The Princess and the Goblin
'Run, Irene!' cried Curdie, for though he was not now in the least
afraid for himself, he was for the princess.
Irene looked once round, saw the fearful creatures awake, and like the
wise princess she was, dashed the torch on the ground and extinguished
it, crying out:
'Here, Curdie, take my hand.'
He darted to her side, forgetting neither the queen's shoe nor his
pickaxe, and caught hold of her hand, as she sped fearlessly where her
thread guided her. They heard the queen give a great bellow; but they
had a good start, for it would be some time before they could get
torches lighted to pursue them. Just as they thought they saw a gleam
behind them, the thread brought them to a very narrow opening, through
which Irene crept easily, and Curdie with difficulty.
'Now,' said Curdie; 'I think we shall be safe.'
'Of course we shall,' returned Irene.
'Why do you think so?' asked Curdie.
'Because my grandmother is taking care of us.'
'That's all nonsense,' said Curdie. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it
nonsense?' asked the princess, a little offended.
'I beg your pardon, Irene,' said Curdie; 'I did not mean to vex you.'
'Of course not,' returned the princess. 'But why do you think we shall
be safe?'
'Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that hole.'
'There might be ways round,' said the princess.
'To be sure there might: we are not out of it yet,' acknowledged Curdie.
'But what do you mean by the king and queen?' asked the princess. 'I
should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen.'
'Their own people do, though,' answered Curdie.
The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked leisurely
along, gave her a full account, not only of the character and habits of
the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own adventures with
them, beginning from the very night after that in which he had met her
and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had finished, he begged Irene to
tell him how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had
to tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner,
interrupted by many questions concerning things she had not explained.
But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left
everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much
perplexed as to what he must think of the princess. He could not
believe that she was deliberately telling stories, and the only
conclusion he could come to was that Lootie had been playing the child
tricks, inventing no end of lies to frighten her for her own purposes.
'But how ever did Lootie come to let you go into the mountains
alone?' he asked.
'Lootie knows nothing about it. I left her fast asleep--at least I
think so. I hope my grandmother won't let her get into trouble, for it
wasn't her fault at all, as my grandmother very well knows.'
'But how did you find your way to me?' persisted Curdie.
'I told you already,' answered Irene; 'by keeping my finger upon my
grandmother's thread, as I am doing now.'
'You don't mean you've got the thread there?'
'Of course I do. I have told you so ten times already. I have
hardly--except when I was removing the stones--taken my finger off it.
There!' she added, guiding Curdie's hand to the thread, 'you feel it
yourself--don't you?'
'I feel nothing at all,' replied Curdie.
'Then what can be the matter with your finger? I feel it perfectly. To
be sure it is very thin, and in the sunlight looks just like the thread
of a spider, though there are many of them twisted together to make
it--but for all that I can't think why you shouldn't feel it as well as
I do.'
Curdie was too polite to say he did not believe there was any thread
there at all. What he did say was:
'Well, I can make nothing of it.'
'I can, though, and you must be glad of that, for it will do for both
of us.'
'We're not out yet,' said Curdie.
'We soon shall be,' returned Irene confidently. And now the thread
went downwards, and led Irene's hand to a hole in the floor of the
cavern, whence came a sound of running water which they had been
hearing for some time.
'It goes into the ground now, Curdie,' she said, stopping.
He had been listening to another sound, which his practised ear had
caught long ago, and which also had been growing louder. It was the
noise the goblin-miners made at their work, and they seemed to be at no
great distance now. Irene heard it the moment she stopped.
'What is that noise?' she asked. 'Do you know, Curdie?'
'Yes. It is the goblins digging and burrowing,' he answered.
'And you don't know what they do it for?'
'No; I haven't the least idea. Would you like to see them?' he asked,
wishing to have another try after their secret.
'If my thread took me there, I shouldn't much mind; but I don't want to
see them, and I can't leave my thread. It leads me down into the hole,
and we had better go at once.'
'Very well. Shall I go in first?' said Curdie.
'No; better not. You can't feel the thread,' she answered, stepping
down through a narrow break in the floor of the cavern. 'Oh!' she
cried, 'I am in the water. It is running strong--but it is not deep,
and there is just room to walk. Make haste, Curdie.'
He tried, but the hole was too small for him to get in.
'Go on a little bit,' he said, shouldering his pickaxe. In a few moments
he had cleared a larger opening and followed her. They went on, down
and down with the running water, Curdie getting more and more afraid it
was leading them to some terrible gulf in the heart of the mountain.
In one or two places he had to break away the rock to make room before
even Irene could get through--at least without hurting herself. But at
length they spied a glimmer of light, and in a minute more they were
almost blinded by the full sunlight, into which they emerged. It was
some little time before the princess could see well enough to discover
that they stood in her own garden, close by the seat on which she and
her king-papa had sat that afternoon. They had come out by the channel
of the little stream. She danced and clapped her hands with delight.
'Now, Curdie!' she cried, 'won't you believe what I told you about my
grandmother and her thread?'
For she had felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what she
told him.
'There!--don't you see it shining on before us?' she added.
'I don't see anything,' persisted Curdie.
'Then you must believe without seeing,' said the princess; 'for you
can't deny it has brought us out of the mountain.'
'I can't deny we are out of the mountain, and I should be very
ungrateful indeed to deny that you had brought me out of it.'
'I couldn't have done it but for the thread,' persisted Irene.
'That's the part I don't understand.'
'Well, come along, and Lootie will get you something to eat. I am sure
you must want it very much.'
'Indeed I do. But my father and mother will be so anxious about me, I
must make haste--first up the mountain to tell my mother, and then down
into the mine again to let my father know.'
'Very well, Curdie; but you can't get out without coming this way, and
I will take you through the house, for that is nearest.'
They met no one by the way, for, indeed, as before, the people were
here and there and everywhere searching for the princess. When they
got in Irene found that the thread, as she had half expected, went up
the old staircase, and a new thought struck her. She turned to Curdie
and said:
'My grandmother wants me. Do come up with me and see her. Then you
will know that I have been telling you the truth. Do come--to please
me, Curdie. I can't bear you should think what I say is not true.'
'I never doubted you believed what you said,' returned Curdie. 'I only
thought you had some fancy in your head that was not correct.'
'But do come, dear Curdie.'
The little miner could not withstand this appeal, and though he felt
shy in what seemed to him a huge grand house, he yielded, and followed
her up the stair.
CHAPTER 22
The Old Lady and Curdie
Up the stair then they went, and the next and the next, and through the
long rows of empty rooms, and up the little tower stair, Irene growing
happier and happier as she ascended. There was no answer when she
knocked at length at the door of the workroom, nor could she hear any
sound of the spinning-wheel, and once more her heart sank within her,
but only for one moment, as she turned and knocked at the other door.
'Come in,' answered the sweet voice of her grandmother, and Irene
opened the door and entered, followed by Curdie.
'You darling!' cried the lady, who was seated by a fire of red roses
mingled with white. 'I've been waiting for you, and indeed getting a
little anxious about you, and beginning to think whether I had not
better go and fetch you myself.'
As she spoke she took the little princess in her arms and placed her
upon her lap. She was dressed in white now, and looking if possible
more lovely than ever.
'I've brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn't believe what I told him
and so I've brought him.'
'Yes--I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren't you
glad you've got him out?'
'Yes, grandmother. But it wasn't very good of him not to believe me
when I was telling him the truth.'
'People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not
be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have
believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.'
'Ah! yes, grandmother, I dare say. I'm sure you are right. But he'll
believe now.'
'I don't know that,' replied her grandmother.
'Won't you, Curdie?' said Irene, looking round at him as she asked the
question. He was standing in the middle of the floor, staring, and
looking strangely bewildered. This she thought came of his
astonishment at the beauty of the lady.
'Make a bow to my grandmother, Curdie,' she said.
'I don't see any grandmother,' answered Curdie rather gruffly.
'Don't see my grandmother, when I'm sitting in her lap?' exclaimed the
princess.
'No, I don't,' reiterated Curdie, in an offended tone.
'Don't you see the lovely fire of roses--white ones amongst them this
time?' asked Irene, almost as bewildered as he.
'No, I don't,' answered Curdie, almost sulkily.
'Nor the blue bed? Nor the rose-coloured counterpane?--Nor the
beautiful light, like the moon, hanging from the roof?'
'You're making game of me, Your Royal Highness; and after what we have
come through together this day, I don't think it is kind of you,' said
Curdie, feeling very much hurt.
'Then what do you see?' asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her
not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her.
'I see a big, bare, garret-room--like the one in mother's cottage, only
big enough to take the cottage itself in, and leave a good margin all
round,' answered Curdie.
'And what more do you see?'
'I see a tub, and a heap of musty straw, and a withered apple, and a
ray of sunlight coming through a hole in the middle of the roof and
shining on your head, and making all the place look a curious dusky
brown. I think you had better drop it, princess, and go down to the
nursery, like a good girl.'
'But don't you hear my grandmother talking to me?' asked Irene, almost
crying.
'No. I hear the cooing of a lot of pigeons. If you won't come down, I
will go without you. I think that will be better anyhow, for I'm sure
nobody who met us would believe a word we said to them. They would
think we made it all up. I don't expect anybody but my own father and
mother to believe me. They know I wouldn't tell a story.'