The Princess and Curdie. George MacDonald
surprise, three paces away they saw, seated upon a stone, an old country-woman, in a cloak which they took for black. When they came close up to it, they saw it was red.
'Good evening!' said Peter.
'Good evening!' returned the old woman, in a voice as old as herself.
But Curdie took off his cap and said:
'I am your servant, Princess.'
The old woman replied:
'Come to me in the dove tower tomorrow night, Curdie—alone.'
'I will, ma'am,' said Curdie.
So they parted, and father and son went home to wife and mother—two persons in one rich, happy woman.
CHAPTER 8
Curdie's Mission
The next night Curdie went home from the mine a little earlier than usual, to make himself tidy before going to the dove tower. The princess had not appointed an exact time for him to be there; he would go as near the time he had gone first as he could. On his way to the bottom of the hill, he met his father coming up. The sun was then down, and the warm first of the twilight filled the evening. He came rather wearily up the hill: the road, he thought, must have grown steeper in parts since he was Curdie's age. His back was to the light of the sunset, which closed him all round in a beautiful setting, and Curdie thought what a grand-looking man his father was, even when he was tired. It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and make him look mean.
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