The Princess and Curdie · Chapter 3 (2/2)

As she spoke she held out her hand to him, and when he took it she made use of his to help herself up from her stool, and⁠—when or how it came about, Curdie could not tell⁠—the same instant she stood before him a tall, strong woman⁠—plainly very old, but as grand as she was old, and only rather severe-looking. Every trace of the decrepitude and witheredness she showed as she hovered like a film about her wheel, had vanished. Her hair was very white, but it hung about her head in great plenty, and shone like silver in the moonlight. Straight as a pillar she stood before the astonished boy, and the wounded bird had now spread out both its wings across her bosom, like some great mystical ornament of frosted silver.

“Oh, now I can never forget you!” cried Curdie. “I see now what you really are!”

“Did I not tell you the truth when I sat at my wheel?” said the old lady.

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Curdie.

“I can do no more than tell you the truth now,” she rejoined. “It is a bad thing indeed to forget one who has told us the truth. Now go.”

Curdie obeyed, and took a few steps towards the door.

“Please, ma’am,”⁠—“what am I to call you?” he was going to say; but when he turned to speak, he saw nobody. Whether she was there or not he could not tell, however, for the moonlight had vanished, and the room was utterly dark. A great fear, such as he had never before known, came upon him, and almost overwhelmed him. He groped his way to the door, and crawled down the stair⁠—in doubt and anxiety as to how he should find his way out of the house in the dark. And the stair seemed ever so much longer than when he came up. Nor was that any wonder, for down and down he went, until at length his foot struck on a door, and when he rose and opened it, he found himself under the starry, moonless sky at the foot of the tower. He soon discovered the way out of the garden, with which he had some acquaintance already, and in a few minutes was climbing the mountain with a solemn and cheerful heart. It was rather dark, but he knew the way well. As he passed the rock from which the poor pigeon fell wounded with his arrow, a great joy filled his heart at the thought that he was delivered from the blood of the little bird, and he ran the next hundred yards at full speed up the hill. Some dark shadows passed him: he did not even care to think what they were, but let them run. When he reached home, he found his father and mother waiting supper for him.