The Princess and Curdie

He

and it would have been losing time to go that way. Not until he had reached the king's house was it any use to turn northwards. Many

etches of desolate heath. Here and there was a village, but that brought him little pleasure, for the people were roug

he mines!' they cried. Sometimes thei

r-the lazybones!' they would say. 'He'll be well tax

im angry, he would treat them as he used to treat the goblins, and sing his own songs to keep out their foolish noises. Once a child fell as he turned to run away after throwing a stone at him. He picked him up, kissed him, an

lone wind that seemed to come from nowhere and to go nowhither sighed and hissed. It was very old and distorted. There was not another tree for miles all around. It seemed to have lived s

ny little streams had crossed his path. He now opened the wallet his mother had given him, and began to eat his supper.

not spend a night there, got through well and were nothing the worse. But those who slept even a single night in it were sure to meet with something they could never forget, and which often left a mark everybody could read. And that old hawthorn Might have been enough for a warning-it looked

s of the sky. The sun was going down in a storm of lurid crimson, and out of the west came a wind that felt red and hot the one moment, and cold and pale the other. And very strangely it sang in the dreary old hawthorn tree, and very che

all over the disc-Curdie saw something strange appear against it, moving about like a fly over its burning face. This looked as if it were coming out of the sun

the sun was half down its head reached the top of the arch, and presently nothing b

p, lifted his pickaxes and threw the hammer end over his shoulder: he was going to have a fight for his life! And now it appeared again, vague, yet very awful, in the dim twilight