Chapter 16, No More Doubts

_{“We never meant t’ frighten the lad,” said Rick....“But do ye understand the significance o’ his lineage?”}

_{“Absolutely, I do,” Paladin replied without a flinch. - Chapter 15}

Throughout the rest of that day, whenever Paladin tried to speak to Degger about the possibility of his lineage, Degger would change the subject every time.

“I think their front garden is goin’ t’ be beautiful when everythin’ blossoms in the spring--don’t ye, Mr. Paladin?”

Degger made that sort of reply three times before Paladin got the hint that the lad did not wish to speak on the matter any further. So much was happening so fast that Paladin not only got the hint, but was more or less in agreement with the teen. He would not bring up the subject again until the following morning.

Realising his earlier--and quite emotional--request had been a tad on the unreasonable side Degger did assent to stay at Ivy Bellflower the remainder of the day and to spend night there.

“I do feel uneasy about bein’ here, but I don’t think they mean any harm,” he later told Paladin before supper. However, for the rest of the evening, Degger kept to himself inside the guestroom he and Pippin shared.

Pippin, for his part, spent the evening with his good friend in the guestroom once his father explained everything that happened with Degger. Pippin was not in the habit of leaving any of his friends alone at a time when they needed a companion the most. Even at his young age Pippin understood that Degger was having a difficult time dealing with it all.

It was in the wee hours of the morning that Pippin woke suddenly from a strange dream that he couldn’t remember. He sat up straight taking in the surroundings of his room. Fortunately, it seemed to Pippin, that he at least did not yell out in his sleep because Degger still lay motionless on his side of the bed. Pippin crooked his arm then used his sleeve to wipe away the dampness on his forehead, wondering if it was the mushroom pasties that he and Degger ate before bedtime that prompted the dream, or if it was the apple dumpling he had absconded from the desert trolley after kissing his father good night. After a while of picking at the tiny fur balls on the blanket, Pippin decided that it was neither; it was probably just a simple dream that woke him and probably was prompted from too much sleep, as he had napped earlier that day for nearly three hours. Pippin sighed; he was too alert now to fall back to sleep. He had an idea.

Slipping out of bed, Pippin pulled on his dressing gown then quietly stepped out of the room. The young teen squinted, as the dimly lit hallway stabbed at his eyes, demanding they adjust to the brighter light. Pippin padded down the hall, down the stairs, then meandered toward the rooms on the other side of the parlour; Sam had mentioned before that the library was back this way.

When he came to the first door in the hallway, Pippin opened it to peek inside the room. Although it was darker further inside, the hall light spilled into the entryway and onto a desk situated nearby while the dark silhouette of a bookcase stood in the glow of the moonlit window. Pippin presumed that this was probably Rick’s study, so he shut the door and moved on.

The next room Pippin investigated, his nose filled with a tinge of musty air and the smell of leather. Pippin smiled at the familiar scent; this was indeed the library. He left the door open to allow the hall light to follow him into the darkened room. Pippin folded his arms tightly together for warmth as he approached the cold hearth. He figured a small fire to warm up the room wouldn’t hurt, so he placed a couple of logs and some kindling onto the grating and then built a cosy little fire for himself.

The lad stood in front of the hearth for a while warming his hands and toes before turning round to take in Ivy Bellflower’s library. Pippin blinked as he looked round; this library wasn’t nearly as large as the one at Great Smials. Then again, age-wise, Ivy Bellflower wasn’t a fraction as old as Great Smials, either. Pippin began perusing the shelves to see what sorts of books were available for reading. The lower shelves contained children’s books while the middle shelves were filled with both new and old lesson books, recipe books, and how-to books. At length, Pippin stumbled upon the history books; he loved history. Pippin’s favourite history stories, however, were mostly told by his own father and by Cousin Bilbo, but generally, Pippin loved whatever sort of history he could get his hands on. He pulled out a book recounting the legend of the Fallohides crossing the Ettenmoors, flipped through several leafs, and then out of the corner of his eye on a higher shelf, Pippin caught sight of a long line of grey leather-bound volumes of, “The Book of Trees“. Instead, Pippin put the “crossing” book back on the shelf and looked about for a footstool; truly, he had grown this past year, but not yet enough to reach the very top shelf without assistance.

Pippin’s arms were full as he carried away three heavy and the most important volumes of the Trees over to the fireplace. He noticed a bowl of apples and pears on the table--obviously meant to keep young readers quiet. He grabbed one of each, found an oil lamp, lit it, and then settled himself on a pillow in front of the hearth for a long, pre-dawn read. After all, this was a much better option compared to that of tossing and turning and subsequently waking someone who truly needed his sleep.

* * * *

Degger felt himself being roused from the sweet slumber that he finally found long after midnight. Opening his eyes, Degger discovered Rick perched upon the edge of his bed, his finger to his lips. The quiet teen-ager instinctively pulled his bed clothes up to his chin.

“I’m sorry t’ wake ye, Degger,” said Rick, “but first breakfast is on the table if ye want any. I thought t’ wake Paladin, but bein’ the farmer that he is, he was already up. He asked me t’ see if ye an’ Pippin were hungry, but in the middle of it all I got an amusin’ surprise. Follow me!”

Curious, Degger rose from the guest bed, put on his dressing gown, then followed the elder hobbit out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and toward some back rooms.

“When I went int’ yer room t’ wake ye the first time,” Rick explained as he spoke over his shoulder, “I saw only one young hobbit in the bed. So, I took a turn round the rooms back here and found what I thought I’d find.” Rick smiled as he opened the door into the library.

Inside, on the far side of the room near the hearth, laid a younger teen with his head resting upon a large open book. The wick inside the lantern had burned out long ago, and the cores to an apple and pear, both eaten down to their cartilage stood on their ends like sentinels off to the side.

Yes, Degger, thought, that was certainly Mr. Pippin over there sleeping on the mat in front of the hearth with another very large book in his arms. Degger gave a questioning look to Rick.

It was as if Rick had read Degger’s thoughts. “I thought ye might want t’ see if he wants first breakfast as well,” he said, and then left.

Degger rubbed the sand from his eyes as he meandered over to his dearest friend, wondering why Rick couldn’t have done the task himself. Waking an almost-fourteen-year-old hobbit wasn’t all that difficult. He looked through weary brown eyes at the slim teen that slept deeply upon one of the library’s most hallowed tomes with saliva oozing from his mouth. Degger gasped in horror when he sighted the title.

“Mr. Pippin!” he whispered while gently placing a hand on Pippin’s shoulder, “Yer spittin’ all over their books!”

“Mmm?” murmured Pippin. He wasn’t far from fully waking, yet he wasn’t quite ‘there’ yet.

“Wake up, Mr. Pippin!”

“No...” moaned the waking teen.

“Yes!”

Pippin took in a long, deep breath and then let it out....and then nothing.

“Mr. Pippin--wake up!”

“I don’t have your hair ribbon or fishing hook, Vinca...”

“Mr. Pippin, we’re not at home--there’s no ribbons or hooks. We’re at Little Delvin’ at Ivy Bellflower. Ye’re spittin’ on their book! Please wake up,” Degger pleaded.

Pippin yawned and then opened his eyes to slits. “What’s going on?” he asked drowsily.

“Mr. Rick asked me if I’d wake ye for first breakfast, an’ I thought that was all he wanted, but then I saw ye’d spit all over his family’s books.”

“Degger,” Pippin yawned again, stretched his back and arms, and then rubbed the faerie sand out of his eyes. “First, the past-tense of ‘spit’ is spat. I spat all over Cousin Rick’s family books. Second, I can’t help it--it happens when I’m asleep.” Using the sash of his dressing gown, Pippin dabbed at the saliva on the page. Luckily, the page cleaned well and would dry without ruin. “I must have fallen asleep while reading about you.”

“Me?”

“Aye, you!”

Puzzled, Degger sat down beside Pippin. “What do ye mean?”

“I know that you were upset yesterday over hearing about...well, about where you came from, so I’ll tell you about what I’ve read, but only if you ask.”

Degger stared with trepidation at the ominous book that would confirm or deny his relation to Rick and Auntie Bettie.

“Mr. Pippin,” he spoke softly, “I know a lot o’ thins’ said yesterday had me in a fix all evenin’, but my doubts arise from what yer dad said t’ me in retellin’ the story Mr. Rick told t’ him. Mr. Paladin said my dad wrote t’ Mr. Rick’s family after my mum passed. My dad wasn’t a lettered hobbit, Mr. Pippin, so how could he write any letters?”

Pippin became pensive as he tried to work out Degger’s claim in his head. “Well,” he replied slowly, “could it be possible that your father enlisted a friend or hired someone to write it for him? That’s quite common among folk who don’t know how to read or write.”

Still eyeing the open book, Degger shrugged. “I s’ppose it might be possible.”

Both lads sat cross-legged in front of the hearth listening to the dying, crackling embers; at length, Pippin reached to take the poker to stir the hot ashes. When he felt a wave of warmth wash over his face, he sat back beside Degger again.

“But...,” Degger spoke softly, half afraid of speaking what was truly on his mind.

“But what?” asked Pippin.

The red-gold glow from the dying fire radiated on the lads’ faces as they sat mesmerised by the drifting embers.

“I don’t know,” Degger exhaled wearily, “Mr. Paladin said they looked for us. I don’t think they looked very hard.”

“You’re saying that Mr. Rick and Mistress Layla didn’t do their best to find you and Heather?”

“They didn’t do their best t’ find Taddy, me, and Heather.”

“We don’t know that for certain, Degger,” said Pippin. “Michel Delving is a huge town--probably larger than Tuckborough.”

Pippin had come to know Degger and his disposition quite well over the past year. He watched Degger closely for a reaction. When he perceived none was forthcoming, he continued on, not wanting to lose this moment. “You can’t live life forever wondering what might-have-been, what could-have-been, what should-have-been--or what they could have done. We came here looking for my family, Degger, but instead, we have found yours, and I think that is splendid. Even if you were to have stayed behind at Great Smials while my father and I came here in search of lost cousins, we would have made the same discovery regardless. Here--I’m not going to wait for you to ask--have a look!”

Pippin turned back two pages of the book he was holding then pointed to a group of names. “You see? Here it is in complete proof. No more doubting, eh?”

Degger leaned to the side ever so slightly to see where Pippin’s finger indicated to a family tree. And there he read it:

“Miss Gayla-Rose Took, daughter of Diggory Took, of Ivy Bellflower, Little Delving, & Mr. Wilbourne Greenhill, son of Gilbourne Greenhill of Mare’s Nest, Little Delving, wedded this day...”

Then Pippin turned to the next page where Degger saw depicted three lower branches of a family tree with Gayla and Wilbourne’s names set up high in the boughs. Each of the lower branches had a name: Tad, Deggory, and Heather.

Degger’s eyes glistened as he tenderly placed a finger over the letters of his parent’s names. “Then it’s true,” he said softly.

“Aye,” Pippin whispered just as softly. He suddenly had a fear that Degger would not return to Great Smials with him and his father. “What are you going to do?”

Degger let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know.”

TBC