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Exactly! said Thorin; but could you be more plain?
I went on to spy out our road. It will soon become dangerous and difficult. Also I was
anxious about replenishing our small stock of provisions. I had not gone very far, however,
when I met a couple of friends of mine from Rivendell.
Where s that? asked Bilbo.
Don t interrupt! said Gandalf. You will get there in a few days now, if we re lucky, and
find out all about it. As I was saying I met two of Elrond s people. They were hurrying along for
fear of the trolls. It was they who told me that three of them had come down from the moun-
tains and settled in the woods not far from the road: they had frightened everyone away from
the district, and they waylaid strangers.
I immediately had a feeling that I was wanted back. Looking behind I saw a fire in the dis-
tance and made for it. So now you know. Please be more careful, next time, or we shall never
get anywhere!
Thank you! said Thorin.
The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again
Chapter III
A SHORT REST
They did not sing or tell stories that day, even though the weather improved; nor the next
day, nor the day after. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away on either side.
They camped under the stars, and their horses had more to eat than they had; for there was
plenty of grass, but there was not much in their bags, even with what they had got from the
trolls. One morning they forded a river at a wide shallow place full of the noise of stones and
foam. The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got to the top of it, leading their
ponies, they saw that the great mountains had marched down very near to them. Already they
seemed only a day s easy journey from the feet of the nearest. Dark and drear it looked,
though there were patches of sunlight on its brown sides, and behind its shoulders the tips of
snow-peaks gleamed.
Is that The Mountain? asked Bilbo in a solemn voice, looking at it with round eyes. He
had never seen a thing that looked so big before.
Of course not! said Balin. That is only the beginning of the Misty Mountains, and we
have got to get through, or over, or under those somehow, before we can come into Wilder-
land beyond. And it is a deal of a way even from the other side of them to the Lonely Moun-
tain in the East where Smaug lies on our treasure.
O! said Bilbo, and just at that moment he felt more tired than he ever remembered feel-
ing before. He was thinking once again of his comfortable chair before the fire in his favourite
sitting-room in his hobbit-hole, and of the kettle singing. Not for the last time!
Now Gandalf led the way. We must not miss the road, or we shall be done for, he said.
We need food, for one thing, and rest in reasonable safety also it is very necessary to
tackle the Misty Mountains by the proper path, or else you will get lost in them, and have to
come back and start at the beginning again (if you ever get back at all).
They asked him where he was making for, and he answered: You are come to the very
edge of the Wild, as some of you may know. Hidden somewhere ahead of us is the fair valley
of Rivendell where Elrond lives in the Last Homely House. I sent a message by my friends,
and we are expected.
That sounded nice and comforting, but they had not got there yet, and it was not so easy
as it sounds to find the Last Homely House west of the Mountains. There seemed to be no
trees and no valleys and no hills to break the ground in front of them, only one vast slope go-
ing slowly up and up to meet the feet of the nearest mountain, a wide land the colour of
heather and crumbling rock, with patches and slashes of grass-green and moss-green show-
ing where water might be.
Morning passed, afternoon came; but in all the silent waste there was no sign of any
dwelling. They were growing anxious, for they saw now that the house might be hidden al-
most anywhere between them and the mountains. They came on unexpected valleys, narrow
with steep sides, that opened suddenly at their feet, and they looked down surprised to see
trees below them and running water at the bottom. There were gullies that they could almost
leap over, but very deep with waterfalls in them. There were dark ravines that one could
neither jump over nor climb into. There were bogs, some of them green pleasant places to
look at, with flowers growing bright and tall; but a pony that walked there with a pack on its
back would never have come out again.
It was indeed a much wider land from the ford to the mountains than ever you would have
guessed. Bilbo was astonished. The only path was marked with white stones, some of which
were small, and others were half covered with moss or heather. Altogether it was a very slow
business following the track, even guided by Gandalf, who seemed to know his way about
pretty well.
His head and beard wagged this way and that as he looked for the stones, and they fol-
lowed his lead, but they seemed no nearer to the end of the search when the day began to
fail. Tea-time had long gone by, and it seemed supper-time would soon do the same. There
were moths fluttering about, and the light became very dim, for the moon had not risen.
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