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Hidden Chronicles Chapter 5 The Path that Ne’er Runs Smooth or What’s Wrong with Peppermint? - Part 2



Hidden Chronicles Chapter 5

The Path that Ne’er Runs Smooth or What’s Wrong with Peppermint? - Part 2

(This part of the story was read at The Green Dragon roleplaying event on 31st January, 2025)

Now before I tell you what happened next, I ought to tell you a bit more about Ivo and another person who I haven’t even mentioned in this story so far.

Ivo Mudd had spent all of his life on the farm.  His father had been the pigman before him and he was born in the small run-down cottage where he still lived, close to the pig pens.  Sadly, his mother had died when he was born and he had been brought up by his father, but while he was still in his tweens his pa had passed too and he had taken over as pigman at a young age.  Kindly Ada Muckle had always taken a motherly interest in the lad, and he was a regular visitor to the family table.

Ivo seldom left the farm – his pigs kept him occupied at all hours of the day – but on one fateful Friday about a year before the incident with Peppermint at the dinner table Ada Muckle took it on herself to try to encourage the lad to have some sort of a social life.  She asked her two sons and their wives to take Ivo with them on their weekly visit to the inn, The Singing Badger, in the village.  I don’t know whether you know, but in the Shire there are some inns which host special evenings once a week where the patrons are invited to step up and provide some entertainment – strum a tune, tell a few jokes, sing a song, recite a poem or even, sometimes, tell a tale.  The Singing Badger was one such inn.

The Muckle boys were anxious to do as their mother asked and to make sure Ivo had a good time.  Everyone on the farm knew that Ivo had a fine singing voice – inherited from his own mother, so those old enough to remember her said – and after plying him with a couple of jugs of Rumble’s Old Reekie they persuaded him to take to the little stage set up in the saloon bar for anyone who had entertainment to offer.  I am sorry to say that some landlords provide only a beer-soaked old rug for this purpose, but Jago Brockhouse took great pride in his interior decor!

Ivo nervously took to the stage and was greeted by an encouraging ripple of applause for the newcomer.  After a faltering start, he broke into a rich melody, his light and agile tenor drawing nods of approval from the onlookers.  Then something extraordinary happened, which some of the regulars at the Badger still speak of today. 

From a dark corner of the room the hitherto unnoticed figure of a slim young woman in a blue dress emerged and joined Ivo on stage.  Bemused, the lad paused in his song for a moment, but she smiled at him and with a gentle toss of her dark ringlets she produced a set of pipes from the folds of her dress and, putting them to her lips, picked up the melody where he had left off.

For the best part of an hour they sang and played, urged on by rounds of thunderous applause and cries of ‘Encore!’  and when at last they had played their last song that vision of loveliness took Ivo gently by the hand and led him to the table in the dark corner from which she had emerged.  For the rest of that evening the couple sat, heads close together, talking, quite oblivious to all else around.  When at last they had to leave in response to Jago’s cry of ‘D’ye not all have homes to go to?’ Ivo walked back to the farm with the Muckles as if in a trance. 

“Are you going to see her again?” ventured Daisy, voicing what all the others were wondering.

“She said…she said… she’d get a message to me,” blurted Ivo.

I guess I should let you know the identity of this creature who had bewitched Ivo so.  Her name was Lorelei Goosefoot and if you have read Cousin Filibert’s own account of his first adventure in Hidden, the search for the missing lad Waldo Buggins, you may remember that he and Dudo visited her up near her home, a small croft high on the moors close to the cliffs and the Roaring Falls.  She was the shepherdess there and her history bore some remarkable parallels to Ivo’s own.  Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had been raised by her father until he too had passed away.  She had stayed on alone to mind Hidden’s only flock of sheep, whose wool was highly valued by the village tailors and seamstresses.  It was an isolated place up there, quite some distance from the nearest residence and about as far away as one could get within the bounds from the Muckle’s farm.  She had only her faithful sheepdog, Sam, for company and it was a lonely life she led, not least for a young girl.

That Lorelei should have been at the Singing Badger on the very same night as Ivo is one of those remarkable chances some call fate but which I call coincidence.  In truth she hardly ever left the croft, but sometimes she had need of items which might only be procured from Aunty Prue’s Shop and which she preferred to select herself rather than trusting in the regular carrier who made most of her deliveries. Although she was used to living alone, when she did meet people she enjoyed their company and conversation and on this occasion she had stayed too long chatting to the folk she met in the village.  Rather than walk home in the dark alone she had gone to the inn where Marigold Brockhouse promised her a meal and a bed for the night.

She was about to retire to her room when Ivo took to the stage, and she was at once captivated by his beautiful tenor voice.  Almost without thinking she had joined him, accompanying his songs on the little set of pipes she always carried with her, which had been her father’s and which he had taught her to play – and she played very well, for she had had a lot of time to practise.  If she was captivated by his voice, she was captivated more so by the handsome young hobbit from whom that sweet sound emanated and by the end of their evening together she knew that she was in love.

At least, she thought she knew.  You see, she really had no experience in these matters – she had never felt that way about anyone before and she had no-one from whom she could seek advice.  So, she really didn’t know what to do in the situation she found herself in.  Deep down she knew that she could never leave her home and her sheep, and from what Ivo had told her she imagined he felt the same way about his pigs.  When Ivo had set off for home, she had whispered to him that she would send him a message and indeed, she had sent him many in the year that had passed since their meeting at the inn – but while Ivo waited on and hoped for a message saying where and when they might meet again her messages just said things like ‘Hello.’ or ‘I hope you are well’ or ‘My best wishes.’  She just couldn’t pluck up the courage to say more.

So it was that she spent her days playing mournful tunes on her pipes, conjuring up pictures of her impossible love from every scrap of memory from that one wonderful evening and often weeping gently, with only Sam to comfort her.

And at the other end of the village Ivo Mudd sat amidst his pigs hoping for the message that never came and passing the time softly singing heartfelt love songs to the vision of that remiss shepherdess which haunted his every waking hour.

Well, you didn’t really think he was singing them to his pigs, did you?