Slowcoach
by Merripestin
I never got too far. Staddle sometimes, mostly when my mum was living and wanted to see my aunts there, and up northways hunting with my cousins a time or two. My da always said there ain't no point in going off, when you live in Bree, for in Bree, all the wide world comes to you. Right enough, my mum would say, and more's the pity. But she was a Tunnelly, and grim in her moods as da and I were always cheery. Up to this year, I mostly thought it were a blessing, all them folk from everywhere come through Bree, and me seeing most of 'em, of an evening at the Pony.
Everyone comes here. His pony come back two weeks since, sent by that wild fellow in the west wood, they say. I been taking it a treat now and then, and Bob laughs at me, for being so taken with an animal, asks me what's wrong with me. Says if I ain't never going to fancy a hobbit lass, maybe I'll find meself a filly, and we laugh. Bob's got a filthy sort of humor, comes of spending all his days mucking out stalls. We've been friends most of our days, but Bob ain't never been able to see what catches my eye and what don't. Nor most folk, for I've a smile for most and hardly a frown for none.
Ain't been too many, anyhow, and I'm just as happy on it, for that. I don't know what to do with my fancies when I do have 'em, that's the plain truth of it. Get tangled, and by the time I've thought it through, they've mostly passed on through Bree and out the other side, or back off the way they come.
Now, him, aye, I liked the look of him straight off, them soft brown eyes as felt like a kick of hot cider in the belly to look at, and how he looked out of em like as he was a-watching for aught as might be wrong with a fellow, and looking for how he could fix it up with his own two hands. We had us a fine bit of a talk, when Mr. Butterbur weren't after me to fetch and carry, though he had that funny way of rolling his words half-over, like they do in the Shire, and weren't til he'd said it half a dozen times I understood he was saying gardener and not gander. He's as fine a storyteller as ever I saw, and I ain't never before heard half them songs or tales he came out with there in the parlor. And before long, the way people were a-shifting about to hear that young friend of his master's talk too, and up and down off the benches to get at the ale and all, I ended up right beside him, those eyes a-looking right at me, friendly-like, and him singing about elves and stars in a voice fit to bruise the heart.
I listened, tangled up, like, and before I said aught more than a joke or two -- and like as not if I'd said summat, it wouldn't never have been a thing as would have made him think twice anyhow -- his master started up to singing on a table, and when he looked up at Mr. Underhill -- or whatever it is -- them eyes got softer and I weren't no more in his mind then than his tankard on the table. Ain't proud to say, it was that, maybe, as made me shy away from him, with the rest, after his master did that bit of a trick. I says to myself as he weren't but a warlock or summat and been enchanting on me a-purpose, and when he looked back, hurt, maybe, and bewildered, and finally went to sit by that Mr. Took, I showed him my back and went off to the pantry.
I did say I was sorry, after, but he didn't have no time to talk, what with Mr. Meriadoc being took so poorly, and that old Strider making trouble, and terrible folk coming in the house at night. I did my best with breakfast, and all, to send them on their way, but he'd eyes for no one but that Mr. Baggins of his -- if that's the name. Still kind as could be, though, and I made him laugh a bit, and maybe I might have had the chance to say summat to him, if I'd tried, but I never did.
I think on him, betimes. Dark days in Bree, and darker in Archet, so they're saying, and that sweet brown-eyed lad off in the wild with only Stick-at-Naught Strider between him and black ghosts and wild men and beasts and all. And now his pony come back, and maybe that means as he's lying dead and gone in lands I ain't never got to, and won't never see neither, but I can't but hope he's well. I hope he'll come back with a fresh tale and maybe eyes as can see what it is as is wrong with me, makes me never speak when there's time. And fool or no, I can't but hope that he might fix it, and with his own two hands. Makes me right glad to think on it.
All story elements are the property of the Tolkien Estate.
Slowcoach 030327
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