Now in this story (which ends well enough, so don't let your womenfolk be too scared by the telling or they're like not to catch a babe in their bellies until next springtime, it's said) there's a lass and her brother, name of Bolger and living down Budgeford way.
The brother, who was Fredegar to his mum and Fatty to everyone else, he was one who didn't think much of the ruffians who had turned up recent. He got together a band of lads and they was plotting a rebellion, revolution they called it but things weren't really so bad as yet to need revoltin', in most parts leastways. Up Bywater and Hobbiton way the going was rough, sure enough, but otherwise folk was content to go about their usual lives and turn a blind eye to the rest of it. Those times weren't like it is now, you wouldn't see such happen in the new way of it.
Warranted or not, the rebels were set on their task, and no matter what else is said about them they did do some good for a lot of those with naught left. Caught and thrown into lockholes in the end, for the Big Folk were ruthless and canny as foxes in the henhouse.
And they stopped at nothing, it's said when hardier souls than mine tell this story. Things were done in the name o' one 'Sharkey' that would pull the curl right out of your footfur. Fredegar had a sister, if you remember, a skinny girl who was fair enough in a sharpish manner and a clever talker. Named Estella for a relation she had never met, called Stelly by those not put off by her bluntness.
Don't cry now, her story's not so sad when it's all known. She was Mistress of Buckland, and if that ain't a happy ending then you're right malcontented, I say. She and her husband was dear friends, and there's a story or two about her and the Thain and his wife, but you can't trust what's said about those queer Tooks.
The point of this story comes in what happened years later, when Fredegar and Estella and her husband were all old and grey. The laws concerning Big Folk were already in place then, so when the Master of Buckland (who had journeyed far in his youth, it's said) wanted to visit his comrades he had to go to where they lived on the Plains of a-land-far-away. No, I don't know the real name of the country, it's not important is it? Oh, hush up your questions and listen now. The Master and his Estella-called-Stelly were frequent visitors to the land-far-away, they were, and right close with the lords and ladies of that land.
Estella was friendly with Lothriel, who was a Queen such as is seen in fairy stories and songs and epics. It's said they sat and spun together in the evenings as their husbands remembered old adventures, and talked of children and of Estella's Diamond, she who was the Thain's wife. Lothriel loved the stories of Diamond, the tale goes, for when Estella spoke of her the words seemed to glow with the love put in them.
But, one night when the wind was high and the talk had turned to melancholy things, Estella told her friend the stories of that year when things got dark. Of her brother, locked away with nothing comfortable, and of the Big Folk who stopped at nothing.
And Lothriel cried with Estella for wounds long turned to scarring, and then (when Estella had fallen asleep to dream of her children and her home and her Diamond) Lothriel went to her most learned subjects and had letters written to all the lords of Gondor (which is another land-far-away. See, I do know some of the names, so stop pouting so). And these letters were sent out without Estella and her husband ever knowing of them, but it's said that soon after there were five men hanged in a village three days away from Bree.
For though some Big Folk are wicked, some are not, and Lothriel wanted all the world to know that this new way of the world didn't go about toleratin' harm to us hobbits. We're protected, and avenged when that protection falls short, for it's enough for the Big Folk to know we're happy here, even if they're not allowed to come and see it for themselves.
Now, there, if that's not a story fit for a fireside chat I don't know what is.
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