The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

hope Bingo has not got locked up in the cupboard, or something,’ said Odo. ‘He’s late: it’s after six.’

      ‘There’s no need to worry,’ said Frodo. ‘He’ll turn up when he thinks fit. He may have thought of some last irresistible joke, or something: he’s very Brandybucksome. But he’ll come all right; quite reliable in the long run is Uncle Bingo.’

      There was a chuckle behind him. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Bingo suddenly becoming visible; ‘for this is going to be a very Long Run. Well, you fellows, are you quite ready to depart?’

      ‘It’s not fair sneaking up with that ring on,’ said Odo. ‘One day you will hear what I think of you, and you won’t be so glad.’

      ‘I know already,’ said Bingo laughing, ‘and yet I remain quite cheerful. Where’s my pack and stick?’

      ‘Here you are!’ said Frodo jumping up. ‘This is your little lot: pack, bag, cloak, stick.’

      ‘I’m sure you have given me all the heaviest stuff,’ puffed Bingo, struggling into the straps. He was a bit on the stout side.

      ‘Now then!’ said Odo. ‘Don’t start being Bolger-like. There’s nothing there, except what you told us to pack. You’ll feel the weight less, when you have walked off a bit of your own.’

      ‘Be kind to a poor ruined hobbit!’ laughed Bingo. ‘I shall be thin as a willow-wand, I’m sure, before a week is out. But now what about it? Let’s have a council! What shall we do first?’

      ‘I thought that was settled,’ said Odo. ‘Surely we have got to pick up Marmaduke first of all?’

      ‘O yes! I didn’t mean that,’ said Bingo. ‘I meant: what about this evening? Shall we walk a little or a lot? All night or not at all?’

      ‘We’d better find some snug corner in a haystack, or somewhere, and turn in soon,’ said Odo. ‘We shall do more tomorrow, if we start fresh.’

      ‘Let’s put a bit of the road behind us to-night,’ said Frodo. ‘I want to get away from Hobbiton. Beside it’s jolly under the stars, and cool.’

      ‘I vote for Frodo,’ said Bingo. And so they started, shouldering their packs, and swinging their stout sticks. They went very quietly over fields and along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, until night fell. In their dark grey cloaks they were invisible without the help of any magic rings, and since they were all hobbits, they made no noise that even hobbits could hear (or indeed even wild creatures in the woods and fields).

      After some time they crossed The Water, west of Hobbiton, where it was no more than a winding ribbon of black, lined with leaning alders. They were now in Tookland; and they began to climb into the Green Hill Country south of Hobbiton.³ They could see the village twinkling away down in the gentle valley of The Water. Soon it disappeared in the folds of the darkened land, and was followed by Bywater beside its grey pool. When the light of the last farmhouse was far behind, peeping out of the trees, Bingo turned and waved a hand in farewell.

      ‘Now we’re really off,’ he said. ‘I wonder if we shall ever look down into that valley again.’

      After they had walked for about two hours they rested. The night was clear, cool, and starry, but smoky wisps of mist were creeping up the hills from the streams and deep meadows. Thin-clad birches swaying in a cold breeze above their heads made a black net against the pale sky. They ate a very frugal supper (for hobbits), and then went on again. Odo was reluctant, but the rest of the council pointed out that this bare hillside was no place for passing the night. Soon they struck a narrow road. It went rolling up and down until it faded grey into the gathering dark. It was the road to Buckland, climbing away from the main East Road in the Water-valley, and winding over the skirts of the Green Hills towards the south-eastern corner of the Shire, the Woody End as the hobbits called it. Not many of them lived in that part.

      Along this road they marched. Soon it plunged into a deeply cloven track between tall trees that rustled their dry leaves in the night. It was very dark. At first they talked, or hummed a tune softly together: then they marched on in silence, and Odo began to lag behind. At last he stopped, and gave a big yawn.

‘I am so sleepy,’ he said, ‘that soon I shall fall down on the road. What about a place for the night? Or are you fellows going to sleep on your legs?’⁴

      ‘When does Marmaduke expect us?’ asked Frodo. ‘Tomorrow night?’

      ‘No,’ said Bingo. ‘We should not get there by tomorrow night, even with a forced march, unless we went on many more miles now. And I must say I don’t feel like it. It is getting on for midnight already. But it is all right. I told Marmaduke to expect us the night after tomorrow; so there is no hurry.’

      ‘The wind’s in the West,’ said Odo. ‘If we go down the other side of this hill we are climbing, we ought to find a spot fairly dry and sheltered.’

      At the top of the hill over which the road ran they came upon a patch of fir-wood, dry and resin-scented. Leaving the road they went into the deep darkness of the wood, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire. Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a great fir, and sat round it for a while, until they began to nod with sleep. Then each in an angle of the great tree’s roots they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep.

      There was no danger: for they were still in the Shire. A few creatures came and looked at them, when the fire had died away. A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. ‘Hobbits!’ he thought. ‘Well, what next? I have heard a good many tales of queer goings on in this Shire; but I have never heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree! Three of them! There’s something mighty queer behind this.’ He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.

      The morning came rather pale and clammy. Bingo woke up first, and found that a tree-root had made a hole in his back and that his neck was stiff. It did not seem such a lark as it had the day before. ‘Why on earth did I give that beautiful feather-bed to that old pudding Fosco?’⁵ he thought. ‘The tree-roots would have been much better for him.’ ‘Wake up, hobbits!’ he cried. ‘It’s a beautiful morning!’

      ‘What’s beautiful about it?’ said Odo, peering over the edge of his blanket with one eye. ‘Have you got the bath-water hot? Get breakfast ready for half past nine.’

      Bingo stripped the blanket off him, and rolled him over on top of Frodo; and then he left them scuffling and walked to the edge of the wood. Away eastward the sun was rising red out of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the autumn trees in the distance seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea. A little below him to the left the road plunged down into a hollow between two slopes and vanished.

      When he got back the other two had got a good fire going. ‘Water!’ they shouted. ‘Where’s the water?’

      ‘I don’t keep water in my pockets,’ said Bingo.

      ‘I thought you had gone to find some,’ said Odo. ‘You had better go now.’

      ‘Why?’ asked Bingo. ‘We had enough left for breakfast last night; or I thought we had.’

      ‘Well, you thought wrong,’ said Frodo. ‘Odo drank the last drop, I saw him.’

      ‘Then he can go and find some more, and not put it on Uncle Bingo. There’s a stream at the foot of the slope; the road crosses it just below where we turned aside last night.’

      In the end, of course, they all went with their water-bottles and the small kettle they had brought with them. They filled them in the stream where it fell a foot or two over a small outcrop of grey stone in its path. The water was icy cold; and Odo spluttered as he bathed his face and hands. Luckily hobbits grow no beards (and would not shave if they did).

By the