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 have
seen of you and your conduct to your wicked brothers
renders me willing to serve you; therefore, attend
to what I tell you. Whoever shall climb to the
top of that mountain from which you see the Golden
River issue, and shall cast into the stream at its
source three drops of holy water, for him and for
him only the river shall turn to gold. But no
one failing in his first can succeed in a second attempt,
and if anyone shall cast unholy water into the river,
it will overwhelm him and he will become a black stone.”
So saying, the King of the Golden River turned away
and deliberately walked into the center of the hottest
flame of the furnace. His figure became red,
white, transparent, dazzling, a blaze of
intense light, rose, trembled, and disappeared.
The King of the Golden River had evaporated.
“Oh!” cried poor Gluck,
running to look up the chimney after him, “O
dear, dear, dear me! My mug! my mug! my mug!”