Chapter 19. In which a Took pauses for reflection

Most farm families rise well before the dawning, and Pearl, Pippin’s eldest sister, was no exception. She was up two hours or so before the sun, setting out bread and butter and jam, stirring up the fire to bright flame, brewing a pot of strong tea for her sons and daughters before they went out to begin the work of the day.

When Siggy saw the lights come up in the smial, he smiled to himself. A cup of tea would be welcome, after the long, cold watch, and perhaps he might be lucky enough to get hot breakfast while he was at it.

He waved to the archers at the far sides of the smial, keeping watch for all the good it might do—how would ruffians know where to find the son of the Thain, after all? They’d expect him to be in the fastness of the Great Smials, most of the time, or perhaps travelling to the wilds of Buckland to visit the Brandybucks, but in any event, he doubted that ruffians would know the way to Whittacres Farm, even if they entered the Shire with the purpose of taking Faramir Took just to spite the Thain.

Smoke was emerging from the chimney, a promise of warmth and food to come, and Siggy’s steps were jaunty as he walked to the door and knocked. Not too loud or demanding—he didn’t want to startle the hobbits. A polite knock, or polite as might be, considering the early hour.

A mug of tea, now that was the thing, and a leisurely breakfast. His orders were to keep Farry tight inside the smial, and he and his five companions would stand guard until the word came that the ruffians had been caught and killed or turned over to the Rangers outside the Bounds, to meet the King’s justice.

Pearl’s good cooking was well-known in those parts, and so Siggy certainly hoped it would take some time to scour the ruffians out of the Shire. He patted his stomach in anticipation.

The door was opened by a startled young hobbit. ‘Aye?’ he said. ‘Is one of your cows having trouble with the calving?’

‘No, none of my cows is having trouble,’ Siggy said. ‘The Thain sent me, that is to say, us, to make sure that all is well.’

The lad scratched his head. ‘All’s well,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Uncle Pip sent you to ride through the night to ask that?’

And then Pearl was there, gently scolding. ‘Come in, come in,’ she said. ‘You have a message from my brother?’

‘There’s been sign of ruffians in the Shire,’ Siggy said, ‘and so the Thain sent six of us to make sure you’re all right here.’

‘Very kind of him, I’m sure,’ Pearl said. ‘Well, as long as you’re here, you might as well join us in some tea. I cannot believe he had you ride through this bitter night!’

‘It’s all in a day’s work,’ Siggy said, ‘or a night’s, rather.’

‘Rather,’ Pearl said dryly. ‘Well, call the rest of your hobbits and come in before you freeze half to death.’

Siggy smiled at this expression of feminine concern and turned away to gather his archers.

It was a merry crowd around the table, Pearl and her husband Isum, several hired hobbits, and young hobbits of varying ages coming and going. It was rather bewildering, as a matter of fact, for the faces around the table were constantly changing as one slipped into place, gulped a mug of tea, grabbed a piece of bread-and-jam, and slipped out again to begin milking or gathering eggs or feeding ponies or making up beds or whatever his or her morning task might be.

At last the sky was brightening outside and the early chores were done. Pearl and her older daughters had made griddlecakes, stacks and platters full, and had fried dozens of eggs and rashers of bacon, and filled pitchers with foaming milk and cruets with honey and set out plates of butter and crocks of jam, and the family all gathered around the enormous kitchen table once more for hot breakfast.

Siggy and his archers rose and bowed to Isum, as host of this fine meal, and then they sat down again and fell to their meal with a will.

Siggy was half-way through his first plateful, and contemplating with great pleasure his seconds, when he realised that something was not quite right, though he couldn’t put a finger on it. He stopped to think.

He scanned the faces around the table, going around thrice in point of fact, before he realised... Clearing his throat, he dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and turned to Isum. ‘Is Farry still abed?’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect him to be arising with the rest of the family to do chores, but surely you don’t let him sleep through second breakfast?’

***

‘Mum? It’s time.’

Healer Woodruff, long-time head healer at the Great Smials, since the time of Thain Paladin, as a matter of fact, raised her head.

‘Time?’ she said stupidly.

Holly, her new daughter-in-love, hovered in the doorway. Her sons were all gone, called out in the Shire-muster. Her beloved Ted would be there, too, if he hadn’t been laid low three days ago, now.

She lifted the cloth, too quickly warm and dry, from his forehead, soaked it in the basin of cool water, wrung it out and replaced it. The way he was warming up the cloths worried her, but she’d done all she knew to do, short of plunging him into a bath of cool water, the shock of which might stop his heart.

‘Mum?’

She realised that Holly had been speaking. ‘What is it, child?’ she said. So short on sleep, she was, what with two difficult birthings before Ted had fallen ill, and she’d hardly slept at all, watching with him, watching the fever consuming her beloved.

‘It’s time. You wanted me to come for you. They’re carrying Ferdibrand to the burial ground.’

Ah, Ferdi. She bowed her head again, remembering a mischievous little lad with a gap-toothed grin, waving at her from a high tree-branch. Of course I can come down! But I don’t want to!

‘I’ll sit with Da, shall I, whilst you go and pay the family’s respects?’ Holly said.

‘Yes...’ Woodruff said, and then, seeing Ted stir, restless, she amended, ‘No... You go, Holly-love, you go and stand up for the rest of us. You and Heather...’

Holly bit her lip, but nodded. They’d not been able to pull Woodruff from Ted’s side, not for a moment. She’d eaten her meals in the chair by the bed, she’d even used the chamber pot rather than leave him. ‘We will, Mum,’ she said, and bending to leave a gentle kiss on Woodruff’s cheek, she slipped from the room.

‘Ferdi?’ Ted said suddenly, as if he’d been attending to his surroundings, and then to Woodruff’s wonder he sat up in the bed, the cloth falling from his flushed face. ‘Ferdi?’

‘Hush now,’ she said, soothing, trying to ease him back down.

‘Ferdi!’ Ted said, aggrieved. ‘They can’t bury him! He’s not dead!’

‘It’s all right,’ Woodruff soothed.

‘It’s not all right!’ Ted maintained, and he threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

'Ted, love,' Woodruff remonstrated. 'You mustn't...'

‘They can’t!’ Ted shouted. ‘They mustn’t, it’s not decent!’

‘Of course, Ted-love,’ Woodruff said, catching him as he swayed.

He turned to her, blinking hard, the sweat pouring down his face. ‘It’s got to be stopped!’ he said.

‘Of course, Ted-love,’ Woodruff repeated, ‘Come now, dearest, easy now...’

He resisted, of course, but he didn’t have the strength, and soon he was lying limp against the pillow. ‘Not decent,’ he said again. ‘Not done.’

‘Of course not, my love,’ Woodruff murmured, picking up the damp cloth, wetting it again, cool and fresh, and replacing it.

‘Got to stop...’ Ted said, his voice trailing into a murmur. ‘Got to...’

***

The sky grew ever lighter, though the sun had yet to make her appearance over the Eastern hills.

Pippin turned his pony aside from the first group that followed the hunters, moving up the side of the great hill they skirted. Merry followed, wondering. Perhaps his cousin hoped to catch a glimpse of their quarry from the heights. Tolly, of course, as head of the Thain’s escort, came after them, along with his brother Hilly.

The four rode in silence until they reached a height where the sun was casting her first beams of the morning, playing “peek” over the next hill. Here Pippin stopped, turning his pony in the direction of the Great Smials.

Merry and the others waited.

‘Dawn,’ Pippin said at last. ‘Time for his spirit to fly free, to loose the bonds of earthly cares and soar to the Feast.’

‘Aye,’ Tolly said, low, and bowed his head.

‘Rest well, Ferdi,’ Pippin said, ‘and may all your dreams be peaceful ones.’

There were similar murmurs from the other hobbits, all friends of Ferdi’s, all cousins of his, and Tolly ran his sleeve across his eyes.

‘Tookland is a poorer place this day,’ Pippin said, and he sat a moment longer before pulling his pony around to descend, once more, to join the hunters.

Merry hesitated a moment, scanning the horizon in all directions. He saw smoke, but it came from the chimneys of smials. He knew their positions, from their study of the maps, last night. He saw no smoke where it shouldn’t be, but then why should he expect the ruffians to oblige them by starting a fire? They were canny enough to try to hide their tracks, at the rock-fall, and they’d nearly succeeded. Most hobbits would have missed the pry-marks on the rocks—it took the Thain’s chief engineer to discern the significance of the markings, and the boot-mark had been found in the scrutiny that followed. All too easily, it might have been missed, and they’d have thought Ferdi caught in the rock-fall, and once they’d determined that Farry was with him, they’d have thought him buried, and precious hours would have been lost.

Who could say when Bell might have read the ransom note, stuck in the extra pot on the mantel, especially if Percy forgot having found it, half-asleep as he’d been at the time?

‘Sir?’ Hilly said, for Tolly had followed Pippin.

‘Fine vantage,’ Merry said. ‘You have sharp eyes, Hilly. Do you see any sign of them?’

Hilly swept the horizon once, twice, and yet a third time. At last he shook his head.

‘Then let us hope the hunters have better luck than we do,’ Merry said, and he turned his pony’s head downhill, to follow Pippin and Tolly.

***

Sometimes a man has to make his own luck, and the fat man was no stranger to this truth. So it was he sent the brawny man after the club-wielder. ‘Don’t let him know you’re following him,’ he said.

‘Do you take me for a fool?’ the brawny man said.

The fat man laughed, a jolly sound. ‘Of course I don’t, old friend!’ he said, slapping the brawny man on the back. ‘I just want to know if he takes the gold for himself, or if he’s the loyal sort.’

‘A test,’ the brawny man said, and smiled grimly. ‘As you tested me, all those years ago.’

‘A test,’ the fat man agreed. ‘Is he an honorable thief? A thousand gold sovereigns, now, that’ll tempt a man.’

‘Wouldn’t tempt me,’ the brawny man said, ‘not with a thousand times that much in gold and silver and jewels squirrelled away in the hillside above us.’

The fat man shook his head. ‘Difficult to believe, if you haven’t seen it with your own eyes.’

‘I’ve seen it.’ The brawny man’s voice was soft with remembered wonder. ‘He took me there—it was raining as if all the buckets in the world had spilled at once, and we toiled up the hillside to the overhang, and we got out of the rain, what a relief! ...and then he winked at me, and asked me if I’d like to know a grand secret?’

The fat man nodded. He’d heard this story before, when they’d passed a bottle back and forth, their backs to a stony vertical slope, impossible to climb, and a fire burning brightly before them, while wolves howled in the darkness beyond.

They hadn’t expected to survive the night, and perhaps that’s why the secret had been told.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘and now we’re practically rolling in it. As soon as the morning light passes from the hillside, and we have some shadows to take cover in, you and I will go there in truth and not just in tale, and we’ll fill our pockets, shall we?’

‘And then some,’ the brawny man said with a grin.

‘And then some,’ the fat man agreed, with a slap for his back. ‘Now you go and see if our friend is a trustworthy man. If he’s not, I’m sure it’ll be no trouble for you to come up behind him, unawares, and slip a knife between his ribs. Pay him well for his failing.’

‘And then come back here with the thousand sovereigns,’ the brawny man said. ‘A nice little start to the day, and more where that came from, as our hobbit friends are so quaintly fond of saying.’

‘And more where that came from,’ the fat man agreed. ‘I wish I could be a fly on the wall, to see the Thain’s face... Your old master told you that the Tooks keep only about a thousand there in the Great Smials, enough to pay expenses, and the Thain goes to the treasure hoard when he runs low. I wish I could see his face, after we have his thousand sovereigns, after he gets our demand for more, and he rides out to the hoard and finds we’ve been there before him...’ He threw back his head and laughed, albeit softly, for they were, after all, in hiding.

The brawny man chuckled. ‘You take the cake, old friend,’ he said.

‘I plan to take considerably more than that!’ the fat man answered. ‘Good luck to you.’

‘And you,’ the brawny man said. ‘Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.’

The fat man chuckled and shook his head, and the brawny man melted into the underbrush and away, in the direction of the Three-Farthing Stone.