1 adjectives to describe countermining

He sees it in the dissatisfied look, and reluctant air and unwilling movement; the constrained strokes of labor, the drawling tones, the slow hearing, the feigned stupidity, the sham pains and sickness, the short memory; and he feels it every hour, in innumerable forms, frustrating his designs by a ceaseless though perhaps invisible countermining.

1 adjectives to describe  countermining