Chapter 16. Thain: To Higher Ground

No beckoning watchlamp burned in the small round window, promising refuge from the dark and storm when the old shepherd reached the shelter.

Perhaps the lad had forgotten to put the lamp in the window... but when he threw open the door, he was greeted by cold silence and darkness. The sheep were in the fold; he’d looked therein first thing upon arriving, noting with satisfaction that they’d been fed and watered. He didn’t count them, for young Pippin knew very well that he ought to count them as he put them in for the night, and the lad had learned to be conscientious in that duty.

But the shelter was dark and cold, and lad and dogs were gone. No sense traipsing about in the wind and rain; no telling where Pippin had gone, undoubtedly seeking a stray. Best to start the fire and get supper underway, a nice hot meal to greet the lad, though it was closer to dawn than suppertime. Pippin’s cloak, dripping wet, hung by the cold fireplace.

The old shepherd sparked the fire and soon had a kettle of stew on the hook and bread kneaded and set to rise. While waiting for supper to cook, he went out again, moving supplies from cart to storehole. He’d made his way back from market around the circle of shelters; this, the first in this week’s sequence of pastures was his last stop. Next week he’d make it the last stop and drag the cart homewards on their last day... actually, the lad would drag it homewards, and glad to make himself so useful if the old shepherd’s lessons had born any fruit.

In any event, all the shelters along the grazing path were now fully stocked. It had been a good day and night of effort, and the sheep hadn’t lost a day of grazing while he was away.

When the storehole was full the old shepherd carried a few sacks into the shelter, to fill the little larder, and by the time all was stowed to his satisfaction the bread was risen and ready to bake, and Pippin’s cloak was steaming nicely. It ought to be dry by morning, though the heavy oiled wool was as saturated as if the lad had taken a bath wearing it. It ought to have shed the rain... No doubt Pippin was soaked to the skin, and the heavy water-filled cloak was more of a liability than a help, but the shepherd still frowned at the thought of the lad out in the storm, unprotected.

The old shepherd put the loaves on and gave the stew a stir, trying not to worry about the lad. When morning light came he’d leave the sheep in the fold and backtrack to the pasture where Pippin ought to have been that day, to look for sign of the lad and the dogs, though in this downpour it was doubtful he’d find any. Resolutely he pushed such thoughts away. No use borrowing trouble.

The loaves were golden and steaming on the rough wooden table when a thump, as of a kick, perhaps, came at the door. The old shepherd threw back the door with a glad cry. Pippin stood holding a newborn lamb.

 ‘Tha’s half-drowned,’ the shepherd observed, urging the lad into the shelter. ‘Fine weather for fish!’ He took the lamb from Pippin and laid it close to the fire, rubbing the little creature with rough sacking.

 ‘Whose?’ he said, eyes on his task.

Pippin stood dumbly before the fire, and the old hobbit looked up to see him holding out his hands as if to scoop the warmth to himself. The lad was wet through and shivering violently.

The old shepherd wrapped the lamb securely and left it to warm, then pulled another piece of sacking from the shelf. He stripped away the lad’s sopping clothes and began to rub the deathly-cold skin with the sacking to stimulate the circulation, much as if Pippin had been a lamb, and indeed, meek as a lamb the lad stood, staring into the fire without a word, swaying on his feet, shivering exhaustion all too evident, too done in to do much for himself. When the lad was dry and glowing, the old hobbit sat him down on a sheepskin before the fire, wrapping more skins around him, and then he fetched a mug of tea, lifting it to Pippin’s lips when the lad didn’t seem quite able to get his fingers round the mug.

At last the lad had recovered enough of his senses to speak. ‘Thankee,’ he said faintly.

The old shepherd nodded. ‘Whose lamb?’ he asked again.

 ‘Auld love’s,’ the lad murmured. He could scarcely form the words, and his eyelids were closing of themselves.

 ‘All accounted for?’

 ‘Aye. She was the last. Hid in a nice sheltered thicket to have her lamb, but caught her wool on the brambles and couldn’t get free,’ Pippin said almost inaudibly.

The old hobbit managed to get some bread and stew into the lad, and then he tucked him up right there by the fire.

The little ewe-lamb had warmed nicely and the shepherd carried her out to the fold, to reunite her with her worried mam. The “auld love” nuzzled her wee babe all over and then the little one settled to nurse, her fuzzy tail signalling her content.

 ‘All’s well with the world, eh lassie?’ the shepherd said approvingly. He watched a moment longer before leaving the fold. Checking the dogs’ shelter, he found them curled together, already asleep. The tip of one tail stirred as he stroked a sopping head, but neither wakened to his soft words, and so he left the sleeping dogs to lie, just as the old hobbit proverb advises.

The wind was dying as he stepped into the shelter. He banked the fire, looked the lad over a last time, and rolled himself in his bedding to grab a few winks before the dawning.

In the morning over breakfast Pippin confessed his neglect of the previous day, falling asleep, following the flock to the fold, counting the sheep and coming up short.

 ‘And so tha went back,’ the old shepherd observed. ‘Who?’

 ‘The auld love,’ Pippin said, ‘and the cock-eared ewe and her twins.’

The old shepherd nodded. The favourite and the most valuable; poor luck for the lad’s first time out alone, and he said so.

 ‘Tweren’t luck,’ Pippin said shortly, not meeting his eyes. ‘I fell asleep, fool of a Took!’ The last words were spoken low, in a bitter tone, and the old hobbit had a feeling he was hearing an echo of some other voice.

 ‘Fool wouldn’t have sought ‘em,’ he said calmly, refilling the lad’s mug with hot, strong tea. He liked it strong and black—in his early days he’d milked a ewe for his use in tea and porridge, but it really wasn’t worth the bother. Pippin had learned to drink his tea the same way, and the old hobbit nodded approval as the lad sipped without seeming to notice the lack of sweetening or milk. Spoilt, the lad had been, when the old shepherd had taken him on, but he was coming along nicely.

 ‘Auld love was in a thicket,’ he said, ‘and t’other?’

 ‘She’d crossed the stream to the little rise in the centre,’ Pippin said, ‘her lambs followed her, and when the storm broke the water came up fast.’

 ‘Aye,’ the old shepherd said. He sat back and lit his pipe, concentrating on getting it going just so. ‘How’d ye get her out, then?’

 ‘Took one lamb acrost, and then t’other,’ Pippin said. ‘I thought, if she saw her little ones, she’d be more likely to cross the water.’

 ‘How high?’ the old shepherd asked. Pippin’s hand hovered about his waist and the old shepherd's eyebrows rose.

 ‘And coming up fast,’ Pippin said. ‘Someone’d spilled the bucket.’

 ‘So I noticed,’ the old shepherd said. Dragging the cart along the grassy track had not been pleasant in the downpour, but thankfully it had not been all that far from the second shelter to the first.

 ‘I got her in,’ Pippin said, and then he swallowed hard. ‘No I didn’t,’ he corrected himself, for he wouldn’t take credit for a deed not his own. ‘The dogs got her in,’ he amended. ‘I walked alongside, on her downstream side to steady her, but when she got to the middle, she just... lay down!’

The old shepherd nodded. ‘Give up on thee, did she?’ he said. ‘They get to be so affrighted, they freeze and there’s no thawing them.’ He pulled on his pipe. ‘So what did tha then?’ he asked.

 ‘I tried to pry her up,’ Pippin said. ‘I nudged her with my foot, but she wouldn’t move. Her head was under water! She’d drown! The dogs were swimming around us, harrying her, but she lay like a lump! I dove down under to try to lift her, and the current rolled her atop me...’ He was breathing raggedly, his shadowed eyes staring in fearful recollection.

There was a long pause, and the old shepherd finally said, ‘And then?’ When the lad didn’t answer, he laid a gentle hand on Pippin’s arm. ‘Tha drowned not, or I’d be breaking the fast wi’ a gast, I would,’ he said quietly. ‘Then, what?’

Pippin’s head began to shake, ever so slightly, and after another long pause his eyes met the old shepherd’s. ‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t get her up, couldn’t get free, all was rushing and darkness and no air for the breathing...’

 ‘Tha drowned not,’ the old shepherd repeated, holding the lad’s gaze firmly. At last Pippin nodded.

 ‘Next I knew I was on the bank,’ Pippin said, ‘Tuck licking my face and Nip whining,’ he said. ‘The ewe was fussing over the lambs, safe on the high ground.’ His hands left his mug to rub at his face. ‘I was drowning,’ he said. ‘And then I wasn’t. That’s all I know.’

The old shepherd nodded. Had there been a lone traveller passing through the meadow, who’d seen Pippin’s predicament, he’d surely have stayed on to succour the lad. It was a mystery... Slowly he said, ‘There’s things in this world that’re beyond our ken, laddie. P’rhaps twasn’t thy time yet. P’rhaps there’s more for thee to be doin’ with thy life.’

Pippin shook his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t understand,’ he admitted.

The old shepherd moved his hand from the lad’s arm to his shoulder. ‘Th’art young, yet,’ he said. He patted the shoulder. ‘Th’art a brawe bonny lad, Peregrin Took, and I’d be that glad to call thee a son of ma own! Th’art a keeper, i’ truth!’

A tentative smile touched the lad’s face, and he blinked away sudden moisture that seemed to surprise him by its advent. ‘But I fell asleep,’ he said.

 ‘Think tha that th’art the only shepherd, ever falsely soothed to sleep?’ the old hobbit said, and chuckled. He clapped the shoulder one more time. ‘Coom nae, laddie,’ he said. ‘For ‘tis past time we be taking our charges out to the day’s feast!’