But in the course of time all had undergone even greater changes than had passed upon their owners.

They had altered--that is, their descendants had altered--into such creatures as I have not attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner--the various parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments.
Indeed, so little did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering results, that you could only have guessed at any known animal as the original, and even then, what likeness remained would be more one of general expression than of definable conformation.

But what increased the gruesomeness tenfold was that, from constant domestic, or indeed rather 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 towards them, they had risen towards 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 tunnelling 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.