The Green Dragon Inn #11 - The Last Chapter

[Pivli]

Violet glanced up at the boy as he approached. Her niece and their new dinner companion, Rose, were looking past the young messenger and at the original source of the message. Violet leaned forward a little, the better to hear what the boy was saying. At the same time she tapped her cane twice on the floor, drawing the attention of Lilly and Rose.

‘Mr. Fordogrim, you say,’ Violet said, looking over to where the Hobbit sat. Nicely enough dressed, she thought. There were two other fellows sitting with him, clouds of pipeweed smoke floating above their heads.

‘Well, now,’ she began. ‘It looks as if Mr. Fordogrim has finished his lunch.’ She looked at the three bowls on her table. She and the two girls were about halfway through their stew. ‘Perhaps we should just finish our lunch here, and then join him. Seems awkward, don’t you think, girls, to drag our half eaten food to another table.’

[Lilly]

‘Oh, Auntie!’ replied Lilly, her hand reaching out to pat Violet on the arm. ‘It won’t be awkward at all.’ Looking about she saw a server with an empty tray heading back toward the kitchen. Motioning her over, Lilly spoke low gesturing to emphasize her points, and soon the server had handed over the tray.

‘What do you say, Rose? Shall we pile our bowls and mugs and such on this tray, and join Mister Fordogrim for the rest of lunch? Auntie?’

[Tevildo]

As Cook lay indignant, sprawled on her back in an ungainly pose, Tevildo hunched down in the water, then twisted to the left, and gave a determined leap. He cleared the side of the dishpan with plenty of room to spare and landed deftly on the upper shelf, positioning his body right beneath the hook where the smoked bird still hung.

If truth be told, Tevildo preferred to kill his own prey, since birds dressed by the butcher were not quite as moist or succulent as those slaughtered on the wing. But, hungry is hungry! He'd had nothing to eat all morning. The mice had stayed curled up in their holes, frustrating all his efforts to come away with a tasty prize. Tevildo's stomach was growling ever louder, and he thought it best simply to accept what had fallen into his path

Seeing the resolute look in Cook's eyes, the cat decided to act first and think later so that he could manage to get away with his fur intact. With one last desperate leap, he reached up for the hanging poultry. Tevildo couldn't bring the whole bird down but he did succeed in getting hold of the left wing and, with a mighty heave, tore the appendage loose from the rest of the body and jumped down to the floor. For a moment he stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen. The smoked wing hung out one side of his mouth, as he stared quizzically about the room, searching for a means of escape. He suddenly spied a window that faced out onto the garden. Someone had propped it open an inch or two with the help of a flour bag. Squeezing through the narrow opening. he managed to wriggle his body outside along with his prized chicken wing. The only thing still inside the kitchen was the very tip of his puffy white tail. One more heave and he would be through to the freedom of the garden!

[Rose]

Rose looked from Miz Violet and back to Lilly. ‘My goodness,’ she thought to herself ‘the lasses down here in town were bold! “Forward” her Gran would say.’ She wanted to excuse herself from the whole venture, saying she had business to see to. But Lilly had been so kind to invite her to their table. And even Miz Violet thought it alright to go sit at the stranger’s table.

Stealing a quick glance at Fordogrim’s table, she caught him looking her way. She blushed and ducked her head as she turned quickly back to her lunch companions. ‘I suppose it will be alright,’ she said. ‘But I can’t stay long to chat. I really must see Miz Vinca Bunce about the Faire that’s coming up. Some business my mother’s sent me on.’

The tray was quickly loaded with bowls, baskets of bread, butter, honey, and jams, and cheese of course. Lilly led the way with Miz Violet following, her cane tapping along on the wooden floor. Rose brought up the rear, her eyes darting from side to side, in case any opportunities for escape might suddenly appear.

[piosenniel]

‘Get that misbegotten cat!’ yelled Cook. She lay on the floor gasping and flapping as she tried to raise herself up on the slippery boards. With an ungraceful heave, she turned to her belly and leveraged herself up to her knees.

Her hair had straggled out from her headband and she pushed it back with an authoritative motion – daring the curls to stray out of place again, almost. A figure whizzed by her, on the run, heading for where the cat and his prize were struggling to get out the window.

‘Grab the thief!’ she hollered again. And was rewarded as a hand clamped firmly about the puffy white tail.

[Folwren]

Wren had been left in an upstairs room, rummages through an old wardrobe in search of proper stockings and shoes for that evening’s party. It had taken her quite some time, for she tried on what pairs of shoes she could find and also sought for stockings that might match the dress Ginger had carried off with her.

After some time of such work, she finally found shoes that would fit at least decently, and stockings that would match. She put everything back where it belonged and closed all the drawers and doors and tops of everything and left the room as undisturbed as she and Ginger had entered it earlier.

She reached the bottom of the stair way and dodged across the common room as inconspicuously as she could possibly managed and pushed the kitchen door open carefully. The sight that met her eyes caused her to stop in the doorway where she stood. The door closed softly behind her and she remained rooted in her place.

The cook, who was no longer on the floor, looked absolutely furious, and she was wet, no less. Ruby was in the act of pulling a cat back into the kitchen through the window by its tail.

It had been Cook’s appearance that had first shocked Wren, but when her eyes clapped to the cat being dragged back against it’s will, her little heart went out to it and she started forward with a cry of indignation, dropping her burden as she went, her young eyes flashing.

“Don’t hurt the poor cat! Don’t pull it’s tail! Leave it alone! What did he ever do to you to deserve that treatment! Give him to me.”

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Fordogrim stood up grandly from his table as the lasses approached with their grand dam, motioning to Gerdy and Fatty to rise as well. His cousins’ eyes were as saucers as they got to their feet, for they were bachelors both, and shy around lasses. Like most hobbits, they looked forward to settling down someday, but as yet their minds had not wandered too far from their work. For his part, Fordogrim enjoyed the company of a pretty maid but had little inclination toward marriage, enjoying, as he said to his friends repeatedly, “the leisure to eat my second breakfast and elevenses whenever and wherever I please, and the freedom of popping out to the local for an ale at any hour.” So it was with a purely aesthetic and somewhat disinterested enjoyment that he gazed upon Lilly and Rose as they approached.

Stepping forward from the table he dropped them a bow that would have been grand in someone of more normal height, but being as he was but barely 24 inches tall, it merely emphasized his extreme smallness. Standing erect once more he addressed the women in as polite a tone as he could muster. “Thank you very much for accepting of our invitation, ladies, for we are three strangers to these here parts. What is more, for all that we are unfamiliar with this part of the Shire, we’re all too familiar of each other, having spent so much time together that there’s little new to say. It will be a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” And with that he bowed once more. Before anyone could recover from this display, tiny Fordogrim leapt toward the extra chairs that Tim had smartly provided and held them out in turn for each of the ladies. As he seated them he introduced himself and his cousins (“This here is Fatty, whose name, you’ll note, doesn’t fit him – not yet at least, but we’re hoping to get him fed up on this trip a bit more! And this is his brother Gerdy – a right good worker, and as steady a fellow as you’d like to meet!”). When he had pushed in all three chairs (and spent, if the truth be told, a little longer doing so with Rose and Lilly than with Violet), Fordogrim sat himself at the table and called out to Ruby for more food, “so as we three can keep you three better company.”

When all were settled he turned to Lilly and Rose (whom he had quite cannily seated directly across from himself, the better to see their faces; Violet he had sat as his right hand, facing the cousins) and asked if they had heard of the party that was to be held at the Inn this night? “For,” he said, “it’s to be a grand affair in celebration of my very own ales and lagers. And there’s sure to be ever so much to do at it. Singing and people as meeting with one another…and dancing, to be sure!” And here he looked at the younger lasses with a decided twinkle in his eye.