CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER
CURDIE went up the mountain neither whistling nor singing, for he was
vexed with Irene for taking him in, as he called it; and he was vexed
with himself for having spoken to her so angrily. His mother gave a cry
of joy when she saw him, and at once set about getting him something to
eat, asking him questions all the time, which he did not answer so
cheerfully as usual. When his meal was ready, she left him to eat it,
and hurried to the mine to let his father know he was safe. When she
came back, she found him fast asleep upon her bed; nor did he wake until
the arrival home of his father in the evening.
"Now, Curdie," his mother said, as they sat at supper, "tell us the
whole story from beginning to end, just as it all happened."
Curdie obeyed, and told everything to the point where they came out upon
the lawn in the garden of the king's house.
"And what happened after that?" asked his mother. "You haven't told us
all. You ought to be very happy at having got away from those demons,
and instead of that, I never saw you so gloomy. There must be something
more. Besides, you do not speak of that lovely child as I should like to
hear you. She saved your life at the risk of her own, and yet somehow
you don't seem to think much of it."
"She talked such nonsense!" answered Curdie, "and told me a pack of
things that weren't a bit true; and I can't get over it."
"What were they?" asked his father. "Your mother may be able to throw
some light upon them."
Then Curdie made a clean breast of it, and told them everything.
They all sat silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At last
Curdie's mother spoke.
"You confess, my boy," she said, "there is something about the whole
affair you do not understand?"
"Yes, of course, mother," he answered, "I cannot understand how a child
knowing nothing about the mountain, or even that I was shut up in it,
should come all that way alone, straight to where I was; and then, after
getting me out of the hole, lead me out of the mountain, too, where I
should not have known a step of the way if it had been as light as in
the open air."
"Then you have no right to say that what she told you was not true. She
did take you out, and she must have had something to guide her: why not
a thread as well as a rope, or anything else? There is something you
cannot explain, and her explanation may be the right one."
"It's no explanation at all, mother; and I can't believe it."
"That may be only because you do not understand it. If you did, you
would probably find it was an explanation, and believe it thoroughly. I
don't blame you for not being able to believe it, but I do blame you for
fancying such a child would try to deceive you. Why should she? Depend
upon it, she told you all she knew. Until you had found a better way of
accounting for it all, you might at least have been more sparing of your
judgment."
"That is what something inside me has been saying all the time," said
Curdie, hanging down his head. "But what do you make of the grandmother?
That is what I can't get over. To take me up to an old garret, and try
to persuade me against the sight of my own eyes that it was a beautiful
room, with blue walls and silver stars, and no end of things in it, when
there was nothing there but an old tub and a withered apple and a heap
of straw and a sunbeam! It was too bad! She _might_ have had some old
woman there at least who could pass for her precious grandmother!"
"Didn't she speak as if she saw those other things herself, Curdie?"
"Yes. That's what bothers me. You would have thought she really meant
and believed that she saw every one of the things she talked about. And
not one of them there! It was too bad, I say."
"Perhaps some people can see things other people can't see, Curdie,"
said his mother very gravely. "I think I will tell you something I saw
myself once--only perhaps you won't believe me either!"
"Oh, mother, mother!" cried Curdie, bursting into tears; "I don't
deserve that, surely!"
"But what I am going to tell you is very strange," persisted his mother;
"and if having heard it, you were to say I must have been dreaming, I
don't know that I should have any right to be vexed with you, though I
know at least that I was not asleep."
"Do tell me, mother. Perhaps it will help me to think better of the
princess."
"That's why I am tempted to tell you," replied his mother. "But first, I
may as well mention, that according to old whispers, there is something
more than common about the king's family; and the queen was of the same
blood, for they were cousins of some degree. There were strange stories
told concerning them--all good stories--but strange, very strange. What
they were I cannot tell, for I only remember the faces of my grandmother
and my mother as they talked together about them. There was wonder and
awe--not fear, in their eyes, and they whispered, and never spoke aloud.
But what I saw myself, was this: Your father was going to work in the
mine, one night, and I had been down with his supper. It was soon after
we were married, and not very long before you were born. He came with me
to the mouth of the mine, and left me to go home alone, for I knew the
way almost as well as the floor of our own cottage. It was pretty dark,
and in some parts of the road where the rocks overhung, nearly quite
dark. But I got along perfectly well, never thinking of being afraid,
until I reached a spot you know well enough, Curdie, where the path has
to make a sharp turn out of the way of a great rock on the left-hand
side. When I got there, I was suddenly surrounded by about half-a-dozen
of the cobs, the first I had ever seen, although I had heard tell of
them often enough. One of them blocked up the path, and they all began
tormenting and teasing me in a way it makes me shudder to think of even
now."
"If I had only been with you!" cried father and son in a breath.
The mother gave a funny little smile, and went on.
"They had some of their horrible creatures with them too, and I must
confess I was dreadfully frightened. They had torn my clothes very much,
and I was afraid they were going to tear myself to pieces, when suddenly
a great white soft light shone upon me. I looked up. A broad ray, like a
shining road, came down from a large globe of silvery light, not very
high up, indeed not quite so high as the horizon--so it could not have
been a new star or another moon or anything of that sort. The cobs
dropped persecuting me, and looked dazed, and I thought they were going
to run away, but presently they began again. The same moment, however,
down the path from the globe of light came a bird, shining like silver
in the sun. It gave a few rapid flaps first, and then, with its wings
straight out, shot sliding down the slope of the light. It looked to me
just like a white pigeon. But whatever it was, when the cobs caught
sight of it coming straight down upon them, they took to their heels and
scampered away across the mountain, leaving me safe, only much
frightened. As soon as it had sent them off, the bird went gliding again
up the light, and just at the moment it reached the globe, the light
disappeared, just the same as if a shutter had been closed over a
window, and I saw it no more. But I had no more trouble with the cobs
that night, or at any time afterward."
"How strange!" exclaimed Curdie.
"Yes, it is strange; but I can't help believing it, whether you do or
not," said his mother.
"It's exactly as your mother told it to me the very next morning," said
his father.
"You don't think I'm doubting my own mother!" cried Curdie.
"There are other people in the world quite as well worth believing as
your own mother," said his mother. "I don't know that she's so much the
fitter to be believed that she happens to be _your_ mother, Mr. Curdie.
There are mothers far more likely to tell lies than that little girl I
saw talking to the primroses a few weeks ago. If she were to lie I
should begin to doubt my own word."
"But princesses _have_ told lies as well as other people," said Curdie.
"Yes, but not princesses like that child. She's a good girl, I am
certain, and that's more than being a princess. Depend upon it you will
have to be sorry for behaving so to her, Curdie. You ought at least to
have held your tongue."
"I am sorry now," answered Curdie.
"You ought to go and tell her so, then."
"I don't see how I could manage that. They wouldn't let a miner boy like
me have a word with her alone; and I couldn't tell her before that nurse
of hers. She'd be asking ever so many questions, and I don't know how
many of them the little princess would like me to answer. She told me
that Lootie didn't know anything about her coming to get me out of the
mountain. I am certain she would have prevented her somehow if she had
known it. But I may have a chance before long, and meantime I must try
to do something for her. I think, father, I have got on the track at
last."
"Have you, indeed, my boy?" said Peter. "I am sure you deserve some
success; you have worked very hard for it. What have you found out?"
"It's difficult you know, father, inside the mountain, especially in the
dark, and not knowing what turns you have taken, to tell the lie of
things outside."
"Impossible, my boy, without a chart, or at least a compass," returned
his father.
"Well, I think I have nearly discovered in what direction the cobs are
mining. If I am right, I know something else that I can put to it, and
then one and one will make three."
"They very often do, Curdie, as we miners ought to be well aware. Now
tell us, my boy, what the two things are, and see whether we guess at
the same third as you."
"I don't see what that has to do with the princess," interposed his
mother.
"I will soon let you see that, mother. Perhaps you may think me foolish,
but until I am sure there is nothing in my present fancy, I am more
determined than ever to go on with my observations. Just as we came to
the channel by which we got out, I heard the miners at work somewhere
near--I think down below us. Now since I began to watch them, they have
mined a good half mile, in a straight line; and so far as I am aware,
they are working in no other part of the mountain. But I never could
tell in what direction they were going. When we came out in the king's
garden, however, I thought at once whether it was possible they were
working toward the king's house; and what I want to do to-night is to
make sure whether they are or not. I will take a light with me--"
"Oh, Curdie," cried his mother, "then they will see you."
"I'm no more afraid of them now than I was before," rejoined
Curdie,--"now that I've got this precious shoe. They can't make another
such in a hurry, and one bare foot will do for my purpose. Woman as she
may be, I won't spare her next time. But I shall be careful with my
light, for I don't want them to see me. I won't stick it in my hat."
"Go on, then, and tell us what you mean to do."
"I mean to take a bit of paper with me and a pencil, and go in at the
mouth of the stream by which we came out. I shall mark on the paper as
near as I can the angle of every turning I take until I find the cobs at
work, and so get a good idea in what direction they are going. If it
should prove to be nearly parallel with the stream, I shall know it is
toward the king's house they are working."
"And what if you should. How much wiser will you be then?"
"Wait a minute, mother, dear. I told you that when I came upon the royal
family in the cave, they were talking of their prince--Harelip, they
called him--marrying a sun-woman--that means one of us--one with toes to
her feet. Now in the speech one of them made that night at their great
gathering, of which I heard only a part, he said that peace would be
secured for a generation at least by the pledge the prince would hold
for the good behavior of _her_ relatives: that's what he said, and he
must have meant the sun-woman the prince was to marry. I am quite sure
the king is much too proud to wish his son to marry any but a princess,
and much too knowing to fancy that his having a peasant woman for a wife
would be of any material advantage to them."
"I see what you are driving at now," said his mother.
"But," said his father, "the king would dig the mountain to the plain
before he would have his princess the wife of a cob, if he were ten
times a prince."
"Yes; but they think so much of themselves!" said his mother. "Small
creatures always do. The bantam is the proudest cock in my little yard."
"And I fancy," said Curdie, "if they once get her, they would tell the
king they would kill her except, he consented to the marriage."
"They might say so," said his father, "but they wouldn't kill her; they
would keep her alive for the sake of the hold it gave them over our
king. Whatever he did to them, they would threaten to do the same to the
princess."
"And they are bad enough to torment her just for their own amusement--I
know that," said his mother.
"Anyhow, I will keep a watch on them, and see what they are up to," said
Curdie. "It's too horrible to think of. I daren't let myself do it. But
they sha'n't have her--at least if I can help it. So, mother dear--my
clue is all right--will you get me a bit of paper and a pencil and a
lump of pease-pudding, and I will set out at once. I saw a place where I
can climb over the wall of the garden quite easily."
"You must mind and keep out of the way of the men on the watch," said
his mother.
"That I will. I don't want them to know anything about it. They would
spoil it all. The cobs would only try some other plan--they are such
obstinate creatures! I shall take good care, mother. They won't kill and
eat me either, if they should come upon me. So you needn't mind them."
His mother got him what he asked for, and Curdie set out. Close beside
the door by which the princess left the garden for the mountain, stood a
great rock, and by climbing it Curdie got over the wall. He tied his
clue to a stone just inside the channel of the stream, and took his
pickaxe with him. He had not gone far before he encountered a horrid
creature coming toward the mouth. The spot was too narrow for two of
almost any size or shape, and besides Curdie had no wish to let the
creature pass. Not being able to use his pickaxe, however, he had a
severe struggle with him, and it was only after receiving many bites,
some of them bad, that he succeeded in killing him with his pocket
knife. Having dragged him out, he made haste to get in again before
another should stop up the way.
I need not follow him farther in this night's adventures. He returned to
his breakfast, satisfied that the goblins were mining in the direction
of the palace--on so low a level that their intention must, he thought,
be to burrow under the walls of the king's house, and rise up inside
it--in order, he fully believed, to lay hands on the little princess,
and carry her off for a wife to their horrid Harelip.