returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  'Well, here we are!' said Merry. 'And very cheerless and un-

  inviting it all looks. There is no water, and no shelter. I don't blame Gandalf for not waiting here! He would have to leave the waggon, and horses, and most of his companions, too, I expect, down near the Road.'

  'I wonder,' said Trotter thoughtfully. 'He must certainly have come here, since he said he would. It is not like him to leave no sign. I hope nothing has happened to him - though it is not easy to imagine him coming to grief.' He pushed the pile of stones with his foot, and the topmost stones fell down with a clatter. Something white, set free, began to flutter in the wind. It was a piece of paper. Trotter seized it eagerly, and read out the message scrawled on it:

  Waited three days. Must go. What has happened to you. Push on for the Ford beyond Troll-shaw, as fast as you can. Help will come there from Rivendell, as soon as I can manage it. Be watchful. G.

  'Three days!' said Trotter. 'Then he must have left while we were still in the marshes. I suppose we were too far away for any glimpse of our miserable fires.'

  'How far is the Ford, and Rivendell?' said Bingo wearily. The world looked wild and wide from the hill-top.

  'Let me think! ' said Trotter. 'I don't know if the Road has ever been measured beyond the Forsaken Inn - a day's journey east of Bree. But the stages, in days taken by waggon, pony, or horse, or on foot, are pretty well known, of course. I should reckon it is about 120 long-miles from Bree to Weathertop - by the Road, which loops south and north. We have come a shorter but not quicker way: between So and go miles in the last six days. It is nearer 40 than 30 miles from Brandywine Bridge to Bree. I don't know, but I should make the count of miles from your Bridge to the Ford under the Misty Mountains a deal over 300 miles. So it must be close on 200 from Weathertop to the Ford. I have heard it said that from Bridge to Ford can be done in a fortnight going hard with fair weather; but I have never met any that had made the journey in that time. Most take nigh on a month, and poor hobbit- folk on foot take more.

  This passage, from 'But the stages, in days taken by waggon, pony, or horse, or on foot', was enclosed within square brackets; and against it my father wrote: '? -Cut out - as this though it can be kept as a narrative time guide is too cut and dried and spoils the feeling. ?' He then wrote the following replacement on a slip (cf. FR p. 200):

  Some say it is so far, and some say otherwise. It is a queer Road, And folk are glad to reach their journey's end, be the time longer or shorter. But I know how long it would take me, with fair weather and no illfortune, just a poor ranger on his own feet: between three weeks and a month going hard from Brandywine Bridge to the Ford under the Misty Mountains. More than two days from the Bridge to Bree, a week from Bree to Weathertop. We have made it in that time, but we have come by a shorter way, for the Road bends south and north. Say ten days. Then we have a fortnight before us, maybe less, but more likely more.'

  'A fortnight!' said Bingo. 'A lot may happen in that time.' They all fell silent. Bingo felt for the first time in that lonely place the full realization of his danger and exile. He wished that his fortune had left him in the quiet and beloved Shire. He stared at the hateful' Road - leading back westward - to his old home. Suddenly he was aware that two black specks were moving along the ribbon, going westward, and looking closer he saw now that several more were crawling slowly eastward to meet them. He gave a cry and clutched Trotter's arm. 'Look! ' he said, pointing.

  'Get down!' cried Trotter, pulling Bingo flat on the ground beside him. Merry flung himself alongside. 'What is it?' he whispered. 'I don't know, but I fear,' said Trotter. They wormed their way to the edge of the flat hilltop and peered out from behind a stony outcrop. The light was not bright, for the clear morning had faded, and clouds crawled slowly out of the East and had now caught the sun, as it began to go west. They could see the black specks, but neither Bingo nor Merry could make out their shape for certain. Yet something told them that there below were Black Riders assembling on the Road, beyond the hill's foot. 'Yes,' said Trotter, whose keener sight left him in no doubt. 'The enemy is here.'

  Hastily they crawled away, and slipped down the north side of the hill to find Odo and Frodo.

  Here the original Chapter VII, which I have divided into two, ends.

  NOTES.

  1. Of the original pencilled draft, overwritten by version B, little can now be read; it was dashed down in faint pencil, and except here and there the text in ink effectively obliterates it. Enough can be seen, however, to show that the story was that of version B (in which Gandalf's letter was given to the landlord of the inn, not to Trotter); and though this is less certain, I suspect that at this stage there was no mention of Black Riders having come to Bree before Bingo, Merry, Frodo, and Odo arrived. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that when my father wrote out version B on top of the original draft he had version A in front of him.

  The explanation of this odd situation can be seen, I think, in the fact that version B is much longer than the pencilled draft and not at all closely associated with it; some of it is on slips added in. I think that my father wrote out version A first, on the basis of the pencilled draft, but changed the story as he did so (by giving Gandalf's letter to Trotter, and introducing Butterbur's story of the Riders who came to the inn); he then returned to the pencilled draft and wrote version B on top of it, going back to the story that the letter had been entrusted to Butterbur, and again introducing the story of the Black Riders at Bree but ascribing it now to Trotter, who encountered them on the Road. For this text he used version A and followed it very closely so far as the changed story allowed. Thus the textual history was:

  (1) Original pencilled draft: Gandalf's letter left with Butterbur; (probably) no story as yet of Black Riders having already come to Bree.

  (2) Version A: the story changed: Gandalf's letter left with Trotter; Butterbur tells of the coming of the Riders to the inn.

  (3) Version B, written over the original draft, but using much of the wording of A: Gandalf's letter left with Butterbur; Trotter tells of his encounters with the Riders on the Road. Finally, some new phrases in B were written back into A.

  2. It is with this sentence that Chapter 10 'Strider' begins in FR, but I include the preceding passage here since it forms part of the narrative which is treated in alternative ways (see p. 156).

  3. Cf. p. 141 note 7. But even though the old idea that Bingo 'had come to the end of his treasure' (and that a vague object of his 'Journey' was that it might bring him some more, p. 62) disappeared, it remained in FR (p. 175) that 'he had brought only a little money with him.'

  4. That would be five days ago: see the chronology given on p. 160. Gandalf and his companions arrived at the inn on Sunday morning, and it was now Thursday night.

  5. They should be here by Tuesday: Gandalf had assumed that they would follow the Road from the Brandywine Bridge to Bree, and take two days over it. Cf. Trotter's calculations (pp. 170 - 1): 'It is nearer 40 than 30 miles from Brandywine Bridge to Bree', and 'More than two days from the Bridge to Bree' (on foot).

  6. How did the Black Riders know this? See p. 350, note 7.

  7. Here my father wrote: 'Now he described your party very exactly, sir, more exactly than Mr Gandalf did: colour of your ponies, look of your faces,' but struck it out as soon as written, probably because it was not consistent with his conception of the Black Riders: he had already said (p. 75) that for Ring-wraiths 'Everything becomes very faint like grey ghost pictures against the black background in which you live; but you can smell better than you can hear or see.' It seems very likely that the idea of the 'wraith-world', into which in some sense the bearer of a Ring entered if he put it on his finger, and in which he then became fully visible to the denizens of that world, had already arisen; a hint of this appears in Gildor's words (p. 64) 'I guess that the use of the ring helps them more than you', and in Gandalf's letter in the present chapter he is urgent that Bingo should never wear the Ring for any purpose - now that he has
learned that the Riders are in pursuit.

  8. These words are at the bottom of a manuscript page. At the bottom my father scribbled in pencil:

  Nov. 19 Motive trailing Gandalf. Gandalf drawing them off. No camp at Weathertop or again Gandalf leads them off.

  With this cf. the pencilled addition on p. 153: 'I first saw the Riders last Saturday away west of Bree, before I ran across Gandalf. I am not at all sure they were not following his trail too.'

  'Nov. 19' presumably refers to the date of the note, i.e. 19 November 1938; by then my father had got well beyond this point in the narrative, judging by what he said in a letter to Stanley Unwin of 13 October 1938: 'I have worked very hard for a month... on a sequel to The Hobbit. It has reached Chapter XI (though in rather an illegible state)...'

  9. The first mention of Weathertop Hill; the actual first occurrence of the name must be in the original pencilled draft of Gandalf's letter, which can be partly made out (note 13).

  10. The runes are the Old English runes, as in The Hobbit. Gandalf uses the English (Common Germanic) rune X for G in writing his name, but uses also as a sign for himself a rune . In the Angerthas (LR Appendix E pp. 401 - 4) this rune meant (in the usage of the Dwarves of Moria) [ng].

  11. Oddly, the manuscript in ink has here Timothy, not Barnabas; but it can only be a slip, returning momentarily to the landlord's original name (p. 140 note 3).

  12. Tuesday, not Thursday: see note 5.

  13. The ending of the letter can be read in the pencilled draft:

  Don't be out after dark or in mist. Push along. Am so anxious that I shall wait [?two] days for you..... Weathertop Hill. If you meet a ranger (wild hobbit) called Trotter, stick to him. I have told him to look out. He will guide you to Weathertop and further if necessary. Push along.

  14. The text as first written here (in ink: the pencilled text beneath is illegible) had: 'I felt something moving behind me, and when I turned I saw one going along the Road.' - For 'coming towards' in the revised sentence perhaps read 'coming towards me'.

  15. bar the door and window was written in above and take turns to watch, which was not struck out. See note 16.

  16. The underlying pencilled text can be read here:

  They did not talk much but fell asleep one by one. Trotter watched for three hours; he said he could do with very little sleep. Next came Merry. Nothing happened...

  A first version in ink reads:

  He could do with very little (he said): 'give me three hours, and then wake me, and I will watch for the rest of the time.' Bingo took the first watch; the others talked for a while and then fell asleep.

  At this point FR Chapter 10 'Strider' ends, and Chapter 11 'A Knife in the Dark' begins - where that chapter takes up the story at Bree again: of the attack by the Black Riders on the house at Crickhollow with which it begins there is as yet no trace.

  17. 20 (silver pennies) was later changed to 25.

  18. Rob: at previous occurrences (pp. 135, 164) the name of the ostler at ?he Prancing Pony is certainly Bob, as in FR.

  19. a yowk: the verb yowk 'howl, bawl, yelp' is given in Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary.

  20. A tiny pencilled sketch in the body of the manuscript, belonging with the underlying draft, shows the Road, after it has curved down round the south side of Bree-hill, bending up north again and continuing the same line east of Bree as it had to the west of the village.

  21. Combe changed in pencil to Archet (as in FR, p. 193).

  22. These two sentences, from Trotter also had a notion, were enclosed in square brackets, probably at the time of writing. Cf. the outline (p. 162): 'Trotter takes them to a wild hobbit hole, and gets his friend to run on ahead and send a message to Weathertop by pony?'.

  23. The pencilled text beneath the ink can be read sufficiently to show that the passage of the marshes (unnamed) was described in a couple of sentences.

  24. Since at the end of the next sentence my father wrote 'from the flats to the East', which is an obvious slip and which he later corrected to 'West', it seems likely that the 'south-west' course of the track along the feet of the hills is also a slip for 'south-east'; a little later it is said that 'they came towards the south-eastern end of the line of hills.'

  25. For the story of Gil-galad and Elendil and the Last Alliance as it was at this time see the second version of The Fall of Numenor $14 (V. 28-9) and pp. 215 - 16. Though Elendil is present in The Fall of Numenor my father does not seem to have been entirely satisfied with the name: here he wrote Valandil first, and in the original draft of the next chapter he changed Elendil temporarily to Orendil (p. 197 note 3). In The Lost Road Valandil was the name of Elendil's father (V.60, 69), and in a later version of The Fall of Numenor Valandil is Elendil's brother (V.33).

  *

  In the latter part of this chapter, from the point where the variant versions join (pp. 159, 161), all the essential structure of the immediate narrative in FR (pp. 185 - 201) is in place, though the larger bearings and the glimpses of ancient history are conspicuously absent. The narrative runs in a narrower dimension in any case, from the fact that there are no Men in the story: Butterbur is a hobbit, the wild 'rangers', of whom Trotter is one, are hobbits, Bill Ferny is a hobbit (p. 165) - though it is true that the range of hobbit character is greatly extended by these 'Outsiders' who live beyond the Shire's borders.

  A few specific points of difference may be briefly mentioned. The pony bought in Bree is not in fact said to be Ferny's (p. 164), though it seems to be implied; and the subsequent history of the five ponies from Buckland, recorded in the footnote to the text (p. 164), was afterwards largely changed (FR p. 191). The encounter of Merry with the Black Rider outside the inn at Bree does not end with his being attacked; and it is Trotter who plays the later part of Sam in having a pocketful of apples and discomfiting Bill Ferny with one on the nose.

  The journey from Bree to Weathertop has the same structure as that in FR (pp. 194-7), except at the end. The chronology is:

  But in FR the hobbits made another night camp at the feet of the western slopes of the Weather Hills - and that was 'the night of the fifth of October, and they were six days out from Bree' (p. 197); this camp is not in the original version, and thus they reached Weathertop on Wednesday October 5. Trotter on Weathertop says that they have covered between 80 and go miles 'in the last six days'. he was including that day also, for it was already after noon.

  In the old story Gandalf stayed on Weathertop for three days, and he left there a note in a pile of stones, written on paper. This message ('Help will come there [i.e. to the Ford] from Rivendell, as soon as I can manage it') gives the first clear indication in the story of what Gandalf's intentions were; and with this can be taken the words scribbled on the manuscript that are given in note 8. Gandalf was trying to lure the Riders after him.

  Looking back over the whole of the original Chapter VII, the story from the hobbits' arrival in Bree to the sight of the Black Riders on the Road far below the summit of Weathertop, there appears again and in the most striking form the characteristic of my father's writing that elements emerge suddenly and clearly conceived, but with their 'meaning' and context still to undergo huge further development, or even complete transformation, in the later narrative (cf. p. 71). A small example here is the face that Bingo thought 'goblinish' as they walked out of Bree (p. 165) - which is here the face of Bill Ferny (a hobbit): in FR (p. 193) it will be that of 'the squint-eyed southerner' whom Frodo glimpsed through the window of Ferny's house, and thought that he looked 'more than half like a goblin.' In a 'chrysalis' state are the 'Rangers', wanderers in the wilderness, and Trotter is a Ranger, grim and weatherworn, deeply learned in the lore of the wild, and in many other matters; but they are hobbits, and of any further or larger significance that they might have in the history of Middle-earth there is no hint. Trotter is at once so fully realized that his tone in this part of the narrative (indeed not a few of his actual words) was never changed afterwards; yet such litt
le as is glimpsed of his history at this stage bears no relation whatsoever to that of Aragorn son of Arathorn. He is a hobbit, marked out by wearing wooden shoes (whence his name Trotter); there seems to be something in his history that gives him a special knowledge of, and horror of, the Ring-wraiths (p. 153); and Bingo finds something about him that distinguishes him from other 'Rangers', and is in a way familiar (p. 154). These things will be explained later, before they are finally swept away.

  X. THE ATTACK ON WEATHERTOP.

  This chapter, numbered VIII, and titleless as usual (though later my father pencilled in 'A Knife in the Dark'), begins on the same manuscript page as the end of the last; it was obviously continuous work, and the manuscript proceeds as before, in ink, rapid but always legible, over pencilled drafts of which only words or phrases here and there are visible (see p. 188). The text goes on through FR Chapter 12 'Flight to the Ford' without any sort of break, but as with the original Chapter VII I divide it into two (see the table on p. 133).