At last they came to The Prancing Pony, and that at least looked outwardly unchanged; and there were lights behind the red curtains in the lower windows. They rang the bell, and Nob came to the door, and opened it a crack and peeped through; and when he saw them standing under the lamp he gave a cry of surprise.
‘Mr. Butterbur! Master!’ he shouted. ‘They’ve come back!’
‘Oh have they? I’ll learn them,’ came Butterbur’s voice, and out he came with a rush, and he had a club in his hand. But when he saw who they were he stopped short, and the black scowl on his face changed to wonder and delight.
‘Nob, you woolly-pated ninny!’ he cried. ‘Can’t you give old friends their names? You shouldn’t go scaring me like that, with times as they are. Well, well! And where have you come from? I never expected to see any of you folk again, and that’s a fact: going off into the Wild with that Strider, and all those Black Men about. But I’m right glad to see you, and none more than Gandalf. Come in! Come in! The same rooms as before? They’re free. Indeed most rooms are empty these days, as I’ll not hide from you, for you’ll find it out soon enough. And I’ll see what can be done about supper, as soon as may be; but I’m short-handed at present. Hey, Nob you slowcoach! Tell Bob! Ah, but there I’m forgetting, Bob’s gone: goes home to his folk at nightfall now. Well, take the guests’ ponies to the stables, Nob! And you’ll be taking your horse to his stable yourself, Gandalf, I don’t doubt. A fine beast, as I said when I first set eyes on him. Well, come in! Make yourselves at home!’
Mr. Butterbur had at any rate not changed his manner of talking, and still seemed to live in his old breathless bustle. And yet there was hardly anybody about, and all was quiet; from the Common Room there came a low murmur of no more than two or three voices. And seen closer in the light of two candles that he lit and carried before them the landlord’s face looked rather wrinkled and careworn.
He led them down the passage to the parlour that they had used on that strange night more than a year ago; and they followed him, a little disquieted, for it seemed plain to them that old Barliman was putting a brave face on some trouble. Things were not what they had been. But they said nothing, and waited.
As they expected Mr. Butterbur came to the parlour after supper to see if all had been to their liking. As indeed it had: no change for the worse had yet come upon the beer or the victuals at The Pony, at any rate. ‘Now I won’t make so bold as to suggest you should come to the Common Room tonight,’ said Butterbur. ‘You’ll be tired; and there isn’t many folk there this evening, anyway. But if you could spare me half an hour before you go to your beds, I would dearly like to have some talk with you, quiet-like by ourselves.’
‘That is just what we should like, too,’ said Gandalf. ‘We are not tired. We have been taking things easy. We were wet, cold and hungry, but all that you have cured. Come, sit down! And if you have any pipe-weed, we’ll bless you.’
‘Well, if you’d called for anything else, I’d have been happier,’ said Butterbur. ‘That’s just a thing that we’re short of, seeing how we’ve only got what we grow ourselves, and that’s not enough. There’s none to be had from the Shire these days. But I’ll do what I can.’
When he came back he brought them enough to last them for a day or two, a wad of uncut leaf. ‘Southlinch,’ he said, ‘and the best we have; but not the match of Southfarthing, as I’ve always said, though I’m all for Bree in most matters, begging your pardon.’
They put him in a large chair by the wood-fire, and Gandalf sat on the other side of the hearth, and the hobbits in low chairs between them; and then they talked for many times half an hour, and exchanged all such news as Mr. Butterbur wished to hear or give. Most of the things which they had to tell were a mere wonder and bewilderment to their host, and far beyond his vision; and they brought forth few comments other than: ‘You don’t say,’ often repeated in defiance of the evidence of Mr. Butterbur’s own ears. ‘You don’t say, Mr. Baggins, or is it Mr. Underhill? I’m getting so mixed up. You don’t say, Master Gandalf! Well I never! Who’d have thought it in our times!’
But he did say much on his own account. Things were far from well, he would say. Business was not even fair, it was downright bad. ‘No one comes nigh Bree now from Outside,’ he said. ‘And the inside folks, they stay at home mostly and keep their doors barred. It all comes of those newcomers and gangrels that began coming up the Greenway last year, as you may remember; but more came later. Some were just poor bodies running away from trouble; but most were bad men, full o’ thievery and mischief. And there was trouble right here in Bree, bad trouble. Why, we had a real set-to, and there were some folk killed, killed dead! If you’ll believe me.’
‘I will indeed,’ said Gandalf. ‘How many?’
‘Three and two,’ said Butterbur, referring to the big folk and the little. ‘There was poor Mat Heathertoes, and Rowlie Appledore, and little Tom Pickthorn from over the Hill; and Willie Banks from up-away, and one of the Underhills from Staddle: all good fellows, and they’re missed. And Harry Goatleaf that used to be on the West-gate, and that Bill Ferny, they came in on the strangers’ side, and they’ve gone off with them; and it’s my belief they let them in. On the night of the fight, I mean. And that was after we showed them the gates and pushed them out: before the year’s end, that was; and the fight was early in the New Year, after the heavy snow we had.
‘And now they’re gone for robbers and live outside, hiding in the woods beyond Archet, and out in the wilds north-away. It’s like a bit of the bad old times tales tell of, I say. It isn’t safe on the road and nobody goes far, and folk lock up early. We have to keep watchers all round the fence and put a lot of men on the gates at nights.’
‘Well, no one troubled us,’ said Pippin, ‘and we came along slowly, and kept no watch. We thought we’d left all trouble behind us.’
‘Ah, that you haven’t, Master, more’s the pity,’ said Butterbur. ‘But it’s no wonder they left you alone. They wouldn’t go for armed folk, with swords and helmets and shields and all. Make them think twice, that would. And I must say it put me aback a bit when I saw you.’
Then the hobbits suddenly realized that people had looked at them with amazement not out of surprise at their return so much as in wonder at their gear. They themselves had become so used to warfare and to riding in well-arrayed companies that they had quite forgotten that the bright mail peeping from under their cloaks, and the helms of Gondor and the Mark, and the fair devices on their shields, would seem outlandish in their own country. And Gandalf, too, was now riding on his tall grey horse, all clad in white with a great mantle of blue and silver over all, and the long sword Glamdring at his side.