far enough."
"I've heard though," said the scullery-maid, "that rats move about in
great companies sometimes. There may be an army of them invading
us. I
heard the noises yesterday and to-day too."
"It'll be grand fun then for my Tom and Mrs. Housekeeper's Bob," said
the cook. "They'll be friends for once in their lives, and fight on the
same side. I'll engage Tom and Bob together will put to flight any
number of rats."
"It seems to me," said the nurse, "that the noises are much too loud for
that. I have heard them all day, and my princess has asked me several
times what they could be. Sometimes they sound like distant thunder,
and
sometimes like the noises you hear in the mountain from those horrid
miners underneath."
"I shouldn't wonder," said the cook, "if it was the miners after all.
They may have come on some hole in the mountain through which the
noises reach to us. They are always boring and blasting and breaking,
you know."
Madhuri Noah
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