On their way to the Chubbs' house, they first stopped in the lane where last night's pumpkin-flinging had occurred. This was in the middle of a long stretch that curved around the northern foot of the Hill between Hobbiton and Overhill, bounded on both sides with hedgerows higher than a hobbit's head. The smashed shells of three small pumpkins were still sitting in the lane. Seeds and pulp spattered for yards.
With his hands braced on his knees, Frodo bent down to look at these orange-hued remains. It looked to him as if most of the seeds and pulp had sprayed away from the crushed shells toward the hillward side of the lane. "They must've been thrown from this side," he observed, straightening up and turning to look over his shoulder at the hedge behind him. "Who was it, Sam?"
Sam looked baffled by the question. "You mean, who done it?"
"No," Frodo clarified. "Who was walking here when these pumpkins were tossed over the hedge?"
"Oh. It was Mr. and Mrs. Muscote, on their way home from a call on the Chubbs."
"And they didn't see who... No." Frodo realized immediately that this was impossible. He stood on tip-toe and bounced up to try and see over the hedge, but it was too tall. There were no gates nor stiles nearby to pass through it into the field beyond. "By the time they went around to the other side, the culprits would be long gone."
"That's right," Sam confirmed, "but they guessed who it was just as easy as we did. Will and Sancho were at the Chubb house when the Muscotes were there, and it'd easy for them to be out in that field, ready and waiting, when the Muscotes came this way."
"Were the other pumpkins flung at this same place?"
"No," Sam answered. "The first time I heard about, it was your cousin Porto when he was on his way up the back lane to the Old Place last week. He didn't go to the shirriffs, but Peony Burrows told Rose about it afterwards, since she and Miss Dora helped him clean the bits of it off his coat. Then it was Mrs. Lobelia-"
"Aunt Lobelia?" Frodo echoed in surprise. "I didn't know she was back in Hobbiton."
"She only came the day before yesterday, and she's staying at the Ivy Bush Inn. Those people she was renting her house to moved out at the end o' September, and she's come back to see about putting the house to rights so's she can rent it out again. She'd just gone to have a look. She was there in the lane that goes past her place and the Proudfoots when a pumpkin was flung at her, and she went straight to the sherriff's hut in Bywater to tell Robin about it."
"The hedges aren't so tall there. Aunt Lobelia didn't happen to see anyone, I suppose?"
"She didn't say so to Robin," Sam answered, "but he says she heard 'em laughing. If she'd seen the lads, she would've come right out with it and not held back. ."
"No..." Frodo agreed. Lobelia's opinion of Sancho Proudfoot was even lower than his own. "Robin didn't go around and have a look at the other side of this hedge, did he, Sam?" he asked with another bounce on his toes.
"Not that I know."
"Then shall we go? We might find some proof over there."
"Proof? Of what?"
"That it was Sancho and Will. Nobody's actually seen them, caught them in the act. If we have something to confront them with, they can't deny they're the ones responsible for these pranks."
They walked down the lane another 50 yards, until the lane met another that led in a meandering way around hillocks and bungalows in the direction of Bywater. The hedge gave way to a lower stone wall, which they easily climbed over to enter a grassy meadow where ponies from the local smials were pastured. The field was currently empty except for a few slender saplings rising from the knee-high grass, and pony droppings that they took care not to step in. Frodo went to what he judged was the spot opposite the place where the pumpkins had landed, but there was little to see. The grass was trampled, but the ground was too dry for footprints. A short piece of rope dangled from the branches of one young tree.
"I wonder what this was for," Frodo said as he gripped the rope and gave it a tentative tug. "To climb up the tree and swing on? No--even the weight of a very small child would bend this tree down. To tie up a pony? It's rather high off the ground for that, and I think any pony who wanted to get away could pull free of that knot--it's sloppily tied."
"It looks like the pony got away in any case," Sam observed. "The rope's broke."
"No, it's been cut with a knife. Look." Frodo held up the loose end of the rope for his friend to see. "Freshly cut, by the look of it." He gave the rope another tug, but found no answer to the puzzle of its purpose. The Chubb smial lay only a short distance away; they could see the front door from where they stood. When Sam began to walk toward it across the field, Frodo let go of the rope and followed.
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