CHAPTER V

HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW

HE PROSPERED THEREIN, WITH OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

When Gluck found that Schwartz did not come back, he was very sorry and

did not know what to do. He had no money and was obliged to go and

hire himself again to the goldsmith, who worked him very hard and gave

him very little money. So, after a month or two, Gluck grew tired and

made up his mind to go and try his fortune with the Golden River. "The

little king looked very kind," thought he. "I don't think he will turn

me into a black stone." So he went to the priest, and the priest gave

him some holy water as soon as he asked for it. Then Gluck took some

bread in his basket, and the bottle of water, and set off very early

for the mountains.

If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue in his brothers,

it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither so strong nor so

practiced on the mountains. He had several very bad falls, lost his

basket and bread, and was very much frightened at the strange noises

under the ice. He lay a long time to rest on the grass, after he had

got over, and began to climb the hill just in the hottest part of the

day. When he had climbed for an hour, he got dreadfully thirsty and

was going to drink like his brothers, when he saw an old man coming

down the path above him, looking very feeble and leaning on a staff.

"Why son," said the old man, "I am faint with thirst; give me some of

that water." Then Gluck looked at him, and when he saw that he was

pale and weary, he gave him the water. "Only pray don't drink it all,"

said Gluck. But the old man drank a great deal and gave him back the

bottle two thirds empty. Then he bade him good speed, and Gluck went

on again merrily. And the path became easier to his feet, and two or

three blades of grass appeared upon it, and some grasshoppers began

singing on the bank beside it, and Gluck thought he had never heard

such merry singing.

Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased on him so

that he thought he should be forced to drink. But as he raised the

flask he saw a little child lying panting by the roadside, and it cried

out piteously for water. Then Gluck struggled with himself and

determined to bear the thirst a little longer; and he put the bottle to

the child's lips, and it drank it all but a few drops. Then it smiled

on him and got up and ran down the hill; and Gluck looked after it till

it became as small as a little star, and then turned and began climbing

again. And then there were all kinds of sweet flowers growing on the

rocks--bright green moss with pale pink, starry flowers, and soft

belled gentians, more blue than the sky at its deepest, and pure white

transparent lilies. And crimson and purple butterflies darted hither

and thither, and the sky sent down such pure light that Gluck had never

felt so happy in his life.

Yet, when he had climbed for another hour, his thirst became

intolerable again; and when he looked at his bottle, he saw that there

were only five or six drops left in it, and he could not venture to

drink. And as he was hanging the flask to his belt again, he saw a

little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for breath--just as Hans had

seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it,

and then at the Golden River, not five hundred yards above him; and he

thought of the dwarf's words, that no one could succeed except in his

first attempt; and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined piteously

and Gluck stopped again. "Poor beastie," said Gluck, "it'll be dead

when I come down again, if I don't help it." Then he looked closer and

closer at it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that he could not

stand it. "Confound the king and his gold too," said Gluck, and he

opened the flask and poured all the water into the dog's mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail disappeared;

its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its nose became very red;

its eyes became very twinkling; in three seconds the dog was gone, and

before Gluck stood his old acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

"Thank you," said the monarch. "But don't be frightened; it's all

right"--for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of consternation at this

unlooked-for reply to his last observation. "Why didn't you come

before," continued the dwarf, "instead of sending me those rascally

brothers of yours, for me to have the trouble of turning into stones?

Very hard stones they make, too."

"O dear me!" said Gluck, "have you really been so cruel?"

"Cruel!" said the dwarf; "they poured unholy water into my stream. Do

you suppose I'm going to allow that?"

"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir,--your Majesty, I mean,--they got

the water out of the church font."

"Very probably," replied the dwarf, "but" (and his countenance grew

stern as he spoke) "the water which has been refused to the cry of the

weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in

heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy,

though it had been defiled with corpses."

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet.

On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf

shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these

into the river," he said, "and descend on the other side of the

mountains into the Treasure Valley. And so good speed."

As he spoke the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The playing

colors of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy

light; he stood for an instant veiled with them as with the belt of a

broad rainbow. The colors grew faint; the mist rose into the air; the

monarch had evaporated.

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and its waves were

as clear as crystal and as brilliant as the sun. And when he cast the

three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a

small, circular whirlpool, into which the waters descended with a

musical noise.

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disappointed, because

not only the river was not turned into gold, but its waters seemed much

diminished in quantity. Yet he obeyed his friend the dwarf and

descended the other side of the mountains towards the Treasure Valley;

and as he went he thought he heard the noise of water working its way

under the ground. And when he came in sight of the Treasure Valley,

behold, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from a new cleft

of the rocks above it and was flowing in innumerable streams among the

dry heaps of red sand.

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams, and

creeping plants grew and climbed among the moistening soil. Young

flowers opened suddenly along the riversides, as stars leap out when

twilight is deepening, and thickets of myrtle and tendrils of vine cast

lengthening shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the

Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance which had

been lost by cruelty was regained by love.

And Gluck went and dwelt in the valley, and the poor were never driven

from his door, so that his barns became full of corn and his house of

treasure. And for him the river had, according to the dwarf's promise,

become a river of gold.

And to this day the inhabitants of the valley point out the place where

the three drops of holy dew were cast into the stream, and trace the

course of the Golden River under the ground until it emerges in the

Treasure Valley. And at the top of the cataract of the Golden River

are still to be seen two black stones, round which the waters howl

mournfully every day at sunset; and these stones are still called by

the people of the valley

THE BLACK BROTHERS

End of Project Gutenberg's The King of the Golden River, by John Ruskin.