The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald (best historical biographies txt) 📕

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