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mount doom 1221
spread over the land. A few miles to the north-east the foothills
of the Ashen Mountains stood like sombre grey ghosts,
behind which the misty northern heights rose like a line of
distant cloud hardly darker than the lowering sky.
Sam tried to guess the distances and to decide what way
they ought to take. ‘It looks every step of fifty miles,’ he
muttered gloomily, staring at the threatening mountain, ‘and
that’ll take a week, if it takes a day, with Mr. Frodo as he is.’
He shook his head, and as he worked things out, slowly a
new dark thought grew in his mind. Never for long had hope
died in his staunch heart, and always until now he had taken
some thought for their return. But the bitter truth came home
to him at last: at best their provision would take them to their
goal; and when the task was done, there they would come to
an end, alone, houseless, foodless in the midst of a terrible
desert. There could be no return.
‘So that was the job I felt I had to do when I started,’
thought Sam: ‘to help Mr. Frodo to the last step and then
die with him? Well, if that is the job then I must do it. But I
would dearly like to see Bywater again, and Rosie Cotton and
her brothers, and the Gaffer and Marigold and all. I can’t
think somehow that Gandalf would have sent Mr. Frodo
on this errand, if there hadn’t a’ been any hope of his ever
coming back at all. Things all went wrong when he went
down in Moria. I wish he hadn’t. He would have done
something.’
But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was
turned to a new strength. Sam’s plain hobbit-face grew stern,
almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through
all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature
of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor
endless barren miles could subdue.
With a new sense of responsibility he brought his eyes back
to the ground near at hand, studying the next move. As the
light grew a little he saw to his surprise that what from a
distance had seemed wide and featureless flats were in fact
all broken and tumbled. Indeed the whole surface of the