The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien
to be startled. Yet startled they certainly were: indeed, completely blowed: some even got indigestion.
My dear people, began Mr Baggins, rising in his place.
‘Hear, hear, hear!’ they answered in chorus, and seemed reluctant to follow their own advice. Meanwhile Bilbo left his place and went and stood on a chair under the illuminated tree. The lantern light fell upon his beaming face; the gold buttons shone on his flowered waistcoat. They could all see him. One hand was in his pocket. He raised the other.
My dear Bagginses! he began again. And my dear Tooks and Brandybucks and Grubbs and Chubbs and Burroweses and Bracegirdles and Boffinses and Proudfoots.
‘Proudfeet!’ shouted an elderly hobbit from the back. His name, of course, was Proudfoot, and merited: his feet were large, exceptionally furry, and both were on the table.
Also my good Sackville-Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag-end. Today is my seventy-first birthday!
‘Hurray, hurray! Many Happy Returns!’ they shouted, and they hammered joyously on the tables. Bilbo was doing splendidly. That was the sort of stuff they liked: short, obvious, uncontroversial.
I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. Deafening cheers. Cries of Yes (and No). Noises of horns and trumpets, pipes and flutes, and other musical instruments. There were many junior hobbits present, for hobbits were easygoing with their children in the matter of sitting up late – especially if there was a chance of getting them an extra meal free (bringing up young hobbits took a great deal of provender). Hundreds of musical crackers had been pulled. Most of them bore the mark Dale on them somewhere or other, inside or out. What that meant only Bilbo and a few of his close friends knew (and you of course); but they were very marvellous crackers. They contained instruments small but of perfect make and enchanting tone. Indeed in one corner some of the younger Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Bilbo to have finished his speech (having said all that was needed), now got up an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance tune. Young Prospero Brandybuck7 and Melba Took got on a table and started to dance the flip-flap, a pretty thing if rather vigorous. But Bilbo had not finished.
Seizing a horn from one of the children he blew three very loud notes. The noise subsided. I shall not keep you long, he cried. Cheering broke out again. BUT I have called you all together for a Purpose.
Something in his voice made a few of the Tooks prick up their ears. Indeed for three Purposes. First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all; and that seventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.
Tremendous outburst of approval.
I don’t know half of you half as well as I would like, and less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
No cheers this time: it was a bit too difficult. There was some scattered clapping; but not all of them had yet had time to work it out and see if it came to a compliment in the end.
Secondly, to celebrate my birthday, and the twentieth anniversary of my return. No cheers; there was some uncomfortable rustling.
Lastly, to make an Announcement. He said this so loudly and suddenly that everyone sat up who could. I regret to announce that – though, as I have said, 71 years is far too short a time among you – this is the END. I am going. I am leaving after dinner. Goodbye!
He stepped down. One hundred and forty-four flabbergasted hobbits sat back speechless. Mr Proudfoot removed his feet from the table. Mrs Proudfoot swallowed a large chocolate and choked. Then there was complete silence for quite forty winks, until suddenly every Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Chubb, Grubb, Burrowes, Bracegirdle, Boffin and Proudfoot began to talk at once.
‘The hobbit’s mad. Always said so. Bad taste in jokes. Trying to pull the fur off our toes (a hobbit idiom). Spoiling a good dinner. Where’s my handkerchief. Won’t drink his health now. Shall drink my own. Where’s that bottle. Is he going to get married? Not to anyone here tonight. Who would take him? Why good-bye? Where is there to go to? What is he leaving?’ And so on. At last old Rory Brandybuck8 (well-filled but still pretty bright) was heard to shout: ‘Where is he now, anyway? Where’s Bilbo?’
There was not a sign of their host anywhere.
As a matter of fact Bilbo Baggins had disappeared silently and unnoticed in the midst of all the talk. While he was speaking he had already been fingering a small ring9 in his trouser-pocket. As he stepped down he had slipped it on – and he was never seen in Hobbiton again.
When the carriages came for the guests there was no one to say good-bye to. The carriages rolled away, one after another, filled with full but oddly unsatisfied hobbits. Gardeners came (by arrangement) and cleared away in wheelbarrows those that had inadvertently remained behind, asleep or immoveable. Night settled down and passed. The sun rose. The hobbits rose rather later. Morning went on.
NOTES
1 seventy-first emended from seventieth; but seventy-first in the text of Bilbo’s farewell speech as first written.
2 At this point my father wrote at first:
Twice before this he had been a matter of local news: a rare achievement for a Baggins. The first time was when he was left an orphan, when barely forty years old, by the untimely death of his father and mother (in a boating accident). The second time was more remarkable.
Such a fate in store for Bungo Baggins and his wife seems most improbable in the light of the words of the first chapter of The Hobbit:
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her … and there they remained to the end of their days.
They seem an unlikely couple to have gone ‘fooling about with boats’, in Gaffer Gamgee’s phrase, and his recognition of this was no doubt the reason why my father immediately struck the passage out; but the boating accident was not forgotten, and it became the fate of (Rollo Bolger >) Drogo Baggins and his Brandybuck wife, Primula, for whom it was a less improbable end (see p. 37).
3 At this stage only 20 years separated Bilbo’s adventure in The Hobbit and his farewell party, and my father clearly intended the B on the waggon to stand for Bard, King of Dale. Later, when the years had been greatly lengthened out, it would be Bain son of Bard who ruled in Dale at this time.
4 In the original Hobbit Gandalf at his first appearance was described as ‘a little old man’, but afterwards the word ‘little’ was removed. See p. 315.
5 The single tree in the field below Bag End was already in the illustration of Hobbiton that appeared as the frontispiece to The Hobbit, as also were Bilbo’s kitchen-garden and the hobbit-holes of Bagshot Row (though that name first appears here).
6 September 20th was the date of Bilbo’s birthday in the first version (p. 16).
7 Prospero Brandybuck was first written Orlando Brandybuck, the second bearer of the name: in the list of Bilbo’s gifts in the first version (p. 17 note 5) Gorboduc Grubb had been changed to Orlando Grubb.
8 A very similar passage, indicating the outraged comments of the guests, was added to the manuscript of the original draft at this point, but it was Inigo Grubb-Took who shouted ‘Where is he now, anyway?’ It was the greedy Inigo Grubb-Took