The Hobbit

with mead. The dark night came on outside. The fires in
     the middle of the hall were built with fresh logs and the torches were put out, and still they sat in the light of the dancing
     flames with the pillars of the house standing tall behind them, and dark at the top like trees of the forest. Whether it was
     magic or not, it seemed to Bilbo that he heard a sound like wind in the branches stirring in the rafters, and the hoot of
     owls. Soon he began to nod with sleep and the voices seemed to grow far away, until he woke with a start.
    The great door had creaked and slammed. Beorn was gone. The dwarves were sitting cross-legged on the floor round the fire,
     and presently they began to sing. Some of the verses were like this, but there were many more, and their singing went on for
     a long while:
    The wind was on the withered heath,
    but in the forest stirred no leaf:
    there shadows lay by night and day,
    and dark things silent crept beneath.
    The wind came down from mountains cold,
    and like a tide it roared and rolled;
    the branches groaned, the forest moaned,
    and leaves were laid upon the mould.
    The wind went on from West to East;
    all movement in the forest ceased,
    but shrill and harsh across the marsh
    its whistling voices were released.
    The grasses hissed, their tassels bent,
    the reeds were rattling—on it went
    o’er shaken pool under heavens cool
    where racing clouds were torn and rent.
    It passed the lonely Mountain bare
    and swept above the dragon’s lair:
    there black and dark lay boulders stark
    and flying smoke was in the air.
    It left the world and took its flight
    over the wide seas of the night.
    The moon set sail upon the gale,
    and stars were fanned to leaping light.
    Bilbo began to nod again. Suddenly up stood Gandalf.
    “It is time for us to sleep,” he said, “—for us, but not I think for Beorn. In this hall we can rest sound and safe, but I
     warn you all not to forget what Beorn said before he left us: you must not stray outside until the sun is up, on your peril.”
    Bilbo found that beds had already been laid at the side of the hall, on a sort of raised platform between the pillars and
     the outer wall. For him there was a little mattress of straw and woollen blankets. He snuggled into them very gladly, summertime
     though it was. The fire burned low and he fell asleep. Yet in the night he woke: the fire had now sunk to a few embers; the dwarves
     and Gandalf were all asleep, to judge by their breathing; a splash of white on the floor came from the high moon, which was
     peering down through the smoke-hole in the roof.
    There was a growling sound outside, and a noise as of some great animal scuffling at the door. Bilbo wondered what it was,
     and whether it could be Beorn in enchanted shape, and if he would come in as a bear and kill them. He dived under the blankets
     and hid his head, and fell asleep again at last in spite of his fears.
    It was full morning when he awoke. One of the dwarves had fallen over him in the shadows where he lay, and had rolled down
     with a bump from the platform on to the floor. It was Bofur, and he was grumbling about it, when Bilbo opened his eyes.
    “Get up lazybones,” he said, “or there will be no breakfast left for you.”
    Up jumped Bilbo. “Breakfast!” he cried. “Where is breakfast?”
    “Mostly inside us,” answered the other dwarves who were moving about the hall; “but what is left is out on the veranda. We
     have been about looking for Beorn ever since the sun got up; but there is no sign of him anywhere, though we found breakfast
     laid as soon as we went out.”
    “Where is Gandalf?” asked Bilbo, moving off to find something to eat as quick as he could.
    “O! out and about somewhere,” they told him. But he saw no sign of the wizard all that day until the evening. Just before sunset he walked into the hall, where the hobbit and the dwarves were having supper, waited on by Beorn’s
     wonderful animals, as they had been all day. Of Beorn they had seen and heard nothing since the night before, and they were
     getting puzzled.
    “Where is our host, and where have
you
been all day yourself?” they all cried.
    “One question at a time—and none till after supper! I haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”
    At last Gandalf pushed away his plate and jug—he had eaten two whole loaves (with masses of butter and honey and clotted cream)
     and drunk at least a quart of mead—and he took out his pipe. “I will answer the