Bilbo has begun his adventure in quite a hurry. He left everything behind including his beloved handkerchief. “I am awfully sorry but I have come without my hat, and I have left my pocket handkerchief behind, and I haven’t got any money.” Bilbo was not willing to go on with the adventure if he didn’t have what he needed. Bilbo also forgot his hat. Bilbo found himself wearing the dark green hood and cloak that Dwalin lent him. “They were too large for him and looked rather comical.” As a hobbit he was much smaller than the dwarves, but looked like an adolescent dwarf. “His only comfort was that he couldn’t be mistaken for a dwarf, as he had no beard.”
Gandalf meets up with the Company on their way out of Hobbiton. To Bilbo’s relief, “he had brought a lot of pocket-handkerchiefs, and Bilbo’s pipe and tobacco.” But as quickly as Gandalf rejoins the Company, he leaves without any of the dwarves or Bilbo noticing. It took them a while to notice that he had indeed left them by themselves. Later they discover the reason for his instant takeoff. Gandalf tell them that “I went on to spy out our road. It will soon become dangerous and difficult. I had not gone far, however, when I met a couple of friends of mine from Rivendale.”
Even though Gandalf might say that to the dwarves and Bilbo, I have a suspicion that he isn’t being the most truthful. He went ahead, and I wonder what he discovered and why he went. Why did he go ahead in the first place without telling his Company? If he really did discover something, why is he hiding it and not telling everyone else? I feel like he is telling half of the truth.
Bilbo was sent to steal anything from whatever was by the fire (what fire you ask? Read the book!) that illuminated the rest of the forest. He was sent because “at any rate hobbits can move quietly in woods, absolutely quietly.” Compared to the dwarfs Bilbo was invisible when he went through the woods. In fact the dwarves make so much noise that “Bilbo had sniffed more than once at what he called “all this dwarvish racket”.”