Chapter 12. In which a Took is taken by surprise

Percy the Weaver had just managed to drop off into dream when he was interrupted once more, and not by a mere pinch over a fancied noise. No, this was a right pounding on the door of the smial, some sort of emergency he supposed, though what it might be, in the dead of winter, was beyond his imagining. Couldn’t be flood, he thought, and I doubt it’s wildfire, this time of year, and...

‘Percy!’ his wife hissed, clutching at his arm with both hands, plainly terrified. ‘What is it?’

‘Well if I knew that,’ he grumbled, disengaging his arm and arising, while Bell buried herself in the bedcovers, all a-quiver, ‘then I wouldn’t have to get out o’ the bed to answer, now would I?’

As it turned out, he would’ve. A grim-faced Took stood at the door, and more, bearing torches, sat ponies in the yard behind him.

Percy found himself echoing his wife’s question. ‘What is it?’ He rubbed his eyes. The Tooks were still there. It was no dream, then, as he’d hoped.

‘It’s a muster,’ the Took said. ‘There are ruffians, right here in the Tookland!’

‘Ruffians!’ said Bell, faintly behind him, and he turned in time to see her swoon.

‘Bell!’ he cried, running to her. The grim Took entered as well, hurrying to the bucket of water that sat by the hearth, dipping a handkerchief and draping it over Bell’s forehead, then chafing one of her hands, while Percy continued to call his wife’s name, patting her other hand.

Bell came round, looking up with wide and frightened eyes.

‘Better?’ the Took asked.

‘Is it that we’re to be murdered in our beds, then?’ Bell whispered.

‘A cup of tea’s the thing, I think,’ the Took said, avoiding the question, though he helped Bell to sit up.

Percy jumped to his feet, stirred up the banked fire, added more wood and put the kettle on. ‘Will you have tea as well, sir?’ he said.

‘No time to stop,’ the Took said. ‘There’s a muster, and we must carry the news to your neighbours.’

Another rider had dismounted and hovered in the doorway. ‘Do you want us to go on without you, Hilly?’ he said.

‘I’ll be but a moment,’ the Took answered. ‘Close the door before these good folk freeze to death!’

The hobbit in the doorway nodded and complied.

‘Hildibold Took, at your service,’ Hilly said belatedly, looking from weaver to wife. ‘I’ve come for your sons and apprentices. You may leave someone here, on guard, or we’ll send your missus to the Smials for safety, until the ruffians are cast out.’

‘At your service, and your family's,’ Percy responded without having to think much about it, but then he nodded, thinking over the rest of what Hilly'd had to say, and he rapidly came to a conclusion. ‘But I’ll stay,’ he said, for he’d not leave his fine looms to be smashed by the likes of ruffians who didn’t belong here in any event. ‘I’ve a fair hand with a bow, and Bell here can wield an axe well enough, though she’s only menaced trees, the past few years...’ He raised his voice, to call back to the other sleepers in the far bedrooms of the smial. ‘Here now, all ye lads, turn out! Turn out, I say!’

Bell rose, a little shakily, with Hilly’s help, and handed back the soaking handkerchief. ‘Silly of me,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘Let me just make a nice big pot o’ tea, ‘twon’t take but a few moments, before you must ride on.’

‘I’m sorry, missus, I can stop only long enough to collect hobbits,’ Hilly said with regret. The night was cold, and he’d welcome the hot beverage, but the Thain had called a muster and he had a way to go yet before he’d visited all the smials that were on his list.

Bell nodded and went about her business anyhow, as a number of tousle-headed hobbits came out sleepily from the other bedrooms. They were soon wide-awake with the news of the muster, diving back into their rooms to pull on clothes.

‘Need more than one pot more, I mind,’ Bell was muttering to herself as she readied the usual pots, and so she went to the mantel to fetch an extra. But... ‘What’s this?’ she said, pulling a piece of folded paper from the pot, preparatory to rinsing with warm water and filling with tea leaves.

No one heard her in the bustle; Percy and his two oldest sons were receiving details of the alarm from Hilly, and the younger sons and apprentices were stringing their hunting bows, and grabbing mufflers from the pegs by the door.

All the bustle stopped at Bell’s shriek.

Soft curls of golden-brown sifted to the floor, and the paper trembled in her nerveless fingers.

‘Bell-dear, what is it?’ Percy said.

‘She’s not going to faint again, is she?’ Hilly said, a little less tender than the husband. He really had no time to spare for such.

‘Ruf—ruffians!’ Bell said, her face white, extending the paper.

Hilly was about to snap that he knew there were ruffians, of course, for that was the reason he was here and not warm in his own bed with the clock nearing middle night, but Bell thrust the paper at him. ‘Read it!’ she quavered. ‘Read it!’

Hilly took the paper. As a Took of the Great Smials, he read well, for the Thain insisted on all the hobbits in the Smials knowing their letters, from the lowliest dairymaid to the head of his escort. He, too, lost all colour as he read, and then his face flushed with fury.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded, shaking the paper in Percy’s face.

‘ ‘Twere,’ Percy faltered, ‘ ‘twere left on the doorstep, so to speak, on the doorstep, with a big rock atop. Just an hour agone, it were, and I left it for the missus to read over breakfast, for letters and me, we have only a passing acquaintance.’

But Hilly did not stop to hear more. He dove to scoop up a handful of drifting curls from the floor. His jaw worked as he stared at the stuff as if comparing it in his mind to some memory; he shoved the handful into his pocket and then flung himself out of the smial, shouted something to the waiting hobbits, and jumped into his saddle. Wrenching his pony around, he dug his heels sharply into the beast’s flanks, and the pony flashed into a gallop, away, with hoofbeats that rapidly faded into the night.

***

The children had gone reluctantly to sleep after eventides, for they remembered only too well the events of a few weeks previous, when Ferdi had gone to “escort” young Faramir and had come perilously close to being banished from the Shire for something he’d never intended to do. And now, today, their father had gone to escort Farry home from a visit to Whittacres Farm, and once again, he’d not come home at the expected time.

They had slept fitfully, it seems, and perhaps their slumber, what there was of it, was disturbed by the sounds of Rudivar’s grief. In any event, one by one they came creeping from their beds, drawn like moths to destruction, to the terrible surprise that awaited them. Truly, their father had come home.