The Hobbit

shirk,
    While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh, Round and round far underground
        Below, my lad!
    It sounded truly terrifying. The walls echoed to the
clap
,
snap!
and the
crush
,
smash
! and to the ugly laughter of their
ho, ho! my lad!
The general meaning of the song was only too plain; for now the goblins took out whips and whipped them with a
swish
,
smack!
, and set them running as fast as they could in front of them; and more than one of the dwarves were already yammering and
     bleating like anything, when they stumbled into a big cavern.
    It was lit by a great red fire in the middle, and by torches along the walls, and it was full of goblins. They all laughed
     and stamped and clapped their hands, when the dwarves (with poor little Bilbo at the back and nearest to the whips) came running
     in, while the goblin-drivers whooped and cracked their whips behind. The ponies were already there huddled in a corner; and
     there were all the baggages and packages lying broken open, and being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered
     by goblins, and quarrelled over by goblins.
    I am afraid that was the last they ever saw of those excellent little ponies, including a jolly sturdy little white fellow
     that Elrond had lent to Gandalf, since his horse was not suitable for the mountain-paths. For goblins eat horses and ponies
     and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry. Just now however the prisoners were thinking
     only of themselves. The goblins chained their hands behind their backs and linked them all together in a line, and dragged
     them to the far end of the cavern with little Bilbo tugging at the end of the row.
    There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round
     him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use. Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful
     things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take
     the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments
     of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till
     they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the
     world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions
     always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild
     parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. They did not hate dwarves especially, no more than they hated everybody
     and everything, and particularly the orderly and prosperous; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made alliances with them.
     But they had a special grudge against Thorin’s people, because of the war which you have heard mentioned, but which does not
     come into this tale; and anyway goblins don’t care who they catch, as long as it is done smart and secret, and the prisoners
     are not able to defend themselves.
    “Who are these miserable persons?” said the Great Goblin.
    “Dwarves, and this!” said one of the drivers, pulling at Bilbo’s chain so that he fell forward onto his knees. “We found them
     sheltering in our Front Porch.”
    “What do you mean by it?” said the Great Goblin turning to Thorin. “Up to no good, I’ll warrant! Spying on the private business of my people, I guess! Thieves, I shouldn’t be surprised to learn! Murderers and friends of
     Elves, not unlikely! Come! What have you got to say?”
    “Thorin the dwarf at your service!” he replied—it was merely a polite nothing. “Of the things which you suspect and imagine
     we had no idea at all. We sheltered from a storm in what seemed a convenient cave and unused; nothing was further from our
     thoughts than inconveniencing goblins in any way whatever.” That was true enough!
    “Um!” said the Great Goblin. “So you say! Might I ask what you were doing up in the mountains at all, and where you were coming
     from, and where you were going to? In fact I should like to know all about you. Not that it will do you much good, Thorin
     Oakenshield, I know too much about your folk already; but let’s have the truth, or I will prepare something