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the scouring of the shire 1309
and on every wall there was a notice and a list of Rules.
Pippin tore them down. There was no beer and very little
food, but with what the travellers brought and shared out
they all made a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting
most of next day’s allowance of wood on the fire.
‘Well now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has
been happening in the Shire?’ he said.
‘There isn’t no pipe-weed now,’ said Hob; ‘at least only
for the Chief ’s men. All the stocks seem to have gone. We
do hear that waggon-loads of it went away down the old road
out of the Southfarthing, over Sarn Ford way. That would
be the end o’ last year, after you left. But it had been going
away quietly before that, in a small way. That Lotho——’
‘Now you shut up, Hob Hayward!’ cried several of the
others. ‘You know talk o’ that sort isn’t allowed. The Chief
will hear of it, and we’ll all be in trouble.’
‘He wouldn’t hear naught, if some of you here weren’t
sneaks,’ rejoined Hob hotly.
‘All right, all right!’ said Sam. ‘That’s quite enough. I don’t
want to hear no more. No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and
a lot of rules and orc-talk instead. I hoped to have a rest, but
I can see there’s work and trouble ahead. Let’s sleep and
forget it till morning!’
The new ‘Chief ’ evidently had means of getting news. It
was a good forty miles from the Bridge to Bag End, but
someone made the journey in a hurry. So Frodo and his
friends soon discovered.
They had not made any definite plans, but had vaguely
thought of going down to Crickhollow together first, and
resting there a bit. But now, seeing what things were like,
they decided to go straight to Hobbiton. So the next day they
set out along the Road and jogged along steadily. The wind
had dropped but the sky was grey. The land looked rather
sad and forlorn; but it was after all the first of November and
the fag-end of autumn. Still there seemed an unusual amount
of burning going on, and smoke rose from many points round