It was twilight when Sam reached Hobbiton. While he was anxious to return to Frodo, he also wanted to stop after his long ride and take a minute or two to collect himself before going home. It had been hours since he'd left the old Sackville house, but his visit to it still disturbed him. A half-pint of ale seemed the best measure to settle his disquiet, and after he'd left his pony to be tended at the stable, the lights of the Green Dragon shimmering across the Bywater Pool beckoned him welcomingly.
As Sam entered the tavern, Robin Smallburrows, who was at his usual table near the bar, lifted a mug to him. "How's your investigation for Mr. Frodo coming along, Sam?" he asked in friendly greeting. "Ours hasn't turned up much. I heard tell that Mrs. Lobelia was at the Chief's house this morning, raising the biggest stink over how little we'd done to find her poor Lotho. She wanted to have the whole lot of you up at Bag End arrested--she said you knew more'n you was telling. Do you, Sam? What have you found?"
"As a matter o' fact, I just learned something that might do you some good to know, Robin. Mrs. Lobelia too, though that's only as an aside." Sam sat down, and told Robin what the Puddlesbys had told him about Lotho and the abandoned Sackville place.
When he finished, Robin nodded solemnly. "I'll tell the sherriffs up at Nobottle about it. After that girl's been killed, I expect they want to get hold of Mr. Lotho more'n we ever did." Then he scowled at Sam. "How comes it that no one told me about Mr. Lotho and this Puddlesby girl before? We asked up Needlehole-way about Lotho Sackville-Baggins after he went missing, but this is the first I ever heard he was courting any girl, let alone the one who was murdered. You knew about it."
"I thought you'd heard," said Sam, embarrassed. "It's common gossip."
"Gossip, maybe, but not common," Robin grumbled. "And who listens to every tale about some gent having his fun with the likes of us? Here, Sam, you'd tell me whatever you found out, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Sam assured him, "anything that's got to do with Mr. Lotho's being missing." He would have told Robin all he had learned right then: about Lad's and Milo's fights with Lotho, about Lotho's threats against young Sancho Proudfoot, about the things Ted Sandyman had told him--everything except the way the Gaffer had wielded his spade like a dagger when he'd demonstrated how he'd driven Lotho out of the dooryard. He held back only because he thought that Frodo would probably want to keep some secrets too. They'd talk it over tonight, and he'd let Frodo decide what to say before they went to the Chief Shirriff in Bywater.
He left Robin to get his much-needed half-pint of ale. Rosie, who was at the bar, took his pennies and turned to fill a mug without saying more than, "Hullo, Sam," but Sam had been aware of her eyes on him since he'd come in. She seemed troubled.
When he took his ale from her and prepared to turn away, she put one hand on his arm. "Wait a moment, Sam," she said, and glanced quickly around the room; there was no one nearer than Robin to overhear, and Robin tactfully turned his back to them. "I've been meaning to ask you... It's about Mr. Frodo." Her cheeks colored slightly, and Sam braced himself. "You care very much for him, don't you?"
"Yes, that's right," he answered carefully.
Rosie leaned over the bar toward him and lowered her voice. "I've heard stories, Sam--jokes and such-like from my brothers and the lads that come here. But I was thinking, it's no joke." Her color heightened, but she kept her eyes earnestly on his. This was not an easy thing for her to say, but she meant to say it. "I was thinking, it must be so. He's the one for you. You'd've spoke to me by now if you was free to. Is it true, Sam?"
"It's true," Sam confirmed. He had been avoiding her, in hopes that it would be easier than hurting her with a blunt rejection, but now that Rosie had asked him directly, he had to be honest. "I love him."
He remembered what Frodo had told him that day at Brandy Hall. Sam could see him clearly, sitting up in bed the morning after his last bad turn, brushing toast crumbs from his bare chest as he said: If you want to marry Rosie, and if she is agreeable and understands how it is between you and me... Well, I wouldn't mind.
What if he were to say it, as Frodo had said he might? Very well, then; he would. "I love him," he repeated, "and the girl I marry--if ever I was to marry--has to understand that."
Rosie drew back and frowned at him. "You think you're so grand a prize, Sam Gamgee, that a girl'd put up with sharing just to have you?"
Sam blushed hotly. "No. I'm only saying it's so." He'd known it was impossible all along; it was too much to ask any woman to share her husband with someone else. By telling her, he was not giving conditions under which he would marry her, but explaining why he never would. "I'm sweet on you, Rose--you know I am--but I won't quit loving Frodo, and I won't give him up. It's the way it's got to be. You see that?"
Rosie nodded. "I see that, Sam." She cast her eyes down then.
"You won't have to wait on me anymore, wondering why."
"No-"
There was a sudden burst of laughter and gleeful shouting at the tavern door as a group of farmlads who had finished with their day's work came in, Tom and Nibs among them. Sam picked up his mug and quickly stepped away from the bar and Rosie, but not before her brothers spotted him.
"Sam!" cried Tom as he broke away from the group and came forward, grinning. "Why, what's this?" he looked from Sam to Rose, who had busied herself with wiping down the bar; both their faces were still flushed. "You haven't been trifling with my sister, have you?"
"Are you leading poor Rosie on with promises?" teased Nibs as he joined them. "When are you going to put an end to this shilly-shally and marry her, Sam?"
"Oh, he's never going to," Tom laughed. "Didn't you know? Sam's got his eye on somebody else. His heart belongs to his Mr. Frodo. He's pretty as any girl, and Sam'll never find a wife half as rich."
Sam had never liked this type of japery, even where there was nothing behind it--and that such a joke should be made now at both Frodo's and Rosie's expense seemed intolerable.
"Enough!" he shouted, grabbing Tom and giving him a hard shake. "I won't stand for that kind of talk, not even from you! You'll get a knock on the nose if you don't keep your tom-fool mouth shut!"
The laughter stopped. Robin leapt up from the table to take Sam by the arm. "Let go of him, Sam," he said gently but insistently as he tried to pull his friend away. "Let's have no brawls." To Tom and Nibs, he added, "You lads'd go too far one day--I always said so. Take it back, Tom. Say you're sorry."
"He didn't mean it, Sam." Nibs was trying to work Sam's fingers loose from Tom's shirt-front. "It's only a joke."
"Only a joke!" Tom echoed, squeaking in alarm. "Nought to take up so hot about!"
Sam let go, shoving Tom back as he did so. "Just mind you keep your mouth shut."
Robin, who still had a hold on Sam's arm, drew him back to their table. The excitement over, the rest of the tavern's patrons returned to their own business, with some curious murmurs. Tom stood where he'd been, shaken. Nibs went to the bar to get another ale to replace the one Sam had dropped; he whispered to Rosie, and she vehemently shook her head.
"There now," Robin said as he made Sam sit down. "You mustn't mind so much. They don't mean a thing by it, Sam. No one does. It's only what they'd say of any handsome young gentleman like Mr. Frodo, living alone as he does, with a devoted servant looking after him. You know you're devoted to him, Sam--you can't deny it. You see how folk'd smile at that, don't you, and pass remarks even if there's nothing in it? Now if Mr. Frodo was to marry-"
"Or you did, Sam," Nibs added eagerly as he brought over the fresh mug of ale. "It'd put a stop to all such talk right away."
"There wouldn't be no talk if it weren't for the likes of you, going around telling your 'jokes,'" said Sam. He was sure that all this gossip had begun with them.
"But we didn't mean it," Tom protested pleadingly. "'Twas only in fun."
"Whether you meant it or no, it's all over town, and I'm sick of hearing it."
"Why don't you ask Rosie to marry you, Sam?" Nibs persisted. "She likes you. She'd say 'yes'--wouldn't you, Rose?" He turned to his sister, who had been observing the entire scene.
"I expect that's between me 'n' Sam," replied Rosie. "If he wants to ask me, he will. If he doesn't, that's none of your concern, Nibs Cotton."
As Sam sipped his ale, he met Rosie's eyes in gratitude. He felt sure that she would keep their conversation to herself, and not go around spreading worse gossip; Rosie was just that sort. He was sorry that he couldn't do as she wanted, and as her brothers obviously expected him to, but it was no more fair to ask a girl to marry him to keep down the gossip than it was to ask her to share him as a husband.
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