Goldenseal

“ In the days of Queen Elizabeth the goldenrod had a great reputation for healing wounds and was imported in considerable quantities and sold in the London markets in powder form at half a crown a pound. In range the goldenrod covers the continent with its cloth of gold. North, south, east, west, on mountain and by sea, in dry field and in wet swamp, it flourishes in its season and warms every landscape with its rich color. ”

“ I was so fully convinced that the truculent Senlis and his gang would seize on the treasure of the galleon, that I already counted it almost as good as lost. Still I did not entirely despair, and did not intend to give up all effort until the treasure was actually gone. But what could we do? Mr. Millward thought we could do absolutely nothing.
“Don’t grieve over spilt milk, my boy,” said he, kindly, in an effort to soothe my terrible disappointment. “There are far greater sorrows in this world than the mere loss of money.” ”

“ It is itself like a little fir-tree with flat spreading branches of blossom, especially when it stands in groups as they do, and the sun slants upon it giving the sprays an edge of brighter gold so that it is the most luminous thing in the garden. And the warm scent of it, holding something so far beyond itself and India, something essential, impregnated with the solace that one’s youth and its affections are not lost, but only on the other side of the world!
Another delightful thing about the goldenrod is the way the bees and butterflies instantly found it out. ”

“ I had no right on any account to subject Alice and her father for a moment more to the tender mercies of such a gang of cutthroats. Let the galleon and its treasure go if necessary, we must put to sea at once. The full moon would rise by nine o’clock, and as we wanted to be off shore before that time, we had to hurry our preparation. The boats were fortunately both provided with a supply of fresh water in gourds, which would keep sweet, and it did not take us long to put our provisions on board, together with such things as we thought we might need{267} for a voyage. ”

“ Now and then I must needs forget him and even my quest in my joy over the fresh beauties that the shrubs were putting on, seemingly every moment. It is something to look at an olive-brown pasture cedar which has been as demure as a{182} nun all winter and spring, and see it suddenly in bloom from head to foot, as if before your very eyes, coming out all sunclad in cloth of gold. It is no illusion of the sun’s rays or the scintillation of the morning dew, but a rich glow of gold out of the sturdy heart of the plant itself. ”

“ True solitude should imply no fleas.
During the time that this large bottle-nosed seal was away, a small common one—the same that lies on the rock in this sea-pool every day from before it is uncovered to the flowing in of the tide—came and disported himself—as usual I had said, but it was not quite the same. He first began to dive and reappear, at regular intervals, as does the great one, and I soon found that he was behaving like him in all things, even to the standing on end in the water, like a peg-top, with his nose straight up in the air. ”

“ I could see the rocks where lay the galleon; the long line of breakers down{269} the beach; the sea stretching clear to the horizon on all sides except where the island obstructed the view; the shore and foliage lit up by the silvery light of the moon; but no sign of our interesting neighbors. The hours passed on until three o’clock and after. One after another the constellations moved down to the western sky line, and still Alice slept peacefully on. ”

“ The low, pink laurel flushed all the stony fields to the edges of their verandas when we first came; the meadows were milk- white with daisies; in the swampy places delicate orchids grew, in the pools the flags and flowering rushes; all the paths and way-sides were set with dog-roses; the hollows and stony tops were broadly matted with ground juniper. Since then the goldenrod has passed from glory to glory, first mixing its yellow-powdered plumes with the red-purple tufts of the iron-weed, and then with the wild asters everywhere. ”

“ But Johnny knew that he had meant what he said, every word of it. And he was for it from the start. But where was the money for repairing the aqueduct? That was the rub.
“All we need,” Johnny had smiled back, “is to find the ‘Rope of Gold’.”
“Johnny,” the old Professor had spoken again, his voice grown husky, “sometimes when one sees the need, he is tempted to believe in fables, even in pots of gold at the foot of the rainbow. Do you see that massive pile of stone way up yonder, built by the only real emperor the island ever knew?” ”

“ Conroyal looked up, his face white and his eyes shining. "It is gold; and enough of it to make us all rich beyond our fondest dreams. No wonder the miner called it the Cave of Gold."
"IT IS GOLD! IT IS GOLD! AND ENOUGH OF IT TO MAKE US ALL RICH BEYOND OUR FONDEST DREAMS."
"Gold! Gold! Now Ruth shall have her breastpin nugget and gold necklace!" and Thure, with hands that trembled so that he could hardly hold the candle, began an excited search for the largest chunk of gold that he could find. ”

“ Frank sent the Golden Eagle swinging in a long graceful circle round the galleon, from whose tall masts still hung fragments of rotting sails, and finally settled alongside her towering wooden sides, which still bore tracings of the gilding and paint with which the old Spaniards loved to decorate their vessels. Her lofty stern was a mass of splendid carving and gilt work. In its centre, in faded paint was the figure of a woman, surrounded by stars and other heavenly bodies. The vessel's stern cabin windows also were richly embossed and gilded. ”

“ On Midsummer Eve people in Sweden make divining-rods of mistletoe, or of four different kinds of wood one of which must be mistletoe. The treasure-seeker places the rod on the ground after sundown, and when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it were alive. Now, if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its character of the Golden Bough; and if it is gathered at the solstices, must not the Golden Bough, like the golden fern-seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire? ”

“ Golden Seal, which is official in the United States Pharmacopoeia, is a useful drug in digestive disorders and in certain catarrhal affections of the mucous membranes, in the latter instance being administered both internally and locally.
Cultivation — Once so abundant in certain parts of the country, especially in the Ohio Valley, Golden Seal is now becoming scarce thruout its range, and in consequence of the increased demand for the root, both at home and abroad, its cultivation must sooner or later be more generally undertaken in order to satisfy the needs of medicine. ”

“ Their bed-times are not governed by the ebb and flow of the sea.
The larger seal which I spoke of yesterday is called here, locally, a bottle-nosed seal, or at least some so designate it. He is here again to-day, rising at intervals and staring at the sky, in the other of these two-in-one-contained bays, which seems to be more particularly his own. When he rises he remains for a full minute standing upright, as it were, in the water, with his muzzle about six inches above it and pointing straight into the sky. ”

“ Selumiel stretched out his hand to the friend of his youth; they turned round, and scarcely had they advanced a few steps further when they had reached the summit of the hill, and the garden of God, the plain of Jericho, lay before them. The towers of the city arose from amidst the fertile fields, through which the silver Jordan wound its course. From the valley of death through which they had just passed, they had emerged into a scene where life displayed itself in all its luxuriance and fulness. ”

“ The goldsmith was again called, and promised to make them, first consulting with the bald-headed apprentice, to whom he brought the usual quantity of nuts. The lad cracked and ate the nuts till morning. At daybreak he kissed the magic ring, and for the third time the two negroes appeared, bringing in the golden greyhound and the golden fox running a race in a golden basin. The goldsmith at once took them to the King, who invited him to the third day’s tournament. The lad cast into the fire, [31] this time, the white horse’s hair, which was the third giant’s horse ”

“ The object I held beneath her gaze was insignificant in itself, merely a small brass seal, but it bore the Warnham arms in exact imitation of the cut amethyst worn by the Earl. It was the seal which had been used to manufacture the duplicate of the envelope containing England’s secret alliance with Germany. ”

“ Curlie said to the girl. To the native woman he said, “Lead on. We will follow.”
[200]
After that, for a half hour they followed the black woman through such an intricate maze of rocks, cliffs, vines and bushes as neither of them had ever known before. Through it all the old black woman never faltered. In the end, after a final breathless climb of a hundred feet, they found themselves looking down upon a scene of matchless beauty. Riding high the moon painted on a glassy sea a path of gold. ”

“ Within everything is in black lacquer and gold lacquer, with the gold predominating. Above the complicated cornice and golden frieze there springs a ceiling in compartments, in worked lacquer of black and gold. Behind the colonnade at the back, the remote part, where, doubtless, the gods are kept, is hidden by long curtains of black and gold brocade, hanging in stiff folds from the ceiling to the floor. Upon white mats on the floor large golden vases are standing, filled with great bunches of golden lotuses as tall as trees. ”

“ The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within." Over the gable were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," so that the gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. ”

“ It is, I now believe, a piece of rare good luck that the old galleon drifted into that place. For consider; if she had struck upon the open beach she would inevitably have gone to pieces in the breakers, and who knows whether what of her cargo we want would have washed up to dry land. I tell you now, and believe me it is true, fortune has favored us. ”

“ A singular lurid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of a fur-seal at intervals when it is very much excited; as the “podding” for the clubbers is in progress and at the moment when last raising its head it sees the uplifted bludgeons on every hand above, fear seems then for the first time to possess it and to instantly gild its eye in this strange manner. When the seal is brained in this state of optical coloration I have noticed that the opalescent tinting remained well defined for many hours or a whole day after death. ”

“ I wouldn’t stand for that, so I went down to Denver and joined a troupe that was playing Ten Nights in a Bar Room. For a man that never drank, I claim I had a pretty good line.”
“But that gold?” put in Swen.
“Oh! The gold? Sure. Yes, the gold!” For a moment the old man seemed bewildered. Then a bright smile lighted his wrinkled face.
“Gold, my son, is heavy. That flood moved half the mountainside. And when it was over, where was my golden boulder? At the bottom of it all, to be sure.”
“That story,” said Petite Jeanne, “sounds almost true.” ”

“ Such was the cellar into which Gaṅgâdhara was thrust. In a few hours after he left the goldsmith he found himself inside a dark cell stinking with [24] human bodies, dying and dead. What were his thoughts when he reached that place? “It is the goldsmith that has brought me to this wretched state; and, as for the prince: Why should he not enquire as to how I obtained the crown? It is of no use to accuse either the goldsmith or the prince now. We are all the children of fate. ”

“ As if to offer opportunities for comparison to the confused novice, the true Solomon's Seal and the so-called false species--quite as honest a plant--usually grow near each other. Grace of line, rather than beauty of blossom, gives them both their chief charm. But the feathery plume of greenish-white blossoms that crowns the false Solomon's Seal's somewhat zig-zagged stem is very different from the small, greenish, bell-shaped flowers, usually nodding in pairs along the stem, under the leaves, from the axils of the true Solomon's Seal. ”

“ I. THE SEAL-GIRL.
Seals have their origin in human beings who of their own free-will have drowned themselves in the sea. Once a year—on Twelfth-night—they slip off their skins and amuse themselves like men and women in dancing and other pleasures, in the caves of the rocks and the big hollows of the beach. A young man in the village of Mygledahl, in Kalsoe, had heard talk of this conduct of the seals, and a place in the neighbourhood of the village was pointed out to him where they were said to assemble on Twelfth-night. ”

“ As in Japan, every adult male has his seal, of agate or cornelian among the rich, and of brass or silver among the poor. The name is carefully engraved on the seal at a cost of from a half-penny 285 to 18s. ”

“ My keen ears overheard all that the tiger-king and serpent-king told you about the Svarṇataskara6 (gold-smith) , who is in [18] the fourth storey. It is nothing but a sad truth that goldsmiths ought never to be trusted. Therefore never assist him as you have done to us all. And if you do, you shall feel it. I am hungry; let me go for the present.” Thus taking leave of his benefactor, the rat, too, ran away.
Gaṅgâdhara for a while thought upon the repeated advice given by the three animals about releasing the goldsmith, “What wrong would there be in my assisting him? ”