family association with the goblins, their countenances had grown in
grotesque resemblance to the human. No one understands animals
who does
not see that every one of them, even amongst the fishes, it may be with
a dimness and vagueness infinitely remote, yet shadows the human: in
the
case of these the human resemblance had greatly increased: while their
owners had sunk toward them, they hod risen toward their owners.
But the
conditions of subterranean life being equally unnatural for both, while
the goblins were worse, the creatures had not improved by the
approximation, and its result would have appeared far more ludicrous
than consoling to the warmest lover of animal nature. I shall now
explain how it was that just then these animals began to show
themselves
about the king's country house.
The goblins, as Curdie had discovered, were mining on--at work both
day
and night, in divisions, urging the scheme after which he lay in wait.
In the course of their tunneling, they had broken into the channel of a
small stream, but the break being in the top of it, no water had escaped
to interfere with their work. Some of the creatures, hovering as they
often did about their masters, had found the hole, and had, with the
Madhuri Noah
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