The Golden Perch Inn

[Galadriel55]

After such a hearty meal and a pint or two of the best beer in all of Shire, Al was feeling quite drowsy - not so drowsy as to take a nap, but enough not to go looking for trouble. For the past hour he has dined alone, brooding on the injustice of the people around him and the wrongs they have done him. But it is known, in the words of his renowned grandmother, that a mug of good ale makes old grievances stale, and soon enough Al's mood cleared and he dwelt more on his drink than on his grudges.

He did not move as the other visitors steped out one by one into the wind and the room enptied. He did not even notice that he was the last customer left. His reverie ended when the innkeeper came up to him and asked politely about how long Al woud be staying.

“In amongst the rush there, I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask you," he explained. "You’re from Buckland, if I’m not mistaken, though I don’t believe you ever said. . .”

"From Buckland indeed, from Brandy Hall itself!" Al replied, content for the time being to talk about his home and his plans with Master Boffin. "You ain't going to find nothing better! You should come visit it sometime!" Al paused to take another sip of ale. "I'm on my way to Tookbank, you know. I'm a taking my time getting there. Small, drab, moth-eaten place it is. But my mother's kin has the rotten luck to live there." Al sighed and sipped his mead again.

[Folwren]

Good heavens, this chap can be long winded! Dick said to himself as Al answered in an entirely speech what would have been better answered in two sentences or less. And when he had finished answering, Dick found that he hadn’t actually answered at all.

“So that means you would be staying how long, exactly?” Dick asked again, patiently. He had seen hobbits consume a great deal of ale and Al had drunk more than two pints already since he arrived that morning. It would be understandable if his wits were a little addled by the brew.

Before Al could respond, a new customer came in through the front door. Dick patted Al’s shoulder and turned to greet the new gentlehobbit.

“Good afternoon!” the stranger said. “A mug of your house bear, if you please.”

“Certainly,” Dick replied, coming around the counter and picking up a mug. He filled it to the brim, the froth threatening to spill down the edges and handed it to the hobbit. “You a stranger in these parts?”

[Snowdog]

Darrell eyed the mug of beer as it was handed to him.

"Yes, Darrell Largebarrel is me name and I hail from near Oatbarton up in North Farthing. Never get out if that area much xcept to make special deliveries to the Green Dragon in Bywater. Someone there told me 'bout the Floating Log in Frogmorton, so when I went to visit, someone there told me 'bout the Golden Perch here in Stock."

He took a long swig from his beer after he eyed the head. Satisfying after his ride, Darrell said,

"Nice beer. Nice inn you have here too if ya don' mind me sayin'."

He sipped his beer again as he eyed the bar and pondered whether there was space for a cask of his ale and if the proprietor would be willing to give it a try.

"I can gather a sense of Oatley hops in this beer. Wouldn't mind procuring a cask for myself. Maybe you could advise me as to who the brewer of such fine amber is?"

He took another sip before swirling it about slightly in the mug.

[Folwren]

"Yes, Darrell Largebarrel is me name and I hail from near Oatbarton up in North Farthing. Never get out if that area much xcept to make special deliveries to the Green Dragon in Bywater. Someone there told me 'bout the Floating Log in Frogmorton, so when I went to visit, someone there told me 'bout the Golden Perch here in Stock."

Then this hobbit was someone who sold goods to inns, Dick said to himself as he listened to the stranger’s introduction. He would soon find out what his wares were, no doubt.

"Nice beer,” Darrell said when Dick made no reply. “Nice inn you have here too if ya don' mind me sayin'."

Dick nodded and looked about. He appreciated the old place for its integrity and well known reputation of fine hospitality and better beer. He found that maintaining such a place was not always as easy as he had originally supposed when he came into possession of it.

"I can gather a sense of Oatley hops in this beer,” Darrell observed, pulling Dick’s attention back to him. “Wouldn't mind procuring a cask for myself. Maybe you could advise me as to who the brewer of such fine amber is?"

“Why that’s the beer brewed in our own county,” Dick said with satisfaction. “That’s what’s got us our name, see? Drew Berrybanks and his family’s brewed it for the last hundred years.” Was it really a hundred years? Maybe not. Dick didn’t want to do the math just now. “You can find him popping in here sometimes on an evening. Otherwise, he lives out of town by the east road.

“So you provide the Floating Log and Green Dragon with your wares? What do you sell, Mr. Largebarrel?”

[Undómë]

Prim stood just outside the door to the pantry as she motioned to Rowan with her hand and gave a muffled, ‘Psssst…’! She could barely hold back the chuckle that threatened to escape her lips.

Rowan hurried over, her brow furrowed. What on earth was so funny back there among the crocks and jars and shelves and sacks of grains? As she drew nearer she could hear a quiet babble of intertwining voices, punctuated by the occasional muffled, guttural sound. Rowan peeked around the door’s edge, her eyes going wide at the sight.

There was Annie kneeling over the rag basket, her little hands busy wrapping a strip of rag she was using as a bandage around old Granny Whiskers’ front leg. In her own voice she was cooing at Granny in a soothing manner, asking the old cat if she felt better now. And in a lower pitched voice she was answering back as Granny, announcing that yes the leg feels better now, but some bad rat had bit her on the tail just yesterday and it was hurting something awful. Granny Whiskers was hardly able to say much else on her own behalf as there was an old woolen sock placed round her head to help mend some affliction in that area – thus the source of muffled, guttural sounds Rowan had heard.

To her feline credit, Granny Whiskers had not used her claws on the young, well intentioned healer. But, as the girl turned her focus toward the old cat’s tail, Granny mobilized her considerable bulk and leaped from the basket.

Trailing streamers of raggedy bandages like some old mouldering wraith, she sprinted across the kitchen floor making for the open door as if chased by ghastly wights. She caromed off a pair of shoes and bumped between a pair of ankles in her desperate hurry to escape to the safety of the old garden shed.

Her little fists balled on her hips, Annie shook her head at her now escaped patient.

“How rude of her!’ Rowan tsk-tsk’d in a sympathetic voice. ‘And here you were just trying to help her!!’

[Galadriel55]

Al sighed and gulped down the remains of his ale. Why was it that people always just left him by himself in the middle of an important conversation? How rude!

Feeling sympathetic for himself and very unsympathetic toward the inkeeper, Al made his way to the talking twain, his empty mug in hand. He heard the end of the conversation.

"The brewer of 'such fine amber' can go be eaten by the wereworms!" he said before the newcomer could answer the last question. "All this Drew Berrybanks can make is some spittle in a jar! This brown water's not worth the mug 't's in, and the mug ain't worth 'tself either." All paused, while the other two regarded him. Al broke the silence, handing his mug to Seredic:

"Another one of those, Master Boffin!"

Even when he was as angry as a boiling kettle, Al never forgot his hobbitish common sense and courtesy.

[Mithalwen]

"I was!" said Annie earnestly, looking up at Rowan from where she still knelt on the pantry floor There was a plaintive note to her voice and a hint of bafflement in her blue eyes. "She had a poorly tail anna hurty paw and the worst toothache in the whole world -an' now she's gone".

Suddenly the little girl rocked back and huddled against the sacks and burying her face against them trying to hide the sobs that she could no longer stifle and which had little to do with the cat's departure. "Everybody goes. Nobody stays" her little voice was muffled and forlorn. Her mother could be heard just outside the open door now - remarking on the hurtling progress of Granny Whiskers across the garden. But Annie was too full of cold and misery to find solace in it. She pulled her shawl closer around her and screwed her eyes tight shut but tears still trickled down her face.