The Treason of Isengard by J. R. R. Tolkien

argumenta-tion, arising from there being two letters from Gandalf, and handled the question of the verse of recognition All that is gold does not glitter and Aragorn's knowledge of it extremely adroitly by making Aragorn use the words himself (not having seen or heard Gandalf's one letter) a propos Frodo's remark (already present in this version) about 'foul and fair' (FR p. 184). But the complication of the two letters survived the crucial decision that Gandalf's letter to Frodo was written to be received by him before he left Bag End and failed in delivery through Butterbur's forgetfulness.
    After 'Sam said nothing' this version is the same as FR (p. 184), with Trotter's words about the leaving of Bree and the making for Weathertop. But his answer to Frodo's question about Gandalf is much slighter:

    Trotter looked grave. 'I don't know,' he said. 'To tell you the truth, I am very troubled about him - for the first time since I have known him. He meant to arrive here with you two days sooner than' this. We should at least have had messages.
    Something has happened. I think it is something that he feared, or he would not have taken all these precautions with letters.'

    From Frodo's question 'Do you think the Black Riders have anything to do with it?' the remainder of FR Chapter 10 was now attained except in a few minor particulars, the chief of which occurs in Merry's account of his experience. This story now returns to the original version (VI.161-2), according to which the Rider went eastwards through the village and stopped at Bill Ferney's house (whereas in the
    'third phase' version, VI.353-4, it went in the other direction to the West-gate); but it differs from FR (p. 185) in that when Merry was about to bolt back to the inn 'another black shape rose up before me -
    coming down the Road from the other gate - and ... and I fell over.'
    In this version Trotter says: 'They may after all try some attack before we leave Bree. But it will be dark. In the light they need their horses.'(18) For the subsequent history of this chapter see pp. 76 - 8.

    Chapter XI: 'A Knife in the Dark'.

    This chapter was another of those that my father at this time reconstituted partly from the existing 'third phase' text (the latter part of Chapter X and the first part of Chapter XI, see VI.359) and partly from new manuscript pages, and as with the previous chapters in this form some rejected pages of the older version became separated and did not go to Marquette.
    The new text opens with the attack on Crickhollow, which with the change in its date had been moved from its original place in Chapter VII (see p. 36). For the previous form of the episode see VI.328; this was almost identical to the original text, VI.303 - 4. To both of these my father pencilled in glimpses of the story that Odo left with Gandalf as he rode after the Black Riders - a story that seems only to have entered the 'third phase' narrative when the 'Bree' chapter was reached: see VI.336. But in the second version Crickhollow was not empty: a curtain moved in a window - for Odo had stayed behind.
    I give first a preliminary draft of the attack on Crickhollow written for its new place in the story.

    As they slept there in the inn of Bree, darkness lay on Buckland. Mist strayed in the dells and along the river-bank.
    The house at Crickhollow stood silent. Not long before, when evening had just fallen, there had been a light in a window. A horse came quickly up the lane, and halted. Up the path in haste a figure walked, wrapped in a great cloak, leading a white horse.
    He tapped on the door, and at once the light went out. The curtain at the window stirred, and soon after the door was opened and he passed quickly in. Even as the door closed a black shadow seemed to move under the trees and pass out through the gate without a sound.(19) Then darkness slowly deepened into night, a dead and misty night: no stars shone over Buckland.
    There came the soft fall of hoofs, horses were