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.