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.