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. Some of
the creatures, hovering as they often did about their masters, had
found the hole, and had, with the curiosity which had grown to a
passion from the restraints of their unnatural circumstances,
proceeded to explore the channel. The stream was the same which
ran out by the seat on which Irene and her king-papa had sat as I
have told, and the goblin creatures found it jolly fun to get out
for a romp on a smooth lawn such as they had never seen in all
their poor miserable lives. But although they had partaken enough
of the nature of their owners to delight in annoying and alarming
any of the people whom they met on the mountain, they were, of
course, incapable of designs of their own, or of intentionally
furthering those of their masters.

For several nights after the men-at-arms were at length of one mind
as to the fact of the visits of some horrible creatures, whether
bodily or spectral they could not yet say, they watched with
special attention that part of the garden where they had last seen
them. Perhaps indeed they gave in consequence too little attention
to the house. But the creatures were too cunning to be easily
caught; nor were the watchers quick-eyed enough to descry the head,
or the keen eyes in it, which, from the opening whence the stream
issued, would watch them in turn, ready, the moment they should
leave the lawn, to report the place clear.