The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald [ebook pc reader .txt] 📗

you got?’ asked Curdie.

‘I’ve got about the half away, 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 bit 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,’ answered the princess, and 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.

‘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 over the slab once more 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 longer 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 something should have befallen 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 sheepskins, 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 sheepskins 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 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