Hobbit

HighBridge Audio

Excerpt

Chapter I
AN UNEXPECTED PARTY
IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet
hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was
a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green,
with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened
on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel
without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted,
provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and
coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on,
going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The
Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many
little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on
another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms,
cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms
devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same
floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the
left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have
windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows
beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was
Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for
time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not
only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had
any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a
Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.
This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself
doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the
neighbours" respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he
gained anything in the end.
The mother of our particular hobbit—what is a hobbit? I
suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have
become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or
were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the
bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic
about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to
disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me
come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can
hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they
dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes,
because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown
hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever
brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs
(especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can
get it). Now you know enough to go on with. As I was saying, the
mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous
Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old
Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river
that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other
families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a
fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was
still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a
while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They
discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact
remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses,
though they were undoubtedly richer.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she
became Mrs. Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo"s father, built the
most luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that
was to be found either under The Hill or over The Hill or across The
Water, and there they remained to the end of their days. Still it is
probable that Bilbo, her only son, although he looked and behaved
exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father,
got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side,
something that only waited for a chance to come out. The chance never
arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years
old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his
father, which I have just described for you, until he had in fact
apparently settled down immovably.
By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of
the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits
were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at
his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that
reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed)—Gandalf came
by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard
about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear,
you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and
adventures sprouted up all over the place wherever he went, in the
most extraordinary fashion. He had not been down that way under The
Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took died, in
fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like. He
had been away over The Hill and across The Water on businesses of his
own since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old
man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak,
a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his
waist, and immense black boots.
"Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was
shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from
under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his
shady hat.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning,
or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that
you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning
for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a
pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There"s no hurry,
we have all the day before us!" Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his
door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke
that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over
The Hill.
"Very pretty!" said Gandalf. "But I have no time to blow
smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an
adventure that I am arranging, and it"s very difficult to find
anyone."
"I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk
and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable
things! Make you late for dinner! I can"t think what anybody sees in
them," said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces,
and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his
morning letters, and began to read,...