towers

treebeard 613
a roof of young leaves. Looking back, the hobbits saw that
the trees in the court had also begun to glow, faintly at first,
but steadily quickening, until every leaf was edged with light:
some green, some gold, some red as copper; while the treetrunks
looked like pillars moulded out of luminous stone.
‘Well, well, now we can talk again,’ said Treebeard. ‘You
are thirsty, I expect. Perhaps you are also tired. Drink this!’
He went to the back of the bay, and then they saw that several
tall stone jars stood there, with heavy lids. He removed one
of the lids, and dipped in a great ladle, and with it filled three
bowls, one very large bowl, and two smaller ones.
‘This is an ent-house,’ he said, ‘and there are no seats, I
fear. But you may sit on the table.’ Picking up the hobbits he
set them on the great stone slab, six feet above the ground,
and there they sat dangling their legs, and drinking in sips.
The drink was like water, indeed very like the taste of the
draughts they had drunk from the Entwash near the borders
of the forest, and yet there was some scent or savour in it
which they could not describe: it was faint, but it reminded
them of the smell of a distant wood borne from afar by a cool
breeze at night. The effect of the draught began at the toes,
and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment
and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair.
Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually
standing up, waving and curling and growing. As for
Treebeard, he first laved his feet in the basin beyond the
arch, and then he drained his bowl at one draught, one long,
slow draught. The hobbits thought he would never stop.
At last he set the bowl down again. ‘Ah – ah,’ he sighed.
‘Hm, hoom, now we can talk easier. You can sit on the floor,
and I will lie down; that will prevent this drink from rising to
my head and sending me to sleep.’
On the right side of the bay there was a great bed on low
legs, not more than a couple of feet high, covered deep in
dried grass and bracken. Treebeard lowered himself slowly
on to this (with only the slightest sign of bending at his