will, ma'am," said Curdie.
So they parted, and father and son went home to wife and mother—two persons in one rich, happy woman.
Chapter VIII.
Curdie's Mission
The next night Curdie went home from the mine a little earlier than usual, to make himself tidy before going to the dove-tower. The princess had not appointed an exact time for him to be there; he would go as near the time he had gone first as he could. On his way to the bottom of the hill, he met his father coming up. The sun was then down, and the warm first of the twilight filled the evening. He came rather wearily up the hill: the road, he thought, must have grown steeper in parts since he was Curdie's age. His back was to the light of the sunset, which closed him all round in a beautiful setting, and Curdie thought what a grand-looking man his father was, even when he was tired. It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and make him look mean.
"Ah, Curdie! there you are!" he said, seeing his son come bounding along as if it were morning with him and not evening.
"You look tired, father," said Curdie.
"Yes, my boy. I'm not so young as you."
"Nor so old as the princess," said Curdie.
"Tell me this," said Peter: "why do people talk about going down hill when they begin to get old? It seems to me that then first they begin to go up hill."
"You looked to me, father, when I caught sight of you, as if you had been climbing the hill all your life, and were soon to get to the top."
"Nobody can tell when that will be," returned Peter. "We're so ready to think we're just at the top when it lies miles away. But I must not keep you, my boy, for you are wanted; and we shall be anxious to know what the princess says to you—that is, if she will allow you to tell us."
"I think she will, for she knows there is nobody more to be trusted than my father and mother," said Curdie, with pride.
And away he shot, and ran, and jumped, and seemed almost to fly down the long, winding, steep path, until he came to the gate of the king's house.
There he met an unexpected obstruction: in the open door stood the housekeeper, and she seemed to broaden herself out until she almost filled the doorway.
"So!" she said; "it's you, is it, young man? You are the person that comes in and goes out when he pleases, and keeps running up and down my stairs, without ever saying by your leave, or even wiping his shoes, and always leaves the door open! Don't you know that this is my house?"
"No, I do not," returned Curdie, respectfully. "You forget, ma'am, that it is the king's house."
"That is all the same. The king left it to me to take care of, and that you shall know!"
"Is the king dead, ma'am, that he has left it to you?" asked Curdie, half in doubt from the self-assertion of the woman.
"Insolent fellow!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "Don't you see by my dress that I am in the king's service?"
"And am I not one of his miners?"
"Ah! that goes for nothing. I am one of his household. You are an out-of-doors labourer. You are a nobody. You carry a pickaxe. I carry the keys at my girdle. See!"
"But you must not call one a nobody to whom the king has spoken," said Curdie.
"Go along with you!" cried the housekeeper, and would have shut the door in his face, had she not been afraid that when she stepped back he would step in ere she could get it in motion, for it was very heavy, and always seemed unwilling to shut. Curdie came a pace nearer. She lifted the great house key from her side, and threatened to strike him down with it, calling aloud on Mar and Whelk and Plout, the men-servants under her, to come and help her. Ere one of them could answer, however, she gave a great shriek and turned and fled, leaving the door wide open.
Curdie looked behind him, and saw an animal whose gruesome oddity even he, who knew so many of the strange creatures, two of which were never the same, that used to live inside the mountain with their masters the goblins, had never seen equalled. Its eyes were flaming with anger, but it seemed to be at the housekeeper, for it came cowering and creeping up, and laid its head on the ground at Curdie's feet. Curdie hardly waited to look at it, however, but ran into the house, eager to get up the stairs before any of the men should come to annoy—he had no fear of their preventing him. Without halt or hindrance, though the passages were nearly dark, he reached the door of the princess's workroom, and knocked.
"Come in," said the voice of the princess.
Curdie opened the door,—but, to his astonishment, saw no room there. Could he have opened a wrong door? There was the great sky, and the stars, and beneath he could see nothing—only darkness! But what was that in the sky, straight in front of him? A great wheel of fire, turning and turning, and flashing out blue lights!
"Come in, Curdie," said the voice again.
"I would at once, ma'am," said Curdie, "if I were sure I was standing at your door."
"Why should you doubt it, Curdie?"
"Because I see neither walls nor floor, only darkness and the great sky."
"That is all right, Curdie. Come in."
Curdie stepped forward at once. He was indeed, for the very crumb of a moment, tempted to feel before him with his foot; but he saw that would be to distrust the princess, and a greater rudeness he could not offer her. So he stepped straight in—I will not say without a little tremble at the thought of finding no floor beneath his foot. But that which had need of the floor found it, and his foot was satisfied.
No sooner was he in than he saw that the great revolving wheel in the sky was the princess's spinning-wheel, near the other end of the room, turning very fast. He could see no sky or stars any more, but the wheel was flashing out blue—oh such lovely sky-blue light!—and behind it of course sat the princess, but whether an old woman as thin as a skeleton leaf, or a glorious lady as young as perfection, he could not tell for the turning and flashing of the wheel.
"Listen to the wheel," said the voice which had already grown dear to Curdie: its very tone was precious like a jewel, not as a jewel, for no jewel could compare with it in preciousness.
And Curdie listened and listened.
"What is it saying?" asked the voice.
"It is singing," answered Curdie.
"What is it singing?"
Curdie tried to make out, but thought he could not; for no sooner had he got a hold of something than it vanished again. Yet he listened, and listened, entranced with delight.
"Thank you, Curdie," said the voice.
"Ma'am," said Curdie, "I did try hard for a while, but I could not make anything of it."
"Oh, yes, you did, and you have been telling it to
