The Princess and the Goblin
difficulty, for, if she insisted, someone 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 tonight.
But you shan'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 7
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 in 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 shovelling 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
overnight, 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 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 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 look-out, I promise you.'
Curdie was the only one who remained in the mine. About six o'clock
the rest went away, everyone bidding him good night, and telling him to
take care of himself; for he was a great favourite 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 8
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. Towards midnight he
began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out 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 tonight,
if he work ever so hard. He's not by any 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's 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--especially 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.'