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Merry stepped forward. ‘We have met before,’ he said to the leader, ‘and I warned you not to come back here. I warn you again: you are standing in the light and you are covered by archers. If you lay a finger on this farmer, or on anyone else, you will be shot at once. Lay down any weapons that you have!’

The leader looked round. He was trapped. But he was not scared, not now with a score of his fellows to back him. He knew too little of hobbits to understand his peril. Foolishly he decided to fight. It would be easy to break out.

‘At ‘em, lads!’ he cried. ‘Let ‘em have it!’

With a long knife in his left hand and a club in the other he made a rush at the ring, trying to burst out back towards Hobbiton. He aimed a savage blow at Merry who stood in his way. He fell dead with four arrows in him.

That was enough for the others. They gave in. Their weapons were taken from them, and they were roped together, and marched off to an empty hut that they had built themselves, and there they were tied hand and foot, and locked up under guard. The dead leader was dragged off and buried.

‘Seems almost too easy after all, don’t it?’ said Cotton. ‘I said we could master them. But we needed a call. You came back in the nick o’ time, Mr. Merry.’

‘There’s more to be done still,’ said Merry. ‘If you’re right in your reckoning, we haven’t dealt with a tithe of them yet. But it’s dark now. I think the next stroke must wait until morning. Then we must call on the Chief.’

‘Why not now?’ said Sam. ‘It’s not much more than six o’clock. And I want to see my gaffer. D’you know what’s come of him, Mr. Cotton?’

‘He’s not too well, and not too bad, Sam,’ said the farmer. ‘They dug up Bagshot Row, and that was a sad blow to him. He’s in one of them new houses that the Chief’s Men used to build while they still did any work other than burning and thieving: not above a mile from the end of Bywater. But he comes around to me, when he gets a chance, and I see he’s better fed than some of the poor bodies. All against The Rules, of course. I’d have had him with me, but that wasn’t allowed.’

‘Thank’ee indeed, Mr. Cotton, and I’ll never forget it,’ said Sam. ‘But I want to see him. That Boss and that Sharkey, as they spoke of, they might do a mischief up there before the morning.’

‘All right, Sam,’ said Cotton. ‘Choose a lad or two, and go and fetch him to my house. You’ll not have need to go near the old Hobbiton village over Water. My Jolly here will show you.’

Sam went off. Merry arranged for look-outs round the village and guards at the barriers during the night. Then he and Frodo went off with Farmer Cotton. They sat with the family in the warm kitchen, and the Cottons asked a few polite questions about their travels, but hardly listened to the answers: they were far more concerned with events in the Shire.

‘It all began with Pimple, as we call him,’ said Farmer Cotton; ‘and it began as soon as you’d gone off, Mr. Frodo. He’d funny ideas, had Pimple. Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about. It soon came out that he already did own a sight more than was good for him; and he was always grabbing more, though where he got the money was a mystery: mills and malt-houses and inns, and farms, and leaf-plantations. He’d already bought Sandyman’s mill before he came to Bag End, seemingly.

‘Of course he started with a lot of property in the Southfarthing which he had from his dad; and it seems he’d been selling a lot o’ the best leaf, and sending it away quietly for a year or two. But at the end o’ last year he began sending away loads of stuff, not only leaf. Things began to get short, and winter coming on, too. Folk got angry, but he had his answer. A lot of Men, ruffians mostly, came with great waggons, some to carry off the goods south-away, and others to stay. And more came. And before we knew where we were they were planted here and there all over the Shire, and were felling trees and digging and building themselves