Chapter 4 - A Small Discovery

22 Rethe

Sam slipped out of Number Three, Bagshot Row, an hour before sunrise to find the world enshrouded in a dense fog. He drew his jacket tighter around him and made his way up to Bag End, determined to catch up on his work from the day before. He labored steadily all morning, barely noticing when the sun rose to scatter the mist away. He was only grateful for the chill air that helped keep him cool as he went from one task to another with hardly a break to eat a bite or two of the breakfast he brought with him.

By luncheon, Sam had reached the halfway point with the trimming and was just settling down to a proper meal when something caught the corner of his eye. There was movement by the road. He turned his head and felt his heart take a leap and his breath catch in his chest, for standing down on the road, peering at him over the hedges, was none other than Rosie Cotton. She waved heartily, but she had a strange expression on her face that Sam couldn’t quite read. He waved back and beckoned her into the garden.

She entered the gate and strolled up slowly to where Sam was standing, looking around her with rapt attention as she went. She was a regular visitor on Bagshot Row, but she rarely came up to Bag End. Sam realized with a start that it must have been a good two or three years since she last saw the garden, and that had been after some heavy rains when the garden had been in a very sad state indeed and not much to look upon.

“Good day, Sam,” she greeted as she approached him and shyly pecked his cheek. She turned her attention back to the garden and examined it with questing eyes. “The garden is absolutely lovely,” she said, a note of pride in her voice. “The most famous garden in Hobbiton, and all because of my Sam,” she finished, shy again. She was still getting used to saying ‘my Sam’ out loud.

Sam was still getting used to hearing it. He felt his face grow hot with blushing. “Oh, it ain’t all because of me.”

“Oh really? Then I suppose you’re meaning to say that there’s another gardener round here, working the flowerbeds?” asked Rosie. “Why have you never introduced us? I know you’ve more hobbit sense than that,” she said with mock reproach, slipping into the teasing banter that had defined their relationship for so many years. “Well, I’ll just have to find him on my own.” She raised her voice in a singsong manner and called, “Oh Master Gardener, where are you? Do show yourself. I want to congratulate you on your garden.”

The awkward silence now broken, Sam shook his head with a modest smile. “Now you know that isn’t what I meant,” Sam said. “I just meant, it’s only well-known as it’s at Bag End. Anywhere else and no one would pay it any mind.”

Rosie shook her head, clearly disagreeing. “Sam, you know well enough you’re the best gardener in the Shire, and folk know it well enough also, Bag End or no.” Then she seemed to remember something, as her expression changed to the confused look she had worn when she first arrived. “Although, I don’t think that warrants you the permission to go in and out of Bag End as you please. It’s not my place, but I know Hamfast brought you up better than that.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if Mr. Baggins asked you to air out the smial while he’s away, that’s all well enough, but you shouldn’t be leaving the door wide open. It’d be better to open the windows.” She frowned as if he had lost all common sense.

Sam shook his head. “But I haven’t entered Mr. Frodo’s home at all…” His voice trailed off as the full meaning of her words dawned on him, and without another thought, he trotted off to the front door which was standing wide open yet again, as reported.

“Now this is just getting ridiculous,” he said, irritated and annoyed.

Rosie came up behind him and looked from him to the door, a look of utter bafflement on her lovely face. Sam told her briefly about coming to work earlier that week and finding the door open. “But I fixed it,” he muttered as he checked the latch. There was nothing wrong with it at all. He shook his head. This didn’t make any sense. He stared hard at the latch, as if that alone would make it behave as it ought.

It was as he was standing in the doorway, between Rosie and the smial, that he suddenly felt a cold shiver run up his spine that was not from the coldness of the weather. Sam couldn’t rightly explain it, but he felt dreadful all of a sudden, as if something, or someone, was looking right at him. Sam turned around in all directions, checking the surroundings, finding only Rosie, still standing there every bit as confused as he was. He felt the chill again, this time clutching at his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He turned slightly and looked into the darkened smial.

There was something in there.

He shook his head then, trying to shake off the feeling. What a ridiculous notion. If his father heard of this, Sam knew exactly what he would say – too much time spent listening to silly tales as a lad, instead of working as was proper a hobbit of his station. Sam stepped out of the threshold and turned to Rosie.

“I guess I’ll just have to get someone out here to replace the latch,” he said. He closed the door and walked with Rosie back to his luncheon under the elm.

They sat for a while and ate. Rosie had brought a proper luncheon of ham and cheese sandwiches, apple sauce, sliced pears, sweet strawberries and blessedly warm tea. It turned out that she was on her way to see Marigold, to give her friend some much needed consolation for the wedding dresses, but she had made the detour to visit with Sam for a few moments.

They had only been courting for a few months now, and unofficially at that, since Rosie wouldn’t be allowed to court until she came of age. For Sam, just over a year from his own coming of age, the next five years stretching out before him seemed torturously long. The fact that they never had time to themselves, to relax into the new direction their relationship was taking, away from the prying eyes of overprotective brothers and parents, made that wait seem even longer. Quiet moments such as this were rare and they lingered over it as much as they dared.

“The weather’s been strange lately hasn’t it?” Sam asked with a nod to the sky. “Gaffer’s joints have been aching him all week. I hoped it might be warming up after yesterday, but now it’s chill again.”

“It was feeling a bit like summer,” Rosie agreed, “but I wouldn’t mind a bit more rain. I do love a good rainfall, curled up in front of the fire, telling stories with my brothers.”

“Aye,” Sam said with a smile. “You can’t beat that. Though my brothers and sisters always seemed more interested in telling me how to act proper and not read out of my books. ‘Just tell the old tales that we already know,’ they’d say. Except Goldie. She likes Mr. Bilbo’s tales as much as I do and would always egg me on and get me into trouble.”

Rosie laughed, knowing too well that Sam’s idea of ‘trouble’ was Hamfast looking at him cross. They talked easily after that, finishing the remaining tidbits of the meal as they reminisced on childhood memories. Finally, Rosie had to leave and it seemed to Sam that she had forgotten about the door. Sam had not.

He walked her to the road with promises to see her at supper tomorrow and waited until she turned the bend round the Hill before he approached the door to Bag End again. Not bothering to turn the knob, he simply pushed on the door and it opened without resistance. The darkness inside leaked out to greet him. He shivered again and stepped hesitantly inside.

“Now, you’re just being silly, Sam Gamgee,” he muttered to himself. “Letting your imagination run away with you again.”

He stood in the entrance hall, unsure of what to do and feeling quite bold and scandalous to be standing in his master’s home without him being there to allow him inside.

“It’s just the door acting up,” he continued his chiding. “No need for you to go poking round in your master’s home without leave.”

Yet he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something lay in wait inside and the problem with the door went beyond a faulty latch. He listened intently to his surroundings but heard nothing.

The smial was quiet, as was almost always the case even when Mr. Frodo was there to make the little bit of noise that he did. The quiet had always been one of Sam’s most favorite things about Bag End; it was calm, soothing and inviting in an odd sort of way. It allowed one to think and be still. It let you just breathe, easy and content to do nothing more than relax and read a good book. It was a constant companion in its own way, as if built into the very fabric of the smial itself.

The silence that surrounded him now was of a much different nature and not at all fitting. There was something here, he just knew it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and the walls seemed to close in around him, as if trying to push him down into the floor. No, this silence was cold and uncaring, and it needed looking into.

So, even though he knew his father would lay into him if he ever found out what he was doing, and even though he had no clear notion of what he should be looking for, Sam started his way through the hole. He went through every single room, taking much time and care with his investigation. He looked in all the corners, under all the tables, behind every curtain. He disturbed nothing, but left no inch of the hole unchecked.

He passed through the parlor, then the kitchen and the pantries. He went down to the cellar, a likely place for an intruder to hide (though who had ever heard of an intruder in the Shire) and checked every inch of the stores, high and low. He went through the dining room, into the smaller second parlor. He went slowly and quietly, his ears perked for even the slightest sound that might reach his ears. He continued on into the bath, the major wardrobe rooms and then the many guest rooms, where he checked the wardrobes and under the beds. In every room, the exact same thing was to be found – nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary leastways. And yet…

Sam came at last to the master bedchamber. Mr. Frodo’s room. He reached for the doorknob and hesitated. True, he had already been through nearly every single corner and curve of the hole, including the study, which Mr. Frodo coveted above all, but to enter the master’s bedchamber, his most private room, with the purpose of inspecting every last inch of it?

‘No, this is all wrong,’ Sam thought, shaking his head in shame. He was being silly and needed to get out of there. ‘What am I doing in here, poking around like it is my right? I should just get the door fixed and mention its odd behavior to Mr. Frodo when he returns next week and leave it at that.’ He nodded his head. Yes, that was the best thing to do.

Sam turned away from the room and headed back toward the front door, shuffling his feet in his hurry to get outside where he belonged. He reached the front of the tunnel and was nearing the entrance hall when his toe hit something on the floor by the sitting bench. He heard it slide and hit the wall with a soft clink. “Now what could that be?” he murmured as he stooped down to see what he had stumbled upon.

A ring.

A small, plain gold ring.

“Now that’s odd. What are you doing on the floor in the middle of the tunnel?” he asked, confused by its presence.

Try as he might, he could not recall seeing Mr. Frodo, or even old Mr. Bilbo for that matter, ever wearing such a ring. In fact, he had never seen either one of them wear any kind of jewelry at all, and yet it must belong to one of them, for why else would it be there? Indeed, why was it there, lying abandoned on the floor? He shook his head, trying to sort out the mystery with half the puzzle missing.

Then something occurred to him. The answer seemed to pop into his head out of nowhere, as if something or someone had whispered it to him.

“You must have been lying here since Mr. Frodo left,” Sam said anxiously. It did look quite small and lonely lying there on the floor like that. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to leave you,” he said reassuringly.

‘Wait. What am I doing, talking to a ring!’

Sam groaned at his own stupidity and stood up. He was getting sillier by the minute and he had been away from his tasks in the garden for far too long. At this rate, he was never going to catch up with his chores.

Whatever the reason for that ring being there, it couldn’t very well stay there. No doubt Mr. Frodo would be missing it by now. Sam could only imagine it had dropped out of his bags or his pocket just before he left on his journey. Perhaps he had meant it as a gift for Mr. Merry.

‘Yes,’ Sam nodded, ‘that must be it.’

Well, it wouldn’t do to leave it there under the bench. Sam would just have to put it in some likely place where his master would be bound to find it. But where? The answer came immediately – his study, of course. Sam bent down and picked up the ring, surprised by its heavy weight and unseemly frigid coldness. He found that he dreaded to touch the thing, which surprised him even further. Imagine, feeling dread over a little ring!

He trotted off to the study and hastily placed the ring on Mr. Frodo’s desk, right next to his quills and ink. His master couldn’t possibly miss it there. Satisfied, Sam left hurriedly. The sooner he got away from that thing, the better he would feel.

Sam went outside and breathed the fresh, cool air deeply, relieved beyond any reasonable explanation to be back outside. He closed the door and tried to think of someone who could come and fix it as he headed back to his chores. He worked quickly and did manage to at least get the trimming done, but only just. The night was already faded to black and the fog was well upon the Shire by the time he headed to his home down the Row.  

His father and sisters were waiting for him patiently. His sisters were confused by his late arrival considering he had left so early that morning. Hamfast was gravely mulling over something in his head but whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself for the moment: he was hungry and wanted to eat. Anything else could wait until after supper. The meal passed quietly, and Sam was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the quick, perplexed glances cast in his direction.

‘What had that ring been doing there?’ Sam mused. ‘It clearly has some value. So why would Mr. Frodo just let it drop? No wonder it kept opening the door. … Now that was just a silly thought. What would make me think of that?’

Sam puzzled over these and other thoughts throughout supper, not saying much, even when spoken to. Hamfast seemed keen on cutting his meat, but by the tone of his voice when he asked his son to pass the peas, Sam knew he would get a talking to yet for his tardiness. Sure enough, after supper had ended and the dishes were cleaned and put away, Hamfast headed to his favorite chair in the parlor, lit up his pipe, and pointedly asked his daughters to clear out and Sam to stay.

Hamfast watched his son closely. Sam sat as still as he could, trying not to fidget too much and give himself away. After all, his father couldn’t possibly know what Sam had been doing. He just wanted to know why Sam was late from work when he had gone up early, or so Sam thought.

“I saw Rosie this afternoon as you might know,” Hamfast began casually, but Sam heard the note of warning and sternness in his voice.

Hamfast waited to gauge his son’s reaction. Sam simply nodded, holding his breath, and hoping his face didn’t look as guilty as he felt.

“She said there was a problem with the door up at Bag End and you were at a loss of what to do with it.”

Sam nodded again and felt his face flush. He still wasn’t necessarily in trouble, he thought hopefully. Maybe this sort of thing has happened before and his father knew how to fix it.

“So I thought I’d go up and see if I could be of any help.”

Well, that was it then. Caught in the act and no mistake. Sam let out his breath in a defeated sigh and waited. Just because he was a year off from his coming-of-age and could really no longer be considered a child, Sam knew that was not going to stop his father from letting into him. He had done wrong and he knew it, no matter what his intentions may have been.

Hamfast puffed on his pipe thoughtfully as he looked at Sam with hard eyes. “I guess you can imagine what I found when I got there?” he said. “The door wide open, and you nowhere to be found. You know better to leave your post in the middle of a workday, Samwise. Where were you?”

“I was looking at the door and thought I heard or saw something inside,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t have to offer more of an explanation than that.

“And so you thought it proper to go in and investigate, is that it? Did Mr. Baggins ask you to see to the hole while he was gone?”

“No sir,” Sam said, “but the door was open. Someone could have gone in,” he tried in vain to defend his actions.

“Samwise, don’t be such a ninnyhammer,” Hamfast said sharply. “There has never been any report of intruders in Hobbiton and there never will be – until today that is.” Sam cringed at this and hung his head in shame. “It was the wind that went and blew the door open, and it seems natural as it would blow around all the papers and whatnot Mr. Baggins has got in there as well. That’s all you heard or saw.”

“Yes sir,” Sam mumbled, knowing any further attempts to justify his errant actions would be fruitless. It was just as well, for like as not his father was right, and it had been nothing more than his imagination making him think there was anything else there.

“I waited for near on an hour Samwise. I want to know what all you were getting up to in there.” Sam told him briefly about checking Bag End top to bottom for signs of trouble. “And you found nothing amiss, I take it,” Hamfast said.

Sam nodded, feeling miserable. The look of disappointment on his father’s face was enough to nearly do him in, and he was yet to be lectured.

Hamfast settled back in his chair, and took another puff of his pipe. “You’re going to have to tell Mr. Baggins what you’ve been up to, and you’ll take any punishment as he sees fit to give you. I won’t have a sneak for a son.”

“Yes sir.”

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times – just because Mr. Baggins treats you kindly is not an invitation to make a nuisance of yourself. You’re not his equal or his friend. You’re his gardener, and out in the garden is the only place you belong without his say so. Quite frankly, you don’t even belong in the garden without his say so either. It’s far past the time you learned your place, boy.”

“Yes sir.”

“There are boundaries, Sam, and you keep crossing them. Would you have done that with Mistress Lobelia? Or Mr. Ponto? Or Mr. Porto? Well, would you have?”

“No sir.”

“I should hope not. Remember that next time you think about crossing your boundaries up at Bag End.”

Hamfast dismissed his son then and Sam gratefully fled to his room, where he found his sisters waiting anxiously. They must have heard the whole conversation, or at least Gaffer’s side of it.

“Did you really go into Bag End, Sam?” May said, her hands on her hips with a frown in her eyes, so much like Daisy always used to when Sam was but a child. Sam was feeling bad enough as it was without May gaining up on him.

She seemed to sense this and softened her tone. “Don’t worry on Dad none. You know how set in his ways he can be. Do you really think Mr. Baggins will be angry?”

Marigold seemed worried, but she shook her head. “I think he’ll understand. He’s not so narrow-sighted as Daddy is,” she reassured.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, “and I’d rather not think on it just yet. If you don’t mind, I would like to be alone.” He was close to pleading in his desperation for some silence in which to sit and mope.

His sisters took their leave, giving their brother a last glance of support as they closed the door gently behind them. Sam lay back on his bed, kicking himself for his foolish behavior. His father was right of course, and though he was sure Marigold was right about Mr. Frodo understanding his motives, he wasn’t looking forward to having to explain himself.

He lay awake for a long while, feeling sorry for himself and worrying about the week to come.  His master would be back on the Sunday following. Because of Sam, the garden was still almost half a day behind in its tending. Most likely Mr. Frodo wouldn’t notice, but Sam was determined to fix it up proper before his return.

To be continued…