al gave him a rough
push. He fell, and rolled once or twice over, unable to help himself
because his hands were tied behind him.

It was the hour of the magistrate's second and more important
breakfast, and until that was over he never found himself capable of
attending to a case with concentration sufficient to the distinguishing
of the side upon which his own advantage lay; and hence was this
respite for Curdie, with time to collect his thoughts. But indeed he
had very few to collect, for all he had to do, so far as he could see,
was to wait for what would come next. Neither had he much power to
collect them, for he was a good deal shaken.

In a few minutes he discovered, to his great relief, that, from the
projection of the pick end of his mattock beyond his body, the fall had
loosened the ropes tied round it. He got one hand disengaged, and then
the other; and presently stood free, with his good mattock once more in
right serviceable relation to his arms and legs.

CHAPTER 16

The Mattock

While The magistrate reinvigorated his selfishness with a greedy
breakfast, Curdie found doing nothing in the dark rather tiresome work.
It was useless attempting to think what he should do next, seeing the
circumstances in which he was presently to find himself were altogether
unknown to him. So he began to think about his father and mother in
their little cottage home, high in the clear air of the open
Mountainside, and the thought, instead of making his dungeon gloomier
by the contrast, made a light in his soul that destroyed the power of
darkness and captivity.

But he was at length startled from his waking dream by a swell in the
noise outside. All the time there had been a few of the more idle of
the inhabitants about the door, but they had been rather quiet. Now,
however, the sounds of feet and voices began to grow, and grew so
rapidly that it was plain a multitude was gathering. For the people of
Gwyntystorm always gave themselves an hour of pleasure after their
second breakfast, and what greater pleasure could they have than to see
a stranger abused by the officers of justice?

The noise grew till it was like the roaring of the sea, and that
roaring went on a long time, for the magistrate, being a great man,
liked to know that he was waited for: it added to the enjoyment of his
breakfast, and, indeed, enabled him to eat a little more after he had
thought his powers exhausted.

But at length, in the wa