Sauron Defeated (15 page)

The empty space had perhaps been intended to mark a pause; at any rate this note was written in later (though not much later), since the text continues on the following page and Gandalf has not left the hobbits: he is present at and plays a part in the encounter with the gate-guards on the Brandywine Bridge (at the beginning of the next chapter in RK, 'The Scouring of the Shire': pp. 79 - 80).

They passed the point on the East Road where they had taken leave of Bombadil, and half they expected to see him standing there to greet them as they went by. But there was no sign of him, and there was a grey mist over the Barrow-down[s]

southward and a deep veil hid the Old Forest far away.

Frodo halted and looked wistfully south. 'I should like to see the old fellow again. I wonder how he's getting on.'

'As well as ever, you may be sure,' said Gandalf. 'Quite untroubled, and if I may say so not at all interested in anything that has happened to us. There will be time later to visit him. If I were you I should press on for home now, or we'll not come to Brandywine Bridge till the gates are locked.'

'But there aren't any gates,' said Merry, 'at least not on the Road. There's the Buckland Gate of course.'

'There weren't any gates, you mean,' said Gandalf. 'I think you'll find some now.'

They did. It was long after dark when tired and wet they came to the Brandywine and found the way barred at both ends of the Bridge...

The first draft was followed by a fair copy ('B') of 'Homeward Bound' with that title, and then by a fine and elegant manuscript ('C').

Already in B the final form of the chapter was achieved at almost every point.(4)

NOTES.

1. The reason for the change was that the recurrence of the pain of Frodo's wound should depend on the date, not on the place. See further p. 112, notes 3 and 4.

2. The name Nenuial first occurs here. The curious (but certain) form Evendimmer, I cannot explain; Evendim (and Fornost Erain) appear in the second text of the chapter.

3. The return of Bill the Pony is recorded by Butterbur in almost the same words as in RK (cf. VII.448, VIII.219). - Two other minor points may be mentioned here. Gandalf's sword (RK p. 272) is called Orcrist (the name of the sword of Thorin Oakenshield): this was a mere slip, which however survived into the third manuscript of the chapter, where it was changed to Glamdring. The entrance into Bree by the road from Weathertop was called 'the East-gate', and only changed to 'the South-gate' on the typescript for the printer; cf. the plan of Bree, VI.335.

4. In his parting words to the hobbits Gandalf says in B: 'I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves. To bring me in would be using a sledgehammer to crack nuts.' With the last sentence cf. the note, written on text A, given on p. 77. - Trotter and Cosimo survived into the third manuscript C and were only then changed to Strider and Lotho; Barnabas survived into the final typescript and was corrected on that to Barliman.

IX.

THE SCOURING OF THE SHIRE.

As has been seen in the last chapter, the long draft text A moves on into what became 'The Scouring of the Shire' without break; Gandalf's departure to seek out Tom Bombadil, where the chapter break would come, was not yet present. When the travellers came to the Brandywine Bridge their reception was just as in RK, but Sam's shouted 'I'll tear your notice down when I find it' is followed by:

'Come along now!' said the wizard. 'My name is Gandalf.

And here is a Brandybuck, a Took, a Baggins, and a Gamgee, so if you don't open up quick there will be more trouble than you bargain for, and long before sunrise.'

At that a window slammed, and a crowd of hobbits poured out of the house with lanterns, and they opened the far gate, and some came over the Bridge. When they looked at the travellers they seemed more frightened than ever.

'Come, come,' said Merry, recognizing one of the hobbits. 'If you don't know me, Hob Hayward, you ought to....'

Before the narrative had proceeded much further the text was corrected and Gandalf's words were given to Frodo: '"Come along now!" said Frodo. "My name is Frodo Baggins. And here is a Brandybuck, a Took, and a Gamgee..." '

The questioning of Hob Hayward (RK p. 277) is a tangle of names and titles. So far as I can see, it ran thus as first written, with some changes made immediately:

'I'm sorry, Mr. Merry, but we have orders.'

'Whose orders?'

'The Mayor's, Mr. Merry, and the Chief Shirriff's.'

'Who's the Mayor?' said Frodo.

'Mr. [Cosimo >] Sackville of Bag-End.'

'Oh is he, indeed,' said Frodo. 'And who's the Chief Shirriff?'

'Mr. [Baggins >] Sackville of Bag-End.'

'Oh, indeed. Well, I'm glad he's dropped the Baggins at least.

And he'll leave Bag-End too if I hear any more nonsense.'

A hush fell on the hobbits beyond the gate. 'It won't do no good to talk that way,' said Hob. 'He'll get to hear of it. And if you make so much noise you'll wake up the Big Man.'

'I'll wake him up in a way that'll surprise him,' said Gandalf.

'If you mean that your precious Mayor is employing ruffians out of the wild, then we've not come back too soon.' He leaped from his horse and put his hand to the gate and tore the notice from it, and threw it on the path in the faces of the hobbits.(1) This was the last appearance of Gandalf before the final leave-taking at the Grey Havens.(2) 'Gandalf' was changed here to 'Frodo', and 'horse' to 'pony', and it was presumably at this point that the note given on p. 77 ('Gandalf should stay at Bree ...') was written on the manuscript. It will be seen in what follows that in this original version of the story Frodo played a far more aggressive and masterful part in the events than he does in RK, even to the slaying of more than one of the ruffians at Bywater and their leader at Bag End, despite his words to Sam already present in the first manuscript of 'The Land of Shadow'

(p. 32; RK p. 204): 'I do not think it.is my part to strike any blows again' (see the added sentence given in note 23).

The account of the hobbits' lodging that night in the guard-house by the Brandywine Bridge is much as in the final form, but lacks a few details (as Hob Hayward's remark that stocks of pipe-weed had been

'going away quietly' even before Frodo and his companions left the Shire, and the remonstrance of other hobbits against Hob's indiscre-tion, RK p. 279). It is Frodo, not Merry, who threatens Bill Ferny and gets rid of him. In the story of their 'arrest' at Frogmorton (3) 'one of the Shirriffs' told them that on the orders of the Chief Shirriff (see note 1) they were to be taken to the Lock-holes in Michel Delving (cf. RK

p. 280), which is where the term first appears (see pp. 98-9). It turns out that, unlike the later story, Robin Smallburrow was actually the leader of the band of Shirriffs (see p. 95):

To the discomfiture of the Shirriffs Frodo and his companions all roared with laughter. 'Go on,' said Frodo. 'Robin Smallburrow, you're Hobbiton-bred. Don't be silly. But if you're going our way we'll go with you as quiet as you could wish.'

'Which way be you going, Mister Baggins?' said Shirriff Smallburrows,(4) a grin appearing on his face which he quickly smoothed away.

'Hobbiton, of course,' said Frodo. 'Bag End. But you needn't come any further than you wish.'

'Very well, Mr. Baggins,' said the Shirriff, 'but don't forget we've arrested you.'

Sam's conversation with Robin Smallburrows was concluded more abruptly in A (cf. RK pp. 281 - 2):

'... You know how I went for a Shirriff seven years ago, before all this. Gave you a chance of walking round the Shire and seeing folk and hearing the news, and keeping an eye on the inns. But we all has to swear to do as the Mayor bids. That was all right in the days of old Flourdumpling. Do you remember him? - old Will Whitfoot of Michel Delving. But it's different now. Yet we still has to swear.'

'You shouldn't,' said Sam, 'you should cut out the Shirriffing.'

'Not allowed to,' said Robin.

'If I hear "not allowed" much oftener,' said Sam, 'I'm going to get angry.'

'Can't say I'd be sorry to see it,' said Robin, and he dropped his voice. 'Tell you the truth, your coming back and Mr. Frodo and all is the best that's happened in a year. The Mayor's in a fine taking.'

'He'll be in a fine getting before many days are over,' said Sam.

The Shire-house (5) at Frogmorton was as bad as the gate-houses....

It was Frodo, not Merry, who made the Shirriffs march in front on the journey from Frogmorton, and there is no mention of his looking

'rather sad and thoughtful' as his companions laughed and sang. The incident of the old 'gaffer' by the wayside who laughed at the absurd scene, and Merry's refusal to allow the Shirriffs to molest him, is absent;(6) but when the Shirriffs gave up their forced march at the Three-Farthing Stone while Frodo and his friends rode on to Bywater, the leader saying that they were breaking arrest and he could not be answerable, it was again Frodo, not Pippin, who said 'We'll break a good many things yet, and not ask you to answer.'

The horror especially of Frodo and Sam when they came to Bywater and saw what had been done there is told in A very much as in the final form; but from Sam's words 'I want to find the Gaffer' (RK p. 283) I give the text in full, for differences now begin to multiply, and before long the story evolves in a way totally unlike that of the final form of the chapter. By this point my father's handwriting is of extraordinary difficulty, and gets worse; it has been a struggle to elucidate it even to the extent that it is printed here. I have supplied much of the punctuation, and I have silently entered omitted words where these are obvious, corrected words given wrong endings, and so forth.

'It'll be dark, Sam, before we can get there,' said Frodo. 'We'll get there in the morning. One night now won't make any difference.'

'I wish we'd turned down into Buckland first,' said Merry. 'I feel trouble's ahead. We'd have heard all the news there and got some help. Whatever Cosimo's been up to it can't have gone far in Buckland. Bucklanders wouldn't stand any dictating from him!'

All the houses were shut and no one greeted them. And they wondered why, till coming to the Green Dragon, almost the last house on the Hobbiton side, they were astonished and disturbed to see four ill-favoured men lounging at the street-end. Squinteyed fellows like the one they saw at Bree. 'And at Isengard too,'

muttered Merry. They had clubs in their hands and horns in their belts. When they saw the travellers they left the wall they had been leaning on and walked into the road, blocking the way.

'Where do you think you're going?' said one. 'This ain't the road to Michel Delving. And where's the perishing Shirriffs?'

'Coming along nicely,' said Frodo. 'A bit footsore maybe.

We'll wait for them.'

'Garn, I told the Boss [> Big Sharkey] it was no good sending the little fools. We ought to have a'gone, but the Boss [> Sharkey] says no, and ......... [> the Boss let him have his way.](7)

'And if you had gone, what difference would that have made, pray?' said Frodo quietly. 'We are not used to footpads in this country, but we know how to deal with them.'

'Footpads, eh,' said the man, 'so that's your tone, is it? I'll learn you manners if you ain't careful. Don't you trust too much to the Boss's kind heart. [Added in margin: He's all right if you treat him right, but he won't stand talk of that sort.] He's soft enough. But he's only a hobbit. And this country needs something a bit bigger to keep it in order. It'll get it, too, and before the year's out, or my name's not Sharkey. Then you'll learn a thing or two, you little rat-folk.'

'Well,' said Frodo, 'I find that very interesting. I was thinking of waiting here and calling in the morning, but now I think I had better call on the Boss at once, if you mean my cousin Mr.

Cosimo. He'd like to know what's afoot in good time.'

The squinting man laughed. 'Oh, he knows alright though he pretends not to. When we've finished with bosses we get rid of them. And of anyone who gets in our way, see?' [Added in margin, as a replacement or variant: '0, Cosimo,' he said, and he laughed again and looked sidelong at his mates. 'Ah, Boss Cosimo! [Struck out: He knows all right, or he did.] Don't you worry about him. He sleeps sound, and I shouldn't try and wake him now. But we're not going to let you pass. We get enough of

....... in our way.']

'Yes, I see,' said Frodo. 'I'm beginning to see a great deal. But I fear you're behind the times and the news here, Ruffian Sharkey. Your day's over. You come from Isengard, I think.

Well, I have myself come from the South, and this news may concern you. The Dark Tower has fallen, there is a King in Gondor, Isengard is no more, and Saruman is a beggar in the wilderness. You are the fingers of a hand that has been cut off, and arm and body too are dead. The King's messengers will be coming soon up the Greenway, not bullies of Isengard.'

The man stared at him, taken aback for a moment. Then he sneered. 'Swagger it, swagger it, little cock-a-whoop on your pony,' he said. 'Big words and fat lies won't scare us. King's messengers?' he said. 'When I see them I'll take notice maybe.'