by Miguel
Marmaduke unlocked the door, and light streamed out in friendly fashion. They slipped quickly in, and shut the light and themselves inside. They were in a wide hall from which several doors opened. 'Here we are!' said Marmaduke. 'Not a bad little place. We often use it for guests, since Brandy Hall is so frightfully full of Brandybucks. I have got it quietly ready in the last day or two.
'Splendid fellow! ' said Bingo. 'I was dreadfully sorry you had to miss that supper.'
'So was I,' said Marmaduke. 'And after hearing the accounts of Rory and Melissa (11) (both entirely different, but I expect equally true), I am sorrier still. But I had a merry ride with Gandalf and the dwarves and Elves.'(12) We met some more Elves on the way, (13) and there was some fine singing. I have never heard anything like it before.'
'Did Gandalf send me any message?' asked Bingo.
'No, nothing special. I asked him, when we got to Brandywine Bridge, if he wouldn't come along with me and wait for you, so as to be a guide and helping hand. But he said he was in a hurry. In fact, if you want to know, he said: "Bingo is now old enough and foolish enough to look after himself for a bit."'(14)
"I hope he is right,' said Bingo.
The hobbits hung up their cloaks and sticks, and piled their packs on the floor. Marmaduke went forward and flung open a closed door. Firelight came out and a puff of steam.
'Bath! ' cried Odo. 'O blessed Marmaduke! '
'Which way shall we go: eldest first, or quickest first? You will be last either way, Odo,' said Frodo.
'Ha! ha!' said Marmaduke. 'What kind of an innkeeper do you think I am? In that room there are three tubs; and also a copper over a merry furnace that seems to be nearly on the boil. There are also towels, soap, mats, jugs, and what not. Get inside!'
The three rushed in and shut the door. Marmaduke went into the kitchen, and while he was busy there he heard snatches of competing songs mixed with the sound of splashing and wallowing. Over all the rest Odo's voice suddenly rose in a chant:
Bless the water O my feet and toes!
Bless it O my ten fingers!
Bless the water, O Odo!
And praise the name of Marmaduke! (15)
Marmaduke knocked on the door. 'All Bucklebury will know you have arrived before long,' he said. 'Also there is such a thing as supper. I cannot live on praise much longer.'
Bingo came out. 'Lawks!' said Marmaduke looking in. The stone floor was all in pools. Frodo was drying in front of the fire; Odo was still wallowing.
'Come on, Bingo!' said Marmaduke. 'Let's begin supper, and leave them! '
They had supper in the kitchen on a table near the open fire. The others soon arrived. Odo was the last, but he quickly made up for lost time. When they had finished Marmaduke pushed back the table, and drew chairs round the fire. 'We'll clear up later,' he said. 'Now tell me all about it!'(16)
Bingo stretched his legs and yawned. 'It's easy in here,' he said, 'and somehow our adventure seems rather absurd, and not so important as it did out there. But this is what happened. A Black Rider came up behind us yesterday afternoon (it seems a week ago), and I am sure he was looking for us, or me. After that he kept- on reappearing (always behind). Let me see, yes, we saw him four times altogether, counting the figure on the landing-stage, and once we heard his horse,(17) and once we thought we heard just a sniff.'
'What are you talking about?' said Marmaduke. 'What is a black rider? '
'A black figure on a horse,' said Bingo. 'But I will tell you all about it.' He gave a pretty good account of their journey, with occasional additions and interruptions by Frodo and Odo. Only Odo was still positive that the sniff they thought they heard was really part of the mystery.
'I should think you were making it all up, if I had not seen that queer shape this evening,' said Marmaduke. 'What is it all about, I wonder?'
'So do we!' said Frodo. 'Do you think anything of Farmer Maggot's guess, that it has something to do with Bilbo?'
'Well, it was only a guess anyway,' said Bingo. 'I am sure old Maggot does not know anything. I should have expected the Elves to tell me, if the Riders had anything to do with Bilbo's adventures.'
'Old Maggot is rather a shrewd fellow,' said Marmaduke. 'A good deal goes on behind his round face which does not come out in his talk. He used to go into the Old Forest at one time, and had the reputation of knowing a thing or two outside the Shire. Anyway I can guess no better. What are you going to do about it?' 'There is nothing to do, ' said Bingo, 'except to go home. Which is difficult for me, as I haven't got one now. I shall just have to go on, as the Elves advised. But you need not come, of course.'
'Of course not,' said Marmaduke. 'I joined the party just for fun, and I am certainly not going to leave it now. Besides, you will need me. Three's company, but four's more. And if the hints of the Elves mean what you think, there are at least four Riders, not to mention an invisible sniff, and a black bundle on the landing- stage. My advice is: let us start off even earlier tomorrow than we planned, and see if we can't get a good start. I rather fancy Riders will have to go round by the bridges to get across the River.' 'But we shall have to go much the same way,' said Bingo. 'We shall have to strike the East Road near Brandywine Bridge.'
'That's not my idea,' said Marmaduke. 'I think we should avoid the road at present. It's a waste of time. We should actually be going back westward if we made for the road-meeting near the Bridge. We must make a short cut north-east through the Old Forest. I will guide you.'
'How can you?' asked Odo. 'Have you ever been there?'
'O yes,' said Marmaduke. 'All the Brandybucks go there
occasionally, when the fit takes them. I often go - only in daylight, of course, when the woods are fairly quiet and sleepy. Still I know my way about. If we start early and push along we ought to be quite safe and clear of the Forest before tomorrow night. I have got five good ponies waiting - sturdy little beasts: not speedy of course, but good for a long day's work. They're stabled in a shed out in the fields behind this house.'
'I don't like the idea at all,' said Odo. 'I would rather meet these Riders (if we must meet them) on a road, where there is a chance of meeting ordinary honest travellers as well. I don't like woods, and I have heard queer tales of the Old Forest. I think Black Riders will be very much more at home there than we shall.'
'But we shall probably be out of it again before they get in,' said Marmaduke. 'It seems to me silly, anyway, when you are beginning an adventurous journey to start by going back and jogging along a dull river-side road - in full view of all the numerous hobbits of Buckland.'(18) Perhaps you would like to call and take leave of old Rory at the Hall. It would be polite and proper; and he might lend you a carriage.'
'I knew you would propose something rash,' said Odo. 'But I am not going to argue any more, if the others agree. Let's vote - though I am sure I shall be the odd man out.'
He was - though Bingo and Frodo took some time to make up their minds.
'There you are! ' said Odo. 'What did I say this morning? Three to one! Well, I only hope it comes off all right.'
'Now that's settled,' said Marmaduke, 'we had better get to bed. But first we must clear up, and do all the packing we can. Come on! '
It was some time before the hobbits finished putting things away, tidying up, and packing what they needed in the way of stores for their journey. At last they went to bed - and slept in proper beds (but without sheets) for the last time for many a long day."(19) Bingo could not go to sleep for some time: his legs ached. He was glad he was riding in the morning. At last he fell asleep into a vague dream, in which he seemed to be lying under a window that looked out into a sea of tangled trees: outside there was a
snuffling.
NOTES.
1. It is at first sight puzzling that Frodo should say that 'Buckland is almost exactly south-east from Woodhall', and again immediately below that they could strike the road again 'above Buckland', since later in this chapter (p. 100) Buckland is described as 'a thickly inhabi
ted strip between the River and the Old Forest', defended by the Hedge some forty miles long - clearly too large an area to be described as 'almost exactly south-east from Woodhall'. The explanation must be, however, that my father changed the meaning of the name Buckland in the course of the chapter. At first Buckland was a place, a village, rather than a region (at its first occurrence it replaced Bury Underwood, which in turn replaced Wood Eaton, p. 35 note 5), and it still was so here; but further on in the chapter the village of Bucklebury-by-the-River emerged (p. 92), and Buckland then became the name of the Brandybucks' land beyond the River. See note 5, and the note on the Shire Map, p. 107.
2. See the note on the Shire Map, p. 107.
3. A hastily pencilled note on the typescript here reads: 'Sound of hoofs going by not far off.' See p. 287.
4. Maggot was later struck out in pencil and replaced by Puddifoot, but only in this one instance. On the earliest map of the Shire (see p. 107) the farm is marked, in ink, Puddifoot, changed in pencil to Maggot. The Puddifoots of Stock are mentioned in FR, p. 101.
5. Here again Buckland still signifies the village (see note x); but Bucklebury appears shortly after (p. 92), the name being typed over an erasure.
6. The substance of this passage about hobbit-holes and hobbit-houses was afterwards placed in the Prologue. See further pp. 294, 312.
7. Towers built on the western coasts of Middle-earth by exiles of Numenor are mentioned in the second version of The Fall of Numenor (V.28, 30). - The substance of this passage was also afterwards placed in the Prologue (see note 6), and there also the towers are called 'Elf-towers'. Cf. Of the Rings of Power in The Silmarillion, p. 292: 'It is said that the towers of Emyn Beraid were not built indeed by the exiles of Numenor, but were raised by Gilgalad for Elendil, his friend.'
8. came at last back to the mad: this is of course the road they had been walking on originally, 'the road to Buckland', at this time there was no causeway road running south from the Brandywine Bridge on the west bank of the river (and no village of Stock).
9. In FR (p. 109) the distance is 'well over twenty miles from end to end.' See p. 298.
10. This genealogy was afterwards wholly abandoned, of course, but the mother of Meriadoc (Marmaduke) remained a Took (Esmeralda, who married Saradoc Brandybuck, known as 'Scattergold').
11. Melissa Brandybuck appeared in the fourth version of 'A Long- expected Party', on which occasion she danced on a table with Prospero Took (p. 38).
12. Bingo told Gildor (p. 63) that Gandalf 'went off with the dwarves and the Rivendell elves as soon as the fireworks were over.' This is the first appearance of the story that Marmaduke/Meriadoc had been at Hobbiton but had left early.
13. We met some more Elves on the way: these were the Elves of Gildor's company, who thus already knew about the Party when Bingo, Frodo and Odo encountered them (p. 68, note 17).
14. Cf. the note cited on p. 41: 'Where is G[andalf] asks Odo - said I was old and foolish enough now to take care of myself said B.'
15. This 'chant' was emended on the typescript thus:
Bless the water, O my feet and toes!
Praise the bath, O my ten fingers!
Bless the water, O my knees and shoulders!
Praise the bath, O my ribs, and rejoice!
Let Odo praise the house of Brandybuck,
And praise the name of Marmaduke for ever.
This new version belongs to the time of the manuscript portion at the end of the chapter (note 16).
16. Here the typescript ends, and the remainder is in manuscript; see p. 109.
17. and once we heard his horse: this is a reference to the revised passage in the second chapter, where it is told that a Black Rider stopped his horse for a moment on the road beside the tree in which the hobbits were sitting (p. 55 and note 11).
18. This is a reference to the road within Buckland. Cf. p. 53: 'the ordinary way to Buckland was along the East Road to the meeting of the Water and the Brandywine River, where there was a bridge, and then south along the River.'
19. It is clear from this that my father had not yet foreseen the hobbits' visit to the house of Tom Bombadil.
Note on the Shire Map.
There are four extant maps of the Shire made by my father, and two which I made, but only one of them, I think, can contain an element or layer that goes back to the time when these chapters were written (the first months of 1938). This is however a convenient place to give some indications concerning all of them.
I. An extremely rough map (reproduced as the frontispiece), built up in stages, and done in pencil and red, blue, and black inks; extending from Hobbiton in the West to the Barrow-downs in the East. In its inception this was the first, or at least the first that survives. Some features were first marked in pencil and then inked over.
II. A map on a smaller scale in faint pencil and blue and red chalks, extending to the Far Downs in the West, but showing little more than the courses of roads and rivers.
III. A map of roads and rivers on a larger scale than II, extending from Michel Delving in the West to the Hedge of Buckland, but without any names (see on map V below).
IV. A small scale map extending from the Green Hill country to Bree, carefully drawn in ink and coloured chalks, but soon abandoned and marking only a few features.
V. An elaborate map in pencil and coloured chalks which I made in 1943 (see p. 200), for which III (showing only the courses of roads and rivers) was very clearly the basis and which I followed closely. No doubt III was made by my father for this purpose.
VI. The map which was published in The Fellowship of the Ring; this I made not long before its publication (that is to say, some ten years after map V).
In what follows I consider only certain features arising in the course of this chapter.
Buckland is almost exactly south-east from Woodhall (p. 89). Buckland was still here the name of the village (see note 1 above); Bucklebury first appears on p. 92. On map I Bucklebury does indeed lie south-east (or strictly east-south-east) from Woodhall, but on map II the Ferry is due east, and on III it is east-north-east, whence the representation on my maps V and VI. In the original edition of FR (p. 97) the text had here 'The Ferry is south-east from Woodhall', which was corrected to 'east' in the revised edition (second impression 1967) when my father observed the discrepancy with the published map. The shifting had clearly come about unintentionally. (It may be noticed incidentally that all the maps show Woodhall on a side road (the 'lane') going off from that to Buckland; see p. 66, note 10).
The road bean away to the left... and then sweeps mund south when it gets nearer to the River (p. 89). This southward sweep is strongly marked on map I (and repeated on map II), where the Buckland road joins the causeway road above the village of Stock (as Frodo says in FR, p. 97: 'It goes round the north end of the Marish so as to strike the cause- way from the Bridge above Stock'). At the time when this chapter was written there was no causeway road (note 8). This is another case where the text of FR accords with map I, but not with the published map (VI); in this case, however, my father did not correct the text. On map III the Buckland road does not 'sweep round south': but after bearing away to the left or north (before reaching Woodhall) it runs in a straight line due east to meet the road from the Bridge. This I followed on my map V; but the village of Stock was not marked on III, which only shows roads and rivers, and I placed the road-meeting actually in the village, not to the north of it. Although, as I clearly recollect, map V was made in his study and in conversation with him, my father cannot have noticed my error in this point. The published map simply follows V.
One other point may be noticed here. Marmaduke twice (pp. 100, 103) refers to 'bridges' over the Brandywine, but none of the maps shows any other bridge but that which carried the East Road, the Brandywine Bridge.
*
My father's letter to Stanley Unwin quoted on page 44 shows that he had finished this chapter by 4 March 1938. Three months later, on 4 June
1
938, he wrote to Stanley Unwin saying:
I meant long ago to have thanked Rayner for bothering to read the tentative chapters, and for his excellent criticism. It agrees strikingly with Mr Lewis', which is therefore confirmed. I must plainly bow to my two chief (and most well-disposed) critics. The trouble is that 'hobbit talk'* amuses me privately (and to a certain degree also my boy Christopher) more than adventures; but I must curb this severely. Although longing to do so, I have not had a chance to touch any story- writing since the Christmas vacation.
And he added that he could not 'see any loophole left for months.' On 24
July he said in a letter to Charles Furth at Allen and Unwin:
The sequel to the Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link.