Curtsy

“ AS soon as he had reason to hope the way was clear, Curdie ventured softly into the hall, with Lina behind him. There was no one asleep on the bench or floor, but by the fading fire sat a girl weeping. It was the same who had seen him carrying off the food, and had been so hardly used for saying so. She opened her eyes when he appeared, but did not seem frightened at him.
"I know why you weep," said Curdie; "and I am sorry for you."
"It is hard not to be believed just because one speaks the truth," said the girl, "but that seems reason enough with some people. ”

“ He reappeared in about a couple of minutes, wearing an overcoat and a tall hat.
"Now," he said, "just lead the way."
We went together straight back to Number 190, and I think he had some misgivings about entering the house with me alone, but I reassured him by reminding him that an old lady was dying within; as it was he made me go first.
"I had no idea any one lived here at all," he remarked, as I lighted him along the passage to the stairs by means of wax vestas, of which I fortunately had a supply, for there was no candle in the hall. "I always thought this house was shut up. ”

“ He told Lina to get under the bed, and make no noise.
About one o'clock the doctor came stealing in. He looked round for the princess, and seeing no one, smiled with satisfaction as he approached the wine where it stood under the lamp. Having partly filled a glass, he took from his pocket a small phial, and filled up the glass from it. The light fell upon his face from above, and Curdie saw the snake in it plainly visible. He had never beheld such an evil countenance: the man hated the king, and delighted in doing him wrong. ”

“ But at present Curdie had nothing to do with today or tomorrow; his business was with the bird, and the tower where dwelt the grand old princess to whom it belonged. So he kept on his way, still eastward, and came to yet another passage, which brought him to a door. He was afraid to open it without first knocking. He knocked, but heard no answer. He was answered nevertheless; for the door gently opened, and there was a narrow stair—and so steep that, big lad as he was, he, too, like the Princess Irene before him, found his hands needful for the climbing. ”

“ The lamp was out in the passage, but he could not miss his way to the servants' hall. Trusting to Lina's quickness in concealing herself, he took her with him.
When they reached the hall they found it quiet and nearly dark. The last of the great fire was glowing red, but giving little light. Curdie stood and warmed himself for a few moments: miner as he was, he had found the cellar cold to sit in doing nothing; and standing thus he thought of looking if there were any bits of candle about. ”

“ How are we to get it, Curdie? That is the whole question.'
'I am thinking hard,' answered Curdie. 'The good food? Let me see—let me see! Such servants as I saw below are sure to have the best of everything for themselves: I will go an see what I can find on their table.'
'The chancellor sleeps in the house, and he and the master of the king's horse always have their supper together in a room off the great hall, to the right as you go down the stairs,' said Irene. 'I would go with you, but I dare not leave my father. Alas! He scarcely ever takes more than a mouthful. ”

“ Look at the sinner! He confesses! actually confesses! Come, what is it you stole? The barefaced hypocrite! There's your sort to set up for reproving other people! Where's the other now?"
But the maid had left the room, and they let the page pass, for he looked dangerous to stop. Curdie had just put him betwixt him and the wall, behind the door, when in rushed the butler with the huge kitchen poker, the point of which he had blown red-hot in the fire, followed by the cook with his longest spit. Through the crowd, which scattered right and left before them, they came down upon Curdie. ”

“ Curtis called to his party just before sunrise to get up and see Old Faithful, the greatest geyser of them all, throw its stream of water into the air as high as a fourteen-story skyscraper while the morning sunrise on the enormous clouds of steam made reds and greens and all the colors of the rainbow, and the rainbow itself.
"How did you know when to call us, Dr. Curtis?"
"Old Faithful works on schedule time, every sixty-three minutes, night and day, summer and winter. It's very handy for travellers." ”

“ Ere the butler could raise the poker again, or the cook recover the spit, with a roar to terrify the dead, Lina dashed into the room, her eyes flaming like candles. She went straight at the butler. He was down in a moment, and she on the top of him, wagging her tail over him like a lioness.
"Don't kill him, Lina," said Curdie.
"Oh, Mr. Miner!" cried the butler.
"Put your foot on his mouth, Lina," said Curdie. "The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies." ”

“ A dip, a bob, a bend, a shuffle, a slide, a canter—neither dignified, graceful, nor self-possessed! A curtsey is in grace what an adagio is in music;—only masters of the art can execute either the one or the other. Why, the beauty of the Duchess of Devonshire could not have saved her reputation as a graceful woman, if she had dared such a curtsey as that. ”

“ He grasped the hand of each in succession, and found two ox-hoofs, three pig-hoofs, one concerning which he could not be sure whether it was the hoof of a donkey or a pony, and one dog's paw. "A nice set of people to be about a king!" thought Curdie to himself, and turned again to his candle hunt. He did at last find two or three little pieces, and stowed them away in his pockets.
They now left the hall by another door, and entered a short passage, which led them to the huge kitchen, vaulted, and black with smoke. ”

“ One day he remarked, without lifting his head, ‘In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr Kurtz.’ On my asking who Mr Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, ‘He is a very remarkable person.’ Further questions elicited from him that Mr Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at ‘the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together...’ He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. ”

“ Kurtz—Kurtz—that means short in German—don’t it? Well, the name was as true as everything else in his life—and death. He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. ”

“ She was disappointed. "He owes me four more minutes of fun."
She got up slowly and started for the door. "That curly hair stuff is new since my last sixties, too. I wonder if it would work on white hair ... I'd better go down and close the door. Can't have just anybody coming into one's house."
he descended the stairs, opened the door from the front room, then took one step forward into the hall. Before she could interpret the soft bump of the salesman's bare feet as they struck the floor, she was encircled by his strong arm ”

“ Lina obeyed. The girl looked at her, and laid her hand on her head.
"Now I know you are a true woman," said Curdie. "—I am come to set things right in this house. Not one of the servants knows I am here. Will you tell them to-morrow morning, that, if they do not alter their ways, and give over drinking, and lying, and stealing, and unkindness, they shall every one of them be driven from the palace?" ”

“ He can’t hurt ye so easy, sir, as he hurts me.’
Her low voice appeared to thrill through the room, in which the most breathless, the most intense silence reigned. Jenny had used all her strength in order to get through her speech, as one who upon his last venture pours all the wealth he has. But she was upright still, and composed, though very pallid, and through her pale lips her breath came quietly. The servant was gone, although the door stood open, and in the room were only the two men she had addressed; Mr Lee, who sat in his armchair with his face turned away ”

“ The Curtises stayed in my hotel in Venice; so, oddly enough, did the German whom Bessie had defeated in the train. We saw him at dinner on the evening of our arrival, and Bessie nodded to him in the friendliest way. She bore him no malice at all on account of the way she had treated him; which convinced me that she was a young woman of magnanimous spirit. It is very hard to feel kindly toward any one whom you have misused.
Next morning Mrs. Curtis invited me to join her and Bessie in making a tour of the city. ”

“ Twenty men could not have done that And your fingers are white and smooth as any lady's in the land. I don't know what to make of it."
"I could give you twenty names more to call me, Curdie, and not one of them would be a false one. What does it matter how many names if the person is one?"
"Ah! but it is not names only, ma'am. Look at what you were like last night, and what I see you now!"
"Shapes are only dresses, Curdie, and dresses are only names. That which is inside is the same all the time." ”

“ The adherents of Curthose, generally gay and thoughtless young men, exercised all their art to stimulate his ambition; and he yielded somewhat too readily to their suggestions.
"Noble son of a king," said they, "thy father's people must take good care of his treasure, since thou hast not a penny to bestow on thy followers. Why endurest thou to remain so poor when thy father is so rich?"
"But what can I do?" asked Curthose.
"Ask him for a portion of his England," they answered; "or, at least, for the duchy of Normandy, which he promised thee before all his barons." ”

“ Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and tied it over his ears, to keep out the tiny things that crawl o’ nights, and couched himself in his blanket on the gently rising ground with his saddle for a pillow. He lay down with his face to the east, where the dim and mellow sky, flooded with moonlight, seemed to recede far back, to the very limits of space, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in brooding majesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and muscles relaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. ”

“ Mrs. Curtis is doing Europe to complete Bessie’s education. Pictures and statues, you know, and architecture and old furniture—just what a literary man wants in a wife.”
“I’m not really literary,” I said. “After all, guide-books don't appeal to the cultured minority.”
I do not know what other literary men want in their wives, but I am quite clear that I do not want a veneer of Italian art glued over a solid structure of American dollars. The Curtises are Edith’s latest friends. She had only known them about a week when she discovered that Bessie was just the wife for me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ever since the adventure at Fort Sumter the little colored girl had felt that she must look after Missy Sylvia carefully. And she was not well pleased to see her young mistress disappear from her watchful eyes.
"What a funny name 'Estralla' is," laughed Flora, as Sylvia called back a good-bye.
"Oh, that isn't her name, really," explained Grace. "You know my Uncle
Robert owns her, and Auntie Connie named her after Aunt Esther and
Cousin Alice. Her name is really Esther Alice. But the colored people
never speak as we do."
"How can anybody 'own' anybody else, even if their skin is black?" ”

“ It’s like as I may be going to thy home—Annie will be there, I suppose—’ there was a tremor in his voice. ‘One must make the best o’ such days as one can get, it isn’t oft as I can be free. Good-day to thee, lad,’ but Nat only bestowed a nod for answer, and without looking back went on quickly to his work. The eyes of the young workman followed him as he moved, a solitary figure in the grey morning light, a shapely lad with hair crisp beneath his cap, and his bag of tools slung upon shoulders that bore the burden well. ”

“ Anne knelt down to lift the blanket. Rose was close beside her, leaning over to see what the blanket might conceal, when the kitchen door swung open and the man entered. As he looked at the two girls his face darkened again, and he came quickly forward.
“Aha!” he muttered. “It’s just as I thought. Pretty clever of the old Tory to bring these girls along to peek about and find out all they can,” but the girls did not hear him until he stood beside them, and then his scowl was gone and he spoke pleasantly: [Pg 96] “A good many rifles for one man, but they are not all mine. ”

“ This clamor fell away into a deep, throbbing chant, only to rise again to the yelping, whimpering cries with which it began.
Every woman stiffened with terror, with wide eyes questioning Curtis. "What is all that?"
"The opening chorus," he explained, much amused. "A song of the chase."
The dusk was beginning to fall, and the tepees, with their small, sparkling fires close beside, and the shadowy, blanketed forms assembling slowly, silently, gave a wonderful remoteness and wildness to the scene. To Curtis it was quite like the old-time village. ”