s a better city, and
good people grew in it. But they had no children, and when they died
the people chose a king. And the new king went mining and mining in
the rock under the city, and grew more and more eager after the gold,
and paid less and less heed to his people. Rapidly they sank toward
their old wickedness. But still the king went on mining, and coining
gold by the pailful, until the people were worse even than in the old
time. And so greedy was the king after gold, that when at last the ore
began to fail, he caused the miners to reduce the pillars which Peter
and they that followed him had left standing to bear the city. And
from the girth of an oak of a thousand years, they chipped them down to
that of a fir tree of fifty.

One day at noon, when life was at its highest, the whole city fell with
a roaring crash. The cries of men and the shrieks of women went up
with its dust, and then there was a great silence.

Where the mighty rock once towered, crowded with homes and crowned with
a palace, now rushes and raves a stone-obstructed rapid of the river.
All around spreads a wilderness of wild deer, and the very name of
Gwyntystorm had ceased from the lips of men.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Princess and the Curdie, by George MacDonald

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