The Princess and the Goblin
'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 tonight; 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 the 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 meantime,
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 upstairs? 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 tonight. 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 9
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, which he found 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 natural 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 greyhound.
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
towards 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