The Princess and the Goblin - George MacDonald (first ebook reader TXT) 📗

Her face streaming with blood, and her eyes flashing green lightning through it, she came on with her mouth open and her teeth grinning like a tiger’s, followed by the king and her bodyguard of the thickest goblins. But the same moment in rushed the captain and his men, and ran at them stamping furiously. They dared not encounter such an onset. Away they scurried, the queen foremost. Of course, the right thing would have been to take the king and queen prisoners, and hold them hostages for the princess, but they were so anxious to find her that no one thought of detaining them until it was too late.

Having thus rescued the servants, they set about searching the house once more. None of them could give the least information concerning the princess. Lootie was almost silly with terror, and, although scarcely able to walk would not leave Curdie’s side for a single moment. Again he allowed the others to search the rest of the house⁠—where, except a dismayed goblin lurking here and there, they found no one⁠—while he requested Lootie to take him to the princess’s room. She was as submissive and obedient as if he had been the king.

He found the bedclothes tossed about, and most of them on the floor, while the princess’s garments were scattered all over the room, which was in the greatest confusion. It was only too evident that the goblins had been there, and Curdie had no longer any doubt that she had been carried off at the very first of the inroad. With a pang of despair he saw how wrong they had been in not securing the king and queen and prince; but he determined to find and rescue the princess as she had found and rescued him, or meet the worst fate to which the goblins could doom him.

Just as the consolation of this resolve dawned upon his mind and he was turning away for the cellar to follow the goblins into their hole, something touched his hand. It was the slightest touch, and when he looked he could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the grey of the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight thread. He looked again, and narrowly, but still could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this must be the princess’s thread. Without saying a word, for he knew no one would believe him any more than he had believed the princess, he followed the thread with his finger, contrived to give Lootie the slip, and was soon out of the house and on the mountainside⁠—surprised that, if the thread were indeed the grandmother’s messenger, it should have led the princess, as he supposed it must, into the mountain, where she would be certain to meet the goblins rushing back enraged from their defeat. But he hurried on in the hope of overtaking her first. When he arrived, however, at the place where the path turned off for the mine, he found that the thread did not turn with it, but went straight up the mountain. Could it be that the thread was leading him home to his mother’s cottage? Could the princess be there? He bounded up the mountain like one of its own goats, and before the sun was up the thread had brought him indeed to his mother’s door. There it vanished from his fingers, and he could not find it, search as he might.

The door was on the latch, and he entered. There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess, fast asleep.

“Hush, Curdie!” said his mother. “Do not wake her. I’m so glad you’re come! I thought the cobs must have got you again!”

With a heart full of delight, Curdie sat down at a corner of the hearth, on a stool opposite his mother’s chair, and gazed at the princess, who slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own bed. All at once she opened her eyes and fixed them on him.

“Oh, Curdie! you’re come!” she said quietly. “I thought you would!”

Curdie rose and stood before her with downcast eyes.

“Irene,” he said, “I am very sorry I did not believe you.”

“Oh, never mind, Curdie!” answered the princess. “You couldn’t, you know. You do believe me now, don’t you?”

“I can’t help it now. I ought to have helped it before.”

“Why can’t you help it now?”

“Because, just as I was going into the mountain to look for you, I got hold of your thread, and it brought me here.”

“Then you’ve come from my house, have you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“I’ve been there two or three days, I believe.”

“And I never knew it! Then perhaps you can tell me why my grandmother has brought me here? I can’t think. Something woke me⁠—I didn’t know what, but I was frightened, and I felt for the thread, and there it was! I was more frightened still when it brought me out on the mountain, for I thought it was going to take me into it again, and I like the outside of it best. I supposed you were in trouble again, and I had to get you out. But it brought me here instead; and, oh, Curdie! your mother has been so kind to me⁠—just like my own grandmother!”

Here Curdie’s mother gave the princess a hug, and the princess turned and gave her a sweet smile, and held up her mouth to kiss her.

“Then you didn’t see the cobs?” asked Curdie.

“No; I haven’t been into the mountain, I told you, Curdie.”

“But the cobs have been into your house⁠—all over it⁠—and into your bedroom, making such a row!”

“What did they want there? It was very rude of them.”

“They wanted you⁠—to carry you off into the mountain with them, for a wife to their prince Harelip.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” cried the princess, shuddering.

“But you needn’t be afraid, you know. Your grandmother takes care of