New Chapter II
The Broken Bridge

p. 40/13. and each pony was slung about with bundles and blankets and saddlebags. Four were without riders: two laden with foodbags and gear for cooking and camping; one more for Balin; and last a very small pony (with no baggage), evidently for Bilbo. The whole expedition had clearly been prepared long before^TN1

p. 41/2 white horse called Rohald.^TN2 He brought no pocket-handkerchiefs, but he did bring a couple of blankets and Bilbo’s pipe and tobacco...... rode forward all that day and the next. After this substitute for except line 5 to William p 46/5 the following:^TN3

They were still in the Shire, of course, and went at a leisurely pace, spending the nights in good inns; not until the Saturday afternoon did they cross the great bridge over the Brandywine River and enter what Bilbo called the Outlands, where outlandish things might be expected at any turn. At last he felt that his Adventure had begun.

But beyond the Bridge the road was still good, and there were wide lands looking wholesome enough. They met or came up with a number of folk on lawful business: dwarves for the most part going east or west with packs on their backs. Some belonged to Thorin’s people of the western mountains, and they saluted him with a low bow; some were of poorer sort, pedlars of iron-ware, tinkers, or road-menders. There were a few Men, farmers mostly, ambling along on large fat horses; and several hobbits on foot. They stared at Thorin’s company, but gave them no more than a grin and a nod.

In a day or two they came to Bree on the Hill. There they spent their last comfortable night for many a day to come, in the great inn of Bree, the Prancing Pony, well-known to the hobbits of the east side of the Shire.^TN4 Bree was as far as Bilbo’s knowledge reached, even by hearsay. Beyond it the lands had been desolate for many long years. When in a day’s journey more they came to the Last Inn, they found it deserted. They camped in its ruins, and next day they passed into a barren country with great marshes on their left as far as eye could see. They went very slowly now, sparing their laden ponies and often trudging on foot, for the road became very bad, rutted and pitted, and in places almost^TN5 lost in soft bog. The weather remained dry – as far as Bree it had been as fair as May can be, even in legends – but it was grey now and rather sad.

Bilbo’s spirits fell, and he said very little, thinking always of the next stop for food, though meals came much more seldom (and more scanty) than he would have liked. So they went on for many days,^TN6 and each day they became more silent and wary; for there was a stillness all round them – as if the land was listening (so Bilbo thought to himself). After a time the flat lands began to rise before them; still far away there were hills looming up, and as they drew nearer Bilbo saw that they were clad in dark trees, and on some there seemed to be the ruins of grim towers and walls. They had an evil look, as if men of evil days had built them.^TN7

It was at about this time that things took a bad turn. One morning cold wind from the east met them with a breath of far mountains, bringing low clouds and driving rain. Bilbo shivered. ‘Not what I call June!’ he grumbled as he splashed along behind all the others in a deep muddy track that was fast becoming a stream. Poor hobbit, he was quite out of his reckoning; it was the nineteenth of May,^TN8 but the three weeks on the road began to seem endless. ‘Bother adventures and everything to do with them!’ he thought. ‘I wish I was at home by the fire with the kettle just beginning to sing!’ It was not the last time that he wished that.

The track^TN9 climbed to the top of a ridge, and then went down steeply into a narrow valley. They all halted and looked ahead. Through the valley a strong river flowed from the North, cutting across their road. Beyond it the dark hills frowned, and the road faded from sight under the shadows at their feet.

‘Ha!’ said Gandalf, peering through the rain. ‘The bridge! The bridge is broken!’ He turned away snapping his fingers and muttering to himself: ‘there is mischief here! Elrond must be told’.

They did not know what he meant. This country was not well known^TN10 to the dwarves, and they could not see far before them. But Bilbo, whose eyes were keen, if not so keen as the wizard’s, looked down and he thought he could see a grey stone bridge with a single arch over the river; but the arch was broken in the middle.

‘Well, what’s to be done?’ said Gandalf. ‘None are better at bridge-building than dwarves’.

‘Maybe’, said Thorin. ‘But not in the wilds, without the tools or the tackle, nor in a storm of rain!’

‘Just so’ said Gandalf. ‘But there is no other bridge over this river. A hundred miles away north you might jump it, but I should not go that way if I were you: it is troll-country.^TN11 Well, let us go down, and see the worst!’

They came to the bridge-end, and found that the river was not yet very wide. But it was swift: at the point where the bridge had been built it flowed over a rocky shelf, and then slid down long rapids away to their right. Here it foamed and swirled round the broken stones of the arch that were tumbled in the midst of its cold grey stream.

‘It might be worse’, said Gandalf. ‘A dangerous ford, but the only one. It is this way, or go back. Unless you think of turning south, where there are no roads at all, and no way to pass the Misty Mountains,^TN12 which still lie ahead. Except, of course, by the Mines of Moria’.

The dwarves stared at him sullenly, muttering in their beards. ‘It was you that advised us to come this way’, said Thorin. ‘What is your advice now?’

‘I also said that no roads are now safe’ answered the wizard. ‘But I have given my advice: we must try to ford the river’. With that he mounted his horse and rode forward. As Bilbo had already noticed Gandalf used no stirrups, and seldom held the reins: Rohald^TN13 answered his commands, spoken softly in a strange tongue. The white horse tried the water and then walked on, slowly but without fear. The ponies lifted their dejected heads and watched him, like hobbit-children staring at some large lad showing off for their benefit. He skirted the tumbled bridge-stones in midstream, where the water was up to his hocks, and waded carefully to the further side. There he slipped, and recovered, for the far bank was steeper and more slimy: at last he scrambled up, and turned back, and neighed.

The ponies snorted. Plainly he had said as much as: ‘There you are. Quite easy. You try it!’; but they were not so sure. Neither were the dwarves.

‘Now or never!’ Gandalf called across the water. No one moved for a moment. Then Thorin mounted and rode forward, beckoning the others to follow. Fili and Kili at once obeyed, but the rest were more reluctant. One behind the other they passed into the dangerous stream, the dwarves hiding their fear under the eyes of the wizard; the ponies going warily but stoutly watched by the white horse. The water in places swirled under their bellies, and some slipped and were nearly carried away, in the end they all reached the far bank without disaster.^TN14 Last of all came the pony bearing Bombur, and he had a heavier task than any, even the pack-ponies.

Thorin mopped his face, wet with sweat, rain and spray. ‘Well, we’ve managed that’, he said. ‘On we go! There’s no shelter here’.

‘Don’t you want the hobbit any more?’ said Gandalf. ‘I think you may need him’.

They had quite forgotten poor Bilbo! There he was still on the other side, sitting and shivering, more frightened than he had yet been in his life.

‘Confound your hobbit!’ said Thorin, ‘When will he learn to look after himself?’

‘In time’, said Gandalf. ‘Sooner than you expect’. ‘Mr. Baggins!’ he called. ‘Don’t try the crossing by yourself; your pony is small. I will come and help’.

Then the wizard went back over the stream, and set Bilbo behind him on the horse.^TN15 ‘Hold on to your pony’s reins’ he said, ‘and keep him on our right, if you can. He may make it, with Rohald^TN16 to break the force of the current’. ‘Steady now’, he said to the horse. ‘Over once more, and your own land is not so far ahead!’

At last they had all crossed: but now the ponies were restive. They seemed unwilling to go further, turning their noses north towards the hills, the lower slopes of which were now close at hand, as if something there alarmed them. Suddenly one of the pack-ponies wrenched the reins from Bombur’s hand, and bolted back towards the river. The other dwarves were busy calming their mounts, and before they could help, the wild pony was floundering in the stream, and struggling to cast off all his burdens. In the confusion that followed Fili and Kili were nearly drowned, and the pony was only saved at the cost of most of its baggage. Of course this proved to be the best part of all their food-supplies: away it went towards the rapids, and donk donk was the last they heard of their best cooking-pot as it was rolled among the boulders.

Gandalf spoke in the ear of the white horse, and he strode on to the road beyond the bridge-end. There he stood facing north, arching his neck and neighing loudly. Whatever that meant, it seemed to calm the ponies, or cow them. They allowed themselves to be led forward to his side. There all the company mounted again.

‘Well’, said Gandalf, ‘now you must go on, much faster than before. And on short commons. Nothing more to eat until evening and a meal less each day!’

Bilbo groaned, but they took no notice of him. At once they started to jog along as fast as they could make the ponies go. The road was now much better; it was indeed a road, not a track, and seemed to be kept in some order.^TN17 But before they halted for midday, having covered several miles, they were skirting the hills,^TN18 and dark thickets over-hung the steep bank on their right. Tightening their belts, they went doggedly on again, hungry and ill at ease, speaking hardly at all.

The wind rose, seething in the trees, rain drove in their faces, and the light began to fade. Far behind there was a brief stab of red, as the sun sank westwards;^TN19 shadow loomed before them. Still they went on. And last in the line came Bilbo; his hood was dripping in his eyes, and his cloak was full of water, he was empty and cold; but no one turned to look at him, not even to shout ‘keep up!’ ‘I wonder if they would care, if I vanished?’ thought Bilbo [> he thought]. It would not have been difficult in the gloom.

At last when it was night-dark under the trees,^TN20 Thorin called a halt. The wind was still blowing, but the rain-storm was passing. The clouds were breaking, and away in the East before them a waning moon was tilted between the flying rags.

‘We must eat a little now’, said Thorin; ‘but where we shall find a dry patch for a bed, I don’t know. At least we will have a fire, if we can. Oin, Gloin, look about for fuel!’

‘I don’t like the look of the woods’ said Balin. ‘The shelter may be better, but the thinner trees on the right feel more friendly’.

‘What would you advise, Gandalf?’ said Thorin, looking round. And only then did they discover that Gandalf was missing. So far he had always been with them, never saying if he was in the adventure, or merely keeping them company as long as his road and theirs went the same way.^TN21 But he had been there, always at hand to help, talking most, laughing most, and eating almost as much as Bombur. He was not there now!

‘Just when a wizard would have been most useful!’ grumbled Bombur, who seemed to think Gandalf might have conjured up roast mutton all hot, if he had been at hand.

They moved to a clump of trees just off the road; but the mould^TN22 was sodden beneath them, and the wind shook the water off the leaves, everything was dripping all round them. Oin and Gloin had gathered fuel, but the mischief was in it, or in their tinder-boxes.^TN23 Dwarves can make a fire for their needs almost anywhere out of almost anything, wind or no wind; but they could not kindle one that night, not even Oin and Gloin who were specially skilful. The others sat round, glum and wet, muttering at them, as they tried in vain to wake a flame; and they lost their tempers and began to quarrel. Bilbo sat huddled against a tree-trunk, hardly caring: he was reflecting that an adventure may start with pony-rides in May sunshine, but it will soon lead you into the Unknown – if it is really an adventure.

Suddenly Balin, who was always the dwarves’ look-out man, called softly: ‘There’s a light over there!’ He pointed across the road to a hill-slope thick with bushes and trees. A good way up, they could all now see a light shining out of the dark mass of the forest: a reddish comfortable light, as it might be a fire or torches twinkling.

When they had stared at it for some time in silence, they fell into an argument. Some said no and some said yes. Some said they might at least go and see, and anything was better than little supper, less breakfast, and wet clothes all the night. Gloin said he could think of many things that were much worse. ‘You get on with your fire, then’, the others answered.

Balin was the most doubtful. ‘These are strange parts and not canny’, he muttered. ‘They are too near the great mountains, if I reckon right. This is Noman’s kingdom, without charts, or guards or watchmen.’^TN24

‘Do you mean they haven’t heard of the king here?’ asked Bilbo with a sinking of the heart, for in the Shire they said that only of wild and wicked things.^TN25

‘The king is long gone’, answered Balin. ‘There is no law, and the less inquisitive you are, the less trouble you are likely to find’.

‘There are fourteen of us’ said Fili. ‘We could give some account of ourselves’. ‘Where has Gandalf got to?’ said Bombur, looking about, as if he expected him to pop out from behind a tree.^TN26 That question they all repeated, Bilbo several times. Then the rain began to pour down again, and Oin and Gloin began to fight one another with the sticks that would not burn.

That settled it. ‘After all we have got a burglar with us’, they said; ‘a little stealth is what we need!’ And so they made a move, leading their ponies across the road, and beginning, very cautiously, to climb up the hill. There was no proper path to be seen, such as might lead, say, to a woodman’s house, and the trees were thick with much undergrowth about them. Do what they could, they made a deal of rustling and crackling and creaking, with much stumbling and muttering, in the pitch dark.

Suddenly the red light shone out very bright through the tree-trunks not far ahead. They halted, for the ponies who had come very unwillingly took fright again, and tried to bolt back down the hill. The dwarves covered the beasts’ eyes with their cloaks and tried to calm them.

‘Now it’s the burglar’s turn to do something’ they said, looking towards Bilbo, who was standing shivering in the gleam of the fire. ‘You must go and find out all about that light’, said Thorin, ‘what it is, and if it is all quite safe and canny. Off you go, stealthy mind you! Come back quick, if all is well. If not, come back, if you can. If you can’t, give a signal: the cry of a night-hawk, and two hoots like an owl, and we will do what we can’. With that he pushed the hobbit forward.

So off Bilbo had to go, before he could explain that he had never heard a night-hawk. ‘I wish I could fly like a bat’, he thought. He could not, but he could move on the ground as quietly, if not so quick. Hobbits can walk in woods without any sound at all. They take a pride in it, and Bilbo had sniffed more than once at what he called ‘all this dwarvish racket’ as they went up the hill, though on a windy night Big People would probably have heard nothing at all.^TN27 As for Bilbo walking primly towards the red light, even a weasel would hardly have stirred a whisker as he passed. So naturally he got right up to the fire – for fire it was – quite unnoticed. And this is what he saw.

Three very large persons were sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gravy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of ale at hand, and they were drinking out of large jugs. But they were trolls! Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could tell that: from the great heavy faces on them, and their huge size, and the shape of their legs – and their language! It was not decent Shire-fashion at all.

‘Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don’t look like mutton again tomorrer’, said one of the trolls.

‘Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough’ said a second. ‘What was the blasted good of knocking down the bridge? It ain’t caught nobody. Nobody hasn’t passed for days and days’.

‘Ah, that was William’, said the first troll. ‘What the ell he was a thinkin of to bring us down into these parts at all, beats me. And the drink runnin short what’s more’, he said, jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug.

William choked. ‘Shut yer foul mouth!’ he said as soon as he could. ‘Yer can’t expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You’ve et a village and a half each, since we came down from the mountains, and folk have all skedaddled. What d’yer expect? But time’s been up our way when yer’d have said “thank yer, Bill” for a nice bit o’ fat valley mutton like what this is’. He took a big bite off a sheep’s leg he was toasting, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

That is the way of trolls of their sort.^TN28 Great greedy slow-witted brutes. There are other kinds, more cunning and dangerous; but Tom and Bert and Bill were quite dangerous enough. As soon as he saw them Bilbo ought to have done something at once. Either he should have gone back quickly and warned his friends that there were three large trolls at hand in a nasty mood, quite likely to eat pony, or even try toasted dwarf for a change; or else he should have done a bit of good quick stealing. In legends a really first-class thief would at this point have picked the trolls’ pockets, pinched the mutton off the spits, purloined the beer, and escaped while they were still wondering what had happened. Or better still and more practical, he might have stuck a dagger into each of them before they observed it, and then he and his friends could have spent the night cheerily.

Bilbo knew it. He had read or heard tell of many things that he had never seen or done. He was very much alarmed, as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away, and yet – and yet somehow he could not go straight back to Thorin and Company emptyhanded. He stood and hesitated in the shadows on the edge of the clearing. Of the various stealthy proceedings that he had heard of picking the trolls’ pockets seemed the least difficult, so at last he crept to a tree just behind William...

pp. 46/6 onwards, as in text, except as corrected.

p. 47/13 Delete I told you.

47/–10 He rose with a roar and bashed Bert on the nose; and a rampaging row began. Bilbo had just enough wits left when Bert dropped....^TN29

p. 48/8 (after owl, they)^TN30 left Bombur to mind the ponies as best he could, and one by one they started to creep towards the light. Deserting their companions was not one of their faults.^TN31 Now Balin stood peering and wondering where in all this commotion Bilbo was; but Tom caught sight of his face in the firelight, and he gave a wild howl. Trolls detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked). Bert and Bill stopped fighting at once, and ‘a sack, Tom, quick’ they shouted. Before Balin could slip off, a sack was over his head, and he was down.

p.48/–8 Soon Dwalin lay by Balin, and Bifur and Bofur together, and Dori and Nori and Ori all in a heap, and Oin and Gloin and Fili and Kili piled uncomfortably near the fire. ‘That’ll teach ’em,’ said Tom; for Fili and Kili had given trouble, fighting fiercely as dwarves will when cornered.^TN32

p. 49 is blank^TN33

p. 50/15 into the top of a thorn-bush,

/18 and lost one of his fangs. He fell back howling and cursing, but at that moment William

p. 52/3 ‘The night’s getting old. I can smell the dawn coming. Let’s get on with it quick!’

‘Dawn strike you all, and be stone to you!’ said a voice that sounded like William’s, but it was not. For at that moment the dawn came, light gleamed pale through the branches, and there was a mighty twitter of birds.

/13 Delete, as you probably know,

/18 a great tree, and helped Bilbo to climb out of the thorn-bush

/–12 for annoyed read angry

/–8 twice over, and still Thorin was not satisfied.

‘Silly time to go practising your pocket-picking!’ he said. ‘What we wanted was fire and food’.

‘And you wouldn’t have got that from trolls without a struggle, in any case’, said Gandalf. ‘It might have turned out a great deal worse. Anyhow...

p. 53/14 for grabbed read seized

/19 plunder, of all sorts from buttons and rusty brooches to pots of gold coins standing in a corner. There were lots of clothes, too, hanging on the walls – all that was left of many poor wood-men and shepherds who had still lived here and there in the wild lands near-by. But hidden behind the door they found a number of swords and knives of various sizes and strange shapes. Two caught their eyes, because of their beautiful scabbards and their jewelled hilts that seemed to shine in the shadows.

Gandalf took one, and presented the other to Thorin. To Bilbo he gave a knife with a silver pommel. ‘A gift for a good hobbit!’ he said with a bow, which pleased Bilbo very much, though he did not himself feel that he had earned any praise. He looked at the knife: it had a sheath of black figured leather, and when he drew it, he saw that the blade was bright and unstained. It was long enough to serve a hobbit as a sword.

‘These look like good blades too’, said the wizard, half drawing the swords and examining them closely. ‘They were not made by any troll, nor by any smith among Men of these days. But there’s black blood on them, goblin-blood. When they are cleaned and the runes on them can be read, we shall know more about them’. end of page. p.54/ after l. 8 insert:

‘Now you had better look for Bombur’, said Gandalf: ‘and we shall need the ponies, if you can find them’.

Bifur and Bofur went off, and soon came back with the old fat dwarf. He looked rather glum. Not that he minded at all having missed the affair of the sacks, but they had found him fast asleep, and no sign of the ponies. Thorin was not pleased.

Gandalf laughed. ‘Never mind!’ he said. ‘Let’s have breakfast! You were fools to bring them across the road. I wonder you got them so far. No one could have held them when all the noise started. But they’ll be all right: my Rohald is looking after them’.

So they all set to, and had a great breakfast, or a feast as it seemed; and after that they slept (even Bombur), for their night had been disturbed. They did not make a move until the afternoon. Then Gandalf got up and went down the hill, and soon he came back leading his white horse, and all the ponies coming meekly behind.

Then the dwarves packed up all the food that was left fit to eat, and other things that might prove useful, and they carried away the pots of gold. These they buried very secretly in a thicket not far from the road, and set many spells on them, and a stone cut with dwarf-runes to mark the place,^TN34 in case they ever had the chance to come back and recover them. When that was done, they all mounted once more and jogged along again on the road to the East.

‘Where did you go to without a word, if I may ask?’ said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.

‘To look ahead’, said he.

‘And what brought you back in the nick of time?’

‘Looking behind’, said he.

‘No doubt’, said Thorin, ‘but would you mind saying a little more!’

‘Well, I hurried on ahead, to find some friends, if I could. The broken bridge was a bad sign; and there was not enough food to see you through the next few days. As I hoped, before long I met some folk from Rivendell’.

‘Where’s that?’ asked Bilbo, who was keeping as close to the wizard as he could.

‘Don’t interrupt!’ said Gandalf. ‘You’ll get there in a few days now, if we’re lucky, and then you’ll find out all about it. As I was saying, Elrond had heard of the trouble. The Rangers were out, and he had sent two of his own people to report. They told me that trolls had come down from the North, and they feared that three had settled in the woods not far above the road. Men had fled away south, and they were waylaying strangers.

‘“Back you go then, and quick’’, I said to myself. Looking behind I saw a fire in the distance, and I came as fast as Rohald could carry me. I found all your ponies huddled on the road with their heads down and their tails to the north. The rest you can guess. But please be more careful, or we shall never get anywhere. My friends had no food to spare, for they are hunting: there are other wicked things abroad.^TN35 The trolls’ larder is a piece of luck that you hardly deserve. But for Mr. Baggins you might have been lying among the bones on the floor!’^TN36

‘Pray don’t mention it!’ said Thorin.