The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

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There is no indication, in the manuscript as written, who spoke the verse (for which there is also a good deal of rough working); in the typescript text (pp. 52–3) it is given to Frodo and displaced to a later point in the story.

      The second draft then jumps to the following day, and takes up in the middle of a sentence:

      … on the flat among tall trees growing in scattered fashion in the grasslands, when Frodo said: ‘I can hear a horse coming along the road behind!’

      They looked back, but the windings of the road hid the traveller.

      ‘I think we had better get out of sight,’ said Bingo; ‘or you fellows at any rate. Of course it doesn’t matter very much, but I would rather not be met by anyone we know.’

      They [written above at the same time: Odo & F.] ran quickly to the left down into a little hollow beside the road, and lay flat. Bingo slipped on his ring and sat down a few yards from the track. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. Round a turn came a white horse, and on it sat a bundle – or that is what it looked like: a small man wrapped entirely in a great cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out, and his boots in the stirrups below.

      The horse stopped when it came level with Bingo. The figure uncovered its nose and sniffed; and then sat silent as if listening. Suddenly a laugh came from inside the hood.

      ‘Bingo my boy!’ said Gandalf, throwing aside his wrappings. ‘You and your lads are somewhere about. Come along now and show up, I want a word with you!’ He turned his horse and rode straight to the hollow where Odo and Frodo lay. ‘Hullo! hullo!’ he said. ‘Tired already? Aren’t you going any further today?’

      At that moment Bingo reappeared again. ‘Well I’m blest,’ said he. ‘What are you doing along this way, Gandalf? I thought you had gone back with the elves and dwarves. And how did you know where we were?’

      ‘Easy,’ said Gandalf. ‘No magic. I saw you from the top of the hill, and knew how far ahead you were. As soon as I turned the corner and saw the straight piece in front was empty I knew you had turned aside somewhere about here. And you have made a track in the long grass that I can see, at any rate when I am looking for it.’

      Here this draft stops, at the foot of a page, and if my father continued beyond this point the manuscript is lost; but I think it far more likely that he abandoned it because he abandoned the idea that the rider was Gandalf as soon as written. It is most curious to see how directly the description of Gandalf led into that of the Black Rider – and that the original sniff was Gandalf’s! In fact the conversion of the one to the other was first carried out by pencilled changes on the draft text, thus:

Round a turn came a white [> black] horse, and on it sat a bundle – or that is what it looked like: a small [> short] man wrapped entirely in a great [added: black] cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out [> so that his face was entirely shadowed] …

If the description of Gandalf in the draft is compared with that of the Black Rider in the typescript text (p. 54) it will be seen that with further refinement the one still remains very closely based on the other. The new turn in the story was indeed ‘unpremeditated’ (p. 44).

Further rough drafting begins again with the workings for the song Upon the hearth the fire is red and continues through the second appearance of the Black Rider and the coming of the Elves to the end of the chapter. This material was followed very closely indeed in the typescript text and need not be further considered (one or two minor points of interest in the development of the narrative are mentioned in the Notes). There is however a separate section in manuscript which was not taken up into the typescript, and this very interesting passage will be given separately (see p. 73).

I give here the typescript text – which became an extremely complex and now very battered document. It is clear that as soon as, or before, he had finished it my father began revising it, in some cases retyping pages (the rejected pages being retained), and also writing in many other changes here and there, most of these being very minor alterations of wording.¹ In the text that follows I take up all these revisions silently, but some earlier readings of interest are detailed in the Notes at the end of it (pp. 65 ff.).

       II

       Three’s Company and Four’s More ²

      Odo Took was sitting on a gate whistling softly. His cousin Frodo was lying on the ground beside a pile of packs and haversacks, looking up at the stars, and sniffing the cool air of the autumn twilight.

      ‘I 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 СКАЧАТЬ