本集演播：槑贰 

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英文对照文本在最底下，请往下拉到底。

第25章 科迪落难

有一段时间地面上都风平浪静，什么事都没有。国王还远在千里之外，侍卫们看守着庄园。科迪杀死的那只哥布林躺在花园里岩石底下，侍卫们发现那具丑陋的尸体时吓了一大跳。不过他们觉得那只东西是在矿山里受了伤、爬到外边才死掉的。偶尔有一只活着的从眼角闪过，之外就没别的什么好紧张的了。科迪继续在山里盯着；哥布林继续往下越挖越深。科迪认为，只要他们还在往下挖，那就暂时没有危险。

艾琳呢，这个夏天还是和以前一样，开开心心的。她天天想奶奶，做梦都梦见奶奶，可是好久都没再见到她。和以前一样，小孩子和花花草草才让她开心起来。只要洛蒂不管，她还会和遇到的矿工小孩都做朋友。但洛蒂太傻了，总觉得公主尊贵，不知道公主也应该爱自己的兄弟姐妹，对他们好，不高高在上，这样才是真正的公主。这段时间，洛蒂对公主好多了。她不得不承认公主已经不再只是一个小孩，比她这年纪聪明多了。洛蒂总是无聊地和仆人们嚼舌根，有时候说她根本不把公主放心上，有时候说公主太好了，像这些有的没的。

而这段时间以来科迪没有机会认错，一直都很后悔自己对公主太不客气了。也可能正因为这样，他更加努力地效忠于她。他常和妈妈说到这件事，妈妈安慰他，相信他一直等的机会总有一天会来的。

这里我要帮公主们、王子们说说好话了。打死不认错可是会被看不起的。一个真正的公主要是犯了错，她会坐立不安，直到有机会坦白说：“是我的错，我但愿自己没犯这个错误，我很抱歉。”她才可以把错误丢掉，松一口气。所以你看，我们有理由猜测，科迪并不只是一个矿工小子，说不定也是一个王子。历史上常常有这样的事。

最后他终于看到蛛丝马迹，发现哥布林的挖掘行动有变化了：他们不再竖着挖，而是开始横着挖。于是科迪比之前盯得更紧了。突然有一天晚上，他们一下子挖到一块非常坚硬的岩石的斜面上，于是他们沿着斜面往上开凿隧道。到了岩石顶上，他们又横着挖了一两个晚上，接着又开始很直很直地往高处凿。最后，科迪想是时候去关心另一个地方了。第二天晚上，他就没去矿里了，把锄头和绳子都放家里。他和之前一样带了几块面包和豌豆布丁，就下山去国王的庄园了。他翻过墙，整晚都呆在花园里，手脚着地从这里爬到那里，整个耳朵贴在地上仔细听。可是他只听到了侍卫们巡逻的脚步声。夜晚天上的云把月亮遮住了，科迪不容易被发现。接下来的几个晚上他都潜伏在花园里监听，但都没什么发现。

终于，有一天晚上还早着呢，也不知道是他粗心大意不注意安全，还是因为月亮渐渐变圆了，月光太亮把他出卖了，他再也做不了小卫士了。

 CHAPTER 25 Curdie Comes to Grief

Everything was for some time quiet above ground. The king was still away in a distant part of his dominions. The men-at-arms kept watching about the house. They had been considerably astonished by finding at the foot of the rock in the garden the hideous body of the goblin creature killed by Curdie; but they came to the conclusion that it had been slain in the mines, and had crept out there to die; and except an occasional glimpse of a live one they saw nothing to cause alarm. Curdie kept watching in the mountain, and the goblins kept burrowing deeper into the earth. As long as they went deeper there was, Curdie judged, no immediate danger.

To Irene the summer was as full of pleasure as ever, and for a long time, although she often thought of her grandmother during the day, and often dreamed about her at night, she did not see her. The kids and the flowers were as much her delight as ever, and she made as much friendship with the miners' children she met on the mountain as Lootie would permit; but Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble towards them. At the same time she was considerably altered for the better in her behaviour to the princess. She could not help seeing that she was no longer a mere child, but wiser than her age would account for. She kept foolishly whispering to the servants, however—sometimes that the princess was not right in her mind, sometimes that she was too good to live, and other nonsense of the same sort.

All this time Curdie had to be sorry, without a chance of confessing, that he had behaved so unkindly to the princess. This perhaps made him the more diligent in his endeavours to serve her. His mother and he often talked on the subject, and she comforted him, and told him she was sure he would some day have the opportunity he so much desired.

Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying:

'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.' So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world's history.