ffc_2

Fire and Fleet and Candle-light 2

Frodo melted into the throng with no more than a last rueful glance and Sam was left alone by the gate, puzzled and
light-headed from lack of food. Mutton collops and tea at four of the clock were further away now than aback o' beyont.
There hadn't been time enough to let them settle nor to finish his chapter on wintering the hive before a waggon load of
casks had trundled past the end of Bagshot Row and he had followed after it, fearing that the carter's mates would
trample the flowerbeds in their haste to stillage the ale.

He had hoped to lift a few glasses alongside the other lads, then take his rest near the scullery door until May and Daisy
put his skills to better use, but the hour spent with his master had given him an unbridled thirst for something beyond
the hoppy tang of The Green Dragon's best bitter. He wished to turn his mind in private to this unforeseen proof of
Frodo's trust, and to lay his mam's looking-glass in the safe harbour of its wooden case. Nonetheless, he was not so
far gone in dreams that he had ceased to lick his lips in anticipation of the savoury wonders from The Ivy Bush's kitchen.

In the meantime, he would pinch a handful of fresh cobnuts from the garden and a late blue damson too, for although
he could enjoy a party as much as any hobbit, he'd perish if he didn't get a smatch of vittles soon. His belly had stuck to
his backbone long since, but the supper table--with its spotless cover pinned at either end by two of Mistress
Proudfoot's outsized tea urns--was innocent of any provender. In all likelihood the food and May would appear together,
but if he could join his fellows at the ale casks first he might go to his work with a welcome tankard of beer warming his
innards.

"Oy, Sam-lad, where have you been?" Sam jerked around, torn from his dream of a foaming pint by Tom Cotton, who
was strolling down the path from the bog-house with his brown twill cap pushed off his forehead and his hands deep in
his pockets. "I missed you at the beck yestereve. I was that put about."

"It was the Widow Rumble's doing," Sam answered, mustering what little conviction he possessed in the face of his
cousin's scrutiny. "I was dry as a barley husk by the time I'd weeded her beds but she wouldn't let me go until I'd
scarified the grass and dibbed in some snowdrops.   Da gave me a scolding when I was late for my supper. Faggots
and gravy," he added, as if the words might conjure them.

He didn't explain that he could have gone to The Ivy Bush afterwards had he so wished, but to sit on the smial steps at
twilight while the thrush's song fell softly into the gathering dark had seemed the better part.

Tom hicked up a shoulder to convey the depth of his scorn for the Widow's megrims.

"It's hard cheese, Samwise, working under a mistress who fridges you like a new collar."

"'Tis," said Sam, glad that Tom wasn't disposed to doubt his word.

"Only reason I mention the beck--" Tom tugged his earlobe and gazed into the lane as if he saw something behind
Sam's shoulder that was of far greater interest than a town lad's troubles with a feisty gammer. It was a bedazzled look
that made the goose bumps rise on Sam's nape at memory of the withered fright in Frodo's book, its chin tied up in a
linen clout. The sudden rush of noise in his ears muffled the sound of all but Tom's voice, loud and close and pressing.

"I saw a strange hobbit walking in the Little Wood, bold as Da's prize ram. I was minded to give a yell, but he hoofed it
through the trees before I could open my mouth. It was that queer, the way he vanished like a will o' the wisp. It wasn't
you?"

Sam shrugged, withstanding the urge to leave Tom in the clutches of whatever lurked in Hill Lane, even if it was only the
white and tattered ghost of Berylla Boffin.

"Maybe someone else found our spot, Tom. I didn't set foot off the Row till morning."

"So I guessed," said Tom. "Ah well, don't fash yourself; it was bound to come.   We'll find another hidey hole." He
nodded his head towards the garden. "'Tis a fine thing, ain't it, and himself just a year from his coming-of-age. The next
birthday will be a whizzbang."

"Aye, it will," Sam replied. He had no idea what a whizzbang might be when it was at home, but if it was of Mr. Gandalf's
making it would surely be worth the wait. 'G' for grumpy, he thought, and stifled a smile.

"Speaking of fireworks," Tom said, pulling his cap down over his brow, "May's coming our way with a scowl on her face
that bodes ill for someone, if I know aught of lasses. You'll want to hide yourself in the shrubbery."

Sam curled his fists as the ale and cobnuts fleeted away faster than a rock in a boghole. All things taken together, he'd
rather it had been Berylla in her nightie.

"I dursn't; she'd put me out for the flay-boggle. They've had me in leading strings since tea time, what with lifting casks
and keeping the ponies from the tansy."

"You'd best nab a barm cake while she's busy with summat else then, or you'll be thin as a toothpick come Yuletide.
You wouldn't want your sweetheart to stop making sheep's eyes at you."

"At me?" Sam said, his tongue near cleaving to the roof of his mouth.   He had named a score of apple pips after the
comeliest lasses, but he had never thought that one of them might already have marked him for her own in such a
fashion. It would be a rum go and no mistake if it were Angelica Baggins; he'd almost thrown her weazened pip into the
beck. "Who would--?"

"Aye, at you. As for who, I'll say neither muff nor mum. Look lively now!" Tom grinned and doffed his cap. "Evenin', May
Gamgee."

Sam whirled about, too late to hope that she might not have spotted his dirty hands and grass-stained breeches. She
wouldn't allow him within sniffing distance of the sausage rolls unless he scrubbed himself in the kitchen first.

"Tom," May said, brandishing a smile that would have done credit to the Gaffer when he was in a taking over Mr. Bilbo's
potato patch. "There's a lad present who promised to help at the supper table. I won't mention his name, but the whole
village has marked his antics."

"Has it?" Tom asked, with nary a shred of fellow-feeling for someone who had three sisters to pester the stew out of
him.

"It has, though you wouldn't know it by his bearing." May's glance flicked from Sam to Tom. "Your Nick ran off to gambol
with Mosco Burrows and left Jolly minding the ponies. Best wake him afore he falls into the road.   And now that Sam's
quit playing least-in-sight he can unload the food hampers."

"Da gave me leave to go after Mr. Frodo," Sam muttered, touching the felt hat in his pocket for comfort.   He wondered if it
might safeguard him from May's wayward fingers; she was rubbing the cloth of her starched pinny as if she'd sooner
have his two ears under her hands. He inched it out.

"Oh, Samwise," she sighed. "You'd follow him to Bree and back even without Da's say-so. Come and wash yourself at
the sink. You look as if you've been sleeping in the byre."

Tom snickered.

"Don't let the lasses run you ragged," he said, making for the open gate with a sprightliness which Sam thought out of
keeping with the situation. "Happen I'll catch what's left of you later."

"Pig's foot," said Sam, but he was half way to the kitchen with his hat awry and May at his heels before he could think of
a more fitting answer, and in truth, there was none. If May had promised his services to half the Westfarthing he would
see the night out helping Daddy Twofoot at pitch and toss instead of hoisting a pint with Tom Cotton.

At the end of five minutes it was also plain that whatever Sam did for the remainder of the night he would do it with clean
hands and a buttoned-up waistcoat. Even worse, he was made to clip and buff his nails until they shone while May
hovered nearby, clucking her tongue at the state of Bag End's kitchen.

"It's got into a parlous mess since Nan Micklefoot moved to Needlehole. What would the old master say if he could see
what's come of his nice new hole?"

As Master Bungo had been dead these seventy years, Sam didn't think he'd say much of anything.

"She never gave it more than a lick and a promise," he observed, and bent to take a hurried sup of water. "She was
blind as a beetle."

He grabbed a hankie to clear his nose, but before he could make good use of it May was shooing him out the door
towards the lane.

"No, Sam, not when you've just washed your hands. Away with you, there's work to be done."

And indeed there was, though why the two lads from the Inn hadn't done it in his stead was more than Sam could
understand.   One curly-pated hauvy-gauvy was perched on the waggon seat half asleep, and the other slouched by the
tailboard with his arms folded.

"Robin Poorgrass, shift yourself and help our Sam."

May twitched the tarp from the load and Sam, whose barm cake had fast become a mere figment, knew when he saw
what lay beneath that if he couldn't find a way to sneak a morsel or two before his belly dropped to his toes he didn't
deserve the name of Gamgee.

There were sausages, sallets, and turnip pasties; green relishes, stuffed eggs, and mutton hotpots; syllabubs, fools
and almond junkets; custard tarts and sticky currant buns. There was an untold host of sweet and savoury dishes
stowed in the depths of the cart, and not even the ostler's lads could keep themselves from gawping.

"Aa, them's fair to see," said Robin, smacking his lips.

"They'll be a sight fairer in Master Bilbo's front garden," May said, filling his arms with a wheel of blue cheese. "And if
you nick summat I'll see to it that Cook gives you a tongue-lashing. Sam will show you the way and there'll be tuppence
to earn if you step lively."

Robin Poorgrass had never stepped lively in all his born days, as anyone who had waited in the yard of The Ivy Bush to
have his pony stabled could have told May in a trice, though he risked life and limb in the telling. So while Robin carried
the cheese into the garden at a pace that would have done justice to a bug in glue, Sam and May hurried to and fro with
plates, tureens, and covered baskets until the table groaned beneath the weight of the dishes.

"Snail, snail, put out your horns, I'll give you bread and barleycorns," said Sam in an undertone as he passed Robin for
the third time. "And a kick to your breeches if you don't make haste," he added, with a significant glance at the cheese.

But in the end, the cheese reached its destined place without falling into the nasturtians; Robin, sadly unaware that May
had eyes in the back of her head, was given a mere ha'penny for his pains, and Sam, who knew when to obey his
sister, was nevertheless sent packing with a solitary sausage roll wrapped in a linen napkin. It wasn't enough to fill
even the smallest corner, but he would content himself for now with this quiet spot by the lilac, and a few flecks of
Daisy's pastry on his weskit when he'd done.

He had lingered here once before in Thrimidge, soon after that awkward parting in the shed, overwhelmed by the
pungent scent of the blossoms and the sight of Frodo with his colour high, brushing a snarl of burrs from his woollen
cloak into the newly trimmed border. Sam had wondered then whether he should call a cheerful hallo, as he might
have done in a happier season, or turn again to his rake and barrow. They two hadn't spoken in nigh on a fortnight, and
Sam had been doubtful if he could abide the force of Frodo's searching gaze with its memory of apples, or the greater
burden should that favour be withheld. There were no words of advice in The Gardener's Monthly Directions for a
prentice who got above himself in the potting shed, and so he had remained on tenterhooks, shy as a lad in his first stiff
pair of breeches, until Frodo had given his cloak a final shake and returned to the smial, seemingly unaware of Sam's
presence.

Yet Sam had decided, somewhere between there and here and in those odd moments when the recollection of his
foolishness wasn't too painful to bear, that he would never let another such opportunity get past him. If, as he hoped,
his gift shared the mirror's power to act as a charm--a charm whose proven purpose was to draw master and servant
together--then he had simply to cast his eyes over the dim expanse of garden while touching Primula's mirror-case in
order to find Frodo amidst the crowd.

"Sage and onions, Samwise Gamgee," he said to himself, "you're daft as a brush and half-starved. You ought to make
a sally upon the supper table when you have the chance and quit playing giddy-goat with the master's heir. He told you
'later, Sam' and he keeps his promises. Besides, it doesn't take a charm to make him visible in the jumble, tall as he is
and fairer than most. There he stands by the briar rose, plain as a pack-saddle."

But even so, Sam slipped his fingers behind the pocket-flap of his jacket to stroke the hidden treasure.

Frodo looked up all at once and Master Peregrin, who had been hopping about as if he had a pissimire in his trousers,
tugged on his cousin's sleeve to make him mind. Sam would have given the lad a swift clip on the ear but Frodo took
no more notice of young Pippin than a deep pool heeds the pebble that briefly mars its surface. Instead, he turned, the
lantern light glinting off his pale features, and smiled at Sam across the intervening space.

Sam felt a shiver course through him. If it wasn't a breeze from the Water lifting the hair at his nape, he didn't know what
it might be. He glanced down, expecting to find the mirror-case glowing like a beacon in the depths of his pocket, and
saw only the lint-covered edge of a scrap of blue silk. He raised his head to venture a smile of his own, but Frodo was
no longer there. Pippin Took had tangled himself in the Gaffer's hoop edging, the rest of the company was making a
dash for the newly broached hogshead of nappy ale, and that smart green coat was nowhere to be seen.

"So that's the way the wind lies," said a quiet voice from the privet hedge. "I thought to find you frolicking in the lane with
the other lads, not loitering by the gate."

Sam spun on his heel with a fib handy, afraid that one of those crosswise Bucklanders had overheard him moaning like
a bairn, but it was Mr. Bilbo in his threadbare tweeds and a weskit brilliant as a yellow wagtail's summer plumage.

"Wind, sir?"

"An aphorism, Sam, a weakness we old codgers are prone to once in a while." Bilbo pointed the stem of his pipe
towards the smial. "Master Hamfast tells me that before long you'll be assuming most of the garden chores at Bag
End. Watch out for Frodo too, will you?"

"He doesn't need me, sir; he's his own hobbit," replied Sam, although his dreams of one day serving Frodo in smial
and garden had proven stubbornly resistant to thinning out. Mr. Bilbo clearly suffered from the same peculiarity of
temperament in regard to his nephew's want of care--or else he was half cracked, as that rotten sheep, Ted Sandyman,
would have it--but Frodo knew his gardener's place in the order of things and would notice if Sam was hanging on his
coat-tails more than-- Well, more than was proper anyroad.

"Perhaps, but I would take it as a favour if you did." Bilbo squinted at his watch. "It's almost time for me to make myself
scarce. And in case it escaped your notice," he added, "Cousin Lobelia is giving him an earful at the kitchen door.
She'll be hanging on his button-hole till dawn unless someone intervenes."

"I wasn't spying, sir," Sam mumbled, fearful that his childish fancies were plain to half the village.

"No more you were," Bilbo said, "but you might want to rescue him all the same. He has a question on his mind to
which I believe you can provide an answer. Indulge me, would you? There's a good lad."

Sam's eyebrows rose into his hair.

"A question?"

"Yes, and don't let on that I told you." Bilbo laid his finger beside his nose.   "It's a secret."

"It is?" asked Sam, certain now that he was altogether out of his depth. As far as he knew, there was only one question
whose answer was in his keeping, and he had hoped never to speak of it again. Frodo, too, had shied from the subject
of Sam's remarkable spring fever, but if Mr. Bilbo were to become aware that his undergardener had mucked about in
the tool shed after dark and without reason then Sam's days on the Hill would be numbered. No hobbit of good repute
would have a sneak on his land and a fellow couldn't make ends meet jobbing for pennies in the Widow's patch. But
even had there been work in Hobbiton for a score of gardeners, it would make no matter; Sam would be on the high
road to Tighfield once the Gaffer heard the news of his disgraceful high jinks. How he could keep a watch on Mr. Frodo
from that distance was a puzzle.

"There's not a shadow of doubt," Bilbo said. "He's been like a badger with the toothache all summer. Now be off,
before Lobelia surrenders to a fit of the vapours. She'd insist on spending the night at Bag End even if it meant
sleeping in my second-best bedroom, and if there's one sight I can't stand first thing, it's a sour countenance."

"Aye," said Sam. "She does take on as if she'd swallowed a lemon."

Bilbo shook his head.

"I was referring to Frodo," he replied, and quick as you can blink he turned Sam withershins on the gravel path and
impelled him forwards with a firm push on the seat of his kicksies. "Trot on, lad, and don't spare the ponies. I know I
can rely on you."

Sam was too dumbfounded at the strength in Mr. Bilbo's arm to express his misgivings, and by the time he thought to
ask whether he might risk a bite and a sup first, there was nothing to be seen in the mirk behind him but a curl of
smoke above the gate and a fleeting glimpse of brown tweed among the farmer's carts.

Why a Bracegirdle from Hardbottle would withdraw at sight of a Gamgee in hand-me-down breeches and a hat like a
rhubarb forcer was more than Sam could fathom. If Mr. Bilbo thought she'd be loath to speak her mind in front of the
servants then he was much mistaken; her voice was already loud enough to be heard ten paces from the kitchen door
by anyone who happened to pass on his way to the supper table. And while Frodo could be smooth as butter in and out
of season, he was a chip of the same block when it came to pigheadedness. If Lobelia's agitation proceeded apace,
the master's one hundred and tenth would in all probability end with more than the customary fireworks at midnight.

Sam wished the task of mending things hadn't fallen to his lot, but he doffed his hat notwithstanding and paused
outside the spill of light from the hall lantern, at a loss as to how he might separate the two, short of tossing a bucket of
water on Mistress Lobelia's dark blue worsted.

"Mark my words," she was saying. "No good will come of it. He ought to be sensible of his obligations."

"I can scarcely miss your words," answered Frodo, who was poised on the threshold with one hand resting on the
doorjamb and the other twiddling his watch fob, "but you must take your grievances to Bilbo or go directly to
Gathergood's in Bywater. I'm powerless in the matter."

His glance drifted over the summit of Lobelia's bonnet and his eye caught Sam's.

"Oh, there you are," he said, as though he had been waiting for Sam all along rather than bending an ear to Lobelia's
complaints. "I need your help with the ginger beer." He stepped into the entrance, wiping his feet on the rush mat as he
went. "Excuse us, cousin; we have instructions from Mistress Proudfoot."

"Bilbo isn't doing his part for the Farthing," rejoined Lobelia, glaring at Sam as if he were a chunk of wood, "and I shall
tell him so presently."

"I'm sure he'll be obliged to you," Frodo replied, "but I can't think where he's gone. Come in, Sam, and mind the
umbrella. Goodnight, cousin."

Lobelia might have had the final word, but Sam had somehow got in the way of her trappings in spite of Frodo's caution
and she was compelled to remove herself in haste after accepting Sam's apology with an ill humour.

"He's taken a stroll down the lane, sir, and not before time," said Sam, watching her go. "It's black as a beetle beyond
the gate." And she lacks the stomach to chase Mr. Bilbo when a hearty supper's to be had at Bag End, he thought, but
stood mum.

"In that case, she'll have to cool her toes in the garden. I daresay she'd walk to Overhill if the occasion warranted, but
not without Lotho to carry a torch."

"He was drinking porter like a funnel the last I saw of him." Sam touched his forehead with what he hoped was the
proper degree of respect due a Sackville-Baggins.

"Then he'll be half up the pole by now," observed Frodo, throwing the door wide, "and won't know a hawk from a heron.
Shall we go in? You seem a mite peakish."

"Ah," said Sam, twisting the brim of his hat between stiff fingers in a fruitless attempt to appear more alert than he felt.
He wondered if a sly mention of the recent apple harvest would be sufficient to draw his master out or if he should bide
his time until Frodo saw fit to make a clean breast of his troubles. Sam was inclined to ease his own worries as soon
as might be, though it would take a quick wit and a light hand on the leading rein to ensure that neither of them was
discomfited. If Bilbo hadn't torn off like a fart in a bottle Sam would have asked whether Frodo's secret had aught to do
with fruit cultivation; as it was, he had no idea what sort of question might be in the offing or how he was to
accommodate his master's curiosity once it was revealed.

It was possible, of course, that old Mr. Bilbo, who was uncommonly fond of jests, had been pulling Sam's leg about a
secret. Perhaps the only thing on Frodo's mind this even was the prospect of Sam's willingness to lug the wooden
crates of ginger beer from the back pantry to the garden. Bilbo and Frodo between them were as slippery as a fesnying
of ferrets, and there was often no telling what, if anything, they meant by their fancy talk.

Sam sighed and the damp felt gave at the edges in protest.

"Sam?" Frodo touched his arm with a grip that was both steady and needful and Sam, remembering his master's look
as they'd stood below hill with the oak a blaze of light against the sky, decided there might be some merit to Mr. Bilbo's
chatter in this instance.

He wants you for summat, Samwise Gamgee, and if the secret has naught to do with pips or pippins--and likely it
don't--then you'll rub along just fine, although a slice of veal pie wouldn't go amiss.

"More peckish than peakish, if you take my meaning," he said, and shoved his hat into the nearest pocket before Frodo
could remark on its wretched state.

"We needn't bother with the ginger beer; in fact, we haven't any.   I'm accustomed to fobbing her off, but she has a
singular ability to ignore even the most plausible excuses. I'd run out of them when you came in sight." Frodo threw his
coat on the hallstand and beckoned with a half smile. "If you'd come inside I could shut and latch the door. Better safe
than sorry."

"It was Mr. Bilbo, sir. He--" Sam paused, deeming it wiser to keep his lip buttoned on certain matters than risk starting
Mr. Frodo from his covert too soon; still, there was no harm in letting slip the odd morsel.

"He told me that Mistress Lobelia was in a taking and I should nip along smartly." He stepped across the doorstone
into the kitchen entrance, the threadbare carpet rough beneath his feet. The hall smelled of beeswax, wet wool, and the
sweet tang of Longbottom Leaf, and there was a jumble of muddy walking sticks in one corner.

"Is that so? I fancied you were shadowing me." Frodo's eyes were cool as pebbles under water. "You materialized in
such a timely fashion."

Sam froze in his tracks, the words he would have spoken had Frodo not been watching him so close bunching up on
his tongue like a covey of partridges. Bungo Baggins's skeleton clock ticked the minutes, a slow thump akin to the
heavy beating of Sam's heart, and when the bell finally sounded the hour it was with a clangour that made Sam flinch.
Had he been too forward this once in doing as he'd been told? He'd have gone to his supper in peace if it hadn't been
for Mr. Bilbo's warning, and now he was sore beset from all sides.

"Well, no matter if you were," Frodo said gently, and turned to gaze past the throng of hobbits as if he could see Bilbo
walking somewhere beyond the lantern-light. "The old rascal," he added with a chuckle, and put to the door, while Sam
stared at the slim back, his head spinning like a teetotum.

"I never--"

"Lobelia has a bee in her bonnet about Gathergood's pork sausages. I can't think why," Frodo said and, without
stopping to hear Sam's explanation, shot the bolt and hastened down the narrow passage towards the kitchen.

"They've filler enough to bind a mort of bricks," Sam muttered, following after him. Gathergood's tricks would put the
miller to shame, and Frodo knew it as well as any though he chose to dissemble when it suited him.

The kitchen was stuffy and no tidier than it had been earlier, but Sam thought it lacked nothing that might contribute to a
hobbit's comfort. There were elbow chairs with rush seats placed close together around the oak table, a dresser
cluttered with cups and dishes, and a stout copper kettle on a stand. The fire was banked, but the sweet scent of apple
wood lingered.

"Would you share a bottle of Old Winyards with me?" Frodo asked, opening the window to let in a whiff of stale porter
and a drunken chorus of 'He ploughed his furrow deep'.   He frowned. "They'll be here until sunrise at this rate, but you'll
want to go home early and come back in the morning to clear up the mess. In the meantime, we could--" He waved his
hand at the table, which was strewn with tea spoons and sweet biscuits left over from lunch.

"I reckon Da will give me a shout when he's wearied," replied Sam cautiously, not liking the ease with which Mr. Bilbo
and Mr. Frodo had contrived to drive him indoors as if he were a bullock going to market. "I wouldn't say no to a pint of
cider, if it's not too much trouble."

Sam was particular when it came to the contents of the cellar, for the twinge of disquiet he suffered at the notion of
cracking a bottle with his master was trifling in comparison to what the Gaffer would do if he knew that Sam had been
drinking with the heir. Word would fly round Hobbiton like old gooseberry if so much as a hint were given out at The Ivy
Bush that Sam Gamgee had hobnobbed with the gentry and drunk of their wine.

"P'raps I should dash outside for a slice of tart," he said, feeling the want of something to nibble on while he waited for
Mr. Frodo's secret. May's sausage roll had packed its bags at sight of Lobelia and set off for Buckland with Daisy's
mince collops. Sam was ready to tease out the question, as he would the roots of a pot-grown tree before planting, but
his master's fondness for digression made long work of even the simplest undertaking.

"I'll bring a snack from the larder," said Frodo, his shirt-tail creeping out of his breeches' waistband as he reached for a
leather flagon from the top of the dresser. Mr. Frodo's clothes were as apt to go astray as their owner, for although he
allowed naught but the finest linen to touch his skin, he gave no heed to his buckles and fastenings. Sam bore a high
regard for those who did as they pleased in matters of dress, yet he believed that a handsome gentlehobbit ought to
take better care of his person or hire someone to do it for him.

"Are you sure about the wine?" Frodo turned towards Sam with a quizzical air as if his gardener's thoughts on proper
attire were writ plain on his face.

"Aye, sir. I'm dry as a dog," Sam answered, a prickly rush of heat flaring beneath his skin as Frodo bent his gaze on the
hat which, by some means or other, had found its way into Sam's hands. "I've been hither and yon since elevenses and
a mug of cider will set me up for the evening."

He wouldn't have owned to it in polite company, but Sam was of the opinion that Old Winyards tasted like Nan
Gamgee's syrup of squills and was in some measure responsible for Mr. Frodo's listless manner. If, in the present
case, a glass or two could assist in the sharing of a secret then Frodo would take no harm from it, but there was little
doubt that betwixt gadding around on the wrong side of the River and countless nights with book and flagon, he was
burning the candle at both ends.

"Meaning no disrespect," Sam added, rubbing his hatband nervously.

"Never mind, my dear; it's no odds to me either way. Sit down, will you? I won't be a moment."   And with that, Frodo took
a tray from the cupboard and disappeared into the passage, leaving the door ajar.

The air was close despite the open window, and the lilting strains of 'The Besom Maker', swelling and dwindling in the
darkness, had made Sam unaccountably flushed and ill at ease. He had never been anyone's dear twice in a day and
his fear that Frodo might think it unseemly if he were to loll in his shirtsleeves was now all the greater; nonetheless, he
removed his twill jacket and slid into the armchair farthest from the grate, his eyes fixed on the smouldering embers as
if the riddle of Frodo's question might be read in their dim glow.

It was only upon seeing the familiar and cosy disorder of Bag End's kitchen that he had been truly overcome by the
weight of bleak months which had passed since he had lost his master's favour. If, in the course of the summer, he
had popped in for a word with Mr. Bilbo or to bring a basket of lettuce from the garden, it was seldom with the
expectation of finding Frodo at home. Yet here he was all at once, on the threshold of an unforeseen confidence, but
with an empty belly and a noddle as dull as a frow.

Better half a loaf than no bread, as the Gaffer was wont to say after a meagre harvest. Sam would just as soon have
been in possession of a loaf that wasn't sleep-drunk when it was most needed. It was all he could do to rest his chin
on his palms and watch the barley twist candlesticks on the mantel shiver and stretch in the shadows.

They're higher than any beech in Bindbale Wood, he thought, craning his neck to peer into the tangled mass of
branches that loomed over him in place of the boarded ceiling. Wasn't that a queer thing to find in a gentlehobbit's
smial; he'd have to prune them hard or the kitchen would be dark as a pocket and knee deep in leaf mould. He'd be in a
sorry pickle if the Gaffer heard of his slipshod ways. He cast about for the sheers, but the light was fading and his tool
pouch was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he'd left it by the hearth earlier; May had been in such a state. He squinted at the
mantelshelf, but instead of the glazed pipe-weed jar, the oval looking-glass, and the gilt spill holder, he saw an old
pollard willow, its bright stems rising from the hollow trunk as straight and tall as the hoard of spears at the
Mathom-house.

"That won't do," he said, putting on a brave front even though his heart misgave him. "We can't have a crack willow
growing through the chimney-breast at Bag End, and that's flat."

"Awm he do grieve, oak he do hate, willow do walk if you travels late," returned Halfast, who could talk a bird's hind leg
off on the subject of tree lore. Sam was amazed to find him at Mr. Bilbo's party, but right glad of the company all things
considered.

"Not here, he don't," said Sam, with a determination which he hoped would offset his lack of a weapon. "I'll make
clothes pegs out of him."

The branches blew aloft in a sudden gust and the casement window, pulling away from its iron stay, clattered against
the embrasure. There was little to be seen in the gloom beyond the pale undersides of the willow leaves sprouting
from the woodwork; Halfast, having said his piece, had fallen silent. Something stirred amongst the branches.

"Sam?" whispered a voice that was lighter than Halfast's, and a cool finger of air brushed Sam's cheek. He lifted his
eyes and there was Frodo at his side, a calf-bound folio in his arms and a dusty bottle of Old Winyards tucked behind it.

Did you want me, Mr. Frodo?" he asked, surprised that he'd come to be at the table with his head in his hands when he
ought to have been keeping an eye on the damsons. The patch of sky showing between the parted curtains was
star-filled, and the fiddler had begun a new song, the notes rising above the welter of voices as merry as you please.
Sam marvelled at the Gaffer's tardiness in fetching him when they'd agreed to go home early, but the iron hand of the
mantel clock had crept forwards no more than the length of a barley grain since Frodo had left him alone. He rubbed
his eyes and stretched, knowing that he must surely be mazed or drunk to have thus forgotten himself.

Frodo smiled.

"You were asleep," he said, and placed the book next to Sam, brushing aside the biscuit crumbs with the back of his
hand. "The tray is in the passage if you'd care to get it, but watch out for the flagon. It's brimful."

"Sir," replied Sam, willing if only half awake. He would have said more, but a poor excuse was worse than none, and
Frodo had turned to set the table with Mr. Bilbo's silver cutlery and clean plates from the dresser.

Sam cast a furtive glance at the mantel, haunted as it now was by the faint imprint of the willow. The tree hadn't sallied
forth from the chimney-breast, but it might have done if Frodo hadn't wakened him. The song of awm and oak had
plainly become jumbled in his head with Halfast's sighting of a Tree-man north of Bindbale Wood, and while he had no
trouble believing that such things might be seen in the open ground between Oatbarton and Greenfields, a willow's
presence on the Hill was harder to fathom. He knew of holes not far from here whose walls were broken by the
cramped roots of white willow or maple, but he could by no means understand why he should dream of such at Bag
End. Mr. Bilbo, though he was doubtless in need of a housekeeper to manage his smial, would never suffer a willow in
the kitchen.

"'T'ain't homely, and that's a fact," he mumbled, before rising to his feet in ready anticipation of victuals to come.   He
didn't fancy venturing further than the door, but the tray, laden with veal pie, cheese, a crock of pickled mushrooms, and
the covered cider flagon, was on the floor by the skirting board; he hefted it easily and returned to the kitchen just as
Frodo pulled the stoppel from the wine.

"You won't change your mind?" Frodo slanted the bottle to allow the light to shine hazily through the bubbled glass.

"Naw," said Sam, with an air of feigned regret, as if he wouldn't have chosen Hardaker's Finest had it not been for the
excessive thirst which was making his mouth pucker. In any case, he was too enthralled by the spicy smell of the
ginger in the pickle jar and the sight of Frodo cutting into the glossy, golden piecrust to fret over his manners. Mistress
Lobelia could say what she liked about Gathergood's sausages, but the butcher's wife had a deft hand with pastry.
Whether its chief purpose was to hide the nature of the filling or whether it might be enjoyed for its own sake was a
common topic for discussion over the Shove Ha'penny board at The Ivy Bush, but in Sam's estimation it was best to let
sleeping dogs lie and eat what you were given.

"Help yourself." Frodo poured a glass of wine, and sat down with his back to the fire as if he were preparing to have a
chat on the price of corn with his cronies at The Green Dragon.

"Thankee, sir," Sam said, spooning out the mushrooms and lifting a small wedge of pie from the platter. "I was feeling
howish when you were in the pantry."

"Yes, I know." Frodo scowled at his wine in a way that made Sam wonder if a bottle of Old Winyards had already done
the rounds of the dinner table. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"I was taken aback," Sam admitted around a mouthful of pie, "but these mushrooms will set me to rights."

"It's the lemon peel," answered Frodo.

"I beg your pardon?" Sam thought his master must have fallen prey to the same aphorism that was afflicting Mr. Bilbo,
for if ever two hobbits were alike as peas in a pod when it came to fudging an issue it was Frodo and his uncle. "I don't
follow."

Frodo plucked a mushroom from the crock, and held it up.

"Ginger root, lemon peel, and onion," he said, and popped the mushroom into his cheek. "Bilbo orders our lemons
from Whinfoot's in Tuckburrow."

"Ah," said Sam, thinking that while he'd relish a natter on the merits of a good pickle at any other time, he was certain
that Frodo hadn't invited him in to sample the mushrooms nor to give his opinion on their proper husbandry. It could be
that Mr. Bilbo, who carried on as if the estate were like Dame Fortune's bottomless purse, had plans afoot for a patch of
blewits in the nether garden, but if that were pertinent to the matter at hand he would have said as much earlier instead
of sending Sam on a wild goose chase.

Sadly, Sam's enjoyment of his snack was now clouded by a vague unease, and he stared at the morsel of pie on his
fork with a familiar sense of foreboding. It was bearing in upon him little by little, and despite Frodo's careless talk of
wine and herbs, that the calf-bound folio had more to do with whatever was toward than the crock of mushrooms which
lay beside it. For there the book sat, as pert as a pyet, and if it had come there by chance then the Gaffer was a
Breelander.

Sam wasn't able to read the faded letters on the spine, and the page edges, though richly gilded, were dusty and
darkened from the passing of countless thumbs. So while it bore an uncanny likeness to the one whose secrets Frodo
had shared in the spring--the book for the understanding of dreams and omens, with its peaky lad in a linen winding
sheet and nightmares set off by ill-digested chicken--it was possible that in this case the leather binding hid an entirely
different and even commonplace purpose.

There was no gainsaying that Big Folk were prone to waste good parchment on trifles, yet Sam reckoned there was
more beneath the blind-stamped cover than a cure for chilblains. Perhaps it was only the tingling in his soles that
made him think it, but he doubted that his master would have brought a book of such girth to the kitchen table on his
birthnight unless it held somewhat of import.

If Frodo would settle his chair legs before he went arse over tip into the grate he might find the wherewithal to be
forthcoming about his peculiar need to share a bottle of Old Winyards out of sight of the other guests. If not, then it
rested with Sam to winkle the truth out of him by fair means or foul.

Sam shuffled his feet against the worn earthenware tiles and drew a deep breath.

"That book--" he said, determined to know first whether he had been wrong about the blewits.   "It doesn't have a chapter
on mushrooms, does it?"

"Mushrooms?" Frodo answered, glancing at the book as if he had just noticed it lying near the mustard pot. "I don't
believe so."

"Receipts for seed cake?" Sam pressed. "Jugged hare maybe or parkin?" He stole a look at Frodo over the top of the
biscuit tin to see if he had hit his mark.

"Parkin? I hope not," said Frodo, cocking his head. "It might contain the receipt for Bingo's mushroom catsup; it was
known for its curative properties and Falco Chubb-Baggins sought relief from his gout by means of it."

"Then it is a book of herbwifery," Sam said, with an air of never having doubted it.

"No, not precisely." Frodo spread his hand over the bronze clasp which held the covers together and his face went still
as a stone. "It's not indexed, so it was by chance that I--"

He stopped, and a ripple of apprehension quite unlike the one that Sam had glimpsed as they'd stood together by the
gate shimmered across his features. His fingers strayed towards the pipe-weed wallet which it was Bilbo's habit to
leave on the table and thence, after a moment's hesitation, to the bumped corners of the old volume. He said nothing
further, and as the long minutes slipped past, the mantel clock marking their course with a sluggish and deliberate
measure, Sam brushed the pastry crumbs from his weskit and waited for Frodo to recover his calm.

"That you what, sir?" he asked, when Frodo had sat for some time with his eyes on the door as if he were listening to
footsteps in the passage. It was easier for Sam to keep from glancing back out of fear of hobgoblins now that he saw
his duty clear, but the idea of Bag End's empty corridors yawning behind him was still a spine-stiffener. There were
altogether too many rooms under Hill, and the Misters Baggins rattled around in them like potatoes in a riddler.

"I don't mean to shove my nose in," he continued, watching Frodo closely all the while, "but a trouble shared makes for a
lighter load."

"Dear me," Frodo said, and took a sip of wine. "I suppose it does. You're very like your Gaffer; did you know?"

Since the Gaffer would have thought it above his calling to sit indoors with the master, Sam knew that he couldn't be so
very like him at the end of the day. On the contrary, he was beginning to feel an impatience with the gentry which was
unbecoming in one of his station.

"This book--" Sam nudged the spine and Frodo leaned forwards to listen. "T'ain't the dream book then?"

"No," Frodo replied matter-of-factly. "If you recall, I bought that one from Goldworthy's in Stock; it has brass cornerpieces
and foliate ornamentation. This one," he said, pressing on the book's cover to open the clasp, "came from beyond the
Old Forest with a shipment of dwarf-made glass just after you--. Well, around that time at any rate. Bilbo paid good
silver for it."

"What is it then, sir?"

Frodo turned the cover, and Sam half rose at sight of the bold green letters twined with branches and the gathering of
hobbits in queer yellow boots who stood below amidst a fall of acorns. It wasn't hard to read the words from where he
sat, but nevertheless he edged his chair nearer to the table's end so that he might take a closer look. The page was
speckled with gilt leaves and in the far corner a boar was rummaging through the mast.

"Shire Roots?" Sam read aloud, and his ears pricked.

"Traditions, not vegetables," responded Frodo. "'Strange as tales from Bree' may well be a true saying, since what the
author didn't know of our customs from rumour borne to him along the Great East Road he made up out of whole cloth.
For instance, I've never seen anyone roll a cheese down the Hill, though it may have been a popular pastime in Bungo's
day. Belladonna was aptly named, I'm afraid, and cheese-rolling would have been staid in comparison to life at Bag
End."

"Breelanders lie as fast as a dog can lick a dish," said Sam, running his fingertip gingerly across the smooth gold tusks
of the foraging pig as Frodo reached for the wine.

"So it would seem, and stretch a point when it suits them," Frodo replied after a brief pause to fill his glass. "If it were a
question of pruning the blackcurrants or choosing a striped marrow I would seek the Gaffer's advice as head gardener."
He slid a mushroom off his pickle fork onto a piece of cheese and frowned at the effect.

"And if it weren't?" Sam's face clouded as he strove with the notion of Frodo asking aught of the Gaffer, yet he was ready
to act as a go-between if that were his fate. Frodo was at ease with all manner of hobbits, but he and the Gaffer didn't
get on half so well as Sam's old dad and Mr. Bilbo who, through many years of disagreement on the correct day to plant
broad beans, had come to a comfortable understanding. "That is to say, you might anyway, if you had a mind to do it."

"But I've a mind to ask you, my dear." Frodo folded his arms with a conspiratorial air and smiled at Sam as if he had
just kissed the jack. "I have reason to believe that you're well-versed in matters folkloric and far more obliging than the
Gaffer."

"Me?" Sam said, bewildered by the speed at which he had been driven to the end of the furrow before he had properly
set his hand to the plough. "I don't know aught of cheese-rolling and suchlike."

"On the contrary," Frodo said, thumbing through the leaves until he came to one with a scrap of parchment tucked in the
crease. "From what I observed in the spring, your inestimable knowledge of candles will help me unravel this passage,
which, I hasten to add, has nothing to do with cheese."

Sam's toes clenched at mention of the word 'candle'. Maybe he was overdue to make a clean breast of it, saving the
moment when Frodo's reflection had loomed through the misted glass like a fright and ruined the spell, but now that he
had come to the point of unburdening himself, he was at a loss where to begin. If Frodo were to ask what kind of
laddish lark had brought him to the Baggins' potting shed at dusk with a candle stub and a mirror, Sam would still be
hard-pressed to answer without embarrassment. Contrariwise, if his master had known or suspected from the outset,
then--

"I--"

"It's here," Frodo interrupted, staring as if Sam had been assayed at the Shire Mint and found to be base metal. Then
he rested a hand on Sam's shoulder and said quietly, "Never mind about that. Look."

Sam looked, but the tightly packed lines of crabbed writing were beyond his skill and he didn't know what Frodo wanted
him to see unless it were the pink meadowsweet adorning the margin.

"Sir?"

Frodo pointed towards a splotch that might have been a letter but was nothing like his own fine Buckland hand and
began to read in a soft voice barely audible above the ruction in the garden.

"What am I to say of the custom known as Lating? Some scholars, to be sure, have cast doubt upon its authenticity,
though we may readily observe the secrecy with which hobbit traditions are guarded from the prying eyes of Men. Why
not also in this instance? If rumour be true--"

These last words were punctuated by a sudden outcry from the partygoers and Sam started up, fearful that Old Noakes
had come a cropper among the lilies in spite of the willow hurdles. The fiddle tune stumbled and broke off as the
sizzling crack of a goblin-barker was heard from the party field, and someone shouted that Melilot Brandybuck--whose
ankles weren't as slender as Mr. Frodo's--was dancing the springle-ring on the trestle tables below the great oak. The
hubbub faded as the stragglers left the garden and the smial was blanketed in a welcome silence broken only by the
din of Sam's heart thumping like a trip hammer.

He sank back into his chair, wishing for the pluck to rise and walk out to the porch, but when he glanced slantwise at his
master he saw that Frodo was gazing at him thoughtfully.

"I wasn't aware that we had anything to guard except the Widow Rumble's virtue. Were you?" Frodo asked.

"Ah," said Sam, stifling the urge to flee Bag End before Frodo's questions touched on subjects that were best forgotten.
"My nuncle Halfred told my Gaffer that queer things have been spied out past Dwaling, but it's the first I've heard this
many a year of Big Folk on our lands."

"They're not on our lands," Frodo answered tartly. "They're nosing about at a distance. I suppose we should be thankful
that our forefathers' customs are apparently of greater interest than our own. Gandalf tells me that the art of pipe-weed
smoking is popular among Men, but they will have acquired that habit in Bree and doubtless an abundance of tavern
gossip with it." He took a swallow of wine and turned to his book. "Stay and listen, Sam; then you can go home with
your Da."

Sam placed his feet flat on the floor and straightened till the yew wood spindles dug into his shoulders. Frodo was
hunched over the page, one finger following the spidery letters where they angled athwart the parchment. His face was
half shadowed, the lantern-light slicing sharp from brow to chin, and Sam fancied that he must sit alone every night in
just this fashion while his neighbours on the Row lay snug abed.

"'If rumour be true,'" Frodo read,"'a householder may seek his fate by means of a tallow candle, but in a manner which
hobbit elders have sworn to hold secret. Scholars of the Halflings aver that this tradition is lost and the meaning of the
name gone beyond recall, yet how can we be certain? It is said that knowledge of Lating is handed from father to son;
thus, if the line be not severed why should the knowledge pass away? Since one who is fit for the purpose must carry
out the foretelling at need, would he not be disposed to share the duty with his kin? Alas, the truth is difficult to establish
as no Shire hobbit will speak of the custom in the presence of Outsiders.<" He stopped his reading abruptly and leaned
back in his seat.

"So ends the chapter, barring a short digression on the merits of Old Toby. It's some time before he returns to Shire
customs of this nature. What's more," Frodo continued, his tone somewhat bitter, "no Shire hobbit will speak of the
custom in the presence of Bucklanders. I asked Bilbo but-- " He scowled, dropping his gaze to the ragged slip of
parchment still clutched between his fingers.

"Mr. Bilbo is a marvel of book-learning," Sam said, hoping for a quick change of subject. They had come to the point all
in a rush and he didn't like it o'ermuch. He'd sooner have shouldered the burden of his own appleblind foolishness
than step into such a quagmire with eyes wide open.

Frodo closed the book's cover and drew one hand across his brow as if to block out sight of the book along with the dirty
plates, the wet ring staining the table around the bottom of his glass, and the empty pickle jar. Then he raised his head
and Sam gulped hard against the lump in his throat at the look Frodo cast towards him, the one that showed his
breeding like a shout.

"As to that," Frodo said, "Bilbo and I agree that this fellow has full as many opinions as a dog has fleas, but no
information to the purpose. I think it curious that some of our secrets should have found their way to Bree-land if they're
so closely guarded that not even Bilbo has caught wind of them. Don't you?"

"Some folk have tongues too long for their teeth," Sam replied.

"True, but do you know what Bilbo suggested?"

"No, sir, I don't," Sam said, although he had an inkling.

"He said that one hobbit of his acquaintance wouldn't mind telling a thing or two to a Bucklander, and I should search
no further than the kitchen garden for my explanation. You'll find it among the carrot rows, he said."

"Aye?" If there'd been a drop of cider left in the flagon Sam would have drained it, for his mouth had gone dry as a
biscuit; it wasn't easy to keep his counsel with his master staring hard enough to crack a green walnut, but keep it he
would till Mr. Frodo got his questions sorted.

Frodo sighed.

"I noticed Bilbo chatting with you earlier. He's sly, I'll grant you, but not invisible." He clipped the bronze clasp into
position and pushed the book from him. "I'd rather he didn't make a joke of it. He ought to tell me if--"

"Begging your pardon, sir," Sam interrupted, "but my Gaffer had it from Old Holman himself that Mr. Bungo was as solid
and respectable a hobbit as you could hope to find this side of the Water. Like as not his da never taught him our
customs, or nothing beyond the common sort, and Mr. Bungo did the same by Mr. Bilbo."

Frodo made a face.

"You may be right," he said. "I'm assuming, of course, that most of this is true. Forgive me, Sam, but I think you know
whether it is."

Sam wilted beneath the heat of Frodo's regard and his hand crept unwittingly to the hat-shaped bulge in his coat pocket.
He hadn't thought there could be anything worse than talking with the master about pippins but clearly there was, and
although he felt a morsel of shame for having kept his silence all this while, now that he was bound to speak he
couldn't grasp how to begin.

"Gaffer doesn't hold with such blathering," he said, in case there should be any doubt on that score.

"Perhaps not, but you do. I've seen you planting houseleeks on the smial top."

"I won't deny it, sir; that's garden lore, and I'd be falling down on my job if I overlooked it. But some of the older ways
aren't hobbitlike, if you catch my meaning." He paused, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground. "Maybe it's
best to let things be, though I say it as shouldn't; it won't be the first time today that I've been plain with you, Mr. Frodo, if
you'll excuse me."

Frodo rose from his chair without answering and chose a log from the willow basket. He appeared by his bearing to be
half inclined to spend the night in the kitchen, or at the very least to bide indoors until Bilbo called him out for the
speeches.   He stayed for a second with his head bent, one arm resting on the edge of the overmantel, then dropped
the wood into the grate and stepped away as the sparks flew outwards.

"No, it won't," he said, after a lengthy silence, his fingers plucking at the soon-to-be-frayed hem of his shirt-sleeve. "I
gave you the same advice in the spring and you took issue with me then; we've traded places since. When Bilbo
brought that book home in Thrimidge I saw it as a temporary distraction from--"

He looked at the mantel where the squat oaken clock stood flush against the tarnished looking-glass, its single hand
nearing the hour of ten, and the slant of firelight threw a rosy glow across his cheekbone.

"--from the dreams I spoke of before," he continued, although Sam thought he had meant to say something else. "Then
I found the passage on Lating and I was forced to reconsider what I'd said to you that day, at least sufficiently to allow
me to satisfy my curiosity over this one matter.   Do you understand?"

"A chap can't help wanting a thing," Sam said.

"No," Frodo replied, an odd catch in his voice. "He can't."

He shoved his hands into his pockets, as Mr. Bilbo did when he was conscious of another's scrutiny, and remained by
the fire in a pensive attitude which seemed to beg an answer of Sam without meaning to do so. The sounds of
merry-making flowed and ebbed, and at long last Frodo went to the window, secured the latch, and drew the curtain.

"It's cold for the time of year," he said.

Sam knew then that he was free to tell what he had heard or to let the moment pass unacknowledged and that, should
he choose the latter course, Frodo would never speak of it again. His master could be haughty when Sandyman was
found to have mixed sawdust with the milled wheat or Farmer Whitfoot's sheep trampled the Widow's spring border, but
his manner towards the Gamgee family had always been polite and easy.

The choice was a simple one in the end, for Sam wasn't a hobbit elder sworn to keep his potato-trap shut, and Frodo
had as much right as anyone in Hobbiton to know what went on under his nose, even if half of it was gammon. Nothing
would come of it anyhow. Frodo would add a few close-written lines above the meadowsweet in the margin of his book,
return it to the shelf in Mr. Bilbo's library, and by the time Winterfilth was out he'd be off on a new scent.

"It wasn't Da who told me," Sam muttered.

"Let me guess," Frodo said, resuming his seat with a nod of approbation and taking up the bottle of Old Winyards. "Nan
Cotton told Tom, and though young Tom can't distinguish stitchwort from woodruff he knows how much you enjoy a
stray bit of Shire lore. In fact, unless I miss my mark, it was also Tom Cotton who--" Frodo shrugged and poured them
each a measure. "It doesn't matter. Am I close?"

"Aye, near enough," Sam confessed, the taut ache across his shoulders easing a smidgeon as he caught Frodo's
amused eye. "Tom likes to fidget me some but he's meek as a lamb when Nick and Jolly aren't by. He told me
because--" Sam puckered his brow.

"No one else would?" Frodo offered.

"That's more than I can say, seeing as I've never asked my Da. Tom's a queer customer, and does what he lists."

Frodo folded his hands on the table-top and his glance was sharp.

"I don't suppose the Cottons would have corresponded with someone from east of The Marish," he remarked absently.

"Not even in hugger-mugger, Mr. Frodo, nor would any Shire hobbit to my way of thinking. That fellow would have got it
right if they had done. The name--"

"Yes?" Frodo prompted.

Sam studied the concoction in the bottom of his mug and wondered how it would sit with the pint of Hardaker's Finest.
Now that it was time to speak the words of bidding his tongue was unaccountably tangled, and a mouthful of sour wine
might loosen it if he could bring himself to open his lips and swallow the mixture. Wine or no, he would still be out of
sorts from too much talk, for his master's steady gaze had drawn more from him than he was used to giving all at once;
yet if the only road through this bewilderment was straight ahead, he would gladly take it.

"That's not how we say it," he answered at length, nudging the pewter mug aside with a grimace. "We call it 'Lighting'."

"Lighting?" Frodo said, his eyes as dazzling as the gilt buttons on his green velvet weskit. "That's better. The meaning
is scarcely gone beyond recall then, but as to the manner--" He raised his brows.

Sam remembered well what he'd been taught that midyear's morning, how he had learned it by heart and put it away
safe. But knowing something and digging it out to show Mr. Frodo were two different things. He waited for a spell until
the words assembled in orderly ranks and the path from here to there wasn't so crooked as it had been, then he began.

"It happens in this manner," he said. "The chosen hobbit bears a lighted candle withershins around the Hill at the dark
of the moon after Blotmath's end. He follows the narrow track through the Great Wood to the bank of The Water and
then--"

He faltered at the memory of kneeling amidst the dry bracken in the hazel copse, the wind soughing in the branches
overhead as Tom handed on the knowledge. The very thought of the Great Wood at full dark made his childish fears of
the goblin in the chimney shrink to the size of a nutmeg, since he had never cared to wander at night unless the moon
was up, nor would he do so except at need. Even now, in the kitchen at Bag End, he could hear the beech stems
rattling and the sleepy hum of the pollard near the beck. He blinked, worried that he might have nodded for a moment,
but the lights on the mantel burned still and Frodo's bright face continued to regard him with interest.

Frodo reached for the wallet of pipe-weed and his fingertips brushed Sam's fleetingly.

"Go on, my dear," he murmured, settling back into his chair. "All this secrecy over a tallow candle and a midnight stroll?
Surely there's more."

There was a great deal more, and Sam was afraid to utter it lest he mistakenly give out what he'd rather not share. But
soonest was best, as the Gaffer would say when it was time to plant the willow cuttings, and if Frodo was bent on
knowing then it was useless to hinder him.

"There's a verse of bidding to set the charm," he said, looking earnestly at the mustard pot to keep from meeting Frodo's
eyes, "and if the flame goes out before the lad returns, that household fares ill in the coming year. The crops wither
maybe, or--" He stopped again, unwilling to make the upshot plainer.

"A verse?" Frodo twisted the scrap of parchment into a spill and poked at the pipeweed in his bowl. "I'm amazed that
Bilbo didn't stumble upon it. How does it go?" He stretched out his arm to kindle the slip from the fire, and Sam took the
opportunity to steal a sip of Old Winyards on the off-chance that it might boost his spirits.

"The hobbit who sends the other on his way bids him hasten with the words, 'this one night, this one night, fire and fleet
and candle-light'," Sam went on, the wine searing an unwelcome trail down his gullet. "Doggerel, I'd call it, though
Tom's Nan might have thought it a fine thing."

"No doubt she did," Frodo replied, a trace of mirth in his tone. "Fire and fleet?"

"Hobbit comforts, I suppose," said Sam, puzzling it out. "It's the fire in our hearths and the flet below our feet that keep
us warm and dryshod, or those of us who live in proper smials."

"That's the whole of it? One line of ragged verse?"

"Oh no, sir." Sam shook his head. "At his return the candle-bearer is greeted with, ''when you from hence away have
passed, to great reward you'll come at last', and he answers, 'every night and all'. I think it's a muddle," he admitted,
spotting Frodo's incredulous expression through the haze of pipe-weed smoke, "but Nan Cotton's own da was carried
off by a wasting sickness after Tom's Uncle Wilcome ventured through the Wood and came back without his candle."

"What happened to it?"

"He wouldn't say, but I reckon it fell into the mire and he couldn't find it nohow, being as he's short-sighted."

"That must have been hard," said Frodo. "What of the lad who fails? Wilcome Cotton lacks nothing but the wit to grow a
good potato as far as I can tell."

"Oh, the lad never fails. He carries the candle and if the flame dies it was meant," replied Sam, with greater confidence
than he had any business laying claim to under the circumstances. He had pondered the Lighting for weeks on end,
when he wasn't brooding over crisp, green pippins, and it made no more sense than it had in the beginning. "Fate,
Tom says, but I can't see it. What if he were to trip on a root and let go of his candle?"

"For my own part, I'd choose a stout lad who could manage a candle," said Frodo, his eyes on the book as if he wished
to weigh its meagre understanding of the matter against the trustworthiness of Tom's Nan.

"It's a difficult path for both hobbits," he said at last, "but the lad who carries the light has the better half of the bargain, if
what you've said is true. Do you believe it?"

"It's too deep for the likes of me."

Frodo nodded.

"Perhaps one shouldn't place all of one's trust in such a notion, although if the Cottons have been a party to it then who
can tell how many other candle-bearers have passed our gate?" He knocked the ashes from his pipe and pushed back
his chair. "One might try a thing for its own sake, as you did once."

"Every hobbit has a fool in his sleeve, sir," returned Sam, pulling his jacket from behind his shoulders in readiness.
Frodo's gaze was fixed on him in a way which suggested that a spot of something might have found a home on his
shirt-front and he held up his jacket to hide it, the smooth weight of the mirror case tapping his thigh.

"Not every hobbit, my dear," Frodo said, getting to his feet. He gathered the dishes onto the tray and Sam, knowing that
he had been dismissed and not caring to explore his own indiscretions of the spring now that he'd been relieved of that
particular fidget, drew out his crumpled hat and rose from his chair.

"Gaffer will want me to see him home, sir, if it's all the same."

"Of course." Frodo looked up at Sam, his face solemn. "And the telling will remain between us, as it would have
remained between you and Tom had I not pressed for an answer.   I'm sorry, Sam; if Bilbo asks--"

Sam, with the solid reassurance of the felt between his fingers, was about to avow his ignorance of everything to do with
the old master's whims but Frodo stopped him with a gesture.

"He hasn't done a single thing on the spur of the moment since the day he ran from Bag End without a
pocket-handkerchief. I know that he sent you to find me for a reason and that reason had nothing to do with Lobelia. If
he asks me, I shall tell him what you've said."

"I'm not bothered either way," declared Sam, relieved that he would no longer be a lone, unwilling party to one of Mr.
Bilbo's secrets. "He's Hobbiton born and bred, not like--" He paused, holding his hat a little tighter.

"Not like outlanders from Bree," he finished carefully, in case Mr. Frodo thought--well, whatever a lad who was half a
Bucklander might be inclined to think if he were sensitive on the subject of his birth. But Frodo said nothing. His face
was filled with that sleep-mazed look it had worn in the arbour yesternoon, as if he were measuring Sam for a suit of
clothes that wasn't a size too small of a sudden.

"I'll be off then, sir. Thankee for the snack." Sam put on his jacket and stepped round the corner into the passage,
glancing down to ensure that he was in a fit state to tackle the Gaffer. His shirt and weskit were spotless after all, and
his breeches just as they ought to be.

"Fiddlesticks," he whispered, "worritin' over nought."

He had gone where he was bidden and said what was needed; now he would unbolt the door and walk out into the
garden as if he'd been helping Mr. Frodo with the ginger beer as innocent as a cabbage. None would gainsay him. He
would check on his Gaffer and if anyone had come to grief amongst the brambles he'd haul them out by their shirt tails
and dust them off. He might have time for that pint with Tom Cotton if the silly bugger hadn't drunk himself into a stupor.

He set his fingers to the metal, ready to call a polite goodbye from the step if Mistress Lobelia were out of earshot, but
before he could draw the bolt there was an unexpected warmth at his back and a firm hand on his. The brief flicker of
surprise he felt at the knowledge that Frodo had finally come to the nub of the matter after beating about the bush like a
Baggins vanished as quickly as his master's hand.

"Not yet," Frodo said. "I haven't finished."

"Sir?" Sam turned his head, unable to see more in the dimness than the irregular, hunched outlines of winter cloaks
hanging in casual disorder from the hall stand, the toes of Mr. Bilbo's dwarf boots peeking out beside the bench, and
the pale streak of Frodo's face above his pleated shirtfront. The candles in the lantern had guttered and there was only
a square patch of reflected light on the wall beyond the iron clock, wavering a little as the draft from the chimney blew the
kitchen candle-flames to and fro. Sam fixed his gaze on it as Frodo spoke, hastily swallowing what else he might have
said.

"You mentioned a reward for the one who carries the candle."

"Aye," said Sam, "though I reckon it's neither money nor movables."

"What then?" Frodo asked.

"I don't know, sir. Maybe the household will be the right way up in the end. That's the manner of things, isn't it?" He
shrugged. "I told you it was a muddle."

"Not a great muddle, my dear. Would you do it?"

"Do it?" Sam thought over the passel of unanswerable questions Frodo had tossed at him in the spring and how he'd
been too green then to do other than stammer excuses. This was easier. "I'd be duty-bound if the Gaffer wanted it.
Hamson lives with our Uncle Andwise in Tighfield and Halfred took work in the Northfarthing last year. There's no one
but--"

"No, Sam, I meant--would you carry the candle for me?"

Sam would have begged pardon again or blamed his inattention on the speck of wax in his ear, but Frodo had used
what the Gaffer called his 'coming the squire' tone and its meaning was plain. He hadn't been vexed because of the
trouble in the potting shed as Sam had supposed; instead, he had spent the summer months waiting to request this
favour once the occasion offered itself. Yet if the mirror spell had planted the first seeds of curiosity in his mind in spite
of his former adamancy on the fruitlessness of foreknowledge, and if he had searched in Bilbo's book a-purpose, then
Sam was still responsible for their current predicament. That much was clear.

"I'd carry anything for you," Sam said, before he could regret it, "though Da would give me a smack if he caught me out of
doors past midnight."

"It won't come to that," replied Frodo, turning aside to grab his coat from its hook. "Your talent for evasion will stand you
in good stead."

Sam was grateful for the uncertain light in the passage which prevented the hectic flush that mottled his cheeks from
giving him away; nonetheless, he jerked on his hat and tucked his chin deep into his collar to hide his discomfiture.

"Da sleeps sounder than most for all his grumbling. I'll be back in two ticks and if he spots me nipping past his door I'll
swear that I was toiling in the privy with a bad case of--" He coughed. "If you see what I mean."

Frodo snorted.

"Indeed. And how long will it take to go--" His voice was muffled as he pulled on his coat, then patted the pockets to
check for wallet and pipe. "Where does the way lead? Withershins around the Hill, through the Great Wood and to the
bank of the Water?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said, aware that he had set foot on a path from which there would be no coming back, or not by the
same track no matter what Mr. Bilbo wrote about all ways being one. "And from the copse of trees where Water meets
Wood to the speckled stone near the Bywater Road. There's no telling how long it takes at moon dark, but if it's not
done in an hour's span it will never be done noways, Tom says."

Sam hoped that his words were filled with the confidence of one who had walked the Hill past owl-light as often as he
had washed his drawers, but there must have been a quake in his voice to belie him for an arm came around his
shoulders and a shiver akin to the one he'd felt in the garden coursed through his body from the spot where Frodo's
hand rested to the tips of his toes. It was an odd thing and no mistake. He might have puzzled it out in time, but the arm
was gone almost immediately and Frodo was drawing the heavy iron bolt in readiness to open the door.

"Thank you, Sam, I--" Frodo halted, his eyes on the knob. "Bilbo and I are very glad to have you at Bag End. Do you
understand?"

"I don't rightly know, sir," Sam whispered. "I've done naught but help my Gaffer with the taters, when I wasn't tending the
Widow Rumble's mums. I'm only twenty and not fit for--"

"Nonsense," said Frodo briskly. "You're a hobbit of inestimable worth who can be relied on in a pinch.   However,
there's one more question."

There's always one more, thought Sam, with a lowering sensation in the pit of his stomach that wasn't entirely the fault
of that single imprudent mouthful of Old Winyards. If he was to bear the weight of two Bagginses relying on him then he
had best get an early night to conserve his strength and eat a hearty breakfast on the morrow. It would be hard going.

"Yes, Mr. Frodo?"

"The Lighting takes place after Blotmath's end?"

"Aye," Sam answered, relieved that Frodo's question was no worse. "Parky weather for a midnight stroll, in my opinion.
I shouldn't wonder if many a candle's been lost on account of frozen fingers."

"Not in this case, I trust," Frodo returned, throwing open the door to the cool, evening air and the spicy fragrance of wild
dog roses. He looked at Sam in a manner so like his old self--his cheeks pink and his eyebrows tilted thus--that Sam's
heart ached to see it. "We'll have weeks to put it from our minds."

"Happen we will," said Sam, though he knew that it would be a millstone around his neck from now until Foreyule. He
frowned. "The candle should be--" he began, but before he could show his master the proper size and shape for such
a candle, he was cut short by a sound which had broken into his daydreams too often of late.

"Samwise! Where is that boy?"

"Sam is here, Master Hamfast," Frodo called, as the Gaffer wobbled into view with his buttons half undone and his
shirt-tails flapping. "He's been a great help to us, but it's time that he went to his bed. He's done the work of twenty
hobbits, and springle-ringing is beyond his powers just now."

The Gaffer stared at Sam with a doubtful glint in his eye.

"I reckon 'tis," he said after a brief assessment. "Pay your respects, Samwise, and come along."

Sam would have dutifully tugged his forelock if his hat hadn't been in the way, but he contented himself with a mumbled
'thankee, sir, and a happy birthnight', and was rewarded with a sly wink which would have displeased Gaffer Gamgee
had he seen it. Though he was ashamed to admit it, Sam was glad to be out of the smial and headed for home, even if
his Da's rendition of 'The Giant Turnip of Frogmorton' would undoubtedly grow stale long before they had reached the
gate of Number 3.