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

The last had not ceased when he grew very faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible.

When he came to himself there was perfect silence about him, and utter darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it, and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of the hole, past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire. He could not move it a hairbreadth, for they had piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe. But after a vain search he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep.

XIX Goblin Counsels

He must have slept a long time, for when he awoke he felt wonderfully restored⁠—indeed almost well⁠—and very hungry. There were voices in the outer cave.

Once more, then, it was night; for the goblins slept during the day and went about their affairs during the night.

In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling they had no reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to the sun-people they chose to be busy when there was least chance of their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep or catching their goats. And indeed it was only when the sun was away that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal regions to be endurable to their mole eyes, so thoroughly had they become unaccustomed to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches.

Curdie listened, and soon found that they were talking of himself.

“How long will it take?” asked Harelip.

“Not many days, I should think,” answered the king. “They are poor feeble creatures, those sun-people, and want to be always eating. We can go a week at a time without food, and be all the better for it; but I’ve been told they eat two or three times every day! Can you believe it? They must be quite hollow inside⁠—not at all like us, nine-tenths of whose bulk is solid flesh and bone. Yes⁠—I judge a week of starvation will do for him.”

“If I may be allowed a word,” interposed the queen⁠—“and I think I ought to have some voice in the matter⁠—”

“The wretch is entirely at your disposal, my spouse,” interrupted the king. “He is your property. You caught him yourself. We should never have done it.”

The queen laughed. She seemed in far better humour than the night before.

“I was about to say,” she resumed, “that it does seem a pity to waste so much fresh meat.”

“What are you thinking of, my love?” said the king. “The very notion of starving him implies that we are not going to give him any meat, either salt or fresh.”

“I’m not such a stupid as that comes to,” returned Her Majesty. “What I mean is that by the time he is starved there will hardly be a picking upon his bones.”

The king gave a great laugh.

“Well, my spouse, you may have him when you like,” he said. “I don’t fancy him for my part. I am pretty sure he is tough eating.”

“That would be to honour instead of punish his insolence,” returned the queen. “But why should our poor creatures be deprived of so much nourishment? Our little dogs and cats and pigs and small bears would enjoy him very much.”

“You are the best of housekeepers, my lovely queen!” said her husband. “Let it be so by all means. Let us have our people in, and get him out and kill him at once. He deserves it. The mischief he might have brought upon us, now that he had penetrated so far as our most retired citadel, is incalculable. Or rather let us tie him hand and foot, and have the pleasure of seeing him torn to pieces by full torchlight in the great hall.”

“Better and better!” cried the queen and the prince together, both of them clapping their hands. And the prince made an ugly noise with his harelip, just as if he had intended to be one at the feast.

“But,” added the queen, bethinking herself, “he is so troublesome. For poor creatures as they are, there is something about those sun-people that is very troublesome. I cannot imagine how it is that with such superior strength and skill and understanding as ours, we permit them to exist at all. Why do we not destroy them entirely, and use their cattle and grazing lands at our pleasure? Of course we don’t want to live in their horrid country! It is far too glaring for our quieter and more refined tastes. But we might use it as a sort of outhouse, you know. Even our creatures’ eyes might get used to it, and if they did grow blind that would be of no consequence, provided they grew fat as well. But we might even keep their great cows and other creatures, and then we should have a few more luxuries, such as cream and cheese, which at present we only taste occasionally, when our brave men have succeeded in carrying some off from their farms.”

“It is worth thinking of,” said the king; “and I don’t know why you should be the first to suggest it, except that you have a positive genius for conquest. But still, as you say, there is something very troublesome about them; and it would be better, as I understand you to suggest, that we should starve him for a day or two first, so that he may be a little less frisky when we take him out.”

“Once there was a goblin
Living in a hole;
Busy he was cobblin’
A shoe without a sole.

By came a