The Princess and the Goblin | Page 4

altered in the
course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the
sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily
ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in
face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless
imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the
extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had
mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves -
of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far
removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as
they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and
cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the
possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and
their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the
people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough
of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely
cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so
heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their
former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king
who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of
tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and
although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their
cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government
of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs,
was to devise trouble for their neighbours. It will now be pretty evident
why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much
too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in
company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as
we shall see by and by.
CHAPTER 2

The Princess Loses Herself
I have said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story
begins. And this is how it begins.
One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which
was constantly gathering itself together into raindrops, and pouring
down on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of
water from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course
go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer
amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you
one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn't have the toys
themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a
thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing - the
princess sitting in the nursery with the sky ceiling over her head, at a
great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I
should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of
attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw
them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I don't
think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the princess
herself than he could, though - leaning with her back bowed into the
back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap,
very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she
would like, except it were to go out and get thoroughly wet, and catch a
particularly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next
moment after you see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room.
Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks
about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of the door, not
the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot
of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never
anyone had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and
that was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was
at the top of it.
Up and up she ran - such a long way it seemed to her! - until she came
to the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of
a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side.

There were so many that she did not