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"The Princess and the Goblin"
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THE
ESCAPE
AS the
princess lay and sobbed she kept feeling the thread
mechanically, following it with her finger many
times up to the stones in which it disappeared. By
and by she began, still mechanically, to poke her
finger in after it between the stones as far as she
could. All at once it came into her head that she
might remove some of the stones and see where the
thread went next. Almost laughing at herself for
never having thought of this before, she jumped to
her feet. Her fear vanished; once more she was
certain her grandmother's thread could not have
brought her there just to leave her there; and she
began to throw away the stones from the top as fast
as she could, sometimes two or three at a handful,
sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After
clearing them away a little, she found that the
thread turned and went straight downwards. Hence, as
the heap sloped a good deal, growing of course wider
towards its base, she had to throw away a multitude
of stones to follow the thread. But this was not
all, for she soon found that the thread, after going
straight down for a little way, turned first
sideways in one direction, then sideways in another,
and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither
inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that
to clear the thread she must remove the whole huge
gathering. She was [205] dismayed at the very idea,
but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and
with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands,
she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing
the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on
the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which
helped to keep up her courage was that, as often as
she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying
loose upon the stone, it tightened up; this made her
sure that her grandmother was at the end of it
somewhere.
She had got about half-way down when she started,
and nearly fell with fright. Close to her ears as it
seemed, a voice broke out singing—
"Jabber,
bother, smash!
You'll have
it all in a crash.
Jabber,
smash, bother!
You'll have
the worst of the pother.
Smash,
bother, jabber!—"
Here Curdie
stopped, either because he could not find a rhyme to
jabber, or because he remembered what he had
forgotten when he woke up at the sound of Irene's
labours, that his plan was to make the goblins think
he was getting weak. [206] But he had uttered enough
to let Irene know who he was.
"It's Curdie!"
she cried joyfully.
"Hush!
hush!" came Curdie's voice again from somewhere.
"Speak softly."
"Why, you
were singing loud!" said Irene.
"Yes. But
they know I am here, and they don't know you are.
Who are you?"
"I'm Irene,"
answered the princess. "I know who you are quite
well. You're Curdie."
"Why, how
ever did you come here, Irene?"
"My
great-great-grandmother sent me; and I think I've
found out why. You can't get out, I suppose?"
"No, I
can't. What are you doing?"
"Clearing
away a huge heap of stones."
"There's a
princess!" exclaimed Curdie, in a tone of delight,
but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "I
can't think how you got here, though."
"my
grandmother sent me after her thread."
"I don't
know what you mean," said Curdie; "but so you're
there, it doesn't much matter."
"Oh, yes, it
does!" returned Irene. "I should never have been
here but for her."
"You can
tell me all about it when we get out, then. There's
no time to lose now," said Curdie.
And Irene
went to work, as fresh as when she began.
"There's
such a lot of stones!" she said. "It will take me a
long time to get them all away."
"How far on
have you got?" asked Curdie.
"I've got
about the half away, but the other half is ever so
much bigger."
"I don't
think you will have to move the lower half. Do you
see a slab laid up against the wall?"
Irene
looked, and felt about with her hands, and soon
perceived the outlines of the slab.
"Yes," she
answered, "I do."
"Then, I
think," rejoined Curdie, "when you have cleared the
slab about half-way down, or a bit more, I shall be
able to push it over."
"I must
follow my thread," returned Irene, "whatever I do."
"What do you
mean?"exclaimed Curdie.
"You will
see when you get out," answered the princess, and
went on harder than ever.
But she was
soon satisfied that what Curdie [208] wanted done
and what the thread wanted done were one and the
same thing. For she not only saw that by following
the turns of the thread she had been clearing the
face of the slab, but that, a little more than
half-way down, the thread went through the chink
between the slab and the wall into the place where
Curdie was confined, so that she could not follow it
any farther until the slab was out of her way. As
soon as she found this, she said in a right joyous
whisper—
"Now, Curdie,
I think if you were to give a great push, the slab
would tumble over."
"Stand quite
clear of it, then," said Curdie, "and let me know
when you are ready."
Irene got
off the heap, and stood on one side of it.
"Now, Curdie!"
she cried.
Curdie gave
a great rush with his shoulder against it. Out
tumbled the slab on the heap, and out crept Curdie
over the top of it.
"You've
saved my life, Irene!" he whispered.
"Oh, Curdie!
I'm so glad! Let's get out of this horrid place as
fast as we can."
"That's
easier said than done," returned he.
"Oh, no,
it's quite easy," said Irene. "We have only to
follow my thread. I am sure that it's going to take
us out now."
She had
already begun to follow it over the fallen slab into
the hole, while Curdie was searching the floor of
the cavern for his pickaxe.
"Here it
is!" he cried. "No, it is not," he added, in a
disappointed tone. "What can it be, then?—I declare
it's a torch. That is jolly! It's better almost than
my pickaxe. Much better if it weren't for those
stone shoes!" he went on, as he lighted the torch by
blowing the last embers of the expiring fire.
When he
looked up, with the lighted torch casting a glare
into the great darkness of the huge cavern, he
caught sight of Irene disappearing in the hole out
of which he had himself just come.
"Where are
you going there?" he cried. "That's not the way out.
That's where I couldn't get out."
"I know
that," whispered Irene. "But this is the way my
thread goes, and I must follow it."
"What
nonsense the child talks!" said Curdie to himself.
"I must follow her, though, and see that she comes
to no harm. She will soon find she [210] can't get
out that way, and then she will come with me."
So he crept
over the slab once more into the hole with his torch
in his hand. But when he looked about in it, he
could see her nowhere. And now he discovered that
although the hole was narrow, it was much longer
than he had supposed; for in one direction the roof
came down very low, and the hole went off in a
narrow passage, of which he could not see the end.
The princess must have crept in there. He got on his
knees and one hand, holding the torch with the
other, and crept after her. The hole twisted about,
in some parts so low that he could hardly get
through, in others so high that he could not see the
roof, but everywhere it was narrow—far too narrow
for a goblin to get through, and so I presume they
never thought that Curdie might. He was beginning to
feel very uncomfortable lest something should have
befallen the princess, when he heard her voice
almost close to his ear, whispering—
"Aren't you
coming, Curdie?"
And when he
turned the next corner there she stood waiting for
him.
"I knew you
couldn't go wrong in that narrow hole, but now you
must keep by me, for here is a great wide place,"
she said.
"I can't
understand it," said Curdie, half to himself, half
to Irene.
"Never
mind," she returned. "Wait till we get out."
Curdie,
utterly astonished that she had already got so far,
and by a path he had known nothing of, thought it
better to let her do as she pleased.
"At all
events," he said again to himself, "I know nothing
about the way, miner as I am; and she seems to think
she does know something about it, though how she
should passes my comprehension. So she's just as
likely to find her way as I am, and as she insists
on taking the lead, I must follow. We can't be much
worse off than we are, anyhow."
Reasoning
thus, he followed her a few steps, and came out in
another great cavern, across which Irene walked in a
straight line, as confidently as if she knew every
step of the way. Curdie went on after her, flashing
his torch about, and trying to see something of what
lay around them. Suddenly he started back a pace
[212] as the light fell upon something close by
which Irene was passing. It was a platform of rock
raised a few feet from the floor and covered with
sheepskins, upon which lay two horrible figures
asleep, at once recognized by Curdie as the king and
queen of the goblins. He lowered his torch instantly
lest the light should awake them. As he did so it
flashed upon his pickaxe, lying by the side of the
queen, whose hand lay close by the handle of it.
"Stop one
moment," he whispered. "Hold my torch, and don't let
the light on their faces."
Irene
shuddered when she saw the frightful creatures, whom
she had passed without observing them, but she did
as he requested, and turning her back, held the
torch low in front of her. Curdie drew his pickaxe
carefully away, and as he did so spied one of her
feet, projecting from under the skins. The great
clumsy granite shoe, exposed thus to his hand, was a
temptation not to be resisted. He laid hold of it,
and, with cautious efforts, drew it off. The moment
he succeeded, he saw to his astonishment that what
he had sung in ignorance, to annoy the queen, was
actually true: she had six horrible toes. Overjoyed
at his success, and seeing by the huge bump in the
sheepskins where the other foot was, he proceeded to
lift them gently, for, if he could only succeed in
carrying away the other shoe as well, he would be no
more afraid of the goblins than of so many flies.
But as he pulled at the second shoe the queen gave a
growl and sat up in bed. The same instant the king
awoke also and sat up beside her.
"Run, Irene!" cried Curdie, for though he was
not now in the least afraid for himself, he was for
the princess.
Irene looked
once round, saw the fearful creatures awake, and
like the wise princess she was, dashed the torch on
the ground and extinguished it, crying out—
"Here,
Curdie, take my hand."
He darted to
her side, forgetting neither the queen's shoe nor
his pickaxe, and caught hold of her hand, as she
sped fearlessly where her thread guided her. They
heard the queen give a great bellow; but they had a
good start, for it would be some time before they
could get torches lighted to pursue them. just as
they thought they saw a gleam behind them, the
thread brought them to a very narrow opening,
through which Irene crept easily, and Curdie with
difficulty.
"Now," said
Curdie; "I think we shall be safe."
"Of course
we shall," returned Irene.
"Why do you
think so?" asked Curdie.
"Because my
grandmother is taking care of us."
"That's all
nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you
mean."
"Then if you
don't know what I mean, what right have you to call
it nonsense?" asked the princess, a little offended.
"I beg your
pardon, Irene," said Curdie; "I did not mean to vex
you."
"Of course
not," returned the princess. "But why do you think
we shall be safe?"
"Because the
king and queen are far too stout to get through that
hole."
"There might
be ways round," said the princess.
"To be sure
there might; we are not out of it yet," acknowledged
Curdie.
"But what do
you mean by the king and queen?" asked the princess.
"I should never call such creatures as those a king
and a queen."
"Their own
people do, though," answered Curdie.
The princess
asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked
leisurely along, gave her a full account, not only
of the character and habits of the goblins, so far
as he knew them, but of his own adventures with
them, beginning from the very night after that in
which he had met her and Lootie upon the mountain.
When he had finished, he begged Irene to tell him
how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene
too had to tell a long story, which she did in
rather a roundabout manner, interrupted by many
questions concerning things she had not explained.
But her tale, as he did not believe more than half
of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as
before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to
what he must think of the princess. He could not
believe that she was deliberately telling stories,
and the only conclusion he could come to was that
Lootie had been playing the child tricks, inventing
no end of lies to frighten her for her own purposes.
"But how
ever did Lootie come to let you go into the
mountains alone?" he asked.
"Lootie
knows nothing about it. I left her fast asleep—at
least I think so. I hope my grandmother won't let
her get into trouble, for it wasn't her fault at
all, as my grandmother very well knows."
"But how did
you find your way to me?" persisted Curdie.
"I told you
already," answered Irene;—"by keeping my finger upon
my grandmother's thread, as I am doing now."
"You don't
mean you've got the thread there?"
"Of course I
do. I have told you so ten times already. I have
hardly—except when I was removing the stones—taken
my finger off it. There!" she added, guiding
Curdie's hand to the thread, "you feel it
yourself—don't you?"
"I feel
nothing at all," replied Curdie.
"Then what
can be the matter with your finger? I feel it
perfectly. To be sure it is very thin, and in the
sunlight looks just like the thread of a spider,
though there are many of them twisted together to
make it—but for all that I can't think why you
shouldn't feel it as well as I do."
Curdie was
too polite to say he did not believe there was any
thread there at all. What he did say was—
"Well, I can
make nothing of it."
"I can,
though, and you must be glad of that, for it will do
for both of us."
"We're not
out yet," said Curdie.
"We soon
shall be," returned Irene confidently.
And now the
thread went downwards, and led Irene's hand to
a hole in the floor of the cavern, whence came a
sound of running water which they had been hearing
for some time.
"It goes
into the ground now, Curdie," she said, stopping.
He had been
listening to another sound, which his practised ear
had caught long ago, and which also had been growing
louder. It was the noise the goblin-miners made at
their work, and they seemed to be at no great
distance now. Irene heard it the moment she stopped.
"What is
that noise?" she asked. "Do you know, Curdie?"
"Yes. It is
the goblins digging and burrowing," he answered.
"And don't
you know what they do it for?"
"No; I
haven't the least idea. Would you like to see them?"
he asked, wishing to have another try after their
secret.
"If my
thread took me there, I shouldn't much mind; but I
don't want to see them, and I can't leave my thread.
It leads me down into the hole, and we had better go
at once."
"Very well.
Shall I go in first?" said Curdie.
"No; better
not. You can't feel the thread," she answered,
stepping down through a narrow break in the floor of
the cavern. "Oh!" she cried, "I am in the water. It
is running strong—but it is not deep, and there is
just room to walk. Make haste, Curdie."
He tried,
but the hole was too small for him to get in.
"Go on a
little bit he said, shouldering his pickaxe.
In a few
moments he had cleared a larger opening and followed
her. They went on, down and down with the running
water, Curdie getting more and more afraid it was
leading them to some terrible gulf in the heart of
the mountain. In one or two places he had to break
away the rock to make room before even Irene could
get through—at least without hurting herself. But at
length they spied a glimmer of light, and in a
minute more they were almost blinded by the full
sunlight, into which they emerged. It was some
little time before the princess could see well
enough to discover that they stood in her own
garden, close by the seat on which she and her
king-papa had sat that afternoon. They had [220]
come out by the channel of the little stream. She
danced and clapped her hands with delight.
"Now, Curdie!"
she cried, "won't you believe what I told you about
my grandmother and her thread?"
For she had
felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what
she told him.
"There!—don't you see it shining on before us?" she
added.
"I don't see
anything," persisted Curdie.
"Then you
must believe without seeing," said the princess;
"for you can't deny it has brought us out of the
mountain."
"I can't
deny we are out of the mountain, and I should be
very ungrateful indeed to deny that you had brought
me out of it."
"I couldn't
have done it but for the thread," persisted Irene.
"That's the
part I don't understand."
"well, come
along, and Lootie will get you something to eat. I
am sure you must want it very much."
"Indeed I
do. But my father and mother will be so anxious
about me, I must make haste—first up the mountain to
tell my mother, and then [221] down into the mine
again to acquaint my father."
"Very well,
Curdie; but you can't get out without coming this
way, and I will take you through the house, for that
is nearest."
They met no
one by the way, for, indeed, as before, the people
were here and there and everywhere searching for the
princess. When they got in Irene found that the
thread, as she had half expected, went up the old
staircase, and a new thought struck her. She turned
to Curdie and said—
"My
grandmother wants me. Do come up with me and see
her. Then you will know that I have been telling you
the truth. Do come—to please me, Curdie. I can't
bear you should think what I say is not true."
"I never
doubted you believed what you said," returned Curdie.
"I only thought you had some fancy in your head that
was not correct."
"But do
come, dear Curdie."
The little
miner could not withstand this appeal, and though he
felt shy in what seemed to him a huge grand house,
he yielded, and followed her up the stair.
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THE
OLD LADY AND CURDIE
UP the stair
then they went, and the next and the next, and
through the long rows of empty rooms, and up the
little tower stair, Irene growing happier and
happier as she ascended. There was no answer when
she knocked at length at the door of the workroom,
nor could she hear any sound of the spinning-wheel,
and once more her heart sank within her—but only for
one moment, as she turned and knocked at the other
door.
"Come in,"
answered the sweet voice of her grandmother, and
Irene opened the door and entered, followed by
Curdie.
"You
darling!" cried the lady, who was seated by a fire
of red roses mingled with white—"I've been waiting
for you, and indeed getting a little anxious about
you, and beginning to think whether I had not better
go and fetch you myself."
As she spoke
she took the little princess in her arms and placed
her upon her lap. She was dressed in white now, and
looking if possible more lovely than ever.
"I've
brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn't believe
what I told him and so I've brought him."
"Yes—I see
him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy.
Aren't you glad you've got him out?"
"Yes,
grandmother. But it wasn't very good of him not to
believe me when I was telling him the truth."
"People must
believe what they can, and those who believe more
must not be hard upon those who believe less. I
doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if
you hadn't seen some of it."
"Ah! yes,
grandmother, I dare say. I'm sure you are right. But
he'll believe now."
"I don't
know that," replied her grandmother.
"Won't you,
Curdie?" said Irene, looking round at him as she
asked the question.
He was
standing in the middle of the floor, staring, and
looking strangely bewildered. This [224] she thought
came of his astonishment at the beauty of the lady.
"Make a bow
to my grandmother, Curdie," she said.
"I don't see
any grandmother," answered Curdie rather gruffly.
"Don't see
my grandmother, when I'm sitting in her lap?"
exclaimed the princess.
"No, I
don't," reiterated Curdie, in an offended tone.
"Don't you
see the lovely fire of roses—white ones amongst them
this time?" asked Irene, almost as bewildered as he.
"No, I
don't," answered Curdie, almost sulkily.
"Nor the
blue bed? Nor the rose-coloured counterpane?—Nor the
beautiful light, like the moon, hanging from the
roof?"
"You're
making game of me, Your Royal Highness; and after
what we have come through together this day, I don't
think it is kind of you," said Curdie, feeling very
much hurt.
"Then what
do you see?" asked Irene, who perceived at once that
for her not to believe him was at least as bad as
for him not to believe her.
"I see a
big, bare, garret-room—like the one [225] in
mother's cottage, only big enough to take the
cottage itself in, and leave a good margin all
round," answered Curdie.
"And what
more do you see?"
"I see a
tub, and a heap of musty straw, and a withered
apple, and a ray of sunlight coming through a hole
in the middle of the roof and shining on your head,
and making all the place look a curious dusky brown.
I think you had better drop it, princess, and go
down to the nursery, like a good girl."
"But don't
you hear my grandmother talking to me?" asked Irene,
almost crying.
"No. I hear
the cooing of a lot of pigeons. If you won't come
down, I will go without you. I think that will be
better anyhow, for I'm sure nobody who met us would
believe a word we said to them. They would think we
made it all up. I don't expect anybody but my own
father and mother to believe me. They know I
wouldn't tell a story."
"And yet you
won't believe me, Curdie?" expostulated the
princess, now fairly crying with vexation and sorrow
at the gulf between her and Curdie.
"No. I
can't, and I can't help it," said Curdie, turning to
leave the room.
"What shall
I do, grandmother?" sobbed the princess, turning her
face round upon the lady's bosom, and shaking with
suppressed sobs.
"You must
give him time," said her grandmother; "and you must
be content not to be believed for a while. It is
very hard to bear; but I have had to bear it, and
shall have to bear it many a time yet. I will take
care of what Curdie thinks of you in the end. You
must let him go now."
"You're not
coming, are you?" asked Curdie.
"No, Curdie;
my grandmother says I must let you go. Turn to the
right when you get to the bottom of all the stairs,
and that will take you to the hall where the great
door is."
"Oh! I don't
doubt I can find my way—without you, princess, or
your old grannie's thread either," said Curdie quite
rudely.
"Oh, Curdie!
Curdie!"
"I wish I
had gone home at once. I'm very much obliged to you,
Irene, for getting me out [227] of that hole, but I
wish you hadn't made a fool of me afterwards."
He said this
as he opened the door, which he left open, and,
without another word, went down the stair. Irene
listened with dismay to his departing footsteps.
Then turning again to the lady—
"What does
it all mean, grandmother?" she sobbed, and burst
into fresh tears.
"It means,
my love, that I did not mean to show myself. Curdie
is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is
not believing—it is only seeing. You remember I told
you that if Lootie were to see me, she would rub her
eyes, forget the half she saw, and call the other
half nonsense."
"Yes; but I
should have thought Curdie—"
"You are
right. Curdie is much farther on than Lootie, and
you will see what will come of it. But in the
meantime you must be content, I say, to be
misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious
to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But
there is one thing much more necessary."
"What is
that, grandmother?"
"To
understand other people."
"Yes,
grandmother. I must be fair—for if I'm not fair to
other people, I'm not worth being understood myself.
I see. So as Curdie can't help it, I will not be
vexed with him, but just wait."
"There's my
own dear child," said her grandmother, and pressed
her close to her bosom.
"Why weren't
you in your workroom when we came up, grandmother?"
asked Irene, after a few moments" silence.
"If I had
been there, Curdie would have seen me well enough.
But why should I be there rather than in this
beautiful room?"
"I thought
you would be spinning."
"I've nobody
to spin for just at present. I never spin without
knowing for whom I am spinning."
"That
reminds me—there is one thing that puzzles me," said
the princess: "how are you to get the thread out of
the mountain again? Surely you won't have to make
another for me? That would be such a trouble!"
The lady set
her down and rose and went to the fire. Putting in
her hand, she drew it out [229] again and held up
the shining ball between her finger and thumb.
"I've got it
now, you see," she said, coming back to the
princess, "all ready for you when you want it."
Going to her
cabinet, she laid it in the same drawer as before.
"And here is
your ring," she added, taking it from the little
finger of her left hand and putting it on the
forefinger of Irene's right hand.
"Oh, thank
you, grandmother! I feel so safe now!"
"You are
very tired, my child," the lady went on. "Your hands
are hurt with the stones, and I have counted nine
bruises on you. just look what you are like."
And she held
up to her a little mirror which she had brought from
the cabinet. The princess burst into a merry laugh
at the sight. She was so draggled with the stream
and dirty with creeping through narrow places, that
if she had seen the reflection without knowing it
was a reflection, she would have taken herself for
some gipsy child whose face was washed and hair
combed about once in a month. The lady laughed too,
[230] and lifting her again upon her knee, took off
her cloak and night-gown. Then she carried her to
the side of the room. Irene wondered what she was
going to do with her, but asked no questions—only
starting a little when she found that she was going
to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she
looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the
stars shining miles away, as it seemed, in a great
blue gulf. Her hands closed involuntarily on the
beautiful arms that held her, and that was all.
The lady
pressed her once more to her bosom, saying:
"Do not be
afraid, my child."
"No,
grandmother," answered the princess, with a little
gasp; and the next instant she sank in the clear
cool water.
When she
opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a strange
lovely blue over and beneath and all about her. The
lady, and the beautiful room, had vanished from her
sight, and she seemed utterly alone. But instead of
being afraid, she felt more than happy—perfectly
blissful. And from somewhere came the voice of the
lady, singing a strange sweet song, of which she
could distinguish every word; but of the sense she
had only a feeling—no understanding. Nor could she
remember a single line after it was gone. It
vanished, like the poetry in a dream, as fast as it
came. In after years, however, she would sometimes
fancy that snatches of melody suddenly rising in her
brain must be little phrases and fragments of the
air of that song; and the very fancy would make her
happier, and abler to do her duty.
How long she
lay in the water she did not know. It seemed a long
time—not from weariness but from pleasure. But at
last she felt the beautiful hands lay hold of her,
and through the gurgling water she was lifted out
into the lovely room. The lady carried her to the
fire, and sat down with her in her lap, and dried
her tenderly with the softest towel. It was so
different from Lootie's drying. When the lady had
done, she stooped to the fire, and drew from it her
night-gown, as white as snow.
"How
delicious!" exclaimed the princess. "It smells of
all the roses in the world, I think."
When she
stood up on the floor she felt as if she had been
made over again. Every bruise and all weariness were
gone, and her hands were soft and whole as ever.
"Now I am
going to put you to bed for a good sleep," said her
grandmother.
"But what
will Lootie be thinking? And what am I to say to her
when she asks me where I have been?"
"Don't
trouble yourself about it. You will find it all come
right," said her grandmother, and laid her into the
blue bed, under the rosy counterpane.
"There is
just one thing more," said Irene. "I am a little
anxious about Curdie. As I brought him into the
house, I ought to have seen him safe on his way
home."
"I took care
of all that," answered the lady. "I told you to let
him go, and therefore I was bound to look after him.
Nobody saw him, and he is now eating a good dinner
in his mother's cottage far up in the mountain."
"Then I will
go to sleep," said Irene, and in a few minutes she
was fast asleep.
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CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER
CURDIE went
up the mountain neither whistling nor singing, for
he was vexed with Irene for taking him in, as he
called it; and he was vexed with himself for having
spoken to her so angrily. His mother gave a cry of
joy when she saw him, and at once set about getting
him something to eat, asking him questions all the
time, which he did not answer so cheerfully as
usual. When his meal was ready, she left him to eat
it, and hurried to the mine to let his father know
he was safe. When she came back, she found him fast
asleep upon her bed; nor did he wake until his
father came home in the evening.
"Now, Curdie,"
his mother said, as they sat at supper, "tell us the
whole story from beginning to end, just as it all
happened."
Curdie
obeyed, and told everything to the point where they
came out upon the lawn in the garden of the king's
house.
"And what
happened after that?" asked his mother. "You haven't
told us all. You ought to be very happy at having
got away from those demons, and instead of that I
never saw you so gloomy. There must be something
more. Besides, you do not speak of that lovely child
as I should like to hear you. She saved your life at
the risk of her own, and yet somehow you don't seem
to think much of it."
"She talked
such nonsense" answered Curdie, "and told me a pack
of things that weren't a bit true; and I can't get
over it."
"What were
they?" asked his father. "Your mother may be able to
throw some light upon them."
Then Curdie
made a clean breast of it, and told them everything.
They all sat
silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At
last Curdie's mother spoke.
"You
confess, my boy," she said, "there is something
about the whole affair you do not understand?"
"Yes, of
course, mother," he answered. "I cannot
understand how a child knowing nothing about the
mountain, or even that I was shut up in it, should
come all that way alone, straight to where I was;
and then, after getting me out of the hole, lead me
out of the mountain too, where I should not have
known a step of the way if it had been as light as
in the open air."
"Then you
have no right to say what she told you was not true.
She did take you out, and she must have had
something to guide her: why not a thread as well as
a rope, or anything else? There is something you
cannot explain, and her explanation may be the right
one."
"It's no
explanation at all, mother; and I can't believe it."
"That may be
only because you do not understand it. If you did,
you would probably find it was an explanation, and
believe it thoroughly. I don't blame you for not
being able to believe it, but I do blame you for
fancying such a child would try to deceive you. Why
should she? Depend upon it, she told you all she
knew. Until you had found a better way of accounting
for it all, you might at least have been more
sparing of your judgement."
"That is
what something inside me has been saying all the
time," said Curdie, hanging down his head. "But what
do you make of the grandmother? That is what I can't
get over. To take me up to an old garret, and try to
persuade me against the sight of my own eyes that it
was a beautiful room, with blue walls and silver
stars, and no end of things in it, when there was
nothing there but an old tub and a withered apple
and a heap of straw and a sunbeam! It was too bad!
She might have had some old woman there at least to
pass for her precious grandmother!"
"Didn't she
speak as if she saw those other things herself,
Curdie?"
"Yes. That's
what bothers me. You would have thought she really
meant and believed that she saw every one of the
things she talked about. And not one of them there!
It was too bad, I say."
"Perhaps
some people can see things other people can't see,
Curdie," said his mother very gravely. "I think I
will tell you something I saw myself once—only
Perhaps You won't believe me either!"
"Oh, mother,
mother!" cried Curdie, bursting into tears; "I don't
deserve that, surely!"
"But what I
am going to tell you is very strange," persisted his
mother; "and if having heard it you were to say I
must have been dreaming, I don't know that I should
have any right to be vexed with you, though I know
at least that I was not asleep."
"Do tell me,
mother. Perhaps it will help me to think better of
the princess."
"That's why
I am tempted to tell you," replied his mother. "But
first, I may as well mention that, according to old
whispers, there is something more than common about
the king's family; and the queen was of the same
blood, for they were cousins of some degree. There
were strange stories told concerning them—all good
stories—but strange, very strange. What they were I
cannot tell, for I only remember the faces of my
grandmother and my mother as they talked together
about them. There was wonder and awe—not fear, in
their eyes, and they whispered, and never spoke
aloud. But what I saw myself was this: Your father
was going to work in the mine one night, and I had
been down with his [238] supper. It was soon after
we were married, and not very long before you were
born. He came with me to the mouth of the mine, and
left me to go home alone, for I knew the way almost
as well as the floor of our own cottage. It was
pretty dark, and in some parts of the road where the
rocks overhung nearly quite dark. But I got along
perfectly well, never thinking of being afraid,
until I reached a spot you know well enough, Curdie,
where the path has to make a sharp turn out of the
way of a great rock on the left-hand side. When I
got there, I was suddenly surrounded by about half a
dozen of the cobs, the first I had ever seen,
although I had heard tell of them often enough. One
of them blocked up the path, and they all began
tormenting and teasing me in a way it makes me
shudder to think of even now."
"If I had
only been with you!" cried father and son in a
breath.
The mother
gave a funny little smile, and went on.
"They had
some of their horrible creatures with them too, and
I must confess I was dreadfully frightened. They had
torn my clothes very [239] much, and I was afraid
they were going to tear myself to pieces, when
suddenly a great white soft light shone upon me. I
looked up. A broad ray, like a shining road, came
down from a large globe of silvery light, not very
high up, indeed not quite so high as the horizon—so
it could not have been a new star or another moon or
anything of that sort. The cobs dropped persecuting
me, and looked dazed, and I thought they were going
to run away, but presently they began again. The
same moment, however, down the path from the globe
of light came a bird, shining like silver in the
sun. It gave a few rapid flaps first, and then, with
its wings straight out, shot,sliding down the slope
of the light. It looked to me just like a white
pigeon. But whatever it was, when the cobs caught
sight of it coming straight down upon them, they
took to their heels and scampered away across the
mountain, leaving me safe, only much frightened. As
soon as it had sent them off, the bird went gliding
again up the light, and the moment it reached the
globe the light disappeared, just as if a shutter
had been closed over a window, and I saw it no more.
But I had no [240] more trouble with the cobs that
night or ever after."
"How
strange!" exclaimed Curdie.
"Yes, it was
strange; but I can't help believing it, whether you
do or not," said his mother.
"It's
exactly as your mother told it to me the very next
morning," said his father.
"You don't
think I'm doubting my own mother?" cried Curdie.
"There are
other people in the world quite as well worth
believing as your own mother," said his mother. "I
don't know that she's so much the fitter to be
believed that she happens to be your mother, Mr.
Curdie. There are mothers far more likely to tell
lies than the little girl I saw talking to the
primroses a few weeks ago. If she were to lie I
should begin to doubt my own word."
"But
princesses have told lies as well as other people,"
said Curdie.
"Yes, but
not princesses like that child. She's a good girl, I
am certain, and that's more than being a princess.
Depend upon it you will have to be sorry for
behaving so to her, Curdie. You ought at least to
have held your tongue."
"I am sorry
now," answered Curdie.
"You ought
to go and tell her so, then."
"I don't see
how I could manage that. They wouldn't let a miner
boy like me have a word with her alone; and I
couldn't tell her before that nurse of hers. She'd
be asking ever so many questions, and I don't know
how many the little princess would like me to
answer. She told me that Lootie didn't know anything
about her coming to get me out of the mountain. I am
certain she would have prevented her somehow if she
had known it. But I may have a chance before long,
and meantime I must try to do something for her. I
think, father, I have got on the track at last."
"Have you,
indeed, my boy?" said Peter. "I am sure you deserve
some success; you have worked very hard for it. What
have you found out?"
"It's
difficult, you know, father, inside the mountain,
especially in the dark, and not knowing what turns
you have taken, to tell the lie of things outside."
"Impossible,
my boy, without a chart, or at least a compass,"
returned his father.
"Well, I
think I have nearly discovered in what direction the
cobs are mining. If I am right, I know something
else that I can put to it, and then one and one will
make three."
"They very
often do, Curdie, as we miners ought to be very well
aware. Now tell us, my boy, what the two things are,
and see whether we can guess at the same third as
you."
"I don't see
what that has to do with the princess," interposed
his mother.
"I will soon
let you see that, mother. Perhaps you may think me
foolish, but until I am sure there, is nothing in my
present fancy, I am more determined than ever to go
on with my observations. just as we came to the
channel by which we got out, I heard the miners at
work somewhere near—I think down below us. Now since
I began to watch them, they have mined a good
half-mile, in a straight line; and so far as I am
aware, they are working in no other part of the
mountain. But I never could tell in what direction
they were going. When we came out in the king's
garden, however, I thought at once whether it was
possible they were working towards the king's house;
and what I want to do [243] to-night is to make sure
whether they are or not. I will take a light with
me—"
"Oh, Curdie,"
cried his mother, "then they will see you."
"I'm no more
afraid of them now than I was before," rejoined
Curdie,—"now that I've got this precious shoe. They
can't make another such in a hurry, and one bare
foot will do for my purpose. Woman as she may be, I
won't spare her next time. But I shall be careful
with my light, for I don't want them to see me. I
won't stick it in my hat."
"Go on,
then, and tell us what you mean to do."
"I mean to
take a bit of paper with me and a pencil, and go in
at the mouth of the stream by which we came out. I
shall mark on the paper as near as I can the angle
of every turning I take until I find the cobs at
work, and so get a good idea in what direction they
are going. If it should prove to be nearly parallel
with the stream, I shall know it is towards the
king's house they are working."
"And what if
you should? How much wiser will you be then?"
"Wait a
minute, mother dear. I told you that when I came
upon the royal family in the cave, they were talking
of their prince—Harelip, they called him—marrying a
sun-woman—that means one of us—one with toes to her
feet. Now in the speech one of them made that night
at their great gathering, of which I heard only a
part, he said that peace would be secured for a
generation at least by the pledge the prince would
hold for the good behaviour of her relatives: that's
what he said, and he must have meant the sun-woman
the prince was to marry. I am quite sure the king is
much too proud to wish his son to marry any but a
princess, and much too knowing to fancy that his
having a peasant woman for a wife would be of any
great advantage to them."
"I see what
you are driving at now," said his mother.
"But," said
his father, "our king would dig the mountain to the
plain before he would have his princess the wife of
a cob, if he were ten times a prince."
"Yes; but
they think so much of themselves!" said his mother.
"Small creatures always do. [245] The bantam is the
proudest cock in my little yard."
"And I
fancy," said Curdie, "if they once got her, they
would tell the king they would kill her except he
consented to the marriage."
"They might
say so," said his father, "but they wouldn't kill
her; they would keep her alive for the sake of the
hold it gave them over our king. Whatever he did to
them, they would threaten to do the same to the
princess."
"And they
are bad enough to torment her just for their own
amusement—I know that," said his mother.
"Anyhow, I
will keep a watch on them, and see what they are up
to," said Curdie. "It's too horrible to think of. I
daren't let myself do it. But they shan't have
her—at least if I can help it. So, mother dear—my
clue is all right—will you get me a bit of paper and
a pencil and a lump of pease pudding, and I will set
out at once. I saw a place where I can climb over
the wall of the garden quite easily."
"You must
mind and keep out of the way of the men on the
watch," said his mother.
"That I
will. I don't want them to know any- [246] thing
about it. They would spoil it all. The cobs would
only try some other plan—they are such obstinate
creatures! I shall take good care, mother. They
won't kill and eat me either, if they should come
upon me. So you needn't mind them."
His mother
got him what he had asked for, and Curdie set out.
Close beside the door by which the princess left the
garden for the mountain stood a great rock, and by
climbing it Curdie got over the wall. He tied his
clue to a stone just inside the channel of the
stream, and took his pickaxe with him. He had not
gone far before he encountered a horrid creature
coming towards the mouth. The spot was too narrow
for two of almost any size or shape, and besides
Curdie had no wish to let the creature pass. Not
being able to use his pickaxe, however, he had a
severe struggle with him, and it was only after
receiving many bites, some of them bad, that he
succeeded in killing him with his pocket-knife.
Having dragged him out, he made haste to get in
again before another should stop up the way.
I need not
follow him farther in this night's adventures. He
returned to his breakfast, satis- [246] fied that
the goblins were mining in the direction of the
palace—on so low a level that their intention must,
he thought, be to burrow under the walls of the
king's house, and rise up inside it—in order, he
fully believed, to lay hands on the little princess,
and carry her off for a wife to their horrid
Harelip.
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IRENE BEHAVES LIKE A PRINCESS
WHEN the
princess awoke from the sweetest of sleeps, she
found her nurse bending over her, the housekeeper
looking over the nurse's shoulder, and the laundry-
maid looking over the housekeeper's. The room was
full of women-servants; and the gentlemen-at-arms,
with a long column of servants behind them, were
peeping, or trying to peep in at the door of the
nursery.
"Are those
horrid creatures gone?" asked the princess,
remembering first what had terrified her in the
morning.
"You
naughty, naughty little princess!" cried Lootie.
Her face was
very pale, with red streaks in it, and she looked as
if she were going to shake her; but Irene said
nothing—only waited to hear what should come next.
"How could
you get under the clothes like that, and make us all
fancy you were lost! And keep it up all day too! You
are the most obstinate child! It's anything but fun
to us, I can tell you!"
It was the
only way the nurse could account for her
disappearance.
"I didn't do
that, Lootie," said Irene, very quietly.
"Don't tell
stories!" cried her nurse quite rudely.
"I shall
tell you nothing at all," said Irene.
"That's just
as bad," said the nurse.
"Just as bad
to say nothing at all as to tell stories?" exclaimed
the princess. "I will ask my papa about that. He
won't say so. And I don't think he will like you to
say so."
"Tell me
directly what you mean by it!" screamed the nurse,
half wild with anger at the princess and fright at
the possible consequences to herself.
"When I tell
you the truth, Lootie," said the princess, who
somehow did not feel at all angry, "you say to me
Don't tell stories: it seems I must tell stories
before you will believe me."
"You are
very rude, princess," said the nurse.
"You are so
rude, Lootie, that I will not speak to you again
till you are sorry. Why should I, when I know you
will not believe me?" returned the princess.
For she did
know perfectly well that if she were to tell Lootie
what she had been about, the more she went on to
tell her, the less would she believe her.
"You are the
most provoking child!" cried her nurse. "You deserve
to be well punished for your wicked behaviour."
"Please, Mrs
Housekeeper," said the princess, "will you take me
to your room, and keep me till my king-papa comes? I
will ask him to come as soon as he can."
Every one
stared at these words. Up to this moment they had
all regarded her as little more than a baby.
But the
housekeeper was afraid of the nurse, and sought to
patch matters up, saying—
"I am sure,
princess, nursie did not mean to be rude to you."
"I do not
think my papa would wish me to have a nurse who
spoke to me as Lootie does. If she thinks I tell
lies, she had better either say so to my papa, or go
away. Sir Walter, will you take charge of me?"
"With the
greatest of pleasure, princess," answered the
captain of the gentlemen-at-arms, walking with his
great stride into the room. The crowd of servants
made eager way for him, and he bowed low before the
little princess's bed. "I shall send my servant at
once, on the fastest horse in the stable, to tell
your king-papa that Your Royal Highness desires his
presence. When you have chosen one of these
under-servants to wait upon you, I shall order the
room to be cleared."
"Thank you
very much, Sir Walter," said the princess, and her
eye glanced towards a rosy-cheeked girl who had
lately come to the house as a scullery-maid.
But when
Lootie saw the eyes of her dear princess going in
search of another instead of her, she fell upon her
knees by the bedside, and burst into a great cry of
distress.
"I think,
Sir Walter," said the princess, "I will keep Lootie.
But I put myself under your [252] care; and you need
not trouble my king-papa until I speak to you again.
Will you all please to go away? I am quite safe and
well, and I did not hide myself for the sake either
of amusing myself, or of troubling my people. Lootie,
will you please to dress me."
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CURDIE COMES TO GRIEF
EVERYTHING
was for some time quiet above ground. The king was
still away in a distant part of his dominions. The
men-at-arms kept watching about the house. They had
been considerably astonished by finding at the foot
of the rock in the garden the hideous body of the
goblin creature killed by Curdie; but they came to
the conclusion that it had been slain in the mines,
and had crept out there to die; and except an
occasional glimpse of a live one they saw nothing to
cause alarm. Curdie kept watching in the mountain,
and the goblins kept burrowing deeper into the
earth. As long as they went deeper there was, Curdie
judged, no immediate danger.
To Irene the
summer was as full of pleasure as ever, and for a
long time, although she often thought of her
grandmother during the day, and often dreamed about
her at night, she did not see her. The kids
and the flowers were as much her delight as ever,
and she made as much friendship with the miners'
children she met on the mountain as Lootie would
permit; but Lootie had very foolish notions
concerning the dignity of a princess, not
understanding that the truest princess is just the
one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and
who is most able to do them good by being humble
towards them. At the same time she was considerably
altered for the better in her behaviour to the
princess. She could not help seeing that she was no
longer a mere child, but wiser than her age would
account for. She kept foolishly whispering to the
servants, however—sometimes that the princess was
not right in her mind, sometimes that she was too
good to live, and other nonsense of the same sort.
All this
time Curdie had to be sorry, without a chance of
confessing, that he had behaved so unkindly to the
princess. This perhaps made him the more diligent in
his endeavours to serve her. His mother and he often
talked on the subject, and she comforted him, and
told him she was sure he would some day have the
opportunity he so much desired.
Here I
should like to remark, for the sake of princes and
princesses in general, that it is a low and
contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or
even an error. If a true princess has done wrong,
she is always uneasy until she has had an
opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her
by saying: "I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am
sorry for having done it." So you see there is some
ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner
only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have
been known in the world's history.
At length,
however, he began to see signs of a change in the
proceedings of the goblin excavators: they were
going no deeper, but had commenced running on a
level; and he watched them, therefore, more closely
than ever. All at once, one night, coming to a slope
of very hard rock, they began to ascend along the
inclined plane of its surface. Having reached its
top, they went again on a level for a night or two,
after which they began to ascend once more, and kept
on at a pretty steep angle. At length Curdie judged
it time to transfer his observation to another
quarter, and the next night he did not go to the
mine [256] at all; but, leaving his pickaxe and clue
at home, and taking only his usual lumps of bread
and pease pudding, went down the mountain to the
king's house. He climbed over the wall, and remained
in the garden the whole night, creeping on hands and
knees from one spot to the other, and lying at full
length with his ear to the ground, listening. But he
heard nothing except the tread of the men-at-arms as
they marched about, whose observation, as the night
was cloudy and there was no moon, he had little
difficulty in avoiding. For several following nights
he continued to haunt the garden and listen, but
with no success.
At length,
early one evening, whether it was that he had got
careless of his own safety, or that the growing moon
had become strong enough to expose him, his watching
came to a sudden end. He was creeping from behind
the rock where the stream ran out, for he had been
listening all round it in the hope it might convey
to his ear some indication of the whereabouts of the
goblin miners, when just as he came into the
moonlight on the lawn, a whizz in his ear and a blow
upon his leg startled him. He instantly squatted in
[257] the hope of eluding further notice. But when
he heard the sound of running feet, he jumped up to
take the chance of escape by flight. He fell,
however, with a keen shoot of pain, for the bolt of
a crossbow had wounded his leg, and the blood was
now streaming from it. He was instantly laid Hold of
by two or three of the men-at-arms. It was useless
to struggle, and he submitted in silence.
"It's a boy!" cried several of them together, in a
tone of amazement. "I thought it was one of those
demons.
What are you
about here?"
"Going to
have a little rough usage, apparently," said Curdie,
laughing, as the men shook him.
"Impertinence will do you no good. You have no
business here in the king's grounds, and if you
don't give a true account of yourself, you shall
fare as a thief."
"Why, what
else could he be?" said one.
"He might
have been after a lost kid, you know," suggested
another.
"I see no
good in trying to excuse him. He has no business
here, anyhow."
"Let me go
away, then, if you please," said Curdie.
"But we
don't please—not except you give a good account of
yourself."
"I don't
feel quite sure whether I can trust you," said
Curdie.
"We are the
king's own men-at-arms," said the captain
courteously, for he was taken with Curdie's
appearance and courage.
"Well, I
will tell you all about it—if you will promise to
listen to me and not do anything rash."
"I call that
cool!" said one of the party, laughing. "He will
tell us what mischief he was about, if we promise to
do as pleases him."
"I was about
no mischief," said Curdie.
But ere he
could say more he turned faint, and fell senseless
on the grass. Then first they discovered that the
bolt they had shot, taking him for one of the goblin
creatures, had wounded him.
They carried
him into the house and laid him down in the hall.
The report spread that they had caught a robber, and
the servants crowded in to see the villain. Amongst
the rest came the nurse. The moment she saw him she
exclaimed with indignation:
"I declare
it's the same young rascal of a miner that was rude
to me and the princess on the mountain. He actually
wanted to kiss the princess. I took good care of
that—the wretch! And he was prowling about—was he?
Just like his impudence!"
The princess
being fast asleep, she could misrepresent at her
pleasure.
When he
heard this, the captain, although he had
considerable doubt of its truth, resolved to keep
Curdie a prisoner until they could search into the
affair. So, after they had brought him round a
little, and attended to his wound, which was rather
a bad one, they laid him, still exhausted from the
loss of blood, upon a mattress in a disused room—one
of those already so often mentioned—and locked the
door, and left him. He passed a troubled night, and
in the morning they found him talking wildly. In the
evening he came to himself, but felt very weak, and
his leg was exceedingly painful. Wondering where he
was, and seeing one of the men-at-arms in the room,
he began to question him and soon recalled the
events of the preceding night. As he was himself
unable to watch any more, he told the soldier all he
knew about the goblins, and begged him to tell his
companions, and stir them up to watch with tenfold
vigilance; but whether it was that he did not talk
quite coherently, or that the whole thing appeared
incredible, certainly the man concluded that Curdie
was only raving still, and tried to coax him into
holding his tongue. This, of course, annoyed Curdie
[261] dreadfully, who now felt in his turn what it
was not to be believed, and the consequence was that
his fever returned, and by the time when, at his
persistent entreaties, the captain was called, there
could be no doubt that he was raving. They did for
him what they could, and promised everything he
wanted, but with no intention of fulfilment. At last
he went to sleep, and when at length his sleep grew
profound and peaceful, they left him, locked the
door again, and withdrew, intending to revisit him
early in the morning.
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THE
GOBLIN MINERS
THAT same
night several of the servants were having a chat
together before going to bed.
"What can
that noise be?" said one of the housemaids, who had
been listening for a moment or two.
"I've heard
it the last two nights," said the cook. "If there
were any about the place, I should have taken it for
rats, but my Tom keeps them far enough."
"I've heard,
though," said the scullery-maid, "that rats move
about in great companies sometimes. There may be an
army of them invading us. I've heard the noises
yesterday and today too."
"It'll be
grand fun, then, for my Tom and Mrs Housekeeper's
Bob," said the cook. "They'll be friends for once in
their lives, and fight on the same side. I'll engage
Tom and Bob together will put to flight any number
of rats."
"It seems to
me," said the nurse, "that the noises are much too
loud for that. I have heard them all day, and my
princess has asked me several times what they could
be. Sometimes they sound like distant thunder, and
sometimes like the noises you hear in the mountain
from those horrid miners underneath."
"I shouldn't
wonder," said the cook, "if it was the miners after
all. They may have come on some hole in the mountain
through which the noises reach to us. They are
always boring and blasting and breaking, you know."
As he spoke,
there came a great rolling rumble beneath them, and
the house quivered. They all started up in affright,
and rushing to the hall found the gentlemen-at-arms
in consternation also. They had sent to wake their
captain, who said from their description that it
must have been an earthquake, an occurrence which,
although very rare in that country, had taken place
almost within the century; and then went to bed
again, strange to say, and fell -fast asleep without
once thinking of Curdie, or associating the noises
they had heard with what he had told them. He had
not believed Curdie. If he had, he would at once
have thought of what he had said, and would have
taken precautions. As they heard nothing more, they
concluded that Sir Walter was right, and that the
danger was over for perhaps another hundred years.
The fact, as discovered afterwards, was that the
goblins had, in working up a second sloping face of
stone, arrived at a huge block which lay under the
cellars of the house, within the line of the
foundations. It was so round that when they
succeeded, after hard work, in dislodging it without
blasting, it rolled thundering down the slope with a
bounding, jarring roll, which shook the foundations
of the house. The goblins were themselves dismayed
at the noise, for they knew, by careful spying and
measuring, that they must now be very near, if not
under the king's house, and they feared giving an
alarm. They, therefore, remained quiet for a while,
and when they began to work again, they no doubt
thought themselves very fortunate in coming upon a
vein of sand which filled a winding fissure in the
rock on which the house was built. By scooping this
away they came out in the king's wine cellar.
No sooner
did they find where they were, than they scurried
back again, like rats into their holes, and running
at full speed to the goblin palace, announced their
success to the king and queen with shouts of
triumph. In a moment the goblin royal family and the
whole goblin people were on their way in hot haste
to the king's house, each eager to have a share in
the glory of carrying off that same night the
Princess Irene.
The queen
went stumping along in one shoe of stone and one of
skin. This could not have been pleasant, and my
readers may wonder that, with such skilful workmen
about her, she had not yet replaced the shoe carried
off by Curdie. As the king, however, had more than
one ground of objection to her stone shoes, he no
doubt took advantage of the discovery of her toes,
and threatened to expose her deformity if she had
another made. I presume he insisted on her being
content with skin shoes, and allowed her to wear the
remaining granite one on the present occasion only
because she was going out to war.
They soon
arrived in the king's wine cellar, and regardless of
its huge vessels, of which they did not know the
use, proceeded at once, but as quietly as they
could, to force the door that led upward.
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THE GOBLINS IN THE KING'S HOUSE
WHEN Curdie fell asleep he began at once to dream.
He thought he was ascending the Mountainside from
the mouth of the mine, whistling and singing Ring,
dod, bang! when he came upon a woman and child who
had lost their way; and from that point he went on
dreaming everything that had happened to him since
he thus met the princess and Lootie; how he had
watched the goblins, how he had been taken by them,
how he had been rescued by the princess; everything,
indeed, until he was wounded, captured, and
imprisoned by the men-at-arms. And now he thought he
was lying wide awake where they had laid him, when
suddenly he heard a great thundering sound.
"The cobs
are coming!" he said. "They didn't believe a word I
told them! The cobs'll be carrying off the princess
from under their stupid noses! But they shan't! that
they shan't!"
He jumped
up, as he thought, and began to dress, but, to his
dismay, found that he was still lying in bed.
"Now then, I
will!" he said. "Here goes! I am up now!"
But yet
again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times he
tried, and twenty times he failed; for in fact he
was not awake, only dreaming that he was. At length
in an agony of despair, fancying he heard the
goblins all over the house, he gave a great cry.
Then there came, as he thought, a hand upon the lock
of his door. It opened, and, looking up, he saw a
lady with white hair, carrying a silver box in her
hand, enter the room. She came to his bed, he
thought, stroked his head and face with cool, soft
hands, took the dressing from his leg, rubbed it
with something that smelt like roses, and then waved
her hands over him three times. At the last wave of
her hands everything vanished, he felt himself
sinking into the profoundest slumber, and remembered
nothing more until he awoke in earnest.
The setting
moon was throwing a feeble light through the
casement, and the house was full of uproar. There
was soft heavy multitudinous [268] stamping, a
clashing and clanging of weapons, the voices of men
and the cries of women, mixed with a hideous
bellowing, which sounded victorious. The cobs were
in the house! He sprang from his bed, hurried on
some of his clothes, not forgetting his shoes, which
were armed with nails; then spying an old
hunting-knife, or short sword, hanging on the wall,
he caught it, and rushed down the stairs, guided by
the sounds of strife, which grew louder and louder.
When he
reached the ground floor he found the whole place
swarming. All the goblins of the mountain seemed
gathered there. He rushed amongst them, shouting—
"One, two,
Hit and hew!
Three, four,
Blast and
bore!"
and with
every rhyme he came down a great stamp upon a foot,
cutting at the same time their faces—executing,
indeed, a sword dance of the wildest description.
Away scattered the goblins in every direction—into
closets, up stairs, into chimneys, up on rafters,
and down to the cellars. Curdie went on stamping and
slashing [269] and singing, but saw nothing of the
people of the house until he came to the great hall,
in which, the moment he entered it, arose a great
goblin shout. The last of the men-at-arms, the
captain himself, was on the floor, buried beneath a
wallowing crowd of goblins. For, while each knight
was busy defending himself as well as he could, by
stabs in the thick bodies of the goblins, for he had
soon found their heads all but invulnerable, the
queen had attacked his legs and feet with her
horrible granite shoe, and he was soon down; but the
captain had got his back to the wall and stood out
longer. The goblins would have torn them all to
pieces, but the king had given orders to carry them
away alive, and over each of them, in twelve groups,
was standing a knot of goblins, while as many as
could find room were sitting upon their prostrate
bodies.
Curdie burst
in dancing and gyrating and stamping and singing
like a small incarnate whirlwind,
"Where 'tis
all a hole, sir,
Never can be
holes:
Why should
their shoes have soles, sir,
When they've
got no souls?
"But she upon her foot, sir,
Has a
granite shoe:
The
strongest leather boot, sir,
Six would
soon be through."
The queen
gave a howl of rage and dismay; and before she
recovered her presence of mind, Curdie, having begun
with the group nearest him, had eleven of the
knights on their legs again.
"Stamp on
their feet!" he cried as each man rose, and in a few
minutes the hall was nearly empty, the goblins
running from it as fast as they could, howling and
shrieking and limping, and cowering every now and
then as they ran to cuddle their wounded feet in
their hard hands, or to protect them from the
frightful stamp-stamp of the armed men.
And now
Curdie approached the group which, in trusting in
the queen and her shoe, kept their guard over the
prostrate captain. The king sat on the captain's
head, but the queen stood in front, like an
infuriated cat, with her perpendicular eyes gleaming
green, and her hair standing half up from her horrid
head. Her heart was quaking, however, and she kept
moving about her skin-shod foot with nervous
apprehension. [271] When Curdie was within a few
paces, she rushed at him, made one tremendous stamp
at his opposing foot, which happily he withdrew in
time, and caught him round the waist, to dash him on
the marble floor. But just as she caught him, he
came down with all the weight of his iron-shod shoe
upon her skin-shod foot, and with a hideous howl she
dropped him, squatted on the floor, and took her
foot in both her hands. Meanwhile the rest rushed on
the king and the bodyguard, sent them flying, and
lifted the prostrate captain, who was all but
pressed to death. It was some moments before he
recovered breath and consciousness.
"Where's the
princess?" cried Curdie, again and again.
No one knew,
and off they all rushed in search of her.
Through
every room in the house they went, but nowhere was
she to be found. Neither was one of the servants to
be seen. But Curdie, who had kept to the lower part
of the house, which was now quiet enough, began to
hear a confused sound as of a distant hubbub, and
set out to find where it came from. The noise grew
as his sharp [272] ears guided him to a stair and so
to the wine cellar. It was full of goblins, whom the
butler was supplying with wine as fast as he could
draw it.
While the queen and her party had encountered the
men-at-arms, Harelip with another company had gone
off to search the house. They captured every one
they met, and when they could find no more, they
hurried away to carry them safe to the caverns
below. But when the butler, who was amongst them,
found that their [273] path lay through the wine
cellar, he bethought himself of persuading them to
taste the wine, and, as he had hoped, they no sooner
tasted than they wanted more. The routed goblins, on
their way below, joined them, and when Curdie
entered they were all, with outstretched hands, in
which were vessels of every description from sauce
pan to silver cup, pressing around the butler, who
sat at the tap of a huge cask, filling and filling.
Curdie cast one glance around the place before
commencing his attack, and saw in the farthest
corner a terrified group of the domestics unwatched,
but cowering without courage to attempt their
escape. Amongst them was the terror-stricken face of
Lootie; but nowhere could he see the princess.
Seized with the horrible conviction that Harelip had
already carried her off, he rushed amongst them,
unable for wrath to sing any more, but stamping and
cutting with greater fury than ever.
"Stamp on
their feet; stamp on their feet!" he shouted, and in
a moment the goblins were disappearing through the
hole in the floor like rats and mice.
They could
not vanish so fast, however, but that many more
goblin feet had to go limping back over the
underground ways of the mountain that morning.
Presently,
however, they were reinforced from above by the king
and his party, with the redoubtable queen at their
head. Finding Curdie again busy amongst her
unfortunate subjects, she rushed at him once more
with the rage of despair, and this time gave him a
bad bruise on the foot. Then a regular stamping
fight got up between them, Curdie, with the point of
his hunting- knife, keeping her from clasping her
mighty arms about him, as he watched his opportunity
of getting once more a good stamp at her skin-shod
foot. But the queen was more wary as well as more
agile than hitherto.
The rest
meantime, finding their adversary thus matched for
the moment, paused in their headlong hurry, and
turned to the shivering group of women in the
corner. As if determined to emulate his father and
have a sun-woman of some sort to share his future
throne, Harelip rushed at them, caught up Lootie,
and sped with her to the hole. She gave a great
shriek, and Curdie heard her, and saw the plight she
was in. Gathering all his strength, he gave the
queen a sudden cut across the face with his weapon,
came down, as she started back, with all his weight
on the proper foot, and sprung to Lootie's rescue.
The prince had two defenceless feet, and on both of
them Curdie stamped just as he reached the hole. He
dropped his burden and rolled shrieking into the
earth. Curdie made one stab at him as he
disappeared, caught hold of the senseless Lootie,
and having dragged her back to the corner, there
mounted guard over her, preparing once more to
encounter the queen. Her face streaming with blood,
and her eyes flashing green lightning through it,
she came on with her mouth open and her teeth
grinning like a tiger's, followed by the king and
her bodyguard of the thickest goblins. But the same
moment in rushed the captain and his men, and ran at
them stamping furiously. They dared not encounter
such an onset. Away they scurried, the queen
foremost. Of course, the right thing would have been
to take the king and queen prisoners, and hold them
hostages for the princess, but they were so anxious
to find her that no one thought of detaining them
until it was too late.
Having thus
rescued the servants, they set about searching the
house once more. None of them could give the least
information concerning the princess. Lootie was
almost silly with terror, and, although scarcely
able to walk would not leave Curdie's side for a
single moment. Again he allowed the others to search
the rest of the house—where, except a dismayed
goblin lurking here and there, they found no
one—while he requested Lootie to take him to the
princess's room. She was as submissive and obedient
as if he had been the king. He found the bedclothes
tossed about, and most of them on the floor, while
the princess's garments were scattered all over the
room, which was in the greatest confusion. It was
only too evident that the goblins had been there,
and Curdie had no longer any doubt that she had been
carried off at the very first of the inroad. With a
pang of despair he saw how wrong they had been in
not securing the king and queen and prince; but he
determined to find and rescue the princess as she
had found and rescued him, or meet the worst fate to
which the goblins could doom him.
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CURDIE'S GUIDE
JUST as the
consolation of this resolve dawned upon his mind and
he was turning away for the cellar to follow the
goblins into their hole, something touched his hand.
It was the slightest touch, and when he looked he
could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the
grey of the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight
thread. He looked again, and narrowly, but still
could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this
must be the princess's thread. Without saying a
word, for he knew no one would believe him any more
than he had believed the princess, he followed the
thread with his finger, contrived to give Lootie the
slip, and was soon out of the house and on the
mountainside—surprised that, if the thread were
indeed the grandmother's messenger, it should have
led the princess, as he supposed it must, into the
mountain, where she would be certain to meet [278]
the goblins rushing back enraged from their defeat.
But he hurried on in the hope of overtaking her
first. When he arrived, however, at the place where
the path turned off for the mine, he found that the
thread did not turn with it, but went straight up
the mountain. Could it be that the thread was
leading him home to his mother's cottage? Could the
princess be there? He bounded up the mountain like
one of its own goats, and before the sun was up the
thread had brought him indeed to his mother's door.
There it vanished from his fingers, and he could not
find it, search as he might.
The door was
on the latch, and he entered. There sat his mother
by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess, fast
asleep.
"Hush,
Curdie!" said his mother. "Do not wake her. I'm so
glad you're come! I thought the cobs must have got
you again!"
With a heart full of delight, Curdie sat down at a
corner of the hearth, on a stool opposite his
mother's chair, and gazed at the princess, who slept
as peacefully as if she had been in her own bed. All
at once she opened her eyes and fixed them on him.
"Oh, Curdie!
you're come!" she said quietly. "I thought you
would!"
Curdie rose
and stood before her with downcast eyes.
"Irene," he
said, "I am very sorry I did not believe you."
"Oh, never
mind, Curdie!" answered the princess. "You couldn't,
you know. You do believe me now, don't you?"
"I can't
help it now. I ought to have helped it before."
"Why can't
you help it now?"
"Because,
just as I was going into the mountain to look for
you, I got hold of your thread, and it brought me
here."
"Then you've
come from my house, have you?"
"Yes, I
have."
"I didn't
know you were there."
"I've been
there two or three days, I believe."
"And I never
knew it!—Then perhaps you can tell me why my
grandmother has brought me here? I can't think.
Something woke me—I didn't know what, but I was
frightened, and I felt for the thread, and there it
was! I was more [280] frightened still when it
brought me out on the mountain, for I thought it was
going to take me into it again, and I like the
outside of it best. I supposed you were in trouble
again, and I had to get you out. But it brought me
here instead; and, oh, Curdie! your mother has been
so kind to me—just like my own grandmother!"
Here
Curdie's mother gave the princess a hug, and the
princess turned and gave her a sweet smile, and held
up her mouth to kiss her.
"Then you
didn't see the cobs?" asked Curdie.
"No; I
haven't been into the mountain, I told you, Curdie."
"But the
cobs have been into your house—all over it—and into
your bedroom, making such a row!"
"What did
they want there? It was very rude of them."
"They wanted
you—to carry you off into the mountain with them,
for a wife to their prince Harelip."
"Oh, how
dreadful" cried the princess, shuddering.
"But you
needn't be afraid, you know. Your grandmother takes
care of you."
"Ah! you do
believe in my grandmother, then? I'm so glad! She
made me think you would some day."
All at once
Curdie remembered his dream, and was silent,
thinking.
"But how did
you come to be in my house, and me not know it?"
asked the princess.
Then Curdie
had to explain everything—how he had watched for her
sake, how he had been wounded and shut up by the
soldiers, how he heard the noises and could not
rise, and how the beautiful old lady had come to
him, and all that followed.
"Poor Curdie!
to lie there hurt and ill, and me never to know it!"
exclaimed the princess, stroking his rough hand. "I
would have come and nursed you, if they had told
me."
"I didn't
see you were lame," said his mother.
"Am I,
mother? Oh—yes—I suppose I ought to be! I declare
I've never thought of it since I got up to go down
amongst the cobs!"
"Let me see
the wound," said his mother.
He pulled
down his stocking—when behold, except a great scar,
his leg was perfectly sound!
Curdie and
his mother gazed in each other's eyes, full of
wonder, but Irene called out:
"I thought
so, Curdie! I was sure it wasn't a dream. I was sure
my grandmother had been to see you.—Don't you smell
the roses? It was my grandmother healed your leg,
and sent you to help me."
"No,
Princess Irene," said Curdie; "I wasn't good enough
to be allowed to help you: I didn't believe you.
Your grandmother took care of you without me."
"She sent
you to help my people, anyhow. I wish my king-papa
would come. I do want so to tell him how good you
have been!"
"But," said
the mother, "we are forgetting how frightened your
people must be. You must take the princess home at
once, Curdie - or at least go and tell them where
she is."
"Yes,
mother. Only I'm dreadfully hungry. Do let me have
some breakfast first. They ought to have listened to
me, and then they wouldn't have been taken by
surprise as they were."
"That is
true, Curdie; but it is not for you to blame them
much. You remember?"
"Yes,
mother, I do. Only I must really have something to
eat."
"You shall,
my boy—as fast as I can get it," said his mother,
rising and setting the princess on her chair.
But before
his breakfast was ready, Curdie jumped up so
suddenly as to startle both his companions.
"Mother,
mother!" he cried, "I was forgetting. You must take
the princess home yourself. I must go and wake my
father."
Without a
word of explanation, he rushed to the place where
his father was sleeping. Having thoroughly roused
him with what he told him he darted out of the
cottage.
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MASONWORK
HE had all
at once remembered the resolution of the goblins to
carry out their second plan upon the failure of the
first. No doubt they were already busy, and the mine
was therefore in the greatest danger of being
flooded and rendered useless—not to speak of the
lives of the miners.
When he
reached the mouth of the mine, after rousing all the
miners within reach, he found his father and a good
many more just entering. They all hurried to the
gang by which he had found a way into the goblin
country. There the foresight of Peter had already
collected a great many blocks of stone, with cement,
ready for building up the weak place—well enough
known to the goblins. Although there was not room
for more than two to be actually building at once,
they managed, by setting all the rest to work in
preparing the cement and passing the stones, to
[285] finish in the course of the day a huge
buttress filling the whole gang, and supported
everywhere by the live rock. Before the hour when
they usually dropped work, they were satisfied the
mine was secure.
They had
heard goblin hammers and pickaxes busy all the time,
and at length fancied they heard sounds of water
they had never heard before. But that was otherwise
accounted for when they left the mine, for they
stepped out into a tremendous storm which was raging
all over the mountain. The thunder was bellowing,
and the lightning lancing out of a huge black cloud
which lay above it and hung down its edges of thick
mist over its sides. The lightning was breaking out
of the mountain, too, and flashing up into the
cloud. From the state of the brooks, now swollen
into raging torrents, it was evident that the storm
had been storming all day.
The wind was
blowing as if it would blow him off the mountain,
but, anxious about his mother and the princess,
Curdie darted up through the thick of the tempest.
Even if they had not set out before the storm came
on, he did not judge them safe, for in such a storm
even their poor [286] little house was in danger.
Indeed he soon found that but for a huge rock
against which it was built, and which protected it
both from the blasts and the waters, it must have
been swept if it was not blown away; for the two
torrents into which this rock parted the rush of
water behind it united again in front of the
cottage—two roaring and dangerous streams, which his
mother and the princess could not possibly have
passed. It was with great difficulty that he forced
his way through one of them, and up to the door.
The moment
his hand fell on the latch, through all the uproar
of winds and Waters came the joyous cry of the
princess:
"There's
Curdie! Curdie! Curdie!"
She was
sitting wrapped in blankets on the bed, his mother
trying for the hundredth time to light the fire
which had been drowned by the rain that came down
the chimney. The clay floor was one mass of mud, and
the whole place looked wretched. But the faces of
the mother and the princess shone as if their
troubles only made them the merrier. Curdie burst
out laughing at the sight of them.
"I never had
such fun!" said the princess, her eyes twinkling and
her pretty teeth shining. [287] "How nice it must be
to live in a cottage on the mountain!"
"It all
depends on what kind your inside house is," said the
mother.
"I know what
you mean," said Irene. "That's the kind of thing my
grandmother says."
By the time
Peter returned the storm was nearly over, but the
streams were so fierce and so swollen that it was
not only out of the question for the princess to go
down the mountain, but most dangerous for Peter even
or Curdie to make the attempt in the gathering
darkness.
"They will
be dreadfully frightened about you," said Peter to
the princess, "but we cannot help it. We must wait
till the morning."
With
Curdie's help, the fire was lighted at last, and the
mother set about making their supper; and after
supper they all told the princess stories till she
grew sleepy. Then Curdie's mother laid her in
Curdie's bed, which was in a tiny little
garret-room. As soon as she was in bed, through a
little window low down in the roof she caught sight
of her grandmother's lamp shining far away beneath,
and she gazed at the beautiful silvery globe until
she fell asleep.
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THE
KING AND THE KISS
THE next
morning the sun rose so bright that Irene said the
rain had washed his face and let the light out
clean. The torrents were still roaring down the side
of the mountain, but they were so much smaller as
not to be dangerous in the daylight. After an early
breakfast, Peter went to his work and Curdie and his
mother set out to take the princess home. They had
difficulty in getting her dry across the streams,
and Curdie had again and again to carry her, but at
last they got safe on the broader part of the road,
and walked gently down towards the king's house. And
what should they see as they turned the last corner
but the last of the king's troop riding through the
gate!
"Oh, Curdie!"
cried Irene, clapping her hands right joyfully,"my
king-papa is come."
The moment
Curdie heard that, he caught her up in his arms, and
set off at full speed, crying—
come on,
mother dear! The king may break his heart before he
knows that she is safe."
Irene clung
round his neck and he ran with her like a deer. When
he entered the gate into the court, there sat the
king on his horse, with all the people of the house
about him, weeping and hanging their heads. The king
was not weeping, but his face was white as a dead
man's, and he looked as if the life had gone out of
him. The men-at-arms he had brought with him, sat
with horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing with
rage, waiting only for the word of the king to do
something—they did not know what, and nobody knew
what.
The day before, the men-at-arms belonging to the
house, as soon as they were satisfied the princess
had been carried away, rushed after the goblins into
the hole, but found that they had already so
skilfully blockaded the narrowest part, not many
feet below the cellar, that without miners and their
tools they could do nothing. Not one of them knew
where the mouth of the mine lay, and some of those
who had set out to find it had been overtaken by the
storm and had not even yet returned. Poor Sir Walter
was especially filled with shame, and almost hoped
the king would order his head to be cut off, for to
think of that sweet little face down amongst the
goblins was unendurable.
When Curdie
ran in at the gate with the princess in his arms,
they were all so absorbed in their own misery and
awed by the king's presence and grief, that no one
observed his arrival. He went straight up to the
king, where he sat on his horse.
"Papa!
papa!" the princess cried, stretching out her arms
to him; "here I am!"
The king
started. The colour rushed to his face. He gave an
inarticulate cry. Curdie held up the princess, and
the king bent down and took her from his arms. As he
clasped her to his bosom, the big tears went
dropping down his cheeks and his beard. And such a
shout arose from all the bystanders that the
startled horses pranced and capered, and the armour
rang and clattered, and the rocks of the mountain
echoed back the noises. The princess greeted them
all as she nestled in her father's bosom, and the
king did not set her down until she had told them
all the story. But she had more to tell about Curdie
than about herself, and what she did tell about
herself none of them could understand—except the
king and Curdie, who stood by the king's knee
stroking the neck of the great white horse. And
still as she told what Curdie had done, Sir Walter
and others added to what she told, even Lootie
joining in the praises of his courage and energy.
Curdie held
his peace, looking quietly up in the king's face.
And his mother stood on the [292] outskirts of the
crowd listening with delight, for her son's deeds
were pleasant in her ears, until the princess caught
sight of her.
"And there
is his mother, king-papa!" she said. "See—there. She
is such a nice mother, and has been so kind to me!"
They all
parted asunder as the king made a sign to her to
come forward. She obeyed, and he gave her his hand,
but could not speak.
"And now,
king-papa," the princess went on, "I must tell you
another thing. One night long ago Curdie drove the
goblins away and brought Lootie and me safe from the
mountain. And I promised him a kiss when we got
home, but Lootie wouldn't let me give it him. I
don't want you to scold Lootie, but I want you to
tell her that a princess must do as she promises."
"Indeed she
must, my child—except it be wrong," said the king.
"There, give Curdie a kiss."
And as he
spoke he held her towards him.
The princess
reached down, threw her arms round Curdie's neck,
and kissed him on the mouth, saying—
"There,
Curdie! There's the kiss I promised you!"
Then they all went into the house, and the cook
rushed to the kitchen and the servants to their
work. Lootie dressed Irene in her shiningest
clothes, and the king put off his armour, and put on
purple and gold; and a messenger was sent for Peter
and all the miners, and there was a great and a
grand feast, which continued long after the princess
was put to bed.
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THE
SUBTERRANEAN WATERS
THE king's
harper, who always formed a part of his escort, was
chanting a ballad which he made as he went on
playing on his instrument—about the princess and the
goblins, and the prowess of Curdie, when all at once
he ceased, with his eyes on one of the doors of the
hall. Thereupon the eyes of the king and his guests
turned thitherward also. The next moment, through
the open doorway came the princess Irene. She went
straight up to her father, with her right hand
stretched out a little sideways, and her forefinger,
as her father and Curdie understood, feeling its way
along the invisible thread. The king took her on his
knee, and she said in his ear—
"King-papa,
do you hear that noise?"
"I hear
nothing," said the king.
"Listen,"
she said, holding up her forefinger.
The king
listened, and a great stillness fell upon the
company. Each man, seeing that the king listened,
listened also, and the harper sat with his harp
between his arms, and his finger silent upon the
strings.
"I do hear a
noise," said the king at length—"a noise as of
distant thunder. It is coming nearer and nearer.
What can it be?"
They all
heard it now, and each seemed ready to start to his
feet as he listened. Yet all sat perfectly still.
The noise came rapidly nearer.
"What can it
be?" said the king again.
"I think it
must be another storm coming over the mountain,"
said Sir Walter.
Then Curdie,
who at the first word of the king had slipped from
his seat, and laid his ear to the ground, rose up
quickly, and approaching the king said, speaking
very fast—
"Please,
Your Majesty, I think I know what it is. I have no
time to explain, for that might make it too late for
some of us. Will Your Majesty give orders that
everybody leave the house as quickly as possible and
get up the mountain?"
The king,
who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well
there was a time when things must be done and
questions left till afterward. [296] He had faith in
Curdie, and rose instantly, with Irene in his arms.
"Every man
and woman follow me," he said, and strode out into
the darkness.
Before he
had reached the gate, the noise had grown to a great
thundering roar, and the ground trembled beneath
their feet, and before the last of them had crossed
the court, out after them from the great hall door
came a huge rush of turbid water, and almost swept
them away. But they got safe out of the gate and up
the mountain, while the torrent went roaring down
the road into the valley beneath.
Curdie had
left the king and the princess to look after his
mother, whom he and his father, one on each side,
caught up when the stream overtook them and carried
safe and dry.
When the
king had got out of the way of the water, a little
up the mountain, he stood with the princess in his
arms, looking back with amazement on the issuing
torrent, which glimmered fierce and foamy through
the night. There Curdie rejoined them.
"Now, Curdie,"
said the king, "what does it mean? Is this what you
expected?"
[297] "It
is, Your Majesty," said Curdie; and proceeded to
tell him about the second scheme of the goblins,
who, fancying the miners of more importance to the
upper world than they were, had resolved, if they
should fail in carrying off the king's daughter, to
flood the mine and drown the miners. Then he
explained what the miners had done to prevent it.
The goblins had, in pursuance of their design, let
loose all the underground reservoirs and streams,
expecting the water to run down into the mine, which
was lower than their part of the mountain, for they
had, as they supposed, not knowing of the solid wall
close behind, broken a passage through into it. But
the readiest outlet the water could find had turned
out to be the tunnel they had made to the king's
house, the possibility of which catastrophe had not
occurred to the young miner until he had laid his
ear to the floor of the hall.
What was
then to be done? The house appeared in danger of
falling, and every moment the torrent was
increasing.
"We must set
out at once," said the king. "But how to get at the
horses!"
"Shall I see
if we can manage that?" said Curdie.
"Do," said
the king.
Curdie
gathered the men-at-arms, and took them over the
garden wall, and so to the stables. They found their
horses in terror; the water was rising fast around
them, and it was quite time they were got out. But
there was no way to get them out, except by riding
them through the stream, which was now pouring from
the lower windows as well as the door. As one horse
was quite enough for any man to manage through such
a torrent, Curdie got on the king's white charger
and, leading the way, brought them all in safety to
the rising ground.
"Look, look,
Curdie!" cried Irene, the moment that, having
dismounted, he led the horse up to the king.
Curdie did
look, and saw, high in the air, somewhere about the
top of the king's house, a great globe of light
shining like the purest silver.
"Oh!" he
cried in some consternation, "that is your
grandmother's lamp! We must get her out. I will go
an find her. The house may fall, you know."
"My
grandmother is in no danger," said Irene, smiling.
"Here,
Curdie, take the princess while I get on my horse,"
said the king.
Curdie took
the princess again, and both turned their eyes to
the globe of light. The same moment there shot from
it a white bird, which, descending with outstretched
wings, made one circle round the king an Curdie and
the princess, and then glided up again. The light
and the pigeon vanished together.
"Now, Curdie!"
said the princess, as he lifted her to her father's
arms, "you see my grandmother knows all about it,
and isn't frightened. I believe she could walk
through that water and it wouldn't wet her a bit."
"But, my
child," said the king, "you will be cold if you
haven't Something more on. Run, Curdie, my boy, and
fetch anything you can lay your hands on, to keep
the princess warm. We have a long ride before us."
Curdie was
gone in a moment, and soon returned with a great
rich fur, and the news that dead goblins were
tossing about in the current through the house. They
had been caught in their own snare; instead of the
mine they had flooded their own country, whence they
were now swept up drowned. Irene shuddered, but the
king held her close to his bosom. Then he turned to
Sir Walter, and said:
"Bring
Curdie's father and mother here."
"I wish,"
said the king, when they stood before him, "to take
your son with me. He shall enter my bodyguard at
once, and wait further promotion."
Peter and
his wife, overcome, only murmured almost inaudible
thanks. But Curdie spoke aloud.
"Please,
Your Majesty," he said, "I cannot leave my father
and mother."
"That's
right, Curdie!" cried the princess. "I wouldn't if I
was you."
The king
looked at the princess and then at Curdie with a
glow of satisfaction on his countenance.
"I too think
you are right, Curdie," he said, "and I will not ask
you again. But I shall have a chance of doing
something for you some time."
"Your
Majesty has already allowed me to serve you," said
Curdie.
"But, Curdie,"
said his mother, "why shouldn't you go with the
king? We can get on very well without you."
"But I can't
get on very well without you," said Curdie. "The
king is very kind, but I could not be half the use
to him that I am to you. Please, Your Majesty, if
you wouldn't mind giving my mother a red petticoat!
I should have got her one long ago, but for the
goblins."
"As soon as
we get home," said the king, "Irene and I will
search out the warmest one to be found, and send it
by one of the gentlemen."
"Yes, that
we will, Curdie!" said the princess.
"And next
summer we'll come back and see you wear it, Curdie's
mother," she added. "Shan't we, king-papa?"
"Yes, my
love; I hope so," said the king.
Then turning
to the miners, he said—
"Will you do
the best you can for my servants to-night? I hope
they will be able to return to the house to-morrow."
The miners
with one voice promised their hospitality.
Then the
king commanded his servants to [302] mind whatever
Curdie should say to them, and after shaking hands
with him and his father and mother, the king and the
princess and all their company rode away down the
side of the new stream, which had already devoured
half the road, into the starry night.
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THE
LAST CHAPTER
ALL the rest
went up the mountain, and separated in groups to the
homes of the miners. Curdie and his father and
mother took Lootie with them. And the whole way a
light, of which all but Lootie understood the
origin, shone upon their path. But when they looked
round they could see nothing of the silvery globe.
For days and
days the water continued to rush from the doors and
windows of the king's house, and a few goblin bodies
were swept out into the road.
Curdie saw
that something must be done. He spoke to his father
and the rest of the miners, and they at once
proceeded to make another outlet for the waters. By
setting all hands to the work, tunnelling here and
building there, they soon succeeded; and having also
made a little tunnel to drain the water away from
under the [304] king's house, they were soon able to
get into the wine cellar, where they found a
multitude of dead goblins—among the rest the queen,
with the skin-shoe gone, and the stone one fast to
her ankle—for the water had swept away the
barricade, which prevented the men-at-arms from
following the goblins, and had greatly widened the
passage. They built it securely up, and then went
back to their labours in the mine.
A good many
of the goblins with their creatures escaped from the
inundation out upon the mountain. But most of them
soon left that part of the country, and most of
those who remained grew milder in character, and
indeed became very much like the Scotch brownies.
Their skulls became softer as well as their hearts,
and their feet grew harder, and by degrees they
became friendly with the inhabitants of the mountain
and even with the miners. But the latter were
merciless to any of the cobs' creatures that came in
their way, until at length they all but disappeared.
Still—
"But, Mr.
Author, we would rather hear more about the Princess
and Curdie. We don't care about the goblins and
their nasty creatures. They frighten us—rather."
"But you
know if you once get rid of the goblins there is no
fear of the princess or of Curdie."
"But we want
to know more about them."
"Some day,
perhaps, I may tell you the further history of both
of them; how Curdie came to visit Irene's
grandmother, and what she did for him; and how the
princess and he met again after they were older—and
how—But there! I don't mean to go any farther at
present."
"Then you're
leaving the story unfinished, Mr. Author!"
"Not more
unfinished than a story ought to be, I hope. If you
ever knew a story finished, all I call say is, I
never did. Somehow, stories won't finish. I think I
know why, but I won't say that either, now."
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