Free The Treason of Isengard by J. R. R. Tolkien Page A

I says to myself. Now the question is, what shall I say, if they come back? Maybe you want to see them, and more likely not. They mean no good to anyone, I'll wager. Now you and your friends seem all right in spite of your pranks, so I thought I had best tell you and find out what you wish.'
    'They mean no good at all,' said Frodo. 'I did not know they had passed through Bree, or I should have stayed quiet in this room, and I wish I had. I ought to have guessed it, from the way the gatekeeper greeted us - and you, Mr Butterbur; but I hoped perhaps Gandalf had been here asking for us. I expect you know who I mean, the old wizard. We hoped to find him here or have news of him.'
    'Gandalf!' said the landlord. 'Know him! I should think I do.
    He was here not so long back, in the summer. A good friend of mine is Gandalf, and many a good turn he has done me. If you had asked after him sooner I should have been happier. I will do what I can for any friends of his.'
    'I am very grateful,' said Frodo, 'and so will he be. I am sorry I can't tell you the whole story, but I assure you we are up to no mischief. I am Frodo Baggins, as you guess, and these - er -
    Black Riders are hunting for me, and we are in danger. I should be thankful for any sort of help, though I don't want you to get into trouble on my account. I only hope these Riders won't come back.'
    'I hope not indeed,' said the landlord with a shiver. 'But spooks or no spooks, they'll have to mend their manners at my door.'

    The latter part of this version is in hasty pencil, and soon after this point it peters out without further significant development. Obviously Gandalf's letter will still come from Trotter, not from Butterbur.
    As I have said, this revision belongs with the new conception of Gandalf's movements: he only got ahead of Frodo and his friends by racing on horseback to Weathertop while they were toiling through the Midgewater Marshes. In the outline given on p. 9 there is mention of a visit of Gandalf to Bree before Frodo set out, and before his captivity in the Western Tower; and Butterbur says in this draft that he saw him 'not so long back, in the summer' (cf. also note 1). This led, I think, to the bringing back of the story (present in one of the alternative versions of the original 'Bree' chapter, VI.156) that it was Butterbur and not Trotter who had the letter from Gandalf; and this in turn led to refinement of the scene at the inn where Trotter proves that he is a friend.

    As in the draft A above (p. 42), in the new or 'fourth phase'

    manuscript B Trotter says: 'I was looking for Mr Frodo Baggins, because I had been told to look for birn.' But an important change in the structure now enters. In A Trotter has just said 'But now I had better tell you some more about myself' when he is interrupted by Mr Butterbur's knock on the door - an interruption at this point that goes back through the earlier versions: see VI.338 ('third phase'), VI.150
    (original text). In the new account, Trotter is not interrupted at this point. After saying that he will take more care of the secret than they do, the story now proceeds thus:

    '... But now I had better tell you some more.' He leaned forward and looked at them. 'Black horsemen have passed through Bree,' he said in a low voice. 'On Tuesday morning one came up the Greenway; and two more appeared later. Yesterday evening in the fog three more rode through the West-gate just before it was closed. They questioned Harry the gatekeeper and frightened him badly. I heard them. They also went eastward.'

    There follows a passage quite closely approaching that in FR (pp.
    176 - 7, from 'There was a silence'), with Frodo's regret that he had gone to the common room of the inn, and Trotter's recounting that the landlord had prevented him from seeing the hobbits until it was too late. But to Frodo's remark that the Riders 'seem to have missed me for the present, and to have gone on ahead' Trotter replies:

    'I should not be too