They helped themselves to the gold and left the cave, and each man went his way. The Welshman, having all the treasure he could carry, was no longer a poor cobbler who must spend his time bending over shoe lasts. He was richer than the mayor and could feast and ride in a coach, dance at the fair, and live like the lords of the land.
But riches made that cobbler greedy. He had far more gold than he needed, and the finest house in seven counties, but still he wanted more. He kept thinking of the gold piled high in Arthur’s cave; so one day he journeyed back to the Vale of Neath and waited for nightfall.
Then, creeping to the place of the hazel bush, he moved the rock and went into the cave.
Ah, it was a goodly sight, those thousand warriors slumbering there beside the treasure heap and a thousand saddled chargers beyond! He would take all the gold he could carry, and very soon he would come back for more. But in his greed to increase his wealth he bumped against the bell, which clanged loudly. The warriors started up, asking if it was day, but the man was so dazzled by the pile of shining treasure that he did not have the answer ready. They leaped to their feet, called him a robber, beat him, and drove him from the cave.
Then what a change! He went limping homeward, to discover that all his wealth had disappeared and where his great house had stood was a miserable hut. He was as poor as ever, and unless he could get more gold out of the cave must go back to cobbling and never again ride in a coach. But try as he would, he could not find the place where the hazel bush had grown. Many a journey he made into the Vale of Neath, but never did he catch a glimpse of the broad, flat stone. He had to spend his days bending over shoe lasts instead of riding in a coach, and was a cripple as long as he lived.
THE STORY OF A SALMON
By David Starr Jordan
(Science)
In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary line between the dark fir forests and the sunny plains, there stands a mountain—a great white cone two miles and a half in perpendicular height. On its lower mile the dense fir woods cover it with never changing green; on its next half mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington Territory say that their mountain is the great “King-pin of the Universe,” which shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without honor.
Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens down over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through birch woods and belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great in their possibilities. In the waters above them little suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these globules from the sand, and vicious-looking crawfishes picked them up with their blundering hands and examined them with their telescopic eyes. But one, at least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this story would not be worth telling. The sun shone down on it through the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it their incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a fish,—a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes, which made almost half his length, and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon, a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there were flies and worms and little living creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more little salmon with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had a merry time. Those who had been born soonest and had grown largest used to chase the others around and bite heads and swallow them whole; for, said they, “even young salmon are good eating.” “Heads I win, tails you lose,” was their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became united into a single larger one, and the process of “addition, division, and silence” still went on.