He soon climbed down and appeared among the crowd of eager, chattering goblins. Presently he slipped away again and scrambled up the tree to the children.
“I’m glad you didn’t come down,” he said. “They are searching for you—the Pumpkin’s spies are; an old woman and a young girl. Some of the goblins saw them about half an hour ago, on the main road over the Heath.”
Jack and Molly began to shiver a little.
“It’s all right,” said the Goblin. “I haven’t told the goblins where you are. I thought they’d be sure to want to see you, and this, of course, would attract attention. But I have told them to go and have some sport and to lead the old hag and the girl a real dance. I told them they were the Pumpkin’s spies—they will lead them a dance too—making crackly noises in the bushes to lead them off the track—and running—and squealing—a regular goblins’ dance we’ll lead them. I’ll go too and tell you what happens. I’ll be back before dawn—this is my home, you know—this tree. Good-bye for the present,” and he dashed away.
The children saw him swoop into a group of excited goblins and urge them to follow him—which they did. And presently there was scarcely a goblin in sight. They had all gone trooping away to the place on the Heath where the old woman and the girl were searching for Jack and Molly.
It seemed to the children that they waited in the tree for hours and hours, waiting, listening. Occasional sounds floated to them from the distance. They could hear squeaking and crackling, and once they heard a shrill scream. But they saw nothing, until the dawn broke.
Almost immediately afterward the Goblin returned, darting from out of the bushes opposite, popping into the hole in the tree trunk and scrambling up to them. In the pale glimmer of the morning light he told them what had happened, and how they had twice prevented the old woman from turning down the path that led past the children’s hiding-place.
“They are gone from the Heath now,” he said. “We drove them home, in the end, by darting out and pinching their legs and throwing prickly leaves at them. There were thousands of us goblins.... I wish you could have seen us.... When they found we were really in earnest and meant to get rid of them, and were not just teasing—they soon went. The old hag tried to tread on some of us—she was so angry; but we snatched her shoe off and threw it into a pond.”
“It’s very kind of you to have helped us so,” said Molly.