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A couple of other things struck me in this chapter - one: Frodo having to accustom himself to being suspicious of others. He's left a world where most of those around him weren't any kind of threat, they were people he'd grown up around, who he knew well for the most part. The threat came from strangers, & they were few & far between. Now he's entered a world where almost everyone is a stranger, & a potential mortal enemy - even getting up in a pub & singing a song can lead to disaster. He must from now on be suspicious of everyone he meets, & that's not his nature. Its another step on the road to his corruption by the Ring. He can't retain his innocence because the Ring is too dangerous. Another example of how the Ring works subtly to corrupt anyone who possesses it.
Two: the first appearance of the 'Black Breath' (or Black Shadow). Merry here gets his first experience of it - the next will be on Pelennor Fields. The presence of evil draws him towards it, & then the Black Breath causes him to fall into an evil dream (why does he dream of falling into 'deep water', I wonder?). The dream induced by the Black Breath produces evil dreams & ultimately death, but do the Nazgul actually 'breathe' out a poison onto their victims, or is it something else, a magical aura which surrounds them? So, evil draws the individual to it, swallows them up in a nightmare & finally takes their life, but why is evil seductive in that way:what is Tolkien saying? Its also interesting that at the end of the Barrow Downs chapter its Merry who had the strange dream of having been slain by the men of Carn Dum, servants of the Witch King - he does seem destined to have run ins with him, though why Merry is so drawn to this source of evil is another question.
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