Now if you wish, like the dwarves, to hear news of Smaug, you must go
back again to the evening when he smashed the door and flew off in
rage, two days before.
     The men of the lake-town Esgaroth were mostly indoors, for the breeze
was from the black East and chill, but a few were walking on the
quays, and watching, as they were fond of doing, the stars shine out
from the smooth patches of the lake as they opened in the sky. From
their town the Lonely Mountain was mostly screened by the low hills at
the far end of the lake, through a gap in which the Running River came
down from the North. Only its high peak could they see in clear
weather, and they looked seldom at it, for it was ominous and dreary
even in the light of morning. Now it was lost and gone, blotted in the
dark.
     
     “Look!” said one. “The lights again! Last night the watchmen saw them
start and fade from midnight until dawn. Something is happening up
there.” “Perhaps the King under the Mountain is forging gold,” said
another. “It is long since he went north. It is time the songs began