When he’s off to Michel Delving, Sam’s started humming old Mr. Bilbo’s walking song, about the road going on and on and on.  Rose doesn’t think he’s aware that she’s noticed.

But she puzzled out the words to it herself, in his book, and the bit from poor old Mr. Frodo about how the same road could take you to the Mountains or the Sea.

Now, Rosie can’t call herself unseasoned no more—they’ve been to Annuminas a number of times, and Gondor herself, once—so she knows the appeal.  And she knows, deeply and firmly in her heart, that Sam will never leave her.

But if he’s just going to Michel Delving, why does he remind himself of where the road goes, if he were to keep going?

When they were making their way south, she and Sam and Elanor went on a good many roads, long, wide, paved for horses and shoes.  And ever so often, she’d spot a track leading off from the side, a bit of trodden grass, some softer dirt, that led to a village or a homestead, and she found herself wondering more where those places went than the grand roads that the maps told you about.  Who lived behind the doors of the houses?  Did they bake their bread in an oven or a hearth?  Did they wash their clothes in a stoop or a basin?  What was the farthest they had been from home?

The road ended, Sam told her, in the Havens, little side streets branching off until the last of it became a dock, empty, deserted.  She didn’t know why anyone would go that far, just to see what was there, without someone waiting for you.

As she’s waiting for him now.  Rosie frets when Sam’s away, even though she knows he can take care of himself, that he’ll come back.  But he was on an adventure, a long time ago, and it’s easy to think of the roads without reminding yourself of the places—the homes—to the right and to the left.

The lanes are just as important as the roads.