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The Farmer's Son  by Lindelea


Chapter 28. A Matter of Missing Ponies

When Paladin and the hired hobbits returned from that afternoon’s haying, Daw Brackenbeater, the Shirriff for the local area was waiting in the kitchen, sipping at a mug of tea while Eglantine and Pervinca bustled about, filling the serving dishes and putting them on the table, alongside the cosied teapots that they’d just set to brewing. The table had been laid and waiting when Daw arrived, the cold foods already set out (new apples, pickled vegetables, and hard-cooked eggs among these), and Eglantine sat down to make small talk with him; it was late enough that she didn’t send him out to the fields, but invited him to take tea with the family, as she expected Paladin to come in from haying at any time.

Sure enough, it was not long before the ponies were heard in the yard, and the cheerful shouts of the returning labourers, who worked quickly to unharness, lightly groom and put away the ponies that went eagerly to their own tea of grain-heaped feedboxes and well-filled haynets. The workers then lined up outside the kitchen door to splash their faces with water and wash and wipe their hands before entering to take the meal.

The clatter of hoofs against the stones was the signal for Eglantine to jump up from her seat, to help Pervinca with the last of the preparations, filling the teapots and setting out the hot food. Daw put down his mug with a word of thanks and went to the door, to be ready to meet Paladin, though out of courtesy he waited until the farmer had greeted Eglantine on entering.

‘Well, very well indeed,’ Paladin was saying in answer to Eglantine’s query about the haying. ‘I think it should be little more than a week, not much more, before we’ll have the bulk cut and stacked and ready to meet whatever storm is coming.’

Eglantine suppressed a shiver at his wording; but of course there would be storms coming, autumn rains, and wind, and perhaps even winter snow and ice, and the hay skilfully stacked to resist and stand dry and firm against all assaults, assurance that the animals that depended on Paladin and his family would not go hungry through the cold and lean months to come. ‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘and so perhaps you can spare a hobbit or three to help us to get the vegetables in as well. I'm sorry to say I'm a bit behind myself this week…’

‘Of course!’ Paladin said, with a peck for her cheek, and then he turned to welcome the Shirriff. ‘Jackdaw,’ he said, a little more formal than usual, as he’d sent for the hobbit on business. ‘Join us for tea, if you please, and then we’ll see to the matter of Ferdi’s strayed ponies…’

‘My pleasure, and thanks,’ Daw replied with a bow. He was a short, spry fellow with wrinkled, faded clothes and a luxuriant crop of untidy black hair with an unexpected shock of white at the back of his head, a little longer than convention demanded. He was not as neat as the tidy Tooks of the Great Smials would have liked, but he was a hobbit who knew his business and that was what mattered most to Paladin, and to Mayor Will, who had hired him in the first place. ‘I'm glad the young fellows were found safe; I was searching in the marshes with old Haldi when word came they’d been found. Upon a hilltop, they said…?’

The talk continued as they took their places at table and the heavy laden platters and serving bowls were passed around, quickly lightening their load as the hungry workers tucked in. Of course everyone had something to contribute to the discussion; they’d all been out in the dark hours, on the search, and had much to say about the dark, and the slow-gathering mist in the valleys, damp and clinging and likely to chill the bones, and the brightness of the stars seen from the hilltop.

‘And no sign of their ponies,’ Daw inquired, after washing a mouthful of savoury goodness down with a swig of newly freshened tea, hot and strong as he liked it. ‘No sign, and they haven’t come home again?’

‘No,’ Paladin said, ‘and that’s worrying. They were not so far from home that they wouldn’t find their way, I should think…’

‘What does Ferdi think?’ Daw said, for after all, Ferdi was well known for his knowledge about ponies and their behaviour.

Paladin shook his head. ‘He’s not been wakeful for more than long enough to take a few bites of food, and then he sleeps again,’ he said. ‘Getting better, though, as the hours pass, or so old Haldi says.’

‘Sleeping!’ Daw said in surprise. ‘I'd heard they were found safe – were they injured, then, or is the rumour true as they were saying in Whitwell, that the two of them had taken too much drink to remember why they were out and about in the first place…? But that much drink! To be sleeping through the day…!’

‘Not drunken, no,’ Paladin said, before Eglantine could raise a protest of her own. ‘Haldi doesn’t know exactly what’s the matter with the hobbits.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s as if they’d taken some deadly hurt, though there’s not a mark on ‘em, and they need the sleep to heal.’ He’d never have said the words deadly hurt in Pimpernel’s hearing, but as the lass was still sitting in another room, at Ferdi’s side, he felt he could risk the matter. Hopefully Daw – and the hired hobbits, when they ventured into Whitwell – would dispel the rumour of too much to drink.

‘Well then,’ Daw said, after dabbing his mouth and laying aside his serviette, though Paladin could see he was not completely convinced. ‘No sign of the ponies…’

‘…but then, it was dark as a trolls’ cave last night,’ Paladin said, and Eglantine shivered at his wording. There had been an ill feeling in the air, for certain, that had dissipated in the bright afternoon sun, with the homely smells of breeze-drying laundry and baking bread pudding filling the air, along with the heady scent of the late roses that bloomed in profusion around the smial’s doors and windows. But now the shadows were beginning to creep across the yard, and the bright sunshine was turned to afternoon gold and all too soon would be fading into twilight. ‘We thought we’d go out and see if we could find something of their tracks between now and eventides.’

Eglantine suppressed a sigh. No rest for the weary. Paladin hadn’t slept in two nights, and now after haying all the daylong he was proposing to traipse across the countryside in search of a couple of stray ponies.

To her relief, the Shirriff held up a staying hand. ‘Probably found their way to a neighbour’s,’ he said. ‘Not much use going out tracking this time of day. Neighbour’ll probably be bringing the ponies in, at any time now.’

Paladin hesitated. Of course the neighbours were as busy with harvest tasks as he was, and if they’d found Ferdi’s ponies, they’d take good care of them until the day’s tasks were done. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But what if…?’

Daw smiled in his best reassuring manner. ‘I'll go out, first thing,’ he said. ‘Morning light is good for tracking, I find.’ He cast an eye out the window, a quick survey of the sky though he already knew the answer. ‘No sign of rain,’ he added. ‘Any tracks will still be there in the morning; anything the searchers won’t have trampled over, anyhow.’ He finished with his strongest argument. ‘There’s no need for you to leave your harvesting to look for a couple of ponies,’ he said.

Paladin might have pointed out that they’d just finished teatime, that there was no more work for this day except the usual evening chores: milking the cows, giving the ponies a thorough grooming to brush away the salty sweat from the day’s work, turning them out for a good roll in the pasture, to graze until twilight fell, feeding the other animals, checking the harness and waggons towards the next day’s requirements, shutting up the poultry safe from foxes, owls, and other dangers, and more. Going off to look for ponies now would have pushed much of the work back into the dark hours, by lamplight, a weary prospect for hobbits who’d searched through the previous night instead of sleeping.

Eglantine suppressed a sigh of relief as Paladin allowed as he might wait for a neighbour to bring the ponies back this evening, and Daw promised to return in the dawning, to see if they’d returned, and to set out to track them if they hadn’t.

Her relief would have been short-lived, replaced by an unsettled feeling, had she heard her husband’s last instruction to the Sherriff, as he walked partway down the lane to see Daw off. ‘Be sure you bring an assistant or two with you on the morrow,’ Paladin said, his expression uncharacteristically sober.

‘You think it’ll be that hard to track them?’ Daw said. ‘I hope I know my business…!’

‘I'm sure that you do,’ Paladin said quickly, but his hand on the Shirriff’s arm stopped them for a moment, before he indicated that they should keep on walking. ‘I'm sure that you do,’ he repeated. ‘It’s just that… there’s something amiss. I can’t quite put my finger on’t, but…’ He shrugged. ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea to be out there, alone, not at least until we find out more about what happened to Ferdi and Tolly.’

The Shirriff nodded thoughtfully, Paladin’s earlier whispered deadly hurt sounding in his memory. But all he said in reply was, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

It wouldn’t hurt to take Nonnie’s younger son, and perhaps Daisy’s two lads with him, just to give them a chance to learn more of tracking. His nephews hoped someday to become Shirriffs themselves, though there were few positions available, and a fellow had to be skilled in tracking and handling animals, and not averse to walking all the day long. No harm in letting the lads practice their skills on the morrow.

Deadly harm, whispered in his thoughts. On the other hand, perhaps he’d ask his brother and his uncle to go with him instead.

With a nod, he repeated, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’





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