本集演播：槑贰 

后期：荆溪

英文对照文本在最底下，请往下拉到底。

第3节

低吼声在低音部持续了好一会儿，含混不清，好像地精嘴里的舌头变成了香肠。直到他老婆开口说话声音才恢复了正常的声音。

“你去王宫的时候我们该干什么呢？”她问。

“我会看着你们安全到达我挖了俩月的新家。胖奇，你来收拾桌椅。我交给你来负责。我要求你来掌管它们。”

之后是一段关于他们家里各种家庭用品的模糊的谈话；科迪没有再听到什么有用的内容。

他现在知道了，地精晚上拿锤子和镐叮叮当当地敲个不停不止一个原因。他们在给自己造新房子，这样如果矿工可能要开矿开到他们住的地方，他们就能搬到新家。但他还知道了两个更重要的事情。第一个是，有什么重大的灾难正在酝酿中，随时都会降临到矿工的头上。第二个是，地精身体的一个弱点。他从不知道他们的脚这么脆弱，而现在他有理由这么怀疑。他听到他们说他们没有脚趾：他从来没有机会在近处仔细观察他们看看这是不是真的，因为他们总是在黄昏出现。大家都说他们没手指，但他也没机会观察这是不是真的。有一个比别人多上过几天学的矿工，常常信誓旦旦地说这是因为地精生活的潮湿环境造成的，读书写字和做工才能让手指和脚趾变得有劲。科迪有一次听到他爸爸挖苦地说他很赞同，说小孩子戴着分指手套肯定是老一辈残留的旧习，而袜子无论什么年纪都是直筒的，不过是因为懒得考虑脚趾。不过最重要的还是地精的脚很脆弱这个事实，他预见到将来这可能会对矿工们有利。但同时他还要做的就是尽可能地找出地精的脑子里在打什么坏主意。

虽然他知道他们在山中的矿区联通的所有通道和天然地道，他却一点儿也不知道地精们的王宫在哪儿，不然他肯定要马上出发去搞明白他们说的计划是什么。

他判断王宫肯定在山的一个很远的地方，还没有从矿上接通过去的通道。不过肯定有一条快要完成了，这条通道现在跟他们只隔着薄薄的一层。如果他能及时打通，跟着地精撤退就好了！只要在他耳朵现在贴着的这个位置砸几下就够了。但是如果他试图用他的镐敲的话，只会让这一家子更快地离开，而且他们会提高警惕，这样就没办法让他们主动带路了。

PartIII

The growl went on in the low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife spoke again that it rose to its former pitch.

'But what shall we do when you are at the palace?' she asked.

'I will see you safe in the new house I've been digging for you for the last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs. I commit them to your care. The table has seven legs—each chair three. I shall require them all at your hands.'

After this arose a confused conversation about the various household goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that was of any importance.

He now knew at least one of the reasons for the constant sound of the goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was—the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of inspecting them closely enough, in the dusk in which they always appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report. Indeed, he had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of the miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and that education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers—with which proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree, alleging in support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of the old state of things; while the stockings of all ages, no regard being paid in them to the toes, pointed in the same direction. But what was of importance was the fact concerning the softness of the goblin feet, which he foresaw might be useful to all miners. What he had to do in the meantime, however, was to discover, if possible, the special evil design the goblins had now in their heads.

Although he knew all the gangs and all the natural galleries with which they communicated in the mined part of the mountain, he had not the least idea where the palace of the king of the gnomes was; otherwise he would have set out at once on the enterprise of discovering what the said design was. He judged, and rightly, that it must lie in a farther part of the mountain, between which and the mine there was as yet no communication.

 There must be one nearly completed, however; for it could be but a thin partition which now separated them. If only he could get through in time to follow the goblins as they retreated! A few blows would doubtless be sufficient—just where his ear now lay; but if he attempted to strike there with his pickaxe, he would only hasten the departure of the family, put them on their guard, and perhaps lose their involuntary guidance.