The Princess and the Goblin
by George MacDonald · English · Gutenberg #34339 · 301,641 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Princess and the Goblin
Author: George MacDonald
Illustrator: Jessie Willcox Smith
Release date: November 16, 2010 [eBook #34339]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34339
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN
_Illustrations especially engraved and printed by the Beck Engraving
Company, Philadelphia_
THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN
_By_ George MacDonald
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY
JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH
DAVID MCKAY COMPANY _Publishers_
Philadelphia, MCMXX.
Copyright, 1920, by David McKay Company
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
She ran for some distance, turned several times, and
then began to be afraid 14
She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose
such a flapping of wings 22
"Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't
kiss me to-night. But you shan't break your word.
I will come another time" 42
In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped
in his great strong arms 68
"Come," and she still held out her arms 96
The goblins fell back a little when he began, and
made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme 118
Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about 138
There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms
lay the princess fast asleep 184
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHY THE PRINCESS HAS A STORY ABOUT HER 9
II. THE PRINCESS LOSES HERSELF 13
III. THE PRINCESS AND--WE SHALL SEE WHO 16
IV. WHAT THE NURSE THOUGHT OF IT 24
V. THE PRINCESS LETS WELL ALONE 29
VI. THE LITTLE MINER 32
VII. THE MINES 45
VIII. THE GOBLINS 50
IX. THE HALL OF THE GOBLIN PALACE 59
X. THE PRINCESS'S KING-PAPA 68
XI. THE OLD LADY'S BEDROOM 73
XII. A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT CURDIE 82
XIII. THE COBS' CREATURES 85
XIV. THAT NIGHT WEEK 90
XV. WOVEN AND THEN SPUN 95
XVI. THE RING 106
XVII. SPRING-TIME 109
XVIII. CURDIE'S CLUE 112
XIX. GOBLIN COUNSELS 122
XX. IRENE'S CLUE 128
XXI. THE ESCAPE 134
XXII. THE OLD LADY AND CURDIE 147
XXIII. CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER 155
XXIV. IRENE BEHAVES LIKE A PRINCESS 165
XXV. CURDIE COMES TO GRIEF 168
XXVI. THE GOBLIN-MINERS 174
XXVII. THE GOBLINS IN THE KING'S HOUSE 177
XXVIII. CURDIE'S GUIDE 184
XXIX. MASON-WORK 189
XXX. THE KING AND THE KISS 192
XXXI. THE SUBTERRANEAN WATERS 196
XXXII. THE LAST CHAPTER 202
THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN
CHAPTER I
WHY THE PRINCESS HAS A STORY ABOUT HER
THERE was once a little princess who--
"_But, Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?_"
"_Because every little girl is a princess._"
"_You will make them vain if you tell them that._"
"_Not if they understand what I mean._"
"_Then what do you mean?_"
"_What_ do you _mean by a princess?_"
"_The daughter of a king._"
"_Very well, then every little girl is a princess, and there would be no
need to say anything about it, except that she is always in danger of
forgetting her rank, and behaving as if she had grown out of the mud. I
have seen little princesses behave like the children of thieves and
lying beggars, and that is why they need to be told they are
princesses. And that is why, when I tell a story of this kind, I like to
tell it about a princess. Then I can say better what I mean, because I
can then give her every beautiful thing I want her to have._"
"_Please go on._"
There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great
country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of
the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose
name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth,
because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country
people in a large house, half castle, half farm-house, on the side of
another mountain, about halfway between its base and its peak.
The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story
begins was about eight years old. I think, but she got older very fast.
Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night-sky, each
with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought
must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in
that direction. The ceiling of her nursery was blue, with stars in it,
as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the
real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had better mention
at once.
These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and
winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining
with all colors of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would
not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there,
great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them,
which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full.
In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural
caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a
mountain, or into a ravine.
Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called
by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend
current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and
were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning
which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what
they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of
them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity in
some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was
that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to
the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had
all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out
but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and
never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and
most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even
at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said
that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no
wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark
places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely
hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no
invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen
or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. And
as they grew mis-shapen in body, they had grown in knowledge and
cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the
possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and
their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the
people who lived in the open-air-story above them. They had enough of
affection left for each other, to preserve them from being absolutely
cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they
so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied
their former possession, and especially against the descendants of the
king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity
of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and
although dwarfed and mis-shapen, they had strength equal to their
cunning. In the process of time they had got a king, and a government of
their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to
devise trouble for their neighbors. It will now be pretty evident why
the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too
afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company
with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see
by-and-by.
CHAPTER II
THE PRINCESS LOSES HERSELF
I HAVE said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story
begins. And this is how it begins.
One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was
constantly gathering itself together into rain-drops, and pouring down
on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water
from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course go
out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer
amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one
half of the toys she had. But then you wouldn't have the toys
themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a
thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing--the
princess sitting in the nursery with the sky-ceiling over her head, at a
great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw
this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of
attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw
them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I
don't think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the
princess herself than he could, though--leaning with her back bowed into
the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap,
very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she would
like, except to go out and get very wet, catch a particularly nice
cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you
see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room.
[Illustration: She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then
began to be afraid.]
Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks
about her. Then she tumbles off her chair, and runs out of the door, not
the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of
a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never any one
had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and that
was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was at
the top of it.
Up and up she ran--such a long way it seemed to her! until she came to
the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of
a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side.
There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the
end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors. When she
had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she
began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide
rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a great
trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full speed, her
little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain--back for the
stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought, but she had lost herself
long ago. It doesn't follow that she _was_ lost, because she had lost
herself though.
She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be
afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms
everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little
feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was too
eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope
failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw herself
on the floor, and began to wail and cry.
She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected
of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the
dust from her frock. Oh what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes
with her hands, for princesses don't always have their handkerchiefs in
their pockets any more than some other little girls I know of. Next,
like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to work to find her
way back: she would walk through the passages, and look in every
direction for the stair. This she did, but without success. She went
over the same ground again and again without knowing it, for the
passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a
half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way:
instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was, however, she
could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair could lead. It
was very narrow, and so steep that she went up like a four-legged
creature on her hands and feet.
CHAPTER III
THE PRINCESS AND--WE SHALL SEE WHO
WHEN she came to the top, she found herself in a little square place,
with three doors, two opposite each other, and one opposite the top of
the stair. She stood for a moment, without an idea in her little head
what to do next. But as she stood, she began to hear a curious humming
sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even
monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The
low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while
and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee
that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than
anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from?
She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was
there--then to another. When she laid her ear against the third door,
there could be no doubt where it came from: it must be from something in
that room. What could it be? She was rather afraid, but her curiosity
was stronger than her fear, and she opened the door very gently and
peeped in. What do you think she saw? A very old lady who sat spinning.
"_Oh, Mr. Editor! I know the story you are going to tell: it's The
Sleeping Beauty; only you're spinning too, and making it longer._"
"_No, indeed, it is not that story. Why should I tell one that every
properly educated child knows already? More old ladies than one have sat
spinning in a garret. Besides, the old lady in that story was only
spinning with a spindle, and this one was spinning with a spinning
wheel, else how could the princess have heard the sweet noise through
the door? Do you know the difference? Did you ever see a spindle or a
spinning wheel? I daresay you never did. Well, ask your mamma to explain
to you the difference. Between ourselves, however, I shouldn't wonder if
she didn't know much better than you. Another thing is, that this is not
a fairy story; but a goblin story. And one thing more, this old lady
spinning was not an old nurse--but--you shall see who. I think I have
now made it quite plain that this is not that lovely story of The
Sleeping Beauty. It is quite a new one, I assure you, and I will try to
tell it as prettily as I can._"
Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady
was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but
her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed
back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over
her back. That is not much like an old lady--is it? Ah! but it was white
almost as snow. And although her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so
wise that you could not have helped seeing she must be old. The
princess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old
indeed--quite fifty--she said to herself. But she was rather older than
that, as you shall hear.
While the princess stared bewildered, with her head just inside the
door, the old lady lifted hers, and said in a sweet, but old and rather
shaky voice, which mingled very pleasantly with the continued hum of her
wheel:
"Come in, my dear; come in. I am glad to see you."
That the princess was a real princess, you might see now quite plainly;
for she didn't hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without
moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses, but
were only rather vulgar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped
inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her.
"Come to me, my dear," said the old lady.
And again the princess did as she was told. She approached the old
lady--rather slowly, I confess, but did not stop until she stood by her
side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted
stars in them.
"Why, what have you been doing with your eyes, child?" asked the old
lady.
"Crying," answered the princess.
"Why, child?"
"Because I couldn't find my way down again."
"But you could find your way up."
"Not at first--not for a long time."
"But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra. Hadn't you a
handkerchief to wipe your eyes with?"
"No."
"Then why didn't you come to me to wipe them for you?"
"Please I didn't know you were here. I will next time."
"There's a good child!" said the old lady.
Then she stopped her wheel, and rose, and, going out of the room,
returned with a little silver basin and a soft white towel, with which
she washed and wiped the bright little face. And the princess thought
her hands were so smooth and nice!
When she carried away the basin and towel, the little princess wondered
to see how straight and tall she was, for, although she was so old, she
didn't stoop a bit. She was dressed in black velvet with thick white
heavy-looking lace about it; and on the black dress her hair shone like
silver. There was hardly any more furniture in the room than there might
have been in that of the poorest old woman who made her bread by her
spinning. There was no carpet on the floor--no table anywhere--nothing
but the spinning-wheel and the chair beside it. When she came back, she
sat down again, and without a word began her spinning once more, while
Irene, who had never seen a spinning-wheel, stood by her side and looked
on. When the old lady had succeeded in getting her thread fairly in
operation again, she said to the princess, but without looking at her:
"Do you know my name, child?"
"No, I don't know it," answered the princess.
"My name is Irene."
"That's _my_ name!" cried the princess.
"I know that. I let you have mine. I haven't got your name. You've got
mine."
"How can that be?" asked the princess, bewildered. "I've always had my
name."
"Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any objection to your having it;
and of course I hadn't. I let you have it with pleasure."
"It was very kind of you to give me your name--and such a pretty one,"
said the princess.
"Oh, not so _very_ kind!" said the old lady. "A name is one of those
things one can give away and keep all the same. I have a good many such
things. Wouldn't you like to know who I am, child?"
"Yes, that I should--very much."
"I'm your great-great-grandmother," said the lady.
"What's that?" asked the princess.
"I'm your father's mother's father's mother."
"Oh, dear! I can't understand that," said the princess.
"I daresay not. I didn't expect you would. But that's no reason why I
shouldn't say it."
"Oh no!" answered the princess.
"I will explain it all to you when you are older," the lady went on.
"But you will be able to understand this much now: I came here to take
care of you."
"Is it long since you came? Was it yesterday? Or was it to-day, because
it was so wet that I couldn't get out?"
"I've been here ever since you came yourself."
"What a long time!" said the princess. "I don't remember it at all."
"No. I suppose not."
"But I never saw you before."
"No. But you shall see me again."
"Do you live in this room always?"
"I don't sleep in it. I sleep on the opposite side of the landing. I sit
here most of the day."
"I shouldn't like it. My nursery is much prettier. You must be a queen
too, if you are my great big grandmother."
"Yes, I am a queen."
"Where is your crown then?"
"In my bedroom."
"I _should_ like to see it."
"You shall some day--not to-day."
"I wonder why nursie never told me."
"Nursie doesn't know. She never saw me."
"But somebody knows that you are in the house?"
"No; nobody."
"How do you get your dinner then?"
"I keep poultry--of a sort."
"Where do you keep them?"
"I will show you."
"And who makes the chicken broth for you?"
"I never kill any of my chickens."
"Then I can't understand."
"What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
"Oh! I had bread and milk, and an egg.--I daresay you eat their eggs."
"Yes, that's it. I eat their eggs."
"Is that what makes your hair so white?"
"No, my dear. It's old age. I am very old."
"I thought so. Are you fifty?"
"Yes--more than that."
"Are you a hundred?"
"Yes--more than that. I am too old for you to guess. Come and see my
chickens."
[Illustration: She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a
flapping of wings.]
Again she stopped her spinning. She rose, took the princess by the hand,
led her out of the room, and opened the door opposite the stair. The
princess expected to see a lot of hens and chickens, but instead of
that, she saw the blue sky first, and then the roofs of the house, with
a multitude of the loveliest pigeons, mostly white, but of all colors,
walking about, making bows to each other, and talking a language she
could not understand. She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose
such a flapping of wings, that she in her turn was startled.
"You've frightened my poultry," said the old lady, smiling.
"And they've frightened me," said the princess, smiling too. "But what
very nice poultry! Are the eggs nice?"
"Yes, very nice."
"What a small egg-spoon you must have! Wouldn't it be better to keep
hens, and get bigger eggs?"
"How should I feed them, though?"
"I see," said the princess. "The pigeons feed themselves. They've got
wings."
"Just so. If they couldn't fly, I couldn't eat their eggs."
"But how do you get at the eggs? Where are their nests?"
The lady took hold of a little loop of string in the wall at the side of
the door, and lifting a shutter showed a great many pigeon-holes with
nests, some with young ones and some with eggs in them. The birds came
in at the other side, and she took out the eggs on this side. She closed
it again quickly, lest the young ones should be frightened.
"Oh what a nice way!" cried the princess. "Will you give me an egg to
eat? I'm rather hungry."
"I will some day, but now you must go back, or nursie will be miserable
about you. I daresay she's looking for you everywhere."
"Except here," answered the princess. "Oh how surprised she _will_ be
when I tell her about my great big grand-grandmother!"
"Yes, that she will!" said the old lady with a curious smile. "Mind you
tell her all about it exactly."
"That I will. Please will you take me back to her?"
"I can't go all the way, but I will take you to the top of the stair,
and then you must run down quite fast into your own room."
The little princess put her hand in the old lady's, who, looking this
way and that, brought her to the top of the first stair, and thence to
the bottom of the second, and did not leave her till she saw her half
way down the third. When she heard the cry of her nurse's pleasure at
finding her, she turned and walked up the stairs again, very fast indeed
for such a very great grandmother, and sat down to her spinning with
another strange smile on her sweet old face.
About this spinning of hers I will tell you more next time.
Guess what she was spinning.
CHAPTER IV
WHAT THE NURSE THOUGHT OF IT
"WHY, where can you have been, princess?" asked the nurse, taking her in
her arms. "It's very unkind of you to hide away so long. I began to be
afraid--"
Here she checked herself.
"What were you afraid of, nursie?" asked the princess.
"Never mind," she answered. "Perhaps I will tell you another day. Now
tell me where you have been?"
"I've been up a long way to see my very great, huge, old grandmother,"
said the princess.
"What do you mean by that?" asked the nurse, who thought she was making
fun.
"I mean that I've been a long way up and up to see my great grandmother.
Ah, nursie, you don't know what a beautiful mother of grandmothers I've
got upstairs. She is _such_ an old lady! with such lovely white
hair!--as white as my silver cup. Now, when I think of it, I think her
hair must be silver."
"What nonsense you are talking, princess!" said the nurse.
"I'm not talking nonsense," returned Irene, rather offended. "I will
tell you all about her. She's much taller than you, and much prettier."
"Oh, I daresay!" remarked the nurse.
"And she lives upon pigeon's eggs."
"Most likely," said the nurse.
"And she sits in an empty room, spin-spinning all day long."
"Not a doubt of it," said the nurse.
"And she keeps her crown in her bedroom."
"Of course--quite the proper place to keep her crown in. She wears it in
bed, I'll be bound."
"She didn't say that. And I don't think she does. That wouldn't be
comfortable--would it? I don't think my papa wears his crown for a
night-cap. Does he, nursie?"
"I never asked him. I daresay he does."
"And she's been there ever since I came here--ever so many years."
"Anybody could have told you that," said the nurse, who did not believe
a word Irene was saying.
"Why didn't you tell me then?"
"There was no necessity. You could make it all up for yourself."
"You don't believe me then!" exclaimed the princess, astonished and
angry, as well she might be.
"Did you expect me to believe you, princess?" asked the nurse coldly. "I
know princesses are in the habit of telling make-believes, but you are
the first I ever heard of who expected to have them believed," she
added, seeing that the child was strangely in earnest.
The princess burst into tears.
"Well, I must say," remarked the nurse, now thoroughly vexed with her
for crying, "it is not at all becoming in a princess to tell stories
_and_ expect to be believed just because she is a princess."
"But it's quite true, I tell you, nursie."
"You've dreamt it, then, child."
"No, I didn't dream it. I went up-stairs, and I lost myself, and if I
hadn't found the beautiful lady, I should never have found myself."
"Oh, I daresay!"
"Well, you just come up with me, and see if I'm not telling the truth."
"Indeed I have other work to do. It's your dinner-time, and I won't have
any more such nonsense."
The princess wiped her eyes, and her face grew so hot that they were
soon quite dry. She sat down to her dinner, but ate next to nothing. Not
to be believed does not at all agree with princesses; for a real
princess cannot tell a lie. So all the afternoon she did not speak a
word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real
princess is never rude--even when she does well to be offended.
Of course the nurse was not comfortable in her mind--not that she
suspected the least truth in Irene's story, but that she loved her
dearly, and was vexed with herself for having been cross to her. She
thought her crossness was the cause of the princess' unhappiness, and
had no idea that she was really and deeply hurt at not being believed.
But, as it became more and more plain during the evening in every motion
and look, that, although she tried to amuse herself with her toys, her
heart was too vexed and troubled to enjoy them, her nurse's discomfort
grew and grew. When bedtime came, she undressed and laid her down, but
the child, instead of holding up her little mouth to be kissed, turned
away from her and lay still. Then nursie's heart gave way altogether,
and she began to cry. At the sound of her first sob, the princess
turned again, and held her face to kiss her as usual. But the nurse had
her handkerchief to her eyes, and did not see the movement.
"Nursie," said the princess, "why won't you believe me?"
"Because I can't believe you," said the nurse, getting angry again.
"Ah! then you can't help it," said Irene, "and I will not be vexed with
you any more. I will give you a kiss and go to sleep."
"You little angel!" cried the nurse, and caught her out of bed, and
walked about the room with her in her arms, kissing and hugging her.
"You _will_ let me take you to see my dear old great big grandmother,
won't you?" said the princess, as she laid her down again.
"And _you_ won't say I'm ugly, any more--will you, princess?"
"Nursie! I never said you were ugly. What can you mean?"
"Well, if you didn't say it, you meant it."
"Indeed, I never did."
"You said I wasn't so pretty as that--"
"As my beautiful grandmother--yes, I did say that; and I say it again,
for it's quite true."
"Then I _do_ think you _are_ unkind!" said the nurse, and put her
handkerchief to her eyes again.
"Nursie, dear, everybody can't be as beautiful as every other body, you
know. You are _very_ nice-looking, but if you had been as beautiful as
my grandmother--"
"Bother your grandmother!" said the nurse.
"Nurse, that's very rude. You are not fit to be spoken to--till you can
behave better."
The princess turned away once more, and again the nurse was ashamed of
herself.
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, princess," she said, though still in an
offended tone. But the princess let the tone pass, and heeded only the
words.
"You won't say it again, I am sure," she answered, once more turning
toward her nurse. "I was only going to say that if you had been twice as
nice-looking as you are, some king or other would have married you, and
then what would have become of me?"
"You are an angel!" repeated the nurse, again embracing her.
"Now," insisted Irene, "you _will_ come and see my grandmother--won't
you?"
"I will go with you anywhere you like, my cherub," she answered; and in
two minutes the weary little princess was fast asleep.
CHAPTER V
THE PRINCESS LETS WELL ALONE
WHEN she woke the next morning, the first thing she heard was the rain
still falling. Indeed, this day was so like the last, that it would have
been difficult to tell where was the use of it. The first thing she
thought of, however, was not the rain, but the lady in the tower; and
the first question that occupied her thoughts was whether she should not
ask the nurse to fulfill her promise this very morning, and go with her
to find her grandmother as soon as she had had her breakfast. But she
came to the conclusion that perhaps the lady would not be pleased if she
took anyone to see her without first asking leave; especially as it was
pretty evident, seeing she lived on pigeons' eggs, and cooked them
herself, that she did not want the household to know she was there. So
the princess resolved to take the first opportunity of running up alone
and asking whether she might bring her nurse. She believed the fact that
she could not otherwise convince her she was telling the truth, would
have much weight with her grandmother.
The princess and her nurse were the best of friends all dressing time,
and the princess in consequence ate an enormous little breakfast.
"I wonder, Lootie"--that was her pet-name for her nurse--"what pigeons'
eggs taste like?" she said, as she was eating her egg--not quite a
common one, for they always picked out the pinky ones for her.
"We'll get you a pigeon's egg, and you shall judge for yourself," said
the nurse.
"Oh, no, no!" returned Irene, suddenly reflecting they might disturb the
old lady in getting it, and that even if they did not, she would have
one less in consequence.
"What a strange creature you are," said the nurse--"first to want a
thing and then to refuse it!"
But she did not say it crossly, and the princess never minded any
remarks that were not unfriendly.
"Well, you see, Lootie, there are reasons," she returned, and said no
more, for she did not want to bring up the subject of their former
strife, lest her nurse should offer to go before she had had her
grandmother's permission to bring her. Of course she could refuse to
take her, but then she would believe her less than ever.
Now the nurse, as she said herself afterward, could not be every moment
in the room, and as never before yesterday had the princess given her
the smallest reason for anxiety, it had not yet come into her head to
watch her more closely. So she soon gave her a chance, and the very
first that offered, Irene was off and up the stairs again.
This day's adventure, however, did not turn out like yesterday's,
although it began like it; and indeed to-day is very seldom like
yesterday, if people would note the differences--even when it rains. The
princess ran through passage after passage, and could not find the stair
of the tower. My own suspicion is that she had not gone up high enough,
and was searching on the second instead of the third floor. When she
turned to go back, she failed equally in her search after the stair. She
was lost once more.
Something made it even worse to bear this time, and it was no wonder
that she cried again. Suddenly it occurred to her that it was after
having cried before that she had found her grandmother's stair. She got
up at once, wiped her eyes, and started upon a fresh quest. This time,
although she did not find what she hoped, she found what was next best:
she did not come on a stair that went up, but she came upon one that
went down. It was evidently not the stair she had come up, yet it was a
good deal better than none; so down she went, and was singing merrily
before she reached the bottom. There, to her surprise, she found herself
in the kitchen. Although she was not allowed to go there alone, her
nurse had often taken her, and she was a great favorite with the
servants. So there was a general rush at her the moment she appeared,
for every one wanted to have her; and the report of where she was soon
reached the nurse's ears. She came at once to fetch her; but she never
suspected how she had got there, and the princess kept her own counsel.
Her failure to find the old lady not only disappointed her, but made her
very thoughtful. Sometimes she came almost to the nurse's opinion that
she had dreamed all about her; but that fancy never lasted very long.
She wondered much whether she should ever see her again, and thought it
very sad not to have been able to find her when she particularly wanted
her. She resolved to say nothing more to her nurse on the subject,
seeing it was so little in her power to prove her words.
CHAPTER VI
THE LITTLE MINER
THE next day the great cloud still hung over the mountain, and the rain
poured like water from a full sponge. The princess was very fond of
being out of doors, and she nearly cried when she saw that the weather
was no better. But the mist was not of such a dark dingy gray; there was
light in it; and as the hours went on, it grew brighter and brighter,
until it was almost too brilliant to look at; and late in the afternoon,
the sun broke out so gloriously that Irene clapped her hands, crying,
"See, see, Lootie! The sun has had his face washed. Look how bright he
is! Do get my hat, and let us go out for a walk. Oh dear! oh dear! how
happy I am!"
Lootie was very glad to please the princess. She got her hat and cloak,
and they set out together for a walk up the mountain; for the road was
so hard and steep that the water could not rest upon it, and it was
always dry enough for walking a few minutes after the rain ceased. The
clouds were rolling away in broken pieces, like great, overwoolly sheep,
whose wool the sun had bleached till it was almost too white for the
eyes to bear. Between them the sky shone with a deeper and purer blue,
because of the rain. The trees on the road-side were hung all over with
drops, which sparkled in the sun like jewels. The only things that were
no brighter for the rain, were the brooks that ran down the mountain;
they had changed from the clearness of crystal to a muddy brown; but
what they lost in color they gained in sound--or at least in noise, for
a brook when it is swollen is not so musical as before. But Irene was in
raptures with the great brown streams tumbling down everywhere; and
Lootie shared in her delight, for she too had been confined to the house
for three days. At length she observed that the sun was getting low, and
said it was time to be going back. She made the remark again and again,
but, every time, the princess begged her to go on just a little farther
and a little farther; reminding her that it was much easier to go down
hill, and saying that when they did turn, they would be at home in a
moment. So on and on they did go, now to look at a group of ferns over
whose tops a stream was pouring in a watery arch, now to pick a shining
stone from a rock by the wayside, now to watch the flight of some bird.
Suddenly the shadow of a great mountain peak came up from behind, and
shot in front of them. When the nurse saw it, she started and shook, and
tremulously grasping the hand of the princess turned and began to run
down the hill.
"What's all the haste, nursie?" asked Irene, running alongside of her.
"We must not be out a moment longer."
"But we can't help being out a good many moments longer."
It was too true. The nurse almost cried. They were much too far from
home. It was against express orders to be out with the princess one
moment after the sun was down; and they were nearly a mile up the
mountain! If his Majesty, Irene's papa, were to hear of it, Lootie
would certainly be dismissed; and to leave the princess would break her
heart. It was no wonder she ran. But Irene was not in the least
frightened, not knowing anything to be frightened at. She kept on
chattering as well as she could, but it was not easy.
"Lootie! Lootie! why do you run so fast? It shakes my teeth when I
talk."
"Then don't talk," said Lootie.
But the princess went on talking. She was always saying, "Look, look,
Lootie," but Lootie paid no more heed to anything she said, only ran on.
"Look, look, Lootie! Don't you see that funny man peeping over the
rock?"
Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock and when they came
nearer, the princess clearly saw that it was only a large fragment of
the rock itself that she had mistaken for a man.
"Look, look, Lootie! There's _such_ a curious creature at the foot of
that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It's making faces at us, I do think."
Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still--so fast, that Irene's
little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a clash. It
was a hard down-hill road, and she had been running very fast--so it was
no wonder she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly beside herself;
but all she could do was to run on, the moment she got the princess on
her feet again.
"Who's that laughing at me?" said the princess, trying to keep in her
sobs, and running too fast for her grazed knees.
"Nobody, child," said the nurse, almost angrily.
But that instant there came a burst of coarse tittering from somewhere
near, and a hoarse indistinct voice that seemed to say, "Lies! lies!
lies!"
"Oh!" cried the nurse with a sigh that was almost a scream, and ran on
faster than ever.
"Nursie! Lootie! I can't run any more. Do let us walk a bit."
"What _am_ I to do?" said the nurse. "Here, I will carry you."
She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to
set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry,
and said--
"We've taken the wrong turning somewhere, and I don't know where we are.
We are lost, lost!"
The terror she was in had quite bewildered her. It was true enough they
had lost the way. They had been running down into a little valley in
which there was no house to be seen.
Now Irene did not know what good reason there was for her nurse's
terror, for the servants had all strict orders never to mention the
goblins to her, but it was very discomposing to see her nurse in such a
fright. Before, however, she had time to grow thoroughly alarmed like
her, she heard the sound of whistling, and that revived her. Presently
she saw a boy coming up the road from the valley to meet them. He was
the whistler; but before they met, his whistling changed to singing. And
this is something like what he sang:
"Ring! dod! bang!
Go the hammers' clang!
Hit and turn and bore!
Whizz and puff and roar!
Thus we rive the rocks.
Force the goblin locks.
See the shining ore!
One, two, three--
Bright as gold can be!
Four, five, six--
Shovels, mattocks, picks!
Seven, eight, nine--
Light your lamp at mine.
Ten, eleven, twelve--
Loosely hold the helve.
We're the merry miner-boys,
Make the goblins hold their noise."
"I wish you would hold _your_ noise," said the nurse rudely, for the
very word goblin at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It
would bring the goblins upon them to a certainty, she thought, to defy
them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not stop
his singing.
"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--
This is worth the siftin';
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen--
There's the match, and lay't in.
Nineteen, twenty--
Goblins in a plenty."
"Do be quiet," cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy, who
was now close at hand, still went on.
"Hush! scush! scurry!
There you go in a hurry!
Gobble! gobble! gobblin'!
There you go a wobblin';
Hobble, hobble, hobblin'!
Cobble! cobble! cobblin'!
Hob-bob-goblin--Huuuuuh!"
"There!" said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. "There! that'll
do for them. They can't bear singing, and they can't stand that song.
They can't sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and
they don't like other people to sing."
The boy was dressed in a miner's dress, with a curious cap on his head.
He was a very nice-looking boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which
he worked, and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. He was about
twelve years old. His face was almost too pale for beauty, which came of
his being so little in the open air and the sunlight--for even
vegetables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry
indeed--perhaps at the thought of having routed the goblins; and his
bearing as he stood before them had nothing clownish or rude about it.
"I saw them," he went on, "as I came up; and I'm very glad I did. I knew
they were after somebody, but I couldn't see who it was. They won't
touch you so long as I'm with you."
"Why, who are you?" asked the nurse, offended at the freedom with which
he spoke to them.
"I'm Peter's son."
"Who's Peter?"
"Peter the miner."
"I don't know him."
"I'm his son, though."
"And why should the goblins mind _you_, pray?"
"Because I don't mind them. I'm used to them."
"What difference does that make?"
"If you're not afraid of them, they're afraid of you. I'm not afraid of
them. That's all. But it's all that's wanted--up here, that is. It's a
different thing down there. They won't always mind that song even, down
there. And if anyone sings it, they stand grinning at him awfully; and
if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they--oh!
don't they give it him!"
"What do they do to him?" asked Irene, with a trembling voice.
"Don't go frightening the princess," said the nurse.
"The princess!" repeated the little miner, taking off his curious cap.
"I beg your pardon; but you oughtn't to be out so late. Everybody knows
that's against the law."
"Yes, indeed it is!" said the nurse, beginning to cry again. "And I
shall have to suffer for it."
"What does that matter?" said the boy. "It must be your fault. It is the
princess who will suffer for it. I hope they didn't hear you call her
the princess. If they did, they're sure to know her again: they're
awfully sharp."
"Lootie! Lootie!" cried the princess. "Take me home."
"Don't go on like that," said the nurse to the boy, almost fiercely.
"How could I help it? I lost my way."
"You shouldn't have been out so late. You wouldn't have lost your way if
you hadn't been frightened," said the boy. "Come along. I'll soon set
you right again. Shall I carry your little Highness?"
"Impertinence!" murmured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for
she thought if she made him angry, he might take his revenge by telling
some one belonging to the house, and then it would be sure to come to
the king's ears.
"No, thank you," said Irene. "I can walk very well, though I can't run
so fast as nursie. If you will give me one hand, Lootie will give me
another, and then I shall get on famously."
They soon had her between them, holding a hand of each.
"Now let's run," said the nurse.
"No, no," said the little miner. "That's the worst thing you can do. If
you hadn't run before, you would not have lost your way. And if you run
now, they will be after you in a moment."
"I don't want to run," said Irene.
"You don't think of _me_," said the nurse.
"Yes, I do, Lootie. The boy says they won't touch us if we don't run."
"Yes; but if they know at the house that I've kept you out so late, I
shall be turned away, and that would break my heart."
"Turned away, Lootie. Who would turn you away?"
"Your papa, child."
"But I'll tell him it was all my fault. And you know it was, Lootie."
"He won't mind that. I'm sure he won't."
"Then I'll cry, and go down on my knees to him, and beg him not to take
away my own dear Lootie."
The nurse was comforted at hearing this, and said no more. They went on,
walking pretty fast, but taking care not to run a step.
"I want to talk to you," said Irene to the little miner; "but it's so
awkward! I don't know your name."
"My name's Curdie, little princess."
"What a funny name! Curdie! What more?"
"Curdie Peterson. What's your name, please?"
"Irene."
"What more?"
"I don't know what more.--What more is my name, Lootie?"
"Princesses haven't got more than one name. They don't want it."
"Oh then, Curdie, you must call me just Irene, and no more."
"No, indeed," said the nurse indignantly. "He shall do no such thing."
"What shall he call me, then, Lootie?"
"Your royal Highness."
"My royal Highness! What's that? No, no, Lootie, I will not be called
names. I don't like them. You said to me once yourself that it's only
rude children that call names; and I'm sure Curdie wouldn't be
rude.--Curdie, my name's Irene."
"Well, Irene," said Curdie, with a glance at the nurse which showed he
enjoyed teasing her, "it's very kind of you to let me call you anything.
I like your name very much."
He expected the nurse to interfere again; but he soon saw that she was
too frightened to speak. She was staring at something a few yards before
them, in the middle of the path, where it narrowed between rocks so that
only one could pass at a time.
"It's very much kinder of you to go out of your way to take us home,"
said Irene.
"I'm not going out of my way yet," said Curdie. "It's on the other side
those rocks the path turns off to my father's."
"You wouldn't think of leaving us till we're safe home, I'm sure,"
gasped the nurse.
"Of course not," said Curdie.
"You dear, good, kind Curdie! I'll give you a kiss when we get home,"
said the princess.
The nurse gave her a great pull by the hand she held. But at that
instant the something in the middle of the way, which had looked like a
great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after
another it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it
was now too dark to tell what they were. The nurse began to tremble from
head to foot. Irene clasped Curdie's hand yet faster, and Curdie began
to sing again.
"One, two--
Hit and hew!
Three, four--
Blast and bore!
Five, six--
There's a fix!
Seven, eight--
Hold it straight.
Nine, ten--
Hit again!
Hurry! scurry!
Bother! smother!
There's a toad
In the road!
Smash it!
Squash it!
Fry it!
Dry it!
You're another!
Up and off!
There's enough!--Huuuuuh!"
As he uttered the last words, Curdie let go his hold of his companion,
and rushed at the thing in the road, as if he would trample it under
his feet. It gave a great spring, and ran straight up one of the rocks
like a huge spider. Curdie turned back laughing, and took Irene's hand
again. She grasped his very tight, but said nothing till they had passed
the rocks. A few yards more and she found herself on a part of the road
she knew, and was able to speak again.
[Illustration: "Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't kiss
me to-night. But you sha'n't break your word. I will come another
time."]
"Do you know, Curdie, I don't quite like your song; it sounds to me
rather rude," she said.
"Well, perhaps it is," answered Curdie. "I never thought of that; it's a
way we have. We do it because they don't like it."
"Who don't like it?"
"The cobs, as we call them."
"Don't!" said the nurse.
"Why not?" said Curdie.
"I beg you won't. Please don't."
"Oh, if you ask me that way, of course I won't; though I don't a bit
know why. Look! there are the lights of your great house down below.
You'll be at home in five minutes now."
Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed
them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived at the door
belonging to their part of the house without anyone seeing them. The
nurse was rushing in with a hurried and not over-gracious good-night to
Curdie; but the princess pulled her hand from hers, and was just
throwing her arms around Curdie's neck, when she caught her again and
dragged her away.
"Lootie, Lootie, I promised Curdie a kiss," cried Irene.
"A princess mustn't give kisses. It's not at all proper," said
Lootie.
"But I promised," said the princess.
"There's no occasion; he's only a miner-boy."
"He is a good boy, and a brave boy, and he has been very kind to us.
Lootie! Lootie! I promised."
"Then you shouldn't have promised."
"Lootie, I promised him a kiss."
"Your royal Highness," said Lootie, suddenly growing very respectful,
"must come in directly."
"Nurse, a princess must _not_ break her word," said Irene, drawing
herself up and standing stockstill.
Lootie did not know which the king might count the worst--to let the
princess be out after sunset, or to let her kiss a miner-boy. She did
not know that, being a gentleman, as many kings have been, he would have
counted neither of them the worse. However much he might have disliked
his daughter to kiss the miner-boy, he would not have had her break her
word for all the goblins in creation. But, as I say, the nurse was not
lady enough to understand this, and so she was in a great difficulty,
for, if she insisted, some one might hear the princess cry and run to
see, and then all would come out. But here Curdie came again to the
rescue.
"Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't kiss me to-night.
But you sha'n't break your word. I will come another time. You may be
sure I will."
"Oh, thank you, Curdie!" said the princess, and stopped crying.
"Good night, Irene; good night, Lootie," said Curdie, and turned and was
out of sight in a moment.
"I should like to see him!" muttered the nurse, as she carried the
princess to the nursery.
"You _will_ see him," said Irene. "You may be sure Curdie will keep his
word. He's _sure_ to come again."
"I should like to see him!" repeated the nurse, and said no more. She
did not want to open a new cause of strife with the princess by saying
more plainly what she meant. Glad enough that she had succeeded both in
getting home unseen, and in keeping the princess from kissing the
miner's boy, she resolved to watch her far better in future. Her
carelessness had already doubled the danger she was in. Formerly the
goblins were her only fear; now she had to protect her charge from
Curdie as well.
CHAPTER VII
THE MINES
CURDIE went home whistling. He resolved to say nothing about the
princess for fear of getting the nurse into trouble, for while he
enjoyed teasing her because of her absurdity, he was careful not to do
her any harm. He saw no more of the goblins, and was soon fast asleep in
his bed.
He woke in the middle of the night, and thought he heard curious noises
outside. He sat up and listened; then got up, and, opening the door very
quietly, went out. When he peeped round the corner, he saw, under his
own window, a group of stumpy creatures, whom he at once recognized by
their shape. Hardly, however, had he begun his "One, two, three!" when
they broke asunder, scurried away, and were out of sight. He returned
laughing, got into bed again, and was fast asleep in a moment.
Reflecting a little over the matter in the morning, he came to the
conclusion that, as nothing of the kind had ever happened before, they
must be annoyed with him for interfering to protect the princess. By the
time he was dressed, however, he was thinking of something quite
different, for he did not value the enmity of the goblins in the least.
As soon as they had had breakfast, he set off with his father for the
mine.
They entered the hill by a natural opening under a huge rock, where a
little stream rushed out. They followed its course for a few yards,
when the passage took a turn, and sloped steeply into the heart of the
hill. With many angles and windings and branchings off, and sometimes
with steps where it came upon a natural gulf, it led them deep into the
hill before they arrived at the place where they were at present digging
out the precious ore. This was of various kinds, for the mountain was
very rich with the better sorts of metals. With flint and steel, and
tinder box, they lighted their lamps, then fixed them on their heads,
and were soon hard at work with their pickaxes and shovels and hammers.
Father and son were at work near each other, but not in the same
_gang_--the passages out of which the ore was dug, they called
_gangs_--for when the _lode_, or vein of ore, was small, one miner would
have to dig away alone in a passage no bigger than gave him just room to
work--sometimes in uncomfortable cramped positions. If they stopped for
a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some nearer, some
farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing away in all
directions in the inside of the great mountain--some boring holes in the
rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shoveling the broken
ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting
away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely
part, he would hear only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a
woodpecker, for the sound would come from a great distance off through
the solid mountain rock.
The work was hard at best, for it is very warm underground; but it was
not particularly unpleasant, and some of the miners, when they wanted to
earn a little more money for a particular purpose, would stop behind
the rest, and work all night. But you could not tell night from day down
there, except from feeling tired and sleepy; for no light of the sun
ever came into those gloomy regions. Some who had thus remained behind
during the night, although certain there were none of their companions
at work, would declare the next morning that they heard, every time they
halted for a moment to take breath, a tap-tapping all about them, as if
the mountain were then more full of miners than ever it was during the
day; and some in consequence would never stay over night, for all knew
those were the sounds of the goblins. They worked only at night, for the
miners' night was the goblins' day. Indeed, the greater number of the
miners were afraid of the goblins: for there were strange stories well
known amongst them of the treatment some had received whom the goblins
had surprised at their work during the night. The more courageous of
them, however, amongst them Peter Peterson and Curdie, who in this took
after his father, had stayed in the mine all night again and again, and
although they had several times encountered a few stray goblins, had
never yet failed in driving them away. As I have indicated already, the
chief defence against them was verse, for they hated verse of every
kind, and some kinds they could not endure at all. I suspect they could
not make any themselves, and that was why they disliked it so much. At
all events, those who were most afraid of them were those who could
neither make verses themselves, nor remember the verses that other
people made for them; while those who were never afraid were those who
could make verses for themselves; for although there were certain old
rhymes which were very effectual, yet it was well known that a new
rhyme, if of the right sort, was even more distasteful to them, and
therefore more effectual in putting them to flight.
Perhaps my readers may be wondering what the goblins could be about,
working all night long, seeing they never carried up the ore and sold
it; but when I have informed them concerning what Curdie learned the
very next night, they will be able to understand.
For Curdie had determined, if his father would permit him, to remain
there alone this night--and that for two reasons: first, he wanted to
get extra wages in order that he might buy a very warm red petticoat for
his mother, who had begun to complain of the cold of the mountain air
sooner than usual this autumn; and second, he had just a faint
glimmering of hope of finding out what the goblins were about under his
window the night before.
When he told his father, he made no objection, for he had great
confidence in his boy's courage and resources.
"I'm sorry I can't stay with you," said Peter; "but I want to go and pay
the parson a visit this evening, and besides I've had a bit of a
headache all day."
"I'm sorry for that, father," said Curdie.
"Oh! it's not much. You'll be sure to take care of yourself, won't you?"
"Yes, father; I will. I'll keep a sharp lookout, I promise you."
Curdie was the only one who remained in the mine. About six o'clock the
rest went away, every one bidding him good night, and telling him to
take care of himself; for he was a great favorite with them all.
"Don't forget your rhymes," said one.
"No, no," answered Curdie.
"It's no matter if he does," said another, "for he'll only have to make
a new one."
"Yes, but he mightn't be able to make it fast enough," said another;
"and while it was cooking in his head, they might take a mean advantage
and set upon him."
"I'll do my best," said Curdie. "I'm not afraid."
"We all know that," they returned, and left him.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GOBLINS
FOR some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing all the ore he had
disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the
morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far
away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Toward midnight he began
to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got a lump of bread
which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on
a heap of ore and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes'
rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the
rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard
something which made him sharpen his ears. It sounded like a voice
inside the rock. After a while he heard it again. It was a
goblin-voice--there could be no doubt about that--and this time he could
make out the words.
"Hadn't we better be moving?" it said.
A rougher and deeper voice replied:
"There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through to-night,
if he work ever so hard. He's by no means at the thinnest place."
"But you still think the lode does come through into our house?" said
the first voice.
"Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. If he had struck
a stroke more to the side just here," said the goblin, tapping the very
stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, "he would
have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he
follow the lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see it
back there--a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident, it would be
as well to be getting out of this. Helfer, you'll take the great chest.
That's your business, you know."
"Yes, dad," said a third voice. "But you must help me to get it on my
back. It's awfully heavy, you know."
"Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as a
mountain, Helfer."
"You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten
times as much if it wasn't for my feet."
"That is your weak point, I confess, my boy."
"Ain't it yours, too, father?"
"Well, to be honest, it is a goblin-weakness. Why they come so soft, I
declare I haven't an idea."
"Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father."
"Yes, my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows
up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting.
Ha! ha!"
"But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like
it--specially when I've got a chest like that on my head."
"Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes."
"The queen does."
"Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the
king's first wife--wore shoes of course, because she came from upstairs;
and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as
she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the
hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women."
"I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!" said the
first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. "I
can't think why either of them should."
"Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?" said the other. "That
was the only silly thing I ever knew his Majesty guilty of. Why should
he marry an outlandish woman like that--one of our natural enemies too?"
"I suppose he fell in love with her."
"Pooh! pooh! He's just as happy now with one of his own people."
"Did she die _very_ soon? They didn't tease her to death, did they?"
"Oh dear no! The king worshipped her very footmarks."
"What made her die, then? Didn't the air agree with her?"
"She died when the young prince was born."
"How silly of her! _We_ never do that. It must have been because she
wore shoes."
"I don't know that."
"Why do they wear shoes up there?"
"Ah! now that's a sensible question, and I will answer it. But in order
to do so, I must first tell you a secret. I once saw the queen's feet."
"Without her shoes?"
"Yes--without her shoes."
"No! Did you? How was it?"
"Never you mind how it was. _She_ didn't know I saw them. And what do
you think!--they had _toes_!"
"Toes! What's that?"
"You may well ask! I should never have known if I had not seen the
queen's feet. Just imagine! the ends of her feet were split up into five
or six thin pieces!"
"Oh, horrid! How _could_ the king have fallen in love with her?"
"You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why she wore them. That is
why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes. They can't bear the
sight of their own feet without them."
"Ah! now I understand. If ever you wish for shoes again, Helfer, I'll
hit your feet--I will."
"No, no, mother; pray don't."
"Then don't you."
"But with such a big box on my head--"
A horrid scream followed, which Curdie interpreted as in reply to a blow
from his mother upon the feet of her eldest goblin.
"Well, I never knew so much before!" remarked a fourth voice.
"Your knowledge is not universal quite yet," said the father. "You were
only fifty last month. Mind you see to the bed and bedding. As soon as
we've finished our supper, we'll be up and going. Ha! ha! ha!"
"What are you laughing at, husband?"
"I'm laughing to think what a mess the miners will find themselves
in--somewhere before this day ten years."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Oh yes, you do mean something. You always do mean something."
"It's more than you do, then, wife."
"That may be; but it's not more than I find out, you know."
"Ha! ha! You're a sharp one. What a mother you've got, Helfer!"
"Yes, father."
"Well, I suppose I must tell you. They're all at the palace consulting
about it to-night; and as soon as we've got away from this thin place,
I'm going there to hear what night they fix upon. I should like to see
that young ruffian there on the other side, struggling in the agonies
of--"
He dropped his voice so low that Curdie could hear only a growl. The
growl went on in a low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if the
goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife spoke
again that it rose to its former pitch.
"But what shall we do when you are at the palace?" she asked.
"I will see you safe in the new house I've been digging for you for the
last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs. I commit them to
your care. The table has seven legs--each chair three. I shall require
them all at your hands."
After this arose a confused conversation about the various household
goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that was of any
importance.
He now knew at least one of the reasons for the constant sound of the
goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for
themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten
to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far
greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was
preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the
second was--the one weak point of a goblin's body: he had not known that
their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard
it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of
inspecting them closely enough in the dusk in which they always
appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report. Indeed, he
had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no
fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of the
miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to
argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and
that education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers--with
which proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree,
alleging in support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a
traditional remnant of the old state of things; while the stockings of
all ages, no regard being paid in them to the toes, pointed in the same
direction. But what was of importance was the fact concerning the
softness of the goblin-feet, which he foresaw might be useful to all
miners. What he had to do in the mean time, however, was to discover, if
possible, the special evil design the goblins had now in their heads.
Although he knew all the gangs and all the natural galleries with which
they communicated in the mined part of the mountain, he had not the
least idea where the palace of the king of the gnomes was; otherwise he
would have set out at once on the enterprise of discovering what the
said design was. He judged, and rightly, that it must lie in a farther
part of the mountain, between which and the mine there was as yet no
communication. There must be one nearly completed, however; for it could
be but a thin partition which now separated them. If only he could get
through in time to follow the goblins as they retreated! A few blows
would doubtless be sufficient--just where his ear now lay; but if he
attempted to strike there with his pickaxe, he would only hasten the
departure of the family, put them on their guard, and perhaps lose their
involuntary guidance. He therefore began to feel the wall with his
hands, and soon found that some of the stones were loose enough to be
drawn out with little noise.
Laying hold of a large one with both his hands, he drew it gently out,
and let it down softly.
"What was that noise?" said the goblin father.
Curdie blew out his light, lest it should shine through.
"It must be that one miner that stayed behind the rest," said the
mother.
"No; he's been gone a good while. I haven't heard a blow for an hour.
Besides, it wasn't like that."
"Then I suppose it must have been a stone carried down the brook
inside."
"Perhaps. It will have more room by and by."
Curdie kept quite still. After a little while, hearing nothing but the
sounds of their preparations for departure, mingled with an occasional
word of direction, and anxious to know whether the removal of the stone
had made an opening into the goblins' house, he put in his hand to feel.
It went in a good way, and then came in contact with something soft. He
had but a moment to feel it over, it was so quickly withdrawn: it was
one of the toeless goblin-feet. The owner of it gave a cry of fright.
"What's the matter, Helfer?" asked his mother.
"A beast came out of the wall, and licked my foot."
"Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country," said his father.
"But it was, father. I felt it."
"Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native realms and reduce them to
a level with the country up-stairs? That is swarming with wild beasts of
every description."
"But I did feel it, father."
"I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no patriot."
Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a mouse--but no
stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers at the
edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had
been very much shattered with the blasting.
There seemed to be a good many in the family, to judge from the mass of
confused talk which now and then came through the hole; but when all
were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes--each at
least one--in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was
said. At length he heard once more what the father-goblin was saying.
"Now then," he said, "get your bundles on your backs. Here, Helfer, I'll
help you up with your chest."
"I wish it _was_ my chest, father."
"Your turn will come in good time enough! Make haste. I _must_ go to the
meeting at the palace to-night. When that's over, we can come back and
clear out the last of the things before our enemies return in the
morning. Now light your torches, and come along. What a distinction it
is to provide our own light, instead of being dependent on a thing hung
up in the air--a most disagreeable contrivance--intended no doubt to
blind us when we venture out under its baleful influence! Quite glaring
and vulgar, I call it, though no doubt useful to poor creatures who
haven't the wit to make light for themselves!"
Curdie could hardly keep himself from calling through to know whether
they made the fire to light their torches by. But a moment's reflection
showed him that they would have said they did, inasmuch as they struck
two stones together, and the fire came.
CHAPTER IX
THE HALL OF THE GOBLIN PALACE
A SOUND of many soft feet followed, but soon ceased. Then Curdie flew at
the hole like a tiger, and tore and pulled. The sides gave way, and it
was soon large enough for him to crawl through. He would not betray
himself by rekindling his lamp, but the torches of the retreating
company, departing in a straight line up a long avenue from the door of
their cave, threw back light enough to afford him a glance round the
deserted home of the goblins. To his surprise, he could discover nothing
to distinguish it from an ordinary cave in the rock, upon many of which
he had come with the rest of the miners in the progress of their
excavations. The goblins had talked of coming back for the rest of their
household gear: he saw nothing that would have made him suspect a family
had taken shelter there for a single night. The floor was rough and
stony; the walls full of projecting corners; the roof in one place
twenty feet high, in another endangering his forehead; while on one side
a stream, no thicker than a needle, it is true, but still sufficient to
spread a wide dampness over the wall, flowed down the face of the rock.
But the troop in front of him was toiling under heavy burdens. He could
distinguish Helfer now and then, in the flickering light and shade, with
his heavy chest on his bending shoulders; while the second brother was
almost buried in what looked like a great feather-bed. "Where do they
get the feathers?" thought Curdie; but in a moment the troop disappeared
at a turn of the way, and it was now both safe and necessary for Curdie
to follow them, lest they should be round the next turning before he saw
them again, for so he might lose them altogether. He darted after them
like a grayhound. When he reached the corner and looked cautiously
round, he saw them again at some distance down another long passage.
None of the galleries he saw that night bore signs of the work of
man--or of goblin either. Stalactites far older than the mines hung from
their roofs; and their floors were rough with boulders and large round
stones, showing that there water must have once run. He waited again at
this corner till they had disappeared round the next, and so followed
them a long way through one passage after another. The passages grew
more and more lofty, and were more and more covered in the roof with
shining stalactites.
It was a strange enough procession which he followed. But the strangest
part of it was the household animals which crowded amongst the feet of
the goblins. It was true they had no wild animals down there--at least
they did not know of any; but they had a wonderful number of tame ones.
I must, however, reserve any contributions toward the natural history of
these for a later position in my story.
At length, turning a corner too abruptly, he had almost rushed into the
middle of the goblin family; for there they had already set down all
their burdens on the floor of a cave considerably larger than that which
they had left. They were as yet too breathless to speak, else he would
have had warning of their arrest. He started back, however, before any
one saw him, and retreating a good way, stood watching till the father
should come out to go to the palace. Before very long, both he and his
son Helfer appeared and kept on in the same direction as before, while
Curdie followed them again with renewed precaution. For a long time he
heard no sound except something like the rush of a river inside the
rock; but at length what seemed the far-off noise of a great shouting
reached his ears, which however presently ceased. After advancing a good
way farther, he thought he heard a single voice. It sounded clearer and
clearer as he went on, until at last he could almost distinguish the
words. In a moment or two, keeping after the goblins round another
corner, he once more started back--this time in amazement.
He was at the entrance of a magnificent cavern, of an oval shape, once
probably a huge natural reservoir of water, now the great palace hall of
the goblins. It rose to a tremendous height, but the roof was composed
of such shining materials, and the multitude of torches carried by the
goblins who crowded the floor lighted up the place so brilliantly, that
Curdie could see to the top quite well. But he had no idea how immense
the place was, until his eyes had got accustomed to it, which was not
for a good many minutes. The rough projections on the walls, and the
shadows thrown upward from them by the torches, made the sides of the
chamber look as if they were crowded with statues upon brackets and
pedestals, reaching in irregular tiers from floor to roof. The walls
themselves were, in many parts, of gloriously shining substances, some
of them gorgeously colored besides, which powerfully contrasted with
the shadows. Curdie could not help wondering whether his rhymes would be
of any use against such a multitude of goblins as filled the floor of
the hall, and indeed felt considerably tempted to begin his shout of
_One, two, three!_ but as there was no reason for routing them, and much
for endeavoring to discover their designs, he kept himself perfectly
quiet, and peeping round the edge of the doorway, listened with both his
sharp ears.
At the other end of the hall, high above the heads of the multitude, was
a terrace-like ledge of considerable height, caused by the receding of
the upper part of the cavern wall. Upon this sat the king and his court,
the king on a throne hollowed out of a huge block of green copper ore,
and his court upon lower seats around it. The king had been making them
a speech, and the applause which followed it was what Curdie had heard.
One of the court was now addressing the multitude. What he heard him say
was to the following effect:
"Hence it appears that two plans have been for some time together
working in the strong head of his Majesty for the deliverance of his
people. Regardless of the fact that we were the first possessors of the
regions they now inhabit, regardless equally of the fact that we
abandoned that region from the loftiest motives; regardless also of the
self-evident fact that we excel them as far in mental ability as they
excel us in stature, they look upon us as a degraded race, and make a
mockery of all our finer feelings. But the time has almost arrived
when--thanks to his Majesty's inventive genius--it will be in our power
to take a thorough revenge upon them once for all, in respect of their
unfriendly behavior."
"May it please your Majesty--" cried a voice close by the door, which
Curdie recognized as that of the goblin he had followed.
"Who is he that interrupts the Chancellor?" cried another from near the
throne.
"Glump," answered several voices.
"He is our trusty subject," said the king himself, in a slow and stately
voice: "let him come forward and speak."
A lane was parted through the crowd, and Glump having ascended the
platform and bowed to the king, spoke as follows:
"Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known that I only knew how
near was the moment to which the Chancellor had just referred. In all
probability, before another day is past, the enemy will have broken
through into my house--the partition between being even now not more
than a foot in thickness."
"Not quite so much," thought Curdie to himself.
"This very evening I have had to remove my household effects; therefore
the sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the execution of
which his Majesty has been making such magnificent preparations, the
better. I may just add, that within the last few days I have perceived a
small outbreak in my dining-room, which combined with observations upon
the course of the river escaping where the evil men enter, has convinced
me that close to the spot must lie a deep gulf in its channel. This
discovery will, I trust, add considerably to the otherwise immense
forces at his Majesty's disposal."
He ceased, and the king graciously acknowledged his speech with a bend
of his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to his Majesty, slid down
amongst the rest of the undistinguished multitude. Then the Chancellor
rose and resumed.
"The information which the worthy Glump has given us," he said, "might
have been of considerable import at the present moment, but for that
other design already referred to, which naturally takes precedence. His
Majesty, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and well aware that such
measures sooner or later result in violent reactions, has excogitated a
more fundamental and comprehensive measure, of which I need say no more.
Should his Majesty be successful--as who dares to doubt?--then a peace,
all to the advantage of the goblin kingdom, will be established for a
generation at least, rendered absolutely secure by the pledge which his
royal Highness the prince will have and hold for the good behavior of
his relatives. Should his Majesty fail--which who shall dare even to
imagine in his most secret thoughts?--then will be the time for carrying
out with rigor the design to which Glump referred, and for which our
preparations are even now all but completed. The failure of the former
will render the latter imperative."
Curdie perceiving that the assembly was drawing to a close, and that
there was little chance of either plan being more fully discovered, now
thought it prudent to make his escape before the goblins began to
disperse, and slipped quietly away.
There was not much danger of meeting any goblins, for all the men at
least were left behind him in the palace; but there was considerable
danger of his taking a wrong turning, for he had now no light, and had
therefore to depend upon his memory and his hands. After he had left
behind him the glow that issued from the door of Glump's new abode, he
was utterly without guide, so far as his eyes were concerned.
He was most anxious to get back through the hole before the goblins
should return to fetch the remains of their furniture. It was not that
he was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the utmost
importance that he should thoroughly discover what the plans they were
cherishing were, he must not occasion the slightest suspicion that they
were watched by a miner.
He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of rock. Had he not been
very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could not but
know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult thing in the
world to find it again. Morning would bring no light into these regions;
and toward him least of all, who was known as a special rhymster and
persecutor, could goblins be expected to exercise courtesy? Well might
he wish that he had brought his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which
he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished
it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and
could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the
least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he
kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a
place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face of the
rock. "What a stupid I am!" he said to himself. "I am actually at the
end of my journey!--and there are the goblins coming back to fetch their
things!" he added, as the red glimmer of their torches appeared at the
end of the long avenue that led up to the cave. In a moment he had
thrown himself on the floor, and wriggled backward through the hole. The
floor on the other side was several feet lower, which made it easier to
get back. It was all he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken
out of the hole, but he did manage to shove it in again. He sat down on
the ore-heap and thought.
He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the goblins was to inundate
the mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated in the natural
reservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through portions of it.
While the part hollowed by the miners remained shut off from that
inhabited by the goblins, they had had no opportunity of injuring them
thus; but now that a passage was broken through, and the goblins' part
proved the higher in the mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the mine
could be destroyed in an hour. Water was always the chief danger to
which the miners were exposed. They met with a little choke-damp
sometimes, but never with the explosive fire-damp so common in coal
mines. Hence they were careful as soon as they saw any appearance of
water.
As the result of his reflections while the goblins were busy in their
old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to build up the
whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lime, so that
there should be no smallest channel for the water to get into. There was
not, however, any immediate danger, for the execution of the goblins'
plan was contingent upon the failure of that unknown design which was to
take precedence of it; and he was most anxious to keep the door of
communication open, that he might if possible discover what that former
plan was. At the same time they could not then resume their intermitted
labors for the inundation without his finding it out; when by putting
all hands to the work, the one existing outlet might in a single night
be rendered impenetrable to any weight of water; for by filling the gang
entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed by the sides of the
mountain itself.
As soon as he found that the goblins had again retired, he lighted his
lamp, and proceeded to fill the hole he had made with such stones as he
could withdraw when he pleased. He then thought it better, as he might
have occasion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home and
have some sleep.
How pleasant the night-air felt upon the outside of the mountain after
what he had gone through in the inside of it! He hurried up the hill,
without meeting a single goblin on the way, and called and tapped at the
window until he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. He told
him the whole story, and, just as he had expected, his father thought it
best to work that lode no farther, but at the same time to pretend
occasionally to be at work there still, in order that the goblins might
have no suspicions. Both father and son then went to bed, and slept
soundly until the morning.
CHAPTER X
THE PRINCESS'S KING-PAPA
THE weather continued fine for weeks, and the little princess went out
every day. So long a period of fine weather had indeed never been known
upon that mountain. The only uncomfortable thing was that her nurse was
so nervous and particular about being in before the sun was down, that
often she would take to her heels when nothing worse than a fleecy cloud
crossing the sun threw a shadow on the hillside; and many an evening
they were home a full hour before the sunlight had left the weathercock
on the stables. If it had not been for such behavior, Irene would by
this time have almost forgotten the goblins. She never forgot Curdie,
but him she remembered for his own sake, and indeed would have
remembered him if only because a princess never forgets her debts until
they are paid.
[Illustration: In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped in his
great strong arms.]
One splendid sunshiny day, about an hour after noon, Irene, who was
playing on a lawn in the garden, heard the distant blast of a bugle. She
jumped up with a cry of joy, for she knew by that particular blast that
her father was on his way to see her. This part of the garden lay on the
slope of the hill, and allowed a full view of the country below. So she
shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked far away to catch the first
glimpse of shining armor. In a few moments a little troop came
glittering round the shoulder of a hill. Spears and helmets were
sparkling and gleaming, banners were flying, horses prancing, and
again came the bugle-blast, which was to her like the voice of her
father calling across the distance, "Irene, I'm coming." On and on they
came, until she could clearly distinguish the king. He rode a white
horse, and was taller than any of the men with him. He wore a narrow
circle of gold set with jewels around his helmet, and as he came still
nearer, Irene could discern the flashing of the stones in the sun. It
was a long time since he had been to see her, and her little heart beat
faster and faster as the shining troop approached, for she loved her
king-papa very dearly, and was nowhere so happy as in his arms. When
they reached a certain point, after which she could see them no more
from the garden, she ran to the gate, and there stood till up they came
clanging and stamping, with one more bright bugle-blast which said,
"Irene, I am come."
By this time the people of the house were all gathered at the gate, but
Irene stood alone in front of them. When the horseman pulled up, she ran
to the side of the white horse, and held up her arms. The king stooped,
and took her hands. In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped in
his great strong arms. I wish I could describe the king, so that you
could see him in your mind. He had gentle blue eyes, but a nose that
made him look like an eagle. A long dark beard, streaked with silvery
lines, flowed from his mouth almost to his waist, and as Irene sat on
the saddle and hid her glad face upon his bosom, it mingled with the
golden hair which her mother had given her, and the two together were
like a cloud with streaks of the sun woven through it. After he had held
her to his heart for a minute, he spoke to his white horse, and the
great beautiful creature, which had been prancing so proudly a little
while before, walked as gently as a lady--for he knew he had a little
lady on his back--through the gate and up to the door of the house. Then
the king set her on the ground, and, dismounting, took her hand and
walked with her into the great hall, which was hardly ever entered
except when he came to see his little princess. There he sat down with
two of his councillors who had accompanied him, to have some
refreshment, and Irene bestowed herself on his right hand, and drank her
milk out of a wooden bowl curiously carved.
After the king had eaten and drunk, he turned to the princess and said,
stroking her hair--
"Now, my child, what shall we do next?"
This was the question he almost always put to her first after their meal
together; and Irene had been waiting for it with some impatience, for
now, she thought, she should be able to settle a question which
constantly perplexed her.
"I should like you to take me to see my great old grandmother."
The king looked grave, and said--
"What does my little daughter mean?"
"I mean the Queen Irene that lives up in the tower--the very old lady,
you know, with the long hair of silver."
The king only gazed at his little princess with a look which she could
not understand.
"She's got her crown in her bedroom," she went on; "but I've not been in
there yet. You know she's here, don't you?"
"No," said the king very quietly.
"Then it must be all a dream," said Irene. "I half thought it was; but
I couldn't be sure. Now I _am_ sure of it. Besides, I couldn't find her
the next time I went up."
At that moment a snow-white pigeon flew in at an open window and, with a
flutter, settled upon Irene's head. She broke into a merry laugh,
cowered a little and put up her hands to her head, saying--
"Dear dovey, don't peck me. You'll pull out my hair with your long
claws, if you don't have a care."
The king stretched out his hand to take the pigeon, but it spread its
wings and flew again through the open window, when its whiteness made
one flash in the sun and vanished. The king laid his hand on the
princess's head, held it back a little, gazed in her face, smiled half a
smile and sighed half a sigh.
"Come, my child; we'll have a walk in the garden together," he said.
"You won't come up and see my huge, great, beautiful grandmother, then,
king-papa?" said the princess.
"Not this time," said the king very gently. "She has not invited me, you
know, and great old ladies like her do not choose to be visited without
leave asked and given."
The garden was a very lovely place. Being upon a mountain side, there
were parts in it where the rocks came through in great masses, and all
immediately about them remained quite wild. Tufts of heather grew upon
them, and other hardy mountain plants and flowers, while near them would
be lovely roses and lilies, and all pleasant garden flowers. This
mingling of the wild mountain with the civilized garden was very quaint,
and it was impossible for any number of gardeners to make such a garden
look formal and stiff.
Against one of these rocks was a garden-seat, shadowed, from the
afternoon sun by the overhanging of the rock itself. There was a little
winding path up to the top of the rock, and on the top another seat; but
they sat on the seat at its foot, because the sun was hot; and there
they talked together of many things. At length the king said:
"You were out late one evening, Irene."
"Yes, papa. It was my fault; and Lootie was very sorry."
"I must talk to Lootie about it," said the king.
"Don't speak loud to her, please, papa," said Irene. "She's been so
afraid of being late ever since! Indeed she has not been naughty. It was
only a mistake for once."
"Once might be too often," murmured the king to himself, as he stroked
his child's head.
I cannot tell you how he had come to know. I am sure Curdie had not told
him. Some one about the palace must have seen them, after all. He sat
for a good while thinking. There was no sound to be heard except that of
a little stream which ran merrily out of an opening in the rock by where
they sat, and sped away down the hill through the garden. Then he rose,
and leaving Irene where she was, went into the house and sent for
Lootie, with whom he had a talk that made her cry.
When in the evening he rode away upon his great white horse, he left six
of his attendants behind him, with orders that three of them should
watch outside the house every night, walking round and round it from
sunset to sunrise. It was clear he was not quite comfortable about the
princess.
CHAPTER XI
THE OLD LADY'S BEDROOM
NOTHING more happened worth telling for some time. The autumn came and
went by. There were no more flowers in the garden. The winds blew
strong, and howled among the rocks. The rain fell, and drenched the few
yellow and red leaves that could not get off the bare branches. Again
and again there would be a glorious morning followed by a pouring
afternoon, and sometimes, for a week together, there would be rain,
nothing but rain, all day, and then the most lovely cloudless night,
with the sky all out in full-blown stars--not one missing. But the
princess could not see much of them, for she went to bed early. The
winter drew on, and she found things growing dreary. When it was too
stormy to go out, and she had got tired of her toys, Lootie would take
her about the house, sometimes to the housekeeper's room, where the
housekeeper, who was a good, kind old woman, made much of her--sometimes
to the servants' hall or the kitchen, where she was not princess merely,
but absolute queen, and ran a great risk of being spoiled. Sometimes she
would run of herself to the room where the men-at-arms whom the king had
left, sat, and they showed her their arms and accoutrements, and did
what they could to amuse her. Still at times she found it very dreary,
and often and often wished that her huge great grandmother had not been
a dream.
One morning the nurse left her with the housekeeper for a while. To
amuse her, she turned out the contents of an old cabinet upon the table.
The little princess found her treasures, queer ancient ornaments and
many things the uses of which she could not imagine, far more
interesting than her own toys, and sat playing with them for two hours
or more. But at length, in handling a curious old-fashioned brooch, she
ran the pin of it into her thumb, and gave a little scream with the
sharpness of the pain, but would have thought little more of it, had not
the pain increased and her thumb begun to swell. This alarmed the
housekeeper greatly. The nurse was fetched; the doctor was sent for; her
hand was poulticed, and long before her usual time she was put to bed.
The pain still continued, and although she fell asleep and dreamed a
good many dreams, there was the pain always in every dream. At last it
woke her up.
The moon was shining brightly into the room. The poultice had fallen off
her hand, and it was burning hot. She fancied if she could hold it into
the moonlight, that would cool it. So she got out of bed, without waking
the nurse who lay at the other end of the room, and went to the window.
When she looked out, she saw one of the men-at-arms walking in the
garden, with the moonlight glancing on his armor. She was just going to
tap on the window and call him, for she wanted to tell him all about it,
when she bethought herself that that might wake Lootie, and she would
put her into bed again. So she resolved to go to the window of another
room, and call him from there. It was so much nicer to have somebody to
talk to than to lie awake in bed with the burning pain in her hand. She
opened the door very gently and went through the nursery, which did not
look into the garden, to go to the other window. But when she came to
the foot of the old staircase, there was the moon shining down from some
window high up, and making the worm-eaten oak look very strange and
delicate and lovely. In a moment she was putting her little feet one
after the other in the silvery path up the stair, looking behind as she
went, to see the shadow they made in the middle of the silver. Some
little girls would have been afraid to find themselves thus alone in the
middle of the night, but Irene was a princess.
As she went slowly up the stairs, not quite sure that she was not
dreaming, suddenly a great longing woke up in her heart to try once more
whether she could not find the old, old lady with the silvery hair.
"If she is a dream," she said to herself, "then I am the likelier to
find her, if I am dreaming."
So up and up she went, stair after stair, until she came to the many
rooms--all just as she had seen them before. Through passage after
passage she softly sped, comforting herself that if she should lose her
way it would not matter much, because when she woke she would find
herself in her own bed, with Lootie not far off. But as if she had known
every step of the way, she walked straight to the door at the foot of
the narrow stair that led to the tower.
"What if I should realliality-really find my beautiful old grandmother
up there!" she said to herself, as she crept up the steep steps.
When she reached the top, she stood a moment listening in the dark, for
there was no moon there. Yes! it was! it was the hum of the
spinning-wheel! What a diligent grandmother to work both day and night!
She tapped gently at the door.
"Come in, Irene," said the sweet voice.
The princess opened the door, and entered. There was the moonlight
streaming in at the window, and in the middle of the moonlight sat the
old lady in her black dress with the white lace, and her silvery hair
mingling with the moonlight, so that you could not have distinguished
one from the other.
"Come in, Irene," she said again. "Can you tell me what I am spinning?"
"She speaks," thought Irene, "just as if she had seen me five minutes
ago, or yesterday at the farthest.--No," she answered; "I don't know
what you are spinning. Please, I thought you were a dream. Why couldn't
I find you before, great-great-grandmother?"
"That you are hardly old enough to understand. But you would have found
me sooner if you hadn't come to think I was a dream. I will give you one
reason, though, why you couldn't find me. I didn't want you to find me."
"Why, please?"
"Because I did not want Lootie to know I was here."
"But you told me to tell Lootie."
"Yes. But I knew Lootie would not believe you. If she were to see me
sitting spinning here, she wouldn't believe me either."
"Why."
"Because she couldn't. She would rub her eyes, and go away and say she
felt queer, and forget half of it and more, and then say it had been all
a dream."
"Just like me," said Irene, feeling very much ashamed of herself.
"Yes, a good deal like you, but not just like you; for you've come
again; and Lootie wouldn't have come again. She would have said, No,
no--she had had enough of such nonsense."
"Is it naughty of Lootie then?"
"It would be naughty of you. I've never done anything for Lootie."
"And you did wash my face and hands for me," said Irene, beginning to
cry.
The old lady smiled a sweet smile and said--
"I'm not vexed with you, my child--nor with Lootie either. But I don't
want you to say anything more to Lootie about me. If she should ask you,
you must just be silent. But I do not think she will ask you."
All the time they talked, the old lady kept on spinning.
"You haven't told me yet what I am spinning," she said.
"Because I don't know. It's very pretty stuff."
It was indeed very pretty stuff. There was a good bunch of it on the
distaff attached to the spinning-wheel, and in the moonlight it shone
like--what shall I say it was like? It was not white enough for
silver--yes, it was like silver, but shone gray rather than white, and
glittered only a little. And the thread the old lady drew out from it
was so fine that Irene could hardly see it.
"I am spinning this for you, my child."
"For me! What am I to do with it, please?"
"I will tell you by and by. But first I will tell you what it is. It is
spider-webs--of a particular kind. My pigeons bring it me from over the
great sea. There is only one forest where the spiders live who make this
particular kind--the finest and strongest of any. I have nearly finished
my present job. What is on the rock now will be quite sufficient. I have
a week's work there yet, though," she added, looking at the bunch.
"Do you work all day and night too, great-great-great-great
grandmother?" said the princess, thinking to be very polite with so many
_greats_.
"I am not quite so great as all that," she answered, smiling almost
merrily. "If you call me grandmother, that will do.--No. I don't work
every night--only moonlit nights, and then no longer than the moon
shines upon my wheel. I sha'n't work much longer to-night."
"And what will you do next, grandmother?"
"Go to bed. Would you like to see my bedroom?"
"Yes, that I should."
"Then I think I won't work any longer to-night. I shall be in good
time."
The old lady rose, and left her wheel standing just as it was. You see
there was no good in putting it away, for where there was not any
furniture, there was no danger of being untidy.
Then she took Irene by the hand, but it was her bad hand, and Irene gave
a little cry of pain.
"My child!" said, her grandmother, "what is the matter?"
Irene held her hand into the moonlight, that the old lady might see it,
and told her all about it, at which she looked grave. But she only
said--"Give me your other hand"; and, having led her out upon the little
dark landing, opened the door on the opposite side of it. What was
Irene's surprise to see the loveliest room she had ever seen in her
life! It was large and lofty, and dome-shaped. From the centre hung a
lamp as round as a ball, shining as if with the brightest moonlight,
which made everything visible in the room, though not so clearly that
the princess could tell what many of the things were. A large oval bed
stood in the middle, with a coverlid of rose-color, and velvet curtains
all round it of a lovely pale blue. The walls were also blue--spangled
all over with what looked like stars of silver.
The old lady left her, and going to a strange-looking cabinet, opened it
and took out a curious silver casket. Then she sat down on a low chair,
and calling Irene, made her kneel before her, while she looked at her
hand. Having examined it, she opened the casket, and took from it a
little ointment. The sweetest odor filled the room--like that of roses
and lilies--as she rubbed the ointment gently all over the hot swollen
hand. Her touch was so pleasant and cool, that it seemed to drive away
the pain and heat wherever it came.
"Oh, grandmother! it is _so_ nice!" said Irene. "Thank you; thank you."
Then the old lady went to a chest of drawers, and took out a large
handkerchief of gossamer-like cambric, which she tied around her hand.
"I don't think that I can let you go away to-night," she said. "Do you
think you would like to sleep with me?"
"Oh, yes, yes, dear grandmother!" said Irene, and would have clapped her
hands, forgetting that she could not.
"You won't be afraid then to go to bed with such an old woman?"
"No. You are so beautiful, grandmother."
"But I am _very_ old."
"And I suppose I am very young. You won't mind sleeping with such a
_very_ young woman, grandmother?"
"You sweet little pertness!" said the old lady, and drew her toward her,
and kissed her on the forehead and the cheek and the mouth.
Then she got a large silver basin, and having poured some water into it,
made Irene sit on the chair, and washed her feet. This done, she was
ready for bed. And oh, what a delicious bed it was into which her
grandmother laid her! She hardly could have told she was lying upon
anything: she felt nothing but the softness. The old lady having
undressed herself, lay down beside her.
"Why don't you put out your moon?" asked the princess.
"That never goes out, night or day," she answered. "In the darkest
night, if any of my pigeons are out on a message, they always see my
moon, and know where to fly to."
"But if somebody besides the pigeons were to see it--somebody about the
house, I mean--they would come to look what it was, and find you."
"The better for them then," said the old lady. "But it does not happen
above five times in a hundred years that any one does see it. The
greater part of those who do, take it for a meteor, wink their eyes, and
forget it again. Besides, nobody could find the room except I pleased.
Besides again--I will tell you a secret--if that light were to go out,
you would fancy yourself lying in a bare garret, on a heap of old straw,
and would not see one of the pleasant things round about you all the
time."
"I hope it will never go out," said the princess.
"I hope not. But it is time we both went to sleep. Shall I take you in
my arms?"
The little princess nestled close up to the old lady, who took her in
both her arms, and held her close to her bosom.
"Oh dear! this is so nice!" said the princess. "I didn't know anything
in the whole world could be so comfortable. I should like to lie here
for ever."
"You may if you will," said the old lady. "But I must put you to one
trial--not a very hard one, I hope.--This night week you must come back
to me. If you don't, I do not know when you may find me again, and you
will soon want me very much."
"Oh! please, don't let me forget."
"You shall not forget. The only question is whether you will believe I
am anywhere--whether you will believe I am anything but a dream. You may
be sure I will do all I can to help you to come. But it will rest with
yourself after all. On the night of next Friday, you must come to me.
Mind now."
"I will try," said the princess.
"Then good night," said the old lady, and kissed the forehead which lay
in her bosom.
In a moment more the little princess was dreaming in the midst of the
loveliest dreams--of summer seas and moonlight and mossy springs and
great murmuring trees, and beds of wild flowers with such odors as she
had never smelled before. But after all, no dream could be more lovely
than what she had left behind when she fell asleep.
In the morning she found herself in her own bed. There was no
handkerchief or anything else on her hand, only a sweet odor lingering
about it. The swelling had all gone down; the prick of the brooch had
vanished:--in fact her hand was perfectly well.
CHAPTER XII
A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT CURDIE
CURDIE spent many nights in the mine. His father and he had taken Mrs.
Peterson into the secret, for they knew mother could hold her tongue,
which was more than could be said of all the miners' wives. But Curdie
did not tell her that every night he spent in the mine, part of it went
in earning a new red petticoat for her.
Mrs. Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are more or less,
but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all _more_ and no _less_. She made a
little heaven in that poor cottage on the hillside--for her husband and
son to go home to out of the dreary earth in which they worked. I doubt
if the princess was very much happier even in the arms of her huge
great-grandmother than Peter and Curdie were in the arms of Mrs.
Peterson. True, her hands were hard, and chapped, and large, but it was
with work for them; and therefore in the sight of the angels, her hands
were so much the more beautiful. And if Curdie worked hard to get her a
petticoat, she worked hard every day to get him comforts which he would
have missed much more than she would a new petticoat even in winter. Not
that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each other:
that would have spoiled everything.
When left alone in the mine, Curdie always worked on for an hour or two
first, following the lode which, according to Glump, would lead at last
into the deserted habitation. After that, he would set out on a
reconnoitering expedition. In order to manage this, or rather the return
from it, better than the first time, he had bought a huge ball of fine
string, having learned the trick from Hop-o'-my-Thumb, whose history his
mother had often told him. Not that Hop-o'-my-Thumb had ever used a ball
of string--I should be sorry to be supposed so far out in my
classics--but the principle was the same as that of the pebbles. The end
of this string he fastened to his pickaxe, which figured no bad anchor,
and then, with the ball in his hand, unrolling as he went, set out in
the dark through the natural gangs of the goblins' territory. The first
night or two he came upon nothing worth remembering; saw only a little
of the home-life of the _cobs_ in the various caves they called houses;
failed in coming upon anything to cast light upon the foregoing design
which kept the inundation for the present in the background. But at
length, I think on the third or fourth night, he found, partly guided by
the noise of their implements, a company of evidently the best sappers
and miners amongst them, hard at work. What were they about? It could
not well be the inundation, seeing that had in the meantime been
postponed to something else. Then what was it? He lurked and watched,
every now and then in the greatest risk of being detected, but without
success. He had again and again to retreat in haste, a proceeding
rendered the more difficult that he had to gather up his string as he
returned upon its course. It was not that he was afraid of the goblins,
but that he was afraid of their finding out that they were watched,
which might have prevented the discovery at which he aimed. Sometimes
his haste had to be such that, when he reached home toward morning, his
string for lack of time to wind it up as he "dodged the cobs," would be
in what seemed the most hopeless entanglement; but after a good sleep
though a short one, he always found his mother had got it right again.
There it was, wound in a most respectable ball, ready for use the moment
he should want it!
"I can't think how you do it, mother," he would say.
"I follow the thread," she would answer--"just as you do in the mine."
She never had more to say about it; but the less clever she was with her
words, the more clever she was with her hands; and the less his mother
said, the more, Curdie believed, she had to say.
But still he had made no discovery as to what the goblin miners were
about.
CHAPTER XIII
THE COBS' CREATURES
ABOUT this time, the gentlemen whom the king had left behind him to
watch over the princess, had each occasion to doubt the testimony of his
own eyes, for more than strange were the objects to which they would
bear witness. They were of one sort--creatures--but so grotesque and
misshapen as to be more like a child's drawings upon his slate than
anything natural. They saw them only at night, while on guard about the
house. The testimony of the man who first reported having seen one of
them was that, as he was walking slowly round the house, while yet in
the shadow, he caught sight of a creature standing on its hind legs in
the moonlight, with its fore feet upon a window-ledge, staring in at the
window. Its body might have been that of a dog or wolf--he thought, but
he declared on his honor that its head was twice the size it ought to
have been for the size of its body, and as round as a ball, while the
face, which it turned upon him as it fled, was more like one carved by a
boy upon the turnip inside which he is going to put a candle, than
anything else he could think of. It rushed into the garden. He sent an
arrow after it, and thought he must have struck it; for it gave an
unearthly howl, and he could not find his arrow any more than the beast,
although he searched all about the place where it vanished. They laughed
at him until he was driven to hold his tongue; and said he must have
taken too long a pull at the ale-jug. But before two nights were over,
he had one to side with him; for he too had seen something strange, only
quite different from that reported by the other. The description the
second man gave of the creature he had seen was yet more grotesque and
unlikely. They were both laughed at by the rest; but night after night
another came over to their side, until at last there was only one left
to laugh at all his companions. Two nights more passed, and he saw
nothing; but on the third, he came rushing from the garden to the other
two before the house, in such an agitation that they declared--for it
was their turn now--that the band of his helmet was cracking under his
chin with the rising of his hair inside it. Running with him into that
part of the garden which I have already described, they saw a score of
creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of
which was like another, hideous and ludicrous at once, gamboling on the
lawn in the moonlight. The supernatural or rather subnatural ugliness of
their faces, the length of legs and necks in some, and the apparent
absence of both or either in others, made the spectators, although in
one consent as to what they saw, yet doubtful, as I have said, of the
evidence of their own eyes--and ears as well; for the noises they made,
although not loud, were as uncouth and varied as their forms, and could
be described neither as grunts nor squeaks nor roars nor howls nor barks
nor yells nor screams nor croaks nor hisses nor mews nor shrieks, but
only as something like all of them mingled in one horrible dissonance.
Keeping in the shade, the watchers had a few moments to recover
themselves before the hideous assembly suspected their presence; but all
at once, as if by common consent, they scampered off in the direction
of a great rock, and vanished before the men had come to sufficiently to
think of following them.
My readers will suspect what these were; but I will now give them full
information concerning them. They were of course household animals
belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many
centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions
of darkness. The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very
much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the
country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild
creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the
goblins, from their proclivity toward the animal creation, had caught
when cubs and tamed. But in the course of time, all had undergone even
greater changes than had passed upon their owners. They had
altered--that is, their descendants had altered--into such creatures as
I have not attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner--the
various parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and
self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments. Indeed, so little
did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering results,
that you could only have guessed at any known animal as the original,
and even then, what likeness remained would be more one of general
expression than of definable conformation. But what increased the
gruesomeness tenfold, was that, from constant domestic, or indeed rather
family association with the goblins, their countenances had grown in
grotesque resemblance to the human. No one understands animals who does
not see that every one of them, even amongst the fishes, it may be with
a dimness and vagueness infinitely remote, yet shadows the human: in the
case of these the human resemblance had greatly increased: while their
owners had sunk toward them, they hod risen toward their owners. But the
conditions of subterranean life being equally unnatural for both, while
the goblins were worse, the creatures had not improved by the
approximation, and its result would have appeared far more ludicrous
than consoling to the warmest lover of animal nature. I shall now
explain how it was that just then these animals began to show themselves
about the king's country house.
The goblins, as Curdie had discovered, were mining on--at work both day
and night, in divisions, urging the scheme after which he lay in wait.
In the course of their tunneling, they had broken into the channel of a
small stream, but the break being in the top of it, no water had escaped
to interfere with their work. Some of the creatures, hovering as they
often did about their masters, had found the hole, and had, with the
curiosity which had grown to a passion from the restraints of their
unnatural circumstances, proceeded to explore the channel. The stream
was the same which ran out by the seat on which Irene and her king-papa
had sat as I have told, and the goblin-creatures found it jolly fun to
get out for a romp on a smooth lawn such as they had never seen in all
their poor miserable lives. But although they had partaken enough of the
nature of their owners to delight in annoying and alarming any of the
people whom they met on the mountain, they were of course incapable of
designs of their own, or of intentionally furthering those of their
masters.
For several nights after the men-at-arms were at length of one mind as
to the facts of the visits of some horrible creatures, whether bodily or
spectral they could not yet say, they watched with special attention
that part of the garden where they had last seen them. Perhaps indeed
they gave in consequence too little attention to the house. But the
creatures were too cunning to be easily caught; nor were the watchers
quick-eyed enough to descry the head, or the keen eyes in it, which,
from the opening whence the stream issued, would watch them in turn,
ready, the moment they left the lawn to report the place clear.
CHAPTER XIV
THAT NIGHT WEEK
DURING the whole of the week, Irene had been thinking every other moment
of her promise to the old lady, although even now she could not feel
quite sure that she had not been dreaming. Could it really be that an
old lady lived up in the top of the house with pigeons and a
spinning-wheel, and a lamp that never went out? She was, however, none
the less determined, on the coming Friday, to ascend the three stairs,
walk through the passages with the many doors, and try to find the tower
in which she had either seen or dreamed her grandmother.
Her nurse could not help wondering what had come to the child--she would
sit so thoughtfully silent, and even in the midst of a game with her,
would so suddenly fall into a dreamy mood. But Irene took care to betray
nothing, whatever efforts Lootie might make to get at her thoughts. And
Lootie had to say to herself, "What an odd child she is!" and give it
up.
At length the long looked-for Friday arrived, and lest Lootie should be
moved to watch her, Irene endeavored to keep herself as quiet as
possible. In the afternoon she asked for her doll's house, and went on
arranging and rearranging the various rooms and their inhabitants for a
whole hour. Then she gave a sigh and threw herself back in her chair.
One of the dolls would not sit, and another would not stand, and they
were all very tiresome. Indeed there was one that would not even lie
down, which was too bad. But it was now getting dark, and the darker it
got the more exited Irene became, and the more she felt it necessary to
be composed.
"I see you want your tea, princess," said the nurse: "I will go and get
it. The room feels close: I will open the window a little. The evening
is mild: it won't hurt you."
"There's no fear of that, Lootie," said Irene, wishing she had put off
going for the tea till it was darker, when she might have made her
attempt with every advantage.
I fancy Lootie was longer in returning than she had intended; for when
Irene, who had been lost in thought, looked up, she saw it was nearly
dark, and at the same moment caught sight of a pair of eyes, bright with
a green light, glowering at her through the open window. The next
instant something leaped into the room. It was like a cat, with legs as
long as a horse's, Irene said, but its body no bigger and its legs no
thicker than those of a cat. She was too frightened to cry out, but not
too frightened to jump from her chair and run from the room.
It is plain enough to every one of my readers what she ought to have
done--and indeed Irene thought of it herself; but when she came to the
foot of the old stair, just outside the nursery door, she imagined the
creature running up those long ascents after her, and pursuing her
through the dark passages--_which, after all, might lead to no tower!_
That thought was too much. Her heart failed her, and turning from the
stair, she rushed along to the hall, whence, finding the front-door
open, she darted into the court, pursued--at least she thought so--by
the creature. No one happening to see her, on she ran, unable to think
for fear, and ready to run anywhere to elude the awful creature with
the stilt-legs. Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out
of the gate, and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed--thus to run
farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been
seeking a fit spot for the goblin-creature to eat her in at his leisure;
but that is the way fear serves us: it always takes the side of the
thing that we are afraid of.
The princess was soon out of breath with running up hill; but she ran
on, for she fancied the horrible creature just behind her, forgetting
that, had it been after her, such legs as those must have overtaken her
long ago. At last she could run no longer, and fell, unable even to
scream, by the roadside, where she lay for sometime, half dead with
terror. But finding nothing lay hold of her, and her breath beginning to
come back, she ventured at length to get half up, and peer anxiously
about her. It was now so dark that she could see nothing. Not a single
star was out. She could not even tell in what direction the house lay,
and between her and home she fancied the dreadful creature lying ready
to pounce upon her. She saw now that she ought to have run up the stairs
at once. It was well she did not scream; for, although very few of the
goblins had come out for weeks, a stray idler or two might have heard
her. She sat down upon a stone, and nobody but one who had done
something wrong could have been more miserable. She had quite forgotten
her promise to visit her grandmother. A rain-drop fell on her face. She
looked up, and for a moment her terror was lost in astonishment. At
first she thought the rising moon had left her place, and drawn nigh to
see what could be the matter with the little girl, sitting alone,
without hat or cloak, on the dark bare mountain; but she soon saw she
was mistaken, for there was no light on the ground at her feet, and no
shadow anywhere. But a great silvery globe was hanging in the air; and
as she gazed at the lovely thing, her courage revived. If she were but
indoors again she would fear nothing, not even the terrible creature
with the long legs! But how was she to find her way back? What could
that light be? Could it be--? No, it couldn't. But what if it should
be--yes--it must be--her great-great-grandmother's lamp, which guided
her pigeons home through the darkest night! She jumped up: she had but
to keep that light in view, and she must find the house.
Her heart grew strong. Speedily, yet softly, she walked down the hill,
hoping to pass the watching creature unseen. Dark as it was, there was
little danger now of choosing the wrong road. And--which was most
strange--the light that filled her eyes from the lamp, instead of
blinding them for a moment to the object upon which they next fell,
enabled her for a moment to see it, despite the darkness. By looking at
the lamp and then dropping her eyes, she could see the road for a yard
or two in front of her, and this saved her from several falls, for the
road was very rough. But all at once, to her dismay, it vanished, and
the terror of the beast, which had left her the moment she began to
return, again laid hold of her heart. The same instant, however, she
caught the light of the windows, and knew exactly where she was. It was
too dark to run, but she made what haste she could, and reached the gate
in safety. She found the house door still open, ran through the hall,
and, without even looking into the nursery, bounded straight up the
stair, and the next, and the next; then turning to the right, ran
through the long avenue of silent rooms, and found her way at once to
the door at the foot of the tower stair.
When first the nurse missed her, she fancied she was playing her a
trick, and for some time took no trouble about her; but at last, getting
frightened, she had begun to search; and when the princess entered, the
whole household was hither and thither, over the house, hunting for her.
A few seconds after she reached the stair of the tower, they had even
begun to search the neglected rooms, in which they would never have
thought of looking had they not already searched every other place they
could think of in vain. But by this time she was knocking at the old
lady's door.
CHAPTER XV
WOVEN AND THEN SPUN
"COME in, Irene," said the silvery voice of her grandmother.
The princess opened the door, and peeped in. But the room was quite
dark, and there was no sound of the spinning-wheel. She grew frightened
once more, thinking that, although the room was there, the old lady
might be a dream after all. Every little girl knows how dreadful it is
to find a room empty where she thought somebody was; but Irene had to
fancy for a moment that the person she came to find was nowhere at all.
She remembered however that at night she spun only in the moonlight, and
concluded that must be why there was no sweet, bee-like humming: the old
lady might be somewhere in the darkness. Before she had time to think
another thought, she heard her voice again, saying as before--
"Come in, Irene."
From the sound, she understood at once that she was not in the room
beside her. Perhaps she was in her bedroom. She turned across the
passage, feeling her way to the other door. When her hand fell on the
lock, again the old lady spoke--
"Shut the other door behind you, Irene. I always close the door of my
workroom when I go to my chamber."
Irene wondered to hear her voice so plainly through the door; having
shut the other, she opened it and went in. Oh, what a lovely haven to
reach from the darkness and fear through which she had come! The soft
light made her feel as if she were going into the heart of the milkiest
pearl; while the blue walls and their silver stars for a moment
perplexed her with the fancy that they were in reality the sky which she
had left outside a minute ago covered with rainclouds.
[Illustration: "Come," and she still held out her arms.]
"I've lighted a fire for you, Irene: you're cold and wet," said her
grandmother.
Then Irene looked again, and saw that what she had taken for a huge
bouquet of red roses on a low stand against the wall, was in fact a fire
which burned in the shapes of the loveliest and reddest roses, glowing
gorgeously between the heads and wings of two cherubs of shining silver.
And when she came nearer, she found that the smell of roses with which
the room was filled, came from the fire-roses on the hearth. Her
grandmother was dressed in the loveliest pale-blue velvet, over which
her hair, no longer white, but of a rich gold color, streamed like a
cataract, here falling in dull gathered heaps, there rushing away in
smooth shining falls. And even as she looked, the hair seemed pouring
down from her head, and vanishing in a golden mist ere it reached the
floor. It flowed from under the edge of a circle of shining silver, set
with alternated pearls and opals. On her dress was no ornament whatever,
neither was there a ring on her hand, or a necklace or carcanet about
her neck. But her slippers glimmered with the light of the Milky-way,
for they were covered with seed-pearls and opals in one mass. Her face
was that of a woman of three-and-twenty.
The princess was so bewildered with astonishment and admiration that she
could hardly thank her, and drew nigh with timidity, feeling dirty and
uncomfortable. The lady was seated on a low chair by the side of the
fire, with hands outstretched to take her, but the princess hung back
with a troubled smile.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked her grandmother. "You haven't been doing
anything wrong--I know that by your face, though it _is_ rather
miserable. What's the matter, my dear?"
And still she held out her arms.
"Dear grandmother," said Irene, "I'm not so sure that I haven't done
something wrong. I ought to have run up to you at once when the
long-legged cat came in at the window, instead of running out on the
mountain, and making myself such a fright."
"You were taken by surprise, my child, and are not so likely to do it
again. It is when people do wrong things willfully that they are the
more likely to do them again. Come."
And still she held out her arms.
"But, grandmother, you're so beautiful and grand with your crown on! and
I am so dirty with mud and rain!--I should quite spoil your beautiful
blue dress."
With a merry little laugh, the lady sprang from her chair, more lightly
far than Irene herself could, caught the child to her bosom, and kissing
the tear-stained face over and over, sat down with her in her lap.
"Oh, grandmother! you'll make yourself such a mess!" cried Irene,
clinging to her.
"You darling! do you think I care more for my dress than for my little
girl? Beside--look here!"
As she spoke she set her down, and Irene saw to her dismay that the
lovely dress was covered with the mud of her fall on the mountain road.
But the lady stooped to the fire, and taking from it, by the stalk in
her fingers, one of the burning roses, passed it once and again and a
third time over the front of her dress; and when Irene looked, not a
single stain was to be discovered.
"There!" said her grandmother, "you won't mind coming to me now?"
But Irene again hung back, eyeing the flaming rose which the lady held
in her hand.
"You're not afraid of the rose--are you?" she said, and she was about to
throw it on the hearth again.
"Oh! don't, please!" cried Irene. "Won't you hold it to my frock and my
hands and my face? And I'm afraid my feet and my knees want it too!"
"No," answered her grandmother, smiling a little sadly, as she threw the
rose from her; "it is too hot for you yet. It would set your frock in a
flame. Besides, I don't want to make you clean to-night. I want your
nurse and the rest of the people to see you as you are, for you will
have to tell them how you ran away for fear of the long-legged cat. I
should like to wash you, but they would not believe you then. Do you see
that bath behind you?"
The princess looked, and saw a large oval tub of silver, shining
brilliantly in the light of the wonderful lamp.
"Go and look into it," said the lady.
Irene went, and came back very silently, with her eyes shining.
"What did you see?" asked her grandmother.
"The sky and the moon and the stars," she answered. "It looked as if
there was no bottom to it."
The lady smiled a pleased, satisfied smile, and was silent also for a
few moments. Then she said--
"Any time you want a bath, come to me. I know you have a bath every
morning, but sometimes you want one at night too."
"Thank you, grandmother; I will--I will indeed," answered Irene, and was
again silent for some moments thinking. Then she said, "How was it,
grandmother, that I saw your beautiful lamp--not the light of it
only--but the great round silver lamp itself, hanging alone in the great
open air high up? It was your lamp I saw--wasn't it?"
"Yes, my child; it was my lamp."
"Then how was it? I don't see a window all round."
"When I please, I can make the lamp shine through the walls--shine so
strong that it melts them away from before the sight, and shows itself
as you saw it. But, as I told you, it is not everybody can see it."
"How is it that I can then? I'm sure I don't know."
"It is a gift born with you. And one day I hope everybody will have it."
"But how do you make it shine through the walls?"
"Ah! that you would not understand if I were to try ever so much to make
you--not yet--not yet. But," added the lady rising, "you must sit in my
chair while I get you the present I have been preparing for you. I told
you my spinning was for you. It is finished now, and I am going to fetch
it. I have been keeping it warm under one of my brooding pigeons."
Irene sat down in the low chair, and her grandmother left her, shutting
the door behind her. The child sat gazing, now at the rose-fire, now at
the starry walls, now at the silvery light; and a great quietness came
over her heart. If all the long-legged cats in the world had come
rushing helter-skelter at her then, she would not have been afraid of
them for a single moment. How this was, however, she could not
tell;--she only knew there was no fear in her, and everything was so
right and safe that it could not get in.
She had been gazing at the lovely lamp for some minutes fixedly: turning
her eyes, she found the wall had vanished, for she was looking out on
the dark cloudy night. But though she heard the wind blowing, none of it
blew upon her. In a moment more, the clouds themselves parted, or rather
vanished like the wall, and she looked straight into the starry herds,
flashing gloriously in the dark blue. It was but for a moment. The
clouds gathered again and shut out the stars; the wall gathered again
and shut out the clouds; and there stood the lady beside her with the
loveliest smile on her face, and a shimmering ball in her hand, about
the size of a pigeon's egg.
"There, Irene; there is my work for you!" she said, holding out the ball
to the princess.
She took it in her hand, and looked at it all over. It sparkled a
little, and shone here and shone there, but not much. It was of a sort
of gray whiteness, something like spun glass.
"Is this _all_ your spinning, grandmother?" she asked.
"All since you came to the house. There is more there than you think."
"How pretty it is! What am I to do with it?"
"That I will now explain to you," answered the lady, turning from her,
and going to her cabinet.
She came back with a small ring in her hand. Then she took the ball from
Irene's, and did something with the two--Irene could not tell what.
"Give me your hand," she said.
Irene held up her right hand.
"Yes, that is the hand I want," said the lady, and put the ring on the
forefinger of it.
"What a beautiful ring!" said Irene. "What is the stone called?"
"It is a fire-opal."
"Please, am I to keep it?"
"Always."
"Oh, thank you, grandmother! It's prettier than anything I ever saw,
except those--of all colors--in your--Please, is that your crown?"
"Yes, it is my crown. The stone in your ring is of the same sort--only
not so good. It has only red, but mine have all colors, you see."
"Yes, grandmother. I will take such care of it!--But--" she added,
hesitating.
"But what?" asked her grandmother.
"What am I to say when Lootie asks me where I got it?"
"_You_ will ask _her_ where you got it," answered the lady smiling.
"I don't see how I can do that."
"You will though."
"Of course I will if you say so. But you know I can't pretend not to
know."
"Of course not. But don't trouble yourself about it. You will see when
the time comes."
So saying, the lady turned, and threw the little ball into the
rose-fire.
"Oh, grandmother!" exclaimed Irene; "I thought you had spun it for me."
"So I did, my child. And you've got it."
"No; it's burnt in the fire."
The lady put her hand in the fire, brought out the ball, glimmering as
before, and held it toward her. Irene stretched out her hand to take it,
but the lady turned, and going to her cabinet, opened a drawer, and laid
the ball in it.
"Have I done anything to vex you, grandmother?" said Irene pitifully.
"No, my darling. But you must understand that no one ever gives anything
to another properly and really without keeping it. That ball is yours."
"Oh! I'm not to take it with me! You are going to keep it for me!"
"You are to take it with you. I've fastened the end of it to the ring on
your finger."
Irene looked at the ring.
"I can't see it there, grandmother," she said.
"Feel--a little way from the ring--toward the cabinet," said the lady.
"Oh! I do feel it!" exclaimed the princess. "But I can't see it," she
added, looking close to her outstretched hand.
"No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it. Now
you can fancy how much spinning that took, although it does seem such a
little ball."
"But what use can I make of it, if it lies in your cabinet?"
"That is what I will explain to you. It would be of no use to you--it
wouldn't be yours at all if it did not lie in my cabinet. Now listen. If
ever you find yourself in any danger--such, for example, as you were in
this evening--you must take off your ring, and put it under the pillow
of your bed. Then you must lay your forefinger, the same that wore the
ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you."
"Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!"
"Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed,
and you must not double the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that
while you hold it, I hold it too."
"It is very wonderful!" said Irene thoughtfully. Then suddenly becoming
aware, she jumped up, crying--"Oh, grandmother! here I have been sitting
all this time in your chair, and you standing! I _beg_ your pardon."
The lady laid her hand on her shoulder and said:
"Sit down again, Irene. Nothing pleases me better than to see any one
sit in my chair. I am only too glad to stand so long as any one will sit
in it."
"How kind of you!" said the princess, and sat down again.
"It makes me happy," said the lady.
"But," said Irene, still puzzled, "won't the thread get in somebody's
way and be broken, if the one end is fast to my ring and the other laid
in your cabinet?"
"You will find all that arranges itself. I am afraid it is time for you
to go."
"Mightn't I stay and sleep with you to-night, grandmother?"
"No, not to-night. If I had meant you to stay to-night, I should have
given you a bath; but you know everybody in the house is miserable about
you, and it would be cruel to keep them so all night. You must go down
stairs."
"I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say--_go home_--for this is my
home. Mayn't I call this my home?"
"You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your home. Now
come. I must take you back without any one seeing you."
"Please, I want to ask you one question more," said Irene. "Is it
because you have your crown on that you look so young?"
"No, child," answered her grandmother; "it is because I felt so young
this evening, that I put my crown on. And it occurred to me that you
would like to see your old grandmother in her best."
"Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother."
"I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people--I don't mean you, for
you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better--but it is so silly of
people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and
feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness!
It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The
right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear
eyes and strong painless limbs. I am older than you are able to think,
and--"
"And look at you, grandmother!" cried Irene, jumping up, and flinging
her arms about her neck. "I won't be so silly again, I promise you. At
least--I'm rather afraid to promise--but if I am, I promise to be sorry
for it--I do. I wish I were as old as you, grandmother. I don't think
you are ever afraid of anything."
"Not for long, at least, my child. Perhaps by the time I am two thousand
years of age, I shall, indeed, never be afraid of anything. But I must
confess that I have sometimes been afraid about my children--sometimes
about you, Irene."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, grandmother!--To-night, I suppose, you mean."
"Yes--a little to-night; but a good deal when you had all but made up
your mind that I was a dream, and no real great-great-grandmother. You
must not suppose that I am blaming you for that, I daresay it was out of
your power to help it."
"I don't know, grandmother," said the princess, beginning to cry. "I
can't always do myself as I should like. And I don't always try. I'm
very sorry anyhow."
The lady stooped, lifted her in her arms, and sat down with her in her
chair, holding her close to her bosom. In a few minutes the princess had
sobbed herself to sleep. How long she slept, I do not know. When she
came to herself she was sitting in her own high chair at the nursery
table, with her doll's-house before her.
CHAPTER XVI
THE RING
THE same moment her nurse came into the room, sobbing. When she saw her
sitting there, she started back with a loud cry of amazement and joy.
Then running to her, she caught her up in her arms and covered her dear
little face with kisses.
"My precious darling princess! where have you been? What has happened to
you? We've all been crying our eyes out, and searching the house from
top to bottom for you."
"Not quite from the top," thought Irene to herself; and she might have
added--"not quite to the bottom," perhaps, if she had known all. But the
one she would not, and the other she could not say.
"Oh, Lootie! I've had such a dreadful adventure!" she replied, and told
her all about the cat with the long legs, and how she ran out upon the
mountain, and came back again. But she said nothing of her grandmother
or her lamp.
"And there we've been searching for you all over the house for more than
an hour and a half!" exclaimed the nurse. "But that's no matter, now
we've got you! Only, princess, I must say," she added, her mood
changing, "what you ought to have done was to call for your own Lootie
to come and help you, instead of running out of the house, and up the
mountain, in that wild--I must say, foolish fashion."
"Well, Lootie," said Irene quietly, "perhaps if you had a big cat, all
legs, running at you, you mightn't exactly know which was the wisest
thing to do at the moment."
"I wouldn't run up the mountain, anyhow," returned Lootie.
"Not if you had time to think about it. But when those creatures came at
you that night on the mountain, you were so frightened yourself that you
lost your way home."
This put a stop to Lootie's reproaches. She had been on the point of
saying that the long-legged cat must have been a twilight fancy of the
princess's, but the memory of the horrors of that night, and of the
talking-to which the king had given her in consequence, prevented her
from saying that which after all she did not half believe--having a
strong suspicion that the cat was a goblin; for the fact was that she
knew nothing of the difference between the goblins and their creatures:
she counted them all just goblins.
Without another word she went and got some fresh tea and bread and
butter for the princess. Before she returned, the whole household,
headed by the housekeeper, burst into the nursery to exult over their
darling. The gentlemen-at-arms followed, and were ready enough to
believe all she told them about the long-legged cat. Indeed, though wise
enough to say nothing about it, they remembered with no little horror,
just such a creature amongst those they had surprised at their gambols
upon the princess's lawn. In their own hearts they blamed themselves for
not having kept better watch. And their captain gave order that from
this night the front door and all the windows on the ground floor should
be locked immediately the sun set, and opened after upon no pretence
whatever. The men-at-arms redoubled their vigilance, and for some time
there was no further cause of alarm.
When the princess woke the next morning, her nurse was bending over her.
"How your ring does glow this morning, princess!--just like a fiery
rose!" she said.
"Does it, Lootie?" returned Irene. "Who gave me the ring, Lootie? I know
I've had it a long time, but where did I get it? I don't remember."
"I think it must have been your mother gave it you, princess; but
really, for as long as you have worn it, I don't remember that ever I
heard," answered her nurse.
"I will ask my king-papa the next time he comes," said Irene.
CHAPTER XVII
SPRING-TIME
THE spring, so dear to all creatures, young and old, came at last, and
before the first few days of it had gone, the king rode through its
budding valleys to see his little daughter. He had been in a distant
part of his dominions all the winter, for he was not in the habit of
stopping in one great city, or of visiting only his favorite country
houses, but he moved from place to place, that all his people might know
him. Wherever he journeyed, he kept a constant lookout for the ablest
and best men to put into office, and wherever he found himself mistaken,
and those he had appointed incapable or unjust, he removed them at once.
Hence you see it was his care of the people that kept him from seeing
his princess so often as he would have liked. You may wonder why he did
not take her about with him; but there were several reasons against his
doing so, and I suspect her great-great-grandmother had had a principal
hand in preventing it. Once more Irene heard the bugle-blast, and once
more she was at the gate to meet her father as he rode up on his great
white horse.
After they had been alone for a little while, she thought of what she
had resolved to ask him.
"Please, king-papa," she said, "will you tell me where I got this pretty
ring? I can't remember."
The king looked at it. A strange, beautiful smile spread like sunshine
over his face, and an answering smile, but at the same time a
questioning one, spread like moonlight over Irene's.
"It was your queen-mamma's once," he said.
"And why isn't it hers now?" asked Irene.
"She does not want it now," said the king, looking grave.
"Why doesn't she want it now?"
"Because she's gone where all those rings are made."
"And when shall I see her?" asked the princess.
"Not for some time yet," answered the king, and the tears came in his
eyes.
Irene did not remember her mother, and did not know why her father
looked so, and why the tears came in his eyes; but she put her arms
round his neck and kissed him, and asked no more questions.
The king was much disturbed on hearing the report of the
gentlemen-at-arms concerning the creatures they had seen; and I presume
would have taken Irene with him that very day, but for what the presence
of the ring on her finger assured him of. About an hour before he left,
Irene saw him go up the old stair; and he did not come down again till
they were just ready to start; and she thought with herself that he had
been up to see the old lady. When he went away, he left the other six
gentlemen behind him, that there might be six of them always on guard.
And now, in the lovely spring-weather, Irene was out on the mountain the
greater part of the day. In the warmer hollows there were lovely
primroses, and not so many that she ever got tired of them. As often as
she saw a new one opening an eye of light in the blind earth, she would
clap her hands with gladness, and, unlike some children I know, instead
of pulling it, would touch it as tenderly as if it had been a new baby,
and, having made its acquaintance, would leave it as happy as she found
it. She treated the plants on which they grew like birds' nests; every
fresh flower was like a new little bird to her. She would pay a visit to
all the flower-nests she knew, remembering each by itself. She would go
down on her hands and knees beside one and say "Good morning! Are you
all smelling very sweet this morning? Good-bye!" And then she would go
to another nest, and say the same. It was a favorite amusement with her.
There were many flowers up and down, and she loved them all, but the
primroses were her favorites.
"They're not too shy, and they're not a bit forward," she would say to
Lootie.
There were goats too about, over the mountain, and when the little kids
came, she was as pleased with them as with the flowers. The goats
belonged to the miners mostly--a few of them to Curdie's mother; but
there were a good many wild ones that seemed to belong to nobody. These
the goblins counted theirs, and it was upon them partly that they lived.
They set snares and dug pits for them; and did not scruple to take what
tame ones happened to be caught; but they did not try to steal them in
any other manner, because they were afraid of the dogs the hill-people
kept to watch them, for the knowing dogs always tried to bite their
feet. But the goblins had a kind of sheep of their own--very queer
creatures, which they drove out to feed at night, and the other
goblin-creatures were wise enough to keep good watch over them, for they
knew they should have their bones by and by.
CHAPTER XVIII
CURDIE'S CLUE
CURDIE was as watchful as ever, but was almost getting tired of his
ill-success. Every other night or so he followed the goblins about, as
they went on digging and boring, and getting as near them as he could,
watched them from behind stones and rocks; but as yet he seemed no
nearer finding out what they had in view. As at first, he always kept
hold of the end of his string, while his pickaxe left just outside the
hole by which he entered the goblins' country from the mine, continued
to serve as an anchor and hold fast the other end. The goblins hearing
no more noise in that quarter, had ceased to apprehend an immediate
invasion, and kept no watch.
One night, after dodging about and listening till he was nearly falling
asleep with weariness, he began to roll up his ball, for he had resolved
to go home to bed. It was not long, however, before he began to feel
bewildered. One after another he passed goblin-houses, caves that is,
occupied by goblin families, and at length was sure they were many more
than he had passed as he came. He had to use great caution to pass
unseen--they lay so close together. Could his string have led him wrong?
He still followed winding it, and still it led him into more thickly
populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, and indeed
apprehensive; for although he was not afraid of the _cobs_, he was
afraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of no
use to sit down and wait for the morning--the morning made no difference
here. It was all dark, and always dark; and if his string failed him he
was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of the mine, and never
know it. Seeing he could do nothing better, he would at least find where
the end of the string was, and if possible how it had come to play him
such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was getting pretty
near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging and pulling at it.
What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, he thought he heard strange
sounds. These grew, as he went on, to a scuffling and growling and
squeaking; and the noise increased, until, turning a second sharp
corner, he found himself in the midst of it, and the same moment tumbled
over a wallowing mass, which he knew must be a knot of the cobs'
creatures. Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great
scratches on his face, and several severe bites on his legs and arms.
But as he scrambled to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and
before the horrid beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying
about with it right and left in the dark. The hideous cries which
followed gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some
of them pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering and
their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them. He stood a
little, weighing his battle-axe in his hand as if it had been the most
precious lump of metal--but indeed no lump of gold itself could have
been so precious at that time as that common tool--then untied the end
of the string from it, put the ball in his pocket, and still stood
thinking. It was clear that the cobs' creatures had found his axe, had
between them carried it off, and had so led him he knew not where. But
for all his thinking he could not tell what he ought to do, until
suddenly he became aware of a glimmer of light in the distance. Without
a moment's hesitation he set out for it, as fast as the unknown and
rugged way would permit. Yet again turning a corner, led by the dim
light, he spied something quite new in his experience of the underground
regions--a small irregular shape of something shining. Going up to it,
he found it was a piece of mica, or Muscovy glass, called sheep-silver
in Scotland, and the light flickering as if from a fire behind it. After
trying in vain for some time to discover an entrance to the place where
it was burning, he came at length to a small chamber in which an opening
high in the wall revealed a glow beyond. To this opening he managed to
scramble up, and then he saw a strange sight.
Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of which
vanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave were full of
shining minerals like those of the palace-hall; and the company was
evidently of a superior order, for every one wore stones about head, or
arms, or waist, shining, dull, gorgeous colors in the light of the fire.
Nor had Curdie looked long before he recognized the king himself, and
found that he had made his way into the inner apartment of the royal
family. He had never had such a good chance of hearing something! He
crept through the hole as softly as he could, scrambled a good way down
the wall toward them without attracting attention, and then sat down and
listened. The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crown-prince
and the prime minister were talking together. He was sure of the queen
by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he saw them quite
plainly.
"That _will_ be fun!" said the one he took for the crown-prince.
It was the first whole sentence he heard.
"I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!" said his
stepmother, tossing her head backward.
"You must remember, my spouse," interposed his Majesty, as if making
excuse for his son, "he has got the same blood in him. His mother--"
"Don't talk to me of his mother! You positively encourage his unnatural
fancies. Whatever belongs to _that_ mother, ought to be cut out of him."
"You forget yourself, my dear!" said the king.
"I don't," said the queen, "nor you either. If you expect _me_ to
approve of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. _I_
don't wear shoes for nothing."
"You must acknowledge, however," the king said, with a little groan,
"that this at least is no whim of Harelip's, but a matter of
state-policy. You are well aware that his gratification comes purely
from the pleasure of sacrificing himself to the public good. Does it
not, Harelip?"
"Yes, father; of course it does. Only it _will_ be nice to make her cry.
I'll have the skin taken off between her toes, and tie them up till they
grow together. Then her feet will be like other people's, and there will
be no occasion for her to wear shoes."
"Do you mean to insinuate _I've_ got toes, you unnatural wretch?" cried
the queen; and she moved angrily toward Harelip. The councilor, however,
who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to prevent her touching him,
but only as if to address the prince.
"Your royal Highness," he said, "possibly requires to be reminded that
you have got three toes yourself--one on one foot, two on the other."
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the queen triumphantly.
The councilor, encouraged by this mark of favor, went on.
"It seems to me, your royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to
your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of
themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if
you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operation
which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard to
your future princess."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the queen, louder than before, and the king and
the minister joined in the laugh. It was anything but a laughing matter
to Harelip. He growled, and for a few moments the others continued to
express their enjoyment of his discomfiture.
The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. She
sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face.
He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainly broader at
the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being
horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs, one on the broad,
the other on the small, end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small
buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear to ear--only
to be sure her ears were very nearly in the middle of her cheeks.
Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide down
a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection below, upon
which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough, or the
projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor of the
cavern, bringing with him a great rumbling shower of stones.
The goblins jumped from their seats in more anger than consternation,
for they had never yet seen anything to be afraid of in the palace. But
when they saw Curdie with his pick in his hand, their rage was mingled
with fear, for they took him for the first of an invasion of miners. The
king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height of four feet,
spread himself to his full breadth of three and a half, for he was the
handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting up to Curdie,
planted himself with outspread feet before him, and said with dignity--
"Pray what right have you in my palace?"
"The right of necessity, your majesty," answered Curdie. "I lost my way,
and did not know where I was wandering to."
"How did you get in?"
"By a hole in the mountain."
"But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!"
Curdie did look at it, answering,
"I came upon it, lying on the ground, a little way from here. I tumbled
over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, your majesty." And
Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten.
[Illustration: The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made
horrible grimaces all through the rhyme.]
The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had
expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he
attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore
feel friendly to the intruder.
"You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once," he said,
well knowing what a mockery lay in the words.
"With pleasure, if your majesty will give me a guide," said Curdie.
"I will give you a thousand," said the king, with a scoffing air of
magnificent liberality.
"One will be quite sufficient," said Curdie.
But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in
rushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to the
first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to
another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard
and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not
relish, and he retreated toward the wall. They pressed upon him.
"Stand back," said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.
They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself, and
began to rhyme.
"Ten, twenty, thirty--
You're all so very dirty!
Twenty, thirty, forty--
You're all so thick and snorty!
"Thirty, forty, fifty--
You're all so puff-and-snifty!
Forty, fifty, sixty--
Beast and man so mixty!
"Fifty, sixty, seventy--
Mixty, maxty, leaventy--
Sixty, seventy, eighty--
All your cheeks so slaty.
"Seventy, eighty, ninety,
All your hands so flinty!
Eighty, ninety, hundred,
Altogether dundred!"
The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces
all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable that it
set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether it was
that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for a new
rhyme being considered more efficacious, Curdie had made it on the spur
of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king and queen
gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme was over,
they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms, with a
multitude of thick nailless fingers at the end of them, to lay hold upon
him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle as courageous
and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end which was square
and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a great blow on the
head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of all goblins are, he
thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt; but he only gave a
horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat. Curdie however drew back in
time, and just at that critical moment, remembered the vulnerable part
of the goblin-body. He made a sudden rush at the king, and stamped with
all his might on his Majesty's feet. The king gave a most unkingly howl,
and almost fell into the fire. Curdie then rushed into the crowd,
stamping right and left. The goblins drew back howling on every side as
he approached, but they were so crowded that few of those he attacked
could escape his tread; and the shrieking and roaring that filled the
cave would have appalled Curdie, but for the good hope it gave him. They
were tumbling over each other in heaps in their eagerness to rush from
the cave, when a new assailant suddenly faced him:--the queen, with
flaming eyes and expanded nostrils, her hair standing half up from her
head, rushed at him. She trusted in her shoes; they were of
granite--hollowed like French _sabots_. Curdie would have endured much
rather than hurt a woman, even if she was a goblin; but here was an
affair of life and death: forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on
one of her feet. But she instantly returned it with very different
effect, causing him frightful pain and almost disabling him. His only
chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his
pickaxe, but before he could think of that, she had caught him up in her
arms, and was rushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a
hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned him. But although he
could not move, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the
rush of multitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something
heaved up against the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of
stones falling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very
faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible.
When he came to himself, there was perfect silence about him, and utter
darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it,
and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of the hole,
past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire.
He could not move it a hair's breadth, for they had piled a great heap
of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the
faint hope of finding his pickaxe. But after a vain search, he was at
last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and
tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER XIX
GOBLIN COUNSELS
HE must have slept a long time, for when he awoke, he felt wonderfully
restored--indeed he felt almost well, and he was also very hungry. There
were voices in the outer cave.
Once more then, it was night; for the goblins slept during the day, and
went about their affairs during the night.
In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling, they had no
reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to
the sun-people, they chose to be busy when there was least chance of
their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or
by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep
or catching their goats. And indeed it was only when the sun was away
that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal
regions to be endurable to their mole-eyes, so thoroughly had they
become disused to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches.
Curdie listened, and soon found that they were talking of himself.
"How long will it take?" asked Harelip.
"Not many days, I should think," answered the king. "They are poor
feeble creatures, those sun-people, and want to be always eating. _We_
can go a week at a time without food, and be all the better for it; but
I've been told _they_ eat two or three times every day! Can you believe
it?--They must be quite hollow inside--not at all like us, nine-tenths
of whose bulk is solid flesh and bone. Yes--I judge a week of starvation
will do for him."
"If I may be allowed a word," interposed the queen, "--and I think I
ought to have some voice in the matter--"
"The wretch is entirely at your disposal, my spouse," interrupted the
king. "He is your property. You caught him yourself. We should never
have done it."
The queen laughed. She seemed in far better humor than the night before.
"I was about to say," she resumed, "that it does seem a pity to waste so
much fresh meat."
"What are you thinking of, my love?" said the king. "The very notion of
starving him implies that we are not going to give him any meat, either
salt or fresh."
"I'm not such a stupid as that comes to," returned her Majesty. "What I
mean is, that by the time he is starved, there will hardly be a picking
upon his bones."
The king gave a great laugh.
"Well, my spouse, you may have him when you like," he said. "I don't
fancy him for my part. I am pretty sure he is tough eating."
"That would be to honor instead of punish his insolence," returned the
queen. "But why should our poor creatures be deprived of so much
nourishment? Our little dogs and cats and pigs and small bears would
enjoy him very much."
"You are the best of housekeepers, my lovely queen!" said her husband.
"Let it be so by all means. Let us have our people in, and get him out
and kill him at once. He deserves it. The mischief he might have brought
upon us, now that he had penetrated so far as our most retired citadel,
is incalculable. Or rather let us tie him hand and foot, and have the
pleasure of seeing him torn to pieces by full torchlight in the great
hall."
"Better and better!" cried the queen and prince together, both of them
clapping their hands. And the prince made an ugly noise with his
hare-lip, just as if he had intended to be one at the feast.
"But," added the queen, bethinking herself, "he is so troublesome. For
as poor creatures as they are, there is something about those sun-people
that is _very_ troublesome. I cannot imagine how it is that with such
superior strength and skill and understanding as ours, we permit them to
exist at all. Why do we not destroy them entirely, and use their cattle
and grazing lands at our pleasure? Of course, we don't want to live in
their horrid country! It is far too glaring for our quieter and more
refined tastes. But we might use it for a sort of outhouse, you know.
Even our creatures' eyes might get used to it, and if they did grow
blind, that would be of no consequence, provided they grew fat as well.
But we might even keep their great cows and other creatures, and then we
should have a few more luxuries, such as cream and cheese, which at
present we only taste occasionally, when our brave men have succeeded in
carrying some off from their farms."
"It is worth thinking of," said the king; "and I don't know why you
should be the first to suggest it, except that you have a positive
genius for conquest. But still, as you say, there is something very
troublesome about them; and it would be better, as I understand you to
suggest, that we should starve him for a day or two first, so that he
may be a little less frisky when we take him out."
"Once there was a goblin
Living in a hole;
Busy he was cobblin'
A shoe without a sole.
"By came a birdie:
'Goblin, what do you do?'
'Cobble at a sturdie
Upper leather shoe.'
"'What's the good o' that, sir?'
Said the little bird,
'Why it's very pat, sir--
Plain without a word.
"'Where 'tis all a hill, sir,
Never can be holes:
Why should their shoes have soles, sir,
When they've got no souls?'"
"What's that horrible noise?" cried the queen, shuddering from pot-metal
head to granite shoes.
"I declare," said the king with solemn indignation, "it's the
sun-creature in the hole!"
"Stop that disgusting noise!" cried the crown-prince valiantly, getting
up and standing in front of the heap of stones, with his face toward
Curdie's prison.--"Do now, or I'll break your head."
"Break away," shouted Curdie, and began singing again--
"Once there was a goblin
Living in a hole,--"
"I really cannot bear it," said the queen. "If I could only get at his
horrid toes with my slippers again!"
"I think we had better go to bed," said the king.
"It's not time to go to bed," said the queen.
"I would if I was you," said Curdie.
"Impertinent wretch!" said the queen, with the utmost scorn in her
voice.
"An impossible _if_," said his Majesty with dignity.
"Quite," returned Curdie, and began singing again--
"Go to bed,
Goblin, do.
Help the queen
Take off her shoe.
"If you do,
It will disclose
A horrid set
Of sprouting toes."
"What a lie!" roared the queen in a rage.
"By the way, that reminds me," said the king, "that, for as long as we
have been married, I have never seen your feet, queen. I think you might
take off your shoes when you go to bed! They positively hurt me
sometimes."
"I will do just as I like," retorted the queen sulkily.
"You ought to do as your hubby wishes you," said the king.
"I will not," said the queen.
"Then I insist upon it," said the king.
Apparently his Majesty approached the queen for the purpose of following
the advice given by Curdie, for the latter heard a scuffle, and then a
great roar from the king.
"Will you be quiet then?" said the queen wickedly.
"Yes, yes, queen. I only meant to coax you."
"Hands off!" cried the queen triumphantly. "I'm going to bed. You may
come when you like. But as long as I am queen, I will sleep in my shoes.
It is my royal privilege. Harelip, go to bed."
"I'm going," said Harelip sleepily.
"So am I," said the king.
"Come along then," said the queen; "and mind you are good, or I'll--"
"Oh, no, no, no!" screamed the king, in the most supplicating of tones.
Curdie heard only a muttered reply in the distance; and then the cave
was quite still.
They had left the fire burning, and the light came through brighter than
before. Curdie thought it was time to try again if anything could be
done. But he found he could not get even a finger through the chink
between the slab and the rock. He gave a great rush with his shoulder
against the slab, but it yielded no more than if it had been part of the
rock. All he could do was to sit down and think again.
By and by he came to the resolution to pretend to be dying, in the hope
they might take him out before his strength was too much exhausted to
let him have a chance. Then, for the creatures, if he could but find his
axe again, he would have no fear of them; and if it were not for the
queen's horrid shoes, he would have no fear at all.
Meantime, until they should come again at night, there was nothing for
him to do but forge new rhymes, now his only weapons. He had no
intention of using them at present, of course; but it was well to have a
stock, for he might live to want them, and the manufacture of them would
help to while away the time.
CHAPTER XX
IRENE'S CLUE
THAT same morning, early, the princess woke in a terrible fright. There
was a hideous noise in her room--of creatures snarling and hissing and
racketing about as if they were fighting. The moment she came to
herself, she remembered something she had never thought of again--what
her grandmother told her to do when she was frightened. She immediately
took off her ring and put it under her pillow. As she did so, she
fancied she felt a finger and thumb take it gently from under her palm.
"It must be my grandmother!" she said to herself, and the thought gave
her such courage that she stopped to put on her dainty little slippers
before running from the room. While doing this, she caught sight of a
long cloak of sky-blue, thrown over the back of a chair by her bedside.
She had never seen it before, but it was evidently waiting for her. She
put it on, and then, feeling with the forefinger of her right hand, soon
found her grandmother's thread, which she proceeded at once to follow,
expecting it would lead her straight up the old stair. When she reached
the door, she found it went down and ran along the floor, so that she
had almost to crawl in order to keep a hold of it. Then, to her
surprise, and somewhat to her dismay, she found that instead of leading
her toward the stair it turned in quite the opposite direction. It led
her through certain narrow passages toward the kitchen, turning aside
ere she reached it, and guiding her to a door which communicated with a
small back yard. Some of the maids were already up, and this door was
standing open. Across the yard the thread still ran along the ground,
until it brought her to a door in the wall which opened upon the
mountain side. When she had passed through, the thread rose to about
half her height, and she could hold it with ease as she walked. It led
her straight up the mountain.
The cause of her alarm was less frightful than she supposed. The cook's
great black cat, pursued by the housekeeper's terrier, had bounced
against her bedroom door, which had not been properly fastened, and the
two had burst into her room together and commenced a battle royal. How
the nurse came to sleep through it, was a mystery, but I suspect the old
lady had something to do with it.
It was a clear warm morning. The wind blew deliciously over the
mountain-side. Here and there she saw a late primrose, but she did not
stop to call on them. The sky was mottled with small clouds. The sun was
not yet up, but some of their fluffy edges had caught his light and hung
out orange and gold-colored fringes upon the air. The dew lay in round
drops upon the leaves, and hung like tiny diamonds from the blades of
grass about her path.
"How lovely that bit of gossamer is!" thought the princess, looking at a
long undulating line that shone at some distance from her up the hill.
It was not the time for gossamers though; and Irene soon discovered that
it was her own thread she saw shining on before her in the light of the
morning. It was leading her she knew not whither; but she had never in
her life been out before sunrise, and everything was so fresh and cool
and lively and full of something coming, that she felt too happy to be
afraid of anything.
After leading her up a good distance, the thread turned to the left, and
down the path upon which she and Lootie had met Curdie. But she never
thought of that, for now in the morning light, with its far outlook over
the country, no path could have been more open and airy and cheerful.
She could see the road almost to the horizon, along which she had so
often watched her king-papa and his troop come shining, with the
bugle-blast cleaving the air before them; and it was like a companion to
her. Down and down the path went, then up, and then down, and then up
again, getting rugged and more rugged as it went; still along the path
went the silvery thread, and still along the thread went Irene's little
rosy-tipped forefinger. By and by she came to a little stream that
jabbered and prattled down the hill, and up the side of the stream went
both path and thread. And still the path grew rougher and steeper, and
the mountain grew wilder, till Irene began to think she was going a very
long way from home; and when she turned to look back, she saw that the
level country had vanished and the rough bare mountain had closed in
about her. But still on went the thread, and on went the princess.
Everything around her was getting brighter and brighter as the sun came
nearer; till at length his first rays all at once alighted on the top of
a rock before her, like some golden creature fresh from the sky. Then
she saw that the little stream ran out of a hole in that rock, that the
path did not go past the rock, and that the thread was leading her
straight up to it. A shudder ran through her from head to foot when she
found that the thread was actually taking her into the hole out of which
the stream ran. It ran out babbling joyously, but she had to go in.
She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high
enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there was a
brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and before she
had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she began to be
frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the thread backward,
and as she went farther and farther into the darkness of the great
hollow mountain, she kept thinking more and more about her grandmother,
and all that she had said to her, and how kind she had been, and how
beautiful she was, and all about her lovely room, and the fire of roses,
and the great lamp that sent its light through stone walls. And she
became more and more sure that the thread could not have gone there of
itself, and that her grandmother must have sent it. But it tried her
dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and especially when she
came to places where she had to go down rough stairs, and even sometimes
a ladder. Through one narrow passage after another, over lumps of rock
and sand and clay, the thread guided her, until she came to a small hole
through which she had to creep. Finding no change on the other
side--"Shall I ever get back?" she thought, over and over again,
wondering at herself that she was not ten times more frightened, and
often feeling as if she were only walking in the story of a dream.
Sometimes she heard the noise of water, a dull gurgling inside the rock.
By and by she heard the sounds of blows, which came nearer and nearer;
but again they grew duller and almost died away. In a hundred directions
she turned, obedient to the guiding thread.
At last she spied a dull red shine, and came up to the mica-window, and
thence away and round about, and right into a cavern, where glowed the
red embers of a fire. Here the thread began to rise. It rose as high as
her head, and higher still. What _should_ she do if she lost her hold?
She was pulling it down! She might break it! She could see it far up,
glowing as red as her fire-opal in the light of the embers.
But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope
against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon recovered
the level of the thread--only however to find, the next moment, that it
vanished through the heap of stones, and left her standing on it, with
her face to the solid rock. For one terrible moment, she felt as if her
grandmother had forsaken her. The thread which the spiders had spun far
over the seas, which her grandmother had sat in the moonlight and spun
again for her, which she had tempered in the rose-fire, and tied to her
opal ring, had left her--had gone where she could no longer follow
it--had brought her into a horrible cavern, and there left her! She was
forsaken indeed!
"When _shall_ I wake?" she said to herself in an agony, but the same
moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and
began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them
with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither
did she know who was on the other side of the slab.
At length the thought struck her, that at least she could follow the
thread backward, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose at
once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it
backward, it vanished from her touch. Forward, it led her hand up to the
heap of stones--backward, it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see it as
before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry, and again
threw herself down on the stones.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ESCAPE
AS the princess lay and sobbed, she kept feeling the thread
mechanically, following it with her finger many times up 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 downward. Hence, as the heap sloped a good deal, growing of
course wider toward 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 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 stones, 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 ear 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 labors, that his plan was to make the goblins
think he was getting weak. 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 way, 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 little 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 of here," answered the princess, and then
she went on harder than ever.
But she was soon satisfied that what Curdie 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.
[Illustration: Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about.]
"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
can't get out that way, and then she will come with me."
So he crept once more over the slab 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 larger 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 he could not see the end. 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 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 sheep skins, 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 sheep skins 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 may be ways round," said the other.
"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 mountain 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 downward, 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 for what purpose they do it?"
"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 large 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 i
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