"I guessed a good deal immediately," answered Gandalf slowly, as if searching back in memory. Already to him the days of the journey and the Dragon and the Battle of Five Armies began to seem far off - in an almost legendary past. Perhaps even he was at last getting to feel his age a little; and in any case many dark and curious adventures had befallen him since then. "I guessed much," he said, "but soon I learnt more, for I went, as Bilbo may have told you, to the land of the Necromancer."(12) For a moment his voice faded to a whisper. "But I knew that all was well with Bilbo," he went on. "Bilbo was safe, for that kind of power was powerless over him - or so I thought, and I was right in a way (if not quite right). I kept an eye on him and it, of course, but perhaps I was not careful enough."
"I am sure you did your best," said Bingo, meaning to console him. "O dearest and best friend of our house, may your beard never grow less! But it must have been rather a blow when Bilbo disappeared."
"Not at all," said Gandalf, with a sudden return to his ordinary tones. He sent out a great jet of smoke with an indignant poof and it coiled round his head like a cloud on a mountain. "That did not worry me. Bilbo is all right. It is you and all these other dear, silly, charming, idiotic, helpless hobbits that trouble me! It would be a mortal blow if the dark power should overcome the Shire, and all these jolly, greedy, stupid Bolgers, Bagginses, Brandybucks, Hornblowers, Proudfoots and whatnot became Wraiths."
Bingo shuddered. "But why should we?" he asked; "and why should the Lord want such servants, and what has all this to do with me and the Ring?"
"It is the only Ring left," said Gandalf. "And hobbits are the only people of whom the Lord has not yet mastered any one.
"In (13) the ancient days the dark master made many Rings, and he dealt them out lavishly, so that they might be spread abroad to ensnare folk. The elves had many, and there are now many elf- wraiths in the world; the goblins had some and their wraiths are very evil and wholly under the command of the Lord. The dwarves it is said had seven, but nothing could make them invisible. In them it only kindled to flames the fire of greed, and the foundation of each of the seven h.o.a.rds of the Dwarves of old was a golden ring. In this way the master controlled them. But these h.o.a.rds are destroyed, and the dragons have devoured them, and the rings are melted, or so some say.(14) Men had three rings, and others they found in secret places cast away by the elf-wraiths: the men-wraiths are servants of the Lord, and they brought all their rings back to him; till at last he had gathered all into his hands again that had not been destroyed by fire - all save one. "It fell from the hand of an elf as he swam across a river; and it betrayed him, for he was flying from pursuit in the old wars, and he became visible to his enemies, and the goblins slew him."(15) But a fish took the ring and was filled with madness, and swam upstream, leaping over rocks and up waterfalls until it cast itself on a bank and spat out the ring and died.
"There was long ago living by the bank of the stream a wise, cleverhanded and quietfooted little family."16 I guess they were of hobbit-kind, or akin to the fathers of the fathers of the hobbits. The most inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Digol. He was interested in roots and beginnings; he dived in deep pools, he burrowed under trees and growing plants, he tunnelled into green mounds, and he ceased to look up at flowers, and hill- tops, or the birds that are in the upper air: his head and eyes were downward. He found the ring in the mud of the river-bank under the roots of a thorn tree; and he put it on; and when he returned home none of his family saw him while he wore it. He was pleased with his discovery and concealed it, and he used it to discover secrets, and put his knowledge to malicious use, and became sharp-eyed and keen-eared for all that was unpleasant. It is not to be wondered at that he became very unpopular, and was shunned (when visible) by all his relatives. They kicked him, and he bit their feet. He took to muttering to himself and gurgling in his throat. So they called him Gollum, and cursed him, and told him to go far away. He wandered in loneliness up the stream and caught fish with his fingers in deep pools and ate them raw. One day it was very hot, and as he was bending over a pool he felt a burning on the back of his head, and a dazzling light from the water pained his eyes. He wondered, for he had almost forgotten about the sun; and for the last time he looked up and shook his fist at it; but as he lowered his eyes again he saw far ahead the tops of the Misty Mountains. And he thought suddenly: "It would be cool and shady under those mountains. The sun could never find me there. And the roots of those peaks must be roots indeed; there must be great secrets buried there which have not been discovered since the beginning." So he journeyed by night towards the mountains, and found a hole out of which a stream issued; and he wormed his way in like a maggot in the heart of the hills, and disappeared from all knowledge. And the ring went into the shadows with him, and even the Master lost it. But whenever he counted his rings, besides the seven rings that the Dwarves had held and lost, there was also one missing."
"Gollum!" said Bingo. "Do you mean that Gollum that Bilbo met? Is that his history? How very horrible and sad. I hate to think that he was connected with hobbits, however distantly."
"But that surely was plain from Bilbo"s own account," said Gandalf. "It is the only thing that explains the events - or partly explains them. There was a lot in the background of both their minds and memories that was very similar - they understood one another really (if you think of it) better than hobbits ever understood dwarves, elves, or goblins."
"Still, Gollum must have been, or be, very much older than the oldest hobbit that ever lived in field or burrow," said Bingo. "That was the Ring," said Gandalf. "Of course it is a poor sort of long life that the Ring gives, a kind of stretched life rather than a continued growing - a sort of thinning and thinning. Frightfully wearisome, Bingo, in fact finally tormenting. Even Gollum came at last to feel it, to feel he could not bear it, and to understand dimly the cause of the torment. He had even made up his mind to get rid of it. But he was too full of malice. If you want to know, I believe he had begun to make a plan that he had not the courage left to carry out. There was nothing new to find out; nothing left but darkness, nothing to do but cold eating, and regretful remembering. He wanted to slip out and leave the mountains, and smell the open air even if it killed him - as he thought it probably would. But that would have meant leaving the Ring. And that is not easy to do. The longer you have had one the harder it is. It was especially hard for Gollum, as he had had a Ring for ages, and it hurt him and he hated it, and he wanted, when he could no longer bear to keep it, to hand it on to someone else to whom it would become a burden - [? bind] itself as a blessing and turn to a curse.(17) That is in fact the best way of getting rid of its power."
"Why not give it to the goblins, then?" asked Bingo.
"I don"t think Gollum would have found that amusing enough," said Gandalf. "The goblins are already so beastly and miserable that it was wasting malice on them. Also it would have been difficult to escape from the hunters if there was an invisible goblin to reckon with. But I suppose he might have put it in their path in the end (if he had plucked up enough courage to do anything); but for the unexpected arrival of Bilbo. You remember how surprised he was. But as soon as the riddles started a plan formed in his mind - or half-formed. I dare say his old bad habits would have beaten his resolves and he would have eaten Bilbo if it had proved easy. But there was the sword, you remember. In his heart, I fancy, he never seriously expected to get a chance of eating Bilbo."
"But he never gave Bilbo the ring," said Bingo. "Bilbo had got it already! "
"I know," said Gandalf. "And that is why I said that Gollum"s ancestry only partly explained events. There was, of course, something much more mysterious behind the whole thing - something quite beyond the Lord of the Rings himself, peculiar to Bilbo and his great Adventure. There was a queer fate over these rings, and especially over [? this] one. They got lost occasionally, and turned up in strange places. This one had already slipped away from its owner treacherously once before. It had slipped away from Gollum too. That is why I let Bilbo keep the ring so long."(18) But for the moment I am trying to explain Gollum."
"I see," said Bingo doubtfully. "But do you know what happened afterwards? "
"Not very clearly," said Gandalf. "I have heard a little, and can guess more. I think it certain that Gollum knew in the end that Bilbo had somehow got the Ring. He may well have guessed it soon. But in any case the news of the later events went all over Wilderland and far beyond, East, West, and South and North. The mountains were full of whispers and reports; and that would give Gollum enough to think about.(19) Anyway, it is said that Gollum left the mountains - for the goblins had become very few there, and the deep places more than ever dark and lonely, and the power of the ring had left him. He was probably feeling old, very old, but less timid. But I do not think he became less wicked. There is no news of what happened to him afterwards. Of course, it is quite likely that wind and the mere shadow of sunlight killed him pretty quickly. But it is possible that it did not. He was cunning. He could hide from daylight or moonlight till he slowly grew more used to things. I have in fact a horrible fancy that he made his slow sneaking way bit by bit to the dark tower, to the Necromancer, the Lord of the Rings. I think that Gollum is very likely the beginning of our present trouble; and that through him the Lord found out where to look for this last and most precious and potent of his Rings."
"What a pity Bilbo did not stab the beastly creature when he said goodbye," said Bingo....
"What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Bingo," said Gandalf. "Pity! It was pity that prevented him. And he could not do so, without doing wrong. It was against the rules. If he had done so he would not have had the ring, the ring would have had him at once. He might have been a wraith on the spot."
"Of course, of course," said Bingo. "What a thing to say of Bilbo. Dear old Bilbo! But why did he keep the thing, or why did you let him? Didn"t you warn him about it?"
"Yes," said Gandalf. "But even over Bilbo it had some power. Sentiment....... He liked to keep it as a memento. Let us be frank - he continued to be proud of his Great Adventure, and to look on the ring now and again warmed his memory, and made him feel just a trifle heroic. But he could hardly have helped himself anyway: if you think for a moment, it is not really very easy to get rid of a Ring once you have got it."
"Why not?" said Bingo, after thinking for a moment. "You can give it away, throw it away, or destroy it."
"Yes," said Gandalf - "or you can surrender it: to the Master. That is if you wish to serve him, and to fall into his power, and to greatly increase his power."
"But no one would wish to do that," said Bingo, horrified. "n.o.body that you can imagine, perhaps," answered Gandalf. "Certainly not Bilbo. That is what made it difficult for him. He dared not throw it away lest it get into evil hands, and be misused, and find its way back to the Master after doing much evil. He would not give it away to bad folk for the same reason; and he would not give it away to good folk or people he knew and trusted because he did not wish to burden them with it, any sooner than he was obliged. And he could not destroy it."
"Why not?"
"Well, how would you destroy it? Have you ever tried?"
"No; but I suppose one could hammer it, or melt it, or do both."
"Try them," said Gandalf, "and you will find out what Bilbo found out long ago."
Bingo drew the Ring out of an inner pocket, and looked at it. It was plain and smooth without device, emblem, or rune; but it was of gold, and as he looked at it it seemed to Bingo that its colour was rich and beautiful, and its roundness perfect. It was very admirable and wholly precious. He had thought of throwing it into the hot embers of the fire. He found he could not do so without a struggle. He weighed the Ring in his hand, and then with an effort of will he made a movement as if to throw it in the fire; but he found he had put it back in his pocket.
Gandalf laughed. "You see? You have always regarded it as a great treasure, and an heirloom from Bilbo. Now you cannot easily get rid of it. Though as a matter of fact, even if you took it to an anvil and summoned enough will to strike it with a heavy hammer, you would make no dint on it. Your little wood-fire, of course, even if you blew all night with a bellows would hardly melt any gold. But old Adam Hornblower the smith down the road could not melt it in his furnace. They say only dragonfire can melt them - but I wonder if that is not a legend, or at any rate if there are any dragons now left in which the old fire is hot enough. I fancy you would have to find one of the Cracks of Earth in the depths of the Fiery Mountain, and drop it down into the Secret Fire, if you really wanted to destroy it."(20) "After all your talk," said Bingo, half solemnly and half in pretended annoyance, "I really do want to destroy it. I cannot think how Bilbo put up with it for so long, if he knew as much - but he actually used it sometimes, and joked about it to me."
"The only thing to do with such perilous treasures that Adventure has bestowed on you is to take them lightheartedly," said Gandalf. "Bilbo never used the ring for any serious purpose after he came back. He knew that it was too serious a matter. And I think he taught you well - after he had chosen you as his heir from among all the hobbits of his kindred."
There was a long silence again, while Gandalf puffed at his pipe in apparent content, though under his lids his eyes were watching Bingo intently. Bingo gazed at the red embers, that began to glow as the light faded and the room grew slowly dark. He was thinking about the fabled Cracks of Earth and the terror of the Fiery Mountain.
"Well?" said Gandalf at last. "What are you thinking about? Are you making any plans or getting any ideas?"
"No," said Bingo coming back to himself, and finding to his surprise that he was in the dark. "Or perhaps yes! As far as I can see I have got to leave Hobbiton, leave the Shire, leave everything and go away and draw the danger after me. I must save the Shire somehow, though there have been times when I thought it too stupid and dull for anything, and fancied a big explosion or an invasion of dragons might do it good! But I don"t feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering and adventures bearable. I shall feel there is some foothold somewhere, even if I can"t ever stand on it myself again. But I suppose I must go alone. I feel rather minute, don"t you know, and extremely uprooted, and, well, frightened, I suppose. Help me, Gandalf, best of friends."
"Cheer up, Bingo, my lad," said Gandalf, throwing two small logs of wood on the fire and puffing it with his mouth. Immediately the wood blazed up and filled the room with dancing light. "No, I don"t think you need or should go alone. Why not ask your three best friends to, beg them to, order them to (if you must) - I mean the three, the only three who you have (perhaps indiscreetly but perhaps with wise choice) told about your secret Ring: Odo, Frodo, and Marmaduke [written above: Meriadoc]. But you must go quickly - and make it a joke, Bingo, a joke, a huge joke, a resounding jest. Don"t be mournful and serious. Jokes are really in your line. That"s what Bilbo liked about you (among other things), if you care to know."
"And where shall we go, and what shall we steer by, and what shall be our quest?" said Bingo, without a trace of a smile or the glimmer of a jest. "When the huge joke is over, what then?"
"At present I have no idea," said Gandalf, quite seriously and much to Bingo"s surprise and dismay. "But it will be just the opposite of Bilbo"s adventure - to begin with, at any rate. You will set out on a journey without any known destination; and as far as you have any object it will not be to win new treasure but to get rid of a treasure that belongs (one might say) inevitably to you. But you cannot even start without going East, West, South, or North; and which shall we choose? Towards danger, and yet not too rashly or too straight towards it. Go East. Yes, yes, I have it. Make first for Rivendell, and then we shall see. Yes, we shall see then. Indeed, I begin to see already! " Suddenly Gandalf began to chuckle. He rubbed his long gnarled hands together and cracked the finger-joints. He leant forward to Bingo. "I have thought of a joke," he said. "Just a rough plan - you can set your comic wits to work on it." And his beard wagged backwards and forwards as he whispered long in Bingo"s ear. The fire burned low again - but suddenly in the darkness an unexpected sound rang out. Bingo was rocking with laughter.
NOTES.
1. My father"s own thought is surely transparent here. Bingo introduces the subject of the Ring as if it had some connection with the Riders, whereas he is obviously intended to appear as quite unable even to guess at their significance; and there is no suggestion in the drafts that the Ring had been mentioned before this point.
2. (in the Shire): my father first wrote "except Gandalf". The words "(in the Shire)" probably mean no more than that: i.e., no one save Bilbo and Bingo, and outside the Shire only Gandalf, and anyone else whom Gandalf might possibly have told.
3. This is probably the first time that the expression The Lord of the Ring was used; and The Lord of the Rings occurs below (note 6). (My father gave The Lord of the Ring as the t.i.tle of the new work in a letter to Allen and Unwin of 31 August 1938).
4. Hence the asking for Baggins: this is not mentioned in the ma.n.u.script drafts, but see the typescript version, p. 54 and note g. The following sentence, "But somehow the search for Baggins failed, and then something must have been discovered about you" perhaps explains the story that Frodo Took met a Black Rider on the North Moor as early as the previous spring (see p. 71).
5. My father first wrote here that the clothing of one who has thus become permanently invisible was invisible also, but rejected the statement as soon as written.
6. This seems to be the first appearance of the expression?he Lord of the Rings; see note 3.
7. After this sentence my father wrote: "Gollum I think some sort of distant kinsman of the goblin sort." Since this is contradicted in the next sentence it was obviously rejected in the act of writing; he crossed it out later.
8. ninety years and more: see pp. 31-3.
9. At no point in this text is there any further mention of Bingo"s "worry", and the advice that he asks is entirely based on what Gandalf now tells him and which is obviously entirely new to him. There is also no further reference to the "strange signs and portents of trouble brewing" spoken of in the next sentence, nor any explanation of Gandalf"s remark (p. 81) that "Gollum is very likely the beginning of our present trouble."
10. This ends the first page of the ma.n.u.script. At the head of the second page my father wrote in pencil: "Gandalf and Bingo discuss Rings and Gollum", and "Draft: Later used in Chapter II", and he numbered the pages (previously unnumbered) in Greek letters, beginning at this point. Thus the first page is left out. But these pencillings were clearly put in long after, and in my view they cast no doubt on the validity of the opening section as an integral part of the text. May be it had at one time become separated and mislaid; but as the papers were found it was placed with the rest.
11. Rumour of the Party - decided on between Gandalf and Bingo at the end of this text - began to circulate early in September (p. 30).
12. In The Hobbit (Chapter I) Gandalf told Thorin at Bag End that he found his father Thrain "in the dungeons of the Necromancer". In the Tale of Years in LR Appendix B this, Gandalf"s second visit to Dol Guldur, took place in the year 2850, forty years before Bilbo"s birth; it was then that he "discovered that its master was indeed Sauron" (cf. FR p. 263). But here the meaning is clearly that Gandalf went to the land of the Necromancer after Bilbo"s acquisition of the Ring. Later my father altered the text in pencil to read: "for I went back once more to the land of the Necromancer."
13. Here the earlier draft concerning the Rings is used: see p. 75.
14. See FR p. 60 and LR Appendix A pp. 357-8.
15. This is the first germ of the story of the death of Isildur.
16. This is also derived from the text referred to in note 13.
17. This sentence as first written ended: "and he wanted to hand it on to someone else." It is to this that the following sentence refers.
18. The pa.s.sage beginning "There was a queer fate" was an addition, and "That is why I let Bilbo keep the ring so long" refers to the sentence ending "... peculiar to Bilbo and his great Adventure."
19. Cf. the draft pa.s.sage given on p. 75: "Of course Gollum himself may have heard news - all the mountains were full of it after the battle - and tried to get back the ring."
20. The first mention of the Fiery Mountain and the Cracks of Earth in its depths.
It will be seen that a part of the "Gollum" element in "The Shadow of the Past" (Chapter 2 in FR) was at once very largely achieved, even though Digol * (later Deagol) is Gollum himself, and not his friend whom he murdered, though Gandalf had never seen him (and so no explanation is given of how he knows his history, which of its nature could only be derived from Gollum"s own words), and though it is only surmised that he went at last to the Dark Lord.
(* Old English digol, deagol, etc. "secret, hidden"; cf. LR Appendix F (p. 415).) It is important to realise that when my father wrote this, he was working within the constraints of the story as originally told in The Hobbit. As The Hobbit first appeared, and until 1951, the story was that Gollum, encountering Bilbo at the edge of the subterranean lake, proposed the riddle game on these conditions: "If precious asks, and it doesn"t answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn"t answer, we gives it a present, gollum!" When Bilbo won the contest, Gollum held to his promise, and went back in his boat to his island in the lake to find his treasure, the ring which was to be his present to Bilbo. He could not find it, for Bilbo had it in his pocket, and coming back to Bilbo he begged his pardon many times: "He kept on saying: "We are ssorry: we didn"t mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only present, if it won the compet.i.tion"." ""Never mind!" he [Bilbo] said. "The ring would have been mine now, if you had found it; so you would have lost it anyway. And I will let you off on one condition." "Yes, what iss it? What does it wish us to do, my precious." "Help me to get out of these places", said Bilbo." And Gollum did so; and Bilbo "said good-bye to the nasty miserable creature." On the way up through the tunnels Bilbo slipped on the ring, and Gollum at once missed him, so that Bilbo perceived that the ring was as Gollum had told him - it made you invisible.
This is why, in the present text, Gandalf says "I think it certain that Gollum knew in the end that Bilbo had got the ring", and why my father had Gandalf develop a theory that Gollum was actually ready to give the ring away: "he wanted... to hand it on to someone else... I suppose he might have put it in [the goblins"] path in the end... but for the unexpected arrival of Bilbo... as soon as the riddles started a plan formed in his mind." This is all carefully conceived in relation to the text of The Hobbit as it then was, to meet the formidable difficulty: if the Ring were of such a nature as my father now conceived it, how could Gollum have really intended to give it away to a stranger who won a riddle contest? - and the original text of The Hobbit left no doubt that that was indeed his serious intention. But it is interesting to observe that Gandalf"s remarks about the affinity of mind between Gollum and Bilbo, which survived into FR (pp. 63 - 4), originally arose in this context, of explaining how it was that Gollum was willing to let his treasure go.
Turning to what is told of the Rings in this text, the original idea (p. 75) that the Elves had many Rings, and that there were many "Elf- wraiths" in the world, is still present, but the phrase "the Ring-lord cannot rule them" is not. The Dwarves, on the other hand, at first said not to have had any, now had seven, each the foundation of one of "the seven h.o.a.rds of the Dwarves", and their distinctive response to the corruptive power of the Rings enters (though this was already foreshadowed in the first rough draft on the subject: "some say the rings don"t wort on them: they are too solid.") Men, at first said to have had "few", now had three - but "others they found in secret places cast away by the elf-wraiths" (thus allowing for more than three Black Riders). But the central conception of the Ruling Ring is not yet present, though it was, so to say, waiting in the wings: for it is said that Gollum"s Ring was not only the only one that had not returned to the Dark Lord (other than those lost by the Dwarves) - it was the "most precious and potent of his Rings" (p. 81). But in what its peculiar potency lay we are not told; nor indeed do we learn more here of the relation between the invisibility conferred by the Rings, the tormenting longevity (which now first appears), and the decline of their bearers into "wraiths".
The element of moral will required in one possessed of a Ring to resist its power is strongly a.s.serted. This is seen in Gandalf"s advice to Bilbo in the original draft (p. 74): "don"t use it for harm, or for finding out other people"s secrets, and of course not for theft or for worse things. Because it may get the better of you"; and still more expressly in his rebuke to Bingo, who said that it was a pity that Bilbo did not kill Gollum: "He could not do so, without doing wrong. It was against the rules. If he had done so he would not have had the ring, the ring would have had him at once" (p. 81). This element remains in FR (pp. 68 - 9), but is more guardedly expressed: "Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so."
The end of the chapter - with Gandalf actually himself proposing the Birthday Party and Bingo"s "resounding jest" - was to be quickly rejected, and is never heard of again.
IV. TO MAGGOT"S FARM AND BUCKLAND.
The third of the original consecutive chapters exists in complete form only in a typescript, where it bears the number "III" but has no t.i.tle; there are also however incomplete and very rough ma.n.u.script drafts, which were filled out and improved in the typescript but in all essentials left unchanged. Near the end the typescript ceases (note 16), not at the foot of a page, and the remainder of the chapter is in ma.n.u.script; for this part also rough drafting exists.
I again give the text in full, since in this chapter the original narrative was far removed from what finally went into print. Subsequent emendation was here very slight. I take up into the text a few ma.n.u.script changes that seem to me to be in all probability contemporary with the making of the typescript.
The end of the chapter corresponds to FR Chapter 5 "A Conspiracy Unmasked", at this stage there was no conspiracy.
III.
In the morning Bingo woke refreshed. He was lying in a bower made by a living tree with branches laced and drooping to the ground; his bed was of fern and gra.s.s, deep and soft and strangely fragrant. The sun was shining through the fluttering leaves, which were still green upon the tree. He jumped up and went out.
Odo and Frodo were sitting on the gra.s.s near the edge of the wood; there was no sign of any elves.
"They have left us fruit and drink, and bread," said Odo. "Come and have breakfast! The bread tastes almost as good as last night."
Bingo sat down beside them. "Well?" said Odo. "Did you find anything out?"
"No, nothing," said Bingo. "Only hints and riddles. But as far as I could make them out, it seems to me that Gildor thinks there are several Riders; that they are after me; that they are now ahead and behind and on both sides of us; that it is no use going back (at least not for me); that we ought to make for Rivendell as quickly as possible, and if we find Gandalf there so much the better; and that we shall have an exciting and dangerous time getting there."
"I call that a lot more than nothing," said Odo. "But what about the sniffing?"
"We did not discuss it," said Bingo with his mouth full.
"You should have," said Odo. "I am sure it is very important." "In that case I am sure Gildor would have told me nothing about it. But he did say that he thought you might as well come with me. I gathered that the riders are not after you, and that you rather bother them."
"Splendid! Odo and Frodo are to take care of Uncle Bingo. They won"t let him be sniffed at."
"All right!" said Bingo. "That"s settled. What about the method of advance?"
"What do you mean?" said Odo. "Shall we hop, skip, run, crawl on our stomachs, or just walk singing along? "
"Exactly. And shall we follow the road, or risk a cross-country cut? There is no choice in the matter of time; we must go in daylight, because Marmaduke is expecting us to-night. In fact we must get off as soon as possible; we have slept late, and there are still quite eighteen miles to go."
"You have slept late, you mean," said Odo. "We have been up a long time."
So far Frodo had said nothing. He was looking out over the tree- tops eastward. He now turned towards them. "I vote for striking across country," he said. "The land is not so wild between here and the River. It ought not to be difficult to mark our direction before we leave this hill, and to keep pretty well to it. Buckland is almost exactly south-east from Woodhall (1) down there in the trees. We should cut off quite a corner, because the road bears away to the left - you can see a bit of it over there - and then sweeps round south when it gets nearer to the River.(2) We could strike it above Buckland before it gets really dark."
"Short cuts make long delays," said Odo; "and I don"t see that a Rider is any worse on the road than in the woods."
"Except that he probably won"t be able to see so well, and may not be able to ride so fast," said Bingo. "I am also in favour of leaving the road."
"All right! " said Odo. "I will follow you into every bog and ditch. You two are as bad as Marmaduke. I suppose I shall be outvoted by three to one, instead of two to one, when we collect him, if we ever do."
The sun was now hot again; but clouds were beginning to come up from the West. It looked likely to turn to rain, if the wind fell. The hobbits scrambled down a steep green bank and struck into the trees below. Their line was taken to leave Woodhall on their left, and there was some thickish wood immediately in front of them, though after a mile or two it had looked from above as if the land became more open. There was a good deal of undergrowth, and they did not get on very fast. At the bottom of the slope they found a stream running in a deeply dug bed with steep slippery banks overhung with brambles. They could not jump across, and they had the choice of going back and taking a new line, or of turning aside to the left and following the stream until it became easier to cross. Odo looked back. Through the trees they could see the top of the bank which fell from the high green which they had just left. "Look! " he said, clutching Bingo by the arm. On the top of the slope a black rider sat on a horse; he seemed to be swaying from side to side, as if sweeping all the land eastward with his gaze. The hobbits gave up any idea of going back, and plunged quickly and silently into the thickest bushes by the stream. They were cut off from the West wind down in the hollow, and very soon they were hot and tired. Bushes, brambles, rough ground, and their packs, all did what they could to hold them back.
"Whew! " said Bingo. "Both parties were right! The short cut has gone crooked; but we got under cover only just in time. Yours are the sharpest ears, Frodo. Can you hear - can you hear anything behind?"
They stopped and looked and listened; but there was no sign or sound of pursuit. They went on again, until the banks of the stream sank and its bed became broad and shallow. They waded across and hurried into the wood on the other side, no longer quite sure of the line they should take. There were no paths, but the ground was fairly level and open. A tall growth of young oaks, mixed with ash and elm, was all round them, so that they could not see far. The leaves of the trees blew upwards in sudden gusts, and spots of rain began to fall; then the wind died away, and the rain came down steadily.
They trudged along fast through thick leaves, while all about them the rain pattered and trickled; they did not talk, but kept glancing from side to side, and sometimes behind. After about an hour Frodo said: "I suppose we have not struck too much to the south, and are not walking longwise through this wood? From above it looked like a narrow belt, and we ought to have crossed it by now, I should have thought."
"It is no good starting going in zigzags now," said Bingo. "Let"s keep on. The clouds seem to be breaking, and we may get a helpful glimpse of the sun again before long."
He was right. By the time they had gone another mile, the sun gleamed out of ragged clouds; and they saw that they were in fact heading too much to the south. They bore a little to their left; but before long they decided by their feelings as much as by the sun that it was time for a mid-day halt and some food.
The rain was still falling at intervals; so they sat under an elm- tree, whose leaves were still thick, though they were fast turning yellow. They found that the Elves had filled their water-bottles with some clear golden drink: it had the scent rather than the taste of honey made of many flowers, and was mightily refreshing. They made a merry meal, and soon were laughing and snapping their fingers at rain and black riders. The next few miles they felt would soon be put behind them. With his back to the tree-trunk Odo began to sing softly to himself: Ho! ho! ho! To my bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Rain may fall and wind may blow, And many miles be still to go, But under the elm-tree I will lie And let the clouds go sailing by!
Ho! ho! ho! ---- It will never be known whether the next verse was any better than the first; for just at the moment there was a noise like a sneeze or a sniff. Odo never finished his song. The noise came again: sniff, sniff, sniff; it seemed to be quite close. They sprang to their feet, and looked quickly about; but there was nothing to be seen anywhere near their tree.(3) Odo had no more thought of lying and watching the clouds go by. He was the first to be packed and ready to start. In a few minutes from the last sniff they were off again as fast as they could go. The wood soon came to an end; but they were not particularly pleased, for the land became soft and boggy, and hobbits (even on a Journey) don"t like mud and clay on their feet. The sun was shining again, and they felt both too hot and too exposed to view away from the trees. Far back now behind them lay the high green where they had breakfasted; every time they looked back towards it they expected to see the distant figure of a horseman against the sky. But none appeared; and as they went on the land about them got steadily more tame. There were hedges and gates and dikes for drainage; everything looked quiet and peaceful, just an ordinary corner of the Shire.
"I think I recognize these fields," said Frodo suddenly. "They belong to old Farmer Maggot,(4) unless I am quite lost. There ought to be a lane somewhere near, that leads from his place into the road a mile or two above Buckland."(5) "Does he live in a hole or a house?" asked Odo, who did not know this part of the country.