The Treason of Isengard (7 page)

There came at last the soft fall of hoofs, climbing up the hill.

The watchers all stirred and turned slowly towards the sound.

They were looking towards Frodo. He did not dare to turn, but he knew that behind him another dark figure, taller and more terrible, had appeared: it beckoned, and called out in a strange tongue. The horsemen leaped to life. They raised their dark heads towards the lofty chamber, and their mocking laughter rang out cruel and cold; then they turned from the white wall and rode down the hill like the wind. The blue light went out.

It seemed to Frodo that the riders came straight towards him; but even as they passed over him and beat him to the ground, he thought in his heart: 'I am not here; they cannot hurt me. There is something that I must see.' He lifted his head and saw a white horse leap the wall and stride towards him. On it rode a grey-mantled figure: his white hair was streaming, and his cloak flew like wings behind him. As the grey rider bore down upon him he strove to see his face. The light grew in the sky, and suddenly there was a noise of thunder.

Frodo opened his eyes. Trotter had drawn the curtains and had pushed back the shutters with a clang. The first grey light of day was in the room. The vision of his dream faded quickly, but its mingled fear and hope remained with him all the day; and for long the far sound of the Sea came back to him whenever great danger was at hand.

As soon as Trotter had roused them all he led the way to their bedrooms.

The manuscript continues a little further, almost word for word as in FR, and ends with Butterbur's 'Guests unable to sleep in their beds, and good bolsters ruined and all! What are we coming to?'

Taking into account the words of the outline given on p. 9 that Gandalf, pursued by the Riders, tried to get round to the west of the Shire, and the mention of the sound of the Sea in the text, it is seen that Gandalf had fled to the Elf-towers (21) on the Tower Hills beyond the west marches of the Shire - those towers which, at the very beginning of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, Bingo said that he had once seen, shining white in the Moon: 'the tallest was furthest away, standing alone on a hill' (VI.93; cf. VI.312 and FR p. 16).

Turning back to 'A Conspiracy Unmasked': my father now rewrote the ending again, on the basis of the draft already referred to, and added it to the 'third phase' manuscript, rejecting the existing conclusion of the chapter.(22) In this new text he still kept the original dream, but now combined with it the 'Dream of the Tower', transferring it back from Frodo's night at Bree to his night at Crickhollow (see p. 33). Thus Frodo has the vision of Gandalf's escape from the Western Tower on the night of the event itself, the 25th of September.

The new version reads thus, in part:

When at last he got to bed, Frodo could not sleep for some time. His legs ached. He was glad that he was riding in the morning. Eventually he fell into a vague dream, in which he seemed to be looking out of a high window over a dark sea of tangled trees. Down below among the roots there was the sound of creatures crawling and snuffling. He felt sure they would smell him out sooner or later.

Then he heard a noise in the distance. At first he thought it was a great wind coming over the leaves of the forest. Then he knew that it was not leaves, but the sound of the Sea far-off: a sound he had never heard in waking life, though it had often troubled other dreams. Suddenly he found he was out in the open. There were no trees after all. He was on a dark heath, and there was a strange salt smell in the air. Looking up he saw before him a tall white tower, standing alone on a high ridge. In its topmost chamber a blue light shone dimly.

As he drew nearer the tower loomed high above him. About its feet there was a wall of faintly gleaming stones, and outside the wall sat silent watchers: there seemed to be four blackrobed figures seated on black horses, gazing at the tower without moving, as if they had sat there for ever.

He heard the soft fall of hoofs climbing up the hill behind him. The watchers all stirred...

From this point the vision is told in practically the same words as in the previous text, and ends in the same way: 'A light grew in the sky, and there was a noise of thunder.' When Frodo had dreamt the dream at Bree, the light in the sky and the noise of thunder were associated with Trotter's opening the shutters with a clang and the light of morning entering the room.

In this text 'Pippin' is the name that was first written, not a subsequent correction of 'Folco'; see p. 30.

Later (see p. 139, note 36), when the story of Gandalf had been further changed, the description of the Western Tower and the siege of the Riders was largely,-but not entirely, struck out on this manuscript: the opening was retained, as far as 'Looking up he saw before him a tall white tower, standing alone on a high ridge.' At the same time a brief new conclusion was added:

A great desire came over him to climb the tower and see the Sea.

He started to struggle up the ridge towards the tower; but suddenly a light came in the sky, and there was a noise of thunder.

Thus altered, this is the text of FR, pp. 118 - 19. And so the tall white tower of Frodo's dream at Crickhollow in the final tale remains from what was the precursor of Orthanc; and the thunder that he heard goes back to the interruption of his dream by Trotter's thrusting back the shutters at The Prancing Pony. But Frodo would still dream of Gandalf imprisoned in a tower: for as he slept in the house of Tom Bombadil he would see him standing on the pinnacle of Isengard.

Chapter VI: 'The Old Forest'.

The existing 'third phase' manuscript of this chapter was retained, but with a good deal of correction, evidently deriving from different times.

To this period belong the alteration of 'Odo' to 'Hamilcar' at the beginning of the chapter, and 'Folco' to 'Pippin'; I would ascribe to it also the attainment of the final form of the hobbits' descent out of the forest to the Withywindle (see VI.327), and the final ascription of the parts in the encounter with Old Man Willow, with Merry exchanging roles with Frodo as the one trapped in the tree and the one pushed into the river (ibid.).

Chapter VII: 'In the House of Tom Bombadil'

In this chapter as in the last, the existing manuscript was retained intact. As the story stood in that text, Gandalf came to Crickhollow and routed the Riders on the night of Monday 26 September, the first night spent by the hobbits in the house of Tom Bombadil, and the account of the attack on Crickhollow was introduced as a short separate narrative in the body of Chapter VII (see VI.303 - 4, 328). But this had now been changed, and the attack by the Riders delayed by three days, with the postponement of Gandalf's coming to Bree. My father therefore wrote on the manuscript at this point: 'This did not occur till Sept. 29', i.e. the night passed by the hobbits at Bree (see the time-schemes tabulated on p. 12). The episode was now in the wrong chapter, and was struck from the text here.

It is often difficult or impossible to say with certainty when changes to the manuscripts that are unrelated to movements in the narrative structure (or to movements in names) were made. Thus the introduction of Frodo's dream of Gandalf on Orthanc is obviously later; but the striking out of 'I am Ab-Origine, that's what I am' (and the substitution of Tom s words in FR, p. 142: Don t you know my name yet?...'), and of 'He saw the Sun rise in the West and the Moon following, before the new order of days was made' (see VI.329) may well belong to this time.

Chapter VIII: 'Fog on the Barrow-downs'.

The original manuscript was again retained, and most of the changes that were made to it were from a later time (notably those introducing Carn Dum and Angmar, FR pp. 154, 157). The final page of the 'third phase' manuscript was however rejected and replaced by a new ending to the chapter, most of which is found also in a preparatory draft, marked 'Revised ending of VIII to fit revised plot (concerning Gandalf's delay and Trotter's knowledge of the name Baggins)'. Now Frodo says, 'Please note - all of you - that the name Baggins must not be mentioned again. I am Mr Green, if any name must be given.' In the narrative of the third phase, as in that of the second, Frodo took the name of 'Mr Hill of Faraway' (VI.280, 334). 'Green' as a pseudonym (for Odo) goes back to the original version (VI.135 etc.).

At this time Tom's words (VI.329) 'he [Butterbur] knows Tom Bombadil, and Tom's name will help you. Say "Tom sent us here", and he will treat you kindly' were rejected, and Tom's parting words in FR appear: 'Tom's country ends here: he will not pass the borders.'

In this connection see the note given on p. 10 concerning the boundaries of Tom's domain: there my father was thinking of harmonising Gandalf's remark at the Council of Elrond that Bombadil never left his own ground with the story that he was known to Butterbur by supposing that Tom's 'boundaries' extended to Bree. But he concluded that Tom Bombadil was not in fact known to Butterbur, and the changes here reflect that decision.

NOTES.

1. The texts in such a situation are often very tricky to interpret, for there are these possible ingredients or components: (1) a page from the 'third phase' manuscript corrected but retained; (2) a page from the 'third phase' manuscript rejected and replaced; (3) draft version(s) for replacement of rejected 'third phase' manuscript; (4) fair copy replacement of rejected 'third phase' manuscript (with or without preceding draft). A correction, say of a name, made in a case of (1) will stand on the same footing in the textual history as the name first written in a case of (3) or (4), but the latter provide more certain indication of the relative dating.

2. With Bilbo's remark 'I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days' (FR p. 41) cf. the outline $1 on p. 5. With the passage that follows, in which Bilbo says of Frodo

He would come with me, of course, if I asked him. In fact he offered to once, just before the party. But he does not really want to, yet. I want to see the wild country again before I die, and the Mountains; but he is still in love with the Shire...

cf. the fragment of narrative given in note 8 to the preceding chapter (p. 15).

3. Cf. the outline $1 on p. 5: 'Says to Gandalf he sometimes feels it is like an eye looking at him.'

4. Gandalf's words 'He said and did things then that were unmistakeable signs of something wrong' refer of course to his parting conversation with Bilbo in this 'phase', given on pp. 19 - 20, where Bilbo's behaviour was still not violently out of character as it afterwards became.

5. This is the form of the text in B. The draft A has no reference to the discussion of Rings at the White Council.

6. At this stage the old story of how the Ring was found 'in the mud of the river-bank under the roots of a thorn tree' (VI.78) was retained.

7. In the later form of 'Riddles in the Dark' in The Hobbit there was no question of Gollum's giving up the Ring, of course: Bilbo's prize if he won the competition was to be shown the way out, and Gollum only went back to his island in the lake to get the Ring so that he might attack Bilbo invisibly.

8. This passage, from 'But of course...', was added to the text, but it takes up a draft passage against which my father had written

'Omit?':

Yet I wonder what would have happened in the end, if he had been obliged to hand it over. I don't think he would have dared to cheat openly; but I am sure he would have tried to get the Ring back. He would have immediately desired it terribly, and have hated Bilbo fiercely. He would have tried to kill him. He would have followed him, visible or invisible, by sight or smell, till he got a chance.'

9. The draft text still retained the curious passage, going back through the third to the second version of the chapter (VI.263), in which Gandalf has Frodo quote the first riddle that Gollum asked, and then says, in this version: 'Roots and mountains: there's a good deal of Gollum's mind and history in that.'

10. This was said in the original story of Gollum in the first edition of The Hobbit: 'in the end Bilbo gathered that Gollum had had a ring - a wonderful, beautiful ring, a ring that he had been given for a birthday present, ages and ages before when such rings were less uncommon.'

11. Draft texts still retain the wording of the third version (VI.321):

'what kind of ring it really was.'

12. The words trying to forget Deagol are a part of the text B as written, and show that the passage (pp. 23-4) concerning the murder of Deagol was inserted before this version was completed.

13. In the original story in The Hobbit it was only when Gollum came back from his island in the lake, where he had gone to get the 'present', that Bilbo learnt - from Gollum's 'tremendous spluttering and whispering and croaking' - about the ring and that it had been a birthday present; see note 10.