return

1312 the return of the king
our rights, they drag him off to the Lockholes. They took
old Flourdumpling, old Will Whitfoot the Mayor, first, and
they’ve taken a lot more. Lately it’s been getting worse. Often
they beat ’em now.’
‘Then why do you do their work for them?’ said Sam
angrily. ‘Who sent you to Frogmorton?’
‘No one did. We stay here in the big Shirriff-house. We’re
the First Eastfarthing Troop now. There’s hundreds of Shirriffs
all told, and they want more, with all these new rules.
Most of them are in it against their will, but not all. Even in
the Shire there are some as like minding other folk’s business
and talking big. And there’s worse than that: there’s a few as
do spy-work for the Chief and his Men.’
‘Ah! So that’s how you had news of us, is it?’
‘That’s right. We aren’t allowed to send by it now, but they
use the old Quick Post service, and keep special runners at
different points. One came in from Whitfurrows last night
with a ‘‘secret message’’, and another took it on from here.
And a message came back this afternoon saying you was to
be arrested and taken to Bywater, not direct to the Lockholes.
The Chief wants to see you at once, evidently.’
‘He won’t be so eager when Mr. Frodo has finished with
him,’ said Sam.
The Shirriff-house at Frogmorton was as bad as the
Bridge-house. It had only one storey, but it had the same
narrow windows, and it was built of ugly pale bricks, badly
laid. Inside it was damp and cheerless, and supper was served
on a long bare table that had not been scrubbed for weeks.
The food deserved no better setting. The travellers were glad
to leave the place. It was about eighteen miles to Bywater,
and they set off at ten o’clock in the morning. They would
have started earlier, only the delay so plainly annoyed the
Shirriff-leader. The west wind had shifted northward and it
was turning colder, but the rain was gone.
It was rather a comic cavalcade that left the village, though
the few folk that came out to stare at the ‘get-up’ of the