The Proposition, Part One: A Proposition from the Thain

Chapter 1.

The gentle rapping that came at the door was startling as well as unexpected, late as it was. Hobbits in the Woody End had taken a page out of their Marish neighbours’ book, so to speak, and barred or barricaded their doors at night these days, what with Men appearing more and more often. These were not the kind of Men who were welcome in the Shire, such as tinkers and wandering merchants, nor were they the kind who were tolerated, like the grim-faced cloaked fellows who were seen less often, but seemed to do no harm, and even did some good on occasion, such as rescuing a hobbit who’d fallen down an abandoned well, or presenting a lost child to some member of a party of searchers, before disappearing without much more time than a word of thanks might take.

No, these were another sort of Man altogether, and though the word “ruffian” had not yet come into common usage, it was soon to become a byword within the Bounds of the Shire as well as Outside.

Dark had fallen, and the hobbits of the Woody End had learned that it was better not to open their doors after dark. Hally the Woodcarver had even contrived a sort of bar that he used to fasten his door shut, when all the day’s tasks were done and all his family were safe inside. They still kept to the custom of placing a turned-down lamp in the window (though lamp oil had grown dear, and it was more likely fuelled with rendered fat than purchased oil), but as to the likelihood that a door would open to a benighted stranger, well, that had grown rather less, lately.

‘Who is it?’ Hally called through the door, hand tightening on the handle of his axe. He motioned his wife to keep well away, to remain in the doorway to their little daughters’ bedroom, in point of fact. Further, he whispered to the little lads, hovering in the door to their own bedroom, to join their sisters. He didn’t know how they’d keep the children safe, if it were a rogue Man on the other side of the door, but it would be easier for Rosemary to escape with the lot of them, breaking the bedroom window if she had to, though she was great with child and might not be able to get far enough away if ruffianly Men were determined to give chase.

‘Open the door, Hally,’ came the soft reply. The voice was familiar somehow, if not immediately identifiable.

Perhaps not identifiable to Hally, but Rosemary gave a gasp and stumbled forward. ‘Ferdi!’

Her brother, once dear to her; still dear to her, as a matter of fact, only nowadays secretly so. Hally’s Rose had been disowned by her family, the Tooks, when she’d chosen not to marry the most powerful Took of all, the Thain – Ferumbras, it had been, old enough to be her father, or even her grandfather, but desperate for a wife and heir, his key to freedom from the chains of love and obligation his mother had forged over his lifetime. Instead of accepting the match, Rosemary had run away, had allowed herself to be handfasted to Hally as a measure of safety, had eventually married the woodcarver.

For Ferdi to openly visit the forest Bolgers was to risk being disowned himself, cast out of the clan of the Tooks, and so while he still visited, he visited in secret. Since the disappearance of the current Thain’s son, Ferdi’s visits had all but ceased – he’d come during Yuletide, to bring presents for the little ones, but that had been the only time between the end of September and now, early in the new year. For him to come again, so soon, was unexpected.

Hally leaned his axe against the wall, though he wished he could manage both crossbar and axe. He lifted the heavy bar from its supports and swung the door open, still not completely convinced that this was not a trick. A tall figure (tall for a hobbit, that is) slipped inside, pushing the door quickly shut behind himself. Hally needed no urging to put the crossbar back in place, but once this was accomplished, he was rather at a loss.

Rosemary had no such problem. She threw her arms about Ferdi with a repetition of her brother’s name, and then grabbed his arms to put him away from her, staring into his shadowy face. ‘What are you doing here, this time of night?’ she said, stern older sister and no longer welcoming. ‘What are you doing, wandering the Wood at this hour? Don’t you know that times are dangerous?’

Ferdi had the temerity to shush her. ‘Keep your voice down!’ he said, and when Hally moved to take the lamp from the window, to turn it up and shed some light on matters, he gestured in negation. ‘Leave it!’

‘But it’s dark!’ Hally said.

‘Darkness suits dark matters,’ Ferdi said, and turning back to Rosemary, he added, ‘It’s good to see you, too, Rosie.’

Rosemary spluttered, but Ferdi simply took her by the arm and guided her to the table, scrubbed clean after dinner and washing up were finished, and now covered with a cloth, a jug of dried flowers in the center and the chairs and benches, also of Hally’s making, drawn up neatly all around. ‘Sit yourself down, sister,’ he said. ‘You worry me, standing there, and so close to your time.’

Rosemary would have protested, but Hally added his support. ‘Yes, Rose-love, sit, do.’

Rosemary took a chair, reluctantly, and looked over to the children, still huddled in the door to the girls’ room. ‘To bed, children!’ she called softly. ‘You may greet your Uncle Ferdi on the morrow…’

‘I’ll greet them now,’ Ferdi said unexpectedly, going over to give each a hug and lay a kiss upon each curly crown, before shooing them all off to bed. He returned to the table and motioned to Hally to take a seat.

They sat huddled close together, for Ferdi spoke in a near whisper and the others felt a need to follow suit.

‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said.

‘A proposition,’ Rosemary echoed, while Hally tilted his head, the better to listen, for he felt as if his tongue were tied in his mouth. Dark matters?

Ferdi leaned forward and dropped his voice even lower. ‘Did you hear about the Crowing Cockerel?’

Hally found his voice. ‘The Men – Lotho’s Men – have been closing the inns, we’ve heard that. The Golden Perch in Stock was closed down, just last week, on some sort of trumped-up charge, that the landlord was sugaring his beer or somewhat…’

‘Aye,’ Ferdi said, ‘And the Cockerel was burnt to the ground, about the same time.’

At the Bolgers’ concerted gasp, he nodded solemnly. ‘I was there at the time,’ he said. ‘’Twas a mercy that no hobbits were within, at the time. As it stands, Lotho’s closed all the inns outside of the Tookland.’

‘And in the Tookland?’ Rosemary said.

Ferdi smiled grimly. ‘His… Big Men have suffered… mishaps, the last day or two, when they’ve tried,’ he said. ‘Travelling in the Tookland appears to be… unlucky, at least if you’re a Man.’

‘Ah,’ Hally said, light beginning to dawn. ‘And how long d’you think it’ll be, before Lotho notices?’

‘I imagine he’ll be noticing any day now,’ Ferdi said, and then he put his hand on Rosemary’s. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

***

Chapter 2.

‘Rosie,’ Ferdi said, ‘I have to tell you, I think it won’t be healthy to be a Took outside of the Tookland in days to come.’

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Rosemary said. ‘You’re not trying to separate me from my family, I hope? That might have been something old Lalia might’ve tried – she might have tried to annul our handfasting, Hally’s and mine, that I might marry her son,’ and she closed her eyes and shuddered, taken back in her mind to that desperate time, when Mistress Lalia of the Tooks had manoeuvred her into a corner, and she’d thought there was no way out, until some daring hobbits had risked much to plot her escape and rescue. ‘Had I not been able to disappear, beyond her reach, with the help of the Master and the Hall...’

‘No,’ Ferdi said, squeezing her hand.

‘I’m not a Took anyhow,’ Rosemary said, opening her eyes and hardening her tone. ‘Last I heard, I was put out of the family, and my name stricken from the Book.’

‘’Twould be better if it were never known that you’d ever been a Took,’ Ferdi said, and Rosemary could not help a gasp of hurt at this evidence of cold-heartedness on the part of the Tooks. ‘Nay, lass, I don’t mean it the way you take it.’

‘How do you mean it, then?’ Hally said, rising to his wife’s defence, his look grown unfriendly. Ferdi might be taller than himself, and perhaps stronger even – though Hally boasted firm muscles from his occupation of woodcutting and hauling – but there was no call to come to their door between dusk and middle night and insult his wife!

‘I mean, that if Lotho were brought word of Tooks living outside of the Tookland, he could make life very unpleasant, or use you to hurt someone working against him…’ and at the Bolgers’ befuddled look, he added, ‘use you… against me.’

‘You’re working against Lotho?’ Hally said slowly.

‘Am, and will be in future,’ Ferdi said, looking intently from face to face. ‘I intend…’ He stopped and began again, ‘Thain Paladin intends to keep Men out of the Tookland.’

‘Out of the Tookland?’

‘Out of the Tookland completely,’ Ferdi confirmed. ‘He’s drawn a border on the map, and we intend to keep it.’

‘What about the Shire?’ Hally said.

‘The Shire’s a lost cause,’ Ferdi replied, after a pause. ‘Paladin did what he could, when Lotho first started bringing his Men in, and as Lotho bought up more land, and as Men came in greater numbers, he tried to warn the Shirefolk. He warned Mayor Will, he warned the Master of Buckland, he warned the Boffins and Bolgers and all the other family heads, but they wouldn't listen to him, for he'd only been Thain for two or three years. Had it been old Ferumbras, perhaps... Ah, well. Lotho's money talked louder, I suppose, and his insinuations about Tookish ambitions... when he was the one with ambitions... Paladin didn’t have the power outside of the Tookland, to deny Lotho and others not of the Tooks, the purchase of unTookish land and holdings, but he could and did control inside the borders of the Tookish homeland.’

‘Tookish land for the Tooks,’ Rosemary murmured, her tone bitter.

‘Aye, but it’s all that’s saved us here and now,’ Ferdi said. ‘And we mean to keep Tookish land for the Tooks, and not let our land be overrun by Men, nor bought by the likes of Lotho and anyone else who wants to cut down trees without reason, and send smoke into the skies and filth into the streams, as I’ve seen is happening elsewhere.’

‘You’ve seen?’ Hally challenged.

Ferdi nodded. ‘I, and others,’ he said. ‘We’ve been travelling, going from place to place, and gathering information from outside the Tookland. But it’s getting harder,’ he added. ‘Shirefolk are beginning to look on Tooks and Tooklanders with suspicion, I’ve no doubt because of Lotho’s slandering ways, and a few Tooks caught outside of Tookland by Lotho’s Men have been mistreated, and released again, so that they might bring warning to the Thain, soften him up, make him fearful and more likely to give in to Lotho’s importuning.’

‘Have you been mistreated?’ Rosemary wanted to know, covering Ferdi’s hand with her free one so that she held his hand between both of hers.

Ferdi smiled, and it was not a nice smile. ‘They’d have to catch me, first,’ he said. ‘I have a fast pony, and I’m not very trusting these days.’

Rosemary drew a deep breath, thinking over her brother’s news.

‘And so, Rosie,’ Ferdi said, ‘’twould be better for your sake if no one remembered you’d ever been a Took, at least for the duration of the emergency.’

‘Duration?’ Hally said, his brow wrinkled in puzzlement. ‘I don’t take your meaning.’

‘So long as Lotho controls the part of the Shire outside of the Tookland,’ Ferdi said. ‘Either that, or you move your family within the borders, to keep them safe. Rosie was a Took, after all, and her children would be considered Tooks by the old laws.’ The Tookish laws of inheritance allowed for children of a Tookish mother to inherit Tookish land, if they took on her surname rather than, or in addition to, their unTookish father’s.

‘But I’m not a Took,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m disowned. Cast out of the family.’

‘And you never were a Took, that’s the important thing, Rosie, so long as you and your children remain outside the Tookland. If someone says something, or asks, you were never a Took. Our mother was a Bolger, and so a Bolger you should be.’

‘A Bolger I am, in point of fact,’ Rosemary said.

But Hally was still thinking about Ferdi’s earlier words. ‘For the duration of the emergency,’ he said. ‘You mean you see an end to it?’ He shook his head. ‘I think you’re dreaming. It’s only got worse since Frodo Baggins and the heir to Buckland disappeared.’

‘And Pippin,’ Rosemary said. ‘Don’t forget him. Son of the Thain.’ For someone who wasn’t a Took (any more), and had disavowed any interest in the Tooks, she was still the one to name the Tookish loss at the beginning of this whole miserable business.

Hally made an impatient gesture. ‘And another – who was he – a gardener, was it? I don’t recall exactly, but there were four who went into the Old Forest, or so they say, and never came out again.’

Ferdi dismissed the anonymous fourth, who’d been unknown to him in any event. ‘It’ll get worse before it gets better,’ he said, ‘if it ever does get better. Come what may, the first step to bettering things is to keep the Tookland free and unencumbered. If we can resist Lotho and his louts, perhaps some day we’ll be able to grow strong enough to throw them out again.’

Hally shook his head. ‘It’s a long bowshot, and one over water into the bargain, I should think.’ In archery terms – and Hally was a master archer, getting meat for himself and his family, as he must, by his skill – it would be a difficult, if not impossible, target to hit.

Ferdi slammed a fist, albeit quietly, onto the table. ‘But we have got to try!’ he said. ‘We simply cannot roll over, lie down and die, like a drowning sheep in a flood.’

‘So why are you here,’ Rosemary said, eyeing her brother narrowly. ‘Not just to warn us, I think. Not just to invite us to remove to the Tookland. You don’t have a pardon with you, do you? Are the Tooks offering to own me once more?’ She spoke harshly, perhaps to belie the hopeless hope that still glowed deep within.

‘Not exactly,’ Ferdi said.

Now it was Hally’s turn to scrutinise his brother in love. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘You know that Rosie cannot return without an invitation, or she risks banishment from the Shire proper, and not just the Tookland.’

‘Would you harry us all the way to Bree, brother?’ Rosemary said, pulling her hands away from Ferdi’s; and she could not prevent the tears springing to her eyes.

‘No!’ Ferdi said, speaking rather louder than he had been, and then he mastered himself and lowered his voice once more. ‘No, dearest. I would not be a part of such a thing.’

‘Then, what?’ Hally said, reaching over to take and squeeze Rosemary’s hand. I am here for you, beloved. I’ll throw him out, brother to you though he may be, into the dark and cold, whether there be rogue Men wandering the Wood, or no. Just say the word.

***

Chapter 3.

‘I have a proposition for you both,’ Ferdi said, repeating the words he’d used to begin the conversation at the first. ‘The Thain has a proposition, that is.’

‘A proposition from the Thain,’ Hally echoed. ‘And why should we wish to do him, or any other of the Tooks, any favours?’

‘If only to keep the hope of a free Tookland alive,’ Ferdi said, ‘and if that’s not enough, then the dream of a free Shire some day, even if it be not within our lifetime.’

‘You honestly think that things are so very bleak?’ Rosemary said, shaken.

‘We do,’ Ferdi said. He didn’t have to specify the “we” – he was evidently moving in high circles in the Tookland, if he were authorised to speak for the Thain. ‘The Shire is lost – there’s no hope for her, but the Tookland is still free, and we will fight to the death to keep her so.’ He swallowed hard. ‘And if we should be so fortunate as to succeed, well then, the hope is that some day…’

‘The Shire for the Tooks?’ Hally wanted to know. Would they merely exchange one Chief for another?

Ferdi shook his head with a rueful smile. ‘The Tooks, for the Shire,’ he said. ‘At least, that’s what Paladin hopes. And he hopes that we won’t have to fight to the death to make it so, at least not all the Tooks. Hopefully there’ll be a few of us left, when the Shire is free at last.’

Rosemary found herself blinking away tears again. This was not the sort of sentiment she ever remembered hearing, under Lalia (and her son Ferumbras, who, though Thain, was also under Lalia’s control, for all practical purposes). Perhaps Paladin was a different sort of Thain.

‘So what is this proposition?’ Hally said, coming back to the point.

‘We need someone to befriend Lotho’s Men, those who are in his employ, his snitches and his louts,’ Ferdibrand said.

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Hally said, and Rosemary sat up as straight as she could manage, considering the heavy burden she bore.

‘Your name will be a bane amongst decent folk,’ Ferdi said.

‘That’s nothing new,’ Rosemary broke in. ‘I was outcast from the Tooks, remember?’

‘Your name’s not a bane amongst the Tooks,’ Hally said wryly. ‘From what I understand, they haven’t even been able to speak of you by name since your disowning.’

‘You’ll be a disgrace, a family to be shunned by decent Shirefolk, not just by Tooks,’ Ferdi said, ‘objects of distrust and disgust.’

‘And this is to be an encouragement to us, to accept this proposition of yours? I mean, the Thain’s?’ Hally said in amaze.

‘Actually, it would fit right in with my position in the eyes of the Tooks and the Thain,’ Rosemary said. ‘But why should I be so obliging?’

Ferdi dropped his voice still lower. ‘Because Lotho’s Men would find reason to trust you,’ he said. ‘If you were to befriend them, to invite them to come round often… If you were to bake some of your marvellous delights to share with them, if you were to invite them to partake of your wondrous cookery…’

‘Enough of the flattery,’ Rosemary said, though she could hear the ring of truth in her brother’s voice. His words were not meant as mere flattery. He was being as sincere as he knew how.

‘If they were to come around often, if they felt relaxed and contented to be here,’ Ferdi continued.

‘Home away from home, for ruffianly folk, louts and thieves, thugs and hooligans,’ Hally said sourly. ‘A nice thing, that!’

‘If they felt relaxed enough to talk freely before you…’ Ferdi said.

Rosemary stiffened, then leaned forward. ‘You’re asking us to be snitches for you… for the Thain?’ she said in wonder and disgust.

Ferdi shook his head. ‘A “snitch” is someone who informs against his own kind,’ he said.

‘Spies, rather,’ Hally said. ‘A dangerous business.’

Ferdi nodded slowly. ‘Dangerous, indeed,’ he said. ‘A danger to you all, to you, Hally, to Rose, and – it is not something I say lightly, or with any pleasure – to your children.’

They sat in silence for a bit, digesting the thought.

‘The only alternative I see is for you to remove to the Tookland,’ Ferdi said. He felt of his pockets, and took out a folded paper. ‘I have here a pass, signed by Thain Paladin, to allow Rosemary to pass the borders of Tookland, – a pass, not a pardon,’ he added, seeing the sudden hope in Rosemary's face, and hating himself for having to quash it, ‘for the duration of the emergency – to seek refuge there, for the safety of your children.’

‘They’re not Tooks,’ Rosemary said. ‘Not if I’m not a Took, I should think.’

‘You were disowned,’ Ferdi said, ‘but according to the old traditions, your children are still Tooks, should they wish to claim their heritage.’

Rose took a sharp breath, and her eyes shone for a moment, before dulling again. ‘So,’ she said. ‘They’re Tookish enough to be in danger, should the Tookish resistance stir Lotho’s enmity.’

‘As it has,’ Ferdi acknowledge. ‘As it will continue to do. As it will grow ever worse, ever more dangerous for them, should their connexions become known.’

He put the folded paper upon the table, and Hally took it up and opened it. He did not read it, of course, for he did not know how to read, but he held it out to Rosemary. It was her birthright, or at least, it was their children’s birthright, and her decision to make. She took the paper from his hands, laid it down on the table in front of her, but did not try to read it in the semi-darkness.

‘And if we were to agree to spy for the Tooks and the Thain, what then?’ Rosemary said. ‘What advantage would that buy for my babes? Would they gain an inheritance, of Tookish land?’

Ferdi leaned forward. ‘More,’ he said.

‘More?’ Hally challenged. He cared nothing for land – owning, as he did, this piece of land, which had been a possession of the Tooks at one time, and had been granted to him by Mistress Lalia, of all people, in recognition of his service to the Tooks. She had died in an accident before his involvement in Rosemary’s escape had become known, or likely she would have done her best to revoke the deed. Let bygones be bygones. Let the dead rest in peace.

Of course, this piece of land lay outside the main bounds of the Tookland, leaving him and his family vulnerable to Lotho’s louts… ‘We’re listening,’ he said.

‘If you do this thing, for the Thain,’ Ferdi said, ‘for the Tooks,’ he paused a long moment, adding, ‘for the Shirefolk…’

‘Yes?’ Hally said.

‘Rosemary,’ Ferdi said, turning to his sister, and now his voice was pleading. ‘Paladin has promised to allow our father to own you once more.’

***

‘But she has been disowned, cast out of the family, her name stricken from the Yellow Book,’ Paladin protested. ‘I cannot revoke that!’

‘Ferumbras revoked a great many injustices after his mother’s death,’ Ferdi said. ‘Bans included.’ He ducked his head, not quite able to look the Thain in the eye. ‘As you well know, Sir.’

‘He chose not to revoke this particular Ban,’ Paladin said. ‘Her offence,’ (he would not speak her name, even though he as The Took, head of the family, was the only Took who might have the authority), ‘was against Ferumbras, after all, when she chose to run away instead…’

‘Instead of marrying a hobbit old enough to be her grandfather!’ Ferdi snapped. ‘You yourself were aghast – the Tooks were scandalised! The only hobbits in favour of the match were old Lalia and Ferumbras himself, and how he could agree to such a—‘

Paladin sighed. ‘Mistress Lalia had a way of turning hobbits to her will,’ he said, old pain in his eyes.

‘But you could reverse it!’ Ferdi insisted. ‘You could reverse the judgment…’ He stopped, arrested by the expression on the face of the Thain.

‘Do you think I did not try?’ Paladin said, his tone infinitely sad. ‘Did you think…? But you know yourself how I became Thain. My own son, and…’

Ferdi winced, for the memory was full of pain for himself as well. A tweenish trick, it had been. He and Pippin had decided to dye the Thain’s prize pony blue, but the beast had kicked over the lantern and nearly set the Great Smials stables ablaze. The entire building would likely have gone up, but for Pippin’s courage in fighting the flames, while Ferdi ran for help. Ferumbras’ heart had failed him on hearing the news.

‘...and her brother,’ Paladin said, meaning Pippin and Ferdi, the two pranksters. ‘I asked, but the Tooks refused me. I could not push,’ Paladin said. ‘I was barely Thain, but for a few days, and that because of the actions of my son and... her brother, and my counsellors would not consent to lifting that particular Ban.’

‘But now…’ Ferdi said.

Paladin shook his head. ‘I’ve been Thain for barely three years now,’ he said. ‘You know how long it takes the Tooks to accept a change. So far as they’re concerned, I might’ve become Thain just yesterday. I can make no sweeping changes until I’ve been Thain a good twenty years, and you know it.’

Ferdi made a wry face and nodded. How well he know the Tooks and the grasp tradition maintained.

‘Her children are Tooks,’ he said. ‘By the old laws, they cannot be disowned, except for their own actions. Their mother’s offence is not applied to them. And they are in danger – you know from the reports we are receiving that Tooks outside the Tookland are being mistreated, and the mistreatment is growing ever worse.’

‘They would hardly harm little children,’ Paladin said.

‘But they might very well harm the mother,’ Ferdi insisted. ‘Would that not harm the children?’

‘Then let them come to the Tookland,’ Paladin said.

‘Without their mother? They are but small children, and Ro—she is with child yet again,’ Ferdi said. ‘Would you have the children suffer for the wrong done their mother?’

‘Very well,’ Paladin said in exasperation, holding up a hand to stay any further comment on Ferdi’s part.

The hobbit watched in growing hope as the Thain pulled a piece of paper towards himself, dipped his pen, and began to write, quite deliberately, pausing to think several times. At last Paladin replaced the pen in its holder and turned the paper towards Ferdi. ‘Will that do?’ he said.

Ferdi read through the paper. ‘A pass,’ he said, ‘allowing… her to return to the Tookland and reside here with her children, for the sake of her children who are Tooks, for the duration of the emergency.’

‘It’s the best that I can do,’ Paladin said.

‘I think you might do better,’ Ferdi said. As the Thain raised his eyebrow in challenge, he plunged on. ‘The plan, to gather information outside the bounds of the Tookland,’ he said.

‘What about it?’ Paladin said quietly.

‘She and Hally live in the Woody End,’ Ferdi said. ‘We know there’s a nest of the vipers settled in there…’

‘And how do you plan to gather information there? Those ruffians are all too familiar with your face.’

‘What if someone else gathered the information, and I simply stole over the border to collect it and bring it back?’ Ferdi said.

‘Someone else, as in Hally and his wife?’ Paladin said, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers.

‘If they were to appear to throw in their lot with the ruffians,’ Ferdi said. ‘To be in league with them…’

‘It would be very dangerous,’ Paladin said.

‘It would,’ Ferdi agreed. ‘And as I have visited them often…’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ Paladin said. ‘Do not even say such a thing to me. Should the Tooks hear…’

‘You’d have to banish me as well,’ Ferdi said, a dare in his eye. ‘I know that area well. I know their routine, the passing of their days.’

‘Someone else,’ Paladin tried to suggest, but Ferdi shook his head.

‘I don’t know any other hobbits in that area very well at all,’ he said. ‘After all, my visits…’

‘I am not hearing this,’ Paladin said, holding up his hand.

‘…had to be conducted in secret, lest they came to the ears of the Tooks…’

‘And so of course, you don’t know anyone in that area well enough to ask them to risk their lives for our cause,’ Paladin said sourly.

Ferdi spread his hands, palms up. ‘I know it’s a difficulty, but what can I do?’ he said.

‘You could cultivate another hobbit, or family,’ Paladin said.

Ferdi laughed, a short, sharp bark of disbelief. ‘While visiting the Woody End in secret, so that I may avoid ruffians who know my face all too well?’ he said.

‘Someone else,’ Paladin said. ‘Tolly, or Hilly…’

‘Send them to cultivate friendship with strangers, in these times, when all are suspicious of one another, and some hobbits actually have thrown in their lot with ruffians.’

‘And what makes you think Hally and… his wife have not?’

Ferdi laughed again, but it was not a merry sound. ‘Hally? That hobbit is as honest as the day is long in the summertime. He has courage, as well, or he wouldn’t have handfasted Ro—my sister—to save her from a forced marriage to the old Thain. The Thain might’ve made things very difficult for him, indeed.’

‘The old Thain might’ve, had he known just who thwarted Lalia’s plan,’ Paladin said. ‘I certainly have no bone to pick with the hobbit.’

‘Such a dangerous, heroic effort deserves reward,’ Ferdi said.

‘Reward?’ Paladin said, raising his eyebrow.

‘Should… my sister take on this difficult and dangerous task, she’d be sacrificing her own interest for the benefit of the Tooks,’ Ferdi said.

Paladin nodded slowly. He began to see Ferdi’s aim.

‘As far as reward,’ Ferdi said. ‘The Tooks have nothing that she should want, except for one thing.’

‘Aye,’ Paladin said, and breathed deeply, as if to say he knew what was coming, and he did not care to hear it. ‘And if they don’t?’

Ferdi’s gaze hardened for a moment, but then he nodded, and shrugged. ‘What a pity it would be,’ he said, ‘to have such a large blind spot – with a nest of ruffians – all of the Woody End, and no way of knowing if they were coming at us from that direction.’

Paladin shook a finger at him. ‘Be careful, Ferdibrand. Be very careful. You’re on thin ice…’

Ferdi shuddered at the thought of walking over a body of water, frozen or otherwise. ‘So if she does this thing,’ he forged ahead, ‘the Tooks must own her once more. They must. She’ll be risking her life, Hally’s life, and the lives of her children on behalf of the Tooks…’

‘Should she die, I think I could persuade them.’

‘No!’ Ferdi said, and then lowered his voice again. ‘Whether she gives her life in the effort, or survives, her name must be written in the Book, her position reinstated, her inheritance restored.’

‘That’s a great deal to ask,’ Paladin said, beetling his eyebrows together.

Ferdi shrugged again. ‘It is a great deal to ask, all around,’ he said. ‘But that is the bargain, and no less.’

Paladin shook his head. ‘The old Thain would have banished you for this,’ he said.

‘Banish me if you like,’ Ferdi said. ‘But then you truly will have a blind eye in the Woody End.’

‘Blast you, Ferdi,’ Paladin said. ‘What can I say?’

Ferdi smiled, a small, grim smile. ‘You can say yes,’ he said. ‘Or no.’ He took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. ‘But I should recommend “yes”, if you were to ask me.’

***

...to allow our father to own you once more.

Rosemary gasped.

‘If you take on this task,’ Ferdi said, and drew a deep breath, for he must be completely honest in this, and it was the lives of his sister and her family that would be at risk, ‘whether you survive, or no,’ for nothing but the brutal truth would suffice, ‘he will see you restored to the family,’ Ferdi continued. ‘He will write your name once more in the Book. He has sworn it, to me and before witnesses.’

‘Signed in red ink, no less,’ Rosemary said faintly. ‘Or so I presume.’

‘Aye,’ Ferdi said, his voice so low as to be nearly inaudible. He blinked, as if nearly overcome by emotion, and then he said, stronger. 'Will you come, seek refuge in the Tookland? Or will you fight for the Shire?'

***

Chapter 4.

‘Can we have time to talk it over?’ Hally wanted to know.

Ferdi spread his hands apart. ‘Take all the time you need,’ he said. ‘Take the next hour, or even two.’ As the two stared at him in shock, he smiled. ‘So long as I can steal away an hour or more before the dawning, that I may be well hid in a hollow log or fork of a tree before the ruffians are out and about.’

‘Why not stay…?’ Rosemary said. ‘I thought…’

Ferdi shook his head. ‘I won’t stay, not any more, Rosie, for your sake, and for the children’s,’ he said. ‘No need for you to risk associating with a known Took.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘And Lotho’s Men would know me for a Took. They’ve been making a study of the matter. They have no liking for the Tooks… not after the Cockerel…’

‘You had something to do with burning the inn?’ Hally said.

Ferdi pursed his lips and shook his head, then smiled again, ruefully. ‘Let us simply say, Men burned the inn, to punish the actions of a few Tooks.’

‘And you were there,’ Rosemary said. ‘They know you?’

Ferdi shrugged. ‘I’m afraid that they do.’ He sighed. ‘It’s why I can no longer visit you openly, but why I must come by stealth, now and in future.’

‘In future?’

Ferdi meet his sister’s gaze. ‘If you decide to do this thing,’ he said, ‘then someone must come to gather all the information you collect from Lotho’s… associates,’ he said. ‘I told the Thain it ought to be someone who is familiar with this area, so as not to endanger you or your family. At least, that is my hope.’

‘And so you would risk yourself,’ Hally said, ‘for as you said yourself, Lotho’s Men would know you on sight.’

Ferdi shrugged. ‘It’s a risk I’m willing to take.’

‘And how would you do this thing? How would you gather information, without being seen?’

‘I’d come in the night, as I did this night,’ Ferdi said. ‘I’ve been thinking about this. The days run in rhythm, wash day, and ironing, and mending…’

‘Market day,’ Rosie said, and made a face. There hadn’t been much in the market to speak of, lately. Lotho’s Men were making a name for themselves, of visiting the various town markets and seizing whole tables of goods in the name of their Chief, on some grounds or other, usually making up spurious charges about inferior wares. ‘Cleaning day, and baking day, and then of course the High day to end the week, and then we start over again.’

‘Aye,’ Ferdi said, ‘and if you’d a name for fine baking, as you do, and shared gladly with any passing Men, well, soon they’d come on your baking day without fail…’

‘What joy,’ Rosemary said wryly.

‘And then I’d be sure to come around, not on your baking day – though I’d be sad to miss the pleasure of your pastries, a sore trial to bear – but on your washday, perhaps, or ironing or mending day…’

‘Not washing or cleaning,’ Rosemary said. ‘I couldn’t abide having you underfoot.’

‘She always sends me out to the woods on those days,’ Hally agreed, momentarily distracted by practicalities.

‘Very well then, ironing day,’ Ferdi said. ‘I’ll know which day it is, because you’ll hang out the wash the day before.’

‘That could work,’ Rosemary said thoughtfully.

‘I cannot believe you’re considering this,’ Hally said. ‘And you, Ferdi, you say you’d be unable to show your face by daylight, for fear one of Lotho’s Men might recognise you.’

‘They would,’ Ferdi acknowledged. ‘Those who have seen me, have described me to the others, well enough that they should have little trouble knowing me, should they be in any position to behold my face.’

‘And what would they do to you, should they “behold” you?’ Hally said. ‘How would they… what was it you said? …”mistreat” you?’ He eyed Rosemary’s brother with grudging respect. ‘I had not heard of hobbits’ lives being threatened, but…’

‘Throw me in the Lockholes, at the very least,’ Ferdi said.

‘Lockholes?’ Hally said. ‘What are Lockholes?’

‘You hadn’t heard, yet,’ Ferdi said. ‘Well, if you take on this task, you’ll soon hear more than you ever wished.’

‘I don’t like the sounds of them, whatever they are,’ Rosemary put in.

‘No, you’d be wise in that.’

‘Then what are they?’ Hally wanted to know.

‘The old storage holes at Michel Delving,’ Ferdi said, which didn’t really explain anything, until he continued. ‘Mayor Will went to Bag End, to complain to Lotho about things his Men were doing, not long before the closing of the inns, and they threw him in a storage hole.’

‘Threw him in,’ Rosemary said in horror. ‘Was he badly hurt?’

‘Not hurt, not so far as we’ve been able to hear, anyhow,’ Ferdi said, ‘but they won’t let him go home again. They’re keeping him there, and not letting his wife or anyone else visit him, and who knows what sort of treatment he’s enduring?’

‘Mayor Will’s not all that young,’ Hally said. ‘It’s not right! It’s not proper! It’s not respectful, or…’

‘These are ruffians,’ Ferdi said. ‘What do they care about “right” or “proper” or “respect”, I ask you? And if they can mistreat an old hobbit, the Mayor, no less, what will they do to lesser hobbits as Lotho’s grip on the Shire grows stronger?’

‘What, indeed,’ Rosemary said under her breath, and she laid a hand on her swollen body, as if listening to the babe within, as if weighing the risks to herself, and to those that she loved.

And Hally drew a deep breath, suddenly afraid for her, and for their children, though curiously, not for himself. If he could, he’d send her to safety in the Tookland, her, and the children; and he’d stay, and gather information for the Thain, in the interest of a free Shire at some time in the future.

Rosemary looked searchingly into his face, as if divining his thoughts. ‘It wouldn’t work,’ she said. ‘They’d never trust you enough.’

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ he said.

Her eyes were sad, but she set her mouth in a firm line. ‘A mum, a little mum, and little children,’ she said, ‘they’d be disarmed by a mother, a foolish hobbit wife, blathering about them being away from home and mother, feeling sorry for them and baking special little cakes and fussing over them, sewing on lost buttons and fixing tears and such…’

‘O Rosie,’ Hally breathed. ‘’Twould be so dangerous…’

‘For the Shire,’ she said. ‘Surely that would be worth any price?’

‘The children,’ he whispered.

She took a shaking breath, but nodded. ‘If it had been my parents, forced to make such a choice,’ she said. ‘Well, I don’t know if I can say it in a way that makes sense, but I’d have been proud of them, now, as a mum myself, though they put my life in danger… though I lost my life, even, to try and make a difference… I don’t know how to put it…’

Hally nodded slowly, his heart wrung within him. ‘I understand you, Rose,’ he said. ‘I understand very well.’ He took a deep breath, and another, and he grasped her hand very tight. ‘I don’t deserve you,’ he said. ‘You’re ever so much braver than I.’ And he grieved for their children, for he could not see how they might be protected if they chose to do this, and yet how could they not do this thing? If they shirked this duty, if every hobbit should seek after safety, then there would in the end be safety for none. Not even the children. Most especially not the children.

Rosemary arose with difficulty from her place, taking up the paper with her, and went to the hearth, where the fire was banked. She poked at it until she found a few live coals, and she thrust the paper, the pass that guaranteed her safety in the Tookland, that she should not be banished should she seek refuge there with her children, thrust it into the coals and held it there. In silence, they watched the paper begin to glow at one point where it touched a coal, glow, and brown about the edges of the glowing part, and then suddenly a flame flickered, grew stronger, and spread, until the entire paper was consumed, and fell to ash.

***

A/N: So... what do you think? End it here? Or continue?

The Proposition, Part Two: Setting the Plan in Motion

Chapter 5.

The forest Bolgers spent the next hour discussing plans with their guest. Ferdi had evidently given the matter much thought. ‘…and if you never speak of it in the children’s hearing,’ he was saying, over a mug of steaming tea, for Rosemary had stirred up the fire and put the kettle on, that they might have a warming cup to go on. The children were all asleep again – Ferdi had made sure of it while Hally was pouring the steaming water into the teapot Rosemary had readied before slicing bread, and putting out butter and two kinds of Wood-berry jam (wild strawberries and blackberries grew in abundance in the Woody End, along with a few other sorts, but these were Hally’s favourites) and a crock of pungent, crumbly goats’ milk cheese.

‘It’ll all be a game to them,’ Rosemary said, nodding. ‘They’ll hear only what we intend them to hear,’ and she gulped, ‘and of course, what the Men say – well, perhaps they might be a bit more polite in the company of little children.’

‘And perhaps not,’ Hally said, ‘but that is a risk we must take. We may, at least, teach the children which of the ruffians’ words are not appropriate for well-brought-up children to repeat…’ and he smiled, albeit grimly, at Rosemary’s shudder.

‘You’ll need at least one room that cannot be overseen,’ Ferdi continued.

‘The pantry,’ Hally said. ‘It’s windowless.’

Ferdi shook his head. ‘If you’re spending too much time in the pantry, and the ruffians notice, they might start to question,’ he said. ‘I happen to know they make a practice of peering in at the windows, to see what the hobbits within are doing, and if there’s anything within a smial that might be worth their while to gather.’

‘You have been the busy one,’ Rosemary said. ‘You’ve been watching Lotho’s Men watching the Shirefolk, have you?’

‘Ferdibrand Took, sneak and spy, at your service,’ Ferdi said, putting down his bread-and-cheese to bow from his seat, and then picking it up again. ‘Ah, Rosie, I hope you don’t give all your fine baking to Lotho’s Men, but save a little for any wandering sneak that might darken your doorway on occasion…’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosemary said, her nose in the air. ‘Sneaks must take their chances, I suppose, along with everyone else.’

‘So if not the pantry, then what?’ Hally said. ‘The woodshed is windowless, of course…’

‘But also not practical,’ Ferdi said, ‘for again, it’s the same problem, if any lurking Men see you spending more time than would be usual in the woodshed…’

Hally shook his head. ‘And here I thought I was providing so well for my family,’ he said. ‘Setting aside a little each month, that we might have a window in the main room, and one in each bedroom, and glazing is so dear, and yet – nothing is too fine for my Rose.’ He shared a smile with his wife, his own rather wistful, for he had an idea of what was coming.

Ferdi nodded and spoke on, regret in his tone, and apology. ‘I’m that sorry, brother,’ he said, ‘but I must ask you to have some sort of accident or other, something plausible…’

‘Leaving the shutters open of a windy night probably won’t suit,’ Hally said.

‘No, for you always close the shutters when you go to bed,’ Ferdi said. ‘Everything must always be “as usual” from here on out.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ Hally said. ‘Perhaps my brother Gundy can help me. He can play a game of “throw and catch” with Robin, perhaps, and throw too high, and hit the window instead. It wouldn’t be unlike him.’ At Ferdi’s shake of the head, he said, ‘He’ll have to be let in on the secret. He’ll never believe that we’ve gone over to Lotho’s side. He knows us too well.’

‘I don’t know,’ Ferdi said slowly.

‘But he can talk against us with all the neighbours, and the good hobbits of the area, as far as Stock, when he goes into the town on a market day,’ Hally said. ‘He’d be a great help in turning folk against us. To think of it, brother set against brother, such a bitter thing… and if he says he tried to warn us against being friendly with Lotho’s louts, and we turned a deaf ear, well…’

‘Hally’s stubbornness is well known in these parts,’ Rosemary said with a smile for her husband. ‘I’m sure Gundy can make them believe him.’ Why, the brothers had gone an entire month without talking to one another, when they’d had a serious disagreement some time ago, and everyone had known about it and speculated on when peace would break out again, and if it would. Which, to Rosemary’s relief, it had, at last. But it had been a sad time in her life, and now they were setting out to deliberately turn all their friends and neighbours against them.

But it was for the Shire… She sighed, and Hally patted her hand. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

‘So you break the glass in the window,’ Ferdi said. ‘And glass is dearer than ever, and may even be difficult to obtain, the way things are – I do believe that Lotho has bought up all the glassworks in the Shire, except the one in the Tookland, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘So…?’ Hally said, but he thought he knew what Ferdi was getting at.

‘So you put up oiled parchment, or paper if you must, but parchment would be thicker and better, to my way of thinking. It’ll let the light through, but a passerby won’t be able to see into the room.’

‘They’d still be able to hear,’ Hally said.

Ferdi nodded, ‘So anything that you don’t want heard, is spoken in a whisper,’ he said, ‘and preferably when the shutters are closed and bolted, and still you’d speak in the barest whisper, just to be sure.’

‘Which would be a protection for the children, as well, that they hear no more than a murmur, and none of the words,’ Rosemary said. It made her feel tense, just discussing these matters. She shrugged her shoulders to ease them. All must be done as matter of factly as possible, and she must always seem relaxed, even if her insides were congealing with fear, from here on out. It would be a help to the children, too, she realised, and safety for them, for if she were afraid, they’d know it, and they’d be afraid, and that would be a danger to all.

‘And you leave the door half-open,’ Ferdi said, leaning forward, ‘as you always do in the daytime…’

‘How do you know that?’

Ferdi sighed. ‘Lotho’s Men aren’t the only ones who’ve been peeping in at windows,’ he said. ‘I had to make sure we could make this work, before endangering you and your children.’ He shook his head. ‘If there was no hope that you could pull this off, then I wasn’t going to propose it.’

‘What would you have done?’ Hally wanted to know.

‘I would have insisted that you all remove yourselves to the Tookland,’ Ferdi said. ‘If I’m reading things right, if Thain Paladin is right, from putting together all the information we’ve been gathering, well… Things are going to get pretty nasty in the Shire proper, and sooner rather than later.’ He shrugged his shoulders to ease the tension in him. ‘Immediately Lotho had Mayor Will safely locked away, his Men began “gathering” from the wealthier families,’ he said, ‘with the excuse that they’re gathering in order to share with those who are less well off. The strange thing is, however, that none of the gathered stuffs seem to find their way to hobbits who are less well off.’

Hally made as if to speak, and then subsided, motioning for Ferdi to go on.

‘As a matter of fact, waggons driven by Men, and piled high under canvas coverings, have become a frequent sight in the roads leading out of the Shire,’ Ferdi said, and Hally nodded. He’d seen a few, himself, and that was what he had been about to say.

‘The gathering has been spreading rapidly,’ Ferdi said. ‘And from what we’ve seen, it’s not just the wealthiest families who are being “asked” to contribute as at first. No, Lotho’s Men are spreading their efforts, and it’ll only get worse, I fear.’

‘And you think they’ll come to the poorer folk of the Woody End, sooner or later?’

Ferdi smiled and patted Rosemary’s hand. ‘I’m counting on it.’

***

Chapter 6.

And so it went. They’d need to learn to do what needed to be hidden from prying eyes, behind the half-open doors of the bedroom (once the window was taken care of) and the pantry (late at night, after forming shapes in the beds if need be, though perhaps that was a bit of over-preparation, considering that shutters would close off the bedroom windows at night).

They’d need to be independent of their neighbours, and not count on being able to purchase needed items in the marketplace (“Though if what we think is going to happen actually happens, then no body is going to be able to buy much on market day in days to come,” Ferdi said). Oh, if there were a fire, or another emergency of some sort, their neighbours would still respond out of the goodness of their hearts (Rosemary placed her hand on the babe once more. This would make the upcoming birth that much more difficult. Perhaps Hally could deliver their baby, and there’d be no need to call the midwife…?) …but she took a steadying breath, nodded, and took up her mug of tea once more.

‘And when I come in middle night,’ Ferdi said, ‘on the day after I see your washing hanging on the line, or if it is a day of rain, I’ll look to see you stirring the laundry in the tub at the very least, to make sure it’s the right day…’

Rosemary and Hally nodded.

‘I’ll scratch upon your door, like this,’ and he scratched upon the table, in what sounded like a random pattern of sounds, but then he repeated it twice more, and on the last repetition, he recited the words of a song to the rhythm of scratching. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘If you hear me “play” this song…’

‘We’ll know it’s you at the door,’ Hally nodded. ‘And won’t need to go calling, “Who’s there,” loud enough for any passing ruffian to hear.’

‘You have the right of it,’ Ferdi said. ‘And you won’t need to take the turned-down lamp from the window, and I’ll be able to steal within, and hide in the bedroom, behind the half-closed door.’

‘We’ll have to teach the children to stay out,’ Rosemary said in sudden realisation. So many details to cover! ‘I’ll think of some reason or other – that I want to keep them out of the store of Birthday presents, or some such…’

‘Nothing that Lotho’s Men might want to search for, and gather,’ Ferdi warned.

‘No, you’re right, it’ll have to be something else,’ Rosemary said. ‘We’ll just have to have a rule that children are not allowed to play in Mama and Papa’s room, for we must have someplace to call our own and not the children’s, I suppose.’

Ferdi nodded. ‘All but the babe,’ he said. ‘For it’s your usual custom to keep the babe in your room, until it's old enough to sleep in a bed with its brothers or sisters…’

‘Yes, “as usual”,’ Rosemary said with a sigh. She suspected she was going to grow to hate the phrase, but there was nothing else for it.

At last they’d covered everything that they could think of. In only an hour, two at most, the stars would begin to fade in the sky, and the sky would brighten, and Ferdi must be well away by then, and in a safe place where he could hide away the daylight hours.

They stood up from the table. ‘All this must be cleared away,’ Ferdi warned, ‘and the cloth replaced, before you take yourselves to bed.’

‘As always,’ Hally acknowledged. He seized Ferdi’s hand, pressed it hard. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘It sounds like you’ve been taking some awful risks, lately.’

Ferdi pressed Hally’s hand in return. ‘I’m not the only one,’ he said. ‘And I won’t be in future, either,’ he added with a meaningful look. ‘Someday, perhaps, they’ll know what we’ve done, what you’ve done, and they’ll make a song out of it.’

‘Such songs are always made of the nastiest, most uncomfortable experiences, I’m afraid,’ Rosemary said, peering into her brother’s face as if she might memorise his features.

Releasing Hally’s hand, Ferdi circled her with his arms, carefully, as if he feared to press too hard upon the burgeoning babe, and rested his chin against her curls. ‘Ah, Rosie,’ he sighed. ‘If there were any other way I could think of…’

‘I’m sure that you’ve tried,’ Rosemary said. ‘And if our efforts can help to keep you safe, in this dangerous business you’ve taken on, well, that in itself would make it worth our while… And the freedom of the Shire, some day, some how, would just be like sugar icing on a fancy cake, it would…’

‘Just as sweet, anyhow,’ Ferdi murmured, his arms tightening. And then he released his hold and stepped away. ‘I’ll be going now,’ he said abruptly. ‘Hally, look out the window for me, as if you’re wakeful for whatever reason, and looking out on the night…’

And Hally picked up his nightcap from the table and put it on his head, so that it would look as if he'd just arisen from his bed. He went to the window where the turned-down lamp gleamed its welcome to benighted travellers, and looked out long and hard. ‘It’s beginning to snow,’ he said, without turning his head. And then, turning away from the window, he added in a whisper, ‘I couldn’t see any sign of Men about.’

Ferdi nodded. ‘The good and the ill of it,’ he said, ‘is that I’ll make tracks, but they’ll soon be covered up again.’

‘Go with grace, brother, and with our love,’ Rosemary said, and her brother smiled, full eyes reflecting a full heart, but he dashed his forearm across his eyes and was matter-of-fact once more.

‘And grace go with you,’ he said.

He moved to the door, where Hally had already removed the bar, slipped out, and was gone.

***

Chapter 7.

As soon as the children were awake (and after clearing away all of the dishes and food to the pantry, and smoothing the cloth on the table, she had only an hour to lie down before they began to stir), Rosemary began a concerted effort at a new sort of child training, though every bone in her body ached with weariness, and her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep. She looked forward to the after-noontide naptime, even more than usual, but determined to take herself through the morning “as usual” by strength of will if naught else. She felt a sense of urgency, to prepare her little family for the trials ahead, sooner than later if Ferdi were to be believed.

Hally reluctantly went out into the Wood, axe in hand, because that is what he always did on this day of the week. He would meet Gundy there, and together they would work to fell their usual number of trees, though what Hally would do without his brother’s aid in future days, Rosemary didn’t want to imagine. Mending day, it was, and if Rosemary nodded over her mending, well, at least it didn’t show too much. She was tired all the time, lately, anyhow, with the time of her confinement approaching. Perhaps she could manage to birth the babe before they’d estranged all their friends, relations, and acquaintances…

Now sitting and stitching, with the children playing quietly at her feet with toys Hally had carved for them, she sighed deeply.

‘What is it, Mama?’ Robin said, looking up in concern. ‘Is it the babe?’

‘No, dove,’ she said, smiling on him, her eldest son, and prone to take charge of the smial when Hally was in the Wood, showing his mother care and concern, and trying to lighten her load as much as a small lad might. ‘No, but Mama’s feeling a little sad this day, thinking…’

‘Thinking what?’ little Parsley said, putting down the carven goat that had been “grazing” on the rug near the hearthstones, where Rosemary’s rocking chair held pride of place.

‘Thinking of the Men your Papa has seen passing through the Wood,’ she said. ‘Men aren’t usual in the Shire, as you know…’

The older children nodded, and little Lavvy blew a bubble and crowed. Rosemary drew a steadying breath and continued. ‘They must be far from home, to have come so far,’ she said bravely, with a little quiver in her voice, and if that quiver was for her children’s safety, or if it was because she felt sorry for the Men, well, her children would not know. They responded to the quiver by hitching forward, a little closer, and Parsley’s young face took on a look of concern.

‘Poor, sad Men,’ she lisped. ‘To be so far from home, and their mothers.’

Rosemary seized on this with a glad lifting of her heart, though she kept the wistful look on her face. The children were responding, just as she’d hoped. ‘Poor, sad Men,’ she agreed. ‘I wonder what we could do to help them to feel better, and not to miss their mothers so?’

‘We could bake biscuits and cakes for them,’ Parsley said, brightening. She loved to help her mother with the baking.

‘Papa could carve them whistles and what-nots!’ Robin said, nodding wisely.

‘Such good ideas!’ Rosemary said, well pleased.  ‘Why, I think we’ll begin, next baking day, by baking some extra, that we have some for the Men who pass by our door.’

‘What a good idea,’ little Parsley echoed, clapping her hands in delight.

It would take some time to put the entirety of the plan in place, and Rosemary and Hally would use the time well in the coming days, continuing to fill the children’s heads with stories of Men who had travelled “so far from home and mother” and who could use a little cheer. From the look of the Men he saw in the Wood, Hally was certain the children would not need much convincing that the Men needed help and friends, treats and greetings – they looked as if they did not feel welcome… as they weren’t. There was a great deal of grumbling on the part of the folk of the Marish, Stock, and the Woody End, about “Lotho’s great Men”, though the people didn’t know the half of it, and it would defeat the whole purpose of the plan to enlighten them.

The Thain had tried, after all, Rosemary and Hally reminded themselves. They remembered a meeting held in Stock, some weeks earlier, before the turning of the year, when Thain Paladin himself had called the local Shirefolk to the meeting hall, “not a Muster but a meeting” to beg folk not to sell to Lotho, nor to have dealings with his Men, only to be met with indifference and a room that held only a few hobbits. ‘Might better have been a Muster,’ Hally muttered in recollection, and Rosemary nodded sadly.

The Tooks had the right of things, she feared.

And speaking of the Tooks… The day after Ferdi’s visit, actually, Rosemary had sat down with the children after the after-noontide nap, when her mind felt at least a little fresher for the rest. She laid aside her mending, to give her full attention to the task, for this would be one of the trickier bits of preparing the children for the battle to come. ‘My loves,’ she said. ‘I have something serious to talk with you about.’

‘Is it why Uncle Ferdi wasn’t here when we wakened?’ Robin said, perceptive as always.

Rosemary caught her breath, remembering that Robin had shown an alarming propensity for knowing the truth when he heard it, and the other way around. She would have to go carefully, indeed, in the coming days, as would Hally. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is.’

She thought for a moment, and went on, choosing her words with care. ‘He came to say goodbye,’ she said.

Parsley laughed. ‘Goodbye! But he didn’t!’ No, he’d left while the children were sleeping, and hadn’t said his farewells.

‘No, he didn’t,’ Rosemary said, and gulped, blinking back tears. At this, the children sobered, and little Buckthorn’s lower lip quivered in sympathy. ‘He… he came to say…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You know I was disowned by my family…’

‘For marrying Papa,’ Robin said, nodding uncertainly. It made no sense to him.

‘And that’s why Uncle Ferdi has come in secret, when he has come to visit,’ Rosemary went on. ‘For if it became known, he’d be disowned as well.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Parsley said, not quite sure, but listening hard.

‘Well, the family’s found out about his visits,’ Rosemary said, and nodded at the children’s gasp. ‘Yes,’ she said, avoiding even the Tookish “Aye” that came more naturally. No more, she told herself. She must wipe out every evidence of her heritage. And it was the truth. Thain Paladin must know of Ferdi’s visits, or Ferdi would not have been able to put forth such a plan.

‘Yes,’ she repeated, ‘and they’ve threatened him, o most dreadfully, that if he comes to see us any more, he’ll be in danger…’

‘They’ll cast him out?’ Robin said in distress, and relieved, Rosemary nodded, for the little lad could not hear a lie in such a thing as a nod or shake of the head, only in the spoken word.

‘I wash my hands of them,’ she said. ‘Their name will no longer be spoken in this house, or by any of us. It will be as if they were never a part of us, or us of them.’ For that is how it must be.

‘Not to say, “T—“,’ Parsley began, and Rosemary rounded on her fiercely.

‘Hush, child!’ she said, and at her tone her little daughter burst into tears. Rosemary felt as if her heart were breaking, but she must go on. She must, for their safety. ‘As… I… said…’ she said, making her voice hard and cold, and that wouldn’t be a lie, for she’d felt the sting of her unjust shunning over the course of many years. Who could have blamed her for not choosing to marry a hobbit many times her age, and her only a tween at the time? Who, indeed? And yet she’d been disowned, and never owned again, due to the stubbornness of the T—of her family. ‘As I said, their name is never to be mentioned, or even thought of, in our home again, or out of it.’

All the little ones were in tears now, even little Lavender, who could have no idea of what they were discussing.

‘They disowned us, and we are going to disown them,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’ She looked from face to face. ‘We are Bolgers, Bolgers of the Woody End, and only Bolgers.’ She hoped they understood. ‘You are never to mention to anyone that there was ever any other family…’

‘Not even Uncle Ferdi?’ Robin sobbed.

‘Especially not your Uncle!’ Rosemary said. ‘Don’t even think his name in your hearts, my dears, lest you put him in danger!’ And Robin, young as he was, could hear the ring of truth in her voice.

She reached out, then, and gathered her sobbing chicks in her embrace, and they all wept together, loud and long.

***

Chapter 8.

Hally returned at teatime with Gundy and Gundy’s ponies, the four of them (ponies and woodcutters) dragging a fair-sized tree. Gundy unhooked the chains and patted the massive piece of wood. ‘That’ll give you some scope for the imagination in days to come,’ he said. ‘Plenty of carving there, and we left enough firewood in the Wood when we lopped off the branches…’

‘I can fetch it with Fan and Nan and the cart, easily enough,’ Hally said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you, Gundy.’

‘Well, as you usually don’t see fit to thank me, then I don’t see why you should begin now,’ Gundy said, and Rosemary, who’d come out to the yard to greet them, looked at him sharply.

He gave a pleasant nod, fingered his cap and said, ‘Rosie,’ in greeting, but his eyes were sorrowful, and somehow she knew that he knew, that Hally had talked over the whole scheme with him, even that the brothers had argued long (but not loud, lest someone should hear them), and she almost smiled to imagine the two of them shouting in whispers… though it was no laughing matter. Not at all. She knew that Hally had talked Gundy round, though Gundy was still not happy with the whole idea.

He’d understood that, whether or not he chose to throw in his lot with them, to aid them in this endeavour, that they would go ahead. It wasn’t for themselves, after all, and how could he argue with unselfishness? No, though it grieved him mightily, the risk they were taking (and for their children’s sake, even more), the least he could do was to try and ease their way.

Hally went into the smial and came out again, saying, ‘So I can hitch Whitefoot to the cart and borrow him, for a bit?’

‘Go ahead,’ Gundy said. ‘I’ll just cadge a cup of tea, whilst you’re gone.’ To Rosemary’s surprise, he didn’t offer to go along with Hally, wherever it was Hally was going, but one thing Ferdi had cautioned them against was showing surprise at anything, and so she simply smiled and said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on!’

To Hally, who had dragged his cart out from beside the shed and was hitching one of the ponies between the shafts, she said, ‘How long will you be?’

He shrugged, and she had to be content with that for an answer. Perhaps he was leaving Gundy here to watch over her and the children?

‘Fine, fine,’ Gundy said. ‘That husband of yours has worn me to a nubbin with his search for the perfect tree. Hah! He could argue a badger out of its hole, he could!’

‘I can only imagine,’ Rosemary said wryly. So that’s how they’d explain the argument, then, acting already as if they’d been watched, out in the Wood, and as if someone were watching now. Well, practice meant safety.

Hally drove off, and Gundy enjoyed his cup of tea, and then he called Robin and Parsley out to the yard. Rosemary, washing up the tea things, wasn’t really paying attention until she heard the sound of shattering glass coming from their bedroom, and a cry of woe from her oldest son. ‘O no! Uncle Gundy!’

Rosemary rushed outside – well, “rushed” was a relative term, considering she had to pick up little Lavvy, and pull little Buckthorn after her, for she never left the little ones alone in the smial when a fire was burning.

Gundy came around the side of the smial, his face bright red, apologising profusely. ‘I’m that sorry, Rosie; I’m that sorry! I don’t know quite how it happened! I was just showing the young ones how to aim a stone – I meant to hit a knot on the wood of the shutter…’ He'd left Robin behind, presumably guarding the window, so his half-truths fell only on Parsley's ears, and the little lass would be sure to pass his sentiments on to her older brother; and from her (because her uncle had never had reason to lie to her before), it would have the ring of truth. Trust Gundy to think of everything.

‘O Gundy,’ Rosemary said in reproach.

‘I’ll replace it, I will, just so soon as I can manage,’ Gundy said. ‘For now, we can close the shutters to keep birds and bats from flying in, and to keep you from draughts… And don’t you be a-thinkin’ of cleaning up the broken glass yourself, Rosie! You let me do that! It’s the least I can do!’

Looking at the window, Rosemary saw a neat hole in one of the glass panes, with lines radiating out from the centre. She suspected Gundy’s throw had been very accurate, indeed.

‘The very least,’ Rosemary said, shaking her head with a sigh. So it begins.

‘I’ll just remove the whole frame,’ he said, ‘and take it to my house, and I’ll bring it back when I can find a new pane. In the meantime, I’m sure we can tack up a piece of paper or parchment… I’ll bring something with me on the morrow.’

She minded the little ones while Gundy dealt with the matter, sitting by the warm fire that burned on the hearth and singing and clapping songs. Still, she couldn’t help a wince when she heard the crash that was Gundy, knocking the rest of the glass from the pane. If the damage had been minor to start, small enough to fix by stuffing a rag in the hole, it was certainly complete now.

At last, longer than it took merely to pick up any glass particles from the bedroom floor, remove the window frame, and close the shutters, Gundy shuffled in and sat down. ‘Milked the goats, and fed them,’ he said. ‘Where should I put the milk?’ But when Rosemary would have arisen, he held up his hand to forestall her. ‘I’m perfectly capable of finding a place if you’ll just name it for me.’

‘The pantry,’ Rosemary said, indicating the proper door. ‘There’s a trapdoor where Hally dug a cold pit in the ground and lined it with stones – it’ll stay cool there.’

Gundy snorted. ‘Cool enough outside,’ he said.

‘Yes, be that as it may, put it in the cold pit as we always do.’

Gundy had the grace to look abashed, and Rosemary gathered that Hally had emphasized “as always” to him during their talk in the Woods. ‘O’ course, Rosie,’ he said, and went to do just that.

They sang together, and then it was time for eventides, and Hally was still gone. Gundy showed no sign of going, though he went out to check on his remaining pony and came in again, and of course Rosemary set a place for him at table as well as one for Hally, though Hally’s remained empty. She fretted silently over two missed meals, tea and eventides, but what could she do? She’d feed him well on his return.

As if conjured by her thoughts, Hally’s voice sounded outside the smial, calling the pony to halt, and Gundy arose from table. ‘He’ll want some help, I gather,’ he said.

Help with what? Rosemary wondered, but she didn’t have long to wonder, for in short order, Gundy and Hally were carrying heavy sacks in from the yard to the pantry. Flour and meal, Hally grunted in passing – they were hundredweight sacks, and a number of them, flour and meal, wheat and barley and rye.

‘There,’ Hally said, dusting his hands as he emerged from the storage room. ‘The rest is for you, Gundy. You can bring the cart back on the morrow.’

‘I will,’ Gundy said, ‘along with something to cover the window.’

Hally appeared genuinely surprised. ‘The window?’ he said.

Gundy hung his head and shuffled his feet, mindful of the wide-eyed children, and explained his “error” in a low voice.

Hally shook his head in disgust. ‘Gundy, Gundy,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you learn when we were lads, not to cast stones at a smial? If you’re going to cast stones at a knot, make sure it’s a knot in a tree, you knot-for-a-head!’

‘I suppose I deserve that remark,’ Gundy said, making a wry mouth.

‘Aw, now,’ Rosemary said. ‘Don’t be too hard on the hobbit. I’m sure he’s sorry, and he didn’t mean for it to happen…’ Robin looked up sharply at this, and she kicked herself. She was going to have to be much more careful. ‘I mean,’ she amended, ‘that he knows better than to do such a thing, and will likely remember this day for a long time to come!’

Changing the subject, she said, ‘Now, Hally, I saved some eventides for you, a nice bit of pigeon pie…’

‘And a fine pie it is, too,’ Gundy said, assuming his normal tone now that the apologies were over with. ‘Or p’rhaps I ought to say, it was!’

‘But the evening’s coming down,’ Hally said, ‘and you ought to be on your way home, unless you want to stay over this eve, and go on in the morning.’

‘I’ll be well,’ Gundy said. ‘We’ll make good time, my ponies and I, and be home before the Sun’s last smiles are gone from the sky.’

‘Best hurry yourself, then,’ Hally said. ‘I’ll help you hitch Thruppence to the cart, and then you’d better be on your way.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ Gundy said, with a shake of his head.

Rosemary couldn’t help laughing at this, and she allowed the children to stand in the doorway (instead of preparing directly for bed, as they usually did after the eventide meal, “just this once” – and the just this onces would be few and far between, from this point on, she feared), and watch the process of hitching both ponies where one had been. They sang a song to speed Gundy on his way, and then it was time to close the door, and put the crossbar in place.

Once the children were in bed, Rosemary went to the pantry door and opened it, to gaze at the tidy piles of full sacks. ‘Why, Hally!’ she said. ‘I thought we were going to “as usual” from here on out! What’s all this?’

‘You’ve got to have something to go on, if you’re to be baking for a great lot of visitors,’ Hally said. ‘And with the gathering Ferdi spoke of, I didn’t know how long it would be that the miller might have supplies to sell… as it was, I bought of him as much as he was willing to sell to me, and as I told him it was for several families, I argued him round in the end.’

‘But it must have cost a great deal!’ Rosemary protested.

Hally shrugged ruefully. ‘Half of all we’ve saved, over the years,’ he admitted. ‘What I was putting aside to buy a pair of good, strong ponies, like Gundy’s,’ he said. ‘And on the morrow, we’ll be spending the rest at market.’

‘All our savings?’ Rosemary gasped.

‘Silver and copper won’t do us much good, if there’s naught in the market,’ Hally said. ‘Should the ruffians gather all the flour and meal from the Mill, and all the foodstuffs the farmers are growing, well, I doubt we’ll find silver and copper filling to eat. We might as well gather what we can now, before the ruffians do.’

Rosemary was shaken. ‘And if they simply find it convenient, that we’ve gathered all these good food stores together in one place for them to scoop up, what’ll we do then?’

Hally smiled grimly, ‘Ah, but Rose-my-own,’ he said. ‘Before they take that idea into their heads, you’re going to convince them that the supplies are better left here, for you to use in making up fine meals and baked goods for their enjoyment.’

Rosemary drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘I hope you know what we’re doing,’ she said.

Hally nodded. ‘I hope I do, too,’ was all he could find to say in answer.

Chapter 9.

Market day at that time, before the worst of the Troubles afflicted the Shire, was a high point of the week, as it remains to this day. It was a time for families to walk together around the market square of Stock, a time of greeting and gossip, an exchanging of news both good and bad, of bursts of laughter and sympathetic pats on the shoulder.

Though the stalls were fewer and less heavily laden, goods were still available for sale, and the ruffians at this point in time had not yet begun to examine the offerings for imaginary flaws and confiscate whole tables full of goods. Within a few months, however, the market would be a wistful memory. Market day would continue for another month or so after the ruffians made it unprofitable or untenable to sell from a market stall, in the form of hobbits gathering for conversation, but after the coming of Sharkey a rule would be added to the ever-lengthening list of Rules that would forbid the gathering together of Shirefolk in numbers larger than half-a-dozen. The only exception would be for a single family that exceeded this number.

On this day, Hally and Rosemary walked arm in arm along the stalls, admiring the wares on display, stopping occasionally to bargain -- Hally oftener than his wife, who grew more and more wide-eyed at her husband’s extravagance. They walked slowly, on account of Rosemary’s delicate condition. As a matter of fact, Gundy had appeared on their doorstep that morning with his ponies, pulling his own waggon (larger than Hally’s cart), and they had been able to ride into Stock in fine style, with Rose on the waggon seat beside Gundy, and Hally riding in the waggon bed with the children and the Bolgers’ younger brother Andy.

Gundy, too, was walking the market, stopping here and there to bargain, though he had left wife and children at home, and didn’t say why but for a vague excuse that it was better this way. In a way it was better, as Hally and Rose were able to leave their children at Gundy’s smial, to play with their cousins, and no worries about someone getting lost in the bustle at the market.

Each time one of the brothers made a purchase, money exchanged hands. The vendors were happy to take good, hard coin in hand. They smiled, and were obliging enough to wrap up the orders and personally carry, or have an older son carry the goods to Gundy’s waggon, waiting in one of the streets just off the market, with Andy casually leaning against one of the wheels, presumably to keep an eye on the ponies, but he was also careful to tuck each arriving purchase beneath the canvas sheet that the three brothers had spread over the waggon bed upon their arrival.

Now Hally guided Rosemary over to the weavers’ booth, with its shelves and baskets containing rolls and rolls of fabric. ‘I want you to think of all we’ll need for the coming year,’ Hally said to her. ‘Not just spring, or the coming summer months, but the autumn chill and winter cold as well!’
‘O Hally!’ she whispered. ‘How can I…?’

‘Think of it as my birthday present to you,’ he said.

‘Is it your birthday, then, Hally?’ the weaver said. ‘Well why didn’t you say so?’

‘Not quite, but soon,’ Hally said, ‘and as market day doesn’t fall on my birthday, well, I’m giving my family a few early presents.’

‘Cutting wood must pay well,’ the weaver said.

‘Well enough, Rufus, well enough,’ Hally answered. ‘I’ve been putting money by for some time now, and what with the new babe coming, it seems a good time to stock up on this and that.’ As they weren’t carrying their parcels, but having them taken to the waggon one by one, it wasn’t all that evident just how much they were buying altogether, and that was just as well. They didn’t want to start a lot of talk and speculation, after all.

Even so, as Rosemary was pointing to the last bolt of fabric among her choices, of a sunny yellow, she noticed a watching scar-faced Man who seemed to take some interest in their purchases at the weavers’ stand. When their eyes met, he gazed at her boldly, one corner of his mouth lifting in a wry smile. She coloured and made a courtesy in his direction, with as sincere a smile as she could muster.

‘What is it, Rose?’ Hally said, and followed her gaze. He gave the Man a wide grin and a bow. The Man blinked a little, and then moved off, disappearing into an alleyway.

Turning back to the weaver, he said, ‘Well now, Rufus, if you’ll just bundle it all up and take it to our waggon...’ He gave direction to where the waggon waited, then counted coins into the weavers’ hand, adding ‘a little extra, for your trouble.’

‘Gladly!’ the weaver said with a smile. ‘And anytime! Come back next week!’

Hally returned the smile and refrained from pointing out that they’d just bought enough fabric to supply them with clothing for the coming year, of various colours and fibres. Taking Rosemary’s arm, he escorted her to the booth next to the weavers’ where yarn was on display. ‘You’ll need some of this stuff as well,’ he said, ‘if only to keep your needles clicking!’

‘O Hally,’ she said, but he began to point to colours that he liked, or that he thought blended well, and when she would have bought enough for just the family (she might make a new shawl for herself and one for each daughter, a soft blanket for the babe to come, mufflers, hats and mittens for everyone… very well, yarn for a rug or two for the floor…) ‘More, Hally? What ever should we do with so much yarn?’

‘You might teach the young ones to knit,’ Hally said, ‘and of course there are presents to be given, for birthdays and for Yule...’ and he gave her a meaningful look, and suddenly understanding she gasped, and then firmly fixed a smile on her face and said, ‘O’ course! I’d quite forgotten. You have the right of it, my love.’

One of Rose’s good friends came up to them then, wife of Will the Smith, a bright-eyed hobbit mum who was expecting her own babe not long after Rosemary’s was due. ‘Rose!’ she said. ‘Hally! What ever are you doing?’
‘Walking the market, o’ course,’ Hally replied. ‘Well now, Rose, I think we’re about done, and I even have a few coins left. It’s too bad the Golden Perch is closed, or we could have our dinner at the inn.’

‘Have you lost your wits?’ Mistress Smith said sharply. ‘First I see you buying enough wool to open your own market stand, and now you’d be throwing more coin after that, to buy a meal at the inn, were you able? And you, not even travellers!’

‘It is an hour to journey home again,’ Hally said mildly. ‘And my poor wife will be weary when we get there, after all the walking we’ve done this day, and the decisions there were to make...’

‘It’s kind of you to want to treat your wife, but...’

‘Rosie, Hally,’ Gundy said, coming up to them, ‘I’ve about finished my business. Are you about ready to turn our faces home again?’

‘More than ready,’ Hally said. ‘If we leave without further delay, we might arrive before teatime.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Was there anything else you can think of, Rose?’

‘No,’ Rosemary said. Her head was whirling from all they’d already purchased. She wondered if it all would even fit in the waggon? Impulsively she took Mistress Smith’s hands and pressed them warmly. ‘It’s so good to see you, Hilda,’ she said, in all earnest. As the Bolgers were in the habit of going to the market only once a month or so, she thought perhaps that by their next market day, Hilda would not be so glad to see them, assuming their plans should succeed. She blinked hard, willing herself not to cry.

‘Won’t you all come for tea?’ her friend said, with a troubled look, as if she suspected something was amiss, though she had no way of guessing at the trouble.

‘No… no,’ Hally said slowly, with real regret. ‘I really must get my Rose-bloom home. She’s too near her time as it is...’

Hilda hugged Rose, laughing a little as their large stomachs bumped together, forcing them to turn side-to-side to complete the embrace. ‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll just give you all my love now -- for I doubt I’ll see you next month at market!’

Rose stared, wondering how Hilda had guessed, but then her friend went on. ‘After all, you won’t be bringing a new babe out in society until he’s a month and a day in the world -- and neither will I!’

‘But of course,’ Rose said, laughing a little herself, even as her heart felt as if it was breaking within her. ‘How could I forget?’

‘You’re more tired than you thought,’ Hilda said gently, and then she took Hally’s hand and placed it firmly on Rosemary’s arm. ‘You take your poor, weary wife home now, and when you get there, you make her sit in the best chair, and pull over a stool for her feet, and you put away the purchases and get the tea into the bargain!’

‘Yes, Missus!’ Hally said smartly.

Gundy gave him a nudge. ‘She’s got your measure!’ he said.

‘I’ve got my orders,’ Hally said in reply. He tipped his cap to the Smith’s wife. ‘My best to your husband, and your family,’ he said.

‘And give my best to Cora and the children,’ Hilda said to Gundy.

‘Your least wish is my greatest desire,’ Gundy said with a grand bow that made the Smith’s wife giggle. ‘Come now, brother, sister… I think my wife is expecting you to tea, if you’re not too weary, Rosie...’

Though Rosemary denied that she was weary, Hally said something to the effect that they’d see -- in any event, they needed to collect their little ones.

With another awkward hug, the two friends parted, promising to look in on one another when the babies were safely born and ready to introduce to society. Rose was glad that Robin was not with them, for he’d have heard the lie in her voice.

Hiding her dejection, she allowed Hally and Gundy to take her between them, escorting her to the waggon. She managed not to cast a wistful backward glance at her good friend, though she wanted to. No, Hilda was too sharp by half. If she saw such a thing, she’d want to know why.

She wanted to cry all the way home, but wouldn’t let herself. Cora, Gundy’s wife, would see her red eyes, as would her children, and they’d want to know the reason for red eyes and a sniffly nose. Hally, Rosemary, and Gundy squeezed together on the waggon seat, and young Andy trotted alongside, for the waggon was heaped high under its canvas cover.

When they arrived at Gundy’s, Andy escorted Rosemary inside, to the joyful greetings of her children, and Cora made sure that Rose sat down in a comfortable chair and put her feet up while she put the finishing touches on tea. Gundy and Hally came in a bit later, saying they’d taken time to feed the ponies and have a pipe, and it was the truth, though Rosemary suspected it was not the entire truth. They had a lovely tea, and if Rose was a little subdued, it was easy for Hally to explain it away as Rose having overextended herself, and in part it was true.

When they went back out to the waggon, about a third of the load was gone, leaving room for Andy and the children to ride in the waggon bed once more. Gundy winked at them as he stood with his arm about Cora’s waist, and Rose surmised that he had stowed away his purchases in a secret place, where his wife would not easily find them. He did not want to alarm Cora, not at this time, but he’d taken to heart Hally’s warning about future privation and shortages, and had spent most of his own savings at the Mill the previous day, and at the Market this day. He’d prepared as well as he could for the storm, and now all he could do was hope that it was enough.

That, and worry about his brother Hally, and Hally’s family.

‘Grace go with you!’ he called, and Rose could hear the sincerity in his voice. He’d never meant anything quite so much as he’d meant those words.

‘And with you!’ Hally called back, as he urged the ponies into a walk. He’d drive the waggon home, and he and Andy would unload whilst Rosemary readied the children for bed and their bedtime story, and then Andy would drive Gundy’s waggon and ponies home again, arriving before nightfall.

‘And with you!’ Rose added to her husband’s blessing, forcing herself to smile widely as she waved her farewells.

‘And with you!’ the little children echoed -- Bolgers to Bolgers, cousins blessing cousins that, if all worked out as they intended, might not be gathered together again for months… if ever.

‘O Hally,’ she whispered, taking her husband’s arm and leaning against him after they were out of sight around a bend in the road.

‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ he said, looking down at her, keeping his voice low because of Andy and the children in the back of the waggon. The tween was not in on the secret, and what ever conclusions he might be drawing from recent events, they did not need to add to any speculation on his part. ‘Whether or not we do this, buying out the Mill and the Market was the prudent thing to do.’

She nodded against him, sniffled, and looked up into his face, thinking of the list of Rules they’d seen nailed to the door of the Golden Perch, and the Men to be seen loitering in every corner, or so it seemed. ‘It is too late,’ she whispered, and at his questioning glance, added, ‘Too late for the Shire.’

He nodded, and it seemed there were no more words to be said.

Chapter 10.

Next day was Cleaning Day for the Bolgers. Hally spent the early part of the morning taking up all the rugs and hanging them outside, and then beating them thoroughly with the enthusiastic help of Robin, Parsley, and Buckthorn. Though it was a chilly morning, Rosemary bundled the little ones warnly, and as they “helped” Hally to carry each rug in again, with the dust beaten out, they were warm from the exercise, their cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.

She used the time well to dust and sweep the little smial thoroughly -- Little Lavvy might crawl all about, into any room, without soiling her gown. With the clean rugs laid down on the floors, the smial was a cosy place indeed, and as there had been a thaw in the temperatures, and pronouncing it “a fine, cloudy day,” Hally announced he would wash the windows after second breakfast, “until they sparkle fit for the king himself, whoever he may be.”

‘There’s no king!’ young Robin laughed in surprise.

‘O’ course there’s not,’ his father agreed. ‘But we may live like kings, or at least have windows as clean and shining as the windows of a palace would be!’

‘Better than a palace,’ Rosemary said. ‘For it’s ours!’

Laughing and cheerful, the little family sat down together. They joined hands around the table, even little Lavender in the tall chair Hally had made for Robin when he was a faunt, and each took a moment to tell something they were thankful for. Even little Lavvy was given a chance to babble and coo, and then the father finished the round. ‘And I’m thankful for your Mama,’ Hally said, ‘and the fine food she sets on the table for us!’

So it was at second breakfast every day for the forest Bolgers, and it set the tone for the day and kept them counting their blessings. The practice might grow harder in the coming months, but they would keep to the custom “as always” and it would, each day, bolster their courage and determination, reminding them of the goal that they might never live to see, and yet was worth every effort.

Rosemary put the little ones down on her bed for their morning nap, and she and Parsley cleared and scrubbed the table and did the washing up. At the same time, Hally washed the windows, inside and out, with young Robin’s help. The child’s chortles of delight were infectious, as he and his father made faces at each other through the glass, Hally washing the outside and Robin washing the inside.

Next Rosemary built up a fire in the oven, and while it was heating, stirred up a batch of sweet ginger biscuits. Parsley delighted to roll these between her palms and then in sparkling sugar -- such a luxury! They’d never bought fancy sugar before, not that she could remember! At last she would place them in neat, soldierly rows on a baking sheet, waiting for the oven to be ready.

By this, the day before Baking Day (and really, by Market Day the day before) the yeast and quick breads would be all gone. Even though it was not her official day for baking, Rosemary would use the little ones’ morning naptime on these days to stir up some sort of quick bread or biscuit for that day, with enough to last into the following early breakfast. She tested the oven -- not quite hot enough -- and rolled a few ginger biscuits herself, praising Parsley’s somewhat uneven efforts. As long as they were all fairly close in size, they’d bake in the same time.

She tested the oven again -- the pinch of flour tossed onto the oven floor browned and turned quickly to sparks, too hot for bread but perfect for biscuits -- raked out the coals, and fixed the filled baking sheets in their racks, working quickly to keep all the heat from escaping. ‘There!’ she said in satisfaction. ‘Now for the ginger biscuit song, and then we’ll have to sample our baking to see if we remembered all the right spices!’

‘O’ course we remembered all the right spices, Mama!’ Parsley protested, as she always did. ‘We never forget!’

‘Ah, but if we didn’t sample them, then how would we know?’ Rosemary asked, tweaking her little daughter under her chin. And Parsley grinned in reply. She loved the sampling next best to the baking, and truth be told, she half-hoped the spices would not be right, just to be able to do it all over again! ...though it would never do to say so out loud, and wish so much good flour (and fancy sugar!) wasted.

They sang the ginger biscuit song, hurrying the first verse just a bit because they’d been talking instead of singing after the oven door was safely shut, and when they were finished, they peeked into the oven, to see all the balls of sweet, spicy dough had magically flattened in the oven heat, spreading out into neat circles on the sheets, their fancy sugar sparkling on the crackled surface.

Hally had been timing his efforts to finish when the biscuits did, and he hurried to forestall Rosemary from taking the baking sheets from the oven, choosing instead to do so himself. It was no trouble at all for Rosemary to transfer the biscuits to the cooling racks she had laid ready on the table, with Hally holding each sheet in turn over the racks, so that all she had to do was scoop up the spicy delights and slide them carefully onto the racks to cool. Of course she broke one or two in the effort, and of course they had to divide the pieces between all the workers when the rest of the biscuits were all safely cooling.

‘Mmmm,’ said Hally, through a mouthful of melting sweet spices, ‘perfect! As usual!’

‘We didn’t forget any of the spices, Mama!’ Parsley said, and Rosemary smiled and nodded.

‘You’re a good helper, lovie,’ she answered. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

A hail was heard outside in the yard, a rough voice, deeper than a hobbit’s, and Hally hurried to pull the door open, calling, ‘Visitors! We have visitors, my loves! Look lively! Mama, put the kettle on!’

‘Kettle!’ the rough voice said, adding a coarse laugh. ‘Kettle!’ Rosemary was swinging the teakettle, already filled with fresh water before they’d started their baking, and hanging ready, over the hottest part of the fire. She moved to get down the Man-sized mugs, plates and spoons that Hally had finished carving only a day or two before, and laid out the rest of the tea things.

‘Why, of course!’ Hally said, affecting his heartiest tone in answer. ‘Well come, my friends, well come indeed! You’re just in time -- we’ve just had a baking of biscuits, the best you’ve ever seen, and they’re best fresh and warm from the oven, melting on the tongue...’

‘Be that as it may,’ the rough voice said, approaching the door, and then a Man was bending down, stooping to enter the smial, while Hally held the door wide to accommodate him and the other Man with him.

It was the scar-faced Man from the Market, Rosemary realised, and she hurried to the door to say, ‘Why, I remember you! It is so good to see you again, sir, though we haven’t been properly introduced! I...’

‘Ah yes, at Market,’ the Man said in reply, and sketched an ironic bow, stooped as he was to avoid brushing his head against the ceiling. ‘We noticed you had rather more lengths from the weaver’s stall than one family ought...’

‘Please,’ Rosemary said, coming up to him, forcing herself to think of him as a poor, lonely soul far from his home and mother. It brought sweetness to her smile, and a light to her eyes, and a warmth to her voice that stopped him short in what he’d been about to say. ‘Please, do make yourself at home -- so much as you can! Here -- we’ve just brushed all the rugs clean, so you can sit yourselves down without worry for dust, and do let me bring you each a plate, and in a few moments, a mug of tea -- or if you’d prefer fresh milk, from our goats?’

‘Please, make yourselves at home,’ Hally echoed, and then he bowed to the two Men who now stooped within his home. ‘We are the Bolgers, Hally and Rose, at your service, and your family’s! Please, join us in a mug of tea -- we were about to sample this morning’s baking...’

Young Robin opened his mouth to say they’d already sampled it, but then he thought the better of it and closed his mouth again.

‘Mister…’ said the scar-faced Man, ‘and Missus...’

‘O! Call me Rose!’ Rosemary said impulsively. ‘It’s ever so much homelier! And we’d like you to think of our home as yours, here in the Woody End. Our neighbours aren’t so friendly, for some reason, and the children and I get lonely here, with Hally away in the wood almost every day...’

She held her breath. She and Hally had discussed long into the night, how to make their first contact with Lotho’s Men. Hally had said thoughtfully that an appeal for aid, properly put, could soften a hard heart, and turn a body bent on mischief into a sympathetic character. Rosemary wasn’t so sure, but it was more than anything she could think of, and so she set her husband’s plan in motion and held her breath.

‘It would be a nice thing, if you spend much time in the area, if you could look in on them, and see that all is well,’ Hally said. ‘It would be a favour to me, and set my mind at ease...’ He brightened. ‘And my wife bakes a rare treat! Today is not her usual baking day -- as a matter of fact, it’s the morrow, two days after the Stock Market, that’s her usual day, but she just happened to stir up ginger biscuits this morning to renew our strength after beating all the dust from the carpets...’

‘Well, now, there is a fine smell in the air,’ the other Man said hopefully, looking to the scar-faced Man. ‘Don’t you think we could take a moment or two…?’

His companion laughed and sat himself suddenly on the rug before the hearth. ‘A fine smell, indeed,’ he said. ‘I suppose our business can wait… You Shire-folk don’t care to have business along with your tea, as I recall...’

‘Too true -- it can spoil the pleasure of the food,’ Hally said, seating himself Man-fashion on the floor. Robin sat beside his father, staring from one visitor to the other with wide eyes. Rosemary hurried to fill the two Man-sized plates with warm, spicy sweet biscuits and bring them to the guests, who thanked her nicely in their rough voices.

The Man with three fingers on his left hand immediately lifted one of the biscuits from his plate and bit into it. A smile spread over his face. ‘Mmmph!’ he said. ‘Scar, this is prime! You’ve got to taste…!’

‘Yes, yes,’ Scar said tolerantly, but he did sample one of his biscuits and his eyes widened. ‘Tolerable,’ however, was all he said. ‘Not bad.’

‘Not bad!’ Robin said, indignant. ‘My Mum’s the best baker in the Woody End!’

‘Robin!’ Rosemary chided.

‘I’m sure that she might be,’ Scar said, with a seated bow toward Robin. ‘No offence meant, young hobbit.’

‘None taken,’ Hally answered for his son, with a quick squeeze to Robin’s arm before he rose to take the steaming kettle from the hob and fill the waiting teapot. ‘And plenty more where that came from,’ he said over his shoulder.. ‘Why -- you’re welcome to stop in, any Baking Day, for Rose always makes enough to feed an army!’

Well, she hadn’t, in the past, as they’d never had a pantry quite as full as it was now. But she certainly would in future.

In the end, the ruffians drank their tea and enjoyed their biscuits, eating until they were unable to accept the further helpings Rose tried to press upon them. She ended by having the bright idea of tying up a fair-sized quantity of biscuits in a couple of clean cloths cut from old flour-sacks, and insisting that the Men bear the treasure away with them.

Scar and the three-fingered Man ducked their way out of the smial, each bearing a supply of biscuits. To Rosemary’s astonishment (but not Hally’s), Scar tipped his hat to her, and the other Man followed suit. ‘Much obliged, Missus.’

‘Come back on the morrow!’ Hally reminded. ‘Baking day! I’ll be in the Wood, and I’m sure my Rose will be happy to share of her baking...’

And then the Men were walking away, calling rough thanks and fare-wells. They had apparently quite forgotten what they came for in the first place. In a whispered conversation that night, after the little ones were all sweetly asleep, Hally and Rosemary discussed the matter. Most likely, the Men had come to “gather” the “extra” fabric they’d seen the Bolgers buying from the weaver’s stand the previous day.

‘Well, you invited them to return on the morrow,’ Rosemary whispered. ‘Perhaps they’ll rectify their error then.’

‘And if you stuff them as full as I expect you’ll be stuffing them, of bread and scones and biscuits plain and sweet, perhaps they’ll as conveniently forget again.’

‘Is that the way it’s to be, from this day forward?’ Rosemary said.

Hally kissed her tenderly. ‘I certainly hope so,’ he said, ‘if only to keep you and the little ones safe. How do you keep a wolf pack from devouring you, in the midst of a Fell Winter? Throw food in their faces...’

‘That’s not funny,’ Rosemary chided.

Hally looked at her very seriously. He kissed her once more, eased her down onto her pillow, and pulled the coverlet to cover her snugly. ‘I wasn’t joking,’ he said, and then he lay himself down and eased his arms around her. They lay for a long time, snuggled together, and at some point, they both fell asleep.

Chapter 11. 

Rosemary felt strangely restless upon awakening, after a night of broken sleep. It was always this way, in the last weeks of carrying a babe. She couldn’t find a comfortable position, and woke often, in trying to turn over, or feeling breathless as the babe’s growing weight bore down on her. In addition, her joints grew looser as her time of delivery approached, making her hips especially painful. Still, the changes in her body meant that the time was drawing near when she could hold her little one in her arms -- and put the babe down when she wanted to rest!

It was early -- none of the children had called out in sleep, or even stirred in wakening, or so she ascertained from holding her breath and listening to the silence in the pre-dawn darkness. Hally still slept, snoring lightly.

And then she remembered -- Baking Day! And Lotho’s Men all but invited, no, invited in truth! How many would come? Somehow she thought it might well be more than just the twain who had devoured as many ginger biscuits as they could eat the previous day, and borne away more with them, presumably to share with others.

‘I must be about my business!’ she whispered to herself, and arose from the bed, with difficulty, it must be said, for the babe was a heavy burden.

She lit the lamp above the table in the main room and turned it up high, and then checked the dough she’d set to rise the night before -- slow rising makes for light baking, or so her mother’s cook used to say.

Very nice! ...and ready for the baking, so soon as the oven might be. She built up a fire in the bread oven, blessing Hally all over again for insisting on three ovens when he and his brothers first built the little smial in the Wood. It made baking day so much easier -- to bake risen bread in the one oven, quick breads in the second, and biscuits in the third, and all at the same time, instead of having to fire one oven three times (or more) in order to get all the baking done for the week. Three ovens! Quite as if they were wealthy hobbits living in grand style. But then, Hally was fond of saying, “Nothing’s too good for my Rose-bloom.”

With ruffians -- Men, she corrected herself. Invited guests! -- coming this day, she had made up three times the usual amount of bread dough, having prepared a few days ago by moving her bread starter to a larger crock and feeding it well. She’d whispered to it as she stirred in flour and water, as she always did, crooning her thanks and blessings for its help in keeping her family fed with good bread -- she’d had this starter for years, had brought it to the Woody End from Buckland’s End when Hally had first brought her here as a bride, and it was as an old friend to her. But her whispered blessing had changed: She blessed it as always, but also thanked it for keeping her family safe from harm, as well as hunger.

So she would fire the bread oven three times this day, and have three bakings of bread dough, and hope that it would be enough. And if for some reason the… invited guests did not come this day, why, she’d have enough to share with Gundy’s family, or perhaps another neighbour, before their relations had time to sour, like dough left too long to rise…

She shook herself for indulging in fancies when there was so much work to be done, and went on to stir up the dough for currant buns, and currant scones, and dried cherry scones. Such a wealth of baking!

Hally emerged from the bedroom as she was rubbing fat -- thinking with pleasure of the several small barrels of lard in the pantry -- into the dry ingredients to make the dough for custard tarts (a whole barrel full of preserved eggs resided in her pantry -- such a luxury!) and dried-apple tarts and hand pies. The good smells of baking bread and frying bacon had roused him, with a start -- belated! He usually started the morning fire for breakfast-making, after all.

‘My, my, baking up a storm!’ he said, and bent to steal a piece of bacon from the pan.

‘I certainly hope not!’ Rosemary returned, eyes on her task. ‘If there’s a storm, I’ll have you underfoot all the day, and not just the morning… Leave some of that for breakfast!’

‘Plenty more where that came from,’ Hally said through the mouthful he was chewing as he moved to stand behind her, and laid a greasy kiss on her neck. She shivered, made a sound of mock disgust, and lifted one floury hand to push him away, and he laughed as he turned away to measure the porridge into the pot of water waiting by the fire, and swung it over the fire to begin cooking. He then lifted the steaming teakettle, warmed the teapot and proceeded to make the tea.

Rosemary worked in just the right amount of cold water, fresh and icy from the little spring (Icy cold for flaky gold!, her mother’s cook said in the back of her mind, just as in her childhood when she’d helped form and roll out pastry dough for tarts -- her childish fascination with the kitchen was standing her in good stead now). She kneaded it just until it came together (Don’t beat it to death, dearie! We want it light and flaky as an elf’s petticoat!), then covered the bowl with a damp cloth, and Hally took up the bowl and carried it to the cold box that he’d dug in the pantry and lined with stone, after fashioning a wooden cover for the space.

‘Do Elves wear petticoats, I wonder?’ she said aloud, wiping her floury hands on her apron and then planting them against her back for a good stretch.

Hally’s laugh sounded from the pantry, a little muffled by the lifted cold box cover. ‘I don’t know how you manage to think of such questions! ...but next time I see a passing Elf, I’ll be sure to ask!’

She chuckled at the thought as well, of her dear Hally, quiet and reserved around strange hobbits and Men (at least he had been, though he must force himself to play a role quite unlike himself in future days), inquiring of an Elf about such a delicate matter… and then she was on to more practical things once more. The thought crossed Rosemary’s mind, watching her husband out of the corner of her eye, that the space might be just large enough for a hobbit to hide in, curled up tight -- but it would be awfully cold…

...but the pot of porridge was beginning to steam, and must be moved off the hottest part of the fire, and stirred lest it burn, and then Hally was taking over the cookery whilst Rosemary went in answer to Buckthorn’s sleepy howl and little Lavvy’s morning chirps. First, with not a little difficulty, she picked up Buckthorn, who often awakened with a frown -- the babe kicked against him, as Rose held him close, and his scowl turned to a look of surprise.

Robin’s spot in the bed was empty, and so he must have slipped out while his mother was busy with the porridge, to milk the two goats before breakfast. After breakfast, it would be his task to fetch more wood and water into the smial, while Parsley and Rosemary did the washing up, and his father prepared to go out to the Wood for his day’s labours.

‘Say good morning to your little brother!’ Rosemary told Buckthorn now as they progressed to the girls’ room, and he looked down, patted her protruding middle, and obeyed.

‘Good morning, little birdie!’ she said to Lavender, already being dressed by her older sister, and the little one chortled with glee, raising her arms to be picked up.

‘O no!’ Rosemary said in dismay. ‘I cannot manage the three of you!’ And the children understood that she wasn’t talking of Parsley as the third, but the babe that she must carry at all times, at least for the time being.

‘I’ll take you!’ little Parsley said to her littler sister, and the faunt seemed content enough to be settled on Parsley’s hip, her arms about Parsley’s neck, still babbling away. ‘Come, let’s lay the table!’

Before long, Robin came in with two buckets of milk, everyone washed their hands, and the little family settled to their breakfast. In the middle of breakfast time, Hally took the golden loaves from the bread oven and laid them to cool, all but one. Though the bread couldn’t be sliced until it cooled, he could certainly tear the steaming loaf, and did, distributing a handful of fresh-baked bread to each member of the family, exclaiming at the sting of the hot bread against his palms, though he didn’t seem terribly bothered in truth.

They made a merry breakfast, that little family did, and then there was the clearing away and the washing up and the morning chores, followed by second breakfast of fresh-baked bread and Woodberry jam. At last Hally kissed each one and then took up his axe and went out the door, whistling a sprightly tune. Rosemary was able to work out some of her restlessness by chopping vegetables and setting them to stew with some of the dried meat from the market, and then washing and scrubbing and sweeping, while Parsley dusted and made up the beds, and little Buckthorn and Lavender played together on the clean-swept floor until it was time for their morning nap.

They made good use of the little ones’ sleeping time, Rosemary and the older children did, rolling out dough into circles and forming tarts and hand pies. The  mother delighted in teaching the children the making of custard -- they seldom had eggs enough to stir up a custard, but with a whole barrel of eggs in the pantry…! Such riches!

When the tarts and hand pies were ready and waiting, she built up a good, hot baking fire in the middle oven and checked the temperature in the bread oven. Yes, ready for the next batch of risen bread -- another batch of loaves, and then the last baking would be buns, both plain and studded with currants. She raked out the coals, swabbed the oven, and began loading the pans into the hot oven, with Parsley and Robin’s help. The young hobbits weren’t allowed to put sheets and pans into the oven, nor take them out, but they were a great help in bringing the dough from the table to where Rosemary stood by the oven door, saving her steps and time and oven heat.

‘And next,’ she said softly, ‘the biscuits!’ And the children gave a cheer, for each would have a bowl of good things to stir, and form or plonk onto the baking sheets in delightful globs, to be baked into flat, round, delicious discs.

The baking was piling up almost alarmingly when Hally returned from the Wood for the noontide meal, and of course he insisted on sampling one of each kind of thing, and nearly spoilt his dinner of dried venison and vegetable stew! (The children were much amused at this.) He proclaimed it all delicious, and had Parsley and Robin tie up a few more samples in a cloth for him to take back to the Wood.

There had been no sign of ruffians, er, Men in the Wood where he’d been cutting, and at his inquiring look upon entering the smial for mealtime, Rosemary had shook her head. No Men had come during the morning’s efforts. ‘Well, you can smell the fine smells a mile away!’ Hally said, sitting down to table for the last time, having freshened the teapot for a last cup of tea all round. (Even though the children drank cambric tea, mostly milk with a heaping spoonful of honey and a splash of tea, a new pot was still needed to complete the meal.)

‘I’m glad!’ Rosemary said, and at the children’s inquiring looks, she added, ‘for it’s not likely you’ll lose yourself in the Wood, with the fine smells of baking to lead you homeward again!’

‘Just like in the old tale!’ Robin shouted in excitement, and Lavvy banged her spoon on the table and chortled.

‘O tell it again, Papa, do!’ Parsley begged.

‘We’ll have that story for our bedtime tale, then,’ Hally said, and smiled and shook his head in answer to the children’s pleas. ‘The wood won’t cut itself,’ he added, and rose from the table, to go around and distribute kisses around, starting and ending with his wife. ‘Take a little rest when the children do,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘I fear you’re over-extending yourself, Rose. D’you want me to stay?’

‘The wood won’t cut itself,’ she answered with a smile. ‘Go, do! We’ll be fine here! I have such good helpers, as you know...’ And the two parents smiled on the children, and the older ones preened and smiled in return, while the younger ones beamed in general jollity.

Perhaps an hour after Hally had taken his leave, just after Rosemary had settled the littlest ones for their afternoon nap, waited for them to fall asleep, and was just about to lie herself down (along with Robin and Parsley)...

...the ruffians came.

Chapter 12.

Rosemary sent Robin off to his bed -- she didn’t have to caution him against waking Buckthorn; he knew how to crawl under the coverlet without disturbing the slumbers of his littler brother. She walked with her arm about Parsley’s shoulders to the girls’ room, where little Lavender was already sweetly sleeping. She gave her eldest daughter a loving squeeze and a smile. Parsley settled herself carefully on the bed, and Lavvy turned over in her sleep to cuddle close, thumb firmly in mouth. Rosemary spread the coverlet over the two sisters, ran her hand gently over Parsley’s curls, and turned away, suppressing a sigh of relief, which her sensitive daughter might misconstrue. She was so weary! ...and looking forward to sleeping for as long as the little ones did, this day, instead of getting up as she often did, well before they awakened, to fit in some lacework or other task requiring her full attention.

Just as she had laid herself down upon her bed, a rough voice called from the yard, ‘Halloo the house!’

(It was a smial, but she wasn’t going to be the one to correct any of Lotho’s Men on such a point…)

Before she could struggle up again, she heard the patter of Robin’s feet on the floorboards. As she rolled awkwardly off the bed and came upright, feeling the muscles of her abdomen tighten painfully (More false pangs, she thought, for they were common in the weeks before the real work would begin), she heard Robin grunting with effort as he tugged open the door, and then he shouted, as he’d heard his father shout the previous day, in a loud and hearty little voice, ‘Visitors! Mama, put the kettle on!’

‘Kettle!’ One of several coarse, deep voices cried, and several others laughed, but another sounded over the laughter as if calling the rest to order.

‘Aye, kettle! We’re invited, as Scar and I told you...’

Another shout of laughter came in answer to this sentiment, but by this time Rosemary had emerged from the bedroom and was hurrying to the door, where Robin stood, his head back as he craned upward, to look into the faces of the tall figures that blocked the light of the open doorway.

Rosemary pulled her shawl more snugly around her shoulders and pushed back her hair from her face -- she’d unpinned it, that she might rest more comfortably on her pillow. ‘O yes!’ she said, with all the eagerness she could muster. ‘I’m that glad to see you, I can’t tell you…’ Scanning the overlarge faces, she found the leader. ‘O Scar,’ she said, caressing the Man’s name with her voice, as if greeting an old friend (though inwardly she shuddered that one should claim such a title). ‘If you wouldn’t mind… we’re a little at sixes and sevenses at the moment...’

‘What d’ye need, Rosie?’ the Man said with such familiarity that she had to stifle a gasp and force herself to smile even more brightly, as if his easy friendliness was a compliment -- which it was, she told herself firmly.

‘If one of you could build up the fire,’ she said. ‘The teakettle is full and waiting to go on the fire, but I’m afraid we’ve let it burn down, just a little...’

‘Mossy, build up the fire and put the kettle on,’ Scar ordered, and a Man with shaggy dark hair started to protest, and received a sharp cuff to the ear for his trouble. ‘Go, now! A cuppa will be good when we’ve finished our work...’

‘Your work?’ Rosemary said, blinking up at him.

The Man gave a shrug. ‘There was a report of you and your husband, buying more at Stock Market than any family ought to need,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to gather any extra, that it might be given to those who could better use it.’

‘I see,’ Rosemary said, stepping aside so that Mossy could enter. Her heart sank. All their savings, and all for naught. She straightened again, pinning on a determined smile. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be hungry after your endeavours… You all must work so hard, watching out for the needy. Such a kind heart as Mister Lotho has, to care for the poor so...’

She feared for a moment that she had overplayed her hand, for Scar scowled at the resulting shout of laughter from his cronies, but then he turned to cuff the Man on one side, and swung round to pull the hair of the Man on his other side, all the while growling to them to be civil…!

‘Don’t mind them, Missus,’ he said, turning back to Rosemary with a little bow. ‘They don’t mean any harm.’

Rosemary was not about to argue with the Man. ‘O’ course they don’t!’ she said. ‘They’ve got their work to do, and no doubt they’ve been working hard all the morning, and here it is half-way to teatime! You must all be perishing of the hunger! Did you even have time for nooning?’

The Men, most of them, seemed a little taken aback by her candour and concern -- their sneers and scowls replaced by uncertainty.

‘As a matter of fact, we had a bit of dried meat and dried fruit to go on, and some hardtack,’ Scar said, and Rosemary put her hands on her hips.

‘Dried meat and fruit!’ she said indignantly. ‘Why, I wouldn’t feed that to a dog that I liked!’ Turning towards the Man kneeling on the hearthstones, she said, ‘Mossy, dear lad!’

More than one of the Men snorted at this, but she ignored them, working as she was to smile her hardest at the dirty figure kneeling on her clean floor, who’d turned a startled, even suspicious face to her.

He was someone’s son, she reminded herself, and so she spoke to him as fondly as she might to her own Robin, whose hand was firmly twined together with hers, holding tight, as the lad looked up at the tall figures crowding outside the smial door. ‘Would you please swing the stew kettle -- it’s off to one side, keeping warm -- closer to the fire you’re making? We’ve a lovely venison-and-vegetable stew in the kettle, and of course there’s plenty to share! Why, I couldn’t let invited guests go hungry in my home!’

Certainly, she had baking a-plenty to feed to the Men, but something prompted her to add heartier fare to her offerings…

‘All right, you lot, go about your business,’ Scar said, looking around at the faces, some of them open-mouthed at Rosemary’s bold hospitality. Looking back to Rosemary, he added, ‘Missus, if you don’t mind, we’ll be poking about...’

‘Please call me Rose,’ Rosemary said with a nod and a smile. ‘Missus sounds so stiff and unfriendly, somehow...’ She had the feeling that the Man was already making concessions, by asking her leave -- she thought perhaps they didn’t ask hobbits’ leave to do anything they wished to do, under their usual means of conducting their affairs. Hopefully today’s business would cultivate the seeds of friendship she and Hally had been at pains to sow the previous day.

The Men spread out, Scar and another Man coming into the smial, the others moving to inspect the covered woodpile, the shed where Hally kept the cart, his tools, and extra supplies, the goats’ shelter, and privy. Rosemary didn’t know where Hally had secreted all their purchases, but a goodly portion of them were in the shed, and more were stuffed under the beds in all three bedrooms. And of course, the foodstuffs filled the pantry…

As the Men moved from the doorway -- their bodies had quite blocked the view of the yard -- Rosemary saw with a sinking heart that they’d brought a waggon with them, very convenient for their gathering. Piles of goods in the waggon attested to their earlier efforts, and she’d no doubt her own short-lived riches would soon join the rest.

She wished Hally were here, that she might whisper I told you so! but he was in the Wood, plying his trade, as always, and though he was within summoning distance if she should send little Robin running out to find him, he was not here on the spot. Not for the first time, Rosemary cursed “as usual” and wished for Hally’s comforting presence. No, but his place was in the Wood, except for the days when he usually stayed at home, and her place was here, and would be for the foreseeable future, dealing with Lotho’s Men, sifting Truth from lies, gathering information for the cause of a free Shire.

The thought stiffened her spine and renewed her determination, and so she was able to smile serenely, in the face of anticipated loss, as she turned from the door. ‘Just give me a moment,’ she said to the Men in the smial. ‘I need to pin up my hair, to have it out of the way, and then I’ll be of whatever help I can...’

Scar growled something in return. Mossy got up from the hearth, dusting his hands. The fire was burning brightly, warming the teakettle and the stewpot, and it wouldn’t be too long before the water boiled, for Rosemary had no intentions of watching the pot. No, but she only said to the Men, in an apologetic tone, ‘If you wouldn’t mind working quietly -- the little ones are asleep...’ She went into the bedroom, dropped her shawl on the bed, and began to do up her hair.

She looked up, suppressing a gasp, as Mossy loomed in the bedroom doorway, half-bent to guard his head from knocks. ‘Beg pardon, Missus,’ he said, and to Rosemary’s surprise, his cheeks coloured with embarrassment at such intimacy -- entering a bedroom where a mum stood, without her shawl and her hair down, and very big with child into the bargain. ‘I just needed to look about in here...’

‘Please,’ Rosemary said, sinking down on the bed and pulling her shawl around her shoulders. ‘I’ll just wait...’

And she did, while the Man sheepishly examined the clothing hanging from the pegs, and opened the press to see the extra blankets there, and the tiny baby things, ready for the new little one. He seemed to be in a hurry to complete his task, and bowed to her as he left the room, without having looked under the bed!

Rosemary suppressed her sigh of relief and quickly dealt with her hair. It was likely messy, but it would be out of her way, and none of the ruffians… Men… would find hair in their food, not if she could avoid it!

No cries came from the other bedrooms, so the searching Men apparently were taking care not to disturb the sleeping children. Perhaps the goods hidden under their beds would also remain undiscovered. Rosemary hoped so. It would be enough of a blow to lose the contents of the shed and pantry.

She emerged from the bedroom and moved to get the Man-sized plates, bowls, spoons and mugs, that Hally had carved in preparation for this day, down from the shelf, laying half a dozen places, three to a side of the table. Of course, the Men could not sit at table, but they might pull the benches back and seat themselves on the floor. She readied the teapot, then filled platters with piles of baked goods -- slices of bread, scones and buns, and set these down the centre of the table, within handy reach. She set two more platters on the side table and filled these with sweet biscuits and small tarts, ready for “afters”. She could hear the stew beginning to bubble, and her nose twitched as its rich smell began to fill the smial once more.

As she worked, she tried to pay no heed to the searching, gathering Men, though she saw through the window, more than one trip from shed to waggon, with loaded arms.

It’s not as if you’ll miss it so terribly much, she told herself. We only bought it all at Market a few days ago… Not enough time, really, to grow used to the idea of riches, or to be attached to all the things… They’re just things, anyhow. So long as my little ones are safe, that’s what matters…

Mossy and the other Man (not Scar, who was lounging about watching the others and giving instructions -- albeit in a low voice, that he not waken the slumbering tots) were lugging bags from the pantry out to the waggon, and the trapdoor to the cold pit was yawning open. (It would make no secure hiding place, a small voice in the back of her mind said, and just as well, for anyone who tried to hide there would likely catch their death from the cold.) Rosemary dearly hoped that they’d leave at least enough for her little family to eat over the coming week, though with all their money gone, she didn’t know what they’d do when they needed more. She forced herself to hum a gay little tune as she completed her preparations to feed the ruff… the Men.

‘Mama!’ Robin hissed, pulling at her skirt. She looked down, cautioning him to keep his voice down, that he not waken the little ones. ‘Look!’ he whispered, pointing out the window. She pushed his hand down, holding it between her own palms, and kissed his fingers, turning the pointing into an affectionate gesture before any of the Men in the smial might take notice. Her heart lurched as she saw a Man lead the two goats to the waggon and tie them on behind.

‘All will be well, child,’ she said, and tried her best to believe it, that he might hear truth in her voice. She took a deep breath and added, ‘All will be well, when your father comes home.’

He nodded, for he could hear more truth in that statement, and he himself had great faith in Hally’s ability to do anything.

‘Are we quite finished?’ Rosemary said, as Scar came up to her. ‘The stew is nice and hot, and I’ll fill your bowls just so soon as you’ve washed your hands -- there’s a bucket of fresh water outside the door, and a clean cloth for drying your hands, hanging from the peg...’

She was gratified when the Man turned to order his helpers to wash their hands before eating, and be quick about it, or he’d have all the stew himself, it smelt that good. Little courtesies, she heard Hally whisper in her memory. Every little courtesy we can win from them, is another bit of safety for our little ones…

‘Robin, if you’d be my helper?’ Rosemary said, moving to the hearth and taking the ladle from its hook. The lad hurried to bring her the oversized bowls, and took each one to the table as she filled it from the stewpot. She froze, halfway to filling the fourth bowl, as another muscle cramp took her by surprise, stronger this time.

‘Mama?’ Robin said, back from placing the third bowl on the table and ready to take the fourth.

‘The babe’s awake and kicking hard,’ Rosemary said, forcing a smile. ‘Perhaps the stew smells so good, he wishes he could have some, too!’

Robin laughed at that, to her relief, and she scooped another ladle-full into the bowl and then put it carefully into her small son’s hands.

The teakettle was steaming now, but she daren’t lift it. ‘Scar!’ she called sweetly, and the Man came towards her with an inquiring look. ‘If you could -- the kettle? The teapot’s on the table, all ready. Hally usually… but he’s in the Wood, as you know...’

‘I know,’ said the Man, and she heard the truth in his voice, and knew that the Men had made sure of her husband before they’d come here to gather. Did Hally know what was going on here, in his home? Had he sent them along with his blessing, and a reminder that it was Rosemary’s Baking Day? Had he resisted them, and been tied up or let down into a well or pit, as she’d heard happening to other hobbits who resisted Lotho’s gatherers?

She felt a chill, but what could she do, but play the game as it had been laid out?

Chapter 13.

Rosemary stood back and watched the Men sit down at their places. Some began to spoon up their stew, others grabbed for bread or rolls -- some of these tore off pieces, to stuff in their mouths as if they were half-famished, others just crammed an entire breadroll or scone -- though Rosemary had made them large, intended for the hands of Men -- into their mouths at one go.

She was so bewildered by the tumult that she scarcely noticed Robin dart into the melee, pulling at Scar’s sleeve.

‘Hoi! What is it, young hobbit?’ the Man said genially. He was evidently in high good humour, either from the rich haul of stuff in the waggon, or from the feast spread before him, or both.

‘You didn’t thank the host!’ Robin said, his little face earnest, but his words were lost in the general confusion.

‘What was that?’ Scar said, and in the next moment he roared the other Men to order. They slowed their greedy snatching, and stopped gabbling at each other, and turned to look at their leader, but didn’t stop eating altogether. That might have been an encouragement to Rosemary, that her food was delectable enough that they couldn’t leave it alone, were she not petrified as to what her son was about to say.

Too late to stop him!

‘You didn’t thank the host!’ Robin repeated, in the relative silence, and Rosemary wanted to sink into the floor. She clasped her hands tightly together, that the Men might not see her shaking, and tried to laugh, but she was paralysed by fear.

Scar looked to her with a broad grin, that faded, as if he read her feelings in her face -- as if he saw how very frightened she was, at her anticipation of his reaction, and his Men’s, to the lad’s critical words.

‘That’s right,’ he said slowly, and then to Rosemary’s increasing fear, he stood slowly to his feet, motioning his Men to do the same. Silence fell, as frowning they complied.

‘I… I… beg your pardon,’ Rosemary said, her voice shaking, her words dropping into the silence, as impotent and ineffectual as drops of rain in a great Sea.

Scar looked down at little Robin. ‘So,’ he said quietly. Deadly quiet, Rosemary thought, with fear for her little son, more than for herself. ‘Just who is our host? You?’

‘No!’ Robin said stoutly. ‘Well, I helped! But Mama did all the hardest work, and all the cooking and baking, and she told us to work cheerfully, that the food would taste all the better for our special visitors, for the love that went into it!’

One or two of the Men started to chuckle at this, but a swift, fierce glance from Scar stifled their merriment.

‘O’ course,’ he said, looking from Robin to the terrified little mother who stood before the hearth, ladle clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white. He pursed his lips, and then seemed to make a decision, looking around the table at each of his helpers in turn, and then turning to face Rosemary.

To her astonishment, he bowed slightly at the waist. ‘We thank you for your hospitality, Missus,’ he said, and at a gesture the rest of the Men mumbled something to the same effect.

Rosemary did not know whence came the courage that rose in her, but perhaps it was speak or swoon. In any event, she answered him, her voice still trembling. ‘You are all most welcome,’ she said, and somehow managed to smile. ‘But I thought I told you to call me Rose!’

At this, Scar threw back his head and laughed heartily, and his Men followed suit.

Rose wondered that the little ones didn’t waken at the sound, but perhaps because it was a joyous sound, it held no surprise or startlement. In any event, no sound came from the children’s rooms when the laughter was over.

‘And now,’ Rosemary said, her voice steadying, ‘were any of you wanting second helpings? There’s plenty more where that came from!’

A chorus of assent answered, and Rosemary’s smile became more genuine as Robin fetched her the Men’s bowls for refilling.

At last the spoons were laid down, the last of the baked goods were taken from the platters, and Rosemary asked Scar to freshen the teapot from the steaming kettle, and Mossy and Three-fingers to fetch the platters of sweet biscuits and tarts from the side table, and they seemed happy to comply.

‘Food’s as good as I remember my old mam making,’ Mossy said stoutly, and Scar laughed and said as it was better than he remembered, from his old home, which made the other Men laugh as well.

‘And if you come again next week, there’ll be teacakes,’ Rosemary said. She twisted her apron between her hands and added, a little anxiously, ‘I do hope there’s enough flour for them.’ And then she gasped, astonished at her own rudeness in expressing such a sentiment in front of honoured guests, and lifted her hand, palm out. ‘Not that I should complain, about you coming to gather foodstuffs -- when we have more than we might need -- for those who are poorer. We should be ashamed of ourselves, to know someone else was going hungry for want of food, when we have anything in our pantry!’

For some reason, Scar filled the teapot in silence, and Mossy and Three-fingers quietly put the platters of “afters” down on the table, and sat themselves down again, but none of the Men took anything, though they glanced at each other somewhat surreptitiously, as if unsure of  themselves.

‘Is anything wrong?’ Rosemary said, starting forward anxiously. She’d really put her foot in it now! O how she wished Hally were here -- he’d have said the right thing to rectify her stupidity, or perhaps he’d even have prevented her saying it in the first place. ‘O please, is there something else you need? I’m sorry, we’ve only honey for sweetening the tea, but the milk is fresh from this morning’s milking, so do, please, help yourselves...’

And then, as if things weren’t bad enough already, to her absolute horror a great pain seized her and she bent, grasping desperately at her abdomen, with an agonised gasp.

‘Mama!’ Robin said, running to her and throwing his arms around her. ‘Mama!’

‘Missus -- Rose,’ Scar said, getting to his feet. ‘Is it well with you?’

But Rose, in the throes of a strong contraction, could not speak.

The Man crossed from table to hearth, bending to take her by the elbows, supporting her as she stood helpless, and it was only his hold that kept her from sagging to the ground when the contraction was over.

‘It’s the babe,’ Robin gasped, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘Is it? Is it the babe coming, Mama?’

Rosemary was panting for air, and could not seem to form the words to answer. She felt dizzy, as if she could not find enough air to breathe, and worse, another pain seized her -- they were coming much too close together! None of her babes had taken her this way before. In the births she’d assisted, such a sudden onslaught had often portended ill for the mother, if not the babe.

And then, suddenly, Scar was lifting her in his arms, grunting a little with the effort, and carrying her to the middle bedroom. He kicked at the door with his foot and carried Rosemary to the bed, laying her down with unexpected tenderness. ‘Steady, Rosie,’ he said. ‘All will be well.’

He turned to snap at the other Men, who’d left the table to crowd around the bedroom doorway. ‘Mossy!’ he said. ‘You and Spike, go to the Wood, find her husband -- he was cutting in the one section where we spoke to him this morning -- Mossy, you seek him there -- but he might have moved to the other section...’

Spikenard nodded and broke in, ‘I’ll seek him there!’ And the two were gone in a flash.

‘Midwife,’ Scar said to himself. ‘We must have the midwife...’ And to Robin, standing stiff and scared in the midst of the remaining Men, he said, ‘Now, who would that be, and where do we find her?’

‘The Brambleys,’ Robin said.

‘Violet,’ Rosemary managed to gasp. ‘Violet and Chestnut...’

Scar gently brushed a wayward wisp of hair out of her face. ‘Easy, Rosie,’ he said. ‘We’ll find ‘em. Neighbours, I take it?’ At her nod, he started to send three more of his Men out to seek which particular neighbours might be the Brambleys, but Robin spoke up again. ‘I’ll go!’ he said. ‘I know where they live!’

‘Three-fingers, you go with him, to see that he meets with no mishaps,’ Scar said, ‘And hurry that midwife’s coming! I don’t like the looks of this...’

‘Mama?’ Robin said anxiously, but the Man fixed him with a fierce look and said, ‘Go!’

Next he was telling one of the remaining Men to refill the teakettle from the little spring a little way from the smial, and set it to boiling. ‘Hot water, that’s the thing,’ he said, and then he was rubbing Rosemary’s back as another pain doubled her where she lay, and she could not repress a piteous moan. All she could hope for was that her little ones wouldn’t waken, to a prostrated mother and strange Men in the smial…

When the pain eased, Scar patted her back. ‘That’s the lass,’ he said, all encouragement.

As he got up from the bed, she seized his hand in a sudden panic. ‘Please!’ she gasped. ‘Please don’t leave me!’ Though she had no desire for this rough Man to deliver her child, she was terrified by the strong pains that were seizing her, too close together, overwhelming her, waves in a Sea of agony that threatened to drown her in its depths.

Scar patted her hand and sat back down. ‘I won’t leave you, Rosie,’ he promised. He raised his voice, once again mindful of the little ones sleeping in the rooms on either side, and called to the remaining Man. ‘Bracken, I want you to bring me a cloth from the kitchen -- I saw some folded cloths on a shelf there, for the washing up and drying.’ And when Bracken brought the cloth, Scar further instructed him to pour water from the ewer into the bowl and bring the bowl to him on the bed. He dipped the cloth and gently wiped Rosemary’s sweating face. ‘There now, Rosie. I’ll stay right here, by you, until that midwife comes… or Hally, anyhow.’

She gasped her thanks, hating her helplessness and the tears that squeezed from her eyes though she was trying her best to be brave.

‘You should think I’d be able to get it right, after four babes born already,’ she whispered, before the next pain came.

‘O’ course you’ll get it right,’ he soothed, and added other such nonsense, just to keep her (and himself, truth be told) calm.

***

Just to make things faster, Three-fingers lifted Robin to his shoulders and ran at his best pace, following the little lad’s direction. Though he arrived winded, he managed to shout out, ‘Halloo the house!’

A hobbit came out warily, shutting the door behind himself, his expression bleak, for he knew he was no match for the Man. ‘What more do you want?’ he said. ‘You’ve already taken...’ And then his eyes widened. ‘Robin! Young Robin!’

He must have lost his senses, then, for he seized a stone and threw it at the Man, hitting him in the chest. ‘You put him down!’ he said. ‘You may take our goods, in the name of Lotho Baggins, but you’ve no right to take our babes!’

But Robin was shouting, and the Man was gasping, and Ches picked up another stone and pulled his arm back to throw it before repetition of his name arrested him.

‘No, Mr Brambley! Please!’

‘You put him down!’ Ches repeated bravely. ‘Or I’ll give you more o’ the same!’

‘Babes it is!’ the Man said. ‘It’s your wife I’m wanting...’

‘My wife!’ Ches said, scandalised. ‘You mayn’t have her! Over my dead body!’

‘I can arrange that,’ Three-fingers said grimly, but then the door opened behind the hobbit and his wife came out, pushing him to one side.

‘No, Ches,’ she said. ‘I’ll go with him, if he’ll only spare you, and the children...’

‘You’ll want to bring your bag with you,’ Three-fingers said, and Ches closed his eyes in grief. They were taking his wife away, who knew where, and it appeared as if she wouldn’t be coming back again, if she were to pack a bag. He hadn’t heard of hobbits being allowed to pack a bag before being hauled off to the Lockholes, but then, he hadn’t heard of wives and maids being dragged away, either.

He stepped forward. ‘Take me instead,’ he said. ‘Leave her be.’

‘Now that wouldn’t do at all,’ the ruffian said. ‘A midwife is what’s wanted.’

‘Oh!’ Violet gasped. ‘That bag!’ And she spun about and went into the smial, emerging quickly with her supplies.

‘Come along, Missus!’ the Man ordered, seizing Violet by the hand. And the next thing, he was dragging her away with him at a rapid pace, Robin still on his shoulders, shouting encouragement. Ches watched with an open mouth -- he wanted to follow, but he couldn’t leave his children alone, young as they were, at the mercy of the other ruffians who’d been there earlier in the day, gathering all the Brambleys’ “extras” -- and quite a few things that weren’t.

He could only hope they’d allow Violet to come home again.

***

When they arrived at the Bolgers’, Violet was astonished to see a couple of Men in the yard, playing a clapping game with the little ones and singing in their rough voices a song that Parsley had evidently taught them, for she stopped them to correct them, mid-verse, and then stopped again, to hop up and greet the midwife. ‘I’m so glad you’re come!’ she said. ‘Mama’s awful sick!’

Three-fingers released Violet’s arm and gave her a little push towards the smial. ‘Hurry,’ he said. ‘She’s in there!’

‘I should imagine,’ Violet said under her breath, but she hurried, stopping short on the threshold.

Another Man was tending the fire on the hearth, where the teakettle was just starting to steam. He looked up to see her and beckoned urgently. ‘Come in, come in!’ he said. ‘She’s on the bed!’ He pointed to the middle bedroom door, and somehow Violet found the strength to stumble in and make her way to the bedroom, where she stopped once more to see a scar-faced Man sitting on the bed, rubbing Rosemary’s back, while she curled in an agonised ball and moaned piteously.

In the next moment Hally was there, bent over gasping, staggering against Violet before pushing his way into the bedroom. ‘Rose!’ he gasped. ‘Rose-love, I’m here! I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, but I’m here now.’

‘Hally!’ Rosemary shrieked, lifting her tear-streaked face to gaze at him with wide eyes, adding in a whimper, ‘I’m so sorry… It hurts… I can’t bear…!’

Violet could see they had a fight on their hands. This was unlike the purposeful Rosemary she’d tended through four previous births, none of them eventful. Something was obviously dreadfully wrong. Worry sharpened her voice, and she spoke more abruptly than her good sense might have allowed in other circumstances, especially considering that she was dealing with ruffians who were said to have put a hobbit down his own well when he’d objected to their gathering ways. He’d nearly drowned before his wife and sons could get him out again!

‘Out with you!’ she said. ‘Get out!’ And to Hally, who stared at her in astonishment, she snapped, ‘Not you! Sit down, hold your wife, try and calm her whilst I wash my hands…’ She raised her voice slightly, to try to reach the frantic mother. ‘I’ll be right with you, Rosie! We’ll make it all come right!’

***

It was a long, hard fight, and Violet was afraid at more than one point that they’d lose both mother and babe, and maybe father into the bargain (!) -- for looking into Hally’s face she saw a depth of love and despair, and desperate hope.

Violet had no idea of what went on outside of that room. She ought to have, she supposed later; Hally ought to have, for that matter, for Robin was full young to have the care of all his younger siblings, and yet that was what he was left to. Or so Violet thought, in retrospect, once the battle was over and the babe safely born.

But then, when Rosemary’s agonized moans stopped, and the babe’s cry was heard, a curious sound was heard in the outer room. A curious sound, indeed…. the sound of Men, softly raising a cheer in celebration.

Violet could scarcely credit it. Perhaps it was a trick of her imagination, exhausted as she was. She wrapped the babe and laid him in Rosemary’s arms. ‘There now, Rosie,’ she said. ‘There you have another fine son… Now, just a little more, and I promise you may rest.’

Hally helped her in what needed doing, and then she left him embracing his wife softly, as if afraid she might break -- and exhausted as Rosemary was, Violet did have some concern and planned to stay on for a day at least, if not two or three. She hoped she might be able to send Hally later, after he’d rested, with word for her undoubtedly worried family.

She stopped on the bedroom threshold in amazement. Four Men sat near the hearth, each cradling a sleeping Bolger child. Another Man -- the scar-faced fellow who had been cosseting Rosie when Violet had arrived, was it only the previous afternoon? -- was just lifting the teakettle from the hob. ‘Tea’s on,’ he said, in answer to her stare. ‘Or, it will be, in a moment or two.’ He poured the tea into the pot and returned the teakettle to its hook. He looked back to Violet. ‘Boy or girl?’ he asked.

‘Boy,’ she said numbly. ‘Fine strong lad, for all the difficulty he gave him mum this night...’

The Men all broke into smiles. ‘Well now, that’s just fine,’ said the teamaker. ‘All right, then, lads, we’ll be on our way...’

‘But… but...’ sputtered Violet. ‘But the tea…!’

‘Figured Rosie could use a spot of tea after all her hard work,’ the teamaker said. ‘And you and Hally might be wanting something as well...’ He returned to the table and took up a handful of sweet biscuits. ‘Put the children to bed,’ he said to his Men, ‘where you picked them up from, when they wakened yesterday… Their mum’s going to be fine.’ He looked back to Violet, and unbelievably, a look of concern was on his face. ‘She is, isn’t she?’

‘O’ course!’ Violet said stoutly, though in truth she wasn’t certain.

‘Well, then,’ the Man said, and then amazingly, he went to the door of one of the children’s rooms, as if to make sure the little ones were properly tucked up, and then to the door of the other children’s bedroom, nodding in satisfaction as the child-minding ruffians emerged, for all practical purposes on tiptoe.

‘Come along now, you louts,’ the leader said quietly, and led the way to the yard. Just as the midwife was sighing in relief, to have them gone, he returned to the doorway, to say to Violet, ‘Do you want someone to escort you homeward?’

Nearly speechless with astonishment, she nodded, and then recalled to her wits, shook her head. ‘No, but thank you very much,’ she said faintly. She could hardly believe she was thanking a ruffian!

‘Very well then,’ he said, sketching an ironic salute. ‘You tell Rosie, we won’t be back next week for her Baking Day,’ he added.

‘You won’t...’ Violet said, blinking.

‘Naw,’ the Man said. ‘We wouldn’t want her to get up too soon, after all the work it took her to bring that babe safely through...’ His eyes shadowed for a moment, as if with some sorrowful memory, but then the cynical look was back. ‘Tell Hally we’ll be back in two weeks. Rosie promised us teacakes, after all...’

‘Teacakes...’ Violet said in wonder. Rosemary had moaned at one point in her labour, nearly delirious, that the ruffians had taken all -- all the foodstuffs in the pantry, all that was in the shed, even the two goats, and had promised to return for the wood in the woodpile, “for there are others in more need, and the woodcutter can always cut more…”

Violet had nearly wept, to think what the poor lass had suffered, watching her goods carried off to the ruffians’ waggon, and then forced to cook for them and feed them.

‘Teacakes!’ the Man said cheerily. ‘She can bake a treat! Best I’ve tasted since… I can’t remember!’ He laughed and fingered his hat in a mock salute, and turned away.

Incensed, Violet hurried to the door of the smial, determined to give him a piece of her mind, regardless of the consequences, the black-hearted scoundrel.

The Men’s waggon was just pulling away, the Men’s voices raised in scandalous song, and they had the temerity to wave to her in passing.

She drew in a deep breath, ready to scold, and let it out again as she noticed the goats were no longer tethered to the back of the waggon, as they’d been when she’d arrived, but their chains were attached to trees in the yard.

Shaking her head at herself -- for who was she, to scold half a dozen Big Men, all twice as tall as herself, and with an exhausted, helpless mum and new babe and a weary, drained father in the smial behind her, along with their slumbering children. No, but she did not want to draw the Men back to the smial, no matter how she ached to give them the rough side of her tongue.

Perhaps they’d left something in the pantry after all, since they were expecting… teacakes, she thought bitterly, in a fortnight. She’d thought the pantry had been stripped nearly bare, from her earlier impression.

She walked softly across the main room to the pantry door. Pulling it open, she stopped in surprise. The pantry was stuffed full, and yet, not long after she’d arrived, she’d gone in search of some vinegar, and found most of the shelves in the main room empty, and only a bag of flour and half a bag of meal in the pantry. A ruffian had inquired as to her need, and when she’d said “vinegar” he’d gone out to the yard to fetch a jug, most probably from the gathered items in the waggon.

But now…

She turned away from the pantry and looked around at the shelves in Rosemary’s cooking area. They were filled, where she could have sworn they’d been nearly stripped bare.

She had a wild notion to go out to the shed, to see if it, too was empty, or mysteriously restored, but then her good sense reasserted itself. The children would be wakening soon, and they’d be hungry. Hally and Rosemary were doubtless asleep, after the long battle.

Violet might lie herself down, when the children went down for their morning nap, but then again, her blood was still surging and she felt as if she might never sleep again.

Chapter 14.

By the time Hally emerged from the bedroom, blinking, it was mid-morning, and Violet had just put all four children down for a morning nap, not just the two littlest, for she deemed that it had been an exciting and exhausting night for the older ones as well, and they needed to catch up on their growing sleep. In the quiet that resulted, she was rolling out pastry for a meat pie for the noontide meal. Dried venison and cut up potatoes were simmering in a small pot of water, and chopped onions and carrots, dusted with herbs, sat in a pile on a plate, waiting for the final assembly. She’d built a fire in one of the ovens, and as soon as it was ready, she planned to pop in the pie, and then put her head down for a rest.

‘There you are!’ she said to Hally. ‘Does Rosie need anything?’

‘She’s sleeping, as is the babe,’ Hally said. Violet knew him as a hobbit of few words, who almost never said more than was needed, and would not employ two or three words when one would do. She would have been very surprised to see his effusive greetings for the Men, on their first visit to the little smial on cleaning day, and again when they sought him out in the Wood on the previous day, Rosemary’s baking day, though they’d tried to make it look like an accidental meeting.

‘Well, that’s good,’ Violet said. ‘She was able to nurse him a little, not long ago, but you didn’t waken.’ She went on to tell him that she’d stay at least through the morrow, and depart the day after, and that Robin had milked the goats when he’d awakened, and done his other chores without being asked, and Parsley had helped to dress and feed the little ones, and they’d done the washing up together and played quietly until she’d put them all down for a nap, and...

Hally nodded and seemed to be listening while he moved to the hearth, checking the amount of split logs in the woodbin, and then he checked the buckets and seeing that the level of water was low, he picked them up and carried them out without another word, just as Violet reached naptime in her narrative. He proceeded to haul water from the spring, and then went out again, and soon Violet heard the sound of his axe, chopping. He was quick and efficient about it, and before long he brought in several armloads of wood, filled the woodbin to overflowing, swept out the hearth, and built a fresh fire.

During this time, Violet finished rolling out the pastry, lined a pie shell, filled it with the vegetables and potato-thickened meat sauce, topped it, and cut some fancy shapes to let out steam and prettify the pie for Rosie’s sake, to tempt the new mother’s appetite. By the time the little fire was burning cheerily on the hearth, the pie was beginning to send out good smells, into the smial.

‘Well now,’ she said to Hally, who had washed and dried his hands and now picked up his cap, preparatory to going out of the smial for whatever purpose. ‘That’ll make a fine noontide meal… I thought I’d cut up some cheese and apples for elevenses, with a few of those fine scones your wife baked yesterday...’

‘Mph,’ Hally said, fingering his cap, and then he went out the door.

Violet shook her head at him, after the door closed behind him. It was no more, and no less than she expected. Hally would exchange pleasantries with Ches or other hobbits of his acquaintance, and could be quite cheerful with the children, but he was reticent to the point of shyness with mums and maids. She wondered how he’d ever managed to put enough words together to ask Rosie to marry him!

It was off-putting, that’s what it was, and made it awkward for her to ask him about the actions of the ruffians yesterday, gathering so much from the Bolgers -- that wasn’t surprising -- but then putting it all back again! And what had the scar-faced Man meant, when he’d said Rosie had promised them teacakes?

Hally was gone for some time, and Violet fretted, for she was certain he’d gone out to his woodcutting, and she’d meant to ask him to carry a message to her family, that all was well with herself, the ruffians had taken themselves off, and that she planned to stay for a few days to make sure that all was well with Rosie. She wasn’t expecting any of the other mums of her acquaintance to enter their confinement this week, at least, but if any needed her, they could seek for her here.

But when Hally returned, in time for the noontide meal, grinning at his children’s cheers, she didn’t have the chance to ask him. No, for the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Ches says all’s well...’ and she realised that he’d been to her family and back again and had likely said all that needed saying, into the bargain!

Violet found no satisfaction that day, at least, not from Hally, nor from Rosie. The hobbit was as sparing of his words as always, even in the face of miraculous new life -- though he murmured endearments a-plenty to said wife and babe, and smiled a great deal at his other children, and even told them a long bed-time tale that evening before tucking them up in their beds. However, he had very little to say to Violet, contenting himself with smiles and nods, for the most part, or perhaps a shrug in response to a direct question on Violet’s part, if a nod or smile or simple gesture wouldn’t do.

Rosie, of course, was exhausted and spent most of the day and following night in restoring sleep, except when roused to nurse the babe, or take food or water herself. Hally made himself a bed on the hearth in the main room, so that Violet could lie herself down on the big bed beside Rose, to sleep a little and to watch over the new mum, to waken her to nurse if the babe didn’t waken, in these very early days, while Rosie was still recovering from her efforts, and before the babe established a regular time for eating.

In the morning, Rosemary was awake for longer periods, gaining strength in her limbs -- able to sit up longer than the previous day, without growing quickly weary -- and colour in her face, and Violet’s worries began to subside. ‘You’re on the mend, my dear,’ she said that afternoon, after the babe had nursed himself full and was sleeping again, and the two mums were admiring his tiny eyelashes and perfect fingernails. ‘It was a hard birth, this one was, and no wonder! With those awful Men in the smial, making you slave and cook for them, and in your condition…!’

But Rosie was looking at her with open mouth and wide eyes, and when Violet stopped, she said, ‘But they’re not awful at all! They were very kind…!’

‘Barging in on you like that...’

‘They were invited guests,’ Rosemary said. ‘Didn’t Hally tell you?’

‘He did say something to that effect,’ Violet answered, ‘though of course you know he says so little, sometimes it’s hard to make out what he’s on about. I could hardly credit it, and thought I must have heard wrong. But then the thieving!  ...and gathering…!’

‘But Hally said it was all a mistake, and they put it all back where they’d got it,’ Rosemary said in mild surprise.

‘A mistake!’ Violet said, and put out her hand to feel for childbed fever, but though the colour had returned to Rosie’s cheeks, it was not the flush of fever. However, she judged that the conversation had gone far enough, and Rosie was looking tired, so she sighed and desisted. ‘Well now, perhaps,’ she said, to mollify the new mother. ‘And now I think it’s time for you to sleep again.’

That evening, instead of a bedtime story, while Rosemary slept and Violet sat to one side in Rosemary’s rocking chair, listening and mending a tear in Robin’s breeches, Hally and the children talked about naming the new baby. ‘You know we haven’t followed the Bolger tradition,’ Hally said, and Robin nodded.

‘That’s right, Papa!’ little Parsley said brightly. ‘Or Robin would be named...’ she giggled, ‘Gundagar! And Buckthorn would be...’

‘Halagar!’ Robin whisper-shouted, and there was a general laugh.

Violet did not join the laugh -- the names were perfectly fine names, as far as she was concerned, and very traditional amongst the Bolgers of the Woody End, such as Gundy’s family, as well as north to Bridgefields.

‘And so your little brother ought to be...’ Haldi said, and waited.

‘Andagar?’ Parsley said at last, her little face screwed up in a puzzle.

‘No, no, you’ve another Uncle, though he married and found a home with his wife’s family in Haysend, where your Mama lived when I married her, do you remember? Some day we’ll go to visit them...’

‘Barabar!’ Robin said in triumph. ‘Uncle Barry! And so the babe would be Baragar, to be named for him… But he won’t be, any more than I was named for Uncle Gundy, will he?’

‘Ah, but when you were born, Robin, we were still cut off from our families...’ Hally said.

‘Because you stole Mama from her family!’ Robin whispered, his eyes enormous. ‘Right from under their noses!’

‘Not that I would encourage you to follow my example in your wooing,’ Hally warned, as if he suddenly remembered Violet’s presence. He smiled in the midwife’s direction, but his eyes did not meet hers, and the smile was more of a grimace.

Violet remembered some sort of scandal, hushed up by the family, and not spoken of -- a time when Gundy and Hally had not spoken a word to each other for months -- though they’d made up again, and Gundy and his brothers had helped Hally to build this little house when he brought his bride home from Buckland.

Still, there was an old saying, Does anything good come out of Buckland? It was a Tookish saying, dating from some old disagreement between the Tooks and the Brandybucks -- and scarcely ever heard round these parts, now that the Tooks were keeping close inside the Tookland, but Violet began to wonder if there might be something to it. She blinked a little, troubled by her thoughts. Rosie was such a sweet lass, and their children were willing and eager to please, and Hally was polite enough, though slow to speak, and yet…

That night Rose awakened in the night at the stirring of the babe, though Violet forestalled her from getting up to deal with nappies and such. ‘You just stay right there in the bed and I’ll bring him to you, all clean and comfy!’

‘But I need to get up,’ Rosemary said in a mild tone, and Violet took her meaning quickly, and told her to stay right there, just for a moment, and called Hally from his rest by the hearth in the main room.

‘Here, you can change a nappie, I’m sure, after four little ones...’

Hally simply nodded and held out his hands for the babe, without a word for Violet, though he smiled into the tiny face and cooed some nonsense or other as he turned away.

Not for the first time, Violet wondered if perhaps the hobbit were simple-minded. But there was no time for pondering -- Rosie needed easing, and so she helped the new mum out of the bed -- still wobbly on her legs, enough that Violet deemed that the chamber pot was the best solution for the moment. It was a good time to check Rosie’s condition, and with relief Violet pronounced that she was “healing well, another day of rest and perhaps just a little walking to strengthen you, and then you may get up -- but no work for a week!”

She asked if they planned to hire someone to cook and clean for the first week or two, but Rosie shook her head. ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Hally likes to keep to himself, you know. Having to listen to another voice, and come up with answers to more questions, would drive him to distraction!’

Violet raised an eyebrow at this, but she had to admit that these Bolgers seemed to prefer solitude -- they lived farther away from Stock than anyone else of her acquaintance, as far in the Wood as might be, and still able to come into town for Market without making it an all-day affair to travel there and back again. She didn’t stop to consider that this was the parcel of land Hally had earned for his work on a commission from Mistress Lalia of the Tooks, and so he had little choice in the matter of where he set up his home, short of selling the parcel at a low price -- being so far out of the town -- and buying another, closer in, for more money.

When Rose was tucked up in the bed once more, Hally brought the babe, and stayed to watch over wife and new babe as Rosie nursed, until the babe finished, and then he kissed each one in turn and returned to his pallet by the fire. Violet laid herself down, but sleep did not come immediately. She wondered: Was Hally right in the head?

But then, Rosie seemed to take everything with calm and cheer, so she might be imagining things. Unless Rose, herself, was somewhat simple -- or perhaps only blind to the faults of others…? Violet honestly could not recall ever hearing a cross word from her.

When morning came, she allowed Rose to get up and sit in the rocking chair by the kitchen hearth, while she stirred up breakfast. Robin and Parsley were well trained, washing and dressing themselves and caring for their littler brother and sister. When Hally would have brought Rosemary her plate, the latter insisted on joining the others at table.

‘Well then, that’s fine!’ Violet said. ‘I think I might be able to go home today, in time for tea, but only if...’ She looked hard at Rose. ‘You’re not going to overdo, and undo all my good work, I hope!’

Rosemary laughed. ‘Hally won’t let me!’ she said. ‘Why, when Lavvy was born, he wouldn’t let me lift a finger for nearly a month! He and Robin and Parsley did all the washing and cooking and washing up and sweeping… I felt like a fine lady in one of the Great families, surrounded by servants!’

‘Good!’ Violet said, with a firm nod. If Hally wouldn’t hire help for his wife’s benefit, at least he made sure her needs were looked after by himself. It must be a lonely life, out here in the End of the Wood… she thought to herself, but Rosie looked happy and content, sitting at the table, surrounded by her children (all but the sleeping babe), with her husband filling her teacup whenever it dipped past half-empty.

‘D’you think the Men will come today?’ Robin asked, in the middle of the breakfast conversation. Everyone stopped talking for a moment, but then Hally laughed and ruffled his young son’s hair.

‘No, but Scar said they’d not be back for a fortnight, for he didn’t want your mum to overdo herself, so soon after the babe was born.’

To Violet’s astonishment, the children looked disappointed. ‘Bracken taught me how to whistle!’ Robin said. ‘I’ve been practicing, and practicing, and I’ve nearly got it!’ He demonstrated by pursing his lips and giving a little, hollow sound. ‘I wanted to show him...’

‘Well, then, you’ll just show him in a few days more than a week,’ Hally said.

‘Poor, lonely lad,’ Rosemary said. ‘D’you know, Robin, he told me you reminded him of his littler brother, that he left at home when he came in search of his fortune?’

‘In search of his fortune!’ Violet said, aghast. ‘In search of Shirefolks’ fortunes, I should say!’

‘They may be a bit misguided,’ Rosemary said. ‘I dare say that being so misunderstood makes them out of sorts… How would you feel, if people were unwelcoming every which way you turned?’

Violet was taken aback at being put in the wrong, when it was the Men who were bullying and harassing and… and… yes, they were thieving! ...though they put a pretty name on it, “gathering”, and said it was for the benefit of the poor. They were making more poor, than they were relieving, and she said as much.

The children’s eyes were enormous, and Rose’s face lost colour, and Violet saw that she’d gone too far, been a little too free in airing her opinions, and she quickly arose and hugged the hobbit mum, with a few solicitous clucks. ‘But you’ve tired yourself,’ she said. ‘Come, let us tuck you up in the bed, and I’m sure Hally will be happy to bring you another cup of tea there.’

‘I will!’ Hally said, making no reference to Violet’s recent criticisms, not then, and not at any time later in the day.

When at last she took her leave, Hally made sure Rosemary was asleep, and set Robin to guard her and fetch anything she might need if she wakened, and convey his orders that she was not to stir foot out of the bed until he returned. ‘I’ll see you home,’ he said to Violet, and did.

As they walked, Violet tried to bring up the topic of Lotho’s Men, several times, but Hally wasn’t having any. He simply grunted, or shrugged, in answer to every verbal venture on the midwife’s part. He was cheerful enough when Ches greeted them, upon their arrival, and thanked him for sparing Violet for a few days, to make sure Rose was “all right again” before leaving the Bolgers’. But when he turned to Violet, he was all shyness once more, looking down at his feet as a much younger hobbit might, and stammering his thanks.

Violet made the appropriate response to him and said her farewells, hugged her husband and children, allowed herself to be drawn into the smial where tea was nearly ready, but she couldn’t resist a glance back over her shoulder at Hally’s retreating back.

The hobbit was simple-minded, she was sure of it. And his wife, sweet Rosie, was too kind-hearted for her own good. No good would come of it. She was certain of that.

Chapter 15.

‘He’s beautiful,’ Hally whispered, staring at the babe that he’d just laid in Rosemary’s arms, washed and freshly nappied and ready to nurse away the midnight hour.

‘He’s handsome, you mean,’ Rosemary corrected with a smile. ‘He’ll be a fine figure of a hobbit some day; he’s such a good eater already...’

‘Is a fine figure of a hobbit already, I’d say,’ the proud father said, and tenderly kissed his wife on her forehead before settling next to her on the bed, to watch the babe nurse. ‘So, what shall we call him? You said the next would be after your brother, for a change...’

‘Hmmm,’ Rosemary said. ‘That’s easier said than done, in this day. Too dangerous to name him outright.’

‘Change a letter?’ Hally said. ‘Would that be too obvious? Ferni, perhaps?’

‘Ferny,’ Rose said thoughtfully, and wrinkled her brow. After a moment’s thought, she shook her head. ‘No, too close. ‘Twould remind the little ones too well of their uncle, whose name we’ve forbidden them to speak… If one of them were to slip and call the babe “Ferdi” in a ruffian’s hearing, well… It’s a chance I wouldn’t want to take.’ She sighed. ‘Barry, then?’

But Hally, seeing the disappointment that she tried to hide, was thinking hard, and as he thought, he said aloud, ‘Ferdi… Ferni… Ferny… Fern… What d’you think of Bracken, then?’

Rosemary threw back her head and laughed, a quiet laugh that she not disturb the babe at his endeavours, nor the children from their sleep. ‘Bracken! Bracken, for my brother! How he shall laugh...’

‘Quietly, I hope, that no lurking Man might hear him...’ Hally said, and Rosemary sobered. Hoping to restore her smile, he said, ‘Bracken, then. A fine, Woodsy name for a lad born in the Wood’s End!’

‘We might as well call him Woody,’ Rosemary said.

‘We might as well call them all that,’ Hally agreed, ‘but then which would come when we called, do you think? Come one, come all?’ He stroked the downy head, and laid a soft kiss there. ‘Welcome, Bracken,’ he said. ‘We’re glad to have you with us at last.’

As he’d promised Violet, Hally did not go out to cut wood at all for more than a week. He did a little chopping and and a little carving, “to keep his hand in”, but for the most part he devoted himself to Rosemary’s usual work of keeping home and hearth and little ones. The children laughed to see him wrapped in one of their mother’s aprons, brandishing a spoon, but they soon got the spirit and donned aprons of their own -- Rosemary had several -- and took on some of their mother’s easier tasks in addition to their own. And if their efforts were fumbling and childish, well then, Hally took the time to show them easier ways, and praised their work to the skies until they glowed, and threw themselves into even more chores, finding the work more satisfying, somehow, than play, at least in this time of “helping Mama”.

The babe had been born early in the morning of the High Day -- He has a good sense already of how to celebrate! Hally said -- and no work to speak of had happened on Wash Day and Ironing Day that followed, and so even though it was properly Mending Day, Hally hauled out the tubs and filled them, the wash tub with heated water and soap, and the rinse tub with clear, clean water. With Robin and Parsley alternating as his helpers (one stirring the laundry in the tub with a long stick while the other watched over and played with the littler ones, all the time listening for Rosemary’s call), he took care of all the washing and hanging-to-dry, along with all the other household chores except for those the children performed (and those he inspected, and praised). Parsley swept and made the beds, Robin carried wood and water, Hally cooked and changed nappies and told stories at naptime as well as bedtime.

The ironing, Hally deemed, could be set aside for this week, at least, and perhaps next week as well. It wouldn’t hurt for them to wear wrinkled clothes -- and they wouldn’t be too terribly wrinkled, as there was a brisk wind that day, to flap the clothes smoother on the line than might be if they simply hung before the fire, or outside on a quieter day. The mending, too, Hally simply deposited in the basket by Rose’s chair, to wait for her to be ready to take up her needle once more in a week or two. Though he could mend harness or sew on a button with the best of them, he wasn’t much for darning holes or setting patches neatly enough to suit his wife.

The children were charmed by their littlest brother, with his perfect eyelashes and fingernails, and the tiny curls atop his little feet; and they were absolutely thrilled to have their father at home all through the day, whistling tunes and telling stories, making up jokes and encouraging them to do the same. It was also nice to have their mother free to give them all her attention (when she wasn’t sleeping, that is), and not busy about household duties.

Robin was carried away at one point, when all were gathered around the hearth, Rosemary sitting in her rocking chair, nursing the babe, and Hally telling the bedtime story. The little lad, full of the delights of the day, interrupted the story as his happiness overwhelmed him, and shouted, ‘We ought to have a new babe every day!’

Hally affected surprise, and scratched his head as if pondering the thought. ‘What a good idea!’ he answered, and the children stared at him in astonishment until he added, as if in sudden realisation, ‘...but wait! ...We do!’

Little Bracken opened his eyes wide at the general hilarity that resulted, and then settled to nursing once more.

On Market Day, the forest Bolgers stayed at home. They would have, in any event, even if the babe had not made his appearance, considering they’d spent all their savings the previous week. They were there in spirit, however -- being the topic of many conversations, that were taking place all around the market square, for Market Day was the best day to exchange gossip, of course, over everything that had happened since the previous Market. Everyone who was anyone was there, whether they had coin to spend or shopping to do, or not; walking the stalls, stopping to talk, bargaining or bartering, inviting someone to take tea at day’s end.

Quiet indignation was shared, as farmers and villagers compared notes; the ruffians had “shared and shared alike”, or rather gathered from all and sundry, without apparent discrimination. Rich and poor alike had found their larders lightened, their storerooms rifled, their belongings “cut down to proper size”, according to Lotho’s Men. Because of the Men loitering in shadowy corners and alleyways, the indignation had to be quiet, indeed, discreet, a matter of mutters and dark looks and hushings up if a ruffian seemed to be taking notice of a conversation.

Violet, of course, was quite in demand, with her story of Rosie’s travail amongst a rabble of ruffians. She was gratified by her listeners’ expressions of sympathy and horror on the Bolgers’ (and Violet’s) behalf. For great, blundering Men to intrude on such a delicate situation! Hulda, who had not yet entered her confinement, shuddered for her poor, dear friend. If only she were not so close to her time, she’d insist that her husband escort her to Rosie, to bring tea and consolation…! Sadly, she knew her husband would never agree to such an excursion.

Violet’s recounting of the curious behaviour of the ruffians, first gathering the Bolgers’ possessions, and then restoring them, received mixed reactions, however.

Some muttered darkly that it meant nothing good -- it wasn’t natural for friendship to spring up between the likes of them and the likes of us, or so it was spoken, albeit in low tones. Others countered that Hally and Rosie were good folk, too good for their own good, if one’s meaning might be taken -- too trusting by far, and likely to suffer for it, though at least for the time being, it seemed, the ruffians were letting them be. One could hardly credit that Lotho’s Men could act out of pity or compassion for Rosie’s suffering and Hally’s near loss -- for Rosie had suffered a close call, a very close call, by Violet’s account -- she’d feared she’d lose both mother and babe at more than one point in that dark, long night.

Hally’s brother Gundy, walking the market though he didn’t appear inclined to buy much of anything, merely shook his head and looked troubled when the subject of Hally and Rosie came up. No, he hadn’t visited his brother, to see the new babe. No, he wasn’t planning to go any time soon. He gave the impression that he and Hally had quarrelled over somewhat or another thing since so companionably leaving the Market the previous week, and those who knew them well shook their heads at the implications, and wondered how long it would be, before the brothers were once more on speaking terms. Pity poor Rose, already so isolated, living so far from town, and now Hally’s nearest relations weren’t relating!

Violet, when someone related this to her, nodded wisely and gave it to be understood that she was scarcely surprised. Soon it was all over the market that she’d measured Hally and found him wanting… And Gundy, when presented with this fact by some busybody or other, pronounced no heated denials. No, all he did was close his eyes in sorrow and turn away.

Something was dreadfully wrong with the forest Bolgers. Those who walked the Market that day were soon apprised of the situation, and looked forward to seeing Hally and Rose with their own eyes, next time the little family came to town. Those who were not there that day, soon heard the full story as the day’s gossip spread through the community. Rosie’s ordeal tempered the gossip, but those inclined to think ill of others still thought the worst of Hally (and,it must be said, Rose, by association), even though they kept such thoughts to themselves for the present.

And Gundy came home from the market, his heart sick within him (even as he grudgingly admired his brother’s cleverness and daring, and Rosie’s courage), gruffly ordered young Andy to see to the chores, went in and sat down at table where Cora had a nice tea waiting, and buried his face in his hands.

‘What is it, my love?’ Cora asked, alarmed. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No,’ Gundy said, then, ‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’ Cora said, rubbing at his shoulders and using her most sympathetic tone. ‘Head? Stomach? Are you hungry?’

Gundy shook his head and slapped his hands down on the table. ‘I couldn’t eat if you paid me to do so,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Stomach, then?’ Cora said. ‘Shall I brew some nice mint tea, to settle you?’ She pushed the teakettle over the brightest part of the fire, and started to measure dried mint leaves into one of the small linen bags she’d sewn to brew herbs in a teapot.

‘I’m fed up to here with hobbits and their gossip,’ Gundy said bitterly, holding one stiff, flat hand to his chin. ‘They make me sick!’

‘What gossip? What is it?’ Cora said, turning from her tea-making, alarmed at his tone. She couldn’t quite remember him railing against the hobbits of Stock in such a way before. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing,’ Gundy said, and mystified his wife by adding, ‘Everything.’ He turned tear-filled eyes to her, startling her no end, and she hurried to him in worry and confusion. He circled her with his arms, held her tight, buried his face in her apron, and wept long and quietly.

Chapter 16.

Though Hally and Rosemary would not have gone to the market in any event, they had a pretty good idea of what went on that day. Rosemary’s emotions, of course, were running high, a natural consequence for a new mum, and she found herself fighting tears as Hally brought her a cup of tea. She sat in the rocking chair that evening to nurse the babe, whilst Robin and Parsley cleared the table and the little ones, already night-clad, played on the hearthrug preparatory to Hally’s bedtime story, once the washing up was finished.

‘What is it, dear one?’ he said tenderly, laying the cup down on the little table he’d carved to match the rocking chair, and the cradle beside it, where at the moment Parsley’s doll reposed. Once Hally allowed Rosemary to take up her tasks once more, she’d lay little Bracken down there as she plied her hot flatirons, or tended the cooking fire, or did the mending, close by, but out of harm’s way.

‘O it’s silly of me,’ Rosemary said, wiping at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘But I’m imagining all the talk going on round all the teapots this evening… I’m sure our reputation is ruined!’

‘It ought to be in tatters, at the very least,’ Hally said. ‘I’m certain Violet saw to that.’

‘I know very well how she talks,’ Rosemary said ruefully. ‘She’s a fine midwife, and a good neighbour...’

Hally sighed. Good neighbour no longer, as they both knew. At least, so it would be if their plans worked as they should.

‘...and her tongue is hinged on both ends,’ Rosemary concluded with a sigh of her own. ‘I can only imagine what she said about our ruffians!’

‘Our ruffians,’ Hally said. ‘Got a sort of a ring to it, don’t you think? Makes them sound homelier, somehow. P’rhaps we ought to adopt them; make them members of the family. What would Gundy say to that, d’you think?’ He achieved his aim, for Rosemary laughed through her tears. ‘Now then, drink your tea before it goes cold!’

‘Yes, Papa,’ Rosemary said, as if she were little Parsley, and Hally patted her shoulder and turned back to the task of washing up. Soon he was praising Robin and Parsley for their efforts, clearing the table and scrubbing it and laying the cloth, and then the three of them were singing as Parsley washed, Robin dried, and Hally put all the things away.

And then it was time for the bedtime story. It was the forest Bolgers’ custom to talk over the events of the day, however unremarkable they might have been, delighting in the smallest of details, and then each took a turn to be thankful for something, to end the day as they’d begun.

‘And I’m grateful for my little brothers -- the both of them!’ Robin said, and jumped up from where he was sitting to lay a kiss on Bracken’s head.

‘And I’m grateful the Big Men put everything back again,’ Parsley said, and laughed her little tinkling laugh. ‘But wasn’t it a comical game?’

Rosemary smiled quizzically, and Hally’s eyebrows rose, and seeing their confusion, the little lass added, ‘To take everything out of the smial, and put it in a waggon, and then to bring it all back again!’

‘A comical game indeed,’ Hally said in agreement, and Parsley smiled in satisfaction.

May it continue as merely a game for them, Rosemary thought fervently to herself. May they remain as innocent and untouched as they are this eve… And she had to wipe at her eyes again.

‘What is it, Mama?’ Robin wanted to know. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘O...’ Rosemary said, and swallowed hard. ‘You children are growing so quickly,’ she said. ‘Why, you’ll be out in the Wood chopping with your old dad, not so many years from now, and Buckthorn and Bracken with you!’ It was perfect truth, that she often thought such thoughts, and they were enough to make her pensive before she found her smile once more. It would do to explain her teary eyes, much better than the truth.

***

Cleaning day dawned… well, it didn’t dawn, not exactly. It crept in, more, the sky sullen and heavy, the wind howling like a wolf and prowling around the smial and through the bare trees, the temperature having plunged in the night. Hally left Rosemary and the babe snuggled warm in the bed; he hurried to slip out from under the bedcovers without allowing any of the surprisingly icy air to reach the sleepers. He shivered as he emerged into the main room and hurried to stir up the banked fire and feed it well. ‘Brisk, this morning!’ he said to himself. ‘Winter’s not done with us yet! I’m glad Our Ruffians left us enough wood for a goodly fire!’

A goodly fire was soon roaring and sending out its heat -- and, truth be told, a telltale column of smoke into the air above the little smial, for any passing ruffian to see that a warming fire burned within. In future days they’d use this sort of evidence to harry and persecute hobbits for breaking the Rules against using too much wood. However, Hally and Rosemary were well on their way to earning immunity from such rules…

There was a rough knock at the door, and Hally started up. ‘Speaking of wolves in winter...’ he muttered, an old Shire proverb, and then hushed himself. Lotho’s Men might not understand the reference, might take umbrage, and that was the last thing he wanted. ‘Friends at the door, and this early!’ he said, loud enough to be heard through the door by anyone with sharp hearing. He hurried to the door and eased the bar from its place, calling, ‘Coming! Coming!’

He had left Rosemary soundly asleep, and he hoped he wouldn’t waken her with his noise. He’d excuse himself to his visitor, long enough to make sure she stayed in the bed and didn’t hop up to offer hospitality. Violet had put the fear into him, she had, and he had every intention of following the midwife’s strict instructions, if only that he might not need to call her back again to tend Rosemary if the latter overdid.

He pulled the door open, to find two shivering Men upon his doorstep, Men he recognised, one leaning heavily on another in a state of near collapse.

‘Three-fingers! Bracken!’ he said in surprise. ‘But come in! It’s colder than a mother wolf’s teat out here...’

He waved his hands to hurry their stumbling entrance and closed the door hastily, to shut out the icy wind that moaned in the treetops.

‘You haven’t said the half of it,’ the older Man said, half-dragging his companion to the hearth. ‘Lad here nearly froze himself, standing watch… We smelt the smoke from your fire...’

‘Standing watch?’ Hally said without thinking. ‘Watching over what?’ Seeing Three-fingers stiffen at his words, he hastened to amend them, to set the Men at ease, turning honest curiosity into simple-minded maundering. As if it had just struck him, he put on an earnest, thankful, blinking look. ‘But you’re not watching over us, to see that all is well, after the birth of the babe! Such kindness! Surely we don’t deserve such loving care!’

To Hally’s private satisfaction, Three-fingers’ look changed from suspicion to blinking astonishment, and then the corners of his mouth twitched in a grin. ‘O’ course!’ the Man said. ‘Why, with Rosie brought so low, and the promise of tasting her teacakes next week, why, we wouldn’t want anything to bother her...’

Hally nodded, working to keep a happy, foolish look on his face. ‘Such kindness!’ he repeated. ‘Why, I’ll be staying in from the Wood for another week, leaving my own work and doing all of Rosie’s -- midwife’s orders...’ and his smile became more genuine at Three-finger’s snort. The Man had obviously run afoul of Violet’s sharp tongue.

He moved in to help the Man’s fumbling efforts to remove Bracken’s freezing outer garments, that the warmth of the fire might reach him sooner. ‘But you’re half-frozen, Bracken!’ he said, feeling the chill in the younger Man’s shirt, suggesting the chilled flesh beneath, once they got cloak and underlying jacket off. ‘Let me get the kettle on -- we’ll have some hot tea for you to sip in no time at all!’

He pushed the kettle, filled last night, over the hottest part of the fire and hurried to get out the teapot and two Man-sized mugs, along with two of hobbit-size, for Rosie might waken with the sound of voices, and he’d bring her some tea in bed.

‘Hot tea would be a good thing,’ Three-fingers said, and murmured something to Bracken, words of encouragement, as he began to chafe the younger Man’s white, stiff fingers with his hands. ‘Came to relieve the lad, and found him near-frozen… I had to slap him, but good, to waken him enough to drag him here...’

Hally wondered why they were keeping watch, and what they were watching over. Surely it wasn’t kindness on their part… unless it was to forestall any other ruffians from gathering here? Or were they watching for something else, on Lotho’s orders? All he said was,  ‘We’ve an extra blanket or two… Let us wrap him well, get something hot inside him.’ He frowned in honest concern. ‘Poor lad’s so cold, he’s not even shivering.’

He went into the bedroom to fetch two warm, wool blankets from the chest, privately hoping that the ruffians wouldn’t take them when they left -- for if the bitter weather persisted, his children would need the extra covering. To his relief, Rosemary didn’t stir, and neither did the babe. Returning, he draped one over Bracken’s shoulders, but when he started to hand the other to Three-fingers, the Man shook his head. ‘I’m well,’ he said in his rough voice. ‘Give it to him.’

While Three-fingers removed the younger ruffians boots and stockings, that the warmth might reach the blue-white, icy toes, Hally rubbed vigorously at the stricken ruffian’s back, shoulders, and arms to encourage circulation, until the teakettle began to steam, and then he saw to the makings of tea.

‘He’s warming enough to shiver!’ he said approvingly as he returned with the two Man-sized mugs, full of tea with plenty of honey for sweetening and strength, and the last of yesterday’s milk. He put one upon Rosemary’s table, and held the other out to Three-fingers. ‘See if you can get some of this into him, and I’ll stir up some nice, hot porridge.’

‘Papa?’ Hally looked up to see Robin, blinking in the doorway of the boys’ room.

‘Ah, Robin! Just the fellow that’s wanted. Bundle up warm, now, and milk the goats,’ he said. ‘We’ll be wanting some fresh milk to go with our porridge...’ Speaking of porridge… He rose to ready the pot for the fire.

‘Yes, Papa,’ Robin said, but his little face showed his distress. ‘Is Bracken hurt? Will it be well with him?’

‘O’ course!’ Hally said stoutly, seeing the younger Man’s eyelids flutter, as Three-fingers held him upright with one hand around his shoulders, and lifted the cup to Bracken’s lips, urging him to sip. ‘He’s not hurt, just a little chilled, but he’s warming nicely.’

Robin nodded and went to the door, pulling his rabbit-fur cloak from its hook. Hally didn’t have to tell him to ease the door open the least amount needed to slip out, that he should allow the least possible draught of outside air in to disturb the warming effects of the fire. Even so, the wind moaned and the flames flattened, and Hally excused himself, to go into the girls’ bedroom to make sure Parsley and little Lavvy were warmly covered. He wouldn’t waken them until the porridge was ready and the smial properly warm.

When Robin returned with two buckets of milk, the porridge was beginning to bubble in the pot and the younger hobbits were stirring. ‘You’re just in time to see to your little brother,’ Hally said. ‘Parsley’s just about got Lavvy ready to come to table...’ Though it was usually Parsley’s job to lay the table whilst her brother milked the goats, Hally had managed the task this morning, bustling about and doing his best not to appear to scrutinise their visitors, even though he was doing so, and wondering… What were they watching for? He laid the table for himself and the four older children, and two places for the Men. So that Rosemary would not need to take the trouble to dress herself and make herself presentable to company, he’d bring her breakfast in bed on a tray, and urge her to stay in the bed. Hopefully the Men would understand.

Soon a sleepy Rosemary had her breakfast in the bedroom, and the rest of them gathered around the table, Bracken looking much restored by the warming fire and steaming, sweet tea. ‘Get some of this good, hearty fare inside yourself,’ Hally said. ‘And plenty more where that came from!’

The Men scarcely needed urging, plunging into their Man-sized bowls of porridge as if they were half-starved.

‘Mmm,’ Three-fingers said. ‘Good… kind of stuff to stick to your ribs!’

Robin laughed at this, for his father had said much the same thing at past breakfasts.

‘Go on, eat up there, lad,’ Three-fingers said to Bracken, and the younger Man nodded, his mouth too full to reply. ‘I’m that glad you had your fire going, when we knocked upon your door…’ He held up his damaged hand. ‘I was afeared the lad might have done himself some damage in the cold, that the frost-faeries might’ve decided to take his fingers, as they did mine some time ago, or some of his toes, but we got him warm in time...’

Hally nodded. ‘A bitter morn,’ he said, sipping at his tea. ‘I’m glad for Violet’s stern orders! I’d not want to go out in the Wood to brave the weather, not on a day like this one, where the Sun seems to have forgot how to manage her business! It’s good to have an excuse to stop at home.’

‘Bad weather for working outside or travelling,’ Three-fingers acknowledged.

‘Travelling?’ Hally said in astonishment, and shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine anyone with sense travelling in this cold!’

‘Mr. Lotho sent word that hobbits might try and hide their goods from gathering,’ Bracken said, between swallowing a mouthful and spooning in more.

Hally dropped his spoon in his bowl and put on an indignant look. ‘Hiding their goods?’ he said severely. ‘Withholding their due from the poor, and refusing to provide relief? The cads! The...’ As if belatedly recalled to his senses, he looked at the children and then stopped. ‘I could say worse,’ he said, in an apologetic tone. ‘But not before the children.’

‘O’ course,’ Three-fingers said. He’d been about to reprimand Bracken, Hally thought, but now he leaned back, apparently set at ease by the hobbit’s show of sympathy (misplaced though it might be).

‘How’s Rosie?’ Bracken said, as if aware of his close call, and trying to change the subject. ‘And the babe?’

‘We named him for you!’ Parsley said, jumping into the conversation.

‘Eh? What’s that?’ Three-fingers said in confusion.

‘We named him Bracken!’ Robin said. ‘It’s a Woodsy sort of name! Mum and Dad picked it out, and told us it was in honour of our uncle!’ Which uncle, the lad did not say, for the very good reason that he did not know. He and Parsley assumed it was his Bolger uncle, and Hally and Rosemary had not seen fit to enlighten the children.

So of course there was nothing else Hally could do, but to go into the bedroom, wrap the sleeping babe in a blanket, and bring him out for the Men to admire. Three-fingers gave Bracken-the-Man a hearty nudge with his elbow, but the younger Man was all smiles, to think of a babe named for himself. Both were quite taken with the tiny scrap of hobbit, clean and contented, peacefully sleeping through their whispered admiration.

At last, Hally was able to take the babe back to Rosemary, along with the Men’s congratulations and best wishes for a quick recovery. He returned to offer the Men more helpings of porridge and honey, apple compote and tea, and sat down himself to sip at a final mug of tea before it was time for washing up. Soon he’d set a kettle of dried meat and root vegetables over the fire to simmer into soup for the noontide meal. He said as much to the visitors, going so far as to invite them to stay through the morning, for he’d nothing better to do than to sit beside the hearth and carve. The cleaning could wait until afternoon...

The conversation wandered pleasantly here and there, while the wind moaned and prowled outside, occasionally sweeping down the chimney to flatten the flames on the hearth. Inside the little smial, warmth and light and comfort reigned.

‘So,’ Hally said, feeling his way, though he was attempting to be elaborately casual. Just making conversation with friends… ‘So, I take it you’re watching the Stock Road for waggons, that these… these…’ he grasped but could not find a term to express his feigned contempt, ‘...these… hobbits should not succeed in their wicked schemes!’ Privately he was glad that he and Gundy had carted their “extra” supplies deeper into the Wood, to a hiding place the brothers had scouted earlier, the previous week, evidently before Lotho had set his ruffians to watch for such. They’d have to be careful in future, when it came to refreshing their larders from the storehole.

‘Night and day,’ Bracken agreed.

‘Have you caught any?’ Hally said, pouring more tea all around, and getting up to freshen the pot. He did it best to give the appearance that he hardly cared, one way or another, was just making conversation.

‘The smith from Stock,’ Three-fingers said. ‘He thought to spirit away a goodly part of his finished work...’

‘Silversmith?’ Hally said. ‘He probably thought the poor didn’t need his wares so much...’

The Men laughed. ‘Iron,’ Bracken said. ‘Pony shoes, hooks, pokers, axe heads, that sort of thing...’

Hally’s heart sank, though he kept his back to the Men and poked at the fire with an iron poker from the forge of that very smith. ‘Poor Will!’ he thought within himself. ‘And poor Huldy!’

He turned back to them with a determined smile. ‘So what will happen to him?’ he said. ‘Seized the waggonload, I’m sure...’

‘That we did!’ Bracken said. ‘And waggon and ponies, too...’

‘...Seeing how he protested that he didn’t have any money to pay the fine for breaking the Rules,’ Three-fingers added, a little less pleasantly.

Hally nodded. ‘Only right,’ he said. ‘Rules are made for good reason!’

Three-fingers laughed at this, and Bracken chuckled.

‘I imagine he won’t try that again,’ Hally said. ‘I hope he learnt his lesson!’

‘Next time we won’t be so easy on him,’ Bracken said. ‘It’ll be the Lockholes for him, at the least, and if he’s uncooperative, for his whole family!’

Hally thought of Hulda, great with child, and Will and Hulda’s children, and Hulda’s elderly mother who lived with them, and could not suppress a shudder. ‘Hear the wind howl!’ he said, to cover himself. ‘For certain, no body with any sense would try to sneak a waggonload of stuff down the Road in broad daylight! Please, stay a bit longer… Make sure you’re thoroughly warmed, before you go out in that again!’

And perhaps a hobbit or two might benefit, from these Watchers warming their feet at his fire through the morning...

Chapter 17

The ruffians left the little smial not long after the noontide meal. Hally had managed to beguile them with stories until the simmering soup began sending a promising aroma into the air, which was persuasion in itself. Elevenses consisted of the last of Rosemary’s bread from her previous baking -- honey in the dough kept it from mould and fresh longer than the bread from the baker’s in Stock -- sliced and soaked in goats milk beaten with egg from the barrel of eggs in the pantry, fried on both sides, and served with more honey atop.

‘Good honey,’ Three-fingers said, licking the fingers of his undamaged hand. ‘Where d’you buy it?’

Hally thought perhaps the Man was prospecting for future gathering purposes. Well, he could nip off that bud before it came to bloom… ‘Out in the Wood as I am, I keep watch for bees,’ he said. ‘This is from last year’s stock -- I found a lovely bee tree and did a bit of “gathering and sharing” o’ my own.’ He gave a wicked wink and grin, and the ruffians chortled in appreciation. True kindred spirits! ...or so he wanted them to think.

Of course, Hally in his gathering had been careful to leave a generous portion for the bees, so that they might survive the winter and return to their labours the following spring. But he kept that fact to himself.

When the soup was ready, perhaps an hour after midday, Hally helped little Parsley stir up batter for griddle cakes, and Bracken took a turn with frying and flipping the cakes, seeming to enjoy the exercise. The fresh-fried bread, slathered with melting goats-milk butter, and steaming soup made a simple but satisfying meal.

After finishing, Three-fingers got up from the floor and stretched. ‘Best eating I’ve had since we came to this benighted place,’ he said, and patted his stomach. ‘Why, Hally, your cookery is nearly as fine as your wife’s!’

Hally laughed and shook his head, then said behind his hand, ‘Hush! Don’t tell my Rosie that, or I might end up doing the cooking!’

The Men laughed at this, and then Three-fingers beckoned to the younger Man. ‘Come, Bracken,’ he said. ‘You’re thoroughly warmed now, I should say, and can go back and let Scar know that nothing passed you on the Road last night,’ he lowered his chin and stared sternly at the younger Man, ‘ ...did it?’

‘Nothing!’ Bracken said, and shivered at the memory of his watch. ‘Too cold by half,’ he said. ‘Nothing was moving on the Road, or in the Wood, neither.’

‘And I doubt me that any hobbits were on the Road this morning,’ Three-fingers said in dark satisfaction. ‘Not after the Smith’s story went round Stock… We threw the scare into him, we did!’ And he chuckled, and Hally felt a cold shiver go down his back, but somehow maintained his foolish grin.

Dining with wolves, indeed!

But all he said was, ‘Are you sure you cannot stay longer? It gets lonely around here, with Rosie sleeping so much at present -- and the children will be napping, once we’ve finished the washing-up...’

Three-fingers laughed his coarse laugh and said, with a nudge for Bracken, ‘This young one will be needing a nap of his own! He’s overdue for sleep, having watched all night last night, and due to watch this night as well.’

Hally shook a stern finger. ‘You be sure to bundle yourself well,’ he said. ‘The children are that fond of you -- to want to name the babe for you, imagine it! -- and would be heartbroken if aught ill were to come to you.’

‘I will!’ Bracken said with a chuckle, but the look in his eyes said that something in Hally’s words had touched his heart.

He was not a bad sort, Hally thought to himself, or rather, he wouldn’t be, if he hadn’t fallen into such company as he was keeping these days. Three-fingers, now, was a right ruffian -- a wolf of a Man -- but if they could keep on his sweet side by feeding him whenever the opportunity presented itself, that was all to the good. He’d be a prime source of information, Hally thought. Bracken might not be quite so useful -- though he had a tendency to blurt -- nay, because of his tendency to blurt, it was likely that important information that Lotho or the ruffian chief wished to keep from casual gossip would not be told the younger Man.

There was genuine warmth in his smile as he saw the two Men on their way, but after he closed the door, he shook his head. He might pity the younger Man, but he wouldn’t trust him any farther than he could throw him. Considering the Men were nearly twice Hally’s size, and growing broad on the hobbits’ gathered food, that wouldn’t be any distance at all.

***

Hally brought the younger children to snuggle with their mother and newest brother whilst he did the washing up with Robin and Parsley. The little ones had fallen asleep by the time the dishes were all clean, dried, and put away, so he carried them in turn to their beds, the sisters snuggled together in theirs, and the brothers likewise, and then he brought Rosemary another portion of soup and bread, and mugs of tea for the both of them, and sat down with her while she ate.

‘I hear you’re nearly so fine a cook as I am,’ Rosemary said. She dipped her bread into the soup and stuffed it into her mouth. ‘Mmmm, methinks the Men have the right of it! P’rhaps I ought to go out in the Wood and chop, and you ought to take over the household!’

Hally scratched his head and pretended to give the matter serious consideration. ‘You might have something there,’ he said. Then he put on a rueful expression and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Smial-keeping is much too difficult! Felling a tree and sawing and chopping it up into small pieces is so much simpler...’

‘Lazy-bones!’ Rosemary said, and Hally laughed.

The babe wakened -- they’d found that nursing babes often were wakeful at mealtime, though too young to eat a bite of solid food; perhaps it was the inviting smell. In any event, Hally set Rosemary’s tray to one side that she might nurse the little mite, then brought the food back and freshened her tea when she was finished, taking the baby in exchange. ‘I’ll just make sure he’s clean and comfortable,’ he said, and he did. When he returned he sat down once more and tucked the babe into the blankets between them.

‘So,’ Rosemary said. ‘Lotho has his Men watching the Road -- and at places in the Wood, I’d presume -- for Shire-folk who would withhold their goods from Gathering and Sharing.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Will! And poor Huldy!’

‘You heard what they threatened, should he be caught again?’ Hally said.

Rosemary nodded. ‘There has to be a way to warn the hobbits of Stock,’ she said, ‘and the farmers and Wood-crofters hereabout. But how to do that without tipping our hand to our “friends”?’

‘They have regular hours, it sounds, and posts where they watch,’ Hally said. ‘I’ve been thinking...’

Rosemary waited out the silence that followed, as he sorted out his thoughts. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she closed them to rest a little while she waited.

At last he spoke, and she came fully awake once more, opening her eyes and sitting up a little so that he’d know she was awake. Otherwise he’d tip-toe out of the room, taking tray and tea with him, and pursue some quiet chore or other, leaving her to sleep. ‘I’ve been thinking...’

‘Yes?’ Rosemary said brightly.

‘Even though Gundy and I are not on speaking terms at present,’ Hally said, ‘we can still help each other in the Wood -- as we did that other time...’

Rosemary winced a little at the memory, for though that wound was healed and closed, it could still hurt to think of it. ‘Difficult to fell a tree safely, if you’re not talking to each other,’ she said. ‘And dangerous to work alone...’ And she thought back to how she’d nearly lost her Hally in the Wood, though it was a blessing in disguise for it brought Gundy to his senses.

‘Some things are safer done in company,’ Hally agreed. ‘In any event, we learnt to work together when needful, without more than the necessary word or two -- it would not seem out of character for us to meet two or three days of the week to work together to fell a tree… and he might benefit from the association, at that, though I’m sure he’ll grumble about having to work together, quite publicly.’

‘Benefit?’ Rosemary said, and sipped her tea.

Hally grimaced. ‘It would not be beyond Lotho to take it into his head that the trees belong to him, and hobbits must have his permission to fell one,’ he said.

‘No one can own all the trees of the Shire!’ Rosemary protested.

Hally regarded her seriously. ‘If anyone could, that one would try,’ he said. ‘You’ve stopped at home with the little ones, when I’ve gone with Gundy to hoist a pint -- that was before they closed the Golden Perch -- so o’ course you didn’t hear all the talk that I did, even though I told you as much as I could remember when I got home...’

Rosemary nodded, and waited for him to go on.

After a sip from his own mug, Hally said, ‘Well, I know I told you all the gossip I thought would interest you, but there was much that I heard there, over the past year, that I’m only now putting together...’

‘Putting together?’ she prompted, when the quiet stretched out.

‘This and that,’ he said dismissively. ‘Barest mention, sometimes, that Lotho had bought up this Mill or that Ale-house… but put together, I can see now, he was buying up property all over the Shire. He must own a fair piece of the land, and now that he’s got the Mayor locked away, and the Thain bottled up in the Tookland, and declared himself Chief over all the Shire...’

Rosemary blanched as the implications became clear to her. ‘But the Master...’ she said.

Hally shook his head. ‘From what I’ve heard, the Master was taken ill, or perhaps he is lying low because his wife is a Took and he’s afraid Lotho will remember that fact...’

‘He wouldn’t,’ Rosemary said faintly.

Her husband’s silence was his answer, and at last she nodded to herself and said with quiet contempt, ‘He would, that… Sackville-Baggins! He might even try to seize the Brandybuck fortune! If Merry hadn’t disappeared… Perhaps they’ll go after Merimac or one of his sons, to move the Master to Lotho’s will.’ She swallowed hard. ‘My brother said Vigo Boffin forfeited his holdings to Lotho, rather than see his only son hauled off to the Lockholes* on trumped-up charges.’

‘I remember,’ Hally said. ‘Being poor forest Bolgers has its advantages. But the Brandybucks have more gold than is good for them, in Lotho’s eyes. The only thing safeguarding them thus far is that he’d have a small uprising should he go after the Master, or the Mistress. Her charity is well-known throughout the Marish.’

‘And the length and breadth of Buckland,’ Rosemary said, smiling faintly at a memory. ‘I owe her much, myself.’ She sipped at the last of the cooling tea in her mug and added, ‘I’m surprised no message was sent to offer her sanctuary, as it was offered to me, and to our children. She is, after all, his own sister.’

‘Perhaps such a message was sent, and she chose to stay by her husband’s side,’ Hally said.

Rosemary nodded. ‘It would be like herself,’ she said. ‘What she lacks in strength of body, she more than possesses in strength of will.’

There was a short silence, which Rosemary broke by asking, ‘Do you really think he’ll forbid woodcutters from cutting trees? But what will we do?’

Hally nodded soberly and answered the first question. ‘What’s to stop him from claiming all the trees -- he might even put it in terms of “protecting” on behalf of the Shire-folk, and of course that means he’s the one who decides if a tree is cut or left standing, and no doubt all the nuts would be gathered for the “poor”...’

Rosemary nodded, instinctively cuddling the sleeping babe a little closer.

‘And...’ Hally said, and stopped. ‘But I’m distressing you, my love.’

‘I’ll be living in the same Shire as all the other “poor” folk,’ Rosemary said bravely. ‘And I mean the ones being gathered “from”, as I doubt many are being gathered “for” save the so-named Chief and a few of his cronies. You might as well tell me your thoughts, to save me the distress of thinking them up myself, if they’re that ill to speak...’

Hally nodded, and moved a little closer, that he might encircle Rosemary in his arms. Into her hair, he said, ‘And all the game...’

Rosemary gasped, and then took a few steadying breaths. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And if he claims all the nuts in the trees, and the game in the Wood, then what are we to eat, my love? The fish in the streams?’ She shook her head. ‘No, I cannot see him leaving them to chance, once he has all the rest.’

‘We’ll have to make our own luck,’ Hally said. ‘Truth be told, there’ll be some hobbits who throw in their lot with Lotho and his louts, if only to keep their families from hungering.’ He put her away from himself and looked into her eyes. ‘Truly, my love, I bless your brother… I bless the day he came to us with his proposition, that I might never be tempted to do the same.’

‘O Hally!’ Rosemary reproached. ‘You wouldn’t! I know that you wouldn’t! You could not bring yourself to such!’

He smiled grimly. ‘Look on the bright side!’

‘Bright side?’ Rosemary said, and Hally laughed at her for wrinkling her nose.

‘I’d probably poach, and be caught and thrown in the Lockholes,’ he said.

***
Notes:

Folco Boffin's father signing over all his possessions to Lotho is mentioned in A Small and Passing Thing.

I had been told you can’t make butter from goats’ milk, as it is naturally homogenized. I did a little research and found that information was wrong. You can find lots of information online. One such site: http://www.5acresandadream.com/2012/09/goats-milk-butter-for-two.html

Chapter 18

Hally did not clean as thoroughly that Cleaning Day as they had the previous week. For one thing, no “guests” were expected at any time soon. For another, the weather continued bitterly cold into the afternoon, and a brisk wind began to blow, causing the temperatures to plummet further. There would be no beating of the large carpet that warmed the floor of the main room this day; about all Hally managed was to shake out the smaller rugs: the one before the door, where they wiped their feet on coming in (and this was shaken out each day), and the ones by each bed, that made the cold bedrooms a bit cosier of a cold morning before the renewed fire on the hearth began to warm the smial.

‘I’m glad it’s not Wash Day,’ he said, while bringing Rosemary a cup of late afternoon tea. ‘I don’t care for the trouble of rolling up the carpet that we might do the washing indoors, and then hanging the clothes to dry on lines stretched this way and that until it’s worth my life to walk from hearth to bedroom…!’

‘Hopefully the weather’ll warm again before then,’ Rosemary said. ‘The ones I really feel sorry for are Lotho’s Men, standing watch in this freezing wind. Hear it howling!’

‘Might even snow,’ Hally said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. The only good thing is, I doubt any hobbit with a bit of sense would be out in it, and if the Men have any sense they’ll think the same as I do and stay tight indoors, themselves. More tea?’

‘This will do me fine,’ Rosemary answered, holding her nearly full and still-steaming cup.

Hally nodded satisfaction. ‘Well now, stay bundled up, and drink your tea.’

‘I don’t need to bundle quite so warmly,’ Rosemary said. ‘The babe is like a bedwarmer, tucked in next to me!’

‘Good!’ Hally said. ‘Well, everything’s done but the sweeping, and then we’ll have our eventides, and our story, and early to bed! It’ll be good to snuggle under the covers, I’m thinking.’

Next day was Baking Day, and Hally was up early. The wind still whistled in the chimney, and whipped the treetops, and after breakfast the children pressed their noses to the windowpanes in the main room of the smial, exclaiming over the snowflakes whirling lightly in the wind.

‘I don’t know whether it’ll be a heavy snow, though it’s falling steadily, and starting to stick on the ground now,’ Hally said, bringing Rosemary second breakfast on a tray. ‘Still, I’m that glad to be tight indoors and not out in the Wood this day...’ He kissed Rosemary atop her tousled head and added, ‘Twas so cold in the pantry the dough didn’t rise properly in the night… I brought the bowl out and put it on the table, that the warm room might be encouraging.’

‘A goodly thought,’ Rosemary said. ‘Our bread will be late this day, but better late than no bread at all, so I say!’

‘Good thing no visitors are expected,’ Hally said. ‘Nevertheless, it’s a good day to stay indoors and bake… and we’ve plenty in the pantry at the moment, so we might as well put it to good use -- and the ovens will heat the smial nicely into the bargain!’

‘Well then,’ Rosemary said. ‘Once you have the ovens heating, Bracken and I may join you in the rocking chair for a bit. I’m feeling much better… I might even get up and roll out a few biscuits.’

‘Not a hand,’ Hally said, lifting his own in illustration. ‘Violet charged me most earnestly, you are not to lift a...’

‘O you know how she loves to fuss,’ Rosemary said. ‘Naught much wrong with me that a few days’ rest didn’t cure.’

‘You’ve more colour than you had,’ Hally said, eyeing her critically, ‘but you’re still a bit pale, to my eyes. You stay in the bed, and if you’re good, I may let you get up and join us for elevenses, and the noontide meal, and perhaps, if you’re very, very good, for teatime.’

‘Such an exciting prospect,’ Rosemary said. ‘And when the month is out, I’ll think back on these days of rest, and wonder why I ever protested at all...’

Hally laughed. ‘I’ll just get started on those biscuits,’ he said. ‘Parsley’s already scrubbing the table, and Robin’s fetching armloads of wood for the baking, and the little ones are nicely napping...’

Though no ruffians were expected for at least another week, Hally and the children baked more than enough for the little family’s needs. None of it would go to waste; if any Men should drop by, they’d be able to feed the guests to repletion, and if not, what they might be unable to share with neighbours, the goats would happily consume and turn to milk. ‘All to the good!’ Hally told the children, to be echoed by them, ‘All to the good!’ Even little Buckthorn lisped, ‘Aw to da good!’ Hally nodded and smiled his satisfaction.

There were frequent trips to the window to exclaim at the sight of snow -- rare enough in the Shire to be a cause for wonder. Some winters there would be no snow at all, but there were a few occasions in the span of a single hobbit lifetime where heavy snow would fall and last more than a week before melting. The Long Winter and the Fell Winter were two such that had been so noteworthy as to be entered into written history as well as oral.

Hally took pleasure in the mounting snow, for a different reason than the children. He could not imagine any hobbit with sense being out in this storm, nor a ruffian. The latter exhibited too much self-interest to freeze themselves on Lotho’s account, or so Hally opined. He was burning to pass his knowledge and warning on to Gundy, that a rumour might be started to warn the hobbits of Stock and its surroundings. (Hally had decided that a rumour would be the safest course, that the ruffians not be able to point to Gundy as the source, bringing suspicion upon himself and Rosemary.) However, he could not yet in good conscience leave Rosemary. He rather hoped Gundy and Cora, or at least one of them would make a visit to see the new babe, but considering the estrangement they were carefully constructing, it was not very likely.

In any event, he would need to seek out Gundy within the week, to arrange the felling of another tree. It would be a bit tricky, with the two brothers not speaking, but they’d managed it before when Gundy was not speaking to him in truth… At least this time, his brother would not turn a deaf ear to him when they were in private, but only before the eyes of witnesses. Of course, they had to act as if they were being watched at all times, but felling and trimming trees together would give them ample opportunity to bend down with their heads close together while working, giving them a chance at least to whisper.

He was half inclined to leave Robin and Parsley to watch over Rosemary while the littlest ones napped, but in the end he decided against it. After all, Robin and Parsley were accustomed to taking an afternoon nap themselves, and he would not want to rob them of their growing sleep. As it turned out, it was just as well.

Not long before teatime came a knocking at the door.

‘Well well!’ Hally said heartily, hurrying to open to the visitor. ‘Who do you suppose would be out in this weather, and knocking upon our door?’ He called over his shoulder to Robin and Parsley. ‘Parsley! Go and see if Mama needs aught, and make sure she stays in the bed! Snuggle her if need be… And you, Robbie, get the little ones up from their naps and ready for tea!’

He was not surprised to find one of Lotho’s Men, Scar, their leader hereabouts, as a matter of fact.

He affected great surprise, however. ‘Scar!’ he said, throwing the door wide and seizing one of the Man’s sleeves to pull him in, out of the snow. ‘Such an honour, to have you come through all this storm to see us!’

The Man was quick to enter the warm smial, and Hally was as quick to slam the door shut, shivering in the icy air that accompanied the visitor. ‘Come, come,’ the hobbit said. ‘The fire is bright -- come and warm yourself! Some tea, perhaps? I was just about to put the kettle on...’

‘I’m not here for tea,’ the Man said, unwinding a long (well, it would have been long for a hobbit, but was just about right for one of the Big Folk), thick muffler from his neck. Hally thought he recognised Cora’s work in the fine knitting. Gathered or given, he wondered. Most likely gathered. He didn’t think it was Gundy’s -- he’d’ve recognised it at once -- but it was probably a birthday present that Cora had presented to one of the neighbours in better days.

Hally did not ask what the Man was here for, simply maintained a stupidly pleasant, inquiring expression as he poked up the fire and swung the kettle over the hottest part. ‘We’ll have our tea in no time at all,’ he said, as if he hadn’t understood, as if he assumed the Man was here for tea and naught else, such as gathering or spying or what ever ill one of Lotho’s Men might be up to. ‘There’s no bread,’ he added, ‘--it was that cold last night, the dough didn’t rise properly, and it’s just about ready to bake now, but not quite. I thought we’d twist the dough around sticks and bake them over the flames. Go good with Rose’s brambleberry jam and a little butter, it will…!’

The Man did not repeat his protest, but settled on the hearthstones and held his hands out to the fire. They were red with cold, Hally noted. Probably tries to keep them in his pocketses as much as he can, he thought to himself. O’ course hobbit mittens would hardly be worth the gathering!

‘I’m sorry to say we’ve no teacakes this day...’ he began.

‘I’m not here for teacakes,’ Scar said abruptly, his attention on the bright, leaping flames. He looked to Hally, then back to the fire, and cleared his throat. A little gruffly, he continued, ‘I’m here to see how Rosie is doing, and that young one you named for my boy...’

Hally’s eyes opened wide in realisation -- he ought to have noted some family resemblance, but then the scar that marred the ruffian leader’s face drew the eye and one’s attention, and of course out of politeness any well-brought-up hobbit would try his best to avoid staring at the disfigurement. He quickly schooled his expression and said, as if it were of no importance, ‘Little Bracken? He’s growing already! Good eater, that one...’

‘And Rosie?’ the Man said with strange insistence.

Hally’s smile was more genuine as he said, ‘Getting her strength back. I can tell you -- she gave us quite a scare, she did!’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ the Man said low, as if to himself. He cleared his throat again and looked to Hally with a grin and forced heartiness. ‘Well, that’s good news! So she’ll be up to making us teacakes next Baking Day, I imagine?’

Hally returned the grin. ‘And glad of it!’ he said. ‘She’s growing tired of my cookery, poor as it may be… says she’s like to starve to death, stuck there in the bed and not allowed to lift a finger.’

‘How’s Bracken?’ Robin said at their elbows, standing between them and a little behind, balancing little Buckthorn on his hip. ‘Lavvie’s with Parsley and Mama,’ he added. ‘Parsley wanted Mama to do up their hair properly for tea, seeing as we have an honoured guest.’ And he smiled widely at Scar, and to Hally’s surprise, the Man returned the smile with a warm smile of his own, and reached out to tousle Buckthorn’s curls.

‘Such a fine welcome as you offer us, Hally,’ he said. ‘It’s refreshing, I can tell you -- but I didn’t come for tea...’

Robin’s face took on a look of distress. ‘Aw, but do stay,’ he said. ‘It’s not often we have guests to tea… Usually it’s just us, here in the back of the back o’ the Wood!’

That’ll change, if our scheme is successful, Hally thought to himself, though all he said as he straightened from poking the fire was, ‘You’re always welcome here, you know that, Scar! It’s good to see a friendly face -- and we’re so far from town, poor Rosie must get tired of the same company, day in and day out. I’m not much for conversation...’

‘I wouldn’t have guessed,’ the Man said wryly.

Hally grinned. ‘Never can find much of consequence to say,’ he said. ‘I just rattle on, what ever’s at the top o’ my head. Poor Rosie, she has the patience of a garden snail with me and my prattle...’ He arched his back and rocked back on his heels, preening as if proud of his nonsense.

A right fool you sound, and look, and likely are, Hally-my-lad, he said to himself, maintaining his foolish grin, and feeling a private satisfaction at the derisive twist to the Man’s smile. He thinks you a right fool, at least, and that’s what matters.

Chapter 19.

‘Well now,’ Hally said, recalled to the purpose of the moment. ‘You just sit there, Scar, and warm yourself, and I’ll--’ He bustled away as he spoke, to fetch one of the bowls of rising dough from the table. He brought it to the hearth and plumped it down on the well-swept floor. ‘Floor’s clean,’ he said in passing. ‘Just scrubbed it a little while ago, actually, as I knew we were going to be sitting down to bake our twists of dough. You want a clean floor for that sort o’ thing.’

The Man smiled at Hally’s important tone. ‘I’d imagine so,’ he said. ‘I’m told some folk keep floors that are clean enough to eat off of.’ His expression darkened, and Hally wondered what he might be thinking. On second thought, perhaps he didn’t want to know.

‘Rosie would be horrified at such a thing,’ was all he said in answer. ‘Fancy! Eating off the floor! As if one were a dog...’ He would have been greatly shocked and horrified, himself, had he known that Scar took his chance comment far more seriously than the hobbit did, for the idea would be passed along to places as far away as the Lockholes, to the torment of the prisoners there. “Courtesy of the Woodcarver!” would become a byword there, bringing trouble to the woodcarver and his family at a later time.

‘Any road, here’s a roasting fork,’ he said, taking one from the holder by the hearth and handing it to the Man. ‘Now,’ he added, digging into the bowl of dough. ‘We just form a long snake of dough and wind it round the fork, so...’ Soon he and Robin and the ruffian were toasting their bread dough over the coals, all, of course, breaking pieces off their own twists after they’d puffed up and turned golden brown and crusty on the outside, fluffy and steaming on the inside, to share with Buckthorn, who was too small to go so near the fire. Not long after, Parsley came out with Lavvie on her hip, wearing a proud smile, her hair carefully braided into a crown by her mother. Lavvie herself was looking quite fine for their company, her fine wisps of hair gathered together, tied with a bit of ribbon, sticking straight up in an exclamation point as a tiny tot’s hair is wont to do. Hally handed his fork to his older daughter and went to take the steaming teakettle off the hob, to brew the tea to go with their twists.

Scar kept his conversation to inconsequentialities: the miserable weather, for example, and his enjoyment of the fresh, hot twists of dough with Rosie’s excellent brambleberry jam, washed down with slurps of honey-sweetened hot tea. He smiled at the children all through that long visit, and at last, after slurping down the last part of a fourth mug of tea, reached out to tousle young Buckthorn’s curls. ‘You’ve a thoroughly nice family here, Hally,’ he said.

Hally laughed. ‘They all take after their mother, I deem,’ he said in answer. ‘How she came to marry a lazy woodcarver such as myself, is still a mystery to me, but I count my blessings each and every day.’

Scar shook his head with a smile. ‘Here,’ he said, and held out his roasting fork to Robin. ‘Put this away for me, laddie.’

‘I’ll be happy to!’ Robin said, and was as good as his word.

‘You’re not going already!’ Hally protested, and little Parsley leaned against the Man with a look of entreaty.

‘But you haven’t finished the story of the dog and the mouse…!’ she said.

The Man smiled on her, and Hally thought privately how pleasant things could be, were Lotho’s Men disposed to be friendly instead of bullying. Still, the forest Bolgers were buying the Men’s friendship with their efforts… He felt a little ashamed at this. They ought to have been kind and welcoming, without having any hidden motives. Perhaps if more Shirefolk were hospitable to these wandering folk, far from their homes, then they wouldn’t be so inclined to follow Lotho’s orders. But Shirefolk tended to be shy, and wary of strangers as a whole. Hally, himself, might have given any Men, especially those working for Lotho, short shrift at most, or more likely avoided all contact with the fellows so far as such a thing would be possible, were it not for this commission of the Thain’s.

‘Is something wrong, Hally?’ Scar asked. Quick, the Man was, and perceptive, the hobbit realised. He was no fool, and Hally would do well to remember that. He shook his own head, made a point of smiling ruefully.

‘It’s just, I hate the thought of you going out in that cold and snow again,’ he said. ‘Listen to the wind! And the flakes are still flying -- you know, you really ought to stop over until the storm blows itself out...’ He could scarcely believe he was making such an offer -- inviting a ruffian! ...to stay! Hally-my-lad, what are you thinking?

But the Man laughed, and there was real warmth in his expression as he answered. ‘I’ve other fish to be frying, though I must say this has been a pleasant time…! I never meant to stop so long as I have, as it is! Hally, you are the soul of hospitality!’

‘I thank you,’ Hally said, assuming a puzzled expression. ‘But you say that as if it’s not a good thing…?’

‘Ah, but it is a good thing!’ the Man said, and Hally read in his expression the unspoken words. For us. And for you as well. Scar added, ‘My fellows won’t be quite so comfortable as I’ve been, this past hour or two, and I must go round and be sure that they’re not freezing themselves in this storm.’

Hally’s eyes widened. ‘They’re out in this? Scar!’

The Man eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You object?’ he said.

Hally didn’t have to affect consternation; as a matter of fact, it was difficult to guard his tongue to avoid saying too much. ‘No hobbit in his right mind would be out in this weather,’ he said.

‘They wouldn’t, would they?’ Scar said.

‘Why,’ Hally insisted, ‘even I have been staying tight inside since this storm started -- I’ll only go out to the shed to make sure the goats have food and water, and to milk them, and to fetch in more firewood when we run low, but you won’t see me out in the Wood, chopping away at trees, not in this kind of weather, not hardly!’

‘Perhaps my Men are not in their right minds,’ Scar said, tilting his head slightly, as if waiting to see Hally’s reaction.

Hally chose to burst into laughter -- it was all he could think to do, and the good thing about hearty, belly-shaking laughter, laughing until it brought the tears to his eyes, was that it gave him time to think, and reassured the children, so that they laughed as well, though they didn’t understand the whys and wherefores of it all. All the better, it made him look foolish into the bargain.

Hally’s laughter was contagious, and soon the Man began to chuckle, and ended up slapping the hobbit on the back as Hally bent over, holding his middle, apparently overcome with merriment. ‘Ah, Hally,’ he said. ‘Take hold of yourself, there’s a good fellow...’

Hally came up again, eventually, letting his laughter subside into chuckles, and wiping at his eyes. ‘Oh,’ he gasped at last. ‘Oh, oh, that was a good one, Scar...’ And he gave a fine impression of someone fighting down a threatening recurrence of helpless laughter, even as he made the obvious effort to control himself, in order to seriously address a matter. ‘But, Scar, really, if you have any Men hereabouts, out in that storm, I beg of you, to go out and fetch them at once! Bring them in, let them warm themselves at our fire and eat of our good stew, lest they take some deadly harm from the cold! The thought that there might be someone out there in the freezing and the cold, why, it’s more than I can bear! And my Rose, should she hear of it…!’

‘Don’t you go telling Rosie, now,’ Scar said, suddenly grim.

Hally calmed at once, straightened, and looked at him, not having to affect surprise. ‘I -- I don’t understand...’ he faltered, feeling quite as foolish as he was attempting to seem.

‘I don’t want her worried about anything,’ Scar said, getting to his feet, careful not to upset little Parsley, who had been leaning against him. He bent down to lay a large but surprisingly gentle hand on the little girl’s head, as if in brief blessing. ‘You have the right of it… No one in his right mind would be out in this…’ He shared a smile with little Parsley. ‘You’ll just have to remind me, on your mum’s next baking day, to finish that story of the dog and the mouse.’

‘I will!’ Parsley said eagerly, and the Man laughed and straightened up.

‘Fine family,’ he said, as if to himself, adding louder, ‘Don’t you worry, Hally. I’ll be back.’

And if it sounded more like a promise than a threat, well, Hally gave all the credit to the sweet, welcoming innocence of his children.

Despite his assurances to Scar to the contrary, Hally did bring up the subject with Rosemary, as he brought her a plate of fresh-baked bread twists and jam and goats-milk cheese, along with a piping hot mug of tea.

‘Those poor fellows,’ she said, shaking her head and then sipping her tea thoughtfully. She dropped her voice so that the children, the younger ones playing near the roaring fire in the other room, under the watchful gaze of the older ones, wouldn’t hear. ‘Even if they are Lotho’s Men, and have been said to do some awful things to the hobbits hereabout...’ She put her mug down with a shiver, and drew her shawl more closely about her neck.

‘Do you want to come and sit by the hearth?’ Hally said. ‘It’s much warmer by the fire.’

‘Do you know, I think I will,’ Rosemary said. ‘Even this steaming mug cannot quite take the chill from the air, and while you’ve kept refreshing the bedwarmers below the covers, I fancy I can still see my breath in here!’

‘I fear you might have the right of it,’ Hally said, though it was not quite so cold as that. Some heat from the hearth did manage to reach the bedrooms, though not enough, in this kind of weather. ‘I think we may all take our bedding and sleep by the hearth this night...’

‘All snuggled together, and sharing our warmth,’ Rosemary said. ‘A goodly idea.’ She cocked her head to one side with a quizzical smile. ‘And think of it -- a huddle of ruffians, besides! How warm we shall be!’

Hally shook his head with a chuckle, though the idea wasn’t funny. No, not at all. ‘I rather doubt Scar will bring his Men here for more than a brief stop, short of an emergency,’ he said. ‘That one’s too bright by half, Rose-my-own. He won’t want his Men becoming overly familiar with -- or fond of -- Shirefolk.’

‘Difficult to keep order, if one is among friends,’ Rosemary agreed in a low tone. She sighed, and then echoed some of Hally’s earlier ponderings. ‘I wonder, if things might have been different, somehow...’

She lifted the coverlet, to reveal the sleeping babe, his face rosy from snuggling under the covers, and Hally quickly wrapped another shawl around the little one and carried him out to the main room. ‘Here,’ he said to Parsley. ‘Make a lap -- and you, Robbie, mind everyone just a moment more,’ -- for the lad had been watching over Buckthorn, and his sister had watched little Lavvie, and that way they were sure that neither of the small children would come close to the roaring fire in a moment of distraction on the watchers’ part -- ‘whilst I fetch your mum to her rocking chair...’

Parsley was glad to take the baby, and Robin took Lavvie on his own lap, and had Buckthorn sit facing them, and the older lad took Lavvie’s hands in his own and led the little ones in a rousing play of “pat-a-cake”.

Hally watched in satisfaction for a moment, Scar’s fine family echoing in his thoughts, and then turned back to the bedroom to escort Rosemary to the rocking chair.

With Rosemary supervising the children on the hearthstones, Hally was free to tend to other practical matters, such as the care and milking of the goats, and the fetching of firewood, just as he’d told the Man. While outside, he paused a moment to listen and look about, but heard nothing except the keening of the wind as it flung stinging snow against him. He shook his head. Surely Scar had fetched away his watchers to a warmer, safer place. He made several trips to fill the woodbox to overflowing. It looked to be a long, bitter night, and besides, he’d be firing two of the three bake ovens as well, letting them heat while he prepared dried fish and vegetables for a hearty soup, to go over the fire on the hearth. He’d bake up loaves of bread for the coming week -- ah, but fresh, hot bread would make a fine accompaniment to steaming soup this day! -- and buns and biscuits into the bargain.

Scar might have his own fish to fry, in a manner of speaking. Hally had fish to stew, and baking to do.

Chapter 20.

At eventides they feasted on bread still steaming from the oven, along with warmed-over stew from the day before -- Hally had made plenty, anticipating the possibility of Men knocking upon their door. The fish soup, simmering over the fire in the largest kettle, was for the morrow. The secret to succulence is in the long, slow simmer, or so Rosemary quoted her mother’s cook as Hally stirred the pot under the children’s keen observation, and then she joined the rest in laughter as Parsley solemnly repeated this sage advice in her best lisp.

The last of the loaves were loaded into the bake ovens, and then Hally spread blankets on the hearthstones. They sat down there, on the floor before the fire, to eat their supper.

‘It’s like a picnic -- in the midst of a snowstorm!’ Robin exclaimed, his face shining with delight.

Rosemary affected a shiver. ‘I’d rather eat here on the hearth, than out there in the snow, thank-you-very-much,’ she said, in the tone she remembered from her prim and proper grandmother. And then she relaxed her stern expression, laughed, and held up her mug of steaming tea in a toast to her son. ‘But it is quite like a picnic, you have the right of it. Why did we never think of doing this before?’

‘We never quite had such bitter weather before,’ Hally said, his face serious. And though he would not say it before the children, in order not to distress them, Rosemary knew he was thinking of Lotho’s Men. Were they out there, even now? Hally nodded, and in the next moment he smiled a little, and said in a brighter tone. ‘D’you think the Brandywine will freeze over this night?’

‘And the white wolves come?’ Robin said in excitement and dread.

We’ve quite enough wolves in the Shire already, Rosemary thought to herself, but then Hally launched into a tale of the Fell Winter, as had been handed down to him by his grandfather, who’d heard it for the first time at his grandfather’s knee. And all the while, the good smell of baking filled the room, and swelled as the last loaves baked and browned to perfection.

The wind roared, flinging snow against the window, and Hally paused in the middle of his storytelling. ‘I should hate to be a traveller, out in this!’ he said. ‘The Mountains must’ve had extra snow, and sent it out to the lowlands.’ It was an old joke; he’d never seen a mountain in his life, and wasn’t likely to. He couldn’t know it, of course, but far away, only that morning, nine travellers had been out in the heart of such wintry weather: two doughty Men forcing a path through drifts of snow; while a Wood Elf ran past them, over the top of the snow, to seek the Sun; and four hobbits, three of them cousins to Rosemary, had waited huddled together under blankets, much as Hally’s little family in the Wood shared their warmth now.

The early winter darkness had fallen before the last of the loaves of risen bread came out of the oven, and the snow whirled white against the windowpane in the main room. Hally shook his head at the thought of using lamp oil to finish the task. And yet… Would a watch lamp be enough to guide a desperate traveller through the storm to safety? Despite the tight, thick walls of the smial he’d built for his loved ones, a chill was slowly creeping inward as the temperature dropped outside and the wind roared through the treetops.

He decided to strike two birds with one stone, building up the fire, and placing the lamp in the window, but leaving it burning brightly instead of turning it down to a dim watchlight. If any ruffians were to come by, demanding why he was using so much oil (as he’d read on the sheet of Rules in the marketplace)… well, they’d likely be so cold, their teeth would be chattering too much to say much of anything, and they’d be too glad of the warmth of the fire on the hearth to penalise him for burning too much wood at one go (another of the Rules).

By the light of the lamp in the window and the fire on the hearth, Hally brought the last of the baking out of the ovens. No need to set the loaves near the windows to cool this night! Away from the heat of the ovens, and the hearth, the room was uncomfortably cool. Hally shivered to think of the chill in the bedrooms, even with all the warm covers they could heap upon the children and themselves. No, but to snuggle before the fire, all of them together, sharing all of the blankets, that was the thing on a night like this one.

Hally roused several times during the night to refresh the fire, blessing the armloads of wood he had brought in before darkness fell. He checked each time to make sure all his family were warmly covered, and when his fire-tending was done, he snuggled close to Rosemary once more, pulled the covers up, and somehow fell asleep while listening to the fury of the storm prowling outside, trying to find its way in, but unable to find entry. Even the chimney offered the storm winds and snow little opportunity to enter, with the roaring fire within. Any flurry of snow that blew down the chimney only hissed briefly in its passing, unable to quench the flames fed by the well-seasoned wood.

For Hally was both carver and woodcutter, and he knew his craft.

Highday dawned -- actually dawned! Hally wakened to the sound of the babe’s suckling. The world was preternaturally still outside -- and inside. He could distinguish the soft breathing of each of his children. The fire snapped, and he opened his eyes, to meet Rosemary’s gaze.

‘Warm, snug, and safe,’ she whispered.

‘Warm, snug, and safe,’ he agreed, parting the covers slightly to lay a kiss upon the baby’s downy head, and then he had a kiss for his beloved, before he eased himself out from under the covers, retaining as much warmth as he might manage for Rosemary and the little ones. Bright light came through the window, and he hurried to blow out the lamp standing on the sill, and stopped to gaze in wonder at a world gone white.

The snow was waist-high to a hobbit, unbroken by footprints of any creature, Man or beast, and pushed into deeper drifts against the side of the goat-shed, nearly to the roof! Broken branches littered the clearing, and Hally breathed thanks that none of the trees or larger branches had come down upon the smial. He’d have a good bit of work to do, over the next few days, just clearing away the windfalls. He cocked an eye at the sky, clear now, promising a glorious, sunny day.

Well then, the day was started, and so must he.

He added wood to the fire and swung the kettle, with its porridge preparations from last night, into place, to cook their breakfast. Just a quick wash, and he’d see to the goats…

They’d closed the doors to the bedrooms before retiring, to keep more heat in the main room, and Hally, opening the door to his and Rosemary’s room, shut it quickly behind himself again with a shudder. Oh, but it was cold! Just a quick wash, and…

The water in the ewer was frozen.

Well, then, there was naught for it but to bring the ewers from the bedrooms, and set them to one side of the hearth to melt their contents. He glanced at the buckets by the fireside, one full and one half-empty. The little spring was likely frozen over, and would have to be chopped free, but then, there was plenty of water at hand, in the form of pure, fresh-fallen snow, that he could gather, if need be, and melt for water.

‘Sponge baths for the children and ourselves, I deem,’ he said, referring to their usual Highday custom, as he returned to Rosemary and sat down on the blankets. ‘If baths at all… The spring is frozen, I should think.’

‘Frozen!’ Rosemary said. ‘Such a winter as we’re having… p’rhaps you ought to take your axe out with you, when you tend to the goats, in case the white wolves have crossed the Brandywine!’

She wasn’t joking.

‘I’ll take my axe, indeed,’ Hally said, ‘for I’ll likely need it,’ and he hastened to add, at seeing his children's alarm, ‘at the least, to break away ice from the spring, that we might have water.’ To help to keep all their spirits up, he sang a lively tune, and then another, and yet another, as he went about the business of warming the smial and laying the table for breakfast, before he braved the freezing air and waist-deep snow to care for the goats.

The rest of the day was a quiet one, quieter than the usual Highday, without the children splashing in the bath, for one thing. Hally, well-bundled up, took care of all the necessary outdoor chores, leaving Robin in charge of tending the fire. The family spent much of the day snuggled close together by the fireside, eating, talking, and napping. They played simple games, and Hally and Rosemary took turns telling stories.

Hally wrapped up each of the younger children in turn, and carried them to the window, one-by-one, to oh and ah at the snow outside. The temperature, this day at least, was too bitter to let them play in the stuff.

He did scoop several buckets full and brought them in to melt, and he let each of the children play with a handful or two, not enough to grow wet and cold, however. For a special treat at teatime, he filled a basin with snow and stirred in fresh goats’ milk and honey.

‘I wish we could have a great snowstorm every day!’ Robin shouted, upon tasting his portion. His parents laughed, and he preened as if he’d said something clever. He was a wise enough child, even at his tender age, to know that snowstorms every day were neither practical nor desirable, but the snow-milk was so very delicious…

No ruffians were to be seen that day, though smoke rose from the chimney in amounts that promised warmth and comfort within. When the Sun sought her bed at the end of the day, the only tracks to be seen in the snow in the yard were those of Hally, and of the goats, from their brief frolics when he’d let them out in the snow while he began the chore of gathering the wind-fallen wood, and of the birds that frequented the clearing. Thinking of the difficulties of being a bird in such weather, he’d scattered seeds for them, and put out shallow bowls of water, that he kept replacing as the water froze.

‘A great snowstorm every day,’ Hally echoed. ‘That would be a sight! And then a warm, fine day would be the treat, would it not?’

‘It would,’ Rosemary said, drawing up her shawl and turning her face to the fire, as the world outside turned rosy with sunset light. ‘It certainly would be a treat, even now!’

‘And then Scar could come, and finish the tale of the dog and the mouse!’ Parsley said, her face bright with anticipation. ‘Oh, I do hope this snow all melts away soon, and our special visitors may come once more!’

Hally and Rosemary exchanged a glance, and then Rosemary said, ‘We’ll have plenty of baking for them when they do come, won’t we?

‘Come now, children,’ she added, ‘it’s time to eat up our eventides, and then to save lamp oil, I think we shall seek our pillows once more.’

‘No need to seek them,’ Robin said, eminently practical. ‘They’re right here, on the hearthstones.’

‘Very good, lad,’ Hally said. ‘Why, the Master of the Hall could himself scarcely be more sensible! There’s a bright future for hobbits of good sense, or so my old dad was fond of saying...’

All of them laughed, even the littlest children who had no idea of what was meant, but Hally and Rosemary exchanged another, more sober glance in the middle of the merriment. What kind of future was to be had in these dark times, even for hobbits of good sense, they wondered?

****

A/N: Some turns of phrase taken from "The Ring Heads South," from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Chapter 21.

Hally woke to the dawnlight streaming rosy through the frost-covered window, for the watchlamp had burned low and gone out sometime in the night, allowing the frost-faeries to come boldly and ply their brushes in fantastical designs. They’d used too much oil the previous night, was his first thought, for the lamp ought not have run dry. ‘Wash day,’ he muttered, slipping out of the nest of blankets covering his sleeping family, letting in as little cold air as possible. Rosemary slept to one side, the babe snuggled close, and the older children were tumbled together, limp as puppies, safe between mother and father.

Shivering, he moved to the window and scratched at the frost with his fingers, looking out on a world that continued beautiful, but deadly white. ‘Fancy,’ he breathed. He’d scarcely be surprised to see wolves nosing about the yard, white wolves having crossed the frozen Brandywine, but there were none, save in his imagination. Thankfully.

He blew on his fingers as he peeped through the small hole he’d made in the frost. He imagined hauling the copper out from the shed, into the yard, lighting a fire underneath, filling it with… what? Water? He’d likely have to chop the spring free all over again this day, and even at that, what emerged would be a mere trickle of the usual flow. But snow – a bucket full of snow would melt down to a few cups full. It would take many buckets of snow to fill the copper with sufficient snow to melt into enough water to fill the wash and rinse tubs.

Neither did he fancy hauling the water from yard into the smial, opening the door repeatedly to go in and out again, letting out any heat that managed to build up, even with a roaring fire on the hearth.

‘Better to be dirty and smelly, than cold,’ he muttered.

‘Quite so,’ Rosemary said behind him.

He turned quickly, ready to chide, but she had spoken from the blankets, only her face showing, still flushed with sleeping under the warm covers.

‘Let me build up the fire,’ he said. ‘You stay there until I have things a bit warmer.’

‘Lovely thought,’ she said, looking downward, moving a bit under the blankets. Hally realized that the babe had wakened, and Rosemary was seeing to his breakfast. ‘We’ll have to do a little washing,’ she said. ‘Nappies, at least. But we can boil just enough water to fill a couple of buckets, slosh nappies in one, rinse in the other, hang them near the fire to dry…’ Hally nodded, and she continued, ‘We’ve not gotten properly dirty, the last few days, what with scarcely moving from the warm spot before the hearth.’

‘And clothes must be properly dirty, in order to do a proper wash,’ Hally said.

‘Quite proper,’ Rosemary agreed.

Wash day without washing – save nappies for the babe. It was another day of quiet inactivity, just the most basic chores, taking care of the animals, cooking and washing up, keeping the fire burning and hauling wood and snow to melt for water. The melted snow had something of a flat taste, not conducive to quenching thirst, but Hally solved this by stirring up cambric tea for the children – hot water and fresh milk and a splash of tea, which had the additional benefit of being a warming drink, as well as special treat in the little ones’ eyes.

For the most part, the little family nestled before the hearth. After the nappies had been scrubbed, rinsed, and hung up on the rack before the fire, Hally found more stories to tell – there is always another story, it seems – in between the necessities of getting a meal, or clearing away, or melting more snow that they might have water to wash hands and faces and dishes and cups. It was too cold for any of them to go out to the privy, even by daylight, so they must make use of the chamber pots, which added to Hally’s chores. He continued to insist on complete rest for his wife, and so Rosemary tended the babe, snuggled the children and sang songs with them, and even managed to do some knitting while the littlest ones napped.

Truth be told, it was a sleepy day, and they all napped, even Hally, who was not used to such luxuries as a wealthy hobbit might enjoy, no, not even naps. Ah, but the most important work, this day, was to keep the fire burning bright and warm…

Moving about out-of-doors was more difficult this day than the previous one. A crust had formed over the top of the snow, not thick enough to bear Hally’s weight, but thick enough to make walking difficult. He was glad of the paths he’d forged between smial and goat shed and woodshed the previous day. At least when he broke through the crust of snow, it was only part-way to his knees, so long as he walked where he’d already made a path of sorts.

They ate simple meals, slept a great deal, and went early to bed that night, though none of them were tired enough to sleep soundly after that restful day. Hally and Rosemary lay long awake, listening to the crackling of the fire, and though Rosemary did not speak when Hally moved to throw another log on, as the fire burned low, she reached for his hand and squeezed it in silent gratitude when he curled close to her once more.

Hally woke to the dawning of Ironing day – a day with no ironing, as there’d been precious little washing done the previous day, though he’d need to wash another bucket or two of nappies to keep the babe in good supply – to see clearly through the window, to look on a cloudy day. No frost to obscure the view!

The room was perceptibly warmer when he slipped from beneath the blankets. It was still cold enough to see his breath, but not icy cold. He added wood to the fire and hurried to the window. The snow looked softer, somehow, and the long icicles hanging from the eaves of the smial were dripping.

‘It’s warmer,’ he told Rosemary, turning back to their makeshift bed on the hearth. ‘P’rhaps we’ve turned a corner.’

‘P’rhaps,’ she echoed with a smile, though she heaved a sigh. Hally didn’t need to ask what the matter was. He felt much the same way. It was a relief that the weather was loosening its terrible grip. It was a worry to anticipate the return of Lotho’s Men. Still, they’d managed thus far.

The snow was softer this day, slowly melting, and Hally allowed the three oldest children a brief time out-of-doors to play with the stuff. They could pack it together to make balls of snow, to cast at a mark. They could form shapes of the snow – Hally helped the children to create an entire family of snow-hobbits in the yard, with branches for arms, and mufflers wound round their necks, and real buttons from Rosemary’s sewing basket. There were a mother, father, and several children gathered around the parents, and the family was complete with a little dog, sitting up to beg for the snow-apple in the snow-mum’s woody hand.

When they came in, laughing and rosy from the cold, Rosemary scolded them all for staying outside so long and possibly catching their deaths. Then Hally helped her up from the jumble of bedding and escorted her to the window to admire the fruit of their labours, and she took it all back and heaped compliments upon the artists.

The fire on the hearth warmed the room – actually warmed the room! …and when Hally checked the bedrooms, he found the water in the ewers had melted. Ah, it was cold enough to see his breath in the bedrooms, but not freezing cold, at least. ‘One more night upon the hearth,’ he said, emerging again. ‘And then, if this warming continues, we’ll be able to sleep in our beds once more.’

The little Bolgers gave a general moan of disappointment at this, but subsided at their father’s look. ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘T’wouldn’t be a special treat, if we did it every night, now, would it?’

‘S’pose not,’ Robin said, looking down at his toes, echoed by Parsley and Buckthorn’s lisping tones. Little Lavvy crowed and waved her fist and babbled agreement.

‘And we wouldn’t want any special visitors to see our bedding, all laid out on the floor, and think that we lived this way, and didn’t know what was proper,’ Rosemary said.

The children brightened at this. ‘And Scar can finish the story!’ Parsley cried in great glee.

Her father smiled. ‘That he can,’ he said. ‘And most likely start another one. I like that in a friend; a good storyteller. Then I don’t have to say so much.’

‘As if you would,’ Rosemary said fondly. ‘Why, children,’ she went on, beginning a story of her own, one well-known to her family, but beloved for all that. ‘When I first met your father, he could scarcely rub two words together to make a sentence! Let me tell you…’

‘Do tell!’ cried the children eagerly, and so she did.

Chapter 22.

Mending day dawned rather sullenly – they woke to a steady drip-drip-dripping noise coming from the outside of the little smial, though they were warm and cosy, bundled together before the banked – yes, banked! …for the temperatures remained above freezing, even through the night hours – fire on the hearth. The dripping did not come from rain, but more from the icicles on the eaves, and trees around the yard. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky.

‘Rain likely,’ Hally said. ‘That’ll put paid to the rest of the snowbanks.’

‘Make for heavy travel,’ Rosemary said. ‘Muddy roads, I don’t wonder.’

‘If any hobbits were stirring during the bitter weather, they’d have done best when everything was frozen,’ Hally said. ‘Heavy going, even then, through the snow, but with a sledge it could be done. I hope they got stowed what they needed to get stowed…’

‘I do hope our friends stayed tight inside,’ Rosemary said. ‘I’d hate to think of them out in the cold.’ At the children’s quizzical looks, she nodded significantly and said, ‘Why, don’t you remember how poor Bracken nearly froze himself? I do hope the older Men have talked some sense into him since!’

Hally moved all the bedding back to everyone’s respective beds, with the children’s help, and returning to fetch his wife to their bed, stopped short to see Rosemary on her feet, stirring the porridge he’d measured into the kettle over the newly revived fire.

‘Rose!’ he said severely. ‘You’re not to stir foot…’

‘Stirring the porridge is hardly stirring foot!’ Rosemary said, and made a comical face, wrinkling her nose such that the children shouted with glee. ‘Imagine! Stirring porridge with your foot! Not my idea of nice!’ (That last bit was a common saying of her very proper grandmother’s, who had definite opinions of what was “nice” and what wasn’t.)

‘Think, if your face were to freeze like that,’ Hally said mildly, another of Grandmama’s pieces of wisdom, and Rosemary grimaced at him and then allowed her face to relax in a smile.

‘I’m fine, really I am, Hally, and if I bundle in blankets and tuck myself up, I’m going to grow roots in that bed, surely I am, and you should have to chop me free again!’

‘We wouldn’t want that!’ young Robin said in alarm.

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Hally said, considering his wife thoughtfully. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘If you promise to confine yourself to quiet tasks like stirring porridge, and eating, and feeding the babe, and mending, we’ll let you stay up, at least until nap time.’

Rosemary nodded. ‘I won’t overdo,’ she promised. ‘And you know I always lay myself down when the children do, Hally-love.’

‘I know you do,’ he said with a nod, ‘or I’d sweep you up in these arms, I would, and carry you off to the bed, and hold you there until those roots had a chance to establish themselves!’

‘Hah,’ was Rosemary’s answer, but she didn’t decline the chair he brought over to the hearthside. She sat herself down and continued to stir, while Robin (with much “help” from Buckthorn) set the table for breakfast, and Parsley rocked the cradle to keep the babe sleeping and contented, and played “Peek” with little Lavvy.

Hally went out to see to the goats, bringing in a bucket of foaming fresh milk in one hand and a bucket of fresh, cold spring water in the other, and remarking on the mildness of the day. ‘I didn’t have to chop the spring free of ice this morn! You’d think it was spring outside!’ he said. ‘Robbie, after breakfast we’ll replenish the wood supply, but we’ve enough for the time being. We didn’t burn any at all last night, to keep warm!’

Breakfast was a merry affair, and the washing up after, during which Rosemary sat in the rocking chair and nursed the babe. Then Hally and Robin brought in wood and water, and then it was time to put down Lavender and Buckthorn for their morning nap – and Rosemary, as promised, laid herself down on the big bed with the babe, while Parsley sang Lavvy to sleep (at least, until the older sister fell asleep herself in the process) in the girls’ bed, and Robin told Buckthorn a long, drawn-out story about a rabbit and a mouse, until the little brother fell asleep, smiling around the thumb in his mouth.

Robin emerged from the boys’ room to find his father smoking his pipe and sitting at the table. His eyes lit up to see the hand-carved Kings board and its intricately shaped pieces laid out on the cloth that covered the well-scrubbed table, ready for play. Hally half rose and bowed Robin to the other side of the board. Father and son had quite a satisfying, quiet contest whilst the smial was drowned in silence.

Rosemary emerged, blinking, when the game was drawing to its conclusion. ‘Well done, Robbie!’ she whispered, placing a hand on her oldest son’s shoulder. He beamed at her.

‘He’s come to understand the game quite well,’ Hally said, ‘and furthermore, I can no longer bluff him! He sees through me every time…’

Rosemary nodded. Robin’s talent for truth-sifting was developing at an astonishing rate. It would stand him in good stead, with those who were less than truthful, but made Hally and Rosemary’s chosen path all the more difficult.

‘Well,’ Hally said, making the final move of the game, which Robin accepted with good grace, for he’d come very near to winning this time. ‘Robin, would you put the board away, lad?’ Looking to Rosemary, he added, ‘You’re not the only one who’s fretting about roots…! I think I’ll go out into the Wood and see what might have come down with all the ice and snow. There ought to be some good chopping to be found.’

‘It’s wet out,’ Rosemary said.

Hally nodded. ‘That it is,’ he said. ‘Wet, chilly, a perfect day for a long-simmering stew. I’ll put the pot on before I shoulder my axe, and you may stir it to your heart’s desire, so long as you don’t stick your foot in it!’

‘I’ll be happy to,’ Rosemary said, and when Hally grimaced at her, she added, ‘or not to, as it is.’ She put her hands on her back and stretched, and then moved to the hearth and sat down in the rocking chair. ‘There’s mending to do, as well…’

Hally obligingly brought her the mending basket, and laid her sewing basket on the table next to her chair. There wasn’t much mending to be done, as they’d all stayed so quiet – Rosemary, recovering from her difficult confinement, and everyone else due to the weather. He then made quick work of filling the stewpot, checked the supply of firewood and water, and made ready to go out.

‘Robin,’ he said. ‘If your mum needs anything at all…!’

‘I’ll watch over everything,’ the lad answered, standing as tall as he could. ‘You can count on me, Dad!’

‘And you’re going to stay in that chair, or in the bed,’ Hally said. He received Rosemary’s nod, and pointed a stern finger. ‘I mean it! No floor scrubbing, or…’

‘Of course not, Hally,’ Rosemary said with all sweet reasonableness. ‘Why, that’s for Cleaning day, on the morrow! ‘Twouldn’t be proper at all!’

‘And if any of our friends should stop…’ Hally began.

‘I doubt they will,’ Rosemary said. ‘Baking day is two days off, after all…’

‘We’ve plenty of baking from last week to share,’ Robin said. ‘It hasn’t even gone stale, being frozen, as it was, in the pantry!’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Rosemary said.

Hally shook his head. ‘Robin’s too young to put the kettle on,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want you lifting anything, Rose. If one or more of our friends should stop, you be sure to ask him to fill the kettle and put it on, and take it off again, and fill the teapot. Robin knows, at least, how to pour out, but I don’t want him or yourself doing any of the rest!’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Rosemary repeated, and kissed the cheek he bent to her. ‘Honestly, Hally, you act as if I’ve never had a new babe before…’

They shared a look, for the words they would have said were not safe to say before any of the children, least of all Robin, and then Hally said, ‘Well, then, Robin, see to it that your mum rests herself and doesn’t try and do too much whilst I’m gone.’

‘While the cat’s away…’ Rosemary teased with a little smile to belie her sudden tension at being left alone with the children, Hally out in the woods and ruffians, for all they knew, everywhere about.

‘None of that, now!’ Hally said, shaking a stern finger, and then shouldering his axe, he went out the door and was soon out of sight of Robin, waving from the window.

***

Hally had left a plate of sliced ham, a basket of breadrolls (still cold, but no longer frozen after sitting in the warm room), apples and pickled vegetables on the sideboard for his family’s noontide meal – he’d packed his own nooning away in a bag that he carried over one shoulder, tied to the haft of his axe for convenience. It was quick work for Robin and Parsley to make up plates for everyone. Robin brought Rosemary’s plate to her, and the children sat upon the hearthrug to eat.

‘Another picnic!’ Rosemary said cheerily. ‘Why, when summer comes, I hope we won’t be too wearied of picnics to have a proper one out-of-doors, and all…’

‘Sitting upon the sawn stumps of trees in a fairy ring,’ Parsley said dreamily, ‘and pretending the Elves will come at any moment to join the feast!’ For Rosemary had heard some of Bilbo’s tales, in her youth, and told them to her family in turn. Indeed, in the soft of a summer evening, when the birds are singing their farewells to the sleep-bound Sun, and the smells of the sun-warmed earth linger in the air, even the Woody End can seem an enchanted place.

There was tea in the pot that Hally had left cosied, and Robin was proud and happy to pour out for the little family, fixing cambric tea for his younger sisters and brother, and making a “proper cup” for himself – though he made a face at the taste, and added more of water and milk until it was halfway between “proper” and “cambric”.

It was turning out to be a merry meal indeed, when a knocking was heard at the door.

Rosemary managed not to spill her tea. ‘Visitors!’ she said, with as broad a smile as she could manage.

Robin put his cup down safely away from little Lavvy’s grasp, plopped the faunt into Parsley’s lap, and jumped up to answer the door, calling in a loud and cheerful voice, ‘Coming! I’m coming!’

He opened the door to find young Bracken-the-Man, and grabbed the Man’s sleeve, to pull him inside. ‘Come in! Don’t let all the heat out…!’

As it was definitely still quite cold outside, if not freezing, the hobbit child’s words made eminent sense. It was no weather to stand and pass the time in the doorway. Bracken entered and pushed the door shut behind him, though he came no further, but stood hesitating.

‘Welcome,’ Rosemary said, setting her own cup down and starting to rise.

Bracken held out a commanding hand. ‘Stay!’ he ordered, his voice cracking on the stern word, though he did his best to hold it steady. He cleared his throat and tried again.

‘Scar sent me to see if all is well with you, and if you needed anything…’

Rosemary did not show her surprise at the latter part of his statement, biting her teeth together rather than letting her jaw drop in astonishment. She looked down at the babe in the cradle at her feet, turned the grimace into a smile, and looked up again, beaming. ‘Why, how thoughtful!’ she said. ‘Such friends… when your father told me we’d be living deep in the Wood, Robin, when he was wooing me, I thought for certain ‘twould be a lonely life… I never imagined…!’

And to the young Man, she said, ‘We are well, truly!’

‘And yourself, Missus?’ Bracken said, ducking his head and blinking a little, as if he felt uncomfortable intruding, especially with Hally absent.

Meanwhile, Robin was pouring out tea into a Man-sized cup, and tucking ham into a breadroll, and he brought these to Bracken at the door. ‘Come now!’ the little lad urged. ‘Come ben!’

The latter was a phrase from the Green Hill country, an old Tookish greeting from happier days, and Rosemary held her breath, but the significance seemed lost on the young Man, and she let the breath out again in a silent sigh. That would have to go…

‘Don’t just stand there in the doorway,’ Robin continued. ‘Sit on the hearthrug with us, and join our picnic! Such hosts as you must think us!’

‘One-hand calls you the souls of hospitality,’ Bracken said, and though he took the food and drink, he stayed just inside the door. ‘My boots are muddy.’

‘Wipe your feet – that’s what the mat is for,’ Robin said. ‘We change it and lay down a new one, when it gets muddy. Or you could take off your boots, entirely, and be a hobbit for the moment!’

Bracken laughed, and then he took a bite of his bread-and-ham. ‘Umm, good,’ he said through the mouthful. ‘But – no more, Robin! I beg you! I cannot stay.’

‘We wouldn’t want to make trouble for Bracken with his Boss,’ Rosemary said. She’d have to teach young Robin that too much hospitality was as bad as grudging welcome. Hally knew just how far to go, in pressing friendship on Lotho’s Men. Too much, from him, would kindle suspicion.

‘No,’ said Bracken, having wolfed down the food and half the cup of warm beverage at a gulp. He was obviously in haste. ‘I was only to ask, if it would be convenient for us to visit on your next Baking Day… but if you are needing more time to recover…’

‘Oh!’ Rosemary said, surprised all over again at this sign of consideration from Lotho’s Men… And yet, it fit with Scar’s obvious care and concern, dating from the birth of the babe. She wondered, and not for the first time, if he’d lost someone he loved in childbirth. A wife? Sister? Mother?

‘Here,’ Bracken said, holding out his empty mug to Robin. ‘And my thanks, Robin!’

‘I’m well!’ Rosemary said. ‘Truly! Hally’s barely let me stir foot from chair or bed, and I swear I shall go mad if I have to sit a week longer!’

‘That’s good news,’ Bracken said. ‘I’ll tell the others.’

Rosemary couldn’t quite get up the nerve to ask him how many she ought to expect… They’d simply bake plenty, along with what they had left, that had frozen in the pantry after the last Baking Day. And of course, the goats could eat up any stale baking, and turn it to milk, butter, and cheese.

But seeing the Man’s red, raw hand as Robin took the mug from him, Rosemary held up her own hand in a staying gesture. ‘But wait! I have a little something…’

She reached down to one side, where her basket of knitting reposed, and pulled out a pair of oversized mittens, brightly striped. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking of you, ever since you came to us half-frozen! This winter has been so cold, and here you are, out in the elements without benefit of gloves or…’

‘I can warm my hands in my pockets,’ Bracken said.

‘I beg your pardon, but I don’t think so!’ Rosemary contradicted him, greatly daring, but she wasn’t so afraid of Bracken as some of his cohorts. ‘Take them! For they won’t fit a hobbit’s hands… I’m not certain they’ll fit a Man’s, even, for I made up the pattern as I went… Try them on, at least, and let me see if I need to pull them to pieces and start over again… Robin!’

The little lad trotted over to her to take the mittens from her hand, exchanging these for the Man’s mug, and then back to the door.

‘Try them on… please?’ Rosemary said, allowing a pleading tone to enter her voice, with a look of entreaty.

Sheepishly, Bracken pulled the mittens over his red and chapped hands, and held them up in show. ‘Perfect fit!’ he said, warming to the idea of wearing them. But then he began to pull them off again.

‘No, keep them!’ Rosemary said. ‘They’re of no use to us, and now I know the pattern worked, I can make more for your friends… our friends… You tell them, if they want a certain colour, to be sure and let me know…’

Bracken’s mouth dropped open, for only an instant before he commanded himself again, and then he shook his head. ‘You’re a wonder, Rosie,’ he said.

Rosemary smiled. ‘So my husband is always telling me,’ she said. ‘I suppose there must be some truth in it.’

‘O’ course there is!’ Robin shouted, and Bracken and Rosemary both laughed at this.

The noise wakened the babe, and Bracken made haste to make his farewells as Rosemary picked up his namesake, to feed him.

He was still wearing the mittens as he closed the door behind him.

Story Notes

Thanks to Dreamflower for beta-reading and insightful comments!

This story has the potential to be complete in four chapters (plus this chapter of notes), or has the possibility to continue along the timeline until shortly after the Battle of Bywater, when the timeline says Rosie and Hally are dragged before the Thain, to be judged as collaborators.

Not sure yet, just how things will go.

The Proposition is a companion to The Rescue, laying down a foundation for that story -- and if it continues past the fourth chapter, it will run concurrent with that story (though Rescue branches off when Estella leaves the forest Bolgers), as well as with early chapters of Flames, until a month or so after the Battle of Bywater.

All stories mentioned in these notes are posted here on SoA.

As always, comments are most welcome.

Chapter 1 Notes

Mistress Lalia's plot to marry Rosemary off to Thain Ferumbras, and the subsequent conspiracy to effect the tween's escape and the serious consequences that followed for Rosemary and her family are detailed in Pearl of Great Price.

Chapter 21 Notes

The story of Hally and Rosemary's first meeting is told in Kindling Flames, which has sat on the shelf for a long time, unfortunately, but has not been forgotten. One of these days, when the current crop of WIPs is finished, I hope to return to that story. Among others. Think good thoughts, and thanks.