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4节

不过，国王还是站得笔笔直，足足有四英尺高；他又把身子完全舒展开，足足有三英尺半宽。他可是地精里头长得最英俊，最四四方方的一个。他大摇大摆地走了过去，四平八稳地站在科迪面前，威严地说道：

“是谁胆敢闯到我的宫殿里来？”

“陛下，这是无奈之举，”科迪回答道，“我迷路了，不知道自己走到了什么地方。”

“你是怎么进来的？”

“从山上的一个洞里头。”

“但你是个矿工！看看你的镐头！”

科迪看了看镐头，回答道：“我是在离这儿不远的地方找到的。有些牲口正在摆弄这把镐头，我被绊倒了。陛下请看。”科迪给国王检查自己被抓伤和咬伤的地方。

地精国王见科迪十分有礼貌，和子民们描述的矿工大不相同，不禁十分满意，他以为这都要归功于自己威风凛凛呢。不过，就算这样，他也没有对这个闯进来的人友善一些。

“可否劳您大架，马上从我的国家离开，”地精国王说道，他很清楚自己那嘲讽的语气。

“只要陛下给我一个指路人，小的乐意之至，”科迪说道。

“我会给你一千个指路人，”地精国王装出一副慷慨大度的模样。

“一个就足够了，”科迪说道。

可是，地精国王发出一声又像叫喊又像咆哮的奇怪叫声，然后地精们都冲了过来，把山洞挤得满满当当的。国王对领头的地精说了句什么，科迪没听清楚。这句话挨个儿传了下去，就连离国王最远的那个地精也弄明白了。于是这群地精趁其不备，把科迪团团围住，他只得朝墙边退去，而地精们步步紧逼。

“别过来，”科迪紧紧抓住脚边的镐头。

可地精们却呲牙咧嘴，靠得更紧了。科迪想了一下，然后唱了起来。

“一十、二十、三十只——

你们这群脏东西！

二十、三十、四十只——

你们笨重讨人厌！

三十、四十、五十只——

你们骄傲又无知！

四十、五十、六十只——

你们不人也不鬼！

五十、六十、七十只——

你们都是丑八怪！

六十、七十、八十只——

你们的脸色灰似纸！

七十、八十、九十只，

你们的双手硬如石！

八十、九十、一百只，

地精地精真是蠢！

科迪开始唱歌的时候，地精往后退了一点儿，而且歌声没有停下的时候，他们一脸可怕的痛苦模样，好像吃坏了东西似的呲牙咧嘴，一副让人毛骨悚然的样子。新的歌谣通常用来对付地精更有效，所以科迪当场编了这首歌。可是我也说不上来，到底是因为这些歌词对他们来说都算不上什么呢，还是国王和王后在场给了他们勇气，科迪一唱完，地精们又都围了上来。上百条长长的胳膊伸了过来，粗粗的手指头上都没有指甲。

PART IV

The king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height of four feet, spread himself to his full breadth of three and a half, for he was the handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting up to Curdie, planted himself with outspread feet before him, and said with dignity:

'Pray what right have you in my palace?'

'The right of necessity, Your Majesty,' answered Curdie. 'I lost my way and did not know where I was wandering to.'

'How did you get in?'

'By a hole in the mountain.'

'But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!'

Curdie did look at it, answering:

'I came upon it lying on the ground a little way from here. I tumbled over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, Your Majesty.' And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten.

The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore feel friendly to the intruder.

'You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once,' he said, well knowing what a mockery lay in the words.

'With pleasure, if Your Majesty will give me a guide,' said Curdie.

'I will give you a thousand,' said the king with a scoffing air of magnificent liberality.

'One will be quite sufficient,' said Curdie.

But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in rushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to the first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not relish, and he retreated towards the wall. They pressed upon him.

'Stand back,' said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.

They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself and began to rhyme.

'Ten, twenty, thirty—
You're all so very dirty!
Twenty, thirty, forty—
You're all so thick and snorty!
'Thirty, forty, fifty—
You're all so puff-and-snifty!
Forty, fifty, sixty—
Beast and man so mixty!

'Fifty, sixty, seventy—
Mixty, maxty, leaventy!
Sixty, seventy, eighty—
All your cheeks so slaty!

'Seventy, eighty, ninety,
All your hands so flinty!
Eighty, ninety, hundred,
Altogether dundred!'

The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable that it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether it was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for, a new rhyme being considered the more efficacious, Curdie had made it on the spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king and queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme was over they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms, with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the ends of them, to lay hold upon him.