Chapter 6. Just Before Elevenses: Bag End; Between Michel Delving and Bywater

Rose pushed away from the washtub to wipe her glowing face. It would be a fine day for drying wash, very warm and breezy, but it was a hot day to be working. She hoped Samwise would not overdo, what with the wedding preparations yet to be done. Scraps of song came from the Party Field where sweating hobbits were erecting large pavilions. They would be needed more for shade than a precaution in the event of rain!

A pleasant baritone started a new song and Rose smiled as she recognised a Tookish hunting song. The Thain had sent a good many Tooks to help with preparations, and a good thing it was, too, what with half the Shire expected to attend the celebration. More voices joined and soon it sounded as if a full chorus laboured upon the Party Field.

Rose wiped again at her brow and raised her voice. ‘Goldi!’ she called. ‘We’ve got a load ready to go on the lines!’ She smiled at Primrose who was working the wringer. ‘It’s nearly time for elevenses. Do you think Ruby needs help in the kitchen?’

The pretty tween laughed. ‘I think she has plenty of help. She said she was going to roll out biscuits and I’m sure Robin and Tolman will do anything to be allowed to test the first to come out of the oven.’

The two oldest Gamgee girls still at home came laughing to swoop up the baskets of clean, wrung-out sheets for the guest beds. ‘I’ll race you!’ Goldi cried.

 ‘What’ll you give me if I win?’ Daisy answered.

 ‘The second piece of my wedding cake,’ Goldi said saucily.

 ‘Who gets the first piece?’

 ‘Girls,’ Rose warned. ‘Don’t be careless and dump all the clean sheets on the grass!’

 ‘We won’t, Mama,’ they chorused and bore their baskets out to the lines.

Rose pushed her curls back and smiled at Primrose. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘shall we get another load done before elevenses?’

 ‘Tablecloths, I think,’ Primrose answered. ‘They’ll go quickly; just wash, rinse, wring and hang and we’re ready to have a rest. That’ll give the wash water time to cool a bit before we start washing coloured things.’

 ‘O yes,’ Rose said, raising eloquent eyebrows. ‘It wouldn’t do to try to stir your father’s and brothers’ clothes in boiling-hot water as someone did once...’

Primrose burst out laughing, but she managed to dump the tablecloths into the steaming water. Rose stirred them in the hot, soapy water with the wooden paddle, saying, ‘They’re not all that dirty, after all, just a bit dusty from sitting since...’

She suddenly felt dizzy, unsure of her footing, and wondered if she’d overdone in the heat. The water in the tubs was sloshing without benefit of stirring paddle. Alarmed shouts were heard in yard and smial and Party Field, mingled with a rumbling sound reminiscent of summer thunder. ‘Mother, get back!’ Primrose cried as the hot water slopped over the sides, but even as Rose let go the paddle the table swayed and the steaming tubs shifted. The sound of smashing crockery came from the kitchen, along with a scream from Ruby.

Though the ground was tilting and moving beneath them, Primrose managed to grab at her mother’s arm, pulling her away from the tubs as they upset, the scalding water cascading where Rose had been standing bare seconds before. As it was the water splashed their feet and lower legs, even as the lean-to roof of the washing shed buckled and the fire beneath the kettles was set free of its bounds.

***

Elfstan proudly held the reins as his father climbed down and walked to the head of the offside lead pony.

 ‘Here’s the trouble!’ Fastred called. ‘There’s a loose strap! Someone was a bit hasty in their harnessing this morning.’ He remedied the problem and slipped his hand between bridle and pony’s cheek to check the fit. At that moment the pony threw up its head and then reared up with a piercing cry. ‘Whoa laddie,’ Fastred said as soothingly as he could, what with his arm being sharply jerked upwards. In the next second all four ponies were rearing and plunging in the traces, whistling their terror as the ground moved beneath them. It was all Fastred could do to keep his feet.

He was half-expecting what happened next; he shouted, ‘Hold fast!’ to Elfstan even as the ponies decided that discretion was the better part of valour and they’d be better off running from danger than standing still to endure whatever was happening. ‘Don’t let go!’ he added at the top of his voice, pulling his hand free of the bridle and grabbing at the lead pony’s mane just as the maddened beasts plunged into a gallop.

Fastred used their momentum to bounce himself onto the offside lead-pony’s back. He could hear shrieks from inside the coach as they careened down the hill, but all his attention was on keeping the ponies on the Road. Should the coach overturn at this speed...

They reached the bottom of the hill without upset and the ponies stretched out, running along the flat at their top speed. Fastred blessed Mayor Sam’s diligent attention to keeping the Great East-West Road in good repair; there were no great lumps of boulders or holes to avoid, nothing to break an axle, upset the coach or lame a pony. He leaned forward, crooning to the lead ponies, grabbing hold of the lines and exerting a steady pull. The rough, jerky, panicked run was settling into a steady coordinated gallop, well matched as the ponies were.

As they started up the next slope, Fastred shouted, ‘Brake!’ and increased his pull on the lines, which somehow Elfstan was managing to keep taut. With relief he felt the brake take hold, exerting its own backwards pull on the ponies; he hadn’t been sure Elfstan was large or strong enough to engage the brake. ‘Steady now,’ he soothed. The laid-back ears twitched as he continued to talk to the lead ponies. ‘Whoa now, steady.’

The increasing slope, the pull on the lines, the hampering brake all served to slow the ponies’ pace. Halfway up the hill they were cantering, not far beyond that they fell into a trot, and as they reached the top they slowed to a walk. With a last ‘Whoa’ Fastred brought them to a stop, shuddering, dripping foam, eyes rolling and heads tossing, but a stop it was.

For the first time he looked behind him and saw Leotred on the box beside Elfstan, standing on the brake while he hauled back on the lines. How his brother had climbed from inside the coach to the driver’s seat in the midst of the emergency, Fastred did not even want to imagine.

Fastred soothed and patted until the lead ponies’ shudders subsided to trembling, then he slid from the offside lead’s back. ‘Steady now,’ he said for a last time.

 ‘That was interesting!’ Leot called from the box. ‘Should we go at that pace all the way to Hobbiton we’d arrive before we left, I warrant.’ Maintaining his firm grip on the reins, he leaned over to call into the coach. ‘Everyone all right in there?’

 ‘All well!’ Eleanor called back. ‘Rose says you’ll have to try a bit harder if you want the babe born this day.’

 ‘We’ll shake that babe loose yet, mark my words!’ Leot returned.

 ‘Not until after the wedding!’ Rose was heard to shout, and Fastred grinned in relief. He patted the lead ponies again and walked back to the coach, opening the door to look in. The ladies were pale, the children were flushed with excitement, and the babe had slept through the whole affair. It figured. Their littlest had his days and nights mixed up as it was; up half the night wanting to eat or play made him sleepy enough during the day to sleep through anything, even...

 ‘Was that an earth tremor?’ Fastred asked slowly.

 ‘A tremor,’ Leot said thoughtfully. ‘That would explain things quite nicely, I’d say.’ To his nephew he added, ‘Well Elfstan, you’ve lived through a bit of history. There’s not been an earth shake in the Shire in an Elf’s age.’

 ‘Not quite that long,’ Fastred said. ‘I think the last was back a year or two before they began to delve the Great Smials.’

 ‘Long enough,’ Leot said. ‘Let’s hope it’s just as long before the Shire has another.’

 ‘Once is decidedly enough for me,’ Fastred agreed.

 ‘All this talk is getting us no closer to Bag End!’ Rosie snapped from inside the coach. ‘If nothing’s wrong with ponies or coach, let us be on our way.’

 ‘Of course, my dear,’ Leotred said in his most soothing tone. ‘Fas, why don’t you ride inside a bit, have a bite to eat. I’ll drive awhile.’

 ‘Thanks,’ Fas said. He felt rather drained, and a bite to eat might just be what he needed. ‘Elfstan? Do you want to ride inside?’

 ‘Can’t I stay up top awhile longer?’ Elfstan pleaded.

 ‘It’s up to your Uncle Leot,’ Fastred said.

 ‘I don’t know what I’d do without my assistant,’ Leotred said proudly, clapping the lad on the shoulder. ‘He held fast, just like you told him to, long enough for me to climb up and take the lines. Had he lost hold of the lines I wager the ponies would be running still.’

 ‘That’s a sure thing,’ Fastred said. ‘If we didn’t come a cropper we’d be pulling in to Bywater by now.’ He grinned and nodded Good job! at his eldest son and Elfstan grinned back. Surely the rest of the day would be uneventful. How could anything top the excitement they’d just lived through?