The King of the Golden River
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The King of the Golden River
by John Ruskin
PREFACE
"The King of the Golden River" is a delightful fairy tale told
with all Ruskin's charm of style, his appreciation of mountain
scenery, and with his usual insistence upon drawing a moral.
None the less, it is quite unlike his other writings. All his
life long his pen was busy interpreting nature and pictures and
architecture, or persuading to better views those whom he
believed to be in error, or arousing, with the white heat of a
prophet's zeal, those whom he knew to be unawakened. There is
indeed a good deal of the prophet about John Ruskin. Though
essentially an interpreter with a singularly fine appreciation
of beauty, no man of the nineteenth century felt more keenly that
he had a mission, and none was more loyal to what he believed
that mission to be.
While still in college, what seemed a chance incident gave
occasion and direction to this mission. A certain English
reviewer had ridiculed the work of the artist Turner. Now Ruskin
held Turner to be the greatest landscape painter the world had
seen, and he immediately wrote a notable article in his defense.
Slowly this article grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet into a
book, the first volume of "Modern Painters." The young man awoke
to find himself famous. In the next few years four more volumes
were added to "Modern Painters," and the other notable series
upon art, "The Stones of Venice" and "The Seven Lamps of
Architecture," were sent forth.
Then, in 1860, when Ruskin was about forty years old, there came
a great change. His heaven-born genius for making the
appreciation of beauty a common possession was deflected from
its true field. He had been asking himself what are the
conditions that produce great art, and the answer he found
declared that art cannot be separated from life, nor life from
industry and industrial conditions. A civilization founded upon
unrestricted competition therefore seemed to him necessarily
feeble in appreciation of the beautiful, and unequal to its
creation. In this way loyalty to his mission bred apparent
disloyalty. Delightful discourses upon art gave way to fervid
pleas for humanity. For the rest of his life he became a very
earnest, if not always very wise, social reformer and a
passionate pleader for what he believed to be true economic
ideals.
There is nothing of all this in "The King of the Golden River."
Unlike his other works, it was written merely to entertain.
Scarcely that, since it was not written for publication at all,
but to meet a challenge set him by a young girl.
The circumstance is interesting. After taking his degree at
Oxford, Ruskin was threatened with consumption and hurried away
from the chill and damp of England to the south of Europe.
After two years of fruitful travel and study he came back
improved in health but not strong, and often depressed in spirit.
It was at this time that the Guys, Scotch friends of his father
and mother, came for a visit to his home near London, and with
them their little daughter Euphemia. The coming of this
beautiful, vivacious, light-hearted child opened a new chapter in
Ruskin's life. Though but twelve years old, she sought to
enliven the melancholy student, absorbed in art and geology, and
bade him leave these and write for her a fairy tale. He
accepted, and after but two sittings, presented her with this
charming story. The incident proved to have awakened in him a
greater interest than at first appeared, for a few years later
"Effie" Grey became John Ruskin's wife. Meantime she had given
the manuscript to a friend. Nine years after it was written,
this friend, with John Ruskin's permission, gave the story to the
world.
It was published in London in 1851, with illustrations by the
celebrated Richard Doyle, and at once became a favorite. Three
editions were printed the first year, and soon it had found its
way into German, Italian, and Welsh. Since then countless
children have had cause to be grateful for the young girl's
challenge that won the story of Gluck's golden mug and the
highly satisfactory handling of the Black Brothers by Southwest
Wind, Esquire.
For this edition new drawings have been prepared by Mr. Hiram P.
Barnes. They very successfully preserve the spirit of Doyle's
illustrations, which unfortunately are not technically suitable
for reproduction here.
In the original manuscript there was an epilogue bearing the
heading "Charitie"--a morning hymn of Treasure Valley, whither
Gluck had returned to dwell, and where the inheritance lost by
cruelty was regained by love:
The beams of morning are renewed The valley laughs their light to
see And earth is bright with gratitude And heaven with charitie.
R.H. COE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS
INTERFERED WITH BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE
CHAPTER II OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE
VISIT OF SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN
INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF GOLDEN RIVER
CHAPTER III HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN
RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN
CHAPTER IV HOW MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN
RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN
CHAPTER V HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN
RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN, WITH OTHER MATTERS OF
INTEREST
THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER
CHAPTER I
HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS INTERFERED
WITH BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE
In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was in old
time a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility.
It was surrounded on all sides by steep and rocky mountains
rising into peaks which were always covered with snow and from
which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts. One
of these fell westward over the face of a crag so high that when
the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness,
his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked
like a shower of gold. It was therefore called by the people of
the neighborhood the Golden River. It was strange that none of
these streams fell into the valley itself. They all descended on
the other side of the mountains and wound away through broad
plains and by populous cities. But the clouds were drawn so
constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in the
circular hollow, that in time of drought and heat, when all the
country round was burned up, there was still rain in the little
valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its
apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and
its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to everyone who beheld
it and was commonly called the Treasure Valley.
The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers,
called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two
elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and
small, dull eyes which were always half shut, so that you
couldn't see into THEM and always fancied they saw very far into
YOU. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley, and very good
farmers they were. They killed everything that did not pay for
its eating. They shot the blackbirds because they pecked the
fruit, and killed the hedgehogs lest they should suck the cows;
they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen,
and smothered the cicadas which used to sing all summer in the
lime trees. They worked their servants without any wages till
they would not work any more, and then quarreled with them and
turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have
been very odd if with such a farm and such a system of farming
they hadn't got very rich; and very rich they DID get. They
generally contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very
dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of
gold lying about on their floors, yet it was never known that
they had given so much as a penny or a crust in charity; they
never went to Mass, grumbled perpetually at paying tithes, and
were, in a word, of so cruel and grinding a temper as to receive
from all those with whom they had any dealings the nickname of
the "Black Brothers."
The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both
appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be
imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old, fair,
blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. He did
not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or,
rather, they did not agree with HIM. He was usually appointed to
the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to
roast, which was not often, for, to do the brothers justice, they
were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other people.
At other times he used to clean the shoes, floors, and sometimes
the plates, occasionally getting what was left on them, by way of
encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of dry blows by way of
education.
Things went on in this manner for a long time. At last came a
very wet summer, and everything went wrong in the country round.
The hay had hardly been got in when the haystacks were floated
bodily down to the sea by an inundation; the vines were cut to
pieces with the hail; the corn was all killed by a black blight.
Only in the Treasure Valley, as usual, all was safe. As it had
rain when there was rain nowhere else, so it had sun when there
was sun nowhere else. Everybody came to buy corn at the farm
and went away pouring maledictions on the Black Brothers. They
asked what they liked and got it, except from the poor people,
who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at their
very door without the slightest regard or notice.
It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one
day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning
to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to
let nobody in and give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close
to the fire, for it was raining very hard and the kitchen walls
were by no means dry or comfortable-looking. He turned and
turned, and the roast got nice and brown. "What a pity,"
thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm
sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and
nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do
their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."
Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet
heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more like
a puff than a knock.
"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to
knock double knocks at our door."
No, it wasn't the wind; there it came again very hard, and, what
was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry
and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck
went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to see who
it was.
It was the most extraordinary-looking little gentleman he had
ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-
colored; his cheeks were very round and very red, and might have
warranted a supposition that he had been blowing a refractory
fire for the last eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled
merrily through long, silky eyelashes; his mustaches curled twice
round like a corkscrew on each side of his mouth; and his hair,
of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt color, descended far over his
shoulders. He was about four feet six in height and wore a
conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, decorated with a
black feather some three feet long. His doublet was prolonged
behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of what
is now termed a "swallowtail," but was much obscured by the
swelling folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which
must have been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind,
whistling round the old house, carried it clear out from the
wearer's shoulders to about four times his own length.
Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the singular appearance of
his visitor that he remained fixed without uttering a word,
until the old gentleman, having performed another and a more
energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after his
flyaway cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck's little
yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes very
wide open indeed.
"Hollo!" said the little gentleman; "that's not the way to answer
the door. I'm wet; let me in."
To do the little gentleman justice, he WAS wet. His feather hung
down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping like
an umbrella, and from the ends of his mustaches the water was
running into his waistcoat pockets and out again like a mill
stream.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but, I really
can't."
"Can't what?" said the old gentleman.
"I can't let you in, sir--I can't, indeed; my brothers would beat
me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you
want, sir?"
"Want?" said the old gentleman petulantly. "I want fire and
shelter, and there's your great fire there blazing, crackling,
and dancing on the walls with nobody to feel it. Let me in, I
say; I only want to warm myself."
Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window
that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, and when
he turned and saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring and
throwing long, bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were
licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of mutton, his
heart melted within him that it should be burning away for
nothing. "He does look very wet," said little Gluck; "I'll just
let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went to the door
and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked in, there came
a gust of wind through the house that made the old chimneys
totter.
"That's a good boy," said the little gentleman. "Never mind your
brothers. I'll talk to them."
"Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. "I can't let
you stay till they come; they'd be the death of me."
"Dear me," said the old gentleman, "I'm very sorry to hear that.
How long may I stay?"
"Only till the mutton's done, sir," replied Gluck, "and it's very
brown."
Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen and sat himself
down on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated up the
chimney, for it was a great deal too high for the roof.
"You'll soon dry there, sir," said Gluck, and sat down again to
turn the mutton. But the old gentleman did NOT dry there, but
went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the fire
fizzed and sputtered and began to look very black and
uncomfortable. Never was such a cloak; every fold in it ran like
a gutter.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck at length, after watching the
water spreading in long, quicksilver-like streams over the floor
for a quarter of an hour; "mayn't I take your cloak?"
"No, thank you," said the old gentleman.
"Your cap, sir?"
"I am all right, thank you," said the old gentleman rather
gruffly.
"But--sir--I'm very sorry," said Gluck hesitatingly, "but--
really, sir--you're--putting the fire out."
"It'll take longer to do the mutton, then," replied his visitor
dryly.
Gluck was very much puzzled by the behavior of his guest; it was
such a strange mixture of coolness and humility. He turned away
at the string meditatively for another five minutes.
"That mutton looks very nice," said the old gentleman at length.
"Can't you give me a little bit?"
"Impossible, sir," said Gluck.
"I'm very hungry," continued the old gentleman. "I've had
nothing to eat yesterday nor to-day. They surely couldn't miss
a bit from the knuckle!"
He spoke in so very melancholy a tone that it quite melted
Gluck's heart. "They promised me one slice to-day, sir," said
he; "I can give you that, but not a bit more."
"That's a good boy," said the old gentleman again.
Then Gluck warmed a plate and sharpened a knife. "I don't care
if I do get beaten for it," thought he. Just as he had cut a
large slice out of the mutton there came a tremendous rap at the
door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob as if it had
suddenly become inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted the slice into
the mutton again, with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran
to open the door.
"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said Schwartz, as
he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's face.
"Aye! what for, indeed, you little vagabond?" said Hans,
administering an educational box on the ear as he followed his
brother into the kitchen.
"Bless my soul!" said Schwartz when he opened the door.
"Amen," said the little gentleman, who had taken his cap off and
was standing in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with the utmost
possible velocity.
"Who's that?" said Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin and
turning to Gluck with a fierce frown.
"I don't know, indeed, brother," said Gluck in great terror.
"How did he get in?" roared Schwartz.
"My dear brother," said Gluck deprecatingly, "he was so VERY
wet!"
The rolling-pin was descending on Gluck's head, but, at the
instant, the old gentleman interposed his conical cap, on which
it crashed with a shock that shook the water out of it all over
the room. What was very odd, the rolling-pin no sooner touched
the cap than it flew out of Schwartz's hand, spinning like a
straw in a high wind, and fell into the corner at the further end
of the room.
"Who are you, sir?" demanded Schwartz, turning upon him. "What's
your business?" snarled Hans.
"I'm a poor old man, sir," the little gentleman began very
modestly, "and I saw your fire through the window and begged
shelter for a quarter of an hour."
"Have the goodness to walk out again, then," said Schwartz.
"We've quite enough water in our kitchen without making it a
drying house."
"It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir; look at my gray
hairs." They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you before.
"Aye!" said Hans; "there are enough of them to keep you warm.
Walk!"
"I'm very, very hungry, sir; couldn't you spare me a bit of bread
before I go?"
"Bread, indeed!" said Schwartz; "do you suppose we've nothing to
do with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed fellows as
you?"
"Why don't you sell your feather?" said Hans sneeringly. "Out
with you!"
"A little bit," said the old gentleman.
"Be off!" said Schwartz.
"Pray, gentlemen."
"Off, and be hanged!" cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. But
he had no sooner touched the old gentleman's collar than away he
went after the rolling-pin, spinning round and round till he fell
into the corner on the top of it. Then Schwartz was very angry
and ran at the old gentleman to turn him out; but he also had
hardly touched him when away he went after Hans and the rolling-
pin, and hit his head against the wall as he tumbled into the
corner. And so there they lay, all three.
Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in the
opposite direction, continued to spin until his long cloak was
all wound neatly about him, clapped his cap on his head, very
much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going
through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew
mustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish
you a very good morning. At twelve o'clock tonight I'll call
again; after such a refusal of hospitality as I have just
experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit is the last
I ever pay you."
"If ever I catch you here again," muttered Schwartz, coming, half
frightened, out of the corner--but before he could finish his
sentence the old gentleman had shut the house door behind him
with a great bang, and there drove past the window at the same
instant a wreath of ragged cloud that whirled and rolled away
down the valley in all manner of shapes, turning over and over in
the air and melting away at last in a gush of rain.
"A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck!" said Schwartz. "Dish
the mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick again--
bless me, why, the mutton's been cut!"
"You promised me one slice, brother, you know," said Gluck.
"Oh! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to catch
all the gravy. It'll be long before I promise you such a thing
again. Leave the room, sir; and have the kindness to wait in the
coal cellar till I call you."
Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate as much
mutton as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard, and
proceeded to get very drunk after dinner.
Such a night as it was! Howling wind and rushing rain, without
intermission. The brothers had just sense enough left to put up
all the shutters and double-bar the door before they went to bed.
They usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve
they were both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst
open with a violence that shook the house from top to bottom.
"What's that?" cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.
"Only I," said the little gentleman.
The two brothers sat up on their bolster and stared into the
darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moonbeam,
which found its way through a hole in the shutter, they could
see in the midst of it an enormous foam globe, spinning round and
bobbing up and down like a cork, on which, as on a most luxurious
cushion, reclined the little old gentleman, cap and all. There
was plenty of room for it now, for the roof was off.
"Sorry to incommode you," said their visitor ironically. "I'm
afraid your beds are dampish. Perhaps you had better go to your
brother's room; I've left the ceiling on there."
They required no second admonition, but rushed into Gluck's room,
wet through and in an agony of terror.
"You'll find my card on the kitchen table," the old gentleman
called after them. "Remember, the LAST visit."
"Pray Heaven it may!" said Schwartz, shuddering. And the foam
globe disappeared.
Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of Gluck's
little window in the morning. The Treasure Valley was one mass
of ruin and desolation. The inundation had swept away trees,
crops, and cattle, and left in their stead a waste of red sand
and gray mud. The two brothers crept shivering and horror-struck
into the kitchen. The water had gutted the whole first floor;
corn, money, almost every movable thing, had been swept away, and
there was left only a small white card on the kitchen table. On
it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters, were engraved the
words:
SOUTH WEST WIND, ESQUIRE
CHAPTER II
OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE VISIT OF
SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW
WITH THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER
Southwest Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After the
momentous visit above related, he entered the Treasure Valley no
more; and, what was worse, he had so much influence with his
relations, the West Winds in general, and used it so effectually,
that they all adopted a similar line of conduct. So no rain fell
in the valley from one year's end to another. Though everything
remained green and flourishing in the plains below, the
inheritance of the three brothers was a desert. What had once
been the richest soil in the kingdom became a shifting heap of
red sand, and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the
adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to
seek some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and
people of the plains. All their money was gone, and they had
nothing left but some curious old-fashioned pieces of gold
plate, the last remnants of their ill-gotten wealth.
"Suppose we turn goldsmiths," said Schwartz to Hans as they
entered the large city. "It is a good knave's trade; we can put
a great deal of copper into the gold without anyone's finding it
out."
The thought was agreed to be a very good one; they hired a
furnace and turned goldsmiths. But two slight circumstances
affected their trade: the first, that people did not approve of
the coppered gold; the second, that the two elder brothers,
whenever they had sold anything, used to leave little Gluck to
mind the furnace, and go and drink out the money in the alehouse
next door. So they melted all their gold without making money
enough to buy more, and were at last reduced to one large
drinking mug, which an uncle of his had given to little Gluck,
and which he was very fond of and would not have parted with for
the world, though he never drank anything out of it but milk and
water. The mug was a very odd mug to look at. The handle was
formed of two wreaths of flowing golden hair, so finely spun that
it looked more like silk than metal, and these wreaths descended
into and mixed with a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite
workmanship, which surrounded and decorated a very fierce little
face, of the reddest gold imaginable, right in the front of the
mug, with a pair of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole
circumference. It was impossible to drink out of the mug without
being subjected to an intense gaze out of the side of these eyes,
and Schwartz positively averred that once, after emptying it,
full of Rhenish, seventeen times, he had seen them wink! When it
came to the mug's turn to be made into spoons, it half broke poor
little Gluck's heart; but the brothers only laughed at him,
tossed the mug into the melting pot, and staggered out to the
alehouse, leaving him, as usual, to pour the gold into bars when
it was all ready.