The Princess and the Goblin
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 hole, 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 towards
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 as I like,' retorted the queen sulkily.
'You ought to do as your own 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 20
Irene's Clue
That same morning early, the princess woke in a terrible fright. There
was a hideous noise in her room--creatures snarling and hissing and
rocketing 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 the 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 towards the stair it
turned in quite the opposite direction. It led her through certain
narrow passages towards 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 mountainside. 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 the 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
Mountainside. Here and there she saw a late primrose but she did not
stop to call upon 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-coloured fringes upon the air. The
dew lay in round drops upon the leaves, and hung like tiny diamond
ear-rings 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;
and 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 backwards
and forwards, 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.