Chapter 1. The One that Almost Got Away

Splash!

The boy's head jerked up, and the sheepdog rose swiftly to its feet and whined, nose raised to sample the breeze. It was a large splash for a small stream, after all, and what could it portend?

The young hobbit was hardly frightened, here on his father's land, and he wasn't the kind who frightened easily, at any event. As a matter of fact, he was rather more inclined the other way, rather more bold and curious than was good for him. Or so his mother, a solid and steady Banks had been heard to say on more than one occasion.

To which his Tookish father would answer, after a shake of the head, that the lad was, after all, a Took, and descended from the Old Took himself, and so a little spirit was only to be expected.

To which the mother would sigh and observe that “a little spirit goes a long way.”

To which the father would heartily agree. It was why, more often than not, when Pip's older sisters or cousins were not keeping watch on him (he was, after all, only eight), Paladin was happy to set the lop-eared sheepdog on the task.

Lop, with his one ear that stood straight up and the other that flopped halfway, loved young Pippin next best to the sheep, and that was saying something. Theirs was a friendship from faunthood, more or less, for Pearl had taken the little lad when he was still tottering about in gowns, to see the new litter of pups, fat little balls of fluff with legs as unsteady as any faunt's. One of them had crawled with determination to the feet of the delighted young hobbits, sprawling at last in exhaustion upon Pippin's feet, enduring the clutching hands and squeals of glee, nay, enjoying its predicament, rather, with wags of its little tail and essays of a tiny pink tongue.

The pup grew more rapidly than the faunt, of course, and it was not too many months before he towered over his young lord. He was well brought up, however, and did not take advantage of his size, but obeyed lisping commands with adoration in his dark eyes, and a tail that waved delight.

He took to sheepherding as a duck to water, and his skill with the sheep stood him in good stead when it came to watching over the hobbit lambkin as well. He was a walking wall, keeping himself between Pip and danger (and Pip's mother from a good deal of worry into the bargain).

The dog rose at the splash, and Pip rose as well from the hole he'd been digging, here at the far end of the near field, just under the shade of the copse, the smial all the way across the field but still within sight. A little stream ran through the wood, between the near field and the far meadow, and sometimes Pip fished here with his father or uncle or a cousin, but never alone. Indeed, he'd never stood upon its banks without a hobbit companion, for the faithful dog kept him well away when no older hobbits were near.

But now the dog stood undecided, scenting the breeze, eyes intent, and then he stepped forward, further into the wood, and stopped again with another whine and an anxious, curiously eager look.

'What is it, Lop?' the lad said brightly, stroking the soft coat. 'What is it? A big trout?' It had been quite a splash, after all, the biggest fish he could imagine, and here he was without fishing gear. He was without an older hobbit, as well, but that didn't bother him. He was sure he could catch a trout, even the biggest trout, without trouble. Hadn't his mum exclaimed over the size of the last fish he'd brought home for her to fry?

He'd just go and see what was what. If he could spot the great fish in the stream, why, perhaps he and Lop might catch the creature together, gear or no gear. His Buckland uncle had told him all about how they sometimes tickled the fish out of the streams in Buckland... why couldn't a Took do just as well?

Oddly enough, the dog seemed of the same mind. He didn't try to bar Pip from the stream as he ought, but fell in beside the determined lad. They walked together deeper into the wood, in the direction of the great splash, Pippin's fingers still curled in the dog's fur.

When they came in sight of the stream, the dog sat down in dismay, his jaw dropping that he might pant his distress. The lad, however, broke into a run, tripping over tree roots in his hurry.

There was a Man in the stream!

...and not just in the stream, not wading, O no, but lying with his face in the water, yes, drowning in the shallows that were only knee-deep to a hobbit lad. There was no time!

No time to run back to the farmyard, shouting for help, no indeed, immediate action was needed.

Pip made a splash of his own, jumping from the low bank into the flowing water.

The man's hair waved gently in the current; his clothing was thoroughly wet, though the pack on his back remained dry, perched above the high water mark. (It was a good thing, too, but that comes later.) Pip knew the look of the pack; he gripped familiar shoulders, upon which he'd sat two years earlier, when this Man had found him wandering far from home and brought him to Bilbo's door.

'Robin!' he cried, shaking at the near shoulder, though he might as well have tried to move a mountain. 'Robin! Get up!' With a great effort, he lifted the heavy head out of the water, but he couldn't hold it for long. He gave a cry as his hands slipped, and the Man's face fell back into the stream. Surely the icy water would rouse him from his swoon! Surely Robin would waken! He had to!

But the Man did not move, did not lift his head from the water, did not seem to hear the summons nor recognise his peril.

Desperate, the boy turned. 'Lop!' he shouted. 'Come! Come here, sir! I want you!'

The dog leapt into motion, suddenly confident, and galloped into the stream, his splashing entry drenching Pip completely with icy water, though the young hobbit had more on his mind than his own comfort.

'Take hold, Lop! We've got to get him out of the water!' He grabbed at the Man's shoulder once more in illustration, pulling as hard as he could. 'Pull, Lop! Tug!'

The dog took hold of one of the shoulder straps on the pack and began a serious game of tug, more serious than any he'd ever played, and he was one who took the game seriously, indeed, in time of peace and pleasure. With the dog pulling in sharp jerks, and the lad pushing and lifting and rolling, somehow they moved the Man just enough to prop his head upon a rock, protruding near the water's edge.

Gasping for breath, the boy steadied the Man with one hand and pulled the lop-leaning ear with the other. 'Go!' he ordered, and pointed in the direction of the farmyard. 'Go home, Lop! Go home!'

The dog panted uneasily. He knew this command. Young Master Frodo would use it, when he was out adventuring with Pippin and a dog was not wanted. It did not seem to fit the situation, however. Young Master Frodo was not here, nor was young Merry, nor any older hobbit, for that matter.

'Go, Lop!' the young hobbit thundered, or at least he tried to thunder, as his father did, to the best of his eight-year-old ability. But the dog sat down in the water, icy as it was, and seemed inclined to stay.

The boy looked down at the Man's precarious position. 'I can't leave him,' he said, in part to himself, but also to the dog.

Lop whined at the entreaty in his tone, and his tail quivered in the water.

'Don't you see, Lop?' the boy said softly, in his most persuasive tone, and yet the dog could hear the sincerity there, and in response laid its great head upon his shoulder. He reached up his free hand to cradle the muzzle, and continued his entreaty. 'Don't you see? I cannot leave him. His face might slip back into the stream, and he'll drown before I can get help. I must hold him here, while you get help. You will, won't you? Go home?'

The dog whined again, softly, throat vibrating through the boy's soaked shirt, and the boy shivered in return. The water was so very cold, but he mustn't leave the Man. He mustn't. 'Go, Lop? Go home? Please, laddy-mine?'

It was as if the dog suddenly made up its mind, or perhaps understanding dawned, for Lop lifted his head from Pippin's shoulder and gave a ringing bark, and then he was gone, streaking away through the trees. He burst from the copse and raced across the field, stretched low to the ground in the way of sheepdogs, running at top speed, silent, intent on his course.

Arriving in the yard he found Pervinca, bearing a basket of eggs. He slid to a stop before her, barking, and she stopped still, clutching the basket, dumbfounded by this uncharacteristic behaviour.

This was not what was wanted. Lop dived at Pervinca, catching at her dress, to try to drag her after him. She screamed, now holding the basket before her as a shield, thrusting it at Lop to drive him away.

A hired hobbit came from the barn, hayfork in hand. 'What, Miss...?' he said, and seeing her apparently under attack, he held the fork low and ran at the dog, shouting.

Lop dodged just before he was spitted, stood to the side, barking wildly, as Eglantine hurried from the kitchen door, a dishcloth in her hand, and Pearl and Pimpernel right behind her.

'What is it, Ned? What's the matter?' she shouted.

'He's gone mad!' the hired hobbit shouted above the barking and Pervinca's screaming.

'Lop!' Pimpernel cried, 'Lop! Down!' but the dog would not heed, simply turned to bark and whine, almost dancing with eagerness.

'Lop!' Pearl added her own shout, but beside her, Eglantine put her hand to her heart in sudden comprehension.

'It's Pip,' she gasped. 'Something's happened to Pip!' And she stretched out her hand to the dog.

At the repetition of the name he loved best, Lop stopped his barking and ran to Eglantine, seizing her hand between his teeth, though so gently as to make no mark, and tried to pull her after him.

'He's mad!' the hired hobbit said again, advancing with the hayfork. 'He's gone mad with the heat!'

'Stay!' Eglantine shouted, and she pulled her hand from the dog's mouth to thrust her palm at Ned in commanding gesture. 'Put that fork down, Ned!'

Such was the force of her personality that Ned dropped the hayfork, and Pervinca stopped screaming and hiccuped, and her sisters fell silent.

Eglantine took the dog's head between her hands. 'Where, Lop? Where is he?'

The dog whined in answer.

Eglantine noticed for the first time the water that plastered Lop's fur to his skin. 'Wet,' she said, her voice shaking, and then, 'Water... the stream!'

She didn't stop to wonder why the dog had not kept her little son from the danger of the stream, but picked up her skirts and began to run toward the distant copse, and in a heartbeat the others were following after. Lop soon caught her and passed her, a white-and-black streak of damp determination, leading the rescue party, and when the hobbits reached the copse they were able to find him quickly by his barking.

He was standing in the stream once more by Pippin when they reached him.

The lad was kneeling in the water, his arms about the Man's head to steady him on the saviour rock, pale and shivering with cold, his lips purple and teeth chattering.

'Peregrin!' his mother cried, splashing into the water.

'I...' Pippin said, barely able to form the words. 'I... c-c-c-couldn't l-leave h-him...'

'No, of course you couldn't,' his mother said, lifting him from the water and passing him to Pearl's outstretched arms.

'D-d-drowning,' Pippin chattered, while Pearl wrapped her apron around him, and her sisters followed suit.

'Can you help me get him out of the stream?' Eglantine said to Ned, standing on the bank with his hands hanging at his sides.

The hired hobbit jumped into motion. He wasn't one to go into a stream, mind, but that the Mistress was there already, before him, and they very well couldn't leave the stricken Man there, now, could they? 'Aye, Mistress,' he said.

In the end, Pearl had to sit Pippin down on the bank, wrapped in aprons, and she and her sisters had to wade into the water to lend their strength to the effort.

When Pippin saw they were about to roll the Man over, he stood up and shouted, pointing, and somehow made them understand what he wanted.

'Of course, his pack is still dry,' Eglantine said, comprehending, 'and we might as well keep his belongings that way. He'll need dry clothing to change into, and certainly nothing of ours will suit!'

Ned managed to wrestle the pack from the Man's back, and carried it up the bank to lay it beside Pippin. 'Now you sit down where your sister laid you, young hobbit,' he said sternly, and Pippin sank down again, taking hold of one of the pack's straps and clinging there as if it might be a lifeline.

'Help him,' he said, still shivering, his eyes very large in his face.

'O' course we're going to help 'im,' Ned said. 'What did you think we were going to do?' And he pointed a stern finger. 'Now you stay there and don't worry yourself over what we're doing, and just let us do it, mind...'

The little lad nodded, swallowing hard, water dripping from his curls down his face, but he was wise enough to say no more.

Ned turned and went back down the bank, and he and Eglantine and the three girls pulled, and pushed, and heaved, and grunted, and somehow they got the Man out of the water and partway up the bank before they had to stop, to pant for air.

Lop helped as well, grabbing at the Man's sleeve and playing his most enthusiastic game of Tug to date.

At last Eglantine had to concede defeat. They could bring him no further, not herself and one hired hobbit and three young daughters, not by themselves. She laid her hand on the Man's neck to feel for the heartbeat. Fast it was, racing, and his skin was warm to the touch despite his soaking. Fever, well then, that would explain the swoon. They couldn't just leave him here, that was certain. They'd need more hobbits, and better yet, a pony, to bring the Man safely to the smial. She sent Ned off to fetch Paladin and the hobbits who were with him, working in the far fields on the other side of the smial.

As to where she'd put him, well, that was a matter for consideration. Before the kitchen hearth, most likely, largest fireplace as it was in the smial, large enough for a hobbit to stand upright, and broad. They could build up a roaring fire, put blankets down on the hearthstones close enough for heat but far enough to be safe from sparks, and they'd pile blankets over the top of the Man as well, though it'd take twice the blankets that a hobbit would need, to cover that length...

She blinked. Here she was, contemplating taking a perfect stranger into her home. But what else could she do?

'He's not a stranger,' Pippin piped at her elbow, and she looked down at him, realising that she must have spoken her thoughts aloud.

'Not a stranger?'

'No, of course not,' Pippin said. 'His name is Robin, and he's a friend of Uncle Bilbo's!'

A friend of old Bilbo's. Well, well. 'And what does a friend of Uncle Bilbo want, in our stream?'

Pippin shrugged. 'I don't know,' he admitted, hugging himself to rub at his arms with his hands. 'Perhaps he wanted to catch a fish. We do have some fair sized fish in our stream.'

Eglantine surprised everyone, herself included, by laughing. 'I'd say we do!' she said, when she could catch her breath. She raised her eyes then, to look through the trees to the field, and saw with relief her husband and half a dozen hired hobbits jogging across the furrows towards them.

'I'd say that we do,' she repeated, and then she hugged her shivering little fisher close and rubbed his back to warm him.

Chapter 2. To Land A Fair Sized Fish

'What's this? What's this?' Paladin panted as he came up to them. Though he was no longer a youngster, the farmer was powerfully built, well-muscled from his daily labours, for he was not the sort to sit back whilst others did the work. No, he was in the thick of it each day – and this day they had been raking and gathering the early crop of hay, cut a few days earlier and left in neat rows to dry. One hobbit would drive the haywaggon, several on the ground would fork the fragrant hay high onto the pile, and one or two tramped back and forth atop the ever growing heap, spreading the hay evenly and trampling it down to make room for more. The hobbits changed positions often, to spread the work evenly as well, and Paladin worked as hard or harder than any of his hobbits. 'A Man? In our little stream? And help is needed?'

Ned, fully winded, had gasped out Eglantine's urgent message, and that she had said that Paladin and as many helpers as possible were needed. Paladin, grasping the seriousness of the affair if not its details, left Ned in charge of the ponies, and led his workers in a charge across the fields, a hayfork in every hand, ready for battle or whatever other crisis might present itself. Tooks might not go about with bows on their backs, looking for trouble, but they had an inner core of toughness and were ready to stare a problem in the face, without blinking or shrinking, when it arose.

Considering how much taller the average Man was, compared to a hobbit, and the fact that his wife and children were involved, and it's understandable that the farmer hurried as fast as he was able, arriving breathless but determined, fork held before him.

Lop met him with tail-waving delight, dancing about, and in his excitement, showering the arrivals with a belated vigorous shake.

'He doesn't need to be spitted,' Eglantine said, rising to meet the rescue party, but keeping one hand on the fevered head in case the man should begin to thrash, and flop over into the stream once more, to risk drowning. 'You may put down the forks, for I doubt he'd the strength to threaten us, even if he were so inclined.'

'He's a friend of Uncle Bilbo's!' Pippin piped, jumping to his feet and scattering aprons to either side. 'He wouldn't threaten anyone! Truly, Da, he wouldn't!'

Somewhat relieved, Paladin thrust his hayfork into the soft earth, and bent down with his hands on his thighs, panting for breath. The hired hobbits, coming up behind, paused in confusion, but kept hold of their forks pending further orders.

'A friend of old Bilbo?' Paladin gasped, looking up. 'What's he doing in our neck o' the woods, then, indeed, what's he doing in our stream? Is Bilbo here? The old hobbit said he was to visit next week, not this!' And he thought of all the haying needing to be done yet, if he was to be able to set aside his work for a day or two to enjoy his cousin's visit properly.

'Well he's not in the stream, anyhow,' Eglantine said, 'but this fellow is, and he needs to be got out of the stream and into a bed... er, some blankets, in any event. We can make up a pallet for him before the kitchen hearth, perhaps.'

'What's the matter with him?' Paladin wanted to know. He'd caught his breath enough to straighten and approach the stream, managing to slip down the bank without splashing his wife overmuch.

'Fever, at the very least,' Eglantine said.

'Fever! And you're there, catching it!' Paladin said.

Eglantine made a wry face. 'Catching a fever's not so easy as catching an oversized fish,' she said. 'And if it's to be caught, well, then, Ned and the girls and Pip and myself have already put ourselves in its path, and we still couldn't budge him enough to get him up the bank and out of the water. And we simply cannot leave him here, whether he's a friend of Bilbo's, or not!'

'No, of course we cannot,' Paladin said with a sigh. It would be a trial if their kindness were repaid with his family and hired helpers all coming down with fever, in the middle of the haying, and with Bilbo due to come visiting with Frodo in only a week's time, but it couldn't be helped. It would be unconscionable to leave anyone, even a stranger, in an icy stream...

'Tam,' he said, turning to the nearest hobbit. 'Go back and unhitch one of the ponies from the waggon and bring him here.' To Eglantine, he said, 'I can see no other way to bear him to the smial, but ponyback. He's a fair-sized fellow...' He lifted the near arm of the Man and eased it over his shoulder, and raised his head to address the rest of the hovering hobbits. 'Well? What are you waiting for? Let's get him onto decently dry ground, at least!'

The rest of the forks were prudently stuck into the ground and the hired hobbits moved forward to help, each seizing some part of the Man or his clothing, Lop helping as well with a grasp of the Man's shirtsleeve in his powerful jaws. With a quick count and coordinated heaves, they hauled him up the bank, laying him on the grassy verge.

Paladin moved to shade the poor Man's face from the rays of the bright summer Sun, and looked to his wife. 'I think you'd better go and get those blankets ready for him,' he said, and then swept his son and daughters with his glance. 'And get yourselves out of those wet things, before you all catch your deaths!'

Chapter 3. Making Do

Eglantine hurried to the smial ahead of her daughters, and put water on to heat. A hot bath would be the best thing for Pip, soaked head-to-toe in the icy stream. Nell and Pearl half-carried their shivering little brother, while Vinca brought up the rear, and Lop ran circles about the children, waving his tail in excitement.

‘Out of those wet things, as your da said,’ she ordered, when they came in through the door. ‘And Pip! As soon as the water’s hot enough, it’ll be a bath for you! Nell, Vinca, see to it. Now, Pearl, I want you to fetch all the extra blankets in the press, and four bedsheets… We’ll make a bed here before the kitchen hearth that’s long enough for him to lie on, and to cover him I hope!’

By using several beds’ worth of linens and blankets, Eglantine was able to fashion a Man-sized pallet before the great hearth in the kitchen. It would complicate matters with meal preparations, but on the other hand it would enable her to keep their unexpected guest under her eye, and ensured that he would stay warm during the cool night hours.

It wasn’t long before they heard the sound of the pony’s slow clopping in the yard. Looking out the window, she saw half a dozen hobbits, three to a side to steady the Man, that he might not slip off to one side or the other, plus Paladin at the pony’s head and two hired hobbits carrying the Man’s pack between them.

‘Whoa, there!’ came her husband’s confident tones.

‘Blankets!’ Pearl cried, hurrying out into the yard with her arms full. ‘Mama says, slip them under him and use them like a litter to bring him in the smial…’

‘A goodly plan!’ Paladin approved. ‘Much easier than trying to gain purchase on his wet clothing, and less likely to drop him. I don’t like the thought of dragging him to his resting place, as we had to drag him up the stream bank.

‘Lay those blankets out, daughter, overlapping – that’s right. Now then, lads, look lively! We’ll just slip him off on the near side, ease him into the middle of Pearl’s “litter”, that’s it… gather round and everyone take hold… and now we’ll take him up, one, two, three!’

With four to a side and one supporting the Man’s head, they soon had him out of the yard and into the kitchen. They eased him to the floor next to the makeshift bed, whereupon Eglantine and Paladin quickly stripped off his soaking clothing. She moved aside so that they could roll him from the damp blanket litter onto the "bed", and then Paladin pulled up the covers, lying handy – two bedsheets that she’d hastily stitched together at the ends, and two blankets that she’d tacked together the same way. She hoped he wouldn’t get tangled in the bedlinens this way, should the fever start him thrashing restlessly.

He lay ominously still, his head dwarfing the pillows, breathing fast and shallow. Eglantine brushed his forehead with the back of her hand – hot! As she’d expected – and let her fingers rest on the pulse point of his throat. His heart was galloping, of course, and even though he wasn't a hobbit, and she wasn't sure how quickly a Man's heart ought to beat, this heartbeat seemed much too fast, in her opinion. All these were signs of high fever. She only hoped he wouldn’t begin to thrash in delirium, or worse, to convulse.

‘Pearl,’ she said, ‘a basin, and cool water, and cloths. We’ll want to keep a cool cloth on his head – I'm sure it should feel as if it were splitting, should he waken, poor fellow. And Dinny,’ to her husband, ‘please, send a hobbit for the healer? I really don’t know how to dose someone so…’

‘…large?’ Paladin finished helpfully. ‘What makes you think Woodruff or Mardi would know?’

‘Well, Woodruff was a healer’s assistant in the South Farthing before she came here, and they have more Men passing through there than in the Tookland,’ Eglantine said. ‘You never know what sorts of odd things she might have seen in those outlandish parts.’

‘And Mardi?’

‘Well, she says she’s taught him nearly all he ought to know. He’ll be finishing his apprenticeship in a few weeks, so he ought to be able to deal with any emergency that’s presented. Or so Woodruff maintains.’

‘I wonder,’ Paladin said, but he nodded to the hovering hobbits, who’d stood back and were watching the Man as if unsure of what they ought to do next. ‘All of you,’ he said. ‘Get some dry clothes on, and then Nod’ – this was the head hobbit – ‘send to Whitwell for the healer. Tell them “high fever” and no more than that. We don’t need the word spreading and crowds coming to look at the novelty of a Man in our kitchen! This is hardly Bag End, after all.’

‘Aye, Dinny,’ Nod said. ‘I’ll go myself, to make sure there’s no loose talk.’ He eyed the other hobbits sternly. ‘And the rest of you, so soon as you’re changed, it’s out to the field again! The hay won’t gather itself!’

There was a general murmur, and soon the kitchen was empty of all but Eglantine, Paladin, and their guest, until Pearl entered. ‘Here’s the cool water, Mama,’ she said.

‘Good,’ Eglantine said. ‘Lay it down here, and then get yourself away. If you’re to take this fever, you’ve likely already laid yourself open to it, but let us not open that door any further than we have.’

She dunked the cloth in the basin, wrung it out, and smoothed it over the hot forehead. Almost immediately the cloth began to warm. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

Paladin bent closer. ‘What else can we do?’ he said.

Eglantine shook her head, plainly worried. ‘I wish I knew,’ she said. ‘I wish old Bilbo were here already. He’s had more to do with Men than most… But then, I don’t know if he’s ever dealt with a feverish Man, or no.’

‘At least he’s got a Man-sized bed in his smial, if he ever does have to deal with one!’ Paladin said. ‘He’s one ahead of us in that.’ He thought a moment. ‘Do you want me to send for him?’

Eglantine considered this. She knew that Paladin had wanted another week of haying before the old hobbit’s visit, but then, the haying might go by the wayside anyhow, what with this unusual and uninvited visitor. If Bilbo could do some good, and they didn’t invite him, but waited until the time set forth for his visit, well, she’d feel terrible!

‘Send him a message, rather,’ she said. ‘Tell him what’s what, give him the choice to come (if he thinks he can help) or to leave young Frodo and come by himself (as he might not want to risk Frodo coming down with fever), or to stay at home until we tell him the fever’s gone.’

Paladin nodded and started out of the kitchen, towards the study, where he kept his writing supplies.

‘Oh!’ Eglantine called after him. ‘And tell him Pip says this Man is an old friend! Perhaps that will help him make up his mind.’

She picked up the already warm cloth and swished it in the water again, wringing it and replacing it on the hot, pale forehead with a sigh, which was echoed by the Man.

‘Feels good, does it, to have the cool cloth?’ she said softly. She shook her head. ‘I wish I knew who you were, and how you came to be here.’

Her forehead creased in a puzzled frown. ‘And how in the world does young Pip know that you’re a friend of old Bilbo’s?’

Chapter 4. A Man in the Kitchen

It seemed an age that Eglantine sat at the stricken Man’s side, wringing out the cloth in icy water (Paladin had chipped some ice from one of the blocks in the ice-house, and added it to the basin) and alternately wiping the hot face or laying the cloth over the Man’s forehead. He gave no sign of noticing her attentions, lying pale and still, only the rapid breaths betraying life.

The hired hobbits had gone back out to the haying. Paladin hovered in a nearby chair, mending harness to keep his hands occupied. Pearl, Nell, and Vinca had been told to hang the Man's wet clothes on the clothesline, and now were off on a picnic, that they might not be underfoot, with strict orders not to return until teatime.

It was a good thing they’d already baked the cakes for tea this morning! It would be a quick thing to assemble sandwiches and lay them out with vegetables and hard-cooked eggs and the teacakes – though it would certainly be a strange thing, for the family and hired hobbits to be taking tea with a blanket-wrapped Man lying before the hearth! It was not something Eglantine could remember ever hearing of before, not even from Bilbo when he got to telling one of his outlandish tales.

Pippin crouched nearby, wrapped in a blanket, as close as his mother would allow him to approach, his eyes enormous in his face. He tried to speak several times, swallowed hard, and finally managed to squeak, ‘Is he… is he going to die?’

Eglantine spared him a glance and scolded herself for not paying him more attention. Poor little lad, he’d risked his life to save this fellow, and all her frowning intensity was frightening him. She deliberately smiled at her brave little son, while stroking the Man’s hair back from his forehead. ‘Not if I can help it, laddie-mine,’ she said. ‘We’re doing all we know how to do, and your Da sent for the healer, and a Quick Post message to Bilbo. Surely that hobbit will know what to do, even if Woodruff or Mardi don’t!’

Pippin nodded, but he didn’t take his eyes off the Man.

Eglantine began to croon, a soothing melody, for all their sakes. It steadied her own heartbeat, and she saw her young son subtly relax, sitting back in his nest of blankets on the floor partway across the room. The Man gave no sign, but surely he must be able to hear… While there was breath, there was life, after all! …or so the old saying went.

She dipped the cloth and wrung it out again, then pulled the covers down to find one of the overlarge hands. She grasped it between her own two hands and pulled it out from under the bed linens. The Man’s hand was so very hot… ‘Do you hear me?’ she said softly, ‘Hallo!’

The quick breaths continued.

‘You’re among friends here,’ she said, squeezing the hand gently. ‘You’re safe. Rest easy.’ She released the hand to dip the cooling cloth again. ‘P’rhaps we ought to sponge him,’ she said. ‘It’s what I’d do for a hobbit… If only…’ She bit back the words that hovered on her tongue, lest she alarm her young son further. What if I do the wrong thing?

The clatter of pony hoofs was heard in the yard, and she sighed in relief. Nod was back, and hopefully he’d brought one of the healers with him, either Woodruff or her apprentice. Of course, if they were both out on calls… No, she told herself. He’d’ve been much longer, if he’d had to hunt one of them down. Though it had seemed an eternity from the time the hired hobbit had galloped out of the farmyard, Eglantine had marked the time by the chiming of the dwarf-made clock in the parlour. It was likely that Nod had found at least one of the healers at home in Whitwell.

‘Well, well, what have we he—‘ came Mardi’s voice as he came through the door to the kitchen. He’d been about to say here, Eglantine knew, but his voice stopped at the same time as his footsteps.

She looked up to see him standing frozen, just inside the door, bag hanging forgotten from his hand, eyes wide and mouth working soundlessly.

‘I’m glad you’ve come so quickly, Mardi,’ she said in welcome. ‘He’s in a bad way.’

‘A Man…’ Mardi gasped at last, not taking his eyes from the visitor. ‘You’ve… a Man in your kitchen!’

‘That’s what I like about you, Mardi,’ Paladin said in an acid tone, rising from his chair, laying down the harness he was mending, and crossing to take the healer by the arm. ‘You always have such a quick grasp of the situation.’

‘A… Man! …in the Tookland!’ the healer said, turning to stare at Paladin. ‘I thought…!’

‘Perhaps he didn’t know that Thain Ferumbras takes a dim view of Men in the Tookland,’ Paladin said, ‘or more properly, Mistress Lalia does.’

‘Perhaps he has a Pass,’ Eglantine said, ‘unlikely, I know, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment. We’re not going to call for a Muster of Tooks to escort him to the border, at least not this very minute!’

‘Come along, Mardi,’ Paladin said, for all practical purposes dragging the hobbit across the room to the hearth, and the Man lying there. ‘You’ve work to be doing.’

‘High fever, your Nod said,’ Mardi said faintly, and then he looked to Paladin in accusation. ‘He didn’t say anything about Men!’

‘No need,’ Paladin said, ‘seeing as it’s not Men we’re dealing with here.’

‘Just the one,’ Eglantine put in. ‘Just one Man.’

‘Who is he?’ Mardi said, shaking himself loose from Paladin’s grip and bending to look closely at the visitor.

‘He’s a Tallfellow!’ Pippin piped from his nest of blankets.

Mardi shook his head. ‘He certainly is!’ He knelt down and took up the pale, limp hand. ‘High fever,’ he said.

Eglantine shared an exasperated glance with Paladin, but managed to hold her tongue.

‘Do you want me to stay, my dear?’ Paladin said, bending to touch her shoulder. ‘I’m sure Nod’s cooling out the ponies, but then he’ll be going out to the field…’

‘No, no, you go on,’ Eglantine said. ‘I’m sure that Mardi and I will be fine here.’

Mardi looked up as if to say he wasn’t entirely certain, but then he looked back to his patient. From all indications, the Man wasn’t going anywhere, and he wasn’t going to present any danger or difficulty, except maybe to himself.

‘Before you and Nod go off,’ he said, pulling down the bedcovers to bare the Man’s chest. He bowed to listen to the labouring heart and lungs.

‘Yes?’ Paladin said.

‘Water in the lungs,’ Mardi said. ‘We’ll need to sit him up, to help him breathe. Lying as he is, he’s in danger of drowning.’

‘That’s how we found him!’ Pippin said. ‘But we pulled him out of the stream! We did! He oughtn’t to be drowning now, ought he?’

‘Bolsters,’ Mardi said. ‘Cushions… anything you can think of, to raise his head and chest.’

Paladin helped Eglantine up from the floor. ‘I’ll get pony rugs from the barn,’ he said. ‘Together with bolsters from the beds and cushions from the parlour…’ He was gone immediately after, jogging across the yard, for Mardi’s tone told him there was no time to lose.

‘Pip, you stay there in your blankets,’ Eglantine said, before hurrying out of the kitchen.

‘So, young Pip, were you in the stream as well?’ Mardi said. ‘I’ll have a look at you in a moment.’

‘Just take care of Robin,’ Pippin said. ‘Please?’

‘I’ll do the best I can, young hobbit,’ Mardi replied. Looking down at his patient, he shook his head. He took the warm cloth from the forehead, dipped it in the icy water, and began to sponge the Man’s chest, neck, and shoulders. ‘I’ll do my very best.’

Chapter 5. An Un-expected Message

‘Someone at the door!’ Bilbo called down the hall from his study. ‘Frodo, lad, would you be so good as to…?’

‘Quick Post!’ Frodo exclaimed, having already opened the green door to see a hobbit standing, hand raised to knock again. An impatient pony pranced behind him at the end of the reins, lathered and breathing hard, but evidently eager to run again.

He fished in his pocket for a coin – they’d been planning to go down to the market later, so he was prepared with coins in his pocket, to dally at the candymaker’s table – and held it out to the messenger with one hand, while taking the extended paper with the other.

‘Thanks!’ the young rider said with a grin – it was clear he loved the excitement of his work. ‘Must be off!’ And without another word he turned to his pony, vaulted into the saddle, and was off at a good clip, down Bagshot Row and the Hill road beyond.

‘Quick Post!’ Bilbo said, arriving at the door in time to see the dust raised by the pony’s departure. ‘Well! He certainly was in a hurry…’

‘Didn’t even wait for an answer,’ Frodo said. ‘Don’t they, usually?’

‘Not if there’s bad news,’ Bilbo said, a frown creasing his forehead as he took the folded paper from Frodo’s hands. Seeing Paladin’s seal, he pursed his lips, troubled. ‘Why don't you brew us each a cup of tea, dear boy?’ And as Frodo started to turn away, to obey (albeit reluctantly, for the tween was burning with curiosity about the contents of the message), he added under his breath, ‘I do hope nothing’s happened to that young rascal.’

‘What young rascal?’ Frodo said, immediately alarmed and forgetting all about teapot, tea, and Bilbo's request. His hearing was sharper than the old hobbit gave him credit for, a faculty that had stood him in good stead when he was "one of the worst young rascals of Buckland" and also came in handy when any of several certain mysterious visitors stopped at Bag End for a night or three.

Bilbo broke the seal and shook the message out of its folds, rapidly scanning down the page. He put a reassuring hand on Frodo’s arm. ‘Not young Pip,’ he said, ‘nor Merry, I’m glad to say, for it’s about the time when the Brandybucks make their usual summer visit, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ Frodo agreed, though he was being devoured with curiosity as to the contents of the Quick Post message. In point of fact, the Brandybucks’ usual visit to Whittacres was a large part of the timing for his and Bilbo’s anticipated journey next week. ‘But what is it? What is the message about?’

Bilbo held out the page and took his hand from Frodo’s arm to point out the relevant passage. ’Found a Man in our stream, it says,’ he read. ‘A Man! Of all things…!’

‘And Pip says he’s an old friend of yours…’ Frodo read. ‘An old friend?’

‘I can think of several off the top of my head,’ Bilbo said, though he didn’t elaborate. ‘Seriously ill, eh? Need my help and advice…’ he snorted. ‘That’s Paladin all over,’ he went on, ‘if it’s quite convenient for you to come! I bet Aggie asked him to put that part in.’ Despite the gravity of the situation, he chuckled, and answered Frodo’s wondering look by saying, ‘I’m sure it wasn’t quite convenient at all, for Paladin, for a Man to trespass in his stream in the middle of the haying!’

He looked down at the paper once more. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said under his breath. ‘At a loss, are they? I shouldn’t wonder…’ And then he looked up. ‘Pack your bags, Frodo! We’re off to Whittacres, as quickly as we may go on borrowed ponies!’

‘Right away!’ Frodo said, and was off to his room.

Bilbo gazed after him with a fond smile, remembering this “worst young rascal of Buckland” borrowing a pony for some prank or other. He had no worries about the lad being able to keep up with him, riding at a good clip. It was a good fourteen miles across the fields, and he thought it might take them about two hours, perhaps a little less, if the ponies were fast ones.

He went to throw a few things into a bag for himself, remembering to include several pocket handkerchiefs, enough for himself and the lad, in case Frodo should forget to pack his own.

Chapter 6. Help Arrives

They did not gallop in wild abandon, as Frodo might have wished, for Bilbo set the pace. The older hobbit made concessions for the warmth of the day, and he alternated between a gentle canter and a trot. It was faster than a hobbit might go on foot, at least. Though the ponies’ hides were darkened with sweat, they did not break into a lather. Furthermore, when they reached the outskirts of Tuckborough, Bilbo pulled his pony down to a walk and waved to Frodo to do the same.

The tween thought he knew what his elder was about, and though he chafed to arrive at the farm, he understood that it was safer to walk their ponies through Tuckborough. He figured that once they rounded Great Hill, skirting the Great Smials, they’d enjoy the breeze of their ponies’ passing once more. He was wrong.

Knowing the way to Whitwell, and Whittacres beyond, had he been riding by himself he might have kicked his pony into a run. How he wanted to do so! Riding along sedately at a walk was tiresome, but having lived with Bilbo for nearly a decade, Frodo knew the older hobbit usually had a good reason for all he did.

…as was the case, as they walked their ponies down the farm lane that led to Whittacres. Bilbo patted his pony’s shoulder, no longer wet but crusted a little with dried sweat. ‘Nicely cooled out,’ he said. ‘I expect Dinny and his hobbits will still be in the fields, gathering as much hay as is hobbitly possible on such a glorious day! This way, my lad, you won’t have to walk the good beasts in circles to cool them sufficiently, whilst I’m in the smial dealing with my “old friend”, worrying about you with the sun beating down on your head until you’re quite as warm as a hard-ridden pony.’ And he looked at Frodo sternly, and the tween had the grace to blush.

‘Yes, Uncle,’ was all he could say, but it was enough, for Bilbo's face was wreathed in smiles once more, and he nodded his approval at Frodo's understanding.

Thus they were able to tie up their ponies in the shade upon their arrival. Bilbo insisted that they also loosen the ponies’ girths. ‘We’ll see they have a drink of water soon enough,’ he said. ‘But first, I’d like to see just which of my old friends stumbled into Paladin’s stream!’

Paladin himself met them as they walked to the smial. ‘Well come, cousin!’ he said to Bilbo, and then to Frodo, ‘Perhaps you might draw some water for your ponies? All my hobbits are in the field…’

Frodo nearly laughed aloud at Bilbo’s foresight, but instead he grinned cheerily and said, ‘Of course!’

Paladin and Bilbo stood looking after him a moment, then turned to the smial. ‘Thoroughly nice lad,’ Paladin said. ‘I’m so glad you rescued him from the Wilds of Buckland, Bilbo…’

‘He rescued me, rather,’ Bilbo said, ‘from a sad and lonely old age.’ And though he looked no older than he had from Paladin’s earliest memories of the hobbit, he nodded to emphasise the sentiment. ‘Best thing I ever did.’

Paladin laid a hand upon his cousin’s shoulder as they walked together. ‘I’m certain it is,’ he said, and smiled, ‘for both your sakes. Now, as to this Man…’

Paladin quickly outlined how they’d found the Man as they entered the kitchen, to be met by strong smells. Mardi was just removing a mustard plaster from his patient’s chest, and onions were simmering over the fire, obviously intended for an onion poultice to help laboured breathing. He looked up to say, ‘High fever, and water in the lungs…’

‘Old Gaffer’s Friend?’ Bilbo asked, crossing to the hearth and falling to his knees beside the propped up figure. He removed the warm cloth that rested over the Man’s eyes, dunking it in the basin, and exhaled in surprise. ‘Why Robin!’ he said. ‘What are you doing in the Tookland? You ought to have passed through Bywater last week! The children were looking for you in the marketplace, and were so dreadfully disappointed, and I had all the makings of a Prancing Pony feast all ready to throw in the pot and place before you on a platter…’

‘You know him?’ Paladin said, and shook his head at himself. ‘But of course you do; you’d hardly greet a stranger so!’

‘No, no, Robin’s a friend,’ Bilbo said. ‘He wanders the Shire in the fairest months of the year, doing a little work here and there where a Tallfellow might be useful, and amusing the children in the marketplace in various towns, with his little conjuring tricks and jests.’

‘He can pull a rabbit from his cap!’ Pippin said from his nest of blankets, where he’d insisted on staying to watch over the stricken Man. ‘Or even a teapot! Hullo, Uncle Bilbo!’

‘Hullo, young sprout!’ Bilbo said fondly. ‘Not traipsing across any fields today, are we? And how is Lop the Sheepdog this day?’

‘Lop is a hero! He went for help when we found Robin in the stream, and helped to pull him out.’

‘I understand you’re something of a hero yourself, young hobbit,’ Bilbo said, and the child giggled.

‘I’m not a hero!’ he said stoutly. ‘Heroes have swords!’ Though Lop obviously didn't have a sword, he did have sharp teeth, to keep predators from the flock, and so the young hobbit's logic stood, at least in his own childlike reckoning.

‘Do they, now?’ Bilbo said with the greatest of interest, and then he looked to the healer. ‘Old Gaffer’s Friend?’ he repeated.

‘It’s good to see you, too, Mr Baggins,’ Mardi said. ‘And no, I’m not sure that it is the Old Gaffer’s Friend, as a matter of fact, though he might well make its acquaintance yet, what with water in his lungs from – what they tell me – drowning.’

‘Found him face-down in the stream,’ Paladin said, and then corrected himself. ‘Rather, young Pip did. He must’ve lifted the fellow's face from the water just in time, for the Man was still breathing when we reached him.’

‘While there’s breath, there’s life,’ Bilbo said under his breath. He wrung out the dripping cloth and placed it on the hot forehead. ‘So what have you tried?’

‘Not much yet,’ the healer admitted. ‘I’m half afraid to give him anything, for fear the dosage either be too little, and do no good, or too much, and do great harm. What am I to do? Double the dose for a Man, of what I’d give a hobbit? What if our remedies are poison to him?’

‘I don’t think that should be a concern…’ Bilbo began, but Mardi wasn’t done.

‘He’s twice as tall as any regular hobbit,’ he said, ‘and yet Woodruff has told me that a Man eats half as much as any decent body ought.’ He looked from his patient’s face to Bilbo’s, honest worry in his eyes. ‘So how do I dose him and do good, without perhaps killing him?’

Chapter 7.  How to Dose a Man?

'How bad could it be?' Bilbo asked, thinking it a reasonable question.

Mardi said, 'I could just let the fever run its course, though it's higher than I like, and if it goes any higher it could have serious consequences for him, send him into convulsions, or worse!' He shook his head and repeated, ‘How do I dose him and do good, without perhaps killing him?’

Bilbo assumed his most reassuring smile. ‘That’s an excellent question, Mardi!’ he said. ‘I can see that your Mistress has trained you well… you don’t just plunge ahead with “what has always worked in the past” but stop and consider. You’ll go far…’

‘That’s all very well,’ Mardi said, bringing the far-traveller back to the matter at hand. ‘But I’d like to be done with stopping and considering – there can be too much of a good thing! – no matter how much good it has done (and I cannot see that “wait and see” is the best cure, though it’s likely better than dosing a Man to death…), his fever is too high for his comfort, or mine, for that matter.’

Little Pippin made a small sound of distress, and scooted a little closer, blankets and all. Eglantine, from where she stood stirring the onions for an onion poultice, cleared her throat at this. Quite naturally the lad looked to his mother. She inclined her head with a meaningful glance. Sighing, he scooted back again to his original spot, to take up his vigil once more, as close as might be, but no closer than his mother would allow.

‘What do you intend?’ Bilbo said.

‘I have Woodruff’s fever remedy in my bag,’ Mardi said. ‘It’ll help his body to work with the fever, to expel the ill humours in his blood.’

‘Tincture of angelica?’ Bilbo said. ‘Rosemary? Yarrow?’

‘Among other things,’ Mardi said, ‘and elderberry and honey to add strength and make it go down more easily.’

Bilbo nodded approval. ‘Yes, that’s what Elrond used…’

‘Elrond? Who’s that, now? I know an Elbert, Grubb, that is, who lives over by the Willlowmere…’

‘The Lord Elrond, Master of the Last Homely House,’ Bilbo said.

Mardi screwed up his face to ponder a moment, then shook his head. ‘Never heard of the place,’ he said. ‘Not a bad name, for an inn, Homely House! … that speaks of comfort! Quite clever, in fact. Though if it were in the Tookland or even the East Farthing I’m sure I’d’ve heard of it. Is it in the South Farthing? My mistress might have…’

Bilbo chuckled.  ‘A little further off than the South Farthing,’ he said.

Mardi made a face. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘One of your Outlandish acquaintances, I suppose…’

‘You’d suppose aright,’ Bilbo said. ‘In any event, when they brought a fevered Man to the Last Homely House, I was on the spot, as it were, and Master Elrond was kind enough to answer my questions…’

‘He must be a kind sort, if he answered you in a civil manner and you were pestering him whilst he was in the middle of trying to help the poor fellow,’ Mardi said pointedly.

‘He’s the soul of kindness,’ Bilbo said. ‘Kind as summer, you might say.’

‘That would be kindness personified,’ Mardi – who was something of a reader of old books – said, ‘but be that as it may…’ He looked beyond Bilbo to Eglantine, who’d folded the onions into a cloth and had brought the onion poultice over to them. ‘Thank you, Missus,’ he said, taking the poultice from her and applying it to Robin’s chest. Eglantine was ready with the hot water bottle to follow, freshly filled with steaming water and stinging, though not burning, hot, and finally the towel to cover all. ‘We’ll let this work, and see if his breathing improves…’

‘Be that as it may?’ Bilbo asked.

‘What did this “Elrond” person – is he a Goodfellow, by chance? They seem to favour unusual names – what did he say about Men, and dosages?’

Bilbo thought perhaps bringing Elves into the discussion might be counter-productive at this point, so he merely said, ‘Well, he said he’d made some study on the matter, after comparing dosages when dealing with a fever in myself, and as he’d dealt with Men before, and, based on his conclusions…’

‘Yes?’ Mardi said.

‘I’m getting to it,’ Bilbo said. ‘Any how, from what I recollect of his thoughts on the matter, I’d suggest you give the Man half the dose you’d give a hobbit, wait a bit to see the result, and then if you think more is needed, give him half again as much as you gave him in the first place.’

‘Three-quarters, you say?’

Bilbo held up a staying hand, ‘Half, I said,’ he said. ‘Half, to start, and as much as three-quarters, for though that would be less than a proper dose for you or for me, it’s quite a lot for a Man, and any more could be dangerous to him.’

‘I’d like to know how he worked that out…’ Mardi said as if to himself. ‘I wonder how many Men he put in danger, before he understood how the dosages worked…’

‘Elrond has the wisdom of age and experience,’ Bilbo said, ‘and while I doubt he would have put folk in danger while learning his craft, it was so long ago…’

‘An elderly chap, is he?’ Mardi said, checking the temperature of the onion poultice.

‘You might say so,’ Bilbo replied, hiding a grin.

‘Very well,’ Mardi said. ‘If I can rouse the fellow, I’ll give him half a dose of Woodruff’s remedy…’

‘…with a goodly amount of water,’ Bilbo said. ‘I seem to remember they made the two of us drink plenty of water, to keep the fever remedy from doing harm instead of good!’

‘The two of you were fevered at the same time?’ Mardi said. ‘Did you catch the fever from him, or was it the other way around?’

‘I just happened to be in bed with a fever,’ Bilbo said, ‘and Elrond was watching over me, when his sons brought this other fellow in – they’d found him wandering in the Wilderlands, out of his head with fever, and as he was a friend of theirs…’

‘Having Men for friends,’ Mardi muttered. ‘It’s just asking for trouble, if you ask me.’ And he shook his head, looking darkly at his patient, who was – truth be told – proving a great deal of trouble for the healer at this particular moment, what with the worrisome problem of dosages and such.

Chapter 8. In the Middle Night

Though little Pip wanted to sleep in his nest of blankets on the kitchen floor, his mother insisted that he sleep in a proper bed – in his bed, as the most proper bed for him, and his only comfort was that Frodo would sleep in the extra bed, the one where Merry would sleep when the Brandybucks arrived a week later. Of course, then Frodo would move to share the guest bedroom that Bilbo occupied, unless Pip was able to persuade Paladin to move another bed into his room, for the duration of the visit, as he had the year before, so that the three cousins could sleep in the same room. If you could call it sleeping… Often they’d end up talking late into the night, but Pip didn’t seem to need much sleep, and hearing Frodo and Merry engage in thoughtful conversation at least kept him abed, which gave Eglantine some peace in the evenings for a change.

At any rate, Frodo slept in the extra bed in Pippin’s room, and Pippin slept in his own bed – or at least he started out there. When Paladin looked in on his way to his own bed, he saw his little son curled tight against Frodo’s back, and the both of them sound asleep. He smiled and shook his head, and taking up the blanket from Pippin’s bed, he laid it over the two sleepers.

Pippin did not stay abed that night, however, not even with Frodo’s company. Sometime between middle night and early breakfast (four o’ the clock, on the farm, a quick cup of tea and a bite of buttered bread and jam before milking the cows), he crept into the shadowy kitchen, where Mardi still dozed by Robin’s side. As the healer had also sent Eglantine to bed – No use your taking ill, Mistress! Believe me, if he has a fever convulsion or goes off his head and starts thrashing, I’ll shout for help! – no one was there to forbid the little lad’s close approach.

Mardi awakened with a start; someone was shaking his shoulder. ‘Huh! What? I…?’ His eyes focused. ‘Pip! Master Pippin, what are you…’

‘He’s all wet,’ Pippin said in distress. ‘Why is he all wet? Did you dunk him in the stream again? What are we to do for blankets?’

Mardi looked from the sad, wondering little face to his patient, laid a hand on the blanket, and gave a wordless exclamation. Then he looked to the lad. ‘Just step back now, lad, whilst I make sure…’

‘Sure of what?’ Pippin wanted to know, but the healer interrupted him with a glad cry.

‘Praise be! The fever’s broken!’

‘He’s well?’ Pippin said, starting forward, but stopping as Mardi held out his hand.

‘Well… not quite well,’ the healer said. ‘But much better, and on the mend. Woodruff’s potion worked as it’s meant to… he’s wet because his body sweated all the fever miasma out of his blood… and now I must stir up the fire, heat water, and bathe him…’

Pippin shook his head. ‘He’ll never fit in the bath,’ he said in all seriousness.

Mardi laughed softly. ‘That he wouldn’t!’ he said. ‘What I’m going to do is give him a bed bath. However, he’s going to need clean, dry bedding…’

‘I have another set of bedding all ready,’ Eglantine said from the doorway, in her nightdress, wrapped in a shawl. Her son’s piping tones had roused her from sleep – a mother’s ear is tuned to listen for such, even in the deepest dream. She moved forward to stand behind her son, putting her hands on his shoulders, kneeling down and wrapping her shawl around the two of them, for the little one was shivering from the night chill, what with the fire burning low on the hearth.

‘Well then,’ Mardi said. ‘I’ll need you to waken a few more hobbits to help me… We’ll get him bathed, and then into clean bedding, and then a bite to eat, I deem. Some broth, with a little bread soaked in it to start, I think… But first, let us waken some helpers, that they may get quickly back to their beds and have a few hours left to sleep…’

‘No need…’ a weak voice breathed, and for a moment everyone was confused as to who had spoken.

And then Pippin gave a glad cry and started forward again, only to be restrained by his mother’s embrace. ‘Robin!’

‘Young Pip,’ the Man whispered, trying to smile. ‘I did come to your home after all… I wanted to, though I wasn’t sure I would be able to find it. Everything was so turned around, I didn’t know if I was going to Gondor or Michel Delving…’

‘What’s Gondor?’ Pippin said curiously, but the healer was saying, ‘Don’t try and get up, sir, for you’ve been dangerously ill. We’ll take care of…’

‘No need to waken anyone else,’ the Man insisted. ‘I’m sure the farmer and his hobbits work very hard and have earned their rest. I need a bath? And fresh bedding? I may be weak as water…’

‘And wet as water!’ Pippin put in.

‘But I can roll off the pallet I’m on,’ the Man said, ‘and if you’ve another blanket or some bed linens handy – though I’m amazed to find something in my size in a Tookish abode…’

‘Your own bedroll is nicely dried,’ Eglantine said, ‘and once you’re clean and comfortable we can certainly get you into it.’

The Man seemed alarmed at the prospect of being bathed, at least with Eglantine in the room, but Mardi soon reassured him that with a little help from Robin himself, the healer would manage just fine.

‘I want to help, too!’ Pippin said.

‘You’re for bed, young hobbit!’ Eglantine said, and to the healer, ‘I’ll just fetch his bedroll and his pack, and he can dress, or you can help him dress, if he wishes, and then slip into his covers and go back to sleep.’

‘But I want to help!’ Pippin protested.

Eglantine was ready to scold, but Robin forestalled her, holding up a hand that shook with weakness. ‘You can be a great help to me, indeed, young master,’ he said.

Pippin was all smiles and eagerness. ‘Just tell me, and I’ll do it!’ he said.

Robin closed his eyes for a moment, though his smile remained, and then he opened them and his gaze sought the young hobbit. ‘I’m very weary,’ he whispered. ‘I think… sleep will be the best healer now. If you could creep to your bed, very quietly, and slip beneath your covers, and let yourself fall asleep, so that I am not tempted to engage you in conversation, it would be a great boon to me… I…’ here he yawned, ‘I… seem to have a great deal of trouble, myself, not talking, as you know… There’s always a story that seems to want telling…’

‘You need quiet and sleep to regain your strength,’ Mardi said to the Man.

‘Ah, but…’ Robin said.

Pippin put his finger to his lips. ‘Shhhhh!’ he said. ‘Stop your talking!’

‘That’s just it,’ Robin murmured. ‘So much to tell…’

Pippin shook his finger at the Man. ‘Hush!’ he said. ‘What ever it is you have to say will keep until the morning! Now…’ he pulled free of his mother’s grasp, ‘I’m off to bed!’

‘Yes, dearling!’ Eglantine said, in complete startlement.

Pippin marched to the kitchen doorway, that opened to the hall leading to the rest of the smial, stopped and turned. ‘No more talking now,’ he ordered sternly.

The three adults all nodded, and Mardi put a finger to his own lips.

Satisfied, the little one nodded and took himself off.

Eglantine built up the fire and readied a pot of broth, as well as filling the teakettle full of water, and set these both to heat, then sliced a loaf of bread and set out bowl, spoon, and ladle for the healer’s convenience. Meanwhile Mardi, after Eglantine told him where to find what was needed, brought out the Man’s bedding – dried on the clothesline and smelling of bright sunshine and fresh wind – and then went back and got the neatly folded clothes that had been quickly scrubbed and also hung out to dry, and then a goodly supply of flannels and towels.

‘There we are,’ he whispered.

‘No talking!’ came Pippin’s voice, floating down the hallway.

Eglantine gave a wry smile, and mouthed, ‘He has very sharp hearing, that little lad!’

Mardi nodded and made a shooing gesture. We’ll take it from here! You go on, Mistress, sleep the rest of the night away, and we’ll see you when it’s time to make morning tea…

Robin added a nod and smile of his own, and the last thing Eglantine saw, looking over her shoulder as she left the kitchen, was the healer, pouring the steaming water into a basin, while Robin rested against the cushions and bolsters propping him. The Man, seeing her look, raised a hand to his forehead as if he were fingering the brim of a cap.

Eglantine, not wanting him to tire himself, simply nodded, smiled, mouthed, Good night! …and took herself off, back to her bed.

Looking in on her little son, she saw Frodo still soundly sleeping in the extra bed, and Pippin in his own bed, but the little lad wasn’t asleep, but sitting up in bed, obviously listening. When she opened his mouth to wish him sweet dreams, he held his finger to his lips.

She nodded, and put her own finger to her lips in agreement.

He smiled a sweet smile, snuggled into his bedcovers, laid his head on his pillow, and closed his eyes with a sigh.

For some reason, Eglantine felt she must tiptoe the rest of the way to her bedroom. She lay a long time listening, but heard nothing, not from Pip, and not from the kitchen. Mardi must be working very silently indeed, even with the little bit of help the Man was able to give.

At last, she fell asleep… as did everyone else in the smial: hobbits, and otherwise.

Chapter 9. And Wake Me 'ere the Morning Light

When Eglantine arose to put the teakettle on for early breakfast, her head felt heavy and things seemed tilted as she stood to her feet. Paladin slept on – but despite very little sleep, some inner clock that matched the chimes of the Dwarf-made clock in the parlour brought Eglantine to full alertness at half past three o’ the clock. The teakettle would be full – she’d refilled it after making a pot of tea for Mardi and their visitor, and filling the basin for washing – and the fire was likely either burning low, or banked, and would be easy to stir to new life. By ten minutes before four the kettle ought to be steaming over the renewed flames, and the hired hobbits would be splashing their hands and faces and then sitting down to bread and jam and fresh-brewed tea before going out to the early morning chores.

She stopped in surprise on the kitchen threshold. Mardi dozed sitting up on the kitchen floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back to the wall, not far from the hearth, where the Man Robin lay upon the hearthstones, close enough for the low-burning fire to warm him, but far enough that he’d be in no danger of the flames should he roll over in his sleep. This was not the sight that surprised the good farm wife, however.

No, it was this: Lop the sheepdog had gained entrance to the smial somehow; perhaps he’d nudged the kitchen door open wide enough to slip in, while the healer visited the privy, and hid himself in the shadows until Mardi fell asleep. That was the most likely explanation, for the door to the yard was at the moment firmly shut… In any event, Lop was curled up tight against Robin’s side, as if to offer the Man his warmth and strength, and curled up within the circle of the sheepdog’s legs, head and tail was little Pip!

All of them – healer, patient, sheepdog, and little lad – were peacefully sleeping as Eglantine stood there, hesitating. As she stepped into the kitchen, however, Lop’s eyes opened and he raised his downy head, flattening his ears and winking in entreaty, as his tail quivered.

‘You auld sneak!’ she scolded softly, and the tail wagged a little harder. ‘You know you’re not allowed in the kitchen!’

Lop had been in the kitchen a time or three in his life, though never by invitation. A pair of the times, he’d followed Paladin or one of the hired hobbits, bearing a newborn lamb, born out in a wild storm and wet and cold and half-dead, to be laid before the fire and wrapped in warmed blankets until the wee creature revived enough to be returned to its mam. The other time was a time burned into Eglantine’s memory – a time when Pip, merely a faunt, had wandered. Lop had joined the search at young Merry’s insistence – the lad had seen the sheepdog tied up, pulling at his rope and whining his eagerness, and had disobediently untied the rope and let the dog pull him along, at least until the two of them found little Pip. Merry had borne Pip home in his arms, a heavy burden for an eleven-year-old, considering the distance Pip had wandered, with Lop following close at his heels, trailing the forgotten rope.

And here was Lop once more – guarding Pip, perhaps, from an intruder? But Eglantine shook her head at herself. No, guarding the Man-sized charge he’d helped to pull from the stream, more likely. It was in the dog’s nature, after all.

In the meantime, the workers would be coming to table, and soon, and at the rate she was moving, they’d have no tea and no bread for their trouble!

She crossed to the hearth on silent hobbit feet, lest she rouse the rest of the sleepers. To eject the dog, she’d have to pick up Pip from his warm nest of furry dog, and she didn’t have time to deal with a sleepy lad – and so she let them be for the moment. Lop laid his head down again and sighed, and his tail twitched a time or two more before coming to rest. Only his eyes moved, following her about as she quickly laid out early breakfast.

She stirred up the fire and added wood, then swung the teakettle over the brightest part of the flame. Next she brought out loaves from the pantry and sliced them, piling the slices on platters on the table. Crocks of soft butter,  spreadable cheese, honey and jam followed, and finally she warmed the teapots and then set the tea to brewing, all with as little noise as possible.

The clock chimed four and all was ready. Eglantine swooped Pippin into her arms and hurried to the yard door,  pulling it open and calling to the dog in a sharp whisper. ‘Out you go!’

Lop was gone in a flash of white-and-black, gone into the darkness of the yard. Eglantine threw a piece of cheese-smeared bread out after him and had the satisfaction of hearing his teeth snap as he caught the treat. ‘And stay out!’ she called softly, but she chuckled as she pulled the door closed.

‘Looking out on the day?’ Paladin said, entering the kitchen as the door clicked into place. His eyebrows went up to see still-sleeping Pippin in his mother’s arms. ‘Aught amiss? Is the lad ill?’

‘Crept out of his bed, more like,’ she said, ‘and fell asleep on watch beside the healer.’ (Healers, she might have said, but didn’t. Paladin didn’t hold with dogs in the smial.) ‘And the air is soft and still, not a breath of wind, and the stars were bright in the sky but are fading already, for the Sun is up betimes in these summer days. It’ll be a fine day, I’m thinking.’

‘A fine day,’ Paladin said in satisfaction. ‘All the better for gathering hay.’

He went to his place at table and stood waiting as the hired hobbits gathered and bowed to him as one, in thanks for his providing bed and board and honest labour. He returned the bow and took his seat, and soon all were eating and drinking and talking quietly, mindful of the healer and his charge, still sleeping by the hearth.

At last they finished and filed quietly out of the kitchen to their chores in byre and barn. Eglantine carried little Pip to his room, where Frodo remained sleeping – he and Bilbo didn’t keep farmers’ hours – and laid the lad in his bed once more. He sighed and snuggled into his pillow as she covered him and bent to kiss his cheek and smooth an errant curl. ‘Sweet dreams, my love,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll call you, I promise, in time for second breakfast. But you need your growing sleep, if you’re to be as tall as your cousin Frodo some day!’

Pippin smiled in his sleep, a smile that Eglantine echoed as she returned to the kitchen to begin preparations for second breakfast. Likely Mardi would waken soon, when the smell of baking bread or frying bacon began to waft through the air, no matter how exhausted the healer might be from his busy schedule. What with his Mistress, Healer Woodruff, recovering from the birth of her first child, there were at the moment only two healers serving the area where there were usually three, and one of them, Hetty, a mere apprentice. A gifted apprentice, perhaps, but still she had only two years of apprenticeship behind her, and Mardi himself had only been declared a full healer this past Midsummer’s Day, after proving his knowledge and ability to Woodruff's satisfaction.

For all their disdain of healers, the Tooks certainly provided plenty of work for the unfortunate creatures. And, it seemed, their visitors did, too.

Chapter 10. A Prancing Pony Breakfast

The sound of a wide yawn, coming from the direction of the hearth, greeted Eglantine as she came out of the pantry bearing the better part of a ham. Startled, she nearly dropped the heavy burden, but had enough presence of mind to stagger the last few steps to the sideboard.

‘You ought not to burden yourself so heavily, Mistress,’ their special guest said, starting up from his bedroll. He was looking much better for the rest, and it seemed his bread-and-broth had strengthened him as well, for he stood as straight as the kitchen ceiling would allow, and neither staggered nor swayed.

‘Now then!’ Eglantine scolded, getting her breath back. ‘You ought to be in bed!’ She moved to the kettle of porridge, steaming over the fire, to give it a good stir.

The Man spread his hands to either side, a winsome smile on his face, and he bowed to her, a graceful, courtly gesture. ‘But I am well!’ he said. ‘Thanks to your nursing, and Master Mardibold, here.’ And he nodded to the healer, now sitting up straighter and blinking sleep from his eyes.

‘Here now,’ Mardi said, hauling himself to his feet, and rather more slowly than his erstwhile patient had managed. He echoed Eglantine, ‘You ought to be in bed!’

Robin’s grin widened. ‘It looks to be a beautiful day,’ he said, gesturing to the brightening light coming in at the window. ‘Hobbits will be at the haying, and a wanderer must a wandering go! Make hay whilst the sun shines, and make haste as well, that’s what I always say…’

‘It’s your wandering ways that got you into this state of affairs, I’ve no wonder,’ Eglantine began, shaking her ladle at him, but he laughed and shook his head.

‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I must lay the blame squarely at the feet of Mistress Lalia, I fear.’

‘Hush, now!’ Eglantine said in startlement, while Mardi added his own, ‘Not wise, to speak of the Mistress…’

‘You won’t tell her, I hope!’ the Man said in alarm, holding up a staying hand, but then he put down his hand again and shook his head once more. ‘In any event,’ he said, ‘I’ll never go near the Great Smials no more, no never!’

‘Well I never!’ Eglantine said in astonishment, trying to imagine fat, indolent Lalia besting this Man, twice as tall (though Lalia would be twice, perhaps four times as wide as he).

Robin lowered his voice and raised a hand to the side of his mouth, as if to speak a secret. ‘I stopped at the Smials,’ he said. ‘My journeys seldom take me through that part of the Tookland, but I was taking a short cut, seeing how I was expected at Bywater on Midsummer’s Day, as I always do…’ He looked to Mardi and back to Eglantine. ‘I was belated, for the Wood Bridge had washed out in the spring rains, and I must go the long way round, as you might know.’

Both hobbits nodded; it was said that Mistress Lalia’s purse strings were too tight to hire the Brandybucks to build a new bridge, and old Rorimac was no scatter-gold, to pay out of his own pocket to send his engineers to do the work, when it was the Thain’s business to keep the roads for the mythical King. ‘A workhobbit is worth his wages,’ he was fond of saying, and Eglantine at least, on visits to Brandy Hall, had heard him say it more than once.

Robin rubbed his hands together. ‘But,’ he said, ‘a tale is easier told when the hands are occupied as well… so, if you please, Mistress… If you're to suffer the novelty of a Man in your Tookish kitchen, well, then, he might as well make himself of use.’

And moving easily, though with his tall form he had to crouch somewhat to keep from knocking his head against a beam, he crossed to the sideboard, took up a carving knife, and began deftly to slice the ham. Ignoring Eglantine’s open-mouthed surprise, he took up his tale once more.

‘I had to go the long way ‘round, and over the Stone Bridge by Tuckborough, to get to the north side of the Tuckborne, for the spring, ‘twas a wet one, and the stream is strong and swift and deep, running through this part of the great Green Hills…’

‘A wet spring it was, indeed, and a hot early summer, such that the hay grew tall quicker than usual, ready for the first cutting a full fortnight early,’ Eglantine agreed, moving to slice more bread, seeing as the ham was in good hands.

‘Well,’ Robin said, ‘I’d been warned about Mistress Lalia, truly I had, by a tinker and a tailor, and a candle-stick maker as well, all of whom told me she charged a high toll to pass through Tuckborough, at least for a Man or a Dwarf (I heard she hadn’t quite enough nerve to make demands of any Elf passing through, or perhaps her toll-takers don’t)…’

‘Ah, the Toll,’ Mardi said, nodding in sudden understanding. ‘You ran afoul of the Toll, I take it?’

‘I ran afoul of a couple of sharp-tongued Tooks, with sharper arrows,’ Robin said. ‘And when they demanded the Toll for my safe passage, and I said I hadn’t any coin, silver or otherwise, why, they escorted me to the Thain…’

‘Ferumbras isn’t overly fond of Men,’ Eglantine said, ‘but I’ve never heard it said he was unreasonable.’

‘No, and I think he’d have let me off with a warning,’ Robin said, turning the ham and resuming his carving. ‘He told me never to set foot in these parts again, unless I had the silver to pay my passage… something about the cost of keeping the roads for the King…’ His eyes reflected some puzzlement. ‘I wasn’t aware there was any,’ he said, ‘King, that is.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Mardi said, skirting the dangerous subject. (The King existed at the convenience of the Mistress, after all. When it was convenient for her to demand service of Tooklanders, to keep the roads, or Tolls of outlanders who travelled those roads, then she would call upon the name of the King. At all other times, of course, she ignored him. Whoever he might be. It was dangerous, however, for any other hobbit to claim such august acquaintance or sponsorship in the Mistress’ hearing.) ‘So Ferumbras was going to let you off…’

‘But evidently word was brought to the Mistress before her son was quite finished with me,’ Robin said. ‘And I was stuck! If I didn’t have the silver, well then, the Mistress had decreed they must have it out of me in terms of work!’

Mardi nodded. ‘Ah,’ he said wisely. ‘I see.’ And he did. He’d seen a few miserable, hungry-looking wretches breaking rocks down to gravel for the roads, in the quarry near Tuckborough, with grim-faced, armed Tooks watching them to make sure their work was satisfactory. He’d heard they were law-breakers, Men who’d run afoul of the Thain, though he’d never before imagined what ill they might have done.

Robin confirmed this. ‘Break rocks, I must,’ he said, taking one hand from the ham to look at it ruefully. ‘Break them into stones, and the stones into gravel, to be taken away in wheelbarrows for the mending of the roads, or so I was told.’ Mardi had noticed the marks of recently healed blisters on the hands as he’d tended the Man, and now the healer unconsciously clenched his own fists as the Man went on. ‘With a great hammer, too heavy for a hobbit, nearly too heavy for a Man – more suited to a Dwarf, I should think…’

‘And so the Mistress ordered you to work in the Quarry for a day or three,’ Mardi said.

Eglantine, in the meantime, had the griddle warming, and had picked up the basket of fresh-laid eggs, gathered only that morning, but Robin intercepted her.

‘Here, now,’ he said. ‘To thank you for your succor and aid and hospitality, please, Mistress, I beg of you…’

‘What?’ Eglantine said in astonishment.

Robin laughed. ‘There is an inn, a very fine establishment, in Bree,’ he said. Eglantine and Mardi goggled, to think of this Man, such a far-traveller! Bree! ‘The Prancing Pony… perhaps you’ve heard of it?’ He looked from one blank expression to the other and shrugged. ‘Well, if you ever travel through the Breeland…’

Not much chance of that! both his listeners were thinking, as he continued. ‘…the breakfast they serve there, well, it’s worth writing home about.’

He nodded to the barrel of potatoes. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mistress, peeling a quantity of those whilst I chop the onions…’

As he set about, stirring up griddlecakes (Eglantine fetched, at his bidding, the rest of the ingredients from the pantry, to add to the eggs) and setting them baking, and frying onions, and par-boiling potatoes preparatory to frying them with the onions, he continued his story.

‘Not just a day, or even three, I’m sorry to say,’ he said, ‘in that terrible Quarry, in the heat of summer, beneath the blazing Sun…’

‘But three days’ work,’ Mardi said, ‘that’s as much as any Tooklander might give to road work, at any one time, and one or two days a month, during the finer months, is more likely. Ten days, for the whole year, at the pay of a silver penny a day…’

‘Ah,’ Robin said, ‘but that’s not counting the room and board…’

‘Room and board!’ Eglantine said in consternation. ‘She ordered you to work as hard as a Dwarf in a mine, and charged you for room and board? I hope the accommodations were to suit…’

Robin lowered his voice still more, so that his words were scarcely to be heard amongst the sizzling from the frying onions and potato chunks and ham. ‘A place to lay my blankets,’ he said, ‘in a shed with musty, flea-infested hay; and stale bread to eat, and as much water as I might care to drink…’ He looked to Eglantine’s stricken face. ‘But no matter, Mistress,’ he said. ‘I gave my fortnight to the King’s roads, ten days labour for my leave to use those roads, though most times I walk across the fields, and then four days to pay my “room and board” – and so I am free to roam the Tookland, this year at least, and my Toll is paid in full.’

‘Oh, Robin,’ Eglantine said, grieved, but the Man had stopped talking and put on a broad smile, and turning, she saw why. Pippin was standing in the doorway, grinning at their guest, his sisters clustered uncertainly behind him.

‘Robin! You’re well!’

‘Never better,’ the Man said, stopping long enough to bow before turning back to his cooking. ‘And you’re all just in time to lay the table! For breakfast is nearly ready, and I’m sure the good farmer and his hired hands will be here at any time, done with their early-morning labours, and ready to tuck in!’

Chapter 11. Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due 

‘A Prancing Pony breakfast, you say!’ Paladin said from his chair at the head of the table, and shook his head as all the others around the table took their seats. He fixed an eye on their over-tall guest at the far end. ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I have a point of contention, or two! – to pick with you. Or perhaps I ought to say “for your part” in this matter.’

His grim gaze swept down one side of the long table and up the other side, taking in the faces of his hired hobbits, Healer Mardi, who’d stayed to breakfast before heading back to Whitwell to take up his duties for the day, his guests Bilbo and young Frodo, his daughters, his wife, and finally open-mouthed little Pippin, sitting between himself and Eglantine. At the distress he saw in the small lad’s face, he dropped the lid of his nearest eye in a half-wink of reassurance.

Pippin closed his mouth, though he still looked uncertain.

Meanwhile, sitting on the floor at the far end of the table, their guest was blinking. ‘I – I,’ he stuttered, then began again. ‘If I have given offence in any way...’

The farmer nodded, a sharp jerk of the chin that conveyed he meant business. ‘If you have given offence...’ he echoed. He deliberately looked around the faces at the table again. Then he stood up from his chair.

When Nod, the forehobbit, started to rise from his seat on the long bench to one side of the table, Paladin barked at him. ‘Sit yourself back down.’ And to the rest of the breakfasters, he added, ‘That means all of you! Sit!’ And to the tall Man at the end of the table, ‘And yourself, Master Robin Tallfellow.’

When he was satisfied that he had the complete attention of everyone there, he nodded, more gently this time, and opened his mouth to speak.

Only to be interrupted by a quiet word from his wife. ‘Food’s going cold.’

He met Eglantine’s eye and gave a subtle nod of reassurance as he responded in a low tone. ‘What I have to say won’t take all that much longer.’ And then louder, he said, ‘And if anyone is to be dismissed from table, it certainly won’t be the benefactor of this magnificent feast that’s been set before us!’

He received several puzzled looks at this, though Bilbo was examining him shrewdly. He noticed that the old hobbit had a firm hold of young Frodo’s arm, as if to preclude any outbursts on the tween’s part. And was that an approving look in his eye, as if he guessed what Paladin’s next words were to be?

Ah, well. Time was a-wasting. He returned his gaze to the Man at the opposite end of the table from him, and without further preamble, gave a deep and respectful bow. ‘To you, Master Tallfellow,’ he said, his voice ringing grandly, as he were presiding over a gathering in the largest banquet hall of the Great Smials rather than in a farmhole kitchen, ‘I convey my utmost respect and heartiest thanks! Such a feast as you have provided here, why, I doubt the Thain’s high table in the Great Hall could boast half the quality and quantity!’

Surveying the stunned faces before him, Paladin added, ‘You all bowed to me and thanked me before you sat down,’ and then fixing his gaze on the Man once more, he finished, ‘but I think rather more thanks are due yourself, Master Tallfellow.’

‘I – I,’ the Man repeated, but the worry had left his face at the farmer’s reassurance. He swallowed hard, gave his own bow as best he could whilst remaining seated, and said, ‘You are most welcome, Farmer Paladin.’

‘Dinny,’ Paladin said. ‘Everyone calls me Dinny – those that I count amongst my friends, that is.’

‘Dinny,’ the Man echoed obediently.

Paladin looked to his hired hobbits on either side of the table. ‘But some o’ you,’ he said, ‘are lacking in good manners.’ 

He nodded pleasantly to Pearl, to one side of the Man. ‘I thank you, Daughter,’ he said formally, and then to his forehobbit on the other side, ‘and you, Nod.’ Growing stern again, he said to the entire table, ‘but some of you – and I won’t name names, to give you the chance to examine your own thoughts and make amends as you see fit – some of you have made me feel ashamed to be the host of this finest of feasts.’ He extended his hand, palm up, towards the Man at the other end of the table. ‘Here this Man, whom fate cast upon our doorstep (or in our stream, rather), has laid before us the most amazing spread this side of the Breeland, or so old Bilbo has informed me – and he ought to know! – and yet some of you have refused to sit yourselves down next to him.

‘That’s why I tendered thanks to my eldest, and to my most excellent forehobbit,’ he said, ‘whom I see are not sitting in their usual places – for my hired hobbits who usually sit at that end of the table have chosen places at some remove from this Man who has honoured us with his best efforts.’

His gaze swept the faces at the table a final time, and he said, ‘You know who you are.’ Suddenly, he put his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. In a completely different tone, he said, ‘Now, food’s getting cold! Let’s not let any of this marvellous feast go to waste!’

‘Hear, hear!’ Bilbo called, and he stood to his feet and bowed to the Man at the end of the table. ‘I thank you, Master Robin, for my part.’

There was a hasty shuffling of feet as all the other hobbits around the table stood up and bowed to the Man, who received their thanks with a somewhat dazed look on his face, though graciously enough to suit the demands of good manners, and then everyone sat down and fell to with a will, a smacking of lips, and delighted hums and even a few low groaning sounds of deep satisfaction.

 *** 

(Next update: soon, if all goes well. Story's nearly finished, so we'll knock out this WIP before tackling another of those that have been languishing here for too long. The newest story, on the other hand, will continue to have regular postings. Thank you for your patience.)

And so, here we come to the end of all things, in this story at least. That's one WIP finished. Thank you for coming along on the journey, and for your patience. Wishing you the best in these difficult times.

Dreamflower, I dedicate this story to you. Happy Birthday (or unBirthday), and many happy returns.

Chapter 12. All's Well that Ends Well

After breakfast, Paladin and Eglantine were gratified to see every one of the hired hobbits go over to Robin, individually and in pairs, bow to the Man and heartily shake his hand, offering profuse thanks for the "finest meal" they had "ever remembered enjoying, and then some!" Mardi, needing to be off about a healer’s business, spoke his thanks as well and slipped quietly out the door somewhere in the middle of the queue of hired hobbits.

Robin, for his part, remained seated to receive their thanks and blessings, that they might more easily look him in the eye without him towering over them, a sensitive reaction on his part, Eglantine thought.

Young Pippin took advantage of this state of affairs to climb into the Man's lap, where he helped by accepting each accolade with a solemn nod as Robin's due.

At last, the final worker, Nod the forehobbit, had tendered his appreciation and filed out after the rest through the doorway to the yard. Pearl stood up from her seat and began to clear the table, and her younger sisters followed. First they'd put away any remaining food in covered bowls in the pantry, and then they'd scrape and stack the dishes and bring them to the washbasin, once it had been filled with steaming water from the kettle, with soap beaten in, and tempered to hand-washing temperature with cool water from the bucket by the stove. The scraps would go to the pigs, and the dishes would be scrubbed and dipped in steaming rinse water and laid on the cloth-covered sideboard to be dried and put away.

Paladin lingered for a few moments more before going out to the haying. It would take some small amount of time to harness the ponies and hitch them to the haywaggon, after all, and Nod was a competent hobbit, well worth his wages, and more. He took the Man by the hand and said, 'I thank you, Robin, for a fine meal, one that will take us well through our morning labours, and even beyond.'

Eglantine lifted the spoon she was using to scrape scrambled eggs into a bowl and shook it at him. 'Don't you dare!' she said. 'I'll have the late nooning on the table promptly at one o' the clock, and don't you or your hobbits come belated to the table!'

All laughed at her fierce expression, so unlike herself, even the Man, who said to Paladin, 'I certainly wouldn't, if I were in your shoes!'

'Luckily for me, I don't wear any! Shoes, that is,' Paladin responded promptly. He went over to Eglantine and kissed her cheek. 'No worries,' he said. 'The food won't go a-wanting.' And to Robin, he said, 'I fear this is more of a good-bye than a farewell, considering your experience here amongst the Tooks.'

Thankfully young Pip, who was examining the shining buttons on the Man's shirt, carved of some exotic substance that shone with pearly highlights, didn't seem to catch the sentiment.

'Not all the Tooks,' Robin said obliquely. 'I have found the vast majority of them to be good-hearted and open-handed, ready to help a stranger in need and offer friendship unlooked for, into the bargain.'

'The family have been more likely to befriend tall folk than your average Shire-dweller,' Bilbo confirmed, but then his mother had been a Took, and old Gerontius had been well-known for befriending strangers along the ways and paths of the Tookland and bringing them home to supper, sometimes to the consternation of the rest of his family.

Young Frodo nodded, his eyes shining.

'Well then, Master Robin, I must take my leave,' Paladin said, against a background of clinking dishes as Pearl began the washing up.

Robin gently lifted Pippin from his lap and set the lad on his feet, then unfolded himself from his sitting position, stood as tall as he might under the circumstances, and tendered a deep and respectful bow to the farmer. 'My thanks to you, Dinny, for saving my life.'

The farmer smiled. 'I should say it was more young Pip who can claim that honour.' And so Robin bowed to the small lad and repeated the sentiment, and Pippin, to his credit, returned the bow and murmured an appropriate response.

'I'll have you know, Dinny, that young Pip was in good hands, the whole time,' Bilbo said. 'And now that you've met the Man yourself, I'm sure you'll agree with me.'

'I'm sure I shall,' Paladin said, though he wasn't quite sure what the old hobbit was getting at. Well, Bilbo and Frodo would be visiting for the next fortnight, anyhow, he thought. They'd be staying until the Brandybucks arrived for their annual summer visit, and then some days after so that Frodo and Merry might spend much-needed time together. When old Bilbo had originally adopted the lad and spirited him away from the Hall, young Merry had stopped eating in his grief, and the adults had scrambled to find a solution. Thus, shared summers at Paladin's farm, and regular visits between Bag End and Brandy Hall were now obligatory.

In any event, he'd seek some clarification from Bilbo later. For now, he needed to make hay whilst the Sun was smiling brightly on the Green Hill country.

After the door closed behind the good farmer, Eglantine found it necessary to intercept their honoured guest as he moved purposefully towards the washstand and piles of waiting dishes. 'Ah-ah-ah!' she said. 'You cooked this magnificent feast! Don't expect to do the washing-up as well!'

'Do you fear my depredations upon your dishes, good Mistress?' Robin said gaily. He scooped up four mugs, waiting on the cloth-covered sideboard to be dried and put away, and began to juggle. Even half-crouching as he was, to avoid brushing the ceiling, he kept the mugs expertly circling in the air as he moved to the waiting cup hooks and put each one away with a flourish.

Laughing, Eglantine put up a staying hand, resting the other over her heart. 'No,' she said at last, 'but I haven't laughed so heartily in too long a time!'

Robin bowed with a grin. 'At your service, Mistress.'

'Don't you Mistress me if you know what's good for you, young Man!' Eglantine said. 'Aggie's quite good enough for the likes of you!'

'Aggie, then,' the Man conceded. He looked down at small Pip, who'd followed him like a dog at heel, and tousled the curly head. 'And young Pip. But what's this?' His hand came away bearing a ha'penny, which he bestowed upon the little lad. 'Has your mother not yet taught you not to keep your coins in your ears?'

As everyone laughed at this, and Pippin clasped the coin to his heart with both hands, the Man bent closer, adding quietly, 'I owe you my life, lad, and I'll never forget that. Or you.' He moved to his pack, strapped up by the door (for in between his self-imposed cookery tasks, he'd tightly rolled his blankets and put them away, along with the freshly washed, sun-and-wind-dried, and neatly folded clothing Eglantine had piled beside it). 

As he hefted it now, preparatory to easing the first strap over his shoulder, his eyebrows rose. 'But what is this?'

'We added a few good things,' Eglantine said. 'Little comforts, and ways to say thank you again. A jar of my own homemade brambleberry jam, a bottle of cordial, some bread and cheese and sliced ham for your luncheon as you walk across the fields to Bywater...'

The Man blinked a little, and his voice was husky as he sketched another bow. 'I – I don't know what to say, Mis– Aggie.'

Eglantine found her own eyes a bit watery, so she injected extra briskness into her tone as she replied, 'That's a fair sign that nothing is needing to be said.'

Pippin had twigged to the fact that his tall friend was leaving. 'Do you have to go?' the lad cried, hugging the Man's leg and looking way, way up into Robin's face with a pleading expression.

Robin shrugged his pack onto his back and crouched slightly. 'I must,' he said. 'Why, I wouldn't want to get your parents in trouble, lad. The Thain – and his esteemed mother, Mistress Lalia, well, they take a dim view of Men in the Tookland, I'm sorry to say.'

Pippin swallowed hard, and then he stood himself up to his full (though diminutive) height and set his chin in a firm line. Through his tears, he declared, 'Well, if I'm ever Thain, I'll give you a Pass to wander the Tookland to your heart's content, I will, a Pass that's good all the time, and you won't have to break any rocks to earn it, neither!'

'Either,' his mother corrected, even though she was reeling at this evidence that the small lad had heard at least part of Robin's sad tale.

All of the hobbits left in the kitchen – Eglantine and her children, and Bilbo, and Frodo – followed Robin out to the yard, where they stood, singing and waving him on his way, until at last, he passed out of their sight. Then, with a sigh, they went on with the tasks of the day, imagining the tall figure, whistling as he passed over the fields to Bywater.

*** 

'Yes, we were in the Shire when we ought not to have been,' the old Man said quietly to his listeners, Big and Small alike. 'I knew it well, he knew it perhaps, and little Rob knew it not at all, for to a little lad it was merely a game of hide-and-seek. I was trying to win the trust of the little mother and her son... and he goes a-shouting...' 

'You pulled a coin from my ear,' Farry said, remembering. 'You said, "Hasn't your mother taught you to keep your coins in your pocket?" ' 

Meeting the old Man's eye, Pippin said, 'Those were your first words to me, as I recall, all those years ago, when I was about the same age as Farry was when he was at the edge of the bog.' 

'I was remembering you as I said them,' Gwill said. 'I saw you, the little Shire-lad I'd known upon a time, in the face of your son... and I knew at once who he was, and his mother with him.' 

'And you were deep in the Shire, and not wanting the Shire-folk to know,' one of his listeners prompted when the old Man fell silent, as if in deep thought.

'And I saw a hobbit in the bog, head drooping, face nearly in the water,' Gwill said softly. 'He clung to the branches that had been shoved out toward him, but it was all too evident that the chill had robbed him of strength and the water would soon rob him of life. I thought perhaps he was drowning in the water, unable to swim, but as I moved to wade out to him, the little mother shouted a warning. "It's a bog!" she shrieked, and my heart sank, for I saw no way to save him. But then... I thought of the rope in my pack. If I could get the rope to the drowning hobbit somehow... but how? I was too heavy to risk the branches, myself. And the lads...' 

The old Man swallowed hard and looked to his adopted son, so quiet and pale, his life still hanging in the balance. Sorrow mingled with pride as he spoke on. 'Will stood firm,' he said. 'It came to me to send him across the branches. I told him what was in my mind, and he hesitated not a wink. He shed his coat, his shirt, his cloak and boots and tied the rope round his waist, even as little Rob clung to him and begged him not to risk himself. "I cannot lose you too," he wept, poor little lad, bereft of mother and father and grandmother, all he knew and loved save one. But Will...' 

And the old Man's tone was suffused with quiet pride. 'Gwillam, he said, "I've no choice, Rob. Would you have that little fellow there lose his own father, as we've lost ours?" And as I could not see the face of the hobbit in the bog, I thought it as likely to be yourself, Master Pippin, as anyone. And I remembered how you saved me, on a summer day long ago in the Shire, when fever had taken me and I nearly drowned, lying with my face in the stream that ran through Whittacres Farm...'

*** 

'Gwill o'Dale, and Gwillam and Robin, sons of Gwill,' Pippin said grandly, raising his voice though silence reigned in the crowded market place, nestled there under the shining spires of rebuilt Annúminas. 'I proclaim you Shire-friends, nay, heroes of the Shire, who have, with your selfless and courageous actions, won the gratitude of Thain...' 

'...and Master,' put in Merry, at Pippin's side. 

'...and Mayor!' Samwise said decidedly from the Thain's other side. 

'...and so, we grant you and your descendants the freedom of the Shire, from now and henceforth!' Pippin said, extending three rolls of parchment, each tied with a bright ribbon. 

Gwill took a shaky breath, and his eyes glimmered with tears as he looked to the King. 'My Lord?' he whispered. 

Elessar nodded with a smile. Who was he to gainsay Master, Mayor, and Thain?