Sauron Defeated (17 page)

Ted Sandyman did not seem to recognize them but stared at them with a leer until they had nearly passed.

'Going to see the Boss?' he said. 'It's a bit early. But you'll see the notice on the gate. Are you the folks that have been making all the row down at Bywater? If you are, I shouldn't [?try] the Boss. He's angry. Take my advice and sheer off. You're not wanted. We've got work to do in the Shire now and we don't want noisy riffraff.'

'You don't always get what you want, Ted Sandyman,' said Sam. 'And I can tell you what's coming to you, whether you like it or no: a bath.' He jumped from his pony and before the astonished Ted knew what was coming Sam hit him square on the nose, and lifting him with an effort threw him over the bridge with a splash.]

A dirty surly-looking hobbit was lounging on the bridge by the mill. He was grimy-faced and grimy-handed, and was chewing. 'As good a small copy of Bill Ferny as you could ask for!' said Sam. 'So that's what Ted Sandyman admires, is it. I'm not surprised.'

Ted looked at him and spat. 'Going to see the Boss?' he said.

'If you are you're too early. He don't see no visitors till eleven, not even them as thinks themselves high and mighty. And he won't see you anyway. You're for the Lockholes, where you belong. Take my advice and sheer off before they come for you.

We don't want you. We've work to do in the Shire now.'

'So I see,' said Sam. 'No time for a bath, but time for wall-propping. Well, never you mind, Ted, we'll find you something to do before this year's much older. And in the meantime keep your mouth shut. I've a score to pay in this village, and don't you make it any longer with your sneers, or you'll foot a bill too big for you to pay.'

Ted laughed. 'You're out o' date, Mr. Samwise, with your elves and your dragons. If I were you I'd go and catch one of them ships that [are] [?always] sailing, according to your tale.

Go back to Babyland and rock your cradle, and don't bother us.

We're going to make a big town here with twenty mills. A hundred new houses next year. Big stuff coming up from the South. Chaps who can work metals, and make big holes in the ground. There'll be forges a-humming and [? steamwhistles] and wheels going round. Elves can't do things like that.'

Sam looked at him, and his retorts died on his lips. He shook his head.

'Don't worry, Sam,' said Frodo. 'He's day-dreaming, poor wretch. And he's right behind the times. Let him be. But what we shall do with [him] is a bit of a worry. I hope there's not many caught the disease.'

'If I had known all the mischief Saruman had been up to,' said Merry, 'I'd have stuffed my pouch down his throat.'

They went sadly up the winding road to Bag End. The Field of the Party was all hillocks, as if moles had gone mad in it, but by some miracle the tree was still standing, now forlorn and nearly leafless.(19) They came at last to the door. The bell-chain dangled loose. No bell could be rung, no knocking was answered. At last they pushed and the door opened. They went in. The place stank, it was full of filth and disorder, but it did not appear to have been lived in for some time. 'Where is that miserable Cosimo hiding?' they said. There was nothing living to be found in any room save mice and rats.

'This is worse than Mordor,' said Frodo. 'Much worse in some ways.' 'Ah,' said Sam, 'it goes home as they say, because this is home, and it's all so, so mean, dirty [and] shabby. I'm very sorry, Mr. Frodo. But I'm glad I didn't know before. All the time in the bad places we've been in I've had the Shire in mind, and that's what I've rested on, if you take my meaning. I'd not have had a hope if I'd known all this.'

'I understand,' said Frodo. 'I said much the same to Gandalf long ago.(20) Never mind, Sam. It's our task to put it all right again. Hard work, but we'll not mind. Your box will come in useful.'

'My box?' said Sam. 'Glory and sunshine, Mr. Frodo, but of course. She knew, of course she knew. Showed me a bit in the Mirror. Bless her. I'd well-nigh forgotten it. But let's find that Boss first.'

'Hi you, what're you doing? Come out of it!' A loud voice rang out. They ran to the door and saw a large man, bowlegged, squinteyed, [?painfully ??bent] coming up the field from one of the sheds. 'What in Mordor do you mean by it?' he shouted. 'Come out of it. Come here, you Shire-rats. I [?saw]

you.'

They came out and went to meet him. When they drew near enough for him to see them he stopped and looked at them, and to Frodo it seemed that he was.... [?and] a little afraid. 'We're looking for the Boss,' he said, 'or so I think you call him. Mr.

Cosimo of Bag End. I'm his cousin. I used to live here.'

'Hi lads, hi, [?come here],' shouted the man. 'Here they are.

We've got 'em.'

But there was no answer.

Frodo smiled. 'I think, Ruffian Sharkey, [? we] should cry

"We've got him"? If you're calling for your other ruffians I'm afraid they've made off. To Michel Delving, I'm told. I am told you sleep sound.(21) Well, what about it now. The hobbits drew their swords and pressed near him; but he backed away. Very orc-like all his movements were, and he stooped now with his hands nearly touching the ground. 'Blast and grind the fools,' he said. 'Why didn't they warn me?'

'They thought of themselves first, I expect,' said Frodo, 'and anyway you've given strict orders that your sleep is not to be disturbed. It s on every notice. Come. I want to see the Boss.

Where is he?'

The man looked puzzled. Then he laughed. 'You're looking at him,' he said. 'I'm the Boss. I'm Sharkey all right.'

'Then where is Mr. Cosimo of Bag End?'

'Don't ask me,' said the man. 'He saw what was coming, and he legged it one night. Poor booby. But it saved us the trouble of wringing his neck. We'd had enough of him. And we've got on better without him. He hadn't the guts of his ma.'

'I see,' said Frodo. 'So you ruffians from Isengard have been bullying this country for a year, and [??pretending] to be Mayor and Shirriff and what not, and eating most of the food and

... ing folk and setting up your filthy hutches. What for?'

'Who are you,' said the man, 'to "what for" me? I'm the Boss.

And I do what I like. These little swine have got to learn how to work and I'm here to learn 'em. Saruman wants goods and he wants provisions, and he wants a lot of things lying idle here.

And he'll get them, or we'll screw the necks of all you little rats and take the land for ourselves.'

'Isengard is a ruin and Saruman walks as a beggar,' said Frodo. 'You've outlived your time, Ruffian Sharkey. The Dark Tower has fallen and there is a King in Gondor, and there is a King also in the North. We come from the King. I give you three days. After that you are outlaw, and if you're found in this Shire you shall be killed, as you killed the [?wretch] Cosimo. I see in your eye that you lie, and in your hands that you strangled him.

Your way leads downhill and [to] the East. Quick now!'

The orc-man looked at them with such a leer of hatred as they had not seen even in all their adventures. '... you're liars like all your kind. Elf-friends and....... ... And four to one, which makes you so bold.'

'Very well,' said Frodo, 'one to one.' He took off his cloak.

Suddenly he shone, a small gallant figure clad in mithril like an elf-prince. Sting was in his hand;(22) but he was not much more than half Sharkey's stature'. Sharkey had a sword, and he drew it, and in a [?fury] hewed double-handed at Frodo. But Frodo using the advantage of his size and [?courage] ran in close holding his cloak as a shield and slashed his leg above the knee.

And then as with a groan and a curse the orc-man [?toppled]

over him he stabbed upwards, and Sting passed clean through his body.

So died Sharkey the Boss [?on the] .... where Bilbo's garden had been. Frodo [??crawling] from under him looked at him as he wiped Sting on the grass. 'Well,' he said, 'if ever Bilbo hears of this he'll believe the world has really changed! When Gandalf and I sat here long ago, I think that at least one thing I could never have guessed would be that the last stroke of the battle would be at this door.'(23)

'Why not?' said Sam. 'Very right and proper. And I'm glad that it was yours, Mr. Frodo. But if I may say so, though it was a grand day at Kormallen, and the happiest I have known, I never have felt that you got as much praise as you deserve.'

'Of course not, Sam,' said Frodo. 'I'm a hobbit. But why grumble? You've been far more neglected yourself. There's never only one hero in any true tale, Sam, and all the good folk are in others' debt. But if one had to choose one and one only, I'd choose Samwise.'

'Then you'd be wrong, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam. 'For without you I'm nothing. But you and me together, Mr. Frodo: well, that's more than either alone.'

'It's more than anything I've heard of,' said Merry. 'But as for the last stroke of battle, I'm not so sure. You've finished the beastly Boss, while I only looked on. I've a [?feeling] from the horns in the distance you'll find that Pippin and the Tooks have had the last word. Thank heaven my..... is Took Brandybuck.'

It was as he said. While they had dealt with the Boss things had flared up in Bywater. The ruffians were no fools. They had sent a man on a horse to [?within) horn cry of Michel Delving (for they had many horn-signals). By midnight they had all assembled at Waymoot,(24) 18 miles west of the Bywater Road

[?crossing]. They had [?horses of their own] on the White Downs and rode like the fire. They charged the road-barrier at 10 a.m. but fifty were slain. The others had scattered and escaped. Pippin had killed [?five] and was wounded himself.

So ended the [?? fierce] battle of Bywater, the only battle ever fought in the Shire. And it has at least a chapter all to itself in all standard histories.

It was some time before the last ruffians were hunted out.

And oddly enough, little though the hobbits were inclined to believe it, quite a number turned out to be far from incurable.

This ends a page, and with it the now fearsomely difficult writing comes to an end: for the next page is perfectly legible, and this better script continues to the end of the draft, which is also the end of The Lord of the Rings. The pagination is continuous, however, and the

. likeliest explanation seems to be that there was simply a break in composition at this point.

The division between 'The Scouring of the Shire' and 'The Grey Havens' occurs at a point in RK that has nothing corresponding in the original draft, but it is convenient to make a break here, after one further paragraph concerning the fate of the 'ruffians', and to give the further continuation of the draft in the following chapters.

If they gave themselves up they were kindly treated, and fed (for they were usually half-starved after hiding in the woods), and then shown to the borders. This sort were Dunlanders, not orc-men/halfbreeds, who had originally come because their own land was wretched, and Saruman had told them there was a good country with plenty to eat away North. It is said that they found their own country very much better in the days of the King and were glad to return; but certainly the reports that they spread (enlarged for the covering of their own shame) of the numerous and warlike, not to say ferocious, hobbits of the Shire did something to preserve the hobbits from further trouble.

It is very striking that here, virtually at the end of The Lord of the Rings and in an element in the whole that my father had long meditated, the story when he first wrote it down should have been so different from its final form (or that he so signally failed to see 'what really happened'!). And this is not only because the original story took a wrong direction, as it turned out, when all four of the 'travellers'

went to Farmer Cotton's house, nor because he did not perceive that it was Saruman who was the real 'Boss', Sharkey, at Bag End, but most of all because Frodo is portrayed here at every stage as an energetic and commanding intelligence, warlike and resolute in action; and the final text of the chapter had been very largely achieved when the changed conception of Frodo's part in the Scouring of the Shire entered.

It is perhaps a minor question, to try to resolve how my father was developing the idea of 'Sharkey' as he wrote this text, but it is certainly not easy to do so. The statements made are as follows: The chief of the orcish men at Bywater said (p. 82) that he had told the Boss that it was no good sending hobbits, and that the men ought to have gone, but the Boss had said no. This was changed to make the man say that he had given this advice to 'Big Sharkey', but Sharkey had said no, and 'the Boss let him have his way'.

Later in the same conversation, this man says: 'It'll get it too, and before the year's out, or my name's not Sharkey.' Then Frodo calls him (p. 83) 'Ruffian Sharkey'.

When the ruffians came to Farmer Cotton's house it was 'Sharkey'

who peered in at the door,"and Frodo slew him with his sword.