The King of the Golden River, John Ruskin [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

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.

 

When they were gone, Gluck took a farewell look at his old friend

in the melting pot. The flowing hair was all gone; nothing

remained but the red nose and the sparkling eyes, which looked

more malicious than ever. “And no wonder,” thought Gluck, “after

being treated in that way.” He sauntered disconsolately to the

window and sat himself down to catch the fresh evening air and

escape the hot breath of the furnace. Now this window commanded

a direct view of the range of mountains which, as I told you

before, overhung the Treasure Valley, and more especially of the

peak from which fell the Golden River. It was just at the close

of the day, and when Gluck sat down at the window, he saw the

rocks of the mountain tops, all crimson and purple with the

sunset; and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and

quivering about them; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in

a waving column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with

the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it,

flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray.

 

“Ah!” said Gluck aloud, after he had looked at it for a little

while, “if that river were really all gold, what a nice thing it

would be.”

 

“No, it wouldn’t, Gluck,” said a clear, metallic voice close at

his ear.

 

“Bless me, what’s that?” exclaimed Gluck, jumping up. There was

nobody there. He looked round the room and under the table and a

great many times behind him, but there was certainly nobody

there, and he sat down again at the window. This time he didn’t

speak, but he couldn’t help thinking again that it would be very

convenient if the river were really all gold.

 

“Not at all, my boy,” said the same voice, louder than before.

 

“Bless me!” said Gluck again, “what is that?” He looked again

into all the corners and cupboards, and then began turning round

and round as fast as he could, in the middle of the room,

thinking there was somebody behind him, when the same voice

struck again on his ear. It was singing now, very merrily, “Lala-lira-la”—no words, only a soft, running, effervescent melody,

something like that of a kettle on the boil. Gluck looked out of

the window; no, it was certainly in the house. Upstairs and

downstairs; no, it was certainly in that very room, coming in

quicker time and clearer notes every moment: “Lala-lira-la.” All

at once it struck Gluck that it sounded louder near the furnace.

He ran to the opening and looked in. Yes, he saw right; it

seemed to be coming not only out of the furnace but out of the

pot. He uncovered it, and ran back in a great fright, for the

pot was certainly singing! He stood in the farthest corner of

the room, with his hands up and his mouth open, for a minute or

two, when the singing stopped and the voice became clear and

pronunciative.

 

“Hollo!” said the voice.

 

Gluck made no answer.

 

“Hollo! Gluck, my boy,” said the pot again.

 

Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the

crucible, drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold

was all melted and its surface as smooth and polished as a river,

but instead of reflecting little Gluck’s head, as he looked in he

saw, meeting his glance from beneath the gold, the red nose and

sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder

and sharper than ever he had seen them in his life.

 

“Come, Gluck, my boy,” said the voice out of the pot again, “I’m

all right; pour me out.”

 

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the kind.

 

“Pour me out, I say,” said the voice rather gruffly.

 

Still Gluck couldn’t move.

 

“WILL you pour me out?” said the voice passionately. “I’m too

hot.”

 

By a violent effort Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took

hold of the crucible, and sloped it, so as to pour out the gold.

But instead of a liquid stream there came out, first a pair of

pretty little yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of

arms stuck akimbo, and finally the well-known head of his friend

the mug—all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up

energetically on the floor in the shape of a little golden dwarf

about a foot and a half high.

 

“That’s right!” said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs and

then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down and as far

round as it would go, for five minutes without stopping,

apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite

correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in

speechless amazement. He was dressed in a slashed doublet of

spun gold, so fine in its texture that the prismatic colors

gleamed over it as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and over

this brilliant doublet his hair and beard fell full halfway to

the ground in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck

could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air.

The features of the face, however, were by no means finished with

the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly inclining to

coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of a very

pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small

proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination,

he turned his small, sharp eyes full on Gluck and stared at him

deliberately for a minute or two. “No, it wouldn’t, Gluck, my

boy,” said the little man.

 

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of

commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer

to the course of Gluck’s thoughts, which had first produced the

dwarf’s observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to,

Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum.

 

“Wouldn’t it, sir?” said Gluck very mildly and submissively

indeed.

 

“No,” said the dwarf, conclusively, “no, it wouldn’t.” And with

that the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows and took two

turns, of three feet long, up and down the room, lifting his

legs up very high and setting them down very hard. This pause

gave time for Gluck to collect his thoughts a little, and, seeing

no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with dread, and

feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement, he ventured on a

question of peculiar delicacy.

 

“Pray, sir,” said Gluck, rather hesitatingly, “were you my mug?”

 

On which the little man turned sharp round, walked straight up to

Gluck, and drew himself up to his full height. “I,” said the

little man, “am the King of the Golden River.” Whereupon he

turned about again and took two more turns, some six feet long,

in order to allow time for the consternation which this

announcement produced in his auditor to evaporate. After which

he again walked up to Gluck and stood still, as if expecting some

comment on his communication.

 

Gluck determined to say something at all events. “I hope your

Majesty is very well,” said Gluck.

 

“Listen!” said the little man, deigning no reply to this polite

inquiry. “I am the king of what you mortals call the Golden

River. The shape you saw me in was owing to the malice of a

stronger king, from whose enchantments you have this instant

freed me. What I