The Hobbit

your snores would waken a stone dragon—yet we thank you,” they answered with laughter. “It is drawing towards dawn, and
     you have slept now since the night’s beginning. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will be cured of weariness.”
    “A little sleep does a great cure in the house of Elrond,” said he; “but I will take all the cure I can get. A second good
     night, fair friends!” And with that he went back to bed and slept till late morning.
    Weariness fell from him soon in that house, and he had many a merry jest and dance, early and late, with the elves of the
     valley. Yet even that place could not long delay him now, and he thought always of his own home. After a week, therefore,
     he said farewell to Elrond, and giving him such small gifts as he would accept, he rode away with Gandalf.
    Even as they left the valley the sky darkened in the West before them, and wind and rain came up to meet them.
    “Merry is May-time!” said Bilbo, as the rain beat into his face. “But our back is to legends and we are coming home. I suppose
     this is the first taste of it.”
    “There is a long road yet,” said Gandalf.
    “But it is the last road,” said Bilbo.
    They came to the river that marked the very edge of the borderland of the Wild, and to the ford beneath the steep bank, which
     you may remember. The water was swollen both with the melting of the snows at the approach of summer, and with the daylong
     rain; but they crossed with some difficulty, and pressed forward, as evening fell, on the last stage of their journey.
    This was much as it had been before, except that the company was smaller, and more silent; also this time there were no trolls.
     At each point on the road Bilbo recalled the happenings and the words of a year ago—it seemed to him more like ten—so that,
     of course, he quickly noted the place where the pony had fallen in the river, and they had turned aside for their nasty adventure
     with Tom and Bert and Bill.
    Not far from the road they found the gold of the trolls, which they had buried, still hidden and untouched. “I have enough
     to last me my time,” said Bilbo, when they had dug it up. “You had better take this, Gandalf. I daresay you can find a use
     for it.”
    “Indeed I can!” said the wizard. “But share and share alike! You may find you have more needs than you expect.”
    So they put the gold in bags and slung them on the ponies, who were not at all pleased about it. After that their going was
     slower, for most of the time they walked. But the land was green and there was much grass through which the hobbit strolled
     along contentedly. He mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief—no! not a single one of his own had survived, he had borrowed
     this one from Elrond—for now June had brought summer, and the weather was bright and hot again.
    As all things come to an end, even this story, a day came at last when they were in sight of the country where Bilbo had been
     born and bred, where the shapes of the land and of the trees were as well known to him as his hands and toes. Coming to a
     rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:
    Roads go ever ever on,
          Over rock and under tree,
    By caves where never sun has shone,
          By streams that never find the sea;
    Over snow by winter sown,
          And through the merry flowers of June,
    Over grass and over stone,
          And under mountains in the moon.
    Roads go ever ever on
          Under cloud and under star,
    Yet feet that wandering have gone
          Turn at last to home afar.
    Eyes that fire and sword have seen
          And horror in the halls of stone
    Look at last on meadows green
          And trees and hills they long have known.
    Gandalf looked at him. “My dear Bilbo!” he said. “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”
    And so they crossed the bridge and passed the mill by the river and came right back to Bilbo’s own door.
    “Bless me! What’s going on?” he cried. There was a great commotion, and people of all sorts, respectable and unrespectable,
     were thick round the door, and many were going in and out—not even wiping their feet on the mat, as Bilbo noticed with annoyance.
    If he was surprised, they were more surprised still. He had arrived back in the middle of an auction! There was a large notice
     in black and red hung on the gate, stating that on June the Twenty-second Messrs Grubb, Grubb, and