CURDIE COMES TO GRIEF
EVERYTHING was for some time quiet above ground. The king was still away
in a distant part of his dominions. The men-at-arms kept watching about
the house. They had been considerably astonished by finding at the foot
of the rock in the garden, the hideous body of the goblin-creature
killed by Curdie; but they came to the conclusion that it had been slain
in the mines, and had crept out there to die; and except an occasional
glimpse of a live one they saw nothing to cause alarm. Curdie kept
watching in the mountain, and the goblins kept burrowing deeper into the
earth. As long as they went deeper, there was, Curdie judged, no
immediate danger.
To Irene, the summer was as full of pleasure as ever, and for a long
time, although she often thought of her grandmother during the day, and
often dreamed about her at night, she did not see her. The kids and the
flowers were as much her delight as ever, and she made as much
friendship with the miners' children she met on the mountain as Lootie
would permit; but Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity
of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the
one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to
do them good by being humble toward them. At the same time she was
considerably altered for the better in her behavior to the princess.
She could not help seeing that she was no longer a mere child, but wiser
than her age would account for. She kept foolishly whispering to the
servants, however--sometimes that the princess was not right in her
mind, sometimes that she was too good to live, and other nonsense of the
same sort.
All this time, Curdie had to be sorry, without a chance of confessing,
that he had behaved so unkindly to the princess. This perhaps made him
the more diligent in his endeavors to serve her. His mother and he often
talked on the subject, and she comforted him, and told him she was sure
he would some day have the opportunity he so much desired.
Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in
general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a
fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is
always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness
away from her by saying, "I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry
for having done it." So you see there is some ground for supposing that
Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances
have been known in the world's history.
At length, however, he began to see signs of a change in the proceedings
of the goblin excavators: they were going no deeper, but had commenced
running on a level; and he watched them, therefore, more closely than
ever. All at once, one night, coming to a slope of very hard rock, they
began to ascend along the inclined plane of its surface. Having reached
its top, they went again on a level for a night or two, after which they
began to ascend once more, and kept on at a pretty steep angle. At
length Curdie judged it time to transfer his observation to another
quarter, and the next night, he did not go to the mine at all; but,
leaving his pickaxe and clue at home, and taking only his usual lumps of
bread and pease-pudding, went down the mountain to the king's house. He
climbed over the wall, and remained in the garden the whole night,
creeping on hands and knees from one spot to the other, and lying at
full length with his ear to the ground, listening. But he heard nothing
except the tread of the men-at-arms as they marched about, whose
observation, as the night was cloudy and there was no moon, he had
little difficulty in avoiding. For several following nights, he
continued to haunt the garden and listen, but with no success.
At length, early one evening, whether it was that he had got careless of
his own safety, or that the growing moon had become strong enough to
expose him, his watching came to a sudden end. He was creeping from
behind the rock where the stream ran out, for he had been listening all
round it in the hope it might convey to his ear some indication of the
whereabouts of the goblin miners, when just as he came into the
moonlight on the lawn, a whizz in his ear and a blow upon his leg
startled him. He instantly squatted in the hope of eluding further
notice. But when he heard the sound of running feet, he jumped up to
take the chance of escape by flight. He fell, however, with a keen shoot
of pain, for the bolt of a cross-bow had wounded his leg, and the blood
was now streaming from it. He was instantly laid hold of by two or three
of the men-at-arms. It was useless to struggle, and he submitted in
silence.
"It's a boy!" cried several of them together, in a tone of amazement. "I
thought it was one of those demons."
"What are you about here?"
"Going to have a little rough usage apparently," said Curdie laughing,
as the men shook him.
"Impertinence will do you no good. You have no business here in the
king's grounds, and if you don't give a true account of yourself, you
shall fare as a thief."
"Why, what else could he be?" said one.
"He might have been after a lost kid, you know," suggested another.
"I see no good in trying to excuse him. He has no business here anyhow."
"Let me go away then, if you please," said Curdie.
"But we don't please--not except you give a good account of yourself."
"I don't feel quite sure whether I can trust you," said Curdie.
"We are the king's own men-at-arms," said the captain, courteously, for
he was taken with Curdie's appearance and courage.
"Well, I will tell you all about it--if you will promise to listen to me
and not do anything rash."
"I call that cool!" said one of the party laughing. "He will tell us
what mischief he was about, if we promise to do as pleases him."
"I was about no mischief," said Curdie.
But ere he could say more he turned faint, and fell senseless on the
grass. Then first they discovered that the bolt they had shot, taking
him for one of the goblin creatures, had wounded him.
They carried him into the house, and laid him down in the hall. The
report spread that they had caught a robber, and the servants crowded in
to see the villain. Amongst the rest came the nurse. The moment she saw
him she exclaimed with indignation:
"I declare it's the same young rascal of a miner that was rude to me and
the princess on the mountain. He actually wanted to kiss the princess.
_I_ took good care of that--the wretch! And _he_ was prowling about--was
he? Just like his impudence!"
The princess being fast asleep, and Curdie in a faint, she could
misrepresent at her pleasure.
When he heard this, the captain, although he had considerable doubt of
its truth, resolved to keep Curdie a prisoner until they could search
into the affair. So, after they had brought him round a little, and
attended to his wound, which was rather a bad one, they laid him, still
exhausted from the loss of blood, upon a mattress in a disused room--one
of those already so often mentioned--and locked the door, and left him.
He passed a troubled night, and in the morning they found him talking
wildly. In the evening he came to himself, but felt very weak, and his
leg was exceedingly painful. Wondering where he was, and seeing one of
the men-at-arms in the room, he began to question him, and soon recalled
the events of the preceding night. As he was himself unable to watch any
more, he told the soldier all he knew about the goblins, and begged him
to tell his companions, and stir them up to watch with tenfold
vigilance; but whether it was that he did not talk quite coherently, or
that the whole thing appeared incredible, certainly the man concluded
that Curdie was only raving still, and tried to coax him into holding
his tongue. This, of course, annoyed Curdie dreadfully, who now felt in
his turn what it was not to be believed, and the consequence was that
his fever returned, and by the time when, at his persistent entreaties,
the captain was called, there could be no doubt that he was raving. They
did for him what they could, and promised everything he wanted, but with
no intention of fulfilment. At last he went to sleep, and when at length
his sleep grew profound and peaceful, they left him, locked the door
again, and withdrew, intending to revisit him early in the morning.