to read X: I.III, and a new passage was inserted (and subsequently rejected):
'But there's a dot between the first 1 and the next three,' said Sam poring over the stone. 'It doesn't say G.4, but G.1.3.'
'Quite right!' agreed Trotter. 'Then if Gandalf made these marks, it might mean that he was here from the first to the third; or perhaps that he and another were here on the third.'
This is odd, because Sam stayed down in the dell and did not go up to the summit of Weathertop; moreover this inserted discussion takes place at the summit, so that it is no help to suppose that Trotter brought the stone down with him to the dell. - Later, the marks were changed again to X:III.
To Frodo's 'It would be a great comfort to know that he was on the way to Rivendell' Trotter replies simply: 'It would indeed! But in any case, as he is not here himself, we must look after ourselves, and make our own way to Rivendell as best we can.' In answer to Merry's question 'How far is Rivendell?' Trotter at first replied very much as in the original version (VI.171), but distinguished between three weeks in fair weather and a month in foul weather from Brandywine Bridge to the Ford, and concludes: 'So we have at least twelve days' journey before us,(26) and very likely a fortnight or more.' This was rejected in the act of writing and the text of FR substituted, in which Trotter states the time it took from Weathertop to the Ford without comput-ing it so elaborately: 'twelve days from here to the Ford of Bruinen, where the Road crosses the Loudwater that runs out of Rivendell.'
In the 'third phase' the chapter ended with Trotter, Frodo, and Merry slipping down from the summit, and the next chapter began with 'Sam and Folco had not been idle' (in the dell). In the new version the chapter continues, and as in FR includes the attack by the Black Riders. The passage opens exactly as in FR (p. 201), and Gandalf s supplies of cram, bacon, and dried fruits (VI.357) have gone, but Trotter has different things to report from his examination of the tracks in the dell, and he does not assert that Rangers had been there recently, and that it was they who had left the firewood.
'It is just as I feared,' he said when he came back. 'Sam and Folco [) Pippin] have trampled the soft ground, and the marks are spoilt or confused. There has been somebody here in boots lately, which means somebody who is not a Ranger, but that is all I can say for certain. But I don't quite like it: it looks as if there had been more than one pair of boots.' To each of the hobbits there came the thought of the cloaked and booted riders. If they had already found the dell, the sooner Trotter took them somewhere else the better. But Trotter was still considering the meaning of the footprints.
'There was also something even more strange,' he went on: 'I think there are hobbit-tracks, too: only I can't now be sure that there is a third set, different from Folco's [> Pippin's] and Sam's.'
'But there aren't any hobbits in this part of the world, are there?' said Merry.
'There are four here now,' answered Trotter, 'and one more can't be called impossible; but I have no idea what that would mean.'
'It might mean that these black fellows have got the poor wretch as a prisoner,' said Sam. He viewed the bare dell with great dislike...
Sam's remark is of course a mere surmise, and he speaks without any particular reference: boots and hobbit-tracks merely suggest the possibility that the Riders might have a hobbit with them. But though Trotter's remarks are inconclusive, and within the narrative inten-tionally so, it is obvious that the story of Hamilcar Bolger's ride with Gandalf is present here.
Merry's question to Trotter beginning 'Can the Riders see?' now takes the same form as in FR (p. 202), and Trotter's reply is similar but less elaborate.(29)
In this text, as noted above, Trotter does not say anything about its being a Rangers' camp in the dell, and the firewood is left
'But there's a dot between the first 1 and the next three,' said Sam poring over the stone. 'It doesn't say G.4, but G.1.3.'
'Quite right!' agreed Trotter. 'Then if Gandalf made these marks, it might mean that he was here from the first to the third; or perhaps that he and another were here on the third.'
This is odd, because Sam stayed down in the dell and did not go up to the summit of Weathertop; moreover this inserted discussion takes place at the summit, so that it is no help to suppose that Trotter brought the stone down with him to the dell. - Later, the marks were changed again to X:III.
To Frodo's 'It would be a great comfort to know that he was on the way to Rivendell' Trotter replies simply: 'It would indeed! But in any case, as he is not here himself, we must look after ourselves, and make our own way to Rivendell as best we can.' In answer to Merry's question 'How far is Rivendell?' Trotter at first replied very much as in the original version (VI.171), but distinguished between three weeks in fair weather and a month in foul weather from Brandywine Bridge to the Ford, and concludes: 'So we have at least twelve days' journey before us,(26) and very likely a fortnight or more.' This was rejected in the act of writing and the text of FR substituted, in which Trotter states the time it took from Weathertop to the Ford without comput-ing it so elaborately: 'twelve days from here to the Ford of Bruinen, where the Road crosses the Loudwater that runs out of Rivendell.'
In the 'third phase' the chapter ended with Trotter, Frodo, and Merry slipping down from the summit, and the next chapter began with 'Sam and Folco had not been idle' (in the dell). In the new version the chapter continues, and as in FR includes the attack by the Black Riders. The passage opens exactly as in FR (p. 201), and Gandalf s supplies of cram, bacon, and dried fruits (VI.357) have gone, but Trotter has different things to report from his examination of the tracks in the dell, and he does not assert that Rangers had been there recently, and that it was they who had left the firewood.
'It is just as I feared,' he said when he came back. 'Sam and Folco [) Pippin] have trampled the soft ground, and the marks are spoilt or confused. There has been somebody here in boots lately, which means somebody who is not a Ranger, but that is all I can say for certain. But I don't quite like it: it looks as if there had been more than one pair of boots.' To each of the hobbits there came the thought of the cloaked and booted riders. If they had already found the dell, the sooner Trotter took them somewhere else the better. But Trotter was still considering the meaning of the footprints.
'There was also something even more strange,' he went on: 'I think there are hobbit-tracks, too: only I can't now be sure that there is a third set, different from Folco's [> Pippin's] and Sam's.'
'But there aren't any hobbits in this part of the world, are there?' said Merry.
'There are four here now,' answered Trotter, 'and one more can't be called impossible; but I have no idea what that would mean.'
'It might mean that these black fellows have got the poor wretch as a prisoner,' said Sam. He viewed the bare dell with great dislike...
Sam's remark is of course a mere surmise, and he speaks without any particular reference: boots and hobbit-tracks merely suggest the possibility that the Riders might have a hobbit with them. But though Trotter's remarks are inconclusive, and within the narrative inten-tionally so, it is obvious that the story of Hamilcar Bolger's ride with Gandalf is present here.
Merry's question to Trotter beginning 'Can the Riders see?' now takes the same form as in FR (p. 202), and Trotter's reply is similar but less elaborate.(29)
In this text, as noted above, Trotter does not say anything about its being a Rangers' camp in the dell, and the firewood is left
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