"GL3" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol08)

Eowyn brings in the cup for the drinking.
Even as Theoden drains it the messenger comes.
Aragorn had already arrived and greets King Theoden (9) side
by side with Eowyn.
Halbarad sister-son of Denethor.(10) He asks for ten thousand
spears at once.
Men are [? gathering] in the East beyond the Inland Sea of
Nurnen, and far north. Eventually they may assail the East



Emnet, but that would not come yet. Now Orcs have passed
south through Nargil pass in the Southland beyond [? River]
Harnen.(11)

I postpone discussion of this earliest conception of Harrowdale and
the Hold of Dunharrow to the end of the next version. This, which I
will call 'B', began as a fully articulated narrative in ink and in clear
script, but swiftly collapsed. The opening passage was much corrected
both at the time of writing and subsequently; I give it here as it seems
to have stood when my father abandoned it.

Day was fading. The high valley grew dim about them. Night
had already come beneath the murmuring firwood that clothed
the steep mountain-sides. Their path turning a sharp shoulder of
rock plunged down into the sighing gloom under dark trees. At
last they came out again and saw that it was evening, and their
journey was nearly at an end. They had come down to the edge
of the mountain-stream, which all day they had followed as far
below it clove its deep path between the tree-clad walls. And
now through a narrow gate between the mountains it passed
out, and flowed into a wider vale.
'At last! ' said Eomer. 'We are come

Here my father stopped. Perhaps at once, he added in pencil 'to
Harrowdale', then struck out Eomer's words and continued the text in
pencil, which soon becomes difficult to read, and finally as nearly
impossible as text A.

They followed it, and saw the Snowborn white and fuming
upon its stones rush down upon its swift journey to Edoras at
the mountains' feet. To their right, now dark and swathed in
cloud, loomed the vast tumbled mass of great Dunharrow, but
his/its tall peak and cap of snow they could not see, for they
were crawling under the shadow of his knees. Across the dale
before them lights were twinkling.
'Long now it seems since we rode from Isengard about this
hour of the day,' said Theoden. 'We have journeyed by dusk
and night and by day among the hills, and I have lost count of
time. But was not the moon full last night?'