第21章

'And I am sure the boy speaks true,' said Peter.'He only says about your hand what I have known ever so long about yourself, Joan.Curdie, your mother's foot is as pretty a foot as any lady's in the land, and where her hand is not so pretty it comes of killing its beauty for you and me, my boy.And I can tell you more, Curdie.I don't know much about ladies and gentlemen, but Iam sure your inside mother must be a lady, as her hand tells you, and I will try to say how I know it.This is how: when I forget myself looking at her as she goes about her work - and that happens often as I grow older - I fancy for a moment or two that I am a gentleman; and when I wake up from my little dream, it is only to feel the more strongly that I must do everything as a gentleman should.I will try to tell you what I mean, Curdie.If a gentleman - I mean a real gentleman, not a pretended one, of which sort they say there are a many above ground - if a real gentleman were to lose all his money and come down to work in the mines to get bread for his family - do you think, Curdie, he would work like the lazy ones? Would he try to do as little as he could for his wages? I know the sort of the true gentleman pretty near as well as he does himself.And my wife, that's your mother, Curdie, she's a true lady, you may take my word for it, for it's she that makes me want to be a true gentleman.Wife, the boy is in the right about your hand.'

'Now, Father, let me feel yours,' said Curdie, daring a little more.

'No, no, my boy,' answered Peter.'I don't want to hear anything about my hand or my head or my heart.I am what I am, and I hope growing better, and that's enough.No, you shan't feel my hand.

You must go to bed, for you must start with the sun.'

It was not as if Curdie had been leaving them to go to prison, or to make a fortune, and although they were sorry enough to lose him, they were not in the least heartbroken or even troubled at his going.

As the princess had said he was to go like the poor man he was, Curdie came down in the morning from his little loft dressed in his working clothes.His mother, who was busy getting his breakfast for him, while his father sat reading to her out of an old book, would have had him put on his holiday garments, which, she said, would look poor enough among the fine ladies and gentlemen he was going to.But Curdie said he did not know that he was going among ladies and gentlemen, and that as work was better than play, his workday clothes must on the whole be better than his playday Clothes; and as his father accepted the argument, his mother gave in.When he had eaten his breakfast, she took a pouch made of goatskin, with the long hair on it, filled it with bread and cheese, and hung it over his shoulder.Then his father gave him a stick he had cut for him in the wood, and he bade them good-bye rather hurriedly, for he was afraid of breaking down.As he went out he caught up his mattock and took it with him.It had on the one side a pointed curve of strong steel for loosening the earth and the ore, and on the other a steel hammer for breaking the stones and rocks.just as he crossed the threshold the sun showed the first segment of his disc above the horizon.