Here goes! I am up now!'

But yet again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times he tried, and
twenty times he failed; for in fact he was not awake, only dreaming
that he was. At length in an agony of despair, fancying he heard the
goblins all over the house, he gave a great cry. Then there came, as
he thought, a hand upon the lock of his door. It opened, and, looking
up, he saw a lady with white hair, carrying a silver box in her hand,
enter the room. She came to his bed, he thought, stroked his head and
face with cool, soft hands, took the dressing from his leg, rubbed it
with something that smelt like roses, and then waved her hands over him
three times. At the last wave of her hands everything vanished, he
felt himself sinking into the profoundest slumber, and remembered
nothing more until he awoke in earnest.

The setting moon was throwing a feeble light through the casement, and
the house was full of uproar. There was soft heavy multitudinous
stamping, a clashing and clanging of weapons, the voices of men and the
cries of women, mixed with a hideous bellowing, which sounded
victorious. The cobs were in the house! He sprang from his bed,
hurried on some of his clothes, not forgetting his shoes, which were
armed with nails; then spying an old hunting-knife, or short sword,
hanging on the wall, he caught it, and rushed down the stairs, guided
by the sounds of strife, which grew louder and louder.

When he reached the ground floor he found the whole place swarming.

All the goblins of the mountain seemed gathered there. He rushed
amongst them, shouting:

'One, two,
Hit and hew!
Three, four,
Blast and bore!'

and with every rhyme he came down a great stamp upon a foot, cutting at
the same time their faces--executing, indeed, a sword dance of the
wildest description. Away scattered the goblins in every
direction--into closets, up stairs, into chimneys, up on rafters, and
down to the cellars. Curdie went on stamping and slashing and singing,
but saw nothing of the people of the house until he came to the great
hall, in which, the moment he entered it, arose a great goblin shout.
The last of the men-at-arms, the captain himself, was on the floor,
buried beneath a wallowing crowd of goblins. For, while each knight
was busy defending himself as well as he could, by stabs in the thick
bodies of the goblins, for he had soon found their heads all but
invulnerable, the queen had attacked his legs