автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  The Princess and the Goblin

George MacDonald

I Why the Princess Has a Story About Her

There was once a little prin­cess whose father was king over a great coun­try full of moun­tains and val­leys. His palace was built upon one of the moun­tains, and was very grand and beau­ti­ful. The prin­cess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, be­cause her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by coun­try people in a large house, half castle, half farm­house, on the side of an­other moun­tain, about halfway between its base and its peak.

The prin­cess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story be­gins was about eight years old, I think, but she got older very fast. Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dis­solved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so of­ten were they turned up in that dir­ec­tion. The ceil­ing of her nurs­ery was blue, with stars in it, as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had bet­ter men­tion at once.

These moun­tains were full of hol­low places un­der­neath; huge cav­erns, and wind­ing ways, some with wa­ter run­ning through them, and some shin­ing with all col­ours of the rain­bow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long gal­ler­ies and pas­sages run­ning off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the moun­tains were full. In the course of dig­ging, the miners came upon many of these nat­ural cav­erns. A few of them had far-off open­ings out on the side of a moun­tain, or into a rav­ine.

Now in these sub­ter­ranean cav­erns lived a strange race of be­ings, called by some gnomes, by some ko­bolds, by some gob­lins. There was a le­gend cur­rent in the coun­try that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, con­cern­ing which there were dif­fer­ent le­gendary the­or­ies, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had re­quired ob­serv­ances of them they did not like, or had be­gun to treat them with more sever­ity, in some way or other, and im­pose stricter laws; and the con­sequence was that they had all dis­ap­peared from the face of the coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to the le­gend, how­ever, in­stead of go­ing to some other coun­try, they had all taken refuge in the sub­ter­ranean cav­erns, whence they never came out but at night, and then sel­dom showed them­selves in any num­bers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least fre­quen­ted and most dif­fi­cult parts of the moun­tains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of gen­er­a­tions; and no won­der, see­ing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not or­din­ar­ily ugly, but either ab­so­lutely hideous, or ludicrously grot­esque both in face and form. There was no in­ven­tion, they said, of the most law­less ima­gin­a­tion ex­pressed by pen or pen­cil, that could sur­pass the ex­tra­vag­ance of their ap­pear­ance. But I sus­pect those who said so had mis­taken some of their an­imal com­pan­ions for the gob­lins them­selves—of which more by and by. The gob­lins them­selves were not so far re­moved from the hu­man as such a de­scrip­tion would im­ply. And as they grew mis­shapen in body they had grown in know­ledge and clev­erness, and now were able to do things no mor­tal could see the pos­sib­il­ity of. But as they grew in cun­ning, they grew in mis­chief, and their great de­light was in every way they could think of to an­noy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of af­fec­tion left for each other to pre­serve them from be­ing ab­so­lutely cruel for cruelty’s sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heart­ily cher­ished the an­ces­tral grudge against those who oc­cu­pied their former pos­ses­sions, and es­pe­cially against the des­cend­ants of the king who had caused their ex­pul­sion, that they sought every op­por­tun­ity of tor­ment­ing them in ways that were as odd as their in­vent­ors; and al­though dwarfed and mis­shapen, they had strength equal to their cun­ning. In the pro­cess of time they had got a king and a gov­ern­ment of their own, whose chief busi­ness, bey­ond their own simple af­fairs, was to de­vise trouble for their neigh­bours. It will now be pretty evid­ent why the little prin­cess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the gob­lins to let her out of the house then, even in com­pany with ever so many at­tend­ants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by and by.

II The Princess Loses Herself

I have said the Prin­cess Irene was about eight years old when my story be­gins. And this is how it be­gins.

One very wet day, when the moun­tain was covered with mist which was con­stantly gath­er­ing it­self to­gether into rain­drops, and pour­ing down on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of wa­ter from the eaves all round about it, the prin­cess could not of course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would won­der at that if I had time to de­scribe to you one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn’t have the toys them­selves, and that makes all the dif­fer­ence: you can’t get tired of a thing be­fore you have it. It was a pic­ture, though, worth see­ing—the prin­cess sit­ting in the nurs­ery with the sky ceil­ing over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should ad­vise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of at­tempt­ing to de­scribe them, and I think he had bet­ter not try to draw them. He had bet­ter not. He can do a thou­sand things I can’t, but I don’t think he could draw those toys. No man could bet­ter make the prin­cess her­self than he could, though—lean­ing with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap, very miser­able as she would say her­self, not even know­ing what she would like, ex­cept it were to go out and get thor­oughly wet, and catch a par­tic­u­larly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next mo­ment after you see her sit­ting there, her nurse goes out of the room.

Even that is a change, and the prin­cess wakes up a little, and looks about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of the door, not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of a curi­ous old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never any­one had set foot upon it. She had once be­fore been up six steps, and that was suf­fi­cient reason, in such a day, for try­ing to find out what was at the top of it.

Up and up she ran—such a long way it seemed to her!—un­til she came to the top of the third flight. There she found the land­ing was the end of a long pas­sage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side. There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the end, where she turned into an­other pas­sage, also full of doors. When she had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she began to get frightened. It was so si­lent! And all those doors must hide rooms with nobody in them! That was dread­ful. Also the rain made a great tramp­ling noise on the roof. She turned and star­ted at full speed, her little foot­steps echo­ing through the sounds of the rain—back for the stairs and her safe nurs­ery. So she thought, but she had lost her­self long ago. It doesn’t fol­low that she was lost, be­cause she had lost her­self, though.

She ran for some dis­tance, turned sev­eral times, and then began to be afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms every­where, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little feet ran, and a lump of tears was grow­ing in her throat. But she was too eager and per­haps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope failed her. Noth­ing but pas­sages and doors every­where! She threw her­self on the floor, and burst into a wail­ing cry broken by sobs.

She did not cry long, how­ever, for she was as brave as could be ex­pec­ted of a prin­cess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the dust from her frock. Oh, what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes with her hands, for prin­cesses don’t al­ways have their handker­chiefs in their pock­ets, any more than some other little girls I know of. Next, like a true prin­cess, she re­solved on go­ing wisely to work to find her way back: she would walk through the pas­sages, and look in every dir­ec­tion for the stair. This she did, but without suc­cess. She went over the same ground again an again without know­ing it, for the pas­sages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way: in­stead of go­ing down, it went up. Frightened as she was, how­ever, she could not help wish­ing to see where yet fur­ther the stair could lead. It was very nar­row, and so steep that she went on like a four-legged creature on her hands and feet.

III The Princess and—We Shall See Who

When she came to the top, she found her­self in a little square place, with three doors, two op­pos­ite each other, and one op­pos­ite the top of the stair. She stood for a mo­ment, without an idea in her little head what to do next. But as she stood, she began to hear a curi­ous hum­ming sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even mono­ton­ous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet hum­ming sound went on, some­times stop­ping for a little while and then be­gin­ning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some glob­u­lar flower, than any­thing else I can think of at this mo­ment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there—then to an­other. When she laid her ear against the third door, there could be no doubt where it came from: it must be from some­thing in that room. What could it be? She was rather afraid, but her curi­os­ity was stronger than her fear, and she opened the door very gently and peeped in. What do you think she saw? A very old lady who sat spin­ning.

Per­haps you will won­der how the prin­cess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I in­form you that not only was she beau­ti­ful, but her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed back from her fore­head and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back. That is not much like an old lady—is it? Ah! but it was white al­most as snow. And al­though her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so wise that you could not have helped see­ing she must be old. The prin­cess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old in­deed—quite fifty, she said to her­self. But she was rather older than that, as you shall hear.

While the prin­cess stared be­wildered, with her head just in­side the door, the old lady lif­ted hers, and said, in a sweet, but old and rather shaky voice, which mingled very pleas­antly with the con­tin­ued hum of her wheel:

“Come in, my dear; come in. I am glad to see you.”

That the prin­cess was a real prin­cess you might see now quite plainly; for she didn’t hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without mov­ing, as I have known some do who ought to have been prin­cesses but were only rather vul­gar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped in­side the door at once, and shut it gently be­hind her.

“Come to me, my dear,” said the old lady.

And again the prin­cess did as she was told. She ap­proached the old lady—rather slowly, I con­fess—but did not stop un­til she stood by her side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted stars in them.

“Why, what have you been do­ing with your eyes, child?” asked the old lady.

“Cry­ing,” answered the prin­cess.

“Why, child?”

“Be­cause I couldn’t find my way down again.”

“But you could find your way up.”

“Not at first—not for a long time.”

“But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra. Hadn’t you a handker­chief to wipe your eyes with?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me to wipe them for you?”

“Please, I didn’t know you were here. I will next time.”

“There’s a good child!” said the old lady.

Then she stopped her wheel, and rose, and, go­ing out of the room, re­turned with a little sil­ver basin and a soft white towel, with which she washed and wiped the bright little face. And the prin­cess thought her hands were so smooth and nice!

When she car­ried away the basin and towel, the little prin­cess wondered to see how straight and tall she was, for, al­though she was so old, she didn’t stoop a bit. She was dressed in black vel­vet with thick white heavy-look­ing lace about it; and on the black dress her hair shone like sil­ver. There was hardly any more fur­niture in the room than there might have been in that of the poorest old wo­man who made her bread by her spin­ning. There was no car­pet on the floor—no table any­where—noth­ing but the spin­ning-wheel and the chair be­side it. When she came back, she sat down and without a word began her spin­ning once more, while Irene, who had never seen a spin­ning-wheel, stood by her side and looked on. When the old lady had got her thread fairly go­ing again, she said to the prin­cess, but without look­ing at her:

“Do you know my name, child?”

“No, I don’t know it,” answered the prin­cess.

“My name is Irene.”

“That’s my name!” cried the prin­cess.

“I know that. I let you have mine. I haven’t got your name. You’ve got mine.”

“How can that be?” asked the prin­cess, be­wildered. “I’ve al­ways had my name.”

“Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any ob­jec­tion to your hav­ing it; and, of course, I hadn’t. I let you have it with pleas­ure.”

“It was very kind of you to give me your name—and such a pretty one,” said the prin­cess.

“Oh, not so very kind!” said the old lady. “A name is one of those things one can give away and keep all the same. I have a good many such things. Wouldn’t you like to know who I am, child?”

“Yes, that I should—very much.”

“I’m your great-great-grand­mother,” said the lady.

“What’s that?” asked the prin­cess.

“I’m your father’s mother’s father’s mother.”

“Oh, dear! I can’t un­der­stand that,” said the prin­cess.

“I dare say not. I didn’t ex­pect you would. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t say it.”

“Oh, no!” answered the prin­cess.

“I will ex­plain it all to you when you are older,” the lady went on. “But you will be able to un­der­stand this much now: I came here to take care of you.”

“Is it long since you came? Was it yes­ter­day? Or was it today, be­cause it was so wet that I couldn’t get out?”

“I’ve been here ever since you came your­self.”

“What a long time!” said the prin­cess. “I don’t re­mem­ber it at all.”

“No. I sup­pose not.”

“But I never saw you be­fore.”

“No. But you shall see me again.”

“Do you live in this room al­ways?”

“I don’t sleep in it. I sleep on the op­pos­ite side of the land­ing. I sit here most of the day.”

“I shouldn’t like it. My nurs­ery is much pret­tier. You must be a queen too, if you are my great big grand­mother.”

“Yes, I am a queen.”

“Where is your crown, then?”

“In my bed­room.”

“I should like to see it.”

“You shall some day—not today.”

“I won­der why nur­sie never told me.”

“Nur­sie doesn’t know. She never saw me.”

“But some­body knows that you are in the house?”

“No; nobody.”

“How do you get your din­ner, then?”

“I keep poultry—of a sort.”

“Where do you keep them?”

“I will show you.”

“And who makes the chicken broth for you?”

“I never kill any of my chick­ens.”

“Then I can’t un­der­stand.”

“What did you have for break­fast this morn­ing?” asked the lady.

“Oh! I had bread and milk, and an egg—I dare say you eat their eggs.”

“Yes, that’s it. I eat their eggs.”

“Is that what makes your hair so white?”

“No, my dear. It’s old age. I am very old.”

“I thought so. Are you fifty?”

“Yes—more than that.”

“Are you a hun­dred?”

“Yes—more than that. I am too old for you to guess. Come and see my chick­ens.”

Again she stopped her spin­ning. She rose, took the prin­cess by the hand, led her out of the room, and opened the door op­pos­ite the stair. The prin­cess ex­pec­ted to see a lot of hens and chick­ens, but in­stead of that, she saw the blue sky first, and then the roofs of the house, with a mul­ti­tude of the love­li­est pi­geons, mostly white, but of all col­ours, walk­ing about, mak­ing bows to each other, and talk­ing a lan­guage she could not un­der­stand. She clapped her hands with de­light, and up rose such a flap­ping of wings that she in her turn was startled.

“You’ve frightened my poultry,” said the old lady, smil­ing.

“And they’ve frightened me,” said the prin­cess, smil­ing too. “But what very nice poultry! Are the eggs nice?”

“Yes, very nice.”

“What a small egg-spoon you must have! Wouldn’t it be bet­ter to keep hens, and get big­ger eggs?”

“How should I feed them, though?”

“I see,” said the prin­cess. “The pi­geons feed them­selves. They’ve got wings.”

“Just so. If they couldn’t fly, I couldn’t eat their eggs.”

“But how do you get at the eggs? Where are their nests?”

The lady took hold of a little loop of string in the wall at the side of the door and, lift­ing a shut­ter, showed a great many pi­geon­holes with nests, some with young ones and some with eggs in them. The birds came in at the other side, and she took out the eggs on this side. She closed it again quickly, lest the young ones should be frightened.

“Oh, what a nice way!” cried the prin­cess. “Will you give me an egg to eat? I’m rather hungry.”

“I will some day, but now you must go back, or nur­sie will be miser­able about you. I dare say she’s look­ing for you every­where.”

“Ex­cept here,” answered the prin­cess. “Oh, how sur­prised she will be when I tell her about my great big grand-grand­mother!”

“Yes, that she will!” said the old lady with a curi­ous smile. “Mind you tell her all about it ex­actly.”

“That I will. Please will you take me back to her?”

“I can’t go all the way, but I will take you to the top of the stair, and then you must run down quite fast into your own room.”

The little prin­cess put her hand in the old lady’s, who, look­ing this way and that, brought her to the top of the first stair, and thence to the bot­tom of the second, and did not leave her till she saw her halfway down the third. When she heard the cry of her nurse’s pleas­ure at find­ing her, she turned and walked up the stairs again, very fast in­deed for such a very great grand­mother, and sat down to her spin­ning with an­other strange smile on her sweet old face.

About this spin­ning of hers I will tell you more an­other time.

Guess what she was spin­ning.

IV What the Nurse Thought of It

“Why, where can you have been, prin­cess?” asked the nurse, tak­ing her in her arms. “It’s very un­kind of you to hide away so long. I began to be afraid—” Here she checked her­self.

“What were you afraid of, nur­sie?” asked the prin­cess.

“Never mind,” she answered. “Per­haps I will tell you an­other day. Now tell me where you have been.”

“I’ve been up a long way to see my very great, huge, old grand­mother,” said the prin­cess.

“What do you mean by that?” asked the nurse, who thought she was mak­ing fun.

“I mean that I’ve been a long way up and up to see My great grand­mother. Ah, nur­sie, you don’t know what a beau­ti­ful mother of grand­moth­ers I’ve got up­stairs. She is such an old lady, with such lovely white hair—as white as my sil­ver cup. Now, when I think of it, I think her hair must be sil­ver.”

“What non­sense you are talk­ing, prin­cess!” said the nurse.

“I’m not talk­ing non­sense,” re­turned Irene, rather of­fen­ded. “I will tell you all about her. She’s much taller than you, and much pret­tier.”

“Oh, I dare say!” re­marked the nurse.

“And she lives upon pi­geons’ eggs.”

“Most likely,” said the nurse.

“And she sits in an empty room, spin-spin­ning all day long.”

“Not a doubt of it,” said the nurse.

“And she keeps her crown in her bed­room.”

“Of course—quite the proper place to keep her crown in. She wears it in bed, I’ll be bound.”

“She didn’t say that. And I don’t think she does. That wouldn’t be com­fort­able—would it? I don’t think my papa wears his crown for a night­cap. Does he, nur­sie?”

“I never asked him. I dare say he does.”

“And she’s been there ever since I came here—ever so many years.”

“Anybody could have told you that,” said the nurse, who did not be­lieve a word Irene was say­ing.

“Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

“There was no ne­ces­sity. You could make it all up for your­self.”

“You don’t be­lieve me, then!” ex­claimed the prin­cess, as­ton­ished and angry, as she well might be.

“Did you ex­pect me to be­lieve you, prin­cess?” asked the nurse coldly. “I know prin­cesses are in the habit of telling make-be­lieves, but you are the first I ever heard of who ex­pec­ted to have them be­lieved,” she ad­ded, see­ing that the child was strangely in earn­est.

The prin­cess burst into tears.

“Well, I must say,” re­marked the nurse, now thor­oughly vexed with her for cry­ing, “it is not at all be­com­ing in a prin­cess to tell stor­ies and ex­pect to be be­lieved just be­cause she is a prin­cess.”

“But it’s quite true, I tell you.”

“You’ve dreamt it, then, child.”

“No, I didn’t dream it. I went up­stairs, and I lost my­self, and if I hadn’t found the beau­ti­ful lady, I should never have found my­self.”

“Oh, I dare say!”

“Well, you just come up with me, and see if I’m not telling the truth.”

“Indeed I have other work to do. It’s your din­ner­time, and I won’t have any more such non­sense.”

The prin­cess wiped her eyes, and her face grew so hot that they were soon quite dry. She sat down to her din­ner, but ate next to noth­ing. Not to be be­lieved does not at all agree with prin­cesses: for a real prin­cess can­not tell a lie. So all the af­ter­noon she did not speak a word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real prin­cess is never rude—even when she does well to be of­fen­ded.

Of course the nurse was not com­fort­able in her mind—not that she sus­pec­ted the least truth in Irene’s story, but that she loved her dearly, and was vexed with her­self for hav­ing been cross to her. She thought her cross­ness was the cause of the prin­cess’s un­hap­pi­ness, and had no idea that she was really and deeply hurt at not be­ing be­lieved. But, as it be­came more and more plain dur­ing the even­ing in her every mo­tion and look, that, al­though she tried to amuse her­self with her toys, her heart was too vexed and troubled to en­joy them, her nurse’s dis­com­fort grew and grew. When bed­time came, she un­dressed and laid her down, but the child, in­stead of hold­ing up her little mouth to be kissed, turned away from her and lay still. Then nur­sie’s heart gave way al­to­gether, and she began to cry. At the sound of her first sob the prin­cess turned again, and held her face to kiss her as usual. But the nurse had her handker­chief to her eyes, and did not see the move­ment.

“Nur­sie,” said the prin­cess, “why won’t you be­lieve me?”

“Be­cause I can’t be­lieve you,” said the nurse, get­ting angry again.

“Ah! then, you can’t help it,” said Irene, “and I will not be vexed with you any more. I will give you a kiss and go to sleep.”

“You little an­gel!” cried the nurse, and caught her out of bed, and walked about the room with her in her arms, kiss­ing and hug­ging her.

“You will let me take you to see my dear old great big grand­mother, won’t you?” said the prin­cess, as she laid her down again.

“And you won’t say I’m ugly, any more—will you, prin­cess?”

“Nur­sie, I never said you were ugly. What can you mean?”

“Well, if you didn’t say it, you meant it.”

“Indeed, I never did.”

“You said I wasn’t so pretty as that—”

“As my beau­ti­ful grand­mother—yes, I did say that; and I say it again, for it’s quite true.”

“Then I do think you are un­kind!” said the nurse, and put her handker­chief to her eyes again.

“Nur­sie, dear, every­body can’t be as beau­ti­ful as every other body, you know. You are very nice-look­ing, but if you had been as beau­ti­ful as my grand­mother—”

“Bother your grand­mother!” said the nurse.

“Nurse, that’s very rude. You are not fit to be spoken to till you can be­have bet­ter.”

The prin­cess turned away once more, and again the nurse was ashamed of her­self.

“I’m sure I beg your par­don, prin­cess,” she said, though still in an of­fen­ded tone. But the prin­cess let the tone pass, and heeded only the words.

“You won’t say it again, I am sure,” she answered, once more turn­ing to­wards her nurse. “I was only go­ing to say that if you had been twice as nice-look­ing as you are, some king or other would have mar­ried you, and then what would have be­come of me?”

“You are an an­gel!” re­peated the nurse, again em­bra­cing her. “Now,” in­sisted Irene, “you will come and see my grand­mother—won’t you?”

“I will go with you any­where you like, my cherub,” she answered; and in two minutes the weary little prin­cess was fast asleep.

V The Princess Lets Well Alone

When she woke the next morn­ing, the first thing she heard was the rain still fall­ing. Indeed, this day was so like the last that it would have been dif­fi­cult to tell where was the use of it. The first thing she thought of, how­ever, was not the rain, but the lady in the tower; and the first ques­tion that oc­cu­pied her thoughts was whether she should not ask the nurse to ful­fil her prom­ise this very morn­ing, and go with her to find her grand­mother as soon as she had had her break­fast. But she came to the con­clu­sion that per­haps the lady would not be pleased if she took any­one to see her without first ask­ing leave; es­pe­cially as it was pretty evid­ent, see­ing she lived on pi­geons’ eggs, and cooked them her­self, that she did not want the house­hold to know she was there. So the prin­cess re­solved to take the first op­por­tun­ity of run­ning up alone and ask­ing whether she might bring her nurse. She be­lieved the fact that she could not oth­er­wise con­vince her she was telling the truth would have much weight with her grand­mother.

The prin­cess and her nurse were the best of friends all dress­ing-time, and the prin­cess in con­sequence ate an enorm­ous little break­fast.

“I won­der, Lootie”—that was her pet name for her nurse—“what pi­geons’ eggs taste like?” she said, as she was eat­ing her egg—not quite a com­mon one, for they al­ways picked out the pinky ones for her.

“We’ll get you a pi­geon’s egg, and you shall judge for your­self,” said the nurse.

“Oh, no, no!” re­turned Irene, sud­denly re­flect­ing they might dis­turb the old lady in get­ting it, and that even if they did not, she would have one less in con­sequence.

“What a strange creature you are,” said the nurse—“first to want a thing and then to re­fuse it!”

But she did not say it crossly, and the prin­cess never minded any re­marks that were not un­friendly.

“Well, you see, Lootie, there are reas­ons,” she re­turned, and said no more, for she did not want to bring up the sub­ject of their former strife, lest her nurse should of­fer to go be­fore she had had her grand­mother’s per­mis­sion to bring her. Of course she could re­fuse to take her, but then she would be­lieve her less than ever.

Now the nurse, as she said her­self af­ter­wards, could not be every mo­ment in the room; and as never be­fore yes­ter­day had the prin­cess given her the smal­lest reason for anxi­ety, it had not yet come into her head to watch her more closely. So she soon gave her a chance, and, the very first that offered, Irene was off and up the stairs again.

This day’s ad­ven­ture, how­ever, did not turn out like yes­ter­day’s, al­though it began like it; and in­deed today is very sel­dom like yes­ter­day, if people would note the dif­fer­ences—even when it rains. The prin­cess ran through pas­sage after pas­sage, and could not find the stair of the tower. My own sus­pi­cion is that she had not gone up high enough, and was search­ing on the second in­stead of the third floor. When she turned to go back, she failed equally in her search after the stair. She was lost once more.

So­mething made it even worse to bear this time, and it was no won­der that she cried again. Sud­denly it oc­curred to her that it was after hav­ing cried be­fore that she had found her grand­mother’s stair. She got up at once, wiped her eyes, and star­ted upon a fresh quest.

This time, al­though she did not find what she hoped, she found what was next best: she did not come on a stair that went up, but she came upon one that went down. It was evid­ently not the stair she had come up, yet it was a good deal bet­ter than none; so down she went, and was singing mer­rily be­fore she reached the bot­tom. There, to her sur­prise, she found her­self in the kit­chen. Al­though she was not al­lowed to go there alone, her nurse had of­ten taken her, and she was a great fa­vour­ite with the ser­vants. So there was a gen­eral rush at her the mo­ment she ap­peared, for every­one wanted to have her; and the re­port of where she was soon reached the nurse’s ears. She came at once to fetch her; but she never sus­pec­ted how she had got there, and the prin­cess kept her own coun­sel.

Her fail­ure to find the old lady not only dis­ap­poin­ted her, but made her very thought­ful. So­me­times she came al­most to the nurse’s opin­ion that she had dreamed all about her; but that fancy never las­ted very long. She wondered much whether she should ever see her again, and thought it very sad not to have been able to find her when she par­tic­u­larly wanted her. She re­solved to say noth­ing more to her nurse on the sub­ject, see­ing it was so little in her power to prove her words.

VI The Little Miner

The next day the great cloud still hung over the moun­tain, and the rain poured like wa­ter from a full sponge. The prin­cess was very fond of be­ing out of doors, and she nearly cried when she saw that the weather was no bet­ter. But the mist was not of such a dark dingy grey; there was light in it; and as the hours went on it grew brighter and brighter, un­til it was al­most too bril­liant to look at; and late in the af­ter­noon the sun broke out so glor­i­ously that Irene clapped her hands, cry­ing:

“See, see, Lootie! The sun has had his face washed. Look how bright he is! Do get my hat, and let us go out for a walk. Oh, dear! oh, dear! how happy I am!”

Lootie was very glad to please the prin­cess. She got her hat and cloak, and they set out to­gether for a walk up the moun­tain; for the road was so hard and steep that the wa­ter could not rest upon it, and it was al­ways dry enough for walk­ing a few minutes after the rain ceased. The clouds were rolling away in broken pieces, like great, over­woolly sheep, whose wool the sun had bleached till it was al­most too white for the eyes to bear. Between them the sky shone with a deeper and purer blue, be­cause of the rain. The trees on the road­side were hung all over with drops, which sparkled in the sun like jew­els. The only things that were no brighter for the rain were the brooks that ran down the moun­tain; they had changed from the clear­ness of crys­tal to a muddy brown; but what they lost in col­our they gained in sound—or at least in noise, for a brook when it is swollen is not so mu­sical as be­fore. But Irene was in rap­tures with the great brown streams tum­bling down every­where; and Lootie shared in her de­light, for she too had been con­fined to the house for three days.

At length she ob­served that the sun was get­ting low, and said it was time to be go­ing back. She made the re­mark again and again, but, every time, the prin­cess begged her to go on just a little farther and a little farther; re­mind­ing her that it was much easier to go down­hill, and say­ing that when they did turn they would be at home in a mo­ment. So on and on they did go, now to look at a group of ferns over whose tops a stream was pour­ing in a wa­tery arch, now to pick a shin­ing stone from a rock by the way­side, now to watch the flight of some bird. Sud­denly the shadow of a great moun­tain peak came up from be­hind, and shot in front of them. When the nurse saw it, she star­ted and shook, and catch­ing hold of the prin­cess’s hand turned and began to run down the hill.

“What’s all the haste, nur­sie?” asked Irene, run­ning along­side of her.

“We must not be out a mo­ment longer.”

“But we can’t help be­ing out a good many mo­ments longer.”

It was too true. The nurse al­most cried. They were much too far from home. It was against ex­press or­ders to be out with the prin­cess one mo­ment after the sun was down; and they were nearly a mile up the moun­tain! If His Majesty, Irene’s papa, were to hear of it, Lootie would cer­tainly be dis­missed; and to leave the prin­cess would break her heart. It was no won­der she ran. But Irene was not in the least frightened, not know­ing any­thing to be frightened at. She kept on chat­ter­ing as well as she could, but it was not easy.

“Lootie! Lootie! why do you run so fast? It shakes my teeth when I talk.”

“Then don’t talk,” said Lootie.

But the prin­cess went on talk­ing. She was al­ways say­ing: “Look, look, Lootie!” but Lootie paid no more heed to any­thing she said, only ran on.

“Look, look, Lootie! Don’t you see that funny man peep­ing over the rock?”

Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock, and when they came nearer, the prin­cess saw it was only a lump of the rock it­self that she had taken for a man.

“Look, look, Lootie! There’s such a curi­ous creature at the foot of that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It’s mak­ing faces at us, I do think.”

Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still—so fast that Irene’s little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a crash. It was a hard down­hill road, and she had been run­ning very fast—so it was no won­der she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly be­side her­self; but all she could do was to run on, the mo­ment she got the prin­cess on her feet again.

“Who’s that laugh­ing at me?” said the prin­cess, try­ing to keep in her sobs, and run­ning too fast for her grazed knees.

“Nobody, child,” said the nurse, al­most an­grily.

But that in­stant there came a burst of coarse tit­ter­ing from some­where near, and a hoarse in­dis­tinct voice that seemed to say: “Lies! lies! lies!”

“Oh!” cried the nurse with a sigh that was al­most a scream, and ran on faster than ever.

“Nur­sie! Lootie! I can’t run any more. Do let us walk a bit.”

“What am I to do?” said the nurse. “Here, I will carry you.”

She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry, and said:

“We’ve taken the wrong turn­ing some­where, and I don’t know where we are. We are lost, lost!”

The ter­ror she was in had quite be­wildered her. It was true enough they had lost the way. They had been run­ning down into a little val­ley in which there was no house to be seen.

Now Irene did not know what good reason there was for her nurse’s ter­ror, for the ser­vants had all strict or­ders never to men­tion the gob­lins to her, but it was very dis­com­pos­ing to see her nurse in such a fright. Be­fore, how­ever, she had time to grow thor­oughly alarmed like her, she heard the sound of whist­ling, and that re­vived her. Presently she saw a boy com­ing up the road from the val­ley to meet them. He was the whist­ler; but be­fore they met his whist­ling changed to singing. And this is some­thing like what he sang:

“Ring! dod! bang!
Go the ham­mers’ clang!
Hit and turn and bore!
Whizz and puff and roar!
Thus we rive the rocks,
Force the gob­lin locks.—
See the shin­ing ore!
One, two, three—
Bright as gold can be!
Four, five, six—
Shovels, mat­tocks, picks!
Seven, eight, nine—
Light your lamp at mine.
Ten, el­even, twelve—
Loosely hold the helve.
We’re the merry miner-boys,
Make the gob­lins hold their noise.”

“I wish you would hold your noise,” said the nurse rudely, for the very word “gob­lin” at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It would bring the gob­lins upon them to a cer­tainty, she thought, to defy them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not stop his singing.

“Thir­teen, four­teen, fif­teen—
This is worth the siftin’;
Six­teen, sev­en­teen, eight­een—
There’s the match, and lay’t in.
Nine­teen, twenty—
Gob­lins in a plenty.”

“Do be quiet,” cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy, who was now close at hand, still went on.

“Hush! scush! scurry!
There you go in a hurry!
Gobble! gobble! gob­lin!
There you go a wob­blin’;
Hobble, hobble, hob­blin’—
Cobble! cobble! cob­blin’!
Hob-bob-gob­lin!—
Huuuuuh!”

“There!” said the boy, as he stood still op­pos­ite them. “There! that’ll do for them. They can’t bear singing, and they can’t stand that song. They can’t sing them­selves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don’t like other people to sing.”

The boy was dressed in a miner’s dress, with a curi­ous cap on his head. He was a very nice-look­ing boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which he worked and as spark­ling as the crys­tals in their rocks. He was about twelve years old. His face was al­most too pale for beauty, which came of his be­ing so little in the open air and the sun­light—for even ve­get­ables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry in­deed—per­haps at the thought of hav­ing routed the gob­lins; and his bear­ing as he stood be­fore them had noth­ing clown­ish or rude about it.

“I saw them,” he went on, “as I came up; and I’m very glad I did. I knew they were after some­body, but I couldn’t see who it was. They won’t touch you so long as I’m with you.”

“Why, who are you?” asked the nurse, of­fen­ded at the free­dom with which he spoke to them.

“I’m Peter’s son.”

“Who’s Peter?”

“Peter the miner.”

“I don’t know him.”

“I’m his son, though.”

“And why should the gob­lins mind you, pray?”

“Be­cause I don’t mind them. I’m used to them.”

“What dif­fer­ence does that make?”

“If you’re not afraid of them, they’re afraid of you. I’m not afraid of them. That’s all. But it’s all that’s wanted—up here, that is. It’s a dif­fer­ent thing down there. They won’t al­ways mind that song even, down there. And if any­one sings it, they stand grin­ning at him aw­fully; and if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they—oh! don’t they give it him!”

“What do they do to him?” asked Irene, with a trem­bling voice.

“Don’t go fright­en­ing the prin­cess,” said the nurse.

“The prin­cess!” re­peated the little miner, tak­ing off his curi­ous cap. “I beg your par­don; but you oughtn’t to be out so late. Every­body knows that’s against the law.”

“Yes, in­deed it is!” said the nurse, be­gin­ning to cry again. “And I shall have to suf­fer for it.”

“What does that mat­ter?” said the boy. “It must be your fault. It is the prin­cess who will suf­fer for it. I hope they didn’t hear you call her the prin­cess. If they did, they’re sure to know her again: they’re aw­fully sharp.”

“Lootie! Lootie!” cried the prin­cess. “Take me home.”

“Don’t go on like that,” said the nurse to the boy, al­most fiercely. “How could I help it? I lost my way.”

“You shouldn’t have been out so late. You wouldn’t have lost your way if you hadn’t been frightened,” said the boy. “Come along. I’ll soon set you right again. Shall I carry your little High­ness?”

“Im­per­tin­ence!” mur­mured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for she thought if she made him angry he might take his re­venge by telling someone be­long­ing to the house, and then it would be sure to come to the king’s ears. “No, thank you,” said Irene. “I can walk very well, though I can’t run so fast as nur­sie. If you will give me one hand, Lootie will give me an­other, and then I shall get on fam­ously.”

They soon had her between them, hold­ing a hand of each.

“Now let’s run,” said the nurse.

“No, no!” said the little miner. “That’s the worst thing you can do. If you hadn’t run be­fore, you would not have lost your way. And if you run now, they will be after you in a mo­ment.”

“I don’t want to run,” said Irene.

“You don’t think of me,” said the nurse.

“Yes, I do, Lootie. The boy says they won’t touch us if we don’t run.”

“Yes, but if they know at the house that I’ve kept you out so late I shall be turned away, and that would break my heart.”

“Turned away, Lootie! Who would turn you away?”

“Your papa, child.”

“But I’ll tell him it was all my fault. And you know it was, Lootie.”

“He won’t mind that. I’m sure he won’t.”

“Then I’ll cry, and go down on my knees to him, and beg him not to take away my own dear Lootie.”

The nurse was com­for­ted at hear­ing this, and said no more. They went on, walk­ing pretty fast, but tak­ing care not to run a step.

“I want to talk to you,” said Irene to the little miner; “but it’s so awk­ward! I don’t know your name.”

“My name’s Cur­die, little prin­cess.”

“What a funny name! Cur­die! What more?”

“Cur­die Peterson. What’s your name, please?”

“Irene.”

“What more?”

“I don’t know what more. What more is my name, Lootie?”

“Prin­cesses haven’t got more than one name. They don’t want it.”

“Oh, then, Cur­die, you must call me just Irene and no more.”

“No, in­deed,” said the nurse in­dig­nantly. “He shall do no such thing.”

“What shall he call me, then, Lootie?”

“Your Royal High­ness.”

“My Royal High­ness! What’s that? No, no, Lootie. I won’t be called names. I don’t like them. You told me once your­self it’s only rude chil­dren that call names; and I’m sure Cur­die wouldn’t be rude. Cur­die, my name’s Irene.”

“Well, Irene,” said Cur­die, with a glance at the nurse which showed he en­joyed teas­ing her; “it is very kind of you to let me call you any­thing. I like your name very much.”

He ex­pec­ted the nurse to in­ter­fere again; but he soon saw that she was too frightened to speak. She was star­ing at some­thing a few yards be­fore them in the middle of the path, where it nar­rowed between rocks so that only one could pass at a time.

“It is very much kinder of you to go out of your way to take us home,” said Irene.

“I’m not go­ing out of my way yet,” said Cur­die. “It’s on the other side of those rocks the path turns off to my father’s.”

“You wouldn’t think of leav­ing us till we’re safe home, I’m sure,” gasped the nurse.

“Of course not,” said Cur­die.

“You dear, good, kind Cur­die! I’ll give you a kiss when we get home,” said the prin­cess.

The nurse gave her a great pull by the hand she held. But at that in­stant the some­thing in the middle of the way, which had looked like a great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after an­other it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it was now too dark to tell what they were. The nurse began to tremble from head to foot. Irene clasped Cur­die’s hand yet faster, and Cur­die began to sing again:

“One, two—
Hit and hew!
Three, four—
Blast and bore!
Five, six—
There’s a fix!
Seven, eight—
Hold it straight!
Nine, ten—
Hit again!
Hurry! scurry!
Bother! smother!
There’s a toad
In the road!
Smash it!
Squash it!
Fry it!
Dry it!
You’re an­other!
Up and off!
There’s enough!—
Huuuuuh!”

As he uttered the last words, Cur­die let go his hold of his com­pan­ion, and rushed at the thing in the road as if he would trample it un­der his feet. It gave a great spring, and ran straight up one of the rocks like a huge spider. Cur­die turned back laugh­ing, and took Irene’s hand again. She grasped his very tight, but said noth­ing till they had passed the rocks. A few yards more and she found her­self on a part of the road she knew, and was able to speak again.

“Do you know, Cur­die, I don’t quite like your song: it sounds to me rather rude,” she said.

“Well, per­haps it is,” answered Cur­die. “I never thought of that; it’s a way we have. We do it be­cause they don’t like it.”

“Who don’t like it?”

“The ‘cobs,’ as we call them.”

“Don’t!” said the nurse.

“Why not?” said Cur­die.

“I beg you won’t. Please don’t.”

“Oh! if you ask me that way, of course, I won’t; though I don’t a bit know why. Look! there are the lights of your great house down be­low. You’ll be at home in five minutes now.”

Noth­ing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed them, or even known they had gone out; and they ar­rived at the door be­long­ing to their part of the house without any­one see­ing them. The nurse was rush­ing in with a hur­ried and not over-gra­cious good night to Cur­die; but the prin­cess pulled her hand from hers, and was just throw­ing her arms round Cur­die’s neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away.

“Lootie! Lootie! I prom­ised a kiss,” cried Irene.

“A prin­cess mustn’t give kisses. It’s not at all proper,” said Lootie.

“But I prom­ised,” said the prin­cess.

“There’s no oc­ca­sion; he’s only a miner-boy.”

“He’s a good boy, and a brave boy, and he has been very kind to us. Lootie! Lootie! I prom­ised.”

“Then you shouldn’t have prom­ised.”

“Lootie, I prom­ised him a kiss.”

“Your Royal High­ness,” said Lootie, sud­denly grown very re­spect­ful, “must come in dir­ectly.”

“Nurse, a prin­cess must not break her word,” said Irene, draw­ing her­self up and stand­ing stock-still.

Lootie did not know which the king might count the worst—to let the prin­cess be out after sun­set, or to let her kiss a miner-boy. She did not know that, be­ing a gen­tle­man, as many kings have been, he would have coun­ted neither of them the worse. However much he might have dis­liked his daugh­ter to kiss the miner-boy, he would not have had her break her word for all the gob­lins in cre­ation. But, as I say, the nurse was not lady enough to un­der­stand this, and so she was in a great 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.

VII 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 tinder­box, 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 lookout, 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.

VIII 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.”

“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.

IX 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 would have had warn­ing of their ar­rest. He star­ted back, how­ever, be­fore any­one saw him, and re­treat­ing a good way, stood watch­ing till the father should come out to go to the palace.

Be­fore very long, both he and his son Helfer ap­peared and kept on in the same dir­ec­tion as be­fore, while Cur­die fol­lowed them again with re­newed pre­cau­tion. For a long time he heard no sound ex­cept some­thing like the rush of a river in­side the rock; but at length what seemed the far-off noise of a great shout­ing reached his ears, which, how­ever, presently ceased. After ad­van­cing a good way farther, he thought he heard a single voice. It soun­ded clearer and clearer as he went on, un­til at last he could al­most dis­tin­guish the words. In a mo­ment or two, keep­ing after the gob­lins round an­other corner, he once more star­ted back—this time in amazement.

He was at the en­trance of a mag­ni­fi­cent cav­ern, of an oval shape, once prob­ably a huge nat­ural reser­voir of wa­ter, now the great palace hall of the gob­lins. It rose to a tre­mend­ous height, but the roof was com­posed of such shin­ing ma­ter­i­als, and the mul­ti­tude of torches car­ried by the gob­lins who crowded the floor lighted up the place so bril­liantly, that Cur­die could see to the top quite well. But he had no idea how im­mense the place was un­til his eyes had got ac­cus­tomed to it, which was not for a good many minutes. The rough pro­jec­tions on the walls, and the shad­ows thrown up­wards from them by the torches, made the sides of the cham­ber look as if they were crowded with statues upon brack­ets and ped­es­tals, reach­ing in ir­reg­u­lar tiers from floor to roof. The walls them­selves were, in many parts, of glor­i­ously shin­ing sub­stances, some of them gor­geously col­oured be­sides, which power­fully con­tras­ted with the shad­ows. Cur­die could not help won­der­ing whether his rhymes would be of any use against such a mul­ti­tude of gob­lins as filled the floor of the hall, and in­deed felt con­sid­er­ably temp­ted to be­gin his shout of “One, two, three!”, but as there was no reason for rout­ing them and much for en­deav­our­ing to dis­cover their designs, he kept him­self per­fectly quiet, and peer­ing round the edge of the door­way, listened with both his sharp ears.

At the other end of the hall, high above the heads of the mul­ti­tude, was a ter­race-like ledge of con­sid­er­able height, caused by the re­ced­ing of the up­per part of the cav­ern-wall. Upon this sat the king and his court: the king on a throne hol­lowed out of a huge block of green cop­per ore, and his court upon lower seats around it. The king had been mak­ing them a speech, and the ap­plause which fol­lowed it was what Cur­die had heard. One of the court was now ad­dress­ing the mul­ti­tude. What he heard him say was to the fol­low­ing ef­fect: “Hence it ap­pears that two plans have been for some time to­gether work­ing in the strong head of His Majesty for the de­liv­er­ance of his people. Regard­less of the fact that we were the first pos­sessors of the re­gions they now in­habit; re­gard­less equally of the fact that we aban­doned that re­gion from the lofti­est motives; re­gard­less also of the self-evid­ent fact that we ex­cel them so far in men­tal abil­ity as they ex­cel us in stature, they look upon us as a de­graded race and make a mock­ery of all our finer feel­ings. But, the time has al­most ar­rived when—thanks to His Majesty’s in­vent­ive genius—it will be in our power to take a thor­ough re­venge upon them once for all, in re­spect of their un­friendly be­ha­viour.”

“May it please Your Majesty—” cried a voice close by the door, which Cur­die re­cog­nized as that of the gob­lin he had fol­lowed.

“Who is he that in­ter­rupts the Chan­cel­lor?” cried an­other from near the throne.

“Glump,” answered sev­eral voices.

“He is our trusty sub­ject,” said the king him­self, in a slow and stately voice: “let him come for­ward and speak.”

A lane was par­ted through the crowd, and Glump, hav­ing as­cen­ded the plat­form and bowed to the king, spoke as fol­lows:

“Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known that I only knew how near was the mo­ment, to which the Chan­cel­lor had just re­ferred.

“In all prob­ab­il­ity, be­fore an­other day is past, the en­emy will have broken through into my house—the par­ti­tion between be­ing even now not more than a foot in thick­ness.”

“Not quite so much,” thought Cur­die to him­self.

“This very even­ing I have had to re­move my house­hold ef­fects; there­fore the sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the ex­e­cu­tion of which His Majesty has been mak­ing such mag­ni­fi­cent pre­par­a­tions, the bet­ter. I may just add, that within the last few days I have per­ceived a small out­break in my din­ing-room, which, com­bined with ob­ser­va­tions upon the course of the river es­cap­ing where the evil men enter, has con­vinced me that close to the spot must be a deep gulf in its chan­nel. This dis­cov­ery will, I trust, add con­sid­er­ably to the oth­er­wise im­mense forces at His Majesty’s dis­posal.”

He ceased, and the king gra­ciously ac­know­ledged his speech with a bend of his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to His Majesty, slid down amongst the rest of the un­dis­tin­guished mul­ti­tude. Then the Chan­cel­lor rose and re­sumed.

“The in­form­a­tion which the worthy Glump has given us,” he said, “might have been of con­sid­er­able im­port at the present mo­ment, but for that other design already re­ferred to, which nat­ur­ally takes pre­ced­ence. His Majesty, un­will­ing to pro­ceed to ex­tremit­ies, and well aware that such meas­ures sooner or later res­ult in vi­ol­ent re­ac­tions, has ex­co­git­ated a more fun­da­mental and com­pre­hens­ive meas­ure, of which I need say no more. Should His Majesty be suc­cess­ful—as who dares to doubt?—then a peace, all to the ad­vant­age of the gob­lin king­dom, will be es­tab­lished for a gen­er­a­tion at least, rendered ab­so­lutely se­cure by the pledge which His Royal High­ness the prince will have and hold for the good be­ha­viour of her re­l­at­ives. Should His Majesty fail—which who shall dare even to ima­gine in his most secret thoughts?—then will be the time for car­ry­ing out with rigour the design to which Glump re­ferred, and for which our pre­par­a­tions are even now all but com­pleted. The fail­ure of the former will render the lat­ter im­per­at­ive.”

Cur­die, per­ceiv­ing that the as­sembly was draw­ing to a close and that there was little chance of either plan be­ing more fully dis­covered, now thought it prudent to make his es­cape be­fore the gob­lins began to dis­perse, and slipped quietly away.

There was not much danger of meet­ing any gob­lins, for all the men at least were left be­hind him in the palace; but there was con­sid­er­able danger of his tak­ing a wrong turn­ing, for he had now no light, and had there­fore to de­pend upon his memory and his hands. After he had left be­hind him the glow that is­sued from the door of Glump’s new abode, he was ut­terly without guide, so far as his eyes were con­cerned.

He was most anxious to get back through the hole be­fore the gob­lins should re­turn to fetch the re­mains of their fur­niture. It was not that he was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the ut­most im­port­ance that he should thor­oughly dis­cover what the plans they were cher­ish­ing were, he must not oc­ca­sion the slight­est sus­pi­cion that they were watched by a miner.

He hur­ried on, feel­ing his way along the walls of rock. Had he not been very cour­ageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could not but know that if he lost his way it would be the most dif­fi­cult thing in the world to find it again. Morn­ing would bring no light into these re­gions; and to­wards him least of all, who was known as a spe­cial rhymester and per­se­cutor, could gob­lins be ex­pec­ted to ex­er­cise cour­tesy. Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp and tinder­box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the gob­lins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had be­gun to go wrong. Mech­an­ic­ally, how­ever, he kept feel­ing about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of wa­ter was run­ning down the face of the rock. “What a stu­pid I am!” he said to him­self. “I am ac­tu­ally at the end of my jour­ney! And there are the gob­lins com­ing back to fetch their things!” he ad­ded, as the red glim­mer of their torches ap­peared at the end of the long av­enue that led up to the cave. In a mo­ment he had thrown him­self on the floor, and wriggled back­wards through the hole. The floor on the other side was sev­eral feet lower, which made it easier to get back. It was all he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken out of the hole, but he did man­age to shove it in again. He sat down on the ore-heap and thought.

He was pretty sure that the lat­ter plan of the gob­lins was to in­und­ate the mine by break­ing out­lets for the wa­ter ac­cu­mu­lated in the nat­ural reser­voirs of the moun­tain, as well as run­ning through por­tions of it. While the part hol­lowed by the miners re­mained shut off from that in­hab­ited by the gob­lins, they had had no op­por­tun­ity of in­jur­ing them thus; but now that a pas­sage was broken through, and the gob­lins’ part proved the higher in the moun­tain, it was clear to Cur­die that the mine could be des­troyed in an hour. Water was al­ways the chief danger to which the miners were ex­posed. They met with a little choke­damp some­times, but never with the ex­plos­ive firedamp so com­mon in coal-mines. Hence they were care­ful as soon as they saw any ap­pear­ance of wa­ter. As the res­ult of his re­flec­tions while the gob­lins were busy in their old home, it seemed to Cur­die that it would be best to build up the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lie, so that there should be no smal­lest chan­nel for the wa­ter to get into. There was not, how­ever, any im­me­di­ate danger, for the ex­e­cu­tion of the gob­lins’ plan was con­tin­gent upon the fail­ure of that un­known design which was to take pre­ced­ence of it; and he was most anxious to keep the door of com­mu­nic­a­tion open, that he might if pos­sible dis­cover what the former plan was. At the same time they could not re­sume their in­ter­mit­ted la­bours for the in­und­a­tion without his find­ing it out; when by put­ting all hands to the work, the one ex­ist­ing out­let might in a single night be rendered im­pen­et­rable to any weight of wa­ter; for by filling the gang en­tirely up, their em­bank­ment would be but­tressed by the sides of the moun­tain it­self.

As soon as he found that the gob­lins had again re­tired, he lighted his lamp, and pro­ceeded to fill the hole he had made with such stones as he could with­draw when he pleased. He then thought it bet­ter, as he might have oc­ca­sion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home and have some sleep.

How pleas­ant the night air felt upon the out­side of the moun­tain after what he had gone through in the in­side of it! He hur­ried up the hill without meet­ing a single gob­lin on the way, and called and tapped at the win­dow un­til he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. He told him the whole story; and, just as he had ex­pec­ted, his father thought it best to work that lode no farther, but at the same time to pre­tend oc­ca­sion­ally to be at work there still in or­der that the gob­lins might have no sus­pi­cions. Both father and son then went to bed and slept soundly un­til the morn­ing.