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. Toward midnight he began
to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got 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 to-night,
if he work ever so hard. He's by no 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 is 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--specially 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 to-night; 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 a 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 mean time, 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 up-stairs? 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 to-night. 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.