The King of the Golden River | Page 5

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 wouuld 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