'Then don't talk,' said Lootie.'But the princess went on talking. She was always saying: 'Look, look, Lootie!' but Lootie paid no more heed to anything she said, only ran on.
'Look, look, Lootie! Don't you see that funny man peeping over the rock?'
Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock, and when they came nearer, the princess saw it was only a lump of the rock itself that she had taken for a man.
'Look, look, Lootie! There's such a curious creature at the foot of that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It's making faces at us, I do think.'
Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still--so fast that Irene's little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a crash. It was a hard downhill road, and she had been running very fast--so it was no wonder she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly beside herself; but all she could do was to run on, the moment she got the princess on her feet again.
'Who's that laughing at me?' said the princess, trying to keep in her sobs, and running too fast for her grazed knees.
'Nobody, child,' said the nurse, almost angrily.
But that instant there came a burst of coarse tittering from somewhere near, and a hoarse indistinct voice that seemed to say: 'Lies!
lies! lies!'
'Oh!' cried the nurse with a sigh that was almost a scream, and ran on faster than ever.
'Nursie! Lootie! I can't run any more. Do let us walk a bit.'
'What am I to do?' said the nurse. 'Here, I will carry you.'
She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry, and said:
'We've taken the wrong turning somewhere, and I don't know where we are. We are lost, lost!'
The terror she was in had quite bewildered her. It was true enough they had lost the way. They had been running down into a little valley in which there was no house to be seen.
Now Irene did not know what good 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
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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 having routed the goblins; and his bearing as he stood before them had nothing clownish or rude about it.
'I saw them,' he went on, 'as I came up; and I'm very glad I did. I knew they were after somebody, but I couldn't see who it was. They won't touch you so long as I'm with you.'
'Why, who are you?' asked the nurse, offended at the freedom with which he spoke to them.
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'I'm Peter's son.'
'Who's Peter?'
'Peter the miner.'
'I don't know him.' 'I'm his son, though.'
'And why should the goblins mind you, pray?'
'Because I don't mind them. I'm used to them.'
'What difference does that make?'
'If you're not afraid of them, they're afraid of you. I'm not afraid of them. That's all. But it's all that's wanted--up here, that is. It's
a different thing down there. They won't always mind that song even, down there. And if anyone sings it, they stand grinning at him awfully; and if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they--oh! don't they give it him!'
'What do they do to him?' asked Irene, with a trembling voice.
'Don't go frightening the princess,' said the nurse.
'The princess!' repeated the little miner, taking off his curious cap. 'I beg your pardon; but you oughtn't to be out so late. Everybody knows that's against the law.'
'Yes, indeed it is!' said the nurse, beginning to cry again. 'And I shall have to suffer for it.'
'What does that matter?' said the boy. 'It must be your fault. It is the princess who will suffer for it. I hope they didn't hear you call her the princess. If they did, they're sure to know her again: they're awfully sharp.'
'Lootie! Lootie!' cried the princess. 'Take me home.'
'Don't go on like that,' said the nurse to the boy, almost fiercely. 'How could I help it? I lost my way.'
'You shouldn't have been out so late. You wouldn't have lost your way if you hadn't been frightened,' said the boy. 'Come along. I'll soon set you right again. Shall I carry your little Highness?'
'Impertinence!' murmured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for she thought if she made him angry he might take his revenge by telling someone belonging to the house, and then it would be sure to come
