reason there was for her nurse's
terror, for the servants had all strict orders never to mention the
goblins to her, but it was very discomposing to see her nurse in such a
fright. Before, however, she had time to grow thoroughly alarmed like
her, she heard the sound of whistling, and that revived her. Presently
she saw a boy coming up the road from the valley to meet them. He was
the whistler; but before they met his whistling changed to singing.
And this is something like what he sang:

'Ring! dod! bang!
Go the hammers' clang!
Hit and turn and bore!
Whizz and puff and roar!
Thus we rive the rocks,
Force the goblin locks.--
See the shining ore!
One, two, three--
Bright as gold can be!
Four, five, six--
Shovels, mattocks, picks!
Seven, eight, nine--
Light your lamp at mine.
Ten, eleven, twelve--
Loosely hold the helve.
We're the merry miner-boys,
Make the goblins hold their noise.'

'I wish YOU would hold your noise,' said the nurse rudely, for the very
word GOBLIN at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It
would bring the goblins upon them to a certainty, she thought, to defy
them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not
stop his singing.

'Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--
This is worth the siftin';
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen--
There's the match, and lay't in.
Nineteen, twenty--
Goblins in a plenty.'

'Do be quiet,' cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy,
who was now close at hand, still went on.

'Hush! scush! scurry!
There you go in a hurry!
Gobble! gobble! goblin!
There you go a wobblin';
Hobble, hobble, hobblin'--
Cobble! cobble! cobblin'!
Hob-bob-goblin!--
Huuuuuh!'

'There!' said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. 'There!
that'll do for them. They can't bear singing, and they can't stand
that song. They can't sing themselves, for they have no more voice
than a crow; and they don't like other people to sing.'

The boy was dressed in a miner's dress, with a curious cap on his head.
He was a very nice-looking boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which
he worked and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. He was
about twelve years old. His face was almost too pale for beauty, which
came of his being so little in the open air and the sunlight--for even
vegetables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry
indeed--perhaps at the thought of ha