The Wagner Story Book | Page 3

is ugly and rough- looking,
he is crooked, and he has a wicked face. He slips and tumbles slowly
along, till he catches sight of the water nymphs, and they look so pretty
and graceful and happy, as they chase one another about and up and
down and around, that his cruel little eyes light up with pleasure, and
he calls to them that he should like to come up and play with them too."
"Oh, now I don't believe any of it at all," said the child; "I thought just
for a little while you might know how to see all those funny things in

the fire, but you can't hear people talk in the fire."
"Oh, my dear child, you don't know very much about the fire if you
think I can't see anything I want to in it, or hear anything I want to
either. I tell you I can hear what this dwarf says, just as plainly as I can
see him walk about. Still, if you don't believe any of it and don't care to
know about the dwarf and the nymphs and the gold, perhaps you might
better go and study your multiplication table, and I will find something
else to do."
"Oh, but I do want to know about them. Please tell me some more.
What do the nymphs say to the dwarf? Can you hear that too?"
"Of course I can hear it; they call to him to come up and play with them
if he likes, and he clambers up over the rocks and trees to catch one of
them after another, while they swim and glide away from him, and find
it much better fun than chasing one another. It is good fun, no doubt,
for the dwarf cannot swim like them, but only scrambles about in the
most ridiculous way, with never any hope of catching one of them,
except when she lets him come near her for a moment, to plague him
by slipping away again quite out of his reach. At last he gets thoroughly
tired and discouraged and angry, while the three sisters laugh at him
and taunt him and chatter with one another, and have clearly enough
forgotten all about the gold that they are supposed to be watching.
"But see now how much brighter the fire is getting. It makes me think
that something must have happened up above the river. The sun must
have risen, or something of that sort, for everything looks clearer and
the gold shines out so bright and beautiful, that the blear-eyed dwarf
himself sees it and forgets all about trying to catch water nymphs in
wondering what it is. He asks the nymphs, and they tell him about the
ring that could be made of it if only it could be stolen from them; but it
is of no use for him to try, they say, because it is a part of the magic of
the gold that it can never be stolen except by some one who loves
nobody in the world and has sworn that he will never love anybody,
and it is clear enough that the dwarf is in love with all three of them at
this very minute. When such a strange treasure as this was to be
guarded, it was no doubt very clever to set three such beautiful
creatures as these to watch it, for if a thief were not in love already, it is
a hundred to one that he would be before he got near enough to the gold
to steal it.

"But the nymphs do not understand at all how much more a heartless
little monster like this dwarf loves the glitter of gold than he could ever
possibly love them. So, even while they are laughing at him, he is
forgetting them completely, and then he swears a deep oath that as long
as he lives he will never love any living thing. Now, if you can think of
anything that anybody could do more wicked, more horrible, more
cruel than that, you must know a great deal more about wicked and
horrible things than you have any right to know. After that every kind
of wrong is easy, and a little thing like stealing a lump of gold of the
size of a bushel basket is a mere nothing. The dwarf scrambles up the
point of rock again, while the nymphs, who think that he is still chasing
them, swim far away from him, and he seizes the gold and plunges
down to the bottom with it. The nymphs rush together again with a cry
of horror and grief and fright, and in an instant everything is dark, as
the flames of our fire suddenly drop down.
[Illustration: "THE