本集演播：槑贰 

后期：倩文

英文对照文本在最底下，请往下拉到底。

第2节

读者们一定会猜测这到底是些什么怪物，我现在就详细地来说一说。它们当然就是地精驯养的矮脚怪了。几百年前，地精的祖先把这些动物的祖先从光明的地上带到了黑暗的地下。这些可怕的怪物起初也和如今在乡下的农场田地、家家户户见到的动物一样，不过少数狐狸呀、狼呀、小熊呀，可就凶狠野蛮多了。地精更喜欢这些凶狠的动物，所以把它们的幼崽掳去驯养。然而随着时间的推移，这些动物身上发生的变化比它们的主人还要大。这些动物变成了——我是说，它们的后代变成了怪物，那模样我连个大概都描述不出来，它们身上的各个部分显然是随心所欲地乱长一气，最后长成了最反常的样子。说真的，有些怪物到最后连原本的特征都长没了，你只能猜测它们的祖先会是哪种你知道的动物。即便如此，它们与祖先唯一有些相像的也只是大体的外观，身体构造几乎没有相似之处。自从地精驯养了这些动物，让它们成为家中的一员之后，自己倒是古怪地越长越像人类，这么一来更是比原先可怕上十倍。

熟悉动物的人都知道，每种动物多少都有点像人，即便是关系隔着十万八千里的鱼类，也和人类有几分说不清道不明的相似之处。通常来说，动物和人类会越来相似——人类会向动物靠拢，而动物则会朝它们的主人演化；但地底下的生活环境太差了，地精越长越糟糕，那些动物跟它们越长越像的话，自然也没什么长进。它们到头来长成的模样，就连最爱动物的人看了也会觉得滑稽得难以接受。我现在就来解释一下这些动物是怎么会在那个时候出现在国王的乡间宅邸附近的。

就跟科迪发现的一样，地精们正没日没夜地挖矿——它们分头干活儿，好快点实现自己的计划，而科迪守在那儿就是想弄明白这个计划是什么。它们挖呀挖，挖破了条隧道，有一条小溪从里头流过，不过地精们挖破的是隧道顶上，溪水没有灌进它们挖好的地方。地精们养的牲口经常在主人身边转悠，它们一直生活在环境恶劣的地底下，对外面的世界很是好奇。发现了那个豁口之后，这份好奇心又变成了一探究竟的热情，于是它们纷纷穿过隧道，来了一番探险。

我前面说过，艾琳和她的父王曾坐在花园里的椅子上，这条小溪呀就是从椅子旁边流过的那条。地精们养的牲口过得好不可怜，从来都没见到过平坦的草坪，它们觉得在那上面蹦蹦跳跳可好玩儿了。虽说它们跟主人一样以惊扰吓唬在山上遇到的人类为乐，但这些牲口显然不会自个儿想出阴谋诡计，也不会故意帮着主人使坏。

侍卫们终于众口一词，证实大家都看到了可怕的怪物，不过他们还说不清楚那些怪物到底是人是鬼。从那以后，有好几天晚上，他们都仔细查探那些怪物在花园里现身的地方，也许这么一来，他们就不太关心屋子里的情况了。不过那些怪物可狡猾了，要抓到它们才没那么容易呢；它们就藏在溪水流出的地方，可侍卫们眼睛不够尖，既看不到它们的脑袋，也看不到那些透着一股子精明劲儿的眼睛。这些怪物正轮流监视侍卫，只要他们一离开草坪，它们就通知其他同伴。

PART II

My readers will suspect what these were; but I will now give them full information concerning them. They were, of course, household animals belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions of darkness. The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity towards the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. 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. 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.