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In front of a grassy-mound, in the shire, stood a bearded man, in solomn-coloured garments and a gray steeple-crowned hat stood with his eyes intently fastened on the oaken door, for he was the wizard, Gandalf. The wooden edifice, by a strange chance, had been coloured by way of paint or some other form of dye a shade of green, long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that the hue and sprung up around, whether it being of personal or cultural taste, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than to view the object held in by the might of the former foliage. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise the wild and evils in this world, which hath spring forth from the land from where such a colour exists in abundance; as some moral lesson that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of hobbit and human frailty and sorrow.
The bearded one took a hold of his staff and tapped this cage to the fate of Middle-Earth. "Good Sir," said a hard-hearted hobbit of considerable age, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if you sir, being of sound mind and body, would take your leave of this shire, I being a God-fearing gentleman." "Mercy on me, old friend," exclaimed the wizard. To an answer of his plea, the great gate parted to reveal a hobbit of stout proportions and manner. A curious delight painted itself across his features, like a dove gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause. His face beamed with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, which he acted upon intensely.
"Gandalf! The sight of you gladdens my heart!" cried Bilbo, for that was the name of this particular hobbit. In a spit of enthusiasm, the unlikely duo met in an embrace. "Bilbo Bagens, though the time between or encounters has distanced quite too far, you appearance has remained constant and unchanged," said Gandalf. The sight of this Bilbo having looked has he did in the days of they're adventures had concerned Gandalf, for he might have been kept alive by some magic, oblivious to the true nature of this magic being that of the ONE RING, so fantastically engraved and shimmered upon his bosom. It having now affects his, weighing his heart and polluting his soul.