returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  'But Mr Bingo's half a Brandybuck too,' said Odo (trying to keep from smiling). 'He's quite a nice fellow when you get on the right side of him; though he will go walking across country and he is fond of mushrooms.'

  There seemed to be a breath, the ghost of an exclamation, not far from Odo's ear, though he could not be quite sure.(9)

  'That's just it,' said the farmer. 'He used to take mine though I beat him for it. And I'll beat him again, if I catch him at it. But that reminds me: what do you think that funny customer asked me?'

  Farmer Maggot then turns to his account of the funny customer, and his report, though briefer, goes pretty well as in the other variant version and in FR,(10) with this difference:

  '... I had a sort of shiver down my back. But that question was too much for me. "Be off," I said. "There are no Bagginses here, and won't be while I am on my legs. If you are a friend of theirs you are not welcome. I give you one minute before I call my dogs."

  From '"I don't know what to think," said Frodo' the story in this version moves in the direction of farce.

  'Then I'll tell you what to think,' said Maggot. 'This Mr Bingo Baggins has got into some trouble. I hear tell that he has lost or wasted most of the money he got from old Bilbo Baggins. And that was got in some queer fashion, in foreign parts, too, they say. Mark my words, this all comes of some of those doings of old Mr Bilbo's. Maybe there is some that want to know what has become of the gold and what not that he left behind. Mark my words.'

  'I certainly will,' said Frodo, rather taken aback by old Maggot's guessing.(11)

  'And if you'll take my advice, too,' said the farmer, 'you'll steer clear of Mr Bingo, or you'll be getting into more trouble yourself than you bargain for.'

  There was no mistaking the breath and the suppressed gasp by Frodo's ear on this occasion.(12)

  'I'll remember the advice,' said Frodo. 'But now we must be getting to Bucklebury. Mr Merry Brandybuck is expecting us this evening.'

  'Now that's a pity,' said the farmer. 'I was going to ask if you and your friends would stay and have a bite and sup with me and my wife.'

  'It is very kind of you,' said Frodo; 'but I am afraid we must be off now - we want to get to the Ferry before dark.'

  'Well then, one more drink!' said the farmer, and his wife poured out some beer. 'Here's your health and good luck! ' he said, reaching for his mug. But at that moment the mug left the table, rose, tilted in the air, and then returned empty to its place.

  'Help us and save us! ' cried the farmer jumping up and gaping. 'This day is bewitched. First the dog and then me: seeing things that ain't.'

  'But I saw the mug get up too,' said Odo indiscreetly, and not fully hiding a grin.

  This last sentence was struck out in pencil, as being unwanted 'if Bingo's ring is unknown to any but Sam.' The remainder of this version was written on that basis.

  Odo and Frodo sat and stared. Sam looked anxious and worried. 'You did not ask me to have a bite or a sup,' said a voice coming apparently from the middle of the room. Farmer Maggot backed towards the fire-place; his wife screamed. 'And that's a pity,' went on the voice, which Frodo to his bewilderment now recognized as Bingo's, 'because I like your beer. But don't boast again that no Baggins will ever come inside your house. There's one inside now. A thievish Baggins. A very angry Baggins.' There was a pause. 'In fact BINGO!' the voice suddenly yelled just by the farmer's ear. At the same time something gave him a push in the waistcoat, and he fell over with a crash among the fire-irons. He sat up again just in time to see his own hat leave the settle where he had thrown it down, and sail out of the door, which opened to let it pass.

  'Hi! here!' yelled the farmer, leaping to his feet. 'Hey, Grip, Fang, Wolf! ' At that the hat went off at a great speed towards the gate; but as the farmer ran after it, it came sailing back through the air and fell at his feet. He picked it up gingerly, and looked at it in astonishment. The dogs released by Mrs Maggot came bounding up; but the farmer gave them no command. He stood still scratching his head and turning his hat over and over, as if he expected to find it had grown wings.(13)

  Odo and Frodo followed by Sam came out of the house.

  'Well, if that ain't the queerest thing that ever happened in my house! ' said the farmer. 'Talk about ghosts! I suppose you haven't been playing any tricks on me, have you?' he said suddenly, looking hard at them in turn.

  'We?' said Frodo. 'Why, we were as startled as you were. I can't make mugs drain themselves, or hats walk out of the house.'

  'Well, it is mighty queer,' said the farmer, not seeming quite satisfied. 'First this rider asks for Mr Baggins. Then you folk come along; and while you are in the house Mr Baggins' voice starts playing tricks. And you are friends of his, seemingly. "Quite a nice fellow," you said. If there ain't some connexion between all these bewitchments, I'll eat this very hat. You can tell him from me to keep his voice at home, or I'll come and gag him, if I have to swim the River and hunt him all through Bucklebury. And now you'd best be going back to your friends, and leave me in peace. Good day to you.'

  He watched them with a thoughtful scowl on his face until they turned a corner of the lane and passed out of his sight.

  'What do you make of that? ' asked Odo as they went along. 'And where on earth is Bingo?'

  'What I make of it,' answered Frodo, 'is that Uncle Bingo has taken leave of his senses; and I fancy we shall run into him in this lane before long.'

  'You won't run into me because I'm just behind,' said Bingo. There he was by Sam Gamgee's side.

  This version of the episode ends here, with the note: 'This variant would proceed much as in older typed Chapter III' - i.e. in respect of the hobbits getting from Farmer Maggot's to the Ferry, if they are not driven there in Maggot's cart (see pp. 97 - g).

  Apart from any other considerations (which there may well have been), I think that it was primarily the difficulty with the Ring that killed this version. In the next chapter it turns out that the other hobbits had known about the Ring, but that Bingo had not known that they knew. So the ferocious Farmer Maggot, prone to ill-will, had already disappeared, and with him the last (more or less) light-hearted use of the Ring.(14) The second version of the Maggot episode in this manuscript evidently followed quite closely on the first, and this, as I have said, is (names apart) identical save for a word here and there with the story in FR.

  There remains to notice the passage about hobbit architecture mentioned above (p. 289). Against it my father wrote 'Put in Foreword',(15) and in the second version of the Maggot story it is not included. It was somewhat developed from that in the original form of the chapter (p. 92), but has less detail than that in the Prologue to FR (pp. 15 - 16, in the first edition 16 - 17). The division of hobbits into Harfoots, Fallohides, and Stoors had not yet arisen, and the fact that some of the people in the Marish were 'rather large, and heavy-legged, and a few actually had a little down under their chins' is ascribed to their not being of pure hobbit-breed. In this account the art of house-building still originated, or was thought to have originated, among the hobbits themselves, down in the riverside regions (in the Prologue it is suggested that it was derived from the Dunedain, or even from the Elves); but it 'had long been altered (and perhaps improved) by taking wrinkles from dwarves and elves and even Big Folk, and other people outside the Shire.'

  The passage in the Prologue concerning the presence of houses in many hobbit villages is present, and here Tuckborough first appears. As this passage was first drafted it read:

  Even in Hobbiton and Bywater, and in Tuckborough away in Tookland, and on the chalky Indowns in the centre of the Shire where there was a large population

  My father then struck out Indowns, presumably meaning to include on the chalky as well, and substituted [Much >] Micheldelving, before abandoning the sentence and starting again. Michel Delving on the White Downs has appeared in the last chapter (p. 278), replacing 'Much Hemlock (in the Hornblower country)'. He was probably going to write 'Much Hemlock' here too.
It seems that up till now he had not decided that the chief town was in the west of the Shire, if indeed there were any chief town; but he at once rewrote the passage, and it was very probably at this point that Michel Delving on the White Downs came into existence (and was then written into 'Delays are Dangerous'). As finally written, the sentence reads:

  In Hobbiton, in Tuckborough away in Tookland, and even in the most populous [village >] town of the Shire, Micheldelving, on the White Downs in the West, there were many houses of stone and wood and brick.

  The name Indowns does not occur again; cf. the Inlands (Mittalmar), the central region of Numenor, Unfinished Tales p. 165.

  The text of this chapter, following the arrangement of the original version, continues straight on without break from 'Suddenly Bingo laughed: from the covered basket he held the scent of mushrooms was rising', which ends Chapter 4 in FR, to '"Now we'd better get home ourselves, said Merry, which in FR begins Chapter 5., but not long after my father broke the text at this point, inserting the number 'V' and the title 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked', and I follow this arrangement here.

  NOTES.

  1. This passage of discussion was much rewritten. In rejected versions Odo proposes that they split up: 'Why all go the same way? Those who vote for short cuts, cut. Those who don't, go round - and they (mark you) will reach the Golden Perch at Stock before sundown', and Frodo argues for going across country by saying 'Merry won't worry if we are late.' In another, Odo says: 'Then I must fall in behind, or go alone. Well, I don't think Black Riders will do anything to me. It's you, Bingo, they are sniffing for. If they ask after you, I shall say: I have quarrelled with Mr Baggins and left him. He lodged with the Elves last night - ask them.'

  A minute point in connection with the geography may be mentioned here. In 'the woods that clustered along the eastern side of the hill', FR p. 98 line 5, 'hill' should be 'hills', as it is in the present text.

  2. At this first mention of the farmer in this text, he is called Farmer Puddifoot, but this was changed at once to Maggot, and Maggot is his name subsequently throughout. At the same place in the original typescript, and only at that place, Maggot was changed to Puddifoot (p. 105, note 4).

  3. Frodo continued: 'Of course these people down in the Marish are a bit queer and unfriendly, but the Brandybucks get on all right with them', but this was struck out as soon as written.

  4. This is where the mushrooms entered the story: there is no mention of mushrooms in the original version.

  5. On Bingo's being the nephew of Rory Brandybuck (Merry's grandfather) see p. 267, note 4.

  6. Another version of Bingo's account makes it Bilbo and Bingo who had the encounter with Maggot, and the farmer a real ogre:

  'That's just it,' said Bingo. 'I got on the wrong side of him, and of his hedge. We were trespassing, as he called it. We had been in the Shirebourn valley, and were making a cross-country line towards Stock - rather like today - when we got on to his land. It was getting dark, and a white fog came on, and we got lost. We climbed through a hedge and found ourselves in a garden; and Maggot found us. He set a great dog on us, more like a wolf. I fell down with the dog over me, and Bilbo broke its head with that thick stick of his. Maggot was violent. He is a strong fellow, and while Bilbo ws trying to explain who we were and how we came there he picked him up and flung him over the hedge into a ditch. Then he picked me up and had a good look at me. He recognized me as one of the Brandybuck clan, though I had not been to his farm since I was a youngster. "I was going to break your neck," he said, "and I will yet, whether you be Mr Rory's nephew or not, if I catch you round here again. Get out before I do you an injury!" He dropped me over the hedge on top of Bilbo. 'Bilbo got up and said: "I shall come around next time with something sharper than a stick. Neither you nor your dogs would be any loss to the countryside." Maggot laughed. "I have a weapon or two myself," he said; 'and next time you kill one of my dogs, I'll kill you. Be off now, or I'll kill you tonight." That'll be 20 years ago. But I don't imagine Maggot is a good forgetter. Ours would not be a friendly meeting.'

  Frodo Took's reception of this story was strangely mild. 'How very unfortunate!' [he said.] 'Nobody seems to have been much to blame. After all, Bingo, you must remember that this is near the Borders, and people round here are a deal more suspicious than up in the Baggins country.' Like Deephallow (p. 286), the Shirebourn, mentioned in this passage, is never named in LR, though marked both on my father's map of the Shire and on that published in FR (both are mentioned in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, p. g).

  7. Farmer Maggot is again unambiguously a hobbit: see p. 122 and note 7.

  8. There has in fact been no indication that Frodo Took's mother was a Brandybuck, as is seen to be the case from Maggot's remark here, supported also by Frodo's knowledge of the Marish and Maggot's familiarity with him as a companion of Merry Brandybuck. In LR the mother of Peregrin (who is related to Meriadoc as Frodo Took is at this stage, see p. 267, note 4) was Eglantine Banks.

  9. This sentence is marked in pencil for deletion.

  10. In this version the Black Rider does not say anything beyond 'Have you seen Mist-er Bagg-ins?' In the second version his words are almost as in FR, though he still calls him 'Mister Baggins'.

  11. In the second version, as in FR (p. 104) 'the shrewd guesses of the farmer were rather disconcerting' to Bingo (Frodo); but here Maggot's guesses disconcert Frodo Took, which would suggest that he knew what the Black Riders were after.

  12. This sentence is marked in pencil for deletion; cf. note 9.

  13. Pencilled changes in this passage substitute the beer jug for Farmer Maggot's hat: 'He sat up again just in time to see the jug (still holding some beer) leave the table where he had lain it down, and sail out of the door... At that the jug went off at a great speed towards the gate, spilling beer in the yard; but as the farmer ran after it, it suddenly stopped and came to rest on the gatepost... He stood still scratching his head and turning the jug round and round...' (and 'jug' for 'hat' subsequently).

  In the margin of the manuscript my father wrote: 'Christopher queries - why was not hat invisible if Bingo's clothes were?' The story must have been that Bingo was actually wearing Maggot's hat, for otherwise the objection seems easily answered (the hat was an object external to the wearer of the Ring just as much as the beerjug, or as anything else would be, whatever its purpose). Clearly, a subtle question arises if the Ring is put to such uses, a question my father sidestepped by substituting the jug. - I was greatly delighted by the story of Bingo's turning the tables on Farmer Maggot, and while I retain now only a dim half-memory I believe I was much opposed to its loss: which may perhaps explain my father's retaining it after it had become apparent that it introduced serious difficulties.

  14. Unless the episode in Tom Bombadil's house (FR p. 144) can be so described.

  15. The passage in the 'Foreword' is given on pp. 312 - 13.

  XVIII. AGAIN FROM BUCKLAND TO THE WITHYWINDLE.

  (i)

  A Conspiracy is Unmasked.

  The text of 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms', as I have said, continues without break, but my father added in (not much later, see p. 302) a new chapter number 'V' and the title 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked'. The text now becomes very close indeed to FR Chapter 5 (apart of course from the number of and names of the hobbits), and there are only a few particular points to notice in it. For the earliest form see pp.99 ff.

  The history of the Brandybucks does not yet know Gorhendad Oldbuck as the founder (FR p. 108). As the manuscript was first written, the village was called Bucklebury-beyond-the-River, and (developing the original text, p. 100) 'the authority of the head of the Brandybucks was still acknowledged by the farmers as far west as Woodhall (which was reckoned to be in the Boffin-country)',(1) this was changed to 'still acknowledged by the farmers between Stock and Rushey,' as in FR. Rushey here first appears.(2)

  It was in this passage that the Four Farthings of the Shire were first devised, as the wording shows: 'They were n
ot very different from the other hobbits of the Four Farthings (North, West, South, and East), as the quarters of the Shire were called.' Here too occur for the first time the names Buck Hill and the High Hay - but Haysend goes back to the original version, p. 100. The great hedge is still 'something over forty miles from end to end.'(3) In answer to Bingo's question 'Can horses cross the river?' Merry answers: 'They can go fifteen miles to Brandywine Bridge', with '20?' pencilled over 'fifteen'. In FR the High Hay is 'well over twenty miles from end to end', yet Merry still says: 'They can go twenty miles north to Brandywine Bridge.' Barbara Strachey (Journeys of Frodo, Map 6) points out this difficulty, and assumes that Merry 'meant 20 miles in all - 10 miles north to the Bridge and 10 miles south on the other side'; but this is to strain the language: Merry did not mean that. It is in fact an error which my father never observed: when the length of Buckland from north to south was reduced, Merry's estimate of the distance from the Bridge to the Ferry should have been changed commensurately.(4)