The Hobbit

have found you!” said the man striding forward. “You are needed and we have looked for you long. You would
     have been numbered among the dead, who are many, if Gandalf the wizard had not said that your voice was last heard in this
     place. I have been sent to look here for the last time. Are you much hurt?”
    “A nasty knock on the head, I think,” said Bilbo. “But I have a helm and a hard skull. All the same I feel sick and my legs
     are like straws.”
    “I will carry you down to the camp in the valley,” said the man, and picked him lightly up.
    The man was swift and sure-footed. It was not long before Bilbo was set down before a tent in Dale; and there stood Gandalf,
     with his arm in a sling. Even the wizard had not escaped without a wound; and there were few unharmed in all the host.
    When Gandalf saw Bilbo, he was delighted. “Baggins!” he exclaimed. “Well I never! Alive after all—I
am
glad! I began to wonder if even your luck would see you through! A terrible business, and it nearly was disastrous. But other
     news can wait. Come!” he said more gravely. “You are called for;” and leading the hobbit he took him within the tent.
    “Hail! Thorin,” he said as he entered. “I have brought him.”
    There indeed lay Thorin Oakenshield, wounded with many wounds, and his rent armour and notched axe were cast upon the floor.
     He looked up as Bilbo came beside him.
    “Farewell, good thief,” he said. “I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed. Since
     I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take
     back my words and deeds at the Gate.”
    Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. “Farewell, King under the Mountain!” he said. “This is a bitter adventure, if
     it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils—that has been more
     than any Baggins deserves.”
    “No!” said Thorin. “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended
     in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry,
     I must leave it now. Farewell!”
    Then Bilbo turned away, and he went by himself, and sat alone wrapped in a blanket, and, whether you believe it or not, he
     wept until his eyes were red and his voice was hoarse. He was a kindly little soul. Indeed it was long before he had the heart
     to make a joke again. “A mercy it is,” he said at last to himself, “that I woke up when I did. I wish Thorin were living,
     but I am glad that we parted in kindness. You are a fool, Bilbo Baggins, and you made a great mess of that business with the stone; and there was a battle, in spite of all your efforts to buy peace and quiet, but I suppose
     you can hardly be blamed for that.”
    All that had happened after he was stunned, Bilbo learned later; but it gave him more sorrow than joy, and he was now weary
     of his adventure. He was aching in his bones for the homeward journey. That, however, was a little delayed, so in the meantime
     I will tell something of events. The Eagles had long had suspicion of the goblins’ mustering; from their watchfulness the
     movements in the mountains could not be altogether hid. So they too had gathered in great numbers, under the great Eagle of
     the Misty Mountains; and at length smelling battle from afar they had come speeding down the gale in the nick of time. They
     it was who dislodged the goblins from the mountain-slopes, casting them over precipices, or driving them down shrieking and
     bewildered among their foes. It was not long before they had freed the Lonely Mountain, and elves and men on either side of
     the valley could come at last to the help of the battle below.
    But even with the Eagles they were still outnumbered. In that last hour Beorn himself had appeared—no one knew how or from
     where. He came alone, and in bear’s shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath.
    The roar of his voice was like drums and guns; and he tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers. He
     fell upon their rear, and broke like a clap of thunder through the ring. The dwarves were making a stand still about their lords upon a low rounded hill. Then Beorn stooped and lifted Thorin, who had
     fallen pierced with spears, and bore