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.
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