It's took so long, near to a year. Leastwise it seems so long but really it's mostly figured as it would take a lot longer, and I done real well to be to this point already. Missus Nettle gave me her final test and it were a right doozy, and I stumbled a wee bit, but I got ever'thing good 'nuff as she said I were done with the teaching and she even wrote me a right glowing letter. We even went to the Pony for a celebratory feast. And now when the guild meets next month I'm goin' for to be petitioning for the creating of a new mastership and for to sell it to me.
Wouldn't never have got this far at all, let alone so quick, if'n it weren't for Lumina helping me studying and readin' maybe half the book to me, maybe more. I don't know if she even realizes how much difference it made. Not just the reading, though that were huge since I read so slow and struggle so hard with understandin' what I read -- I can learn much better what I hear than what I read, even if it be the same words. But also with her helpin' me to understand so much of it. Must be such little things, so simple to her, when she'd sort of re-word what she were tellin' me from the book so's I could follow it, but it made all the world of difference, I think.
So now I am thinkin' on how I got to persuade the masters of the guild on my petition. I know Goldenleaf, from South Gate stable, won't never vote for me and will speak strong against me. His real reason is that I ain't a Bree boy, that I'm a foreigner. I reckon he spoke against Éogar in his day too. But he won't say that; he'll say it's on account I ain't had a regular apprenticeship, that I done this too fast, that Bree-land can't afford for to have an eighth stable-master, that I'd be cuttin' into ever'one's business. But I reckon, and I hope, ever'one else will know it's really on account of me bein' a foreigner and how he feels about 'em.
I know Éogar will vote for me; he were the one first encouraged me to do this, and what said the idea of havin' a separate stable for treatin' of hurt and ill horses was somethin' Bree could use, and he were the one got me set up with Missus Nettle for teaching. And after that year workin' for him up in Trestlebridge way, I'm sure Master Fincham will, too. He felt bad about not teachin' me much for much the time I was journeyman under him. So that's two for and one against.
Master Rosewood from the West Gate might go either way. He were fair cross at me for leavin' when I done. I think he did maybe mean for to retire and to sell me the stable and now maybe he's got to find another journeyman to train up. But he also thought well of me and my work, and I reckon he wouldn't hold against me; he's a fair-minded fellow. Unless he thinks maybe me leavin' is proof I won't be reliable, or make a good representing of the guild. But if Goldenleaf starts talkin' 'gainst me, that's like to bring Rosewood for me, as they are cordial and all but I know Rosewood really don't like how Goldenleaf treats outsiders.
That leaves Worley from the Forsaken Inn, Cloverdale from Combe, and Bob at the Pony. For them it's like to come down to Missus Nettle's letter and my presenting. I got for to convince them both that havin' a stable just for the healing of hurt horses would be good for the guild, and that I'd be a good one for to run it. I got to focus on that I did all the work to be sure I could do it afore I even come to them. I got a stable planned, I done all my study, I got gold put aside, I spent all them years as apprentice and then journeyman, I made sure to learn from more'n a few of 'em. And the fact that I'm stayed in Bree all this time, got a wife and a daughter and a house and all, so's they know I'm serious about it. And above all, I got to just try not to get so nervous as I can't talk straight.
I wonder though, if'n they award it to me, and I get the stable built, will that finally be enough for Lumina to be able to do some with her dreams of settin' up that clinic, or any other things as she might want for to do? She don't seem to think so, but I sure hope this one time she turns out not to be right, and we can find a way.
