If they
stopped for a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some
nearer, some farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing
away in all directions in the inside of the great mountain - some
boring holes in the rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder,
others shovelling the broken ore into baskets to be carried to the
mouth of the mine, others hitting away with their pickaxes.
Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely part, he would hear
only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a woodpecker, for the
sound would come from a great distance off through the solid
mountain rock.
The work was hard at best, for it is very warm underground; but it
was not particularly unpleasant, and some of the miners, when they
wanted to earn a little more money for a particular purpose, would
stop behind the rest and work all night. But you could not tell
night from day down there, except from feeling tired and sleepy;
for no light of the sun ever came into those gloomy regions. Some
who had thus remained behind during the night, although certain
there were none of their companions at work, would declare the next
morning that they heard, every time they halted for a moment to
take breath, a tap-tapping all about them, as if the mountain were
then more full of miners than ever it was during the day; and some
in consequence would never stay overnight, for all knew those were
the sounds of the goblins.
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