Cotton's Stand

  The hobbits opened the barrier and stood aside.  'Thank you!' the Men jeered. 'Now run home to bed before you're whipped.'  Then they marched along the street shouting:  'Put those lights out!  Get indoors and stay there!  Or we'll take fifty of you to the Lockholes for a year.  Get in!  The Boss is losing his temper.'
  No one paid any heed to there orders; but as the ruffians passed, they closed in quietly behind and followed them.  When the Men reached the fire there was Farmer Cotton warming his hands.
  'Who are you, and what d'you think you're doing?' said the ruffian-leader.
  Farmer Cotton looked at him slowly.  'I was just going to ask you that,'  he said.  'This isn't your country, and you're not wanted.'


My entry for the 'Never Seen Before' contest.
I've always particularly loved the picture of a 'lone' hobbit standing up to a mob of ruffians at the end of day in Bywater.
I was going to include a few more hobbits in the background; but I left that detail for last and, by the time I got to it, it didn't feel like anywhere was right to place them.

Copyright for the excerpt belongs to Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien and, through him, The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate.
If you haven't read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, do it.