The King of the Golden River
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John Ruskin >> The King of the Golden River
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