return

1290 the return of the king
Here now for seven days they tarried, for the time was at
hand for another parting which they were loth to make. Soon
Celeborn and Galadriel and their folk would turn eastward,
and so pass by the Redhorn Gate and down the Dimrill
Stair to the Silverlode and to their own country. They had
journeyed thus far by the west-ways, for they had much to
speak of with Elrond and with Gandalf, and here they lingered
still in converse with their friends. Often long after the
hobbits were wrapped in sleep they would sit together under
the stars, recalling the ages that were gone and all their joys
and labours in the world, or holding council, concerning the
days to come. If any wanderer had chanced to pass, little
would he have seen or heard, and it would have seemed to
him only that he saw grey figures, carved in stone, memorials
of forgotten things now lost in unpeopled lands. For they did
not move or speak with mouth, looking from mind to mind;
and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their
thoughts went to and fro.
But at length all was said, and they parted again for a while,
until it was time for the Three Rings to pass away. Quickly
fading into the stones and the shadows the grey-cloaked
people of Lórien rode towards the mountains; and those who
were going to Rivendell sat on the hill and watched, until
there came out of the gathering mist a flash; and then they
saw no more. Frodo knew that Galadriel had held aloft her
ring in token of farewell.
Sam turned away and sighed: ‘I wish I was going back to
Lórien!’
At last one evening they came over the high moors, suddenly
as to travellers it always seemed, to the brink of the
deep valley of Rivendell and saw far below the lamps shining
in Elrond’s house. And they went down and crossed the
bridge and came to the doors, and all the house was filled
with light and song for joy at Elrond’s homecoming.
First of all, before they had eaten or washed or even
shed their cloaks, the hobbits went in search of Bilbo. They
found him all alone in his little room. It was littered with