Chapter 9. Family Matters

One morning the tween was feeding the chickens when the old healer called from the kitchen. ‘Sweetie! Sweetie!’

 ‘Coming!’ she called back, flinging the last handful wide and laughing to see the hens scatter to collect all the bounty before going back to pecking bugs out of the dirt.

She replaced the bucket on its hook, washed her hands, and danced into the smial, declaring, ‘It’s a delicious day—the Sun is smiling and there’s not a cloud to be seen! It’s the perfect day for a picnic!’

She stopped short to see Ted in the kitchen, holding up a bright dress against himself whilst his grandmother eyed him critically. Sweetbriar turned to her helper with a thoughtful look, though a twinkle was in her eye. ‘What d’you think, Sweetie?’ she said. ‘I don’t think it does a thing for the lad, really! What was his mum thinking, to sew such a thing and no daughter old enough to wear it!’

 ‘Well if it’s not suited we’ll have to find it a new home,’ Ted said practically, and then as if the idea had just occurred to him he added, brightening, ‘Say, Sweetie, perhaps you’d have a spare peg free to hang this on...?’

The tween blushed, looking down at the “new” dress she already wore. When she’d arrived with only her patched, worn dress to her name, Sweetbriar had said nothing about the lack of baggage. That first night back in the little smial Woodruff had slipped out of her old dress and hung it carefully from one of the pegs on the wall of her room—her very own room! (She’d slept in Rosie’s guestroom, banished to the byre whenever a guest came to stay.)

When she’d wakened the next day, her old dress was gone and two had taken its place, neither new but better than what she’d had. She’d heard later that they were contributed by townsfolk with tweens who’d heard of her arrival from the South Farthing, empty-handed, and her subsequent help with the birth at Whittacres Farm. Tooks must be the most gossipy hobbits in the Shire... but to her mind, they were also the kindest, save perhaps the Brandybucks she’d met at Whittacres Farm.

A new dress! She stood as if rooted to the spot. ‘For me?’ she said softly.

 ‘For you!’ Sweetbriar said, taking the dress from Ted and crossing to hold it up against Woodruff. ‘It looks to be a perfect fit,’ she added in satisfaction. ‘Every tween ought to have a new dress to dance in, after all, and there is to be dancing, and feasting, this day...’

 ‘Da says the Thain might even come, what with Paladin being directly descended from the Old Took, and now his son...’ Ted said. ‘Mum thought Sweetie ought to have a new frock for the occasion.’

 ‘Not that we want the Thain to take note of my new assistant!’ Sweetbriar said thoughtfully. ‘If he asks you to dance, lovie, just don’t tell him you’re my helper, will you dear? Tell him you’re my newly adopted grand, that’d be better.’

Woodruff nodded with a grin. Adopted! The word still had a sparkling newness, shining bright like the yellow flowers that sprinkled the spring-green dress. She was a “Took” now, whether or not she chose to keep the name “Bankstone”. For the first time in nearly a dozen years she relished the feeling of belonging. And she’d signed her own signature to the papers, using her left hand, and no one had lifted so much as an eyebrow (not to mention, a switch). 

 ‘Well, “cousin”,’ Ted said. ‘You had better try on that dress so that I may take a good report back to Mum!’

The dress fit Woodruff as if it had been made specially for her (as it had) and Ted took back the “good report” as well as the news that Sweetbriar and Woodruff were ready for the Naming Day celebration at Whittacres Farm. Difficult to believe that it was already a month-and-a-day since she’d arrived!

Ted’s father had borrowed a waggon—he rode a pony for his travels on the Thain’s behalf, and living in town the family had no need of waggon or coach—and Woodruff was invited to sit up on the driving bench with Ted’s mother and Sweetbriar whilst the rest of the family rode in the bed of the waggon.

They sang all the way to the farm, joining a procession of Tooks who’d come to celebrate the “official” arrival of Paladin’s son and heir. Tables were set up in the yard—good thing it was a sunny day!—and music of pipes and fiddle, flute and drum was already skirling as hobbits danced and twirled, bright ribbons flying.

Woodruff’s hair was done up with yellow and green ribbons to match her dress, that Sweetbriar just “happened” to find rolled up and stuck away in the linen press. ‘I wonder how long these have been languishing here?’ she’d said, after her first exclamation of surprise. Well, they hadn’t been there a few days ago when Woodruff had changed the bed linens...

Ted helped his younger brothers and sisters out of the waggon and then helped his grandmother and mother down. (Ted’s father had jumped down from his pony and disappeared after a quiet word to his oldest son.) He handed Woodruff down last, retaining his grasp on her hand. ‘A dance, perhaps, to start?’ he said, and then, ‘May I, Mum?’

 ‘Of course you may,’ his mother said. ‘Just keep an eye on Sweetie, will you? With the roses in her cheeks some young hobbit might decide it’s time to pluck a pretty bouquet, and I don’t think your gran is quite ready to let her go yet!’

 ‘I will lead her into the dance and keep an eye out for marriage proposals,’ Ted said solemnly, before leading Woodruff away.

 It was all nonsense, of course. Being bound as an apprentice, she couldn’t even think about marrying for nearly seven years, unless a prospective husband was also prosperous enough to pay off her contract. But she laughed and blushed further and threw herself into the dance with a heart as light as her feet.

It was a whirl of faces, old and young, familiar and new to her. At one point in the dance, as she passed from partner to partner, she found herself dancing with the young Brandybuck, arm freed from its sling, and a few moments later with his father, and then a procession of Tooks (including the Thain whom she recognised from his painted portrait on the parlour wall), a tween she didn’t know who was somewhat younger than herself but taller and fairer than most, the celebrated Bilbo Baggins (!) who laughed and called her “my dear”, and even Lotho Sackville-Baggins with his blotchy face.

She did wonder what the Sackville-Bagginses were doing at the party... but then, practically everyone in the Shire was related to everyone else, or so the saying went. Why, even she was related now, by adoption, to all these Tooks!

Not everyone danced. Quite a few sat down at tables, eating and drinking, or moved about chatting with one another, or clapped along in time with the music as they watched the dancers, as they waited for their first glimpse of the new Took, who’d make his appearance when the welcoming ceremony started.

Sweetbriar was sitting at a table exchanging gossip with a few other older Tooks when she paused in surprise. ‘Rosie?’ she said. ‘Rosie Bracegirdle?’ She hadn’t been aware that the old healer from the South Farthing knew the family.

Rosie cleared her throat. ‘I was travelling to Longbottom in the company of my cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses, you know.’

 ‘I know,’ Sweetbriar said politely.

 ‘Well, they stopped for the celebration, and they couldn’t very well leave me to wait at the gate, now could they? So they kindly invited me to accompany them... What a fine and festive occasion!’

 ‘Ah, yes,’ Sweetbriar said, and the conversation ought to have ended there. She wasn’t about to invite Rosie to sit down with them.

But Rosie hesitated, her put-on smile fading and a serious expression taking its place. ‘It’s quite convenient, finding you here,’ she said.

Sweetbriar didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Is it?’ she said, wary of what might follow.

 ‘It has been a month and a day since we finalised our agreement,’ Rosie went on, pushing ahead, obviously not relishing the task she had set for herself, but grimly determined to do what she perceived as her duty. She was ever one to do her duty, no matter how unpleasant.

 ‘It has,’ Sweetbriar said, her uneasiness sprung to full-bloom at the reminder. “Month-and-a-day” was a standard time of measure for Shire-folk in the purchase of durable goods. Even if Shire-folk were tempted to cheat on a bargain (and hobbits as a rule do not follow such practices), the “month-and-a-day” clause in most contracts allowed the terms of a contract to be reversed on or before the final day. This made for honest dealings on the parts of both parties to the contract, for the most part, and high quality of goods offered, unless neglect could be proven on the buyer’s side, leading to failure or breakage of what he’d purchased.

 ‘I find I was premature in offering you my dear lass,’ Rosie said, fishing her pocket-handkerchief from her sleeve to dab at her eyes. ‘I simply cannot do without her.’

Sweetbriar sat, mouth half-open in surprise, as she tried to think of a suitable rejoinder.

Rosie fished a jingling bag from under her shawl and plonked it on the table. ‘There you are,’ she said quickly, though she was slow to disengage her fingers from the top of the bag, reluctant to let the coins go. ‘All that you paid, and an additional ten percent, the penalty for breaking off our agreement.’

Sweetbriar was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘You cannot...’ she gasped.

 ‘Sweetbriar?’ Eusephonia Banks, from the next farm over, bent near in concern. ‘Sweetbriar, are you well?’ The obvious question would be “Shall I fetch a healer?” but for the fact that Sweetbriar was the healer!

Rosie smiled, a patently false smile, affecting sympathy. She patted Sweetbriar’s shoulder. ‘I quite apologise,’ she said. ‘I do wish it might have worked out otherwise.’ She turned and melted into the crowd, just as the call went up to stop the dance and gather for the welcoming ceremony.

Paladin came out of the smial, carrying little Peregrin, Eglantine by his side, and their three young daughters close at hand. They moved to stand before the crowd, and as all eyes turned to him, the farmer raised his voice to speak the traditional words.

'It has been a month and a day since this new hobbit graced the Shire with his presence,' he said, 'and we gather now to welcome him to the family and to write his name down, to be sent to the Great Smials to be written in the Book.' He shared a smile with Eglantine.

There was a soft murmur of "welcome", and then Ferdinand Took stepped forward, wife and children with him, bearing a bottle of wine. 'Welcome to the family,' he said. 'We give the gift of wine, that he may know joy.'

Adelard Took, steward to Thain Ferumbras, moved forward next, bearing a loaf of bread. 'Welcome to the family,' he repeated the greeting, and added, 'I bring bread, that he may never know hunger.'

Adelard’s sons Reginard and Everard came forward together each carrying a bowl of honeycomb. Evidently they’d recently raided a bee tree; in any event both bore fading evidence of an encounter with angered bees. ‘Welcome to the family, cousin,’ Reginard said, and Everard echoed the words, adding, ‘We bring honey, that life might be ever sweet.’

 One by one the relations and friends stepped up with their greeting and their gifts, ale for heartiness, flowers for beauty, oil that the new arrival might live off the fat of the land, and more. Many of the gifts were clever, and laughter was sprinkled amongst the more serious presents.

Young Meriadoc Brandybuck caused a stir of smothered laughter when he stepped forward with his gift. He was suffering an attack of hiccoughs, as so often happens to young hobbits that gobble their food against their elders’ warnings. ‘Weh—hic! –lcome,’ he said. ‘Welcome, P—hic! –pin,’ he said, trying again. He cleared his throat, stood a little taller, and repeated determinedly, ‘P—hic! –pin.’ He caught Frodo’s eye, his older cousin’s reassuring nod, and abandoned the effort to say “Peregrin” in order to forge ahead. ‘I bring,’ he said, spacing his words so that they were not interrupted by hiccoughs. ‘feather... that his heart... may ever be... light!’ Triumphantly he brandished the striped bright feather he’d found on a walk in the woods, and Pearl accepted it with appropriate solemnity.

Bilbo offered a bottle of old Winyards, more wine for joy, but the duplication didn’t matter, it merely doubled the blessing. Frodo, for his own part, offered an intricate drawing of a butterfly hovering over a garden, each line inked with precision and the whole carefully tinted in a profusion of colour, ‘...that he might know wonder.’

Woodruff stepped forward shyly, saying, ‘Welcome,’ and holding out a smooth stone she’d found at the edge of a stream on a picnic with Ted’s family. Ted’s da, who’d told her to call him “Uncle Tru”, had gathered the children round to admire the stone while he told how it had started, all rough and sharp-edged, and been slowly worn down to a pleasing smoothness by the work of the water over years’ time. And if it were to lie there long enough, he’d ended, it would wear away to nothing at all, but it wouldn’t be wasted, O no! It’d be broken down to silt and sand and soil where the plants can find footing, helping to make the Green Hills even greener!

Eglantine whispered encouragement, and the tween went on, stumbling over her words slightly with so many eyes upon her. ‘I give him this stone, smooth and weighty, that could bring down a bird or squirrel for the pot, or sit in your pocket for a worry-stone, or set in a vase with other stones to hold flowers upright, or even be laid down in a stream again to see it turn from dull to shining black...’ she said, and Paladin nodded appreciatively. Beauty as well as practicality, that certainly met his approval. ‘...that he might grow to be solid and steady,’ she concluded. Just like the rest of the Tooks, she thought. Folk you can depend upon, even in difficulty.

She stepped back to make way for other givers, looking about for Sweetbriar—who at the moment was surrounded by concerned hobbits, fanning the old healer and discussing what ought to be done. As a matter of fact, someone had just resolved to find Woodruff... except that Rosie Bracegirdle found her first.

 ‘There you are!’ came an unpleasantly familiar voice as a clawlike hand fastened around her upper arm. ‘Don’t you look nice! Just fine for a wedding...’

 ‘This isn’t a wedding,’ Woodruff said without thinking, and gasped as the claws tightened.

 ‘Don’t contradict!’ Rosie hissed, propelling her through the crowd. To the hobbits craning to see the gift-giving, it appeared as if a hobbit mum was giving her misbehaving tween a no-nonsense talking-to, probably over loading her plate too high or tweenish mischief or the like, and so none interfered, but stood aside to let them pass as Rosie continued to scold. ‘You ought to know better than to correct your betters! Well, it doesn’t matter, any road. You get uppity with your husband, he’ll give you what for!’

 ‘Husband?’ the tween gasped.

 ‘Here we are!’ Rosie said, voice bright with false cheer. ‘I told you, Lobelia-dear, that I’d get her back. Really, if you’d told me that Lotho had his eye upon her, I’d never have sold her for an apprentice in the first place...’

Lotho! Woodruff thought desperately. He’d made improper advances to her once or twice, safe in his position as son of a pillar of society, and she’d rebuffed him firmly. He was of an age to marry, but no one would have him, from what she’d heard. No one who had a choice, anyhow...

 ‘Well I cannot imagine what he sees in the lass, but he has his heart set on winning her, and I simply cannot seem to refuse him his slightest request,’ Lobelia said sourly. She looked Woodruff over. ‘Though in a fine new frock I must say she’s almost passable.’

 ‘Here you are,’ Lotho said, his customary scowl turned to a sneer by the smile he was attempting. ‘Father’s in the coach already, though he was put out to miss the rest of the feast...’

 ‘We’ll have a feast of our own when we reach the inn,’ Lobelia said with a fond smile for her only son. Seeing several hobbits nearby watching out of curiosity, she reached to pat Woodruff on the cheek, a perfunctory tap, no more than that, and only because that was the sort of affectionate gesture that would be expected of a future mother-in-love not in the privacy of hearth and home. They were still in a crowd of hobbits, after all, and Lobelia was ever-conscious of the proprieties. ‘A celebration of the nuptials, I think—I’m sure we can find enough witnesses at the inn to sign the wedding documents. We’ll have the wedding then and there, before the Sun rises on another day!’

Scandalised, several of the nearby hobbits who’d overheard began at once to whisper amongst themselves. Such a rushed wedding could mean only one thing... They directed dark looks at the little group, and Lobelia decided it was high time to make their retreat, while trying to repair the social damage at the same time. ‘Yes, we’ve been planning this wedding for such a long time, it’s a joy to have it finally come about! Come now, dear!’

 ‘Wedding!’ Woodruff said faintly, resisting the hands pulling her towards the lane where she could see a coach waiting, driver opening the door as they approached.

 ‘What’s this about a wedding?’ Ted said from behind her, and he took her arm. ‘Sweetie, it’s Gran, she’s been taken with some sort of fainting fit...’

 ‘I...’ Woodruff said. Her words were drowned by a shout as the ceremony concluded; relatives and friends raised a cheer and called greetings and welcome to the babe (who, though he couldn’t be seen this far back in the crowd, stared wide-eyed and wondering at the noise, and broke into a toothless grin at seeing Merry jumping up and down at the front of the throng).

 ‘I am sorry about your gran,’ Lobelia said briskly, so soon as the noise began to wane, ‘but we have paid our respects to the happy family and we are behind our time... really must be going now...’ As she spoke she pressed forward once more, pulling Woodruff along with her. Ted followed, not leaving off his grasp on Woodruff’s arm.

 ‘But you’re not taking Sweetie with you!’ Ted said, shocked and resisting the pull.

 ‘Of course I am,’ Rosie snapped, renewing her iron grip and adding her pull to Lobelia's. ‘She is my responsibility, after all, and I’m not about to leave her here, amongst a lot of wild Tooks, unprotected. You take your hands off, young hobbit, if you know what’s good for you!’

Ted stared, and Lotho gave him a carefully-timed shove behind one knee that sent him sprawling. ‘So sorry,’ Lotho said. ‘I seem to have lost my balance. Come along, Mother!’ And they began moving towards the coach again, through the crowd of celebrating hobbits who didn’t seem to notice what was happening...

Ted, behind them, was calling out for his father at the top of his voice, and Woodruff felt a moment’s disgust. What would be the good of that?

However, as they were pushing her into the coach, a number of brawny Tooks were suddenly there, and the clutching hands fell away suddenly, and Woodruff was standing, bewildered, looking about for any way of escape. They were surrounded, however, and Ferdinand Took was there, firmly holding the lead ponies’ bridles, and a Bucklander (brother to the "sorry" hobbit, in point of fact) had the driver by the arm, and Paladin himself was holding Lotho’s arm and shaking him as a terrier might shake a rat.

 ‘Too much sun, eh, lad?’ the farmer said. ‘What brings you to steal away from the celebration when the grand feast is just about to start?’

Tru Took approached, parting the crowd to make way for the hobbits following him. ‘Here we are, Sir,’ he said over his shoulder.

Lobelia stiffened and glared, then hooded her eyes and dropped the barest of courtesies to the approaching Thain, while shooting a poisonous glare at Bilbo Baggins, at the Thain’s left elbow, and Saradoc Brandybuck on the Thain’s right.

 ‘Ferumbras,’ she said with false cheer. ‘Why, I do hope these hobbits haven’t pulled you away from the feast!’

Thain Ferumbras harrumphed, but Lobelia had already turned to Bilbo. ‘Why, cousin!’ she said brightly. ‘I was just about to seek you out! We have a wedding to perform, that has been long in the planning, and we were going to travel to the South Farthing that Honourius Bracegirdle might do the honours, but my dear lad is so very impatient, you know, to possess his long-awaited bride at last...!’ And she gave a brittle laugh, taking one of her hands from Woodruff’s arm to pull her son to her other side. ‘Don’t they make a lovely couple?’ she added.

Ignoring Lobelia, the Thain turned to Ted’s father. ‘Tru?’ he said.

 ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ Ted’s father said. ‘Long in the planning? Then why was she sold for an apprentice?’

 ‘It was an oversight on my cousin’s part,’ Lobelia said. ‘A misunderstanding, as it were. It’s all been put right now. The contract has been reversed, payment restored with the ten percent penalty as custom.’ (She’d provided the extra ten percent to buy the lass free, though she didn’t mention that.)

 ‘My mother has taken her in, Sir,’ Tru said. ‘You signed the adoption papers yourself, Sir. They take effect at noon today, a month-and-a-day exactly from the time she came into Mum’s possession.’ The Thain had signed the papers, as one of seven witnesses, in gracious response to his travelling agent’s special request. Tru Took was often away from hearth, home and kin on the Thain’s business, yet he seldom asked much for himself beyond his remuneration. It had been Ferumbras’ pleasure to do this favour for the loyal Took.

 ‘I am so sorry,’ Lobelia said smoothly. ‘It cannot be. We have a previous claim.’

 ‘This “long-planned wedding”?’ Ferumbras said, raising an eyebrow.

 ‘Did you know of it, lass?’ Tru asked Woodruff.

She felt the warning tightening of Rosie’s clawlike grip. ‘What-for...’ the old healer breathed in her ear, and she knew that the worst beating of her life had just been promised. And then Rosie turned with a smile, though her grip did not ease one whit. ‘Of course she knew,’ she simpered. ‘Why, we’ve talked of nothing else for months! And then I’d heard Lotho had married, and I thought he’d lost interest in the lass, wretched clumsy thing that she is, but it wasn’t dear Lotho Sackville-Baggins who’d married at all, it was Lotho Sand-Banks. You can see the confusion, to receive a note about the wedding of Lotho S.-B. and...’

Ferumbras cut her off with a sharp gesture. ‘There’s a pony of a different colour,’ he rumbled, and eyed Woodruff from under his eyebrows.

She stood paralysed, her arm aching from Rosie’s grip. She wasn’t really adopted, they’d said. It wouldn’t take effect until noon, perhaps an hour away, and by then she’d be an hour away from the farm and moving ever farther as the trotting ponies pulled them southwards...

A sob escaped her, but somehow she couldn’t find the words to say, feeling as if it were all a dreadful nightmare from which she could not awaken.

 ‘O my dear!’ Lobelia said again, pulling Lotho to stand next to Woodruff and joining the hands of the young couple together. ‘The time for tears is past, now you’re together again! As I said, they have been planning this just about forever, and how broken-hearted they were at the terrible mix-up, and now we have them together again, and Lotho can scarcely wait to call the lass his very own...’

Lotho’s hand squeezed Woodruff’s convulsively and he gave her a triumphant look, as if to say, Try to put me off, did you? Well, you won’t be able to do so in future!

Lobelia was continuing, ‘And so, Bilbo-dear, you may perform the ceremony yourself, if you’d be so kind, as head of the Baggins family, and the happy couple don’t have to wait until we reach Longbottom after all...!’

The jaws of the trap had closed on her and she could scarcely breathe for fear, but the Thain was eyeing her thoughtfully and Tru Took was murmuring in his master’s ear.

 ‘That’s a pony of a different colour,’ Ferumbras repeated, and hesitated, looking from the growing triumph in Lobelia’s face to the bird-in-a-trap expression of the lass. At last he made up his mind. ‘If it’s true,’ he said firmly.

Lobelia sputtered, but the Thain continued, gaining momentum as he spoke. ‘If it’s true,’ he repeated. ‘You’ve had a lot of fine words to say about long-held understandings and miscommunications and misunderstandings and such. I want to make sure that there are no more of these miscommunications and misunderstandings, that everything stands clear and that there are no miscarriages of what’s proper taking place here today. This ought to be a joyous occasion...’

 ‘Of course!’ Lobelia interjected. ‘And there’s already such a lovely party taking place, we could just join our wedding celebration to it,’—saving the expense of the wedding themselves, what a good idea!—‘or not,’ she said hastily, at the look on the faces of the surrounding hobbits. ‘No,’ she said, pulling at Lotho and Woodruff, ‘as a matter of fact, we’ll just be on our way, as we’d originally planned...’

 ‘What do you want, lass?’ Ferumbras rumbled, as if Lobelia hadn’t spoken, fixing Woodruff with a hawklike stare.

Woodruff was breathing rapidly, and feeling giddy. She shook herself mentally, though with Rosie gripping her from the one side and Lotho on the other she couldn’t shake herself physically. Should she faint, they’d bundle her into the coach without further ado and she’d be lost!

Forcing herself to take several deep breaths while she met the Thain’s gaze, she gasped out, ‘No!’

 ‘You see,’ Lobelia said. ‘She’s eager to go, indeed she is, the little darling, and means to say she doesn’t need any well-meaning interference... So come along, dears, and we’ll...’

 ‘No!’ Woodruff cried louder, trying to pull away.

The Thain stepped forward, to lay one hand on Rosie’s arm and the other on Lotho’s. ‘Let her go,’ he said, and there was that note of command in his voice that could not be denied. Ferumbras might seem a sleepy-eyed, fat old hobbit tied to his mother’s apron-strings, most of the time, but he was Thain, and descended directly from the Old Took himself, with some of the fire of that hobbit running in his veins.

As if of their own volition and not that of their owners, the hands released Woodruff and she pulled away at last.

 ‘Speak for yourself, lass,’ the Thain said.

 ‘She is but a heedless tween,’ Rosie said indignantly, ‘with scarcely a brain in her head, ignorant chit!’ Into Woodruff’s ear, she hissed, ‘This is your chance, you witless thing! Why, you’re to marry into one of the great families, you are, to make something of yourself! Would you throw that away to live amongst the daft Tooks?’ It was a good thing the murmuring crowd didn’t catch the words...

 ‘I choose—!’ Woodruff said breathlessly, and the crowd fell silent.

Bilbo spoke for the first time. ‘Lass,’ he said kindly. ‘You don’t have to...’

 ‘I choose!’ Woodruff said, stronger. ‘I won’t go with you,’ she said, looking from Lotho to his furious mother. ‘I won’t! I don’t care if you think me ignorant, or daft, or a fool or any of those other things... perhaps you think only fools belong in Tookland! If that’s the case, then you have my leave to think me a fool, so long as you leave me here amongst the Tooks!’

A cheer arose from the crowd, and Bilbo broke into a beaming smile. ‘You tell ‘em, lass!’ he said, but there was no more to tell, really. Lobelia, seeing victory snatched from her grasp, had already seized Lotho and was propelling him into the coach, and Rosie, seeing discretion as the better part of valour, was right behind them.

Otho’s voice was heard, then, evidently just awakened from sleep. ‘At last! Are we to be off, then? I thought we’d be halfway to the South Farthing by now... What took you so long, was it such a fine party after all?’

In the meantime, the driver, released by Merimac Brandybuck, had climbed up on the box and taken up the reins. He saluted the Thain and crowd with his whip and clucked to the ponies. Ferdinand jumped out of the way, slapping one of the lead ponies on the rump to lend him speed, and the coach was off down the lane, raising a cloud of dust to sprinkle the hobbits left behind.

 ‘Well then,’ Ferumbras said. ‘I find I’ve worked up quite an appetite. Come, Tru, we’ve more business to discuss...’ He turned to walk with his special assistant towards the laden tables.

A tightness in Woodruff's heart eased as she saw Sweetbriar heading towards them, face set and grim, surrounded by a bevy of indignant hobbit mums.

Paladin put an arm around Woodruff’s shoulders, and Saradoc came up on her other side. ‘Well then, lass,’ Paladin said. ‘The adoption takes effect when the Sun reaches her zenith this day, does it?’ He squinted at the sky. ‘I may be a bit premature, or I may not, but in any event...’ He grinned. ‘Welcome to the family!’