The Path that Ne’er Runs Smooth or What’s Wrong with Peppermint? - Part 3
(This part of the story was read at The green Dragon Friday roleplaying event on 7th February, 2025)
On the night when Peppermint flounced out of the dining room in a rage, leaving her family gasping in astonishment and Ivo wiping a plateful of mashed potato from his face, she had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do. But the red mist was upon her, and she found herself making her way down the path towards the pigpens. It was dark by now, but a gibbous moon cast a little light intermittently from behind broken cloud. Up ahead she could see one of the bigger, covered pens and as she drew closer, she heard a series of grunts, squeals, squeaks and oinks from within which only seemed to add fuel to her fury.
“I’ll teach him!” she muttered and approaching the building she drew back the bolts and threw the doors open. Earlier that day Ivo had been separating the most recent litters of piglets, now aged between six and ten weeks old, from their mothers and had put them all together in this large pen ready to be sorted and re-housed. Within moments a drove of forty or fifty young pigs rushed past Peppermint, knocking her to the ground, and ran off into the darkness seemingly in all directions. When she finally regained her feet and stared into the distance during a break in the clouds not a pig was to be seen.
I imagine that that night will be remembered in Hidden folklore for years to come! It was the farm dogs that raised the alarm first. No wolves or other large predators had been seen in Hidden in living memory, but the dogs were kept to see off smaller nuisances like rats, shrews and foxes – even, dare I say it, badgers!
On hearing the dogs, Digbert Muckle quickly made his way to his fields to see what all the barking was about and, looking down to the road that crossed the bridge leading to the village, he just caught a glimpse of a stampede of oinkers heading in that direction. He rushed back to the farmhouse to alert the others.
The stories of what occurred that night are too many to recount here, so you will have to be content with just a few. I’m sure that for the price of a jug of Roderigo’s Rocket in The Singing Badger you’d be able to hear many more, and some of them might even be true. But of course, to do that you’d have to find your way to Hidden, and if you did that, you’d never be able to leave.
Clemo Hamfist was the village stonemason, and a very fine and hard-working stonemason he was too, quarrying, cutting and shaping the blocks of stone so essential for many of the building projects in the village. While his days were spent at work, his evenings were spent almost exclusively in The Singing Badger and, invariably the last to leave, he was often to be seen staggering drunkenly back to his cottage where he lived with his brother, Gumbo. On the ‘Night of the Pigs’ as folk have already started to call it, he was the only person about on The Green when he was stopped in his tracks by the sight of a rampaging group of squealing piglets heading straight for him. He stared for a moment then turned tail and ran for the door of the inn, upon which he began banging loudly.
“What on earth’s all the fuss about? We’re closed!” cried Jago Brockhouse when he opened the door.
“Pigs! Pigs out there! Lots of ‘em, Jago. They’re coming for me!”
“That last batch of Old Reekie must’ve been stronger than I thought,” muttered Jago but out of respect for his best customer he peered out into the night, then slammed the door shut just in time to stop a charging porker from running amok in his saloon bar.
Leaving Clemo to the tender ministrations of his wife Marigold, Jago made his way outside and, dodging several stray piglets, ran first to the centre of The Green where hung the Horn of Hidden which was used only rarely in the event of fire or some other emergency. Jago had no doubt that it was needed now and lifting it from where it hung on its post, he blew several short sharp blasts which he knew would wake the whole village. He then ran to the Watch House to let Watchman Dudo know what was afoot.
Amarantha Tiptree was the wife of the village carpenter, Falco. Her pride and joy were her mushrooms which she grew both in her cellar and in their cottage garden. All agreed that Amarantha’s mushrooms were the finest to be had and they were much in demand. So, when the Horn was sounded, and she looked out of her window to see her garden infested with a bunch of greedy piglets she let out a howl of despair.
“Falco, get up, get up, get rid of ‘em, they’re eating all my lovely shrooms!”
Falco brushed the sleep from his eyes and his wife thrust him out of the front door to confront the invaders with only a broom. Unfortunately, as he came out one enterprising little oink ran in and it was all Amarantha could do to stop it making its way down to cellar because pigs, like hobbits, can sniff out a mushroom from a mile off.
If it was a bad day for the village, it was a particularly bad day for Aunty Prue’s nephew, the hapless Colum Whitlock. He and his aunt were woken before the Horn was sounded by the noise of breaking furniture and scurrying trotters on a wooden floor coming from the large shed adjoining The Shop, of which Aunty Prue was the proprietor. It turned out that Colum had forgotten to shut the side door, and a group of the escaped piglets had found their way inside and they were running into every corner in the hope of finding food, overturning tables and pushing their little snouts into everything they could find. Aunty Prue was a very formidable lady, and the piglets were no match for her – she cleared the shed in no time at all, sending the raiders squealing into the night. Wielding her broom threateningly she turned to direct her wrath at Colum – but he knew which side his bread was buttered and he was nowhere to be seen!
When Bodo Buggins heard the Call, he rushed to The Green straight away. Bodo was the caretaker and head gardener at The Gardens, the communal orchard and garden up by the Old Smials. As soon as he saw piglets running in all directions, he hurried up there and saw that his worst fears had been realised – at least a dozen little pigs were in the process of wreaking havoc, trampling the flower beds and digging up vegetables and fruit bushes. With a mighty roar Bodo called for aid and gave chase, and he was soon joined by several hobbits within earshot. Although there was quite a lot of damage, they managed to clear the grounds and Bodo’s efforts saved the day. Few who saw him will forget the heroic and victorious Bodo returning to the Green, if not bloodied then certainly muddied, a squirming piglet under each arm, swearing that he’d take the little devils to Grimwald Blades the butcher straight away, just see if he wouldn’t.
Digbert had alerted the rest of the folk on the farm, and they soon arrived and began helping with the task of capturing the escapees and returning them to the pigpens. It took until well past dawn and if you think that is a long time then you have clearly never chased and attempted to catch a piglet that doesn’t want to be caught!
Of course, Ivo Mudd wanted to join the hunt straight away, but Ada Muckle stopped him and said that he should instead come with her down to the pigpens to secure the piglets as they were returned, and to count them in. In truth, she wanted to go down there herself as she had an inkling that Peppermint might have something to do with this and she was worried by her daughter’s recent behaviour. When the two arrived at the pen from which the piglets had escaped Peppermint heard them coming and ran off to hide in a bed of reeds at the edge of the Slue from which she could watch them. Her anger had abated when she saw the escaping piglets and realised what she had done and now she was just confused and a little afraid and she was not ready to speak to anyone.
