The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie (With Original Illustrations). George MacDonaldЧитать онлайн книгу.
you shall see me again."
"Do you live in this room always?"
"I don't sleep in it. I sleep on the opposite side of the landing. I sit here most of the day."
"I shouldn't like it. My nursery is much prettier. You must be a queen too, if you are my great big grandmother."
"Yes, I am a queen."
"Where is your crown then?"
"In my bedroom."
"I should like to see it."
"You shall some day—not to-day."
"I wonder why nursie never told me."
"Nursie doesn't know. She never saw me."
"But somebody knows that you are in the house?"
"No; nobody."
"How do you get your dinner then?"
"I keep poultry—of a sort."
"Where do you keep them?"
"I will show you."
"And who makes the chicken broth for you?"
"I never kill any of my chickens."
"Then I can't understand."
"What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
"Oh! I had bread and milk, and an egg.—I daresay you eat their eggs."
"Yes, that's it. I eat their eggs."
"Is that what makes your hair so white?"
"No, my dear. It's old age. I am very old."
"I thought so. Are you fifty?"
"Yes—more than that."
"Are you a hundred?"
"Yes—more than that. I am too old for you to guess. Come and see my chickens."
She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings.
Again she stopped her spinning. She rose, took the princess by the hand, led her out of the room, and opened the door opposite the stair. The princess expected to see a lot of hens and chickens, but instead of that, she saw the blue sky first, and then the roofs of the house, with a multitude of the loveliest pigeons, mostly white, but of all colors, walking about, making bows to each other, and talking a language she could not understand. She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings, that she in her turn was startled.
"You've frightened my poultry," said the old lady, smiling.
"And they've frightened me," said the princess, smiling too. "But what very nice poultry! Are the eggs nice?"
"Yes, very nice."
"What a small egg-spoon you must have! Wouldn't it be better to keep hens, and get bigger eggs?"
"How should I feed them, though?"
"I see," said the princess. "The pigeons feed themselves. They've got wings."
"Just so. If they couldn't fly, I couldn't eat their eggs."
"But how do you get at the eggs? Where are their nests?"
The lady took hold of a little loop of string in the wall at the side of the door, and lifting a shutter showed a great many pigeon-holes with nests, some with young ones and some with eggs in them. The birds came in at the other side, and she took out the eggs on this side. She closed it again quickly, lest the young ones should be frightened.
"Oh what a nice way!" cried the princess. "Will you give me an egg to eat? I'm rather hungry."
"I will some day, but now you must go back, or nursie will be miserable about you. I daresay she's looking for you everywhere."
"Except here," answered the princess. "Oh how surprised she will be when I tell her about my great big grand-grandmother!"
"Yes, that she will!" said the old lady with a curious smile. "Mind you tell her all about it exactly."
"That I will. Please will you take me back to her?"
"I can't go all the way, but I will take you to the top of the stair, and then you must run down quite fast into your own room."
The little princess put her hand in the old lady's, who, looking this way and that, brought her to the top of the first stair, and thence to the bottom of the second, and did not leave her till she saw her half way down the third. When she heard the cry of her nurse's pleasure at finding her, she turned and walked up the stairs again, very fast indeed for such a very great grandmother, and sat down to her spinning with another strange smile on her sweet old face.
About this spinning of hers I will tell you more next time.
Guess what she was spinning.
CHAPTER IV
WHAT THE NURSE THOUGHT OF IT
"WHY, where can you have been, princess?" asked the nurse, taking her in her arms. "It's very unkind of you to hide away so long. I began to be afraid—"
Here she checked herself.
"What were you afraid of, nursie?" asked the princess.
"Never mind," she answered. "Perhaps I will tell you another day. Now tell me where you have been?"
"I've been up a long way to see my very great, huge, old grandmother," said the princess.
"What do you mean by that?" asked the nurse, who thought she was making fun.
"I mean that I've been a long way up and up to see my great grandmother. Ah, nursie, you don't know what a beautiful mother of grandmothers I've got upstairs. She is such an old lady! with such lovely white hair!—as white as my silver cup. Now, when I think of it, I think her hair must be silver."
"What nonsense you are talking, princess!" said the nurse.
"I'm not talking nonsense," returned Irene, rather offended. "I will tell you all about her. She's much taller than you, and much prettier."
"Oh, I daresay!" remarked the nurse.
"And she lives upon pigeon's eggs."
"Most likely," said the nurse.
"And she sits in an empty room, spin-spinning all day long."
"Not a doubt of it," said the nurse.
"And she keeps her crown in her bedroom."
"Of course—quite the proper place to keep her crown in. She wears it in bed, I'll be bound."
"She didn't say that. And I don't think she does. That wouldn't be comfortable—would it? I don't think my papa wears his crown for a night-cap. Does he, nursie?"
"I never asked him. I daresay he does."
"And she's been there ever since I came here—ever so many years."
"Anybody could have told you that," said the nurse, who did not believe a word Irene was saying.
"Why didn't you tell me then?"
"There was no necessity. You could make it all up for yourself."
"You don't believe me then!" exclaimed the princess, astonished and angry, as well she might be.
"Did you expect me to believe you, princess?" asked the nurse coldly. "I know princesses are in the habit of telling make-believes, but you are the first I ever heard of who expected to have them believed," she added, seeing that the child was strangely in earnest.