The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

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 inhabited 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 1); 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.