would do nothing but sit with his back to the rock-face and stare away
west through the opening, over the cliff, over the wide lands to the
black wall of Mirkwood, and to the distances beyond, in which he
sometimes thought he could catch glimpses of the Misty Mountains small
and far. If the dwarves asked him what he was doing he answered:
     “You said sitting on the doorstep and thinking would be my job, not to
mention getting inside, so I am sitting and thinking.” But I am afraid
he was not thinking much of the job, but of what lay beyond the blue
distance, the quiet Western Land and the Hill and his hobbit-hole
under it. A large grey stone lay in the centre of the grass and he
stared moodily at it or watched the great snails. They seemed to love
the little shut- in bay with its walls of cool rock, and there were
many of them of huge size crawling slowly and stickily along its
sides.
     “Tomorrow begins the last week of Autumn,” said Thorin one day.
     “And winter comes after autumn,” said Bifur.
     “And next year after that,” said Dwalin, “and our beards will grow
till they hang down the cliff to the valley before anything happens
here. What is our burglar doing for us?
     Since he has got an invisible ring, and ought to be a specially