Page 133 - The Hobbit

The luck turned all right before long: the eddying current carried several

barrels close ashore at one point and there for a while they stuck against some
hidden root. Then Bilbo took the opportunity of scrambling up the side of his
barrel while it was held steady against another. Up he crawled like a drowned rat,

and lay on the top spread out to keep the balance as best he could. The breeze was
cold but better than the water, and he hoped he would not suddenly roll off again
when they started off once more. Before long the barrels broke free again and
turned and twisted off down the stream, and out into the main current Then he

found it quite as difficult to stick on as he had feared; but he managed it somehow,
though it was miserably uncomfortable. Luckily he was very light, and the barrel
was a good big one and being rather leaky had now shipped a small amount of

water. All the same it was like trying to ride, without bridle or stirrups, a round-
bellied pony that was always thinking of rolling on the grass. In this way at last
Mr. Baggins came to a place where the trees on either hand grew thinner. He could
see the paler sky between them. The dark river opened suddenly wide, and there it

was joined to the main water of the Forest River flowing down in haste from the
king's great doors. There was a dim sheet of water no longer overshadowed, and
on its sliding surface there were dancing and broken reflections of clouds and of

stars. Then the hurrying water of the Forest River swept all the company of casks
and tubs away to the north bank, in which it had eaten out a wide bay. This had a
shingly shore under hanging banks and was walled at the eastern end by a little
jutting cape of hard rock. On the shallow shore most of the barrels ran aground,

though a few went on to bump against the stony pier.
There were people on the look-out on the banks. They quickly poled and
pushed all the barrels together into the shallows, and when they had counted them
they roped them together and left them till the morning. Poor dwarves! Bilbo was

not so badly off now. He slipped from his barrel and waded ashore, and then
sneaked along to some huts that he could see near the water's edge. He no longer
thought twice about picking up a supper uninvited if he got the chance, he had
been obliged to do it for so long, and he knew only too well what it was to be

really hungry, not merely politely interested in the dainties of a well-filled larder.
Also he had caught a glimpse of a fire through the trees, and that appealed to him
with his dripping and ragged clothes clinging to him cold and clammy.

There is no need to tell you much of his adventures that night, for now we are
drawing near the end of the eastward journey and coming to the last and greatest
adventure, so we must hurry on. Of course helped by his magic ring he got on