CHAPTER 8, part 1 CAPÍTULO 8, parte 1

CHAPTER 8

The Goblins

For some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Towards midnight he began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore, and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears. It sounded like a voice inside the rock. After a while he heard it again. It was a goblin voice--there could be no doubt about that--and this time he could make out the words.

'Hadn't we better be moving? 'it said. A rougher and deeper voice replied:

'There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through tonight, if he work ever so hard. Этот несчастный маленький крот не доживет до вечера, если будет так усердно работать. He's not by any means at the thinnest place.' Он ни в коем случае не в самом худом месте. 'But you still think the lode does come through into our house?' — Но вы все еще думаете, что жила проникает в наш дом? said the first voice.

'Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. — Да, но уже намного дальше, чем ему удалось. If he had struck a stroke more to the side just here,' said the goblin, tapping the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, 'he  would have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he follow the lode it will be a  week before it leads him in. Если бы он тут же ударил сильнее в бок, — сказал гоблин, постукивая по тому самому камню, как показалось Курди, на котором лежала его голова, — он был бы пробит; но сейчас он в паре ярдов от нее, и если он пойдет по жиле, пройдет неделя, прежде чем она приведет его внутрь. You see it back there--a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident it would be as well to be getting out of this. И все же, может быть, в случае аварии было бы неплохо выбраться отсюда. Helfer, you'll take the great chest. Хелфер, ты возьмешь большой сундук. That's your business, you know.' 'Yes, dad,' said a third voice. 'But you must help me to get it on my back. It's awfully heavy, you know.' 'Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer.' 'You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet.' 'That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.' 'Ain't it yours too, father?' 'Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea.' 'Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father.' 'Yes my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting! Подумать только, как парни наверху должны надевать каски и прочее, когда идут воевать! Ha! ha!' 'But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like it--especially when I've got a chest like that on my head.' 'Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes.' 'The queen does.' 'Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the king's first wife--wore shoes, of course, because she came from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. Видите ли, первая королева — я имею в виду первую жену короля — была, конечно, в туфлях, потому что она пришла сверху; и поэтому, когда она умрет, следующая королева не будет уступать ей, как она это называла, и тоже будет носить туфли. It was all pride. Это все была гордость. She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women.' Она труднее всех запрещает их остальным женщинам». 'I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!' — Я уверен, что я бы не стал их носить — нет, не для того — чтобы я не стал! said the first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. — сказал первый голос, который, очевидно, принадлежал матери семейства. 'I can't think why either of them should.' «Я не могу понять, почему любой из них должен». 'Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?' said the other. 'That was the only silly thing I ever knew His Majesty guilty of. — Это была единственная глупость, в которой я когда-либо знал Его Величество. Why should he marry an outlandish woman like that-one of our natural enemies too?' 'I suppose he fell in love with her.' 'Pooh! pooh! He's just as happy now with one of his own people.' Теперь он точно так же счастлив с одним из своих людей.