&&000 The Hobbit (An Illustrated Edition) &&111 &&000 p 17 &&111 In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms an an oozy smell, nor yet a dry bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lot and lots of pegs for hats and coats -- the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill -- =TheHill, as all the people round called it -- and many little doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the lefthand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. &&000 p 37 &&111 Up jumped =Bilbo, and putting on his dressing-gown went into the dining-room. There he saw nobody, but all the signs of a large and hurried breakfast. There was a fearful mess in the room, and piled of unwashed crocks in the kitchen. Nearly every pot and pan he possessed seemed to have been used. The washing-up was so dismally real that =Bilbo was forced to believe the party of the night before had not been part of his bad dreams, as he had rather hoped. Indeed he was really relieved after all to think that they had all gone without him, and without bothering to wake him up ("but with never a thank-you" he though); and yet in a way he could not help feeling just a trifle disappointed. The feeling surprised him. "Don't be a fool, =BilboBaggins," he said to himself, "thinking of dragons and all that outlandish nonsense at your age!" So he put on an apron, lit fires, boiled water, and washed up. Then he had a nice little breakfast in the kitchen before turning out the dining-room. By that time the sun was shining; and the front door was open, letting in a warm spring breeze. =Bilbo began to whistle loudly and to forget about the night before. In fact he was just sitting down to a nice little second breakfast in the dining-room by the open window, when in walked =Gandalf. &&000 p57 &&111 Now there came a glimmer of a red light before them. The goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well. Clap! Snap! the black crack! Grip, grab! Pinch, nab! And down, down to Goblin-town You go, my lad! Clash, crash! Crush smash! Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs! Pound, pound, far underground! Ho, ho! my lad! Swish, smack! Whip crack! Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat! Work, work! Nor dare to shirk, While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh, Round and round far underground Below, my lad! It sounded truly terrifying. The walls echoed to the clap, snap and the crush, smash and to the ugly laughter of their ho, ho my lad! The general meaning of the song was only too plain; for now the goblins took out whips and whipped them with a swish, smack, and set them running as fast as they could in front of them; and more than one of the dwarves were already yammering and bleating like anything, when they stumbled into a big cavern. &&000 p76 &&111 On they went, =Gollum flip-flapping ahead, hissing and cursing; =Bilbo behind going as softly as a hobbit can. Soon they came to places where, as =Bilbo had noticed on the way down, side-passages opened, this way and that. =Gollum began at once to count them. "One left, yes. One right, yes. Two right, yes, yes. Two left, yes, yes." And so on. As the count grew he slowed down, and he began to get shaky and weepy; for he was leaving the water further and further behind, and he was getting afraid. Goblins might be about, and he had lost his ring. At last he stopped by a low opening, on their left as they went up. "Seven right, yes. Six left, yes," he whispered! "This is it. This is the way to the back-door, yes. Here's the passage!" He peered in, and shrank back. "But we dursn't go in, =precious, no we dursn't. =Goblinses down there. Lots of =goblinses. We smells them. =Ssss!" &&000 p97 &&111 "Goblins," said the big man less gruffly? "O, ho, so you've been having trouble with them have you? What did you go near them for?" "We did not mean to. They surprised us at night in a pass which we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West into these countries -- it is a long tale." "Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won't take all day," said the man leading the way through a dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house. Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. Though it was summer there was a wood-fire burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda propped on wooded posts made of single tree-trunks. It faced south and was still warm and filled with the light of the westering sun which slanted into it, and fell golden on the garden full of flowers that came right up to the steps. &&000 p116 &&111 "O why did we not remember =Beorn's advice, and =Gandalf's," he lamented! "What a mess we are in now! We! I only wish it was we: it is horrible being all alone." In the end he made as good a guess as he could at the direction from which the cries for help had come in the night -- and by luck (he was born with a good share of it) he guessed more or less right, as you will see. Having made up his mind he crept along as cleverly as he could. Hobbits are clever at quiteness, especially in woods, as I have already told you; also =Bilbo had slipped on his ring before he started. That is why the spiders neither saw nor heard him coming. He had picked his way stealthily for some distance, when he noticed a place of dense black shadow ahead of him, black even for that forest, like a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away. As he drew nearer, he saw that it was made by spider-webs one behind and over and tangled with another. Suddenly he saw, too, that there were spiders huge and horrible sitting in the branches above him, and ring or no ring he trembled with fear lest they should discover him. Standing behind a tree he watched a group of them for some time, and then in the silence an stillness of the wood he realised that these loathsome creatures were speaking one to another. Their voices were a sort of thin creaking and hissing, but he could make out many of the words that they said. They were talking about the dwarves! &&000 p137 &&111 There is no need to tell you much of his adventures that night, for now we are drawing near the end of the eastward journey and coming to the last and greatest adventure, so we must hurry on. Of course, helped by his magic ring he got on very well at first, but he was given away in the end by his wet footsteps and the trail of drippings that he left wherever he went or sat; and also he began to snivel, and wherever he tried to hide he was found out by the terrific explosions of his suppressed sneezes. Very soon there was a fine commotion in the village by the riverside; but =Bilbo escaped into the woods carrying a loaf and a leather bottle of wine and a pie that did not belong to him. The rest of the night he had to pass wet as he was and far from a fire, but the bottle helped him to do that, and he actually dozed a little on some dry leaves, even though the year was getting late and the air was chilly. &&000 p157 &&111 =Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed. Behind him where the walls were nearest could dimly be seen coats of mail, helms and axes, swords and spears hanging; and there in rows stood great jars and vessels filled with a wealth that could not be guessed. To say that =Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. =Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count. &&000 p177 &&111 Now if you wish, like the dwarves, to hear the news of =Smaug, you must go back again to the evening when he smashed the door and flew off in a rage, two days before. The men of the lake-town =Esgaroth were mostly indoors, for the breeze was from the black East and chill, but a few were walking on the quays, and watching, as they were fond of doing, the stars shine out from the smooth patches of the lake as they opened in the sky. From their town the =LonelyMountain was mostly screened by the low hills at the far end of the lake, through a gap in which the =RunningRiver came down from the North. Only its high peak could they see in clear weather, and they looked seldom at it, for it was ominous and drear even in the light of morning. Now it was lost and gone, blotted in the dark. Suddenly it flickered back to view; a brief glow touched it and faded. &&000 p200 &&111 "How came you by it," shouted =Thorin in rage? "I gave it to them," squeaked =Bilbo, who was peeping his head over the wall, by now in a dreadful fright! "You! You," cried =Thorin, turning upon him and grasping him with both hands! "You miserable hobbit! You undersized -- burglar," he shouted at a loss for words, and he shook poor =Bilbo like a rabbit! "By the beard of =Durin! I wish I had =Gandalf here! Curse his for his choice of you! May his beard wither! As for you I will throw you to the rocks," he cried and lifted =Bilbo in his arms! "Stay! Your wish is granted," said a voice! The old man with the casket threw aside his hood and cloak. "Here is =Gandalf! And none too soon it seems. If you don't like my burglar, please don't damage him. Put him down, and listen first to what he has to say!"