CHAPTER XXXV

The End
THE king sent Curdie out into his dominions to search for men and women that had human hands. And many such he found, honest and true, and brought them to his master. So a new and upright government, a new and upright court, was formed, and strength returned to the nation.
But the exchequer was almost empty, for the evil man had squandered everything, and the king hated taxes un- willingly paid. Then came Curdie and said to the king that the city stood upon gold. And the king sent for men wise in the ways of the earth, and they built smelting furnaces, and Peter brought miners, and they mined the gold, and smelted it, and the king coined it into money, and therewith established things well in the land.
The same day on which he found his boy, Peter set out to go home. When he told the good news to Joan, his
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THE END
wife, she rose from her chair and said, “Let us go.” And they left the cottage, and repaired to Gwyntystorm. And on a mountain above the city they built themselves a warm house for their old age, high in the clear air.
As Peter mined one day, at the back of the king’s wine cellar, he broke into a cavern crusted with gems, and much wealth flowed therefrom, and the king used it wisely.
Queen Irene—that was the right name of the old prin- cess—was thereafter seldom long absent from the palace. Once or twice when she was missing, Barbara, who seemed to know of her sometimes when nobody else had a notion whither she had gone, said she was with the dear old Uglies in the wood. Curdie thought that perhaps her business might be with others there as well. All the up- permost rooms in the palace were left to her use, and when any one was in need of her help, up thither he must go. But even when she was there, he did not always succeed in finding her. She, however, always knew that such a one had been looking for her.
Curdie went to find her one day. As he ascended the last stair, to meet him came the well-known scent of her roses; and when he opened the door, lo! there was the same gorgeous room in which his touch had been glori- fied by her fire! And there burned the fire—a huge heap of red and white roses. Before the hearth stood the prin- cess, an old gray-haired woman, with Lina a little be- hind her, slowly wagging her tail, and looking like a beast of prey that can hardly so long restrain itself from
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THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE
springing as to be sure of its victim. The queen was Cast- ing roses, more and more roses, upon the fire. At last she
turned and said, “Now Lina!”—and Lina dashed bur-
rowing into the fire. There went up a black smoke and a
dust, and Lina was never more seen in the palace.
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THE END
Irene and Curdie were married. The old king died, and they were king and queen. As long as they lived Gwyntystorm was a better city, and good people grew in it. But they had no children, and when they died the people chose a king. And the new king went mining and mining in the rock under the city, and grew more and more eager after the gold, and paid less and less heed to his people. Rapidly they sank toward their old wickedness. But still the king went on mining, and coin- ing gold by the pailful, until the people were worse even than in the old time. And so greedy was the king after gold, that when at last the ore began to fail, he caused the miners to reduce the pillars which Peter and they that followed him had left standing to bear the city. And from the girth of an oak of a thousand years, they chipped them down to that of a fir tree of fifty.
One day at noon, when life was at its highest, the whole city fell with a roaring crash. The cries of men and the shrieks of women went up with its dust, and then there was a great silence.
Where the mighty rock once towered, crowded with homes and crowned with a palace, now rushes and raves a stone-obstructed rapid of the river. All around spreads a wilderness of wild deer, and the very name of Gwynty- storm had ceased from the lips of men.
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LOOKING GLASS LIBRARY
The publishers of the Looking Glass Library are Jason Epstein, Clelia Carroll, and Edward Gorey. The con- sulting editors are W. H. Auden, Phyllis McGinley, and Edmund Wilson.
The following titles are available in the series:
Five Children and It . E. NESBIT The Pheenix and the Carpet E. NESBIT The Blue Fairy Book ANDREW LANG (ED.) The Red Fairy Book ANDREW LANG (ED.) The Princess and the Goblin GEORGE MAC DONALD The Princess and Curdie GEORGE MAC DONALD Men and Gods REX WARNER
Wild Animals I Have Known ERNEST THOMPSON SETON
The Peterkin Papers LUCRETIA P. HALE A Book of Nonsense EDWARD LEAR The Looking Glass Book
of Verse JANET ADAM SMITH (ED.) The Looking Glass Book
of Stories HART DAY LEAVITT (ED.) The Haunted Looking Glass:
Ghost Stories EDWARD GOREY (ED.) The Lost World SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Otto of the Silver Hand HOWARD PYLE
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