Free The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Page B

he got up and drained his own glass silently to the health of Bilbo, and slipped out of the pavilion.
    As for Bilbo Baggins, even while he was making his speech, he had been fingering the golden ring in his pocket: his magic ring that he had kept secret for so many years. As he stepped down he slipped it on his finger, and he was never seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again.
    He walked briskly back to his hole, and stood for a moment listening with a smile to the din in the pavilion, and to the sounds of merrymaking in other parts of the field. Then he went in. He took off his party clothes, folded up and wrapped in tissue-paper his embroidered silk waistcoat, and put it away. Then he put on quickly some old untidy garments, and fastened round his waist a worn leather belt. On it he hung a short sword in a battered black-leather scabbard. From a locked drawer, smelling of moth-balls, he took out an old cloak and hood. They had been locked up as if they were very precious, but they were so patched and weatherstained that their original colour could hardly be guessed: it might have been dark green. They were rather too large for him. He then went into his study, and from a large strong-box took out a bundle wrapped in old cloths, and a leather-bound manuscript; and also a large bulky envelope. The book and bundle he stuffed into the top of a heavybag that was standing there, already nearly full. Into the envelope he slipped his golden ring, and its fine chain, and then sealed it, and addressed it to Frodo. At first he put it on the mantelpiece, but suddenly he removed it and stuck it in his pocket. At that moment the door opened and Gandalf came quickly in.
    ‘Hullo!’ said Bilbo. ‘I wondered if you would turn up.’
    ‘I am glad to find you visible,’ replied the wizard, sitting down in a chair, ‘I wanted to catch you and have a few final words. I suppose you feel that everything has gone off splendidly and according to plan?’
    ‘Yes, I do,’ said Bilbo. ‘Though that flash was surprising: it quite startled me, let alone the others. A little addition of your own, I suppose?’
    ‘It was. You have wisely kept that ring secret all these years, and it seemed to me necessary to give your guests something else that would seem to explain your sudden vanishment.’
    ‘And would spoil my joke. You are an interfering old busybody,’ laughed Bilbo, ‘but I expect you know best, as usual.’
    ‘I do – when I know anything. But I don’t feel too sure about this whole affair. It has now come to the final point. You have had your joke, and alarmed or offended most of your relations, and given the whole Shire something to talk about for nine days, or ninety-nine more likely. Are you going any further?’
    ‘Yes, I am. I feel I need a holiday, a very long holiday, as I have told you before. Probably a permanent holiday: I don’t expect I shall return. In fact, I don’t mean to, and I have made all arrangements.
    ‘I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts.
Well-preserved
indeed!’ he snorted. ‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of
stretched
, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.’
    Gandalf looked curiously and closely at him. ‘No, it does not seem right,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No, after all I believe your plan is probably the best.’
    ‘Well, I’ve made up my mind, anyway. I want to see mountains again, Gandalf –
mountains
; and then find somewhere where I can
rest
. In peace and quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and a string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell. I might find somewhere where I can finish my book. I have thought of a nice ending for it:
and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.
’
    Gandalf laughed. ‘I hope he will. But nobody will read the book, however it ends.’
    ‘Oh, they may, in years to come. Frodo has read