Chapter 74. I emerge from dreams to reality

~ S.R. 1419, 14 March, starting sometime before noon (From the Tale of Years for this date: Samwise finds Frodo in the Tower.) ~

Time is passing; how much time I have spent in this "cradle", as Tall Bob called it but a little while ago as the grooms began their early-morning duties, I am not sure. I remember darkness, but now the windows appear to be brightening with morning light.

'Tis morning? Of what day, I wonder? I have slept on and off since... since the last time I saw my Sam in my dreams. For dreams they must have been, surely. And yet my hobbit, and the dark, twisting tunnels, and the nightmare creatures, seemed as real to me as my comfortable surroundings of the here-and-now. How curious!

But here is my little flower, skipping in past the large, heavy door, left open to welcome the spring breezes and sunshine. 'Poppet!' she cries, her eyes meeting mine. To Bert, who holds her hand as they enter together, she says, 'He's holding his head up! He looks better!'

'He is better!' Bert says staunchly. 'And you may feed him the carrot I brought for him, before you go to the corner to supervise his care... stall cleaning and feeding and grooming and...'

'And... and... and...' my flower-butterfly laughs. 'You make it sound as if a groom's work is never-ending!'

'And that is what it is, Letty!' Bert says, a light in his eyes and a fond smile on his face as he looks down at his little cousin. 'So it is a good thing that I enjoy my work, I suppose!'

This-Bob has not returned to the stables since the rigging of my hammock, as Nob called it when he came later in this-Bob's place to check on the stables in general and me in particular. And this morning, Nob was the earliest to enter the stables – except for my two watchers, for I have had two watchers since this whole sling business started. My two watchers, though changing periodically, have been on the spot, one of them a groom and the other being one of the townsfolk since there are not enough grooms for two of them to keep watch at all hours of the day and night and still fulfil all their necessary tasks. It was Nob who pushed the heavy door all the way to the side as if to welcome the dawning of this spring day.

Now, as Bert unlatches the half-door to my box, Nob pauses in passing to say, 'He's looking much better!'

'Much better!' Bert and little Violet echo together, and then they all laugh together as if it's a fine joke. I am glad to see the tween is none the worse for our recent endeavours.

'He's bearing more of his own weight,' Nob adds, eyeing me critically. 'I'd like for Master Underhill to have a look at him, to be sure, but I think he's turned the corner...' To Bert, he says, 'Bring him his breakfast and tea in bed, this morning, and then we'll see about turning him loose in his box, to move about as he wishes.'

Breakfast and tea in bed means that Bert fills a feed bag and fastens it to my head collar, then buckles it all on so that my nose is conveniently close to the grain in the bag. Feeling almost as thin and hungry as my Sam appeared to be in my dreams, I tuck in. Meanwhile, Violet sits upon her upturned bucket in the corner of my box, and Bert applies brush and comb as best he can, hampered by the straps that have held me up for the past day or days or however long it has been. 'But we'll have a thorough going-over soon, Bill-my-lad! And none too soon, the way you're shedding your winter coat in the warming weather!'

While I have been eating, the other grooms have fed and brushed and harnessed my friends and fellow stablemates, and Men and Hobbits have come to lead them away to the ploughing, and the stables are now quiet except for the bustle in my stall and the sound of a solitary animal in one of the tie-stalls on the other side, pulling hay and munching. It must be the pony from Archet, who apparently did not carry supplies back to that place with the relief party. As a visitor like myself, it would not be likely to be harnessed to a plough, I should think. I wonder if we will take our morning constitutional together once I am back on my own feet. Or will that other visitor have already returned to Archet by that time?

After I have finished my breakfast grain, Bert brings me a bucket of cool, clear fresh-drawn water, and it seems I may drink my fill! When I have satisfied my thirst, I lift my dripping muzzle from the bucket and nod my chin back and forth, sending drips over the front of Bert's shirt, though he doesn't seem to mind. He only laughs at me and says, 'You're quite welcome, Poppet!'

Breakfast is not quite finished, however; Bert asks Violet to pull handfuls of hay from my haynet and feed them to me whilst he cleans the bedding around me, replacing soiled straw with fresh. It might be a tricky business, but I help as well as I can by keeping my feet still so there is no danger of my stepping on him as he works. The armfuls of hay that Violet keeps bringing are also quite helpful, I find.

So diverted am I by this abundance of attention that I startle when a relative stranger speaks just outside my stall. 'He's looking much better! ...better than Bob, at any rate. At breakfast, Young Barliman sent the hobbit back to bed and ordered him to stay there until the healer can have a look at him – and who knows just when Young Tom will return from Archet!'

I have just emptied Violet's hands of hay, but instead of turning back to the haynet for more, she stares at the old hobbit in dismay. 'Dad?' she says uncertainly. 'My dad is unwell again?' Or more unwell, perhaps is the meaning of her query, for the ostler remains a bit unsteady, even now, despite his insistence that he has recovered relatively well from the injuries the would-be horse- and pony-thieves inflicted on him, that night during the battle in Bree.

The old hobbit from the hillside smiles and enters my box. He reminds me of a cricket, small but spry, as he reassures my little flower. 'He's well enough,' he says. 'I think the innkeeper is simply taking extra caution, considering how ill your dad was after the battle – not the recent battle in Archet, mind, but the one here.' Under his breath, he adds, 'And I dearly hope Staddle and Combe will be spared such trials... But we are all on our guard, and Archet's misfortune has led us to reassess our defences and shore up any weaknesses we can identify...'

'Master Underhill,' Bert acknowledges respectfully. 'Master Butterbur thinks that the losses they took in Archet will discourage the blighters for some time to come...'

'Nonetheless,' the old hobbit says firmly. 'They might just think to take advantage of us, should we think them discouraged and lessen our watchfulness therefore! No, but Bree-landers are standing ready now, and we'll continue to stand ready, from what my grandson said this morning when he brought me word from Combe and Staddle about the changes they were making after Archet nearly fell to those evil robbers! Why,' he adds in a lower voice, 'they seemed bent on burning the whole town!'

But then his eye falls upon Violet's face once more, and he adopts a cheerful tone. 'Well now, lass; shall we see if your Poppet is ready to discard his harness and move freely about his stall once more?'

'O yes!' Violet says, distracted from the topic of robbers and battles just as I'm sure he meant her to be. She dances a bit and claps her hands; but I am used to her ways, so I am not startled by her sudden movements. Since I would not hazard her tiny toes by dancing along with her, I merely toss my head and whicker a cheerful pony-song.

'He looks to be in fine fettle!' the old hobbit says, moving to my head, where he proceeds to look me closely in each eye. Then he takes my mouth in his hands and encourages me to open my jaws wide – and he proceeds to look closely at the inside of my mouth and tongue. 'Good... good,' is all he says.

Then he runs his hands along my sides and then down each of my legs in turn, nodding and muttering to himself, while Violet and Bert watch closely. At last he straightens and dusts his hands together. 'Good!' he repeats. 'He's still a little tender from the sudden and heavy, nearly overwhelming strain of that rope breaking in the midst of his travails, but having rested well from yesterday morning until nuncheon today has done him a great deal of good, along with frequent and generous applications of the balm I prescribed. I believe no lasting harm has been done.'

My hobbits cheer heartily at this good news. Next thing I know, the old hobbit has done something to the straps that were tying me to the ceiling above my stall, gradually settling my weight onto my own legs until I am standing all on my own. Then he walks a compass about me, scrutinising me from every angle, and at last, he nods to young Bert. Together, they work the buckles on my harness – even Violet helps to undo some of the fastenings, and soon I am free.

As the hobbits step back, I toss my head up and down, and then I snort and shake myself vigorously. How good it feels to be free!

'Here now,' the old hobbit says, holding out his hands to take the harness from Bert's arms. 'I'll just put this contraption away for a rainy day whilst you answer the call – I should say the pony is asking for a thorough grooming!'

'I should say so!' the tween agrees with a chuckle.

A thorough grooming feels good, I must say. As Bert plies his brush, clumps of itchy hair fall away, along with clods and flakes of dried mud.

The old hobbit watches for a time, still smiling, but at last, he says, 'I must go to your stable master and give him a good report, that he might rest more easily. But I'll return after I've shared his nuncheon with him to see how the pony is doing after standing on his own for an hour or three. And then, by the time we're finished here, it'll be close enough to teatime that I might as well take tea with the hobbit before taking myself off home again.'

'Off home!' Bert says, pausing in his labours and turning away from me. 'But...'

'Young Barliman has promised to send guards along with me to tread the mile or so to Staddle,' the old hobbit says. 'And that, even though he thinks the robbers are off licking their wounds, if not having deserted the territory altogether in search of easier prey.'

'Uncle Nob thinks they might turn their attentions to the Shire for that same reason, as a matter of fact,' Bert says, having relaxed at the mention of "guards" accompanying the old hobbit on his way homewards.

'I've never been that far to the West,' Master Underhill admits, 'though I understand, from what those Shire-hobbits said when they passed through last Autumn, that I have relations there.'

'One of them was named "Underhill" as a matter of fact, at least as I heard it,' Bert says with a nod.

The old hobbit echoes the tween's nod. 'He didn't much bear all that much resemblance to any of the Underhills of Staddle,' he says. 'But then, he was from far parts, and who knows what has become of those Underhills who left the Bree-lands behind to follow Marco and Blancho to a new land all those years ago? That said, we welcomed him as a long-lost cousin anyhow. At least until he pulled his trickery and startled the wits out of everyone in the common room of the Pony that night. It's just as well that he left the next morning, having made such a spectacle of himself in front of so many people and nearly giving Hobbits a bad name amongst Bree-landers.'

'Shire-hobbits, anyhow,' Bert says, and at the old hobbit's questioning look, he adds, '...giving Shire-hobbits a bad name, I meant to say.' The tween shakes his head as he concludes, 'Ah, well, there's no accounting for Shire-folk.' 

I would beg to differ. My hobbits from the Shire seem very like the Bree-hobbits of my acquaintance. Except, of course, for their propensity to travel great distances.

Are all Shire-hobbits like that, I wonder? I had not met a Shire-hobbit before my hobbits took me on as part of their travelling company. If Shire-folk are wanderers, it seems they have wandered for the most part, at least until recently, in other directions that did not bring them to Bree.

I can only hope that if the Shire-folk are wanderers, as I am understanding Bert to be saying, then perhaps they will be all the more likely to wander back in this direction?

***