Chapter 4. In and Out

Two days later, Adelard himself came to the farm, driven by his son Reginard. The old hobbit’s eyes might be dim, but his mind was bright and sharp, and he had much to discuss with Paladin as head of the family.

The visitors arrived in time for the noonday meal, and so that day Paladin did not go back out into the fields until teatime. The hired hobbits understood; Thain’s business came before farm business, though their chief rued the inconvenience of it all. Still, he shouldered the responsibility with a good heart. The Tooks were an independent lot and didn’t need a great deal of looking after, but when looking after was wanted, it was definitely needed. Small strife breaks out into great wars was an old saying, and there had never been a great war in the Shire, and by all Paladin held dear, there never would be, not so long as he had anything to say about it.

Adelard took a bite of succulent roast, chewed thoroughly, and laid down his fork with a sigh. He waved a hand in Paladin’s direction. ‘Best I’ve had since...’ He scratched his head, and then shook it. ‘I don’t know when I’ve tasted such.’

‘Plenty more where that came from,’ Paladin said, passing the serving plate to Regi, who forked several more slices onto his father’s plate.

Adelard tendered thanks, and Regi passed the plate on down the table to the hired hobbits, saying, ‘And what d’you think of the antics of your son, out from under your eye and running wild in Hobbiton, I hear?’

Paladin put down his knife and fork and swallowed his mouthful of food half-chewed. ‘Antics?’ he said in dismay. ‘Mischief?’

Eglantine laid a steadying hand over her husband’s and turned to the visitor. ‘Pippin went to help Frodo with the packing up,’ she said. ‘He’s a good, hard worker, and I cannot see him doing harm to Frodo, such a good, kind cousin as he is...’

‘No harm,’ Regi said hastily, while his father cleared his throat as if to stifle a guffaw. ‘Just turned the place upside-down, they did...’ And he went on to regale the hobbits around the table with the story that was going about, of how young Folco Boffin, Pippin, Fatty Bolger, and Merry Brandybuck had come to help Frodo in his move from Bag End to Crickhollow in Buckland. It seemed that one or more of them had taken it into his head to nail the table and chairs, left behind in the sale to the new owner, to the broad ceiling beams, topsy turvy, in other words. Frodo had insisted that the room be set to rights, of course, but still. It was the talk of the town... and beyond.

Adelard’s was a “study call” and not a “parlour call” as it turned out. After they finished devouring a hearty meal, with much small talk about the doings at the Great Smials and Tuckborough, Adelard arose and cleared his throat. ‘Well, then,’ he said, bowing to Paladin. ‘A fine foundation for the bit of business to follow...’

Regi rose, too, bowed and thanked Paladin, and commented on the lightness of the bread and the juiciness of the roast. A no-nonsense fellow was Reginard.

Adelard took his son’s arm, and the three, Paladin and his two visitors made their way to the study, talking desultorily about the weather, the crops, the harvest.

Eglantine prepared a tray with cosied teapot and cups, saucers and plates, milk and sugar--sugar was dear, and reserved for company; the family took tea with honey from Paladin’s hives more often than not. Pimpernel followed her mother with tray holding a plate of cheeses, a bowl of assorted pickles (Paladin especially liked the onions, sharp and brown from their vinegar bath and crisp between the teeth) and a basket of savoury biscuits.

Pimpernel put down her load upon the large side-table, where Paladin might roll out a map of the farm of a blustery winter day, and begin to plan the seeding of the spring crops. Eglantine, pouring out, sent Pimpernel back to the kitchen to take charge of the washing up. She deftly served the guests, and then her husband, and then taking her own cup, she settled in her own cosy chair, out of the way, but well within Paladin’s line of sight, should he wish to consult with a thoughtful frown, a raised eyebrow, a tilt of the jaw.

‘Well, now, Adel, what brings you out to the farm?’ Paladin said at last, when all were satisfactorily settled. ‘Had you but sent a messenger, I’d’ve come to you, and saved you the journey.’

It was not all that far from Whitwell to Tuckborough and the Great Smials, but for a hobbit of more than ninety, in ailing health, it testified to the seriousness of the matter that Adelard had come from the comforts of his abode.

‘Is the door...?’ Adelard said, winking towards the hallway, and Regi assured his father that it was securely closed. ‘Very well. Dinny-my-lad, it seems that we have a bit of a problem.’

‘A problem,’ Paladin said, leaning forward in his chair. His brow cleared. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the Chubbs... could you not provide them with a list of potential buyers for their farm?’

‘It’s the list of buyers that’s the problem,’ Adelard said. ‘Ah, yes, there are Tooks enough in the Tookland, I’ll warrant, but it’s t’others that I find worrying.’

‘Others?’ Paladin said into the pause that followed, while Regi shifted uneasily on his chair.

‘They’re not Tooks, y’see,’ Adelard said.

‘Not Tooks,’ Regi echoed with a decided nod.

‘Not Tooks,’ Paladin said in puzzled agreement. ‘Go on.’

‘Nor are they Tooklanders, so far as I can make out,’ Adelard went on. ‘Regi tells me they don’t dress quite the same, and they don’t speak like someone who’s lived in the Tookland all of his life. Outlanders, they are, some from as far as the South Farthing.’

‘I don’t like the sounds of that,’ Paladin said, his brows beetling.

‘And worse,’ Adelard said. ‘They’re not just after Chubbs’ farm, but others as well. Chubbses aren’t the first to have come to me, but then,’ and he nodded with a gratified look, ‘Tooks and Tooklanders know their duty.’

‘And worse,’ Regi prompted his father.

‘O aye, and worse,’ Adelard said, picking up the thread of his thought. ‘Some have offered better than the going rate for land, they have, though most have tried to talk down the price, get Tookish land at a bad bargain price.’

Paladin nodded, pursing his lips. He was reminded of something, or someone, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

‘And not just farms,’ Regi said.

‘Aye, not just farms, either,’ Adelard went on, ‘but malthouses and a mill besides, not to mention the old Twining Ivy Inn...’

‘What, not the one on the Pincup road?’ Paladin exclaimed. He’d stayed there upon a time, on his way to visit a cousin who was a tree-farmer down that way, to learn something in the way of forest management for his own copses, and the woods covering parts of the Tookland.

‘Do you know of any other Twining Ivy?’ Adelard demanded.

Paladin allowed as he didn’t, save that which twined around the lampposts in Whitwell, adding a touch of year-round green to the whitewashed buildings and stone walls in the little community, fresh and cheerful even in the grays of winter when the gardens slept.

‘But of course they know better than to sell to Outlanders,’ Adelard said. ‘We don’t need any of their sort coming into the Tookland to stay, with their odd ways and foreign speech and all.’ Of course, to a staunch Took like Adelard, the hobbits of Bywater were practically foreigners, and their speech fell harsh upon the ears compared to the lilting tones of the Tooks.

‘I’m glad of that,’ Paladin said. ‘Still, we can use the Talk to our advantage.’

‘How’s that?’ Adelard asked.

Paladin exchanged glances with Eglantine, who nodded agreement. There had been talk in the marketplace about how Lotho Sackville-Baggins had bought Sandyman’s mill, about the same time he'd bought Bag End (the sale of Bag End was Shire-wide news, considering who its former owner had been), and that he’d been buying tracts of land in the South Farthing, mostly leaf-plantations to start, but he’d been buying more, of late. He’d made one attempt to buy Tookish land, at least one that had come to Paladin’s ears...

Now the good farmer wondered if any of these outlandish buyers might be working for Lotho? He shook his head for being too fanciful... but that one would bear watching. Imagine the boost that one’s already inflated opinion of himself must have received, when Frodo at last wore down under Lobelia’s niggling and sold Bag End.

Eglantine’s eyes were narrowed, he noticed, and he gave her a questioning look. She primmed her mouth in a polite grimace. Evidently she was as bothered, or more so, as himself by this turn of events.

‘We can use the Talk,’ Paladin repeated at last, ‘to stir up indignation against those who are trying to come into the Tookland from the Outside without a by-your-leave.’ Why, in the past, hobbits wanting to become Tooklanders had been perfectly contented to hire themselves on at a farm or workshop, board or rent a living place, sort of work their way until they became just one of the neighbours... none of this pushing in without being willing to earn their welcome.

Certainly incomers were welcome to purchase property in the Tookland... after having lived there for twenty years or more. Preferably more.

‘Yes,’ Eglantine said with a tight smile, that relaxed and became more genuine as she turned over the idea in her mind. Gossip spread faster than puff-penny seeds on a windy day. ‘It’ll be a way to warn folk against those with no good intentions, who are offering perhaps too much money for some dark reason of their own.’

Everyone nodded. Too much money might be thought a good thing, but just see where Bilbo’s fabled treasure had got him.