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river was wide and shallow enough for me to wade and swim, and then
miles back again to pick up the tracks again. By that time it was too late
for me to follow them far. They went straight off in the direction of the
pine-woods on the east side of the Misty Mountains, where we had our
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pleasant little party with the Wargs the night before last. And now I think
I have answered your first question, too, ended Gandalf, and he sat a
long while silent.
Bilbo thought he knew what the wizard meant.  What shall we do,
he cried,  if he leads all the Wargs and the goblins down here? We shall
all be caught and killed! I thought you said he was not 9 friend of theirs.
 So I did. And don t be silly! You had better go to bed, your wits are
sleepy.
The hobbit felt quite crushed, and as there seemed nothing else to
do he did go to bed; and while the dwarves were still singing songs he
dropped asleep, still puzzling his little head about Beorn, till he dreamed
a dream of hundreds of black bears dancing slow heavy dances round
and round in the moonlight in the courtyard. Then he woke up when
everyone else was asleep, and he heard the same scraping, scuffling,
snuffling, and growling as before. Next morning they were all wakened by
Beorn himself.
 So here you all are still! he said. He picked up the hobbit and
laughed:  Not eaten up by Wargs or goblins or wicked bears yet I see ;
and he poked Mr. Baggins waistcoat most disrespectfully.  Little bunny is
getting nice and fat again on bread and honey, he chuckled.  Come and
have some more!
So they all went to breakfast with him. Beorn was most jolly for a
change; indeed he seemed to be in a splendidly good humour and set
them all laughing with his funny stories; nor did they have to wonder long
where he had been or why he was so nice to them, for he told them
himself. He had been over the river and right back up into the mountains-
from which you can guess that he could travel quickly, in bear s shape at
any rate. From the burnt wolf-glade he had soon found out that part of
their story was true; but he had found more than that: he had caught a
Warg and a goblin wandering in the woods. From these he had got news:
the goblin patrols were still hunting with Wargs for the dwarves, and they
were fiercely angry because of the death of the Great Goblin, and also
because of the burning of the chief wolf s nose and the death from the
wizard s fire of many of his chief servants. So much they told him when he
forced them, but he guessed there was more wickedness than this afoot,
and that a great raid of the whole goblin army with their wolf-allies into
the lands shadowed by the mountains might soon be made to find the
dwarves, or to take vengeance on the men and creatures that lived there,
and who they thought must be sheltering them.
 It was a good story, that of yours, said Beorn,  but I like it still
better now I am sure it is true. You must forgive my not taking your word.
If you lived near the edge of Mirkwood, you would take the word of no
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one that you did not know as well as your brother or better. As it is, I can
only say that I have hurried home as fast as I could to see that you were
safe, and to offer you any help that I can. I shall think more kindly of
dwarves after this. Killed the Great Goblin, killed the Great Goblin! he
chuckled fiercely to himself.
 What did you do with the goblin and the Warg? asked Bilbo
suddenly.
 Come and see! said Beorn, and they followed round the house. A
goblin s head was stuck outside the gate and a warg-skin was nailed to a
tree just beyond. Beorn was a fierce enemy. But now he was their friend,
and Gandalf thought it wise to tell him their whole story and the reason of
their journey, so that they could get the most help he could offer.
This is what he promised to do for them. He would provide ponies
for each of them, and a horse for Gandalf, for their journey to the forest,
and he would lade them with food to last them for weeks with care, and
packed so as to be as easy as possible to carry-nuts, flour, sealed jars of
dried fruits, and red earthenware pots of honey, and twice-baked cakes
that would keep good a long time, and on a little of which they could
march far. The making of these was one of his secrets; but honey was in
them, as in most of his foods, and they were good to eat, though they
made one thirsty. Water, he said, they would not need to carry this side of
the forest, for there were streams and springs along the road.  But your
way through Mirkwood is dark, dangerous and difficult, he said.  Water
is not easy to find there, nor food. The time is not yet come for nuts
(though it may be past and gone indeed before you get to the other side),
and nuts are about all that grows there fit for food; in there the wild
things are dark, queer, and savage. I will provide you with skins for carrying
water, and I will give you some bows and arrows. But I doubt very much
whether anything you find in Mirkwood will be wholesome to eat or to
drink. There is one stream there, I know, black and strong which crosses
the path. That you should neither drink of, nor bathe in; for I have heard
that it carries enchantment and a great drowsiness and forgetfulness.
And in the dim shadows of that place I don t think you will shoot anything,
wholesome or unwholesome, without straying from the path. That you
MUST NOT do, for any reason.  That is all the advice I can give you.
Beyond the edge of the forest I cannot help you much; you must depend
on your luck and your courage and the food I send with you. At the gate
of the forest I must ask you to send back my horse and my ponies. But I
wish you all speed, and my house is open to you, if ever you come back
this way again.
They thanked him, of course, with many bows and sweepings of
their hoods and with many an  at your service, O master of the wide
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wooden halls! But their spirits sank at his grave words, and they all felt
that the adventure was far more dangerous than they had thought, while
all the time, even if they passed all the perils of the road, the dragon was
waiting at the end.
All that morning they were busy with preparations. Soon after midday
they ate with Beorn for the last time, and after the meal they mounted the
steeds he was lending them, and bidding him many farewells they rode
off through his gate at a good pace.
As soon as they left his high hedges at the east of his fenced lands
they turned north and then bore to the north-west. By his advice they
were no longer making for the main forest-road to the south of his land.
Had they followed the pass, their path would have led them down the
stream from the mountains that joined the great river miles south of the
Carrock. At that point there was a deep ford which they might have passed,
if they had still had their ponies, and beyond that a track led to the skirts
of the wood and to the entrance of the old forest road. But Beorn had
warned them that that way was now often used by the goblins, while the
forest-road itself, he bad heard, was overgrown and disused at the eastern
end and led to impassable marshes where the paths had long been lost.
Its eastern opening had also always been far to the south of the Lonely
Mountain, and would have left them still with a long and difficult northward
march when they got to the other side.
North of the Carrock the edge of Mirkwood drew closer to the borders
of the Great River, and though here the Mountains too drew down nearer,
Beorn advised them to take this way; for at a place a few days ride due
north of the Carrock was the gate of a little-known pathway through
Mirkwood that led almost straight towards the Lonely Mountain.
 The goblins, Beorn had said,  will not dare to cross the Great
River for a hundred miles north of the Carrock nor to come near my house
 it is well protected at night! but I should ride fast; for if they make
their raid soon they will cross the river to the south and scour all the edge [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]