The Hobbit

southward plains.”
    “Very well,” said Gandalf. “Take us where and as far as you will! We are already deeply obliged to you. But in the meantime
     we are famished with hunger.”
    “I am nearly dead of it,” said Bilbo in a weak little voice that nobody heard.
    “That can perhaps be mended,” said the Lord of the Eagles.
    Later on you might have seen a bright fire on the shelf of rock and the figures of the dwarves round it cooking and making
     a fine roasting smell. The eagles had brought up dry boughs for fuel, and they had brought rabbits, hares, and a small sheep.
     The dwarves managed all the preparations. Bilbo was too weak to help, and anyway he was not much good at skinning rabbits
     or cutting up meat, being used to having it delivered by the butcher all ready to cook. Gandalf, too, was lying down after
     doing his part in setting the fire going, since Oin and Gloin had lost their tinder-boxes. (Dwarves have never taken to matches
     even yet.)
    So ended the adventures of the Misty Mountains. Soon Bilbo’s stomach was feeling full and comfortable again, and he felt he
     could sleep contentedly, though really he would have liked a loaf and butter better than bits of meat toasted on sticks. He
     slept curled up on the hard rock more soundly than ever he had done on his feather-bed in his own little hole at home. But all night he dreamed of his own house and wandered in his sleep into all his different rooms looking for something
     that he could not find nor remember what it looked like.

Chapter
VII
QUEER LODGINGS
    The next morning Bilbo woke up with the early sun in his eyes. He jumped up to look at the time and to go and put his kettle
     on—and found he was not home at all. So he sat down and wished in vain for a wash and a brush. He did not get either, nor
     tea nor toast nor bacon for his breakfast, only cold mutton and rabbit. And after that he had to get ready for a fresh start.
    This time he was allowed to climb on to an eagle’s back and cling between his wings. The air rushed over him and he shut his
     eyes. The dwarves were crying farewells and promising to repay the Lord of the Eagles if ever they could, as off rose fifteen
     great birds from the mountain’s side. The sun was still close to the eastern edge of things. The morning was cool, and mists
     were in the valleys and hollows and twined here and there about the peaks and pinnacles of the hills. Bilbo opened an eye
     to peep and saw that the birds were already high up and the world was far away, and the mountains were falling back behind
     them into the distance. He shut his eyes again and held on tighter.
    “Don’t pinch!” said his eagle. “You need not be frightened like a rabbit, even if you look rather like one. It is a fair morning
     with little wind. What is finer than flying?”
    Bilbo would have liked to say: “A warm bath and late breakfast on the lawn afterwards;” but he thought it better to say nothing
     at all, and to let go his clutch just a tiny bit.
    After a good while the eagles must have seen the point they were making for, even from their great height, for they began
     to go down circling round in great spirals. They did this for a long while, and at last the hobbit opened his eyes again.
     The earth was much nearer, and below them were trees that looked like oaks and elms, and wide grass lands, and a river running
     through it all. But cropping out of the ground, right in the path of the stream which looped itself about it, was a great
     rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some
     giant among giants.
    Quickly now to the top of this rock the eagles swooped one by one and set down their passengers.
    “Farewell!” they cried, “wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey’s end!” That is the polite thing to
     say among eagles.
    “May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks,” answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.
    And so they parted. And though the Lord of the Eagles became in after days the King of All Birds and wore a golden crown,
     and his fifteen chieftains golden collars (made of the gold that the dwarves gave them), Bilbo never saw them again—except
     high and far off in the battle of Five Armies. But as that comes in at the end of this tale we will say no more about it just
     now.
    There was a flat space on the top of the hill of stone and a