Well, when the heart of the earth has thus come rushing up among her children, bringing with it gifts of all that she possesses, then straightway into it rush her children to see what they can find there.With pickaxe and spade and crowbar, with boring chisel and blasting powder, they force their way back: is it to search for what toys they may have left in their long-forgotten nurseries?
Hence the mountains that lift their heads into the clear air, and are dotted over with the dwellings of men, are tunnelled and bored in the darkness of their bosoms by the dwellers in the houses which they hold up to the sun and air.
Curdie and his father were of these: their business was to bring to light hidden things; they sought silver in the rock and found it, and carried it out.Of the many other precious things in their mountain they knew little or nothing.Silver ore was what they were sent to find, and in darkness and danger they found it.But oh, how sweet was the air on the mountain face when they came out at sunset to go home to wife and mother! They did breathe deep then!
The mines belonged to the king of the country, and the miners were his servants, working under his overseers and officers.He was a real king - that is, one who ruled for the good of his people and not to please himself, and he wanted the silver not to buy rich things for himself, but to help him to govern the country, and pay the ones that defended it from certain troublesome neighbours, and the judges whom he set to portion out righteousness among the people, that so they might learn it themselves, and come to do without judges at all.Nothing that could be got from the heart of the earth could have been put to better purposes than the silver the king's miners got for him.There were people in the country who, when it came into their hands, degraded it by locking it up in a chest, and then it grew diseased and was called mammon, and bred all sorts of quarrels; but when first it left the king's hands it never made any but friends, and the air of the world kept it clean.
About a year before this story began, a series of very remarkable events had just ended.I will narrate as much of them as will serve to show the tops of the roots of my tree.
Upon the mountain, on one of its many claws, stood a grand old house, half farmhouse, half castle, belonging to the king; and there his only child, the Princess Irene, had been brought up till she was nearly nine years old, and would doubtless have continued much longer, but for the strange events to which I have referred.
At that time the hollow places of the mountain were inhabited by creatures called goblins, who for various reasons and in various ways made themselves troublesome to all, but to the little princess dangerous.Mainly by the watchful devotion and energy of Curdie, however, their designs had been utterly defeated, and made to recoil upon themselves to their own destruction, so that now there were very few of them left alive, and the miners did not believe there was a single goblin remaining in the whole inside of the mountain.
The king had been so pleased with the boy - then approaching thirteen years of age - that when he carried away his daughter he asked him to accompany them; but he was still better pleased with him when he found that he preferred staying with his father and mother.He was a right good king and knew that the love of a boy who would not leave his father and mother to be made a great man was worth ten thousand offers to die for his sake, and would prove so when the right time came.As for his father and mother, they would have given him up without a grumble, for they were just as good as the king, and he and they understood each other perfectly;but in this matter, not seeing that he could do anything for the king which one of his numerous attendants could not do as well, Curdie felt that it was for him to decide.So the king took a kind farewell of them all and rode away, with his daughter on his horse before him.
A gloom fell upon the mountain and the miners when she was gone, and Curdie did not whistle for a whole week.As for his verses, there was no occasion to make any now.He had made them only to drive away the goblins, and they were all gone - a good riddance -only the princess was gone too! He would rather have had things as they were, except for the princess's sake.But whoever is diligent will soon be cheerful, and though the miners missed the household of the castle, they yet managed to get on without them.
Peter and his wife, however, were troubled with the fancy that they had stood in the way of their boy's good fortune.it would have been such a fine thing for him and them, too, they thought, if he had ridden with the good king's train.How beautiful he looked, they said, when he rode the king's own horse through the river that the goblins had sent out of the hill! He might soon have been a captain, they did believe! The good, kind people did not reflect that the road to the next duty is the only straight one, or that, for their fancied good, we should never wish our children or friends to do what we would not do ourselves if we were in their position.We must accept righteous sacrifices as well as make them.