next stroke must wait until morning. Then we must call on the Chief.’
‘Why not now?’ said Sam. ‘It’s not much more than six o’clock. And I want to see my gaffer. D’you know what’s come of him, Mr. Cotton?’
‘He’s not too well, and not too bad, Sam,’ said the farmer. ‘They dug up Bagshot Row, and that was a sad blow to him. He’s in one of them new houses that the Chief’s Men used to build while they still did any work other than burning and thieving: not above a mile from the end of Bywater. But he comes around to me, when he gets a chance, and I see he’s better fed than some of the poor bodies. All against The Rules, of course. I’d have had him with me, but that wasn’t allowed.’
‘Thank’ee indeed, Mr. Cotton, and I’ll never forget it,’ said Sam. ‘But I want to see him. That Boss and that Sharkey, as they spoke of, they might do a mischief up there before the morning.’
‘All right, Sam,’ said Cotton. ‘Choose a lad or two, and go and fetch him to my house. You’ll not have need to go near the old Hobbiton village over Water. My Jolly here will show you.’
Sam went off. Merry arranged for look-outs round the village and guards at the barriers during the night. Then he and Frodo went off with Farmer Cotton. They sat with the family in the warm kitchen, and the Cottons asked a few polite questions about their travels, but hardly listened to the answers: they were far more concerned with events in the Shire.
‘It all began with Pimple, as we call him,’ said Farmer Cotton; ‘and it began as soon as you’d gone off, Mr. Frodo. He’d funny ideas, had Pimple. Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about. It soon came out that he already did own a sight more than was good for him; and he was always grabbing more, though where he got the money was a mystery: mills and malt-houses and inns, and farms, and leaf-plantations. He’d already bought Sandyman’s mill before he came to Bag End, seemingly.
‘Of course he started with a lot of property in the Southfarthing which he had from his dad; and it seems he’d been selling a lot o’ the best leaf, and sending it away quietly for a year or two. But at the end o’ last year he began sending away loads of stuff, not only leaf. Things began to get short, and winter coming on, too. Folk got angry, but he had his answer. A lot of Men, ruffians mostly, came with great waggons, some to carry off the goods south-away, and others to stay. And more came. And before we knew where we were they were planted here and there all over the Shire, and were felling trees and digging and building themselves sheds and houses just as they liked. At first goods and damage was paid for by Pimple; but soon they began lording it around and taking what they wanted.
‘Then there was a bit of trouble, but not enough. Old Will the Mayor set off for Bag End to protest, but he never got there. Ruffians laid hands on him and took and locked him up in a hole in Michel Delving, and there he is now. And after that, it would be soon after New Year, there wasn’t no more Mayor, and Pimple called himself Chief Shirriff, or just Chief, and did as he liked; and if anyone got “uppish” as they called it, they followed Will. So things went from bad to worse. There wasn’t no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn’t hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit of one’s own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up “for fair distribution”: which meant they got it and we didn’t, except for the leavings which you could have at the Shirriff-houses, if you could stomach them. All very bad. But since Sharkey came it’s been plain ruination.’
‘Who is this Sharkey?’ said Merry. ‘I heard one of the ruffians speak of him.’
‘The biggest ruffian o’ the lot, seemingly,’ answered Cotton. ‘It was about last harvest, end o’ September maybe, that we first heard of him. We’ve never seen him, but he’s up at Bag End; and he’s the real Chief