way towards the gap of rohan; and aragorn took leave of them at last close to that very place where pippin had looked into the stone of the orthanc. the hobbits were grieved at this parting; for aragorn had never failed them and he had been their guide through many perils.
'i wish we could have a stone that we could see all our friends in,' said pippin, 'and that we could speak to them from far away!'
'only one now remains that you could use,' answered aragorn; 'for you would not wish to see what the stone of minas tirith would show you. but the palantír of the orthanc the king will keep, to see what is passing in his realm, and what his servants are doing. for do not forget, peregrin took, that you are a knight of gondor, and i do not release you from your service. you are going now on leave, but i may recall you. and remember, dear friends of the shire, that my realm lies also in the north, and i shall come there one day.'
i have nothing much to give you young fellows,' [bilbo] said to merry and pippin., 'except good advice.' and when he had given them a fair sample of this, he added a last item in shire-fashion: 'don't let your heads get too big for your hats! but if you don't finish growing up soon, you are going to find hats and clothes expensive.'
'but if you want to beat the old took,' said pippin, 'i don't see why we shouldn't try and beat the bullroarer.'
bilbo laughed, and he produced out of a pocket two beautiful pipes with pearl mouth-pieces and bound with find-wrought silver. 'think of me when you smoke them!' he said.
inside it was filled with a grey dust, soft and fine, in the middle of which was a seed, like a small nut with a silver shale. 'what can i do with this?' said sam.
'throw it in the air on a breezy day and let it do its work!' said pippin.
but sam was now sorrowful at heart, and it seemed to him that if the parting would be bitter, more grievous still would be the long road home alone. but even as they stood there, and the elves were going aboard, and all was being made ready to depart, up rode merry and pippin in great haste. and amid his tears pippin laughed.
'you tried to give us the slip once before and failed frodo,' he said. 'this time you have nearly succeeded, but you have failed again. it was not sam, though, that gave you away this time, but gandalf himself!'
then frodo kissed merry and pippin, and last of all sam and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long gray firth; and the light of the glass of galadriel that frodo bore glimmered and was lost.
beside [sam] stood merry and pippin, and they were silent.
at last the three companions turned away, and never again looking back they rode homewards; and they spoke no word to one another until they came back to the shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the the long grey road.
at last they rode over the down and took the east road, and then merry and pippin rode on to buckland and already they were singing again as they went.
the end. a beautiful tale closes and so, the last mention of pippin in the lotr series. if this didn't totally depress you, nothing will. i wept while typing it in, again while spell checking... i'm trying to avoid visual contact as we speak for fear of a third breakdown!