Settling an Old Ghost to Rest by Kathryn Ramage

They walked back down the hill toward the village in the deepening twilight. Thimula expressed her relief and delight that the house was not truly haunted, and Sam turned back now and again to look at the path behind them. Frodo was quiet and thoughtful.

"I'd like to have a better look around the foot of the hill tomorrow in full daylight," he said. "I suspect there's a stream nearby, on your new property."

"A trout stream?" Thimula said with a laugh. "Then you mean to look into this other mystery, Frodo?"

"Yes. I've already a good idea of why, but I'm curious about who. Aren't you?"

Thimula admitted to being extremely curious as to who had been trespassing into her house to clean fish and leave behind an unpleasant mess.

"Would you like to help, then?" Frodo asked.

"Yes, certainly! Your cousins, Mrs. Burrows and Mrs. Whitfoot, tell me that they often assist you in your investigations. I've always thought it sounded like an exciting thing to do. Nothing exciting has ever happened to me before this. How can I help?"

"I want you to ask Mr. and Mrs. Hodberry about the local markets."

"Markets?"

Frodo nodded. "Ask them where are the best places to buy fish."

"Oh, I see..."

"Then, depending on their answers, you may have to ride about a bit tomorrow to visit the nearest marketplaces." Frodo gave her further instructions on what to ask and what to look for. "While you're doing that, Sam and I will go up and have another look at the Old Place and the land around it." He glanced at Sam, who'd been silent during their walk. Even though they were now in the lane a few hundred yards from the first lights of Sackville, Sam was still keeping a wary eye on the hilltop above and behind them; the Old Place itself was blocked from view by the trees and tall hedge surrounding it. "I'm sure these trout-poachers are behind all the lights and odd noises," said Frodo. "All the same, it's rather odd..."

Thimula might've asked him what was odd, but they had now reached the village. An elderly hobbit was standing beneath the lamps outside the inn door; as he spotted the three strangers approaching, he came forward to meet them, cap in hand. "Miss Bracegirdle, is it?" he addressed Thimula.

"That's right. And you're Mr. Sully Bogwater?"

"At yer service, Miss," he replied with a low bow. "I didn't 'spect ye to come so soon, Miss, not without writing again. I come by when I heard tell ye was here, but they said as ye'd gone to Hodberry Farm. When I went over to there, Farmer 'n' Missus said ye'd gone up to Old Place with the gents here," He bowed again to Frodo and an astonished Sam. "Ye never went in there, Miss?" Sully Bogwater sounded horrified at the possibility.

"I'm afraid we did," said Thimula. "It was still daylight, and we saw nothing alarming, except for a terrible mess--did we?"

"No," Frodo said. He hadn't actually seen anything frightening, and there was a rational explanation for what he'd heard just as they were leaving. "Do you ever go into the house, Mr. Bogwater?" he asked Sully.

"No, sir," the old hobbit answered. "I don't have no key. I only goes about the grounds onc't in awhile to see as everything's shut up proper. `Twas a time when I'd ask Missus Sackville-Baggins about keeping the place up, but she always wrote back that that was none o' my business. I wasn't to spend a jot on fixing things up 'less I was of a mind to pay for it meself. Keep trespassers off her property, that all I was to do. Begging yer pardon, Miss," he added with another bow to Thimula. "Missus Sackville-Baggins was yer kin, but she never cared if the poor Old Place was to fall in, and now it's had its revenge of her."

"Revenge?" Frodo echoed this odd choice of word.

"That's right, sir. They say as it's her own son, Mr. Lotho, that walks the place by night."
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