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At the Back of the North Wind

by George MacDonald · English · Gutenberg #225 · 486,696 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: At the Back of the North Wind

Author: George MacDonald


        
Release date: July 11, 2008 [eBook #225]
                Most recently updated: July 18, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/225

Credits: Produced by Martin Ward, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND ***






AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND


By George Mac Donald

Author of “Dealings with Fairies,” “Ranald Bannerman,” etc., etc.





CHAPTER I. THE HAY-LOFT


I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old
Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable
that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My
story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right
account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who
went there.

He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by any means
at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew. For one
side of the room was built only of boards, and the boards were so old
that you might run a penknife through into the north wind. And then let
them settle between them which was the sharper! I know that when you
pulled it out again the wind would be after it like a cat after a mouse,
and you would know soon enough you were not at the back of the north
wind. Still, this room was not very cold, except when the north wind
blew stronger than usual: the room I have to do with now was always
cold, except in summer, when the sun took the matter into his own hands.
Indeed, I am not sure whether I ought to call it a room at all; for it
was just a loft where they kept hay and straw and oats for the horses.

And when little Diamond--but stop: I must tell you that his father, who
was a coachman, had named him after a favourite horse, and his mother
had had no objection:--when little Diamond, then, lay there in bed, he
could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark, or moving
sleepily in their dreams. For Diamond's father had built him a bed in
the loft with boards all round it, because they had so little room in
their own end over the coach-house; and Diamond's father put old Diamond
in the stall under the bed, because he was a quiet horse, and did not
go to sleep standing, but lay down like a reasonable creature. But,
although he was a surprisingly reasonable creature, yet, when young
Diamond woke in the middle of the night, and felt the bed shaking in the
blasts of the north wind, he could not help wondering whether, if the
wind should blow the house down, and he were to fall through into
the manger, old Diamond mightn't eat him up before he knew him in his
night-gown. And although old Diamond was very quiet all night long, yet
when he woke he got up like an earthquake, and then young Diamond knew
what o'clock it was, or at least what was to be done next, which was--to
go to sleep again as fast as he could.

There was hay at his feet and hay at his head, piled up in great trusses
to the very roof. Indeed it was sometimes only through a little lane
with several turnings, which looked as if it had been sawn out for him,
that he could reach his bed at all. For the stock of hay was, of course,
always in a state either of slow ebb or of sudden flow. Sometimes the
whole space of the loft, with the little panes in the roof for the
stars to look in, would lie open before his open eyes as he lay in bed;
sometimes a yellow wall of sweet-smelling fibres closed up his view at
the distance of half a yard. Sometimes, when his mother had undressed
him in her room, and told him to trot to bed by himself, he would
creep into the heart of the hay, and lie there thinking how cold it was
outside in the wind, and how warm it was inside there in his bed, and
how he could go to it when he pleased, only he wouldn't just yet; he
would get a little colder first. And ever as he grew colder, his bed
would grow warmer, till at last he would scramble out of the hay, shoot
like an arrow into his bed, cover himself up, and snuggle down, thinking
what a happy boy he was. He had not the least idea that the wind got in
at a chink in the wall, and blew about him all night. For the back of
his bed was only of boards an inch thick, and on the other side of them
was the north wind.

Now, as I have already said, these boards were soft and crumbly. To be
sure, they were tarred on the outside, yet in many places they were more
like tinder than timber. Hence it happened that the soft part having
worn away from about it, little Diamond found one night, after he lay
down, that a knot had come out of one of them, and that the wind was
blowing in upon him in a cold and rather imperious fashion. Now he had
no fancy for leaving things wrong that might be set right; so he jumped
out of bed again, got a little strike of hay, twisted it up, folded it
in the middle, and, having thus made it into a cork, stuck it into the
hole in the wall. But the wind began to blow loud and angrily, and, as
Diamond was falling asleep, out blew his cork and hit him on the
nose, just hard enough to wake him up quite, and let him hear the wind
whistling shrill in the hole. He searched for his hay-cork, found it,
stuck it in harder, and was just dropping off once more, when, pop! with
an angry whistle behind it, the cork struck him again, this time on the
cheek. Up he rose once more, made a fresh stopple of hay, and corked the
hole severely. But he was hardly down again before--pop! it came on his
forehead. He gave it up, drew the clothes above his head, and was soon
fast asleep.

Although the next day was very stormy, Diamond forgot all about the
hole, for he was busy making a cave by the side of his mother's fire
with a broken chair, a three-legged stool, and a blanket, and then
sitting in it. His mother, however, discovered it, and pasted a bit of
brown paper over it, so that, when Diamond had snuggled down the next
night, he had no occasion to think of it.

Presently, however, he lifted his head and listened. Who could that be
talking to him? The wind was rising again, and getting very loud, and
full of rushes and whistles. He was sure some one was talking--and very
near him, too, it was. But he was not frightened, for he had not yet
learned how to be; so he sat up and hearkened. At last the voice, which,
though quite gentle, sounded a little angry, appeared to come from the
back of the bed. He crept nearer to it, and laid his ear against the
wall. Then he heard nothing but the wind, which sounded very loud
indeed. The moment, however, that he moved his head from the wall, he
heard the voice again, close to his ear. He felt about with his hand,
and came upon the piece of paper his mother had pasted over the
hole. Against this he laid his ear, and then he heard the voice quite
distinctly. There was, in fact, a little corner of the paper loose, and
through that, as from a mouth in the wall, the voice came.

“What do you mean, little boy--closing up my window?”

“What window?” asked Diamond.

“You stuffed hay into it three times last night. I had to blow it out
again three times.”

“You can't mean this little hole! It isn't a window; it's a hole in my
bed.”

“I did not say it was a window: I said it was my window.”

“But it can't be a window, because windows are holes to see out of.”

“Well, that's just what I made this window for.”

“But you are outside: you can't want a window.”

“You are quite mistaken. Windows are to see out of, you say. Well, I'm
in my house, and I want windows to see out of it.”

“But you've made a window into my bed.”

“Well, your mother has got three windows into my dancing room, and you
have three into my garret.”

“But I heard father say, when my mother wanted him to make a window
through the wall, that it was against the law, for it would look into
Mr. Dyves's garden.”

The voice laughed.

“The law would have some trouble to catch me!” it said.

“But if it's not right, you know,” said Diamond, “that's no matter. You
shouldn't do it.”

“I am so tall I am above that law,” said the voice.

“You must have a tall house, then,” said Diamond.

“Yes; a tall house: the clouds are inside it.”

“Dear me!” said Diamond, and thought a minute. “I think, then, you can
hardly expect me to keep a window in my bed for you. Why don't you make
a window into Mr. Dyves's bed?”

“Nobody makes a window into an ash-pit,” said the voice, rather sadly.
“I like to see nice things out of my windows.”

“But he must have a nicer bed than I have, though mine is very nice--so
nice that I couldn't wish a better.”

“It's not the bed I care about: it's what is in it.--But you just open
that window.”

“Well, mother says I shouldn't be disobliging; but it's rather hard. You
see the north wind will blow right in my face if I do.”

“I am the North Wind.”

“O-o-oh!” said Diamond, thoughtfully. “Then will you promise not to blow
on my face if I open your window?”

“I can't promise that.”

“But you'll give me the toothache. Mother's got it already.”

“But what's to become of me without a window?”

“I'm sure I don't know. All I say is, it will be worse for me than for
you.”

“No; it will not. You shall not be the worse for it--I promise you that.
You will be much the better for it. Just you believe what I say, and do
as I tell you.”

“Well, I can pull the clothes over my head,” said Diamond, and feeling
with his little sharp nails, he got hold of the open edge of the paper
and tore it off at once.

In came a long whistling spear of cold, and struck his little naked
chest. He scrambled and tumbled in under the bedclothes, and covered
himself up: there was no paper now between him and the voice, and he
felt a little--not frightened exactly--I told you he had not learned
that yet--but rather queer; for what a strange person this North Wind
must be that lived in the great house--“called Out-of-Doors, I suppose,”
 thought Diamond--and made windows into people's beds! But the voice
began again; and he could hear it quite plainly, even with his head
under the bed-clothes. It was a still more gentle voice now, although
six times as large and loud as it had been, and he thought it sounded a
little like his mother's.

“What is your name, little boy?” it asked.

“Diamond,” answered Diamond, under the bed-clothes.

“What a funny name!”

“It's a very nice name,” returned its owner.

“I don't know that,” said the voice.

“Well, I do,” retorted Diamond, a little rudely.

“Do you know to whom you are speaking!”

“No,” said Diamond.

And indeed he did not. For to know a person's name is not always to know
the person's self.

“Then I must not be angry with you.--You had better look and see,
though.”

“Diamond is a very pretty name,” persisted the boy, vexed that it should
not give satisfaction.

“Diamond is a useless thing rather,” said the voice.

“That's not true. Diamond is very nice--as big as two--and so quiet all
night! And doesn't he make a jolly row in the morning, getting upon his
four great legs! It's like thunder.”

“You don't seem to know what a diamond is.”

“Oh, don't I just! Diamond is a great and good horse; and he sleeps
right under me. He is old Diamond, and I am young Diamond; or, if you
like it better, for you're very particular, Mr. North Wind, he's big
Diamond, and I'm little Diamond; and I don't know which of us my father
likes best.”

A beautiful laugh, large but very soft and musical, sounded somewhere
beside him, but Diamond kept his head under the clothes.

“I'm not Mr. North Wind,” said the voice.

“You told me that you were the North Wind,” insisted Diamond.

“I did not say Mister North Wind,” said the voice.

“Well, then, I do; for mother tells me I ought to be polite.”

“Then let me tell you I don't think it at all polite of you to say
Mister to me.”

“Well, I didn't know better. I'm very sorry.”

“But you ought to know better.”

“I don't know that.”

“I do. You can't say it's polite to lie there talking--with your head
under the bed-clothes, and never look up to see what kind of person you
are talking to.--I want you to come out with me.”

“I want to go to sleep,” said Diamond, very nearly crying, for he did
not like to be scolded, even when he deserved it.

“You shall sleep all the better to-morrow night.”

“Besides,” said Diamond, “you are out in Mr. Dyves's garden, and I can't
get there. I can only get into our own yard.”

“Will you take your head out of the bed-clothes?” said the voice, just a
little angrily.

“No!” answered Diamond, half peevish, half frightened.

The instant he said the word, a tremendous blast of wind crashed in a
board of the wall, and swept the clothes off Diamond. He started up in
terror. Leaning over him was the large, beautiful, pale face of a woman.
Her dark eyes looked a little angry, for they had just begun to flash;
but a quivering in her sweet upper lip made her look as if she were
going to cry. What was the most strange was that away from her head
streamed out her black hair in every direction, so that the darkness in
the hay-loft looked as if it were made of her hair; but as Diamond gazed
at her in speechless amazement, mingled with confidence--for the boy was
entranced with her mighty beauty--her hair began to gather itself out
of the darkness, and fell down all about her again, till her face looked
out of the midst of it like a moon out of a cloud. From her eyes came
all the light by which Diamond saw her face and her hair; and that was
all he did see of her yet. The wind was over and gone.

“Will you go with me now, you little Diamond? I am sorry I was forced to
be so rough with you,” said the lady.

“I will; yes, I will,” answered Diamond, holding out both his arms.
“But,” he added, dropping them, “how shall I get my clothes? They are in
mother's room, and the door is locked.”

“Oh, never mind your clothes. You will not be cold. I shall take care of
that. Nobody is cold with the north wind.”

“I thought everybody was,” said Diamond.

“That is a great mistake. Most people make it, however. They are cold
because they are not with the north wind, but without it.”

If Diamond had been a little older, and had supposed himself a good deal
wiser, he would have thought the lady was joking. But he was not older,
and did not fancy himself wiser, and therefore understood her well
enough. Again he stretched out his arms. The lady's face drew back a
little.

“Follow me, Diamond,” she said.

“Yes,” said Diamond, only a little ruefully.

“You're not afraid?” said the North Wind.

“No, ma'am; but mother never would let me go without shoes: she never
said anything about clothes, so I dare say she wouldn't mind that.”

“I know your mother very well,” said the lady. “She is a good woman.
I have visited her often. I was with her when you were born. I saw her
laugh and cry both at once. I love your mother, Diamond.”

“How was it you did not know my name, then, ma'am? Please am I to say
ma'am to you, ma'am?”

“One question at a time, dear boy. I knew your name quite well, but I
wanted to hear what you would say for it. Don't you remember that day
when the man was finding fault with your name--how I blew the window
in?”

“Yes, yes,” answered Diamond, eagerly. “Our window opens like a door,
right over the coach-house door. And the wind--you, ma'am--came in, and
blew the Bible out of the man's hands, and the leaves went all flutter,
flutter on the floor, and my mother picked it up and gave it back to him
open, and there----”

“Was your name in the Bible--the sixth stone in the high priest's
breastplate.”

“Oh!--a stone, was it?” said Diamond. “I thought it had been a horse--I
did.”

“Never mind. A horse is better than a stone any day. Well, you see, I
know all about you and your mother.”

“Yes. I will go with you.”

“Now for the next question: you're not to call me ma'am. You must call
me just my own name--respectfully, you know--just North Wind.”

“Well, please, North Wind, you are so beautiful, I am quite ready to go
with you.”

“You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all at once,
Diamond.”

“But what's beautiful can't be bad. You're not bad, North Wind?”

“No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing
bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty.
So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are
beautiful.”

“Well, I will go with you because you are beautiful and good, too.”

“Ah, but there's another thing, Diamond:--What if I should look ugly
without being bad--look ugly myself because I am making ugly things
beautiful?--What then?”

“I don't quite understand you, North Wind. You tell me what then.”

“Well, I will tell you. If you see me with my face all black, don't be
frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big as the
whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times worse
than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife--even if you see me looking in at
people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife--you must
believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a
serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for my hand
will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold,
you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can't
see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something very awful.
Do you understand?”

“Quite well,” said little Diamond.

“Come along, then,” said North Wind, and disappeared behind the mountain
of hay.

Diamond crept out of bed and followed her.




CHAPTER II. THE LAWN


WHEN Diamond got round the corner of the hay, for a moment he hesitated.
The stair by which he would naturally have gone down to the door was
at the other side of the loft, and looked very black indeed; for it was
full of North Wind's hair, as she descended before him. And just beside
him was the ladder going straight down into the stable, up which his
father always came to fetch the hay for Diamond's dinner. Through the
opening in the floor the faint gleam of the stable lantern was enticing,
and Diamond thought he would run down that way.

The stair went close past the loose-box in which Diamond the horse
lived. When Diamond the boy was half-way down, he remembered that it
was of no use to go this way, for the stable-door was locked. But at the
same moment there was horse Diamond's great head poked out of his box
on to the ladder, for he knew boy Diamond although he was in his
night-gown, and wanted him to pull his ears for him. This Diamond did
very gently for a minute or so, and patted and stroked his neck too, and
kissed the big horse, and had begun to take the bits of straw and hay
out of his mane, when all at once he recollected that the Lady North
Wind was waiting for him in the yard.

“Good night, Diamond,” he said, and darted up the ladder, across the
loft, and down the stair to the door. But when he got out into the yard,
there was no lady.

Now it is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and find
nobody. Children in particular have not made up their minds to it; they
generally cry at nobody, especially when they wake up at night. But it
was an especial disappointment to Diamond, for his little heart had been
beating with joy: the face of the North Wind was so grand! To have
a lady like that for a friend--with such long hair, too! Why, it was
longer than twenty Diamonds' tails! She was gone. And there he stood,
with his bare feet on the stones of the paved yard.

It was a clear night overhead, and the stars were shining. Orion in
particular was making the most of his bright belt and golden sword.
But the moon was only a poor thin crescent. There was just one great,
jagged, black and gray cloud in the sky, with a steep side to it like a
precipice; and the moon was against this side, and looked as if she had
tumbled off the top of the cloud-hill, and broken herself in rolling
down the precipice. She did not seem comfortable, for she was looking
down into the deep pit waiting for her. At least that was what Diamond
thought as he stood for a moment staring at her. But he was quite wrong,
for the moon was not afraid, and there was no pit she was going down
into, for there were no sides to it, and a pit without sides to it is
not a pit at all. Diamond, however, had not been out so late before in
all his life, and things looked so strange about him!--just as if he had
got into Fairyland, of which he knew quite as much as anybody; for his
mother had no money to buy books to set him wrong on the subject. I have
seen this world--only sometimes, just now and then, you know--look as
strange as ever I saw Fairyland. But I confess that I have not yet seen
Fairyland at its best. I am always going to see it so some time. But if
you had been out in the face and not at the back of the North Wind, on a
cold rather frosty night, and in your night-gown, you would have felt it
all quite as strange as Diamond did. He cried a little, just a little,
he was so disappointed to lose the lady: of course, you, little man,
wouldn't have done that! But for my part, I don't mind people crying so
much as I mind what they cry about, and how they cry--whether they cry
quietly like ladies and gentlemen, or go shrieking like vulgar emperors,
or ill-natured cooks; for all emperors are not gentlemen, and all cooks
are not ladies--nor all queens and princesses for that matter, either.

But it can't be denied that a little gentle crying does one good. It did
Diamond good; for as soon as it was over he was a brave boy again.

“She shan't say it was my fault, anyhow!” said Diamond. “I daresay she
is hiding somewhere to see what I will do. I will look for her.”

So he went round the end of the stable towards the kitchen-garden. But
the moment he was clear of the shelter of the stable, sharp as a knife
came the wind against his little chest and his bare legs. Still he
would look in the kitchen-garden, and went on. But when he got round the
weeping-ash that stood in the corner, the wind blew much stronger, and
it grew stronger and stronger till he could hardly fight against it. And
it was so cold! All the flashy spikes of the stars seemed to have got
somehow into the wind. Then he thought of what the lady had said about
people being cold because they were not with the North Wind. How it was
that he should have guessed what she meant at that very moment I cannot
tell, but I have observed that the most wonderful thing in the world is
how people come to understand anything. He turned his back to the wind,
and trotted again towards the yard; whereupon, strange to say, it blew
so much more gently against his calves than it had blown against his
shins that he began to feel almost warm by contrast.

You must not think it was cowardly of Diamond to turn his back to
the wind: he did so only because he thought Lady North Wind had said
something like telling him to do so. If she had said to him that he must
hold his face to it, Diamond would have held his face to it. But the
most foolish thing is to fight for no good, and to please nobody.

Well, it was just as if the wind was pushing Diamond along. If he turned
round, it grew very sharp on his legs especially, and so he thought the
wind might really be Lady North Wind, though he could not see her, and
he had better let her blow him wherever she pleased. So she blew and
blew, and he went and went, until he found himself standing at a door
in a wall, which door led from the yard into a little belt of shrubbery,
flanking Mr. Coleman's house. Mr. Coleman was his father's master,
and the owner of Diamond. He opened the door, and went through the
shrubbery, and out into the middle of the lawn, still hoping to find
North Wind. The soft grass was very pleasant to his bare feet, and felt
warm after the stones of the yard; but the lady was nowhere to be seen.
Then he began to think that after all he must have done wrong, and she
was offended with him for not following close after her, but staying to
talk to the horse, which certainly was neither wise nor polite.

There he stood in the middle of the lawn, the wind blowing his
night-gown till it flapped like a loose sail. The stars were very shiny
over his head; but they did not give light enough to show that the grass
was green; and Diamond stood alone in the strange night, which looked
half solid all about him. He began to wonder whether he was in a dream
or not. It was important to determine this; “for,” thought Diamond, “if
I am in a dream, I am safe in my bed, and I needn't cry. But if I'm not
in a dream, I'm out here, and perhaps I had better cry, or, at least,
I'm not sure whether I can help it.” He came to the conclusion, however,
that, whether he was in a dream or not, there could be no harm in not
crying for a little while longer: he could begin whenever he liked.

The back of Mr. Coleman's house was to the lawn, and one of the
drawing-room windows looked out upon it. The ladies had not gone to bed;
for the light was still shining in that window. But they had no idea
that a little boy was standing on the lawn in his night-gown, or they
would have run out in a moment. And as long as he saw that light,
Diamond could not feel quite lonely. He stood staring, not at the great
warrior Orion in the sky, nor yet at the disconsolate, neglected moon
going down in the west, but at the drawing-room window with the light
shining through its green curtains. He had been in that room once or
twice that he could remember at Christmas times; for the Colemans were
kind people, though they did not care much about children.

All at once the light went nearly out: he could only see a glimmer of
the shape of the window. Then, indeed, he felt that he was left alone.
It was so dreadful to be out in the night after everybody was gone
to bed! That was more than he could bear. He burst out crying in good
earnest, beginning with a wail like that of the wind when it is waking
up.

Perhaps you think this was very foolish; for could he not go home to his
own bed again when he liked? Yes; but it looked dreadful to him to creep
up that stair again and lie down in his bed again, and know that North
Wind's window was open beside him, and she gone, and he might never see
her again. He would be just as lonely there as here. Nay, it would be
much worse if he had to think that the window was nothing but a hole in
the wall.

At the very moment when he burst out crying, the old nurse who had grown
to be one of the family, for she had not gone away when Miss Coleman did
not want any more nursing, came to the back door, which was of glass, to
close the shutters. She thought she heard a cry, and, peering out with a
hand on each side of her eyes like Diamond's blinkers, she saw something
white on the lawn. Too old and too wise to be frightened, she opened the
door, and went straight towards the white thing to see what it was. And
when Diamond saw her coming he was not frightened either, though
Mrs. Crump was a little cross sometimes; for there is a good kind
of crossness that is only disagreeable, and there is a bad kind of
crossness that is very nasty indeed. So she came up with her neck
stretched out, and her head at the end of it, and her eyes foremost of
all, like a snail's, peering into the night to see what it could be that
went on glimmering white before her. When she did see, she made a
great exclamation, and threw up her hands. Then without a word, for she
thought Diamond was walking in his sleep, she caught hold of him, and
led him towards the house. He made no objection, for he was just in
the mood to be grateful for notice of any sort, and Mrs. Crump led him
straight into the drawing-room.

Now, from the neglect of the new housemaid, the fire in Miss Coleman's
bedroom had gone out, and her mother had told her to brush her hair by
the drawing-room fire--a disorderly proceeding which a mother's wish
could justify. The young lady was very lovely, though not nearly so
beautiful as North Wind; and her hair was extremely long, for it came
down to her knees--though that was nothing at all to North Wind's hair.
Yet when she looked round, with her hair all about her, as Diamond
entered, he thought for one moment that it was North Wind, and, pulling
his hand from Mrs. Crump's, he stretched out his arms and ran towards
Miss Coleman. She was so pleased that she threw down her brush, and
almost knelt on the floor to receive him in her arms. He saw the next
moment that she was not Lady North Wind, but she looked so like her he
could not help running into her arms and bursting into tears afresh.
Mrs. Crump said the poor child had walked out in his sleep, and Diamond
thought she ought to know, and did not contradict her for anything he
knew, it might be so indeed. He let them talk on about him, and said
nothing; and when, after their astonishment was over, and Miss Coleman
had given him a sponge-cake, it was decreed that Mrs. Crump should take
him to his mother, he was quite satisfied.

His mother had to get out of bed to open the door when Mrs. Crump
knocked. She was indeed surprised to see her boy; and having taken
him in her arms and carried him to his bed, returned and had a long
confabulation with Mrs. Crump, for they were still talking when Diamond
fell fast asleep, and could hear them no longer.




CHAPTER III. OLD DIAMOND


DIAMOND woke very early in the morning, and thought what a curious dream
he had had. But the memory grew brighter and brighter in his head, until
it did not look altogether like a dream, and he began to doubt whether
he had not really been abroad in the wind last night. He came to the
conclusion that, if he had really been brought home to his mother by
Mrs. Crump, she would say something to him about it, and that would
settle the matter. Then he got up and dressed himself, but, finding that
his father and mother were not yet stirring, he went down the ladder to
the stable. There he found that even old Diamond was not awake yet, for
he, as well as young Diamond, always got up the moment he woke, and
now he was lying as flat as a horse could lie upon his nice trim bed of
straw.

“I'll give old Diamond a surprise,” thought the boy; and creeping up
very softly, before the horse knew, he was astride of his back. Then
it was young Diamond's turn to have more of a surprise than he had
expected; for as with an earthquake, with a rumbling and a rocking
hither and thither, a sprawling of legs and heaving as of many backs,
young Diamond found himself hoisted up in the air, with both hands
twisted in the horse's mane. The next instant old Diamond lashed out
with both his hind legs, and giving one cry of terror young Diamond
found himself lying on his neck, with his arms as far round it as they
would go. But then the horse stood as still as a stone, except that he
lifted his head gently up to let the boy slip down to his back. For
when he heard young Diamond's cry he knew that there was nothing to
kick about; for young Diamond was a good boy, and old Diamond was a good
horse, and the one was all right on the back of the other.

As soon as Diamond had got himself comfortable on the saddle place, the
horse began pulling at the hay, and the boy began thinking. He had never
mounted Diamond himself before, and he had never got off him without
being lifted down. So he sat, while the horse ate, wondering how he was
to reach the ground.

But while he meditated, his mother woke, and her first thought was to
see her boy. She had visited him twice during the night, and found him
sleeping quietly. Now his bed was empty, and she was frightened.

“Diamond! Diamond! Where are you, Diamond?” she called out.

Diamond turned his head where he sat like a knight on his steed in
enchanted stall, and cried aloud,--

“Here, mother!”

“Where, Diamond?” she returned.

“Here, mother, on Diamond's back.”

She came running to the ladder, and peeping down, saw him aloft on the
great horse.

“Come down, Diamond,” she said.

“I can't,” answered Diamond.

“How did you get up?” asked his mother.

“Quite easily,” answered he; “but when I got up, Diamond would get up
too, and so here I am.”

His mother thought he had been walking in his sleep again, and hurried
down the ladder. She did not much like going up to the horse, for she
had not been used to horses; but she would have gone into a lion's den,
not to say a horse's stall, to help her boy. So she went and lifted him
off Diamond's back, and felt braver all her life after. She carried him
in her arms up to her room; but, afraid of frightening him at his own
sleep-walking, as she supposed it, said nothing about last night. Before
the next day was over, Diamond had almost concluded the whole adventure
a dream.

For a week his mother watched him very carefully--going into the loft
several times a night--as often, in fact, as she woke. Every time she
found him fast asleep.

All that week it was hard weather. The grass showed white in the morning
with the hoar-frost which clung like tiny comfits to every blade. And
as Diamond's shoes were not good, and his mother had not quite saved
up enough money to get him the new pair she so much wanted for him,
she would not let him run out. He played all his games over and over
indoors, especially that of driving two chairs harnessed to the baby's
cradle; and if they did not go very fast, they went as fast as could be
expected of the best chairs in the world, although one of them had only
three legs, and the other only half a back.

At length his mother brought home his new shoes, and no sooner did she
find they fitted him than she told him he might run out in the yard and
amuse himself for an hour.

The sun was going down when he flew from the door like a bird from its
cage. All the world was new to him. A great fire of sunset burned on the
top of the gate that led from the stables to the house; above the fire
in the sky lay a large lake of green light, above that a golden cloud,
and over that the blue of the wintry heavens. And Diamond thought that,
next to his own home, he had never seen any place he would like so much
to live in as that sky. For it is not fine things that make home a nice
place, but your mother and your father.

As he was looking at the lovely colours, the gates were thrown open,
and there was old Diamond and his friend in the carriage, dancing with
impatience to get at their stalls and their oats. And in they came.
Diamond was not in the least afraid of his father driving over him, but,
careful not to spoil the grand show he made with his fine horses and his
multitudinous cape, with a red edge to every fold, he slipped out of the
way and let him dash right on to the stables. To be quite safe he had
to step into the recess of the door that led from the yard to the
shrubbery.

As he stood there he remembered how the wind had driven him to this same
spot on the night of his dream. And once more he was almost sure that
it was no dream. At all events, he would go in and see whether things
looked at all now as they did then. He opened the door, and passed
through the little belt of shrubbery. Not a flower was to be seen in the
beds on the lawn. Even the brave old chrysanthemums and Christmas roses
had passed away before the frost. What? Yes! There was one! He ran and
knelt down to look at it.

It was a primrose--a dwarfish thing, but perfect in shape--a
baby-wonder. As he stooped his face to see it close, a little wind began
to blow, and two or three long leaves that stood up behind the flower
shook and waved and quivered, but the primrose lay still in the green
hollow, looking up at the sky, and not seeming to know that the wind was
blowing at all. It was just a one eye that the dull black wintry earth
had opened to look at the sky with. All at once Diamond thought it was
saying its prayers, and he ought not to be staring at it so. He ran to
the stable to see his father make Diamond's bed. Then his father took
him in his arms, carried him up the ladder, and set him down at the
table where they were going to have their tea.

“Miss is very poorly,” said Diamond's father. “Mis'ess has been to
the doctor with her to-day, and she looked very glum when she came out
again. I was a-watching of them to see what doctor had said.”

“And didn't Miss look glum too?” asked his mother.

“Not half as glum as Mis'ess,” returned the coachman. “You see--”

But he lowered his voice, and Diamond could not make out more than a
word here and there. For Diamond's father was not only one of the finest
of coachmen to look at, and one of the best of drivers, but one of
the most discreet of servants as well. Therefore he did not talk about
family affairs to any one but his wife, whom he had proved better than
himself long ago, and was careful that even Diamond should hear nothing
he could repeat again concerning master and his family.

It was bed-time soon, and Diamond went to bed and fell fast asleep.

He awoke all at once, in the dark.

“Open the window, Diamond,” said a voice.

Now Diamond's mother had once more pasted up North Wind's window.

“Are you North Wind?” said Diamond: “I don't hear you blowing.”

“No; but you hear me talking. Open the window, for I haven't overmuch
time.”

“Yes,” returned Diamond. “But, please, North Wind, where's the use? You
left me all alone last time.”

He had got up on his knees, and was busy with his nails once more at the
paper over the hole in the wall. For now that North Wind spoke again,
he remembered all that had taken place before as distinctly as if it had
happened only last night.

“Yes, but that was your fault,” returned North Wind. “I had work to do;
and, besides, a gentleman should never keep a lady waiting.”

“But I'm not a gentleman,” said Diamond, scratching away at the paper.

“I hope you won't say so ten years after this.”

“I'm going to be a coachman, and a coachman is not a gentleman,”
 persisted Diamond.

“We call your father a gentleman in our house,” said North Wind.

“He doesn't call himself one,” said Diamond.

“That's of no consequence: every man ought to be a gentleman, and your
father is one.”

Diamond was so pleased to hear this that he scratched at the paper like
ten mice, and getting hold of the edge of it, tore it off. The next
instant a young girl glided across the bed, and stood upon the floor.

“Oh dear!” said Diamond, quite dismayed; “I didn't know--who are you,
please?”

“I'm North Wind.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes. Make haste.”

“But you're no bigger than me.”

“Do you think I care about how big or how little I am? Didn't you see me
this evening? I was less then.”

“No. Where was you?”

“Behind the leaves of the primrose. Didn't you see them blowing?”

“Yes.”

“Make haste, then, if you want to go with me.”

“But you are not big enough to take care of me. I think you are only
Miss North Wind.”

“I am big enough to show you the way, anyhow. But if you won't come,
why, you must stay.”

“I must dress myself. I didn't mind with a grown lady, but I couldn't go
with a little girl in my night-gown.”

“Very well. I'm not in such a hurry as I was the other night. Dress
as fast as you can, and I'll go and shake the primrose leaves till you
come.”

“Don't hurt it,” said Diamond.

North Wind broke out in a little laugh like the breaking of silver
bubbles, and was gone in a moment. Diamond saw--for it was a starlit
night, and the mass of hay was at a low ebb now--the gleam of something
vanishing down the stair, and, springing out of bed, dressed himself as
fast as ever he could. Then he crept out into the yard, through the
door in the wall, and away to the primrose. Behind it stood North
Wind, leaning over it, and looking at the flower as if she had been its
mother.

“Come along,” she said, jumping up and holding out her hand.

Diamond took her hand. It was cold, but so pleasant and full of life, it
was better than warm. She led him across the garden. With one bound she
was on the top of the wall. Diamond was left at the foot.

“Stop, stop!” he cried. “Please, I can't jump like that.”

“You don't try,” said North Wind, who from the top looked down a foot
taller than before.

“Give me your hand again, and I will, try,” said Diamond.

She reached down, Diamond laid hold of her hand, gave a great spring,
and stood beside her.

“This is nice!” he said.

Another bound, and they stood in the road by the river. It was full
tide, and the stars were shining clear in its depths, for it lay still,
waiting for the turn to run down again to the sea. They walked along its
side. But they had not walked far before its surface was covered with
ripples, and the stars had vanished from its bosom.

And North Wind was now tall as a full-grown girl. Her hair was flying
about her head, and the wind was blowing a breeze down the river. But
she turned aside and went up a narrow lane, and as she went her hair
fell down around her.

“I have some rather disagreeable work to do to-night,” she said, “before
I get out to sea, and I must set about it at once. The disagreeable work
must be looked after first.”

So saying, she laid hold of Diamond and began to run, gliding along
faster and faster. Diamond kept up with her as well as he could. She
made many turnings and windings, apparently because it was not quite
easy to get him over walls and houses. Once they ran through a hall
where they found back and front doors open. At the foot of the stair
North Wind stood still, and Diamond, hearing a great growl, started in
terror, and there, instead of North Wind, was a huge wolf by his side.
He let go his hold in dismay, and the wolf bounded up the stair. The
windows of the house rattled and shook as if guns were firing, and the
sound of a great fall came from above. Diamond stood with white face
staring up at the landing.

“Surely,” he thought, “North Wind can't be eating one of the children!”
 Coming to himself all at once, he rushed after her with his little fist
clenched. There were ladies in long trains going up and down the stairs,
and gentlemen in white neckties attending on them, who stared at him,
but none of them were of the people of the house, and they said nothing.
Before he reached the head of the stair, however, North Wind met him,
took him by the hand, and hurried down and out of the house.

“I hope you haven't eaten a baby, North Wind!” said Diamond, very
solemnly.

North Wind laughed merrily, and went tripping on faster. Her grassy robe
swept and swirled about her steps, and wherever it passed over withered
leaves, they went fleeing and whirling in spirals, and running on their
edges like wheels, all about her feet.

“No,” she said at last, “I did not eat a baby. You would not have had
to ask that foolish question if you had not let go your hold of me. You
would have seen how I served a nurse that was calling a child bad names,
and telling her she was wicked. She had been drinking. I saw an ugly gin
bottle in a cupboard.”

“And you frightened her?” said Diamond.

“I believe so!” answered North Wind laughing merrily. “I flew at her
throat, and she tumbled over on the floor with such a crash that they
ran in. She'll be turned away to-morrow--and quite time, if they knew as
much as I do.”

“But didn't you frighten the little one?”

“She never saw me. The woman would not have seen me either if she had
not been wicked.”

“Oh!” said Diamond, dubiously.

“Why should you see things,” returned North Wind, “that you wouldn't
understand or know what to do with? Good people see good things; bad
people, bad things.”

“Then are you a bad thing?”

“No. For you see me, Diamond, dear,” said the girl, and she looked down
at him, and Diamond saw the loving eyes of the great lady beaming from
the depths of her falling hair.

“I had to make myself look like a bad thing before she could see me. If
I had put on any other shape than a wolf's she would not have seen me,
for that is what is growing to be her own shape inside of her.”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Diamond, “but I suppose it's all
right.”

They were now climbing the slope of a grassy ascent. It was Primrose
Hill, in fact, although Diamond had never heard of it. The moment they
reached the top, North Wind stood and turned her face towards London. The
stars were still shining clear and cold overhead. There was not a cloud
to be seen. The air was sharp, but Diamond did not find it cold.

“Now,” said the lady, “whatever you do, do not let my hand go. I might
have lost you the last time, only I was not in a hurry then: now I am in
a hurry.”

Yet she stood still for a moment.




CHAPTER IV. NORTH WIND


AND as she stood looking towards London, Diamond saw that she was
trembling.

“Are you cold, North Wind?” he asked.

“No, Diamond,” she answered, looking down upon him with a smile; “I am
only getting ready to sweep one of my rooms. Those careless, greedy,
untidy children make it in such a mess.”

As she spoke he could have told by her voice, if he had not seen with
his eyes, that she was growing larger and larger. Her head went up and
up towards the stars; and as she grew, still trembling through all her
body, her hair also grew--longer and longer, and lifted itself from her
head, and went out in black waves. The next moment, however, it fell
back around her, and she grew less and less till she was only a tall
woman. Then she put her hands behind her head, and gathered some of her
hair, and began weaving and knotting it together. When she had done, she
bent down her beautiful face close to his, and said--

“Diamond, I am afraid you would not keep hold of me, and if I were to
drop you, I don't know what might happen; so I have been making a place
for you in my hair. Come.”

Diamond held out his arms, for with that grand face looking at him,
he believed like a baby. She took him in her hands, threw him over her
shoulder, and said, “Get in, Diamond.”

And Diamond parted her hair with his hands, crept between, and feeling
about soon found the woven nest. It was just like a pocket, or like
the shawl in which gipsy women carry their children. North Wind put her
hands to her back, felt all about the nest, and finding it safe, said--

“Are you comfortable, Diamond?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered Diamond.

The next moment he was rising in the air. North Wind grew towering up to
the place of the clouds. Her hair went streaming out from her, till it
spread like a mist over the stars. She flung herself abroad in space.

Diamond held on by two of the twisted ropes which, parted and
interwoven, formed his shelter, for he could not help being a little
afraid. As soon as he had come to himself, he peeped through the woven
meshes, for he did not dare to look over the top of the nest. The earth
was rushing past like a river or a sea below him. Trees and water and
green grass hurried away beneath. A great roar of wild animals rose
as they rushed over the Zoological Gardens, mixed with a chattering of
monkeys and a screaming of birds; but it died away in a moment behind
them. And now there was nothing but the roofs of houses, sweeping along
like a great torrent of stones and rocks. Chimney-pots fell, and tiles
flew from the roofs; but it looked to him as if they were left behind
by the roofs and the chimneys as they scudded away. There was a great
roaring, for the wind was dashing against London like a sea; but at
North Wind's back Diamond, of course, felt nothing of it all. He was in
a perfect calm. He could hear the sound of it, that was all.

By and by he raised himself and looked over the edge of his nest. There
were the houses rushing up and shooting away below him, like a fierce
torrent of rocks instead of water. Then he looked up to the sky, but
could see no stars; they were hidden by the blinding masses of the
lady's hair which swept between. He began to wonder whether she would
hear him if he spoke. He would try.

“Please, North Wind,” he said, “what is that noise?”

From high over his head came the voice of North Wind, answering him,
gently--

“The noise of my besom. I am the old woman that sweeps the cobwebs from
the sky; only I'm busy with the floor now.”

“What makes the houses look as if they were running away?”

“I am sweeping so fast over them.”

“But, please, North Wind, I knew London was very big, but I didn't know
it was so big as this. It seems as if we should never get away from it.”

“We are going round and round, else we should have left it long ago.”

“Is this the way you sweep, North Wind?”

“Yes; I go round and round with my great besom.”

“Please, would you mind going a little slower, for I want to see the
streets?”

“You won't see much now.”

“Why?”

“Because I have nearly swept all the people home.”

“Oh! I forgot,” said Diamond, and was quiet after that, for he did not
want to be troublesome.

But she dropped a little towards the roofs of the houses, and Diamond
could see down into the streets. There were very few people about,
though. The lamps flickered and flared again, but nobody seemed to want
them.

Suddenly Diamond espied a little girl coming along a street. She was
dreadfully blown by the wind, and a broom she was trailing behind her
was very troublesome. It seemed as if the wind had a spite at her--it
kept worrying her like a wild beast, and tearing at her rags. She was so
lonely there!

“Oh! please, North Wind,” he cried, “won't you help that little girl?”

“No, Diamond; I mustn't leave my work.”

“But why shouldn't you be kind to her?”

“I am kind to her. I am sweeping the wicked smells away.”

“But you're kinder to me, dear North Wind. Why shouldn't you be as kind
to her as you are to me?”

“There are reasons, Diamond. Everybody can't be done to all the same.
Everybody is not ready for the same thing.”

“But I don't see why I should be kinder used than she.”

“Do you think nothing's to be done but what you can see, Diamond, you
silly! It's all right. Of course you can help her if you like. You've
got nothing particular to do at this moment; I have.”

“Oh! do let me help her, then. But you won't be able to wait, perhaps?”

“No, I can't wait; you must do it yourself. And, mind, the wind will get
a hold of you, too.”

“Don't you want me to help her, North Wind?”

“Not without having some idea what will happen. If you break down and
cry, that won't be much of a help to her, and it will make a goose of
little Diamond.”

“I want to go,” said Diamond. “Only there's just one thing--how am I to
get home?”

“If you're anxious about that, perhaps you had better go with me. I am
bound to take you home again, if you do.”

“There!” cried Diamond, who was still looking after the little girl.
“I'm sure the wind will blow her over, and perhaps kill her. Do let me
go.”

They had been sweeping more slowly along the line of the street. There
was a lull in the roaring.

“Well, though I cannot promise to take you home,” said North Wind, as
she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, “I can promise
you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow. Have you
made up your mind what to do?”

“Yes; to help the little girl,” said Diamond firmly.

The same moment North Wind dropt into the street and stood, only a tall
lady, but with her hair flying up over the housetops. She put her hands
to her back, took Diamond, and set him down in the street. The same
moment he was caught in the fierce coils of the blast, and all but blown
away. North Wind stepped back a step, and at once towered in stature to
the height of the houses. A chimney-pot clashed at Diamond's feet. He
turned in terror, but it was to look for the little girl, and when he
turned again the lady had vanished, and the wind was roaring along the
street as if it had been the bed of an invisible torrent. The little
girl was scudding before the blast, her hair flying too, and behind her
she dragged her broom. Her little legs were going as fast as ever they
could to keep her from falling. Diamond crept into the shelter of a
doorway, thinking to stop her; but she passed him like a bird, crying
gently and pitifully.

“Stop! stop! little girl,” shouted Diamond, starting in pursuit.

“I can't,” wailed the girl, “the wind won't leave go of me.”

Diamond could run faster than she, and he had no broom. In a few moments
he had caught her by the frock, but it tore in his hand, and away went
the little girl. So he had to run again, and this time he ran so fast
that he got before her, and turning round caught her in his arms, when
down they went both together, which made the little girl laugh in the
midst of her crying.

“Where are you going?” asked Diamond, rubbing the elbow that had stuck
farthest out. The arm it belonged to was twined round a lamp-post as he
stood between the little girl and the wind.

“Home,” she said, gasping for breath.

“Then I will go with you,” said Diamond.

And then they were silent for a while, for the wind blew worse than
ever, and they had both to hold on to the lamp-post.

“Where is your crossing?” asked the girl at length.

“I don't sweep,” answered Diamond.

“What do you do, then?” asked she. “You ain't big enough for most
things.”

“I don't know what I do do,” answered he, feeling rather ashamed.
“Nothing, I suppose. My father's Mr. Coleman's coachman.”

“Have you a father?” she said, staring at him as if a boy with a father
was a natural curiosity.

“Yes. Haven't you?” returned Diamond.

“No; nor mother neither. Old Sal's all I've got.” And she began to cry
again.

“I wouldn't go to her if she wasn't good to me,” said Diamond.

“But you must go somewheres.”

“Move on,” said the voice of a policeman behind them.

“I told you so,” said the girl. “You must go somewheres. They're always
at it.”

“But old Sal doesn't beat you, does she?”

“I wish she would.”

“What do you mean?” asked Diamond, quite bewildered.

“She would if she was my mother. But she wouldn't lie abed a-cuddlin' of
her ugly old bones, and laugh to hear me crying at the door.”

“You don't mean she won't let you in to-night?”

“It'll be a good chance if she does.”

“Why are you out so late, then?” asked Diamond.

“My crossing's a long way off at the West End, and I had been indulgin'
in door-steps and mewses.”

“We'd better have a try anyhow,” said Diamond. “Come along.”

As he spoke Diamond thought he caught a glimpse of North Wind turning a
corner in front of them; and when they turned the corner too, they found
it quiet there, but he saw nothing of the lady.

“Now you lead me,” he said, taking her hand, “and I'll take care of
you.”

The girl withdrew her hand, but only to dry her eyes with her frock, for
the other had enough to do with her broom. She put it in his again, and
led him, turning after turning, until they stopped at a cellar-door in a
very dirty lane. There she knocked.

“I shouldn't like to live here,” said Diamond.

“Oh, yes, you would, if you had nowhere else to go to,” answered the
girl. “I only wish we may get in.”

“I don't want to go in,” said Diamond.

“Where do you mean to go, then?”

“Home to my home.”

“Where's that?”

“I don't exactly know.”

“Then you're worse off than I am.”

“Oh no, for North Wind--” began Diamond, and stopped, he hardly knew
why.

“What?” said the girl, as she held her ear to the door listening.

But Diamond did not reply. Neither did old Sal.

“I told you so,” said the girl. “She is wide awake hearkening. But we
don't get in.”

“What will you do, then?” asked Diamond.

“Move on,” she answered.

“Where?”

“Oh, anywheres. Bless you, I'm used to it.”

“Hadn't you better come home with me, then?”

“That's a good joke, when you don't know where it is. Come on.”

“But where?”

“Oh, nowheres in particular. Come on.”

Diamond obeyed. The wind had now fallen considerably. They wandered on
and on, turning in this direction and that, without any reason for one
way more than another, until they had got out of the thick of the houses
into a waste kind of place. By this time they were both very tired.
Diamond felt a good deal inclined to cry, and thought he had been very
silly to get down from the back of North Wind; not that he would have
minded it if he had done the girl any good; but he thought he had been
of no use to her. He was mistaken there, for she was far happier for
having Diamond with her than if she had been wandering about alone. She
did not seem so tired as he was.

“Do let us rest a bit,” said Diamond.

“Let's see,” she answered. “There's something like a railway there.
Perhaps there's an open arch.”

They went towards it and found one, and, better still, there was an
empty barrel lying under the arch.

“Hallo! here we are!” said the girl. “A barrel's the jolliest bed
going--on the tramp, I mean. We'll have forty winks, and then go on
again.”

She crept in, and Diamond crept in beside her. They put their arms round
each other, and when he began to grow warm, Diamond's courage began to
come back.

“This is jolly!” he said. “I'm so glad!”

“I don't think so much of it,” said the girl. “I'm used to it, I
suppose. But I can't think how a kid like you comes to be out all alone
this time o' night.”

She called him a kid, but she was not really a month older than he was;
only she had had to work for her bread, and that so soon makes people
older.

“But I shouldn't have been out so late if I hadn't got down to help
you,” said Diamond. “North Wind is gone home long ago.”

“I think you must ha' got out o' one o' them Hidget Asylms,” said the
girl. “You said something about the north wind afore that I couldn't get
the rights of.”

So now, for the sake of his character, Diamond had to tell her the whole
story.

She did not believe a word of it. She said he wasn't such a flat as to
believe all that bosh. But as she spoke there came a great blast of wind
through the arch, and set the barrel rolling. So they made haste to get
out of it, for they had no notion of being rolled over and over as if
they had been packed tight and wouldn't hurt, like a barrel of herrings.

“I thought we should have had a sleep,” said Diamond; “but I can't say
I'm very sleepy after all. Come, let's go on again.”

They wandered on and on, sometimes sitting on a door-step, but always
turning into lanes or fields when they had a chance.

They found themselves at last on a rising ground that sloped rather
steeply on the other side. It was a waste kind of spot below, bounded by
an irregular wall, with a few doors in it. Outside lay broken things in
general, from garden rollers to flower-pots and wine-bottles. But the
moment they reached the brow of the rising ground, a gust of wind
seized them and blew them down hill as fast as they could run. Nor could
Diamond stop before he went bang against one of the doors in the wall.
To his dismay it burst open. When they came to themselves they peeped
in. It was the back door of a garden.

“Ah, ah!” cried Diamond, after staring for a few moments, “I thought
so! North Wind takes nobody in! Here I am in master's garden! I tell you
what, little girl, you just bore a hole in old Sal's wall, and put your
mouth to it, and say, 'Please, North Wind, mayn't I go out with you?'
and then you'll see what'll come.”

“I daresay I shall. But I'm out in the wind too often already to want
more of it.”

“I said with the North Wind, not in it.”

“It's all one.”

“It's not all one.”

“It is all one.”

“But I know best.”

“And I know better. I'll box your ears,” said the girl.

Diamond got very angry. But he remembered that even if she did box his
ears, he musn't box hers again, for she was a girl, and all that boys
must do, if girls are rude, is to go away and leave them. So he went in
at the door.

“Good-bye, mister” said the girl.

This brought Diamond to his senses.

“I'm sorry I was cross,” he said. “Come in, and my mother will give you
some breakfast.”

“No, thank you. I must be off to my crossing. It's morning now.”

“I'm very sorry for you,” said Diamond.

“Well, it is a life to be tired of--what with old Sal, and so many holes
in my shoes.”

“I wonder you're so good. I should kill myself.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn't! When I think of it, I always want to see what's
coming next, and so I always wait till next is over. Well! I suppose
there's somebody happy somewheres. But it ain't in them carriages. Oh
my! how they do look sometimes--fit to bite your head off! Good-bye!”

She ran up the hill and disappeared behind it. Then Diamond shut the
door as he best could, and ran through the kitchen-garden to the stable.
And wasn't he glad to get into his own blessed bed again!




CHAPTER V. THE SUMMER-HOUSE


DIAMOND said nothing to his mother about his adventures. He had half a
notion that North Wind was a friend of his mother, and that, if she did
not know all about it, at least she did not mind his going anywhere with
the lady of the wind. At the same time he doubted whether he might not
appear to be telling stories if he told all, especially as he could
hardly believe it himself when he thought about it in the middle of the
day, although when the twilight was once half-way on to night he had no
doubt about it, at least for the first few days after he had been with
her. The girl that swept the crossing had certainly refused to believe
him. Besides, he felt sure that North Wind would tell him if he ought to
speak.

It was some time before he saw the lady of the wind again. Indeed
nothing remarkable took place in Diamond's history until the following
week. This was what happened then. Diamond the horse wanted new shoes,
and Diamond's father took him out of the stable, and was just getting on
his back to ride him to the forge, when he saw his little boy standing
by the pump, and looking at him wistfully. Then the coachman took his
foot out of the stirrup, left his hold of the mane and bridle, came
across to his boy, lifted him up, and setting him on the horse's back,
told him to sit up like a man. He then led away both Diamonds together.

The boy atop felt not a little tremulous as the great muscles that
lifted the legs of the horse knotted and relaxed against his legs, and
he cowered towards the withers, grasping with his hands the bit of mane
worn short by the collar; but when his father looked back at him,
saying once more, “Sit up, Diamond,” he let the mane go and sat up,
notwithstanding that the horse, thinking, I suppose, that his master
had said to him, “Come up, Diamond,” stepped out faster. For both the
Diamonds were just grandly obedient. And Diamond soon found that, as he
was obedient to his father, so the horse was obedient to him. For he had
not ridden far before he found courage to reach forward and catch hold
of the bridle, and when his father, whose hand was upon it, felt the boy
pull it towards him, he looked up and smiled, and, well pleased, let go
his hold, and left Diamond to guide Diamond; and the boy soon found that
he could do so perfectly. It was a grand thing to be able to guide a
great beast like that. And another discovery he made was that, in order
to guide the horse, he had in a measure to obey the horse first. If he
did not yield his body to the motions of the horse's body, he could not
guide him; he must fall off.

The blacksmith lived at some distance, deeper into London. As they
crossed the angle of a square, Diamond, who was now quite comfortable
on his living throne, was glancing this way and that in a gentle pride,
when he saw a girl sweeping a crossing scuddingly before a lady. The
lady was his father's mistress, Mrs. Coleman, and the little girl was
she for whose sake he had got off North Wind's back. He drew Diamond's
bridle in eager anxiety to see whether her outstretched hand would
gather a penny from Mrs. Coleman. But she had given one at the last
crossing, and the hand returned only to grasp its broom. Diamond could
not bear it. He had a penny in his pocket, a gift of the same lady the
day before, and he tumbled off his horse to give it to the girl. He
tumbled off, I say, for he did tumble when he reached the ground. But he
got up in an instant, and ran, searching his pocket as he ran. She
made him a pretty courtesy when he offered his treasure, but with a
bewildered stare. She thought first: “Then he was on the back of the
North Wind after all!” but, looking up at the sound of the horse's feet
on the paved crossing, she changed her idea, saying to herself, “North
Wind is his father's horse! That's the secret of it! Why couldn't he say
so?” And she had a mind to refuse the penny. But his smile put it all
right, and she not only took his penny but put it in her mouth with a
“Thank you, mister. Did they wollop you then?”

“Oh no!” answered Diamond. “They never wollops me.”

“Lor!” said the little girl, and was speechless.

Meantime his father, looking up, and seeing the horse's back bare,
suffered a pang of awful dread, but the next moment catching sight of
him, took him up and put him on, saying--

“Don't get off again, Diamond. The horse might have put his foot on
you.”

“No, father,” answered the boy, and rode on in majestic safety.

The summer drew near, warm and splendid. Miss Coleman was a little
better in health, and sat a good deal in the garden. One day she saw
Diamond peeping through the shrubbery, and called him. He talked to her
so frankly that she often sent for him after that, and by degrees it
came about that he had leave to run in the garden as he pleased. He
never touched any of the flowers or blossoms, for he was not like some
boys who cannot enjoy a thing without pulling it to pieces, and so
preventing every one from enjoying it after them.

A week even makes such a long time in a child's life, that Diamond had
begun once more to feel as if North Wind were a dream of some far-off
year.

One hot evening, he had been sitting with the young mistress, as they
called her, in a little summer-house at the bottom of the lawn--a
wonderful thing for beauty, the boy thought, for a little window in the
side of it was made of coloured glass. It grew dusky, and the lady began
to feel chill, and went in, leaving the boy in the summer-house. He sat
there gazing out at a bed of tulips, which, although they had closed for
the night, could not go quite asleep for the wind that kept waving
them about. All at once he saw a great bumble-bee fly out of one of the
tulips.

“There! that is something done,” said a voice--a gentle, merry, childish
voice, but so tiny. “At last it was. I thought he would have had to stay
there all night, poor fellow! I did.”

Diamond could not tell whether the voice was near or far away, it was so
small and yet so clear. He had never seen a fairy, but he had heard of
such, and he began to look all about for one. And there was the tiniest
creature sliding down the stem of the tulip!

“Are you the fairy that herds the bees?” he asked, going out of the
summer-house, and down on his knees on the green shore of the tulip-bed.

“I'm not a fairy,” answered the little creature.

“How do you know that?”

“It would become you better to ask how you are to know it.”

“You've just told me.”

“Yes. But what's the use of knowing a thing only because you're told
it?”

“Well, how am I to know you are not a fairy? You do look very like one.”

“In the first place, fairies are much bigger than you see me.”

“Oh!” said Diamond reflectively; “I thought they were very little.”

“But they might be tremendously bigger than I am, and yet not very big.
Why, I could be six times the size I am, and not be very huge. Besides,
a fairy can't grow big and little at will, though the nursery-tales do
say so: they don't know better. You stupid Diamond! have you never seen
me before?”

And, as she spoke, a moan of wind bent the tulips almost to the ground,
and the creature laid her hand on Diamond's shoulder. In a moment he
knew that it was North Wind.

“I am very stupid,” he said; “but I never saw you so small before, not
even when you were nursing the primrose.”

“Must you see me every size that can be measured before you know me,
Diamond?”

“But how could I think it was you taking care of a great stupid
bumble-bee?”

“The more stupid he was the more need he had to be taken care of. What
with sucking honey and trying to open the door, he was nearly dated; and
when it opened in the morning to let the sun see the tulip's heart, what
would the sun have thought to find such a stupid thing lying there--with
wings too?”

“But how do you have time to look after bees?”

“I don't look after bees. I had this one to look after. It was hard
work, though.”

“Hard work! Why, you could blow a chimney down, or--or a boy's cap off,”
 said Diamond.

“Both are easier than to blow a tulip open. But I scarcely know the
difference between hard and easy. I am always able for what I have to
do. When I see my work, I just rush at it--and it is done. But I mustn't
chatter. I have got to sink a ship to-night.”

“Sink a ship! What! with men in it?”

“Yes, and women too.”

“How dreadful! I wish you wouldn't talk so.”

“It is rather dreadful. But it is my work. I must do it.”

“I hope you won't ask me to go with you.”

“No, I won't ask you. But you must come for all that.”

“I won't then.”

“Won't you?” And North Wind grew a tall lady, and looked him in the
eyes, and Diamond said--

“Please take me. You cannot be cruel.”

“No; I could not be cruel if I would. I can do nothing cruel, although I
often do what looks like cruel to those who do not know what I really am
doing. The people they say I drown, I only carry away to--to--to--well,
the back of the North Wind--that is what they used to call it long ago,
only I never saw the place.”

“How can you carry them there if you never saw it?”

“I know the way.”

“But how is it you never saw it?”

“Because it is behind me.”

“But you can look round.”

“Not far enough to see my own back. No; I always look before me. In
fact, I grow quite blind and deaf when I try to see my back. I only mind
my work.”

“But how does it be your work?”

“Ah, that I can't tell you. I only know it is, because when I do it I
feel all right, and when I don't I feel all wrong. East Wind says--only
one does not exactly know how much to believe of what she says, for she
is very naughty sometimes--she says it is all managed by a baby; but
whether she is good or naughty when she says that, I don't know. I just
stick to my work. It is all one to me to let a bee out of a tulip, or to
sweep the cobwebs from the sky. You would like to go with me to-night?”

“I don't want to see a ship sunk.”

“But suppose I had to take you?”

“Why, then, of course I must go.”

“There's a good Diamond.--I think I had better be growing a bit. Only
you must go to bed first. I can't take you till you're in bed. That's
the law about the children. So I had better go and do something else
first.”

“Very well, North Wind,” said Diamond. “What are you going to do first,
if you please?”

“I think I may tell you. Jump up on the top of the wall, there.”

“I can't.”

“Ah! and I can't help you--you haven't been to bed yet, you see. Come
out to the road with me, just in front of the coach-house, and I will
show you.”

North Wind grew very small indeed, so small that she could not have
blown the dust off a dusty miller, as the Scotch children call a yellow
auricula. Diamond could not even see the blades of grass move as she
flitted along by his foot. They left the lawn, went out by the wicket
in the-coach-house gates, and then crossed the road to the low wall that
separated it from the river.

“You can get up on this wall, Diamond,” said North Wind.

“Yes; but my mother has forbidden me.”

“Then don't,” said North Wind.

“But I can see over,” said Diamond.

“Ah! to be sure. I can't.”

So saying, North Wind gave a little bound, and stood on the top of the
wall. She was just about the height a dragon-fly would be, if it stood
on end.

“You darling!” said Diamond, seeing what a lovely little toy-woman she
was.

“Don't be impertinent, Master Diamond,” said North Wind. “If there's one
thing makes me more angry than another, it is the way you humans judge
things by their size. I am quite as respectable now as I shall be six
hours after this, when I take an East Indiaman by the royals, twist her
round, and push her under. You have no right to address me in such a
fashion.”

But as she spoke, the tiny face wore the smile of a great, grand woman.
She was only having her own beautiful fun out of Diamond, and true
woman's fun never hurts.

“But look there!” she resumed. “Do you see a boat with one man in it--a
green and white boat?”

“Yes; quite well.”

“That's a poet.”

“I thought you said it was a bo-at.”

“Stupid pet! Don't you know what a poet is?”

“Why, a thing to sail on the water in.”

“Well, perhaps you're not so far wrong. Some poets do carry people over
the sea. But I have no business to talk so much. The man is a poet.”

“The boat is a boat,” said Diamond.

“Can't you spell?” asked North Wind.

“Not very well.”

“So I see. A poet is not a bo-at, as you call it. A poet is a man who is
glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too.”

“Ah! now I know. Like the man in the sweety-shop.”

“Not very. But I see it is no use. I wasn't sent to tell you, and so I
can't tell you. I must be off. Only first just look at the man.”

“He's not much of a rower” said Diamond--“paddling first with one fin
and then with the other.”

“Now look here!” said North Wind.

And she flashed like a dragon-fly across the water, whose surface
rippled and puckered as she passed. The next moment the man in the boat
glanced about him, and bent to his oars. The boat flew over the rippling
water. Man and boat and river were awake. The same instant almost, North
Wind perched again upon the river wall.

“How did you do that?” asked Diamond.

“I blew in his face,” answered North Wind. “I don't see how that could
do it,” said Diamond. “I daresay not. And therefore you will say you
don't believe it could.”

“No, no, dear North Wind. I know you too well not to believe you.”

“Well, I blew in his face, and that woke him up.”

“But what was the good of it?”

“Why! don't you see? Look at him--how he is pulling. I blew the mist out
of him.”

“How was that?”

“That is just what I cannot tell you.”

“But you did it.”

“Yes. I have to do ten thousand things without being able to tell how.”

“I don't like that,” said Diamond.

He was staring after the boat. Hearing no answer, he looked down to the
wall.

North Wind was gone. Away across the river went a long ripple--what
sailors call a cat's paw. The man in the boat was putting up a sail. The
moon was coming to herself on the edge of a great cloud, and the sail
began to shine white. Diamond rubbed his eyes, and wondered what it was
all about. Things seemed going on around him, and all to understand
each other, but he could make nothing of it. So he put his hands in his
pockets, and went in to have his tea. The night was very hot, for the
wind had fallen again.

“You don't seem very well to-night, Diamond,” said his mother.

“I am quite well, mother,” returned Diamond, who was only puzzled.

“I think you had better go to bed,” she added.

“Very well, mother,” he answered.

He stopped for one moment to look out of the window. Above the moon the
clouds were going different ways. Somehow or other this troubled him,
but, notwithstanding, he was soon fast asleep.

He woke in the middle of the night and the darkness. A terrible noise
was rumbling overhead, like the rolling beat of great drums echoing
through a brazen vault. The roof of the loft in which he lay had no
ceiling; only the tiles were between him and the sky. For a while he
could not come quite awake, for the noise kept beating him down, so that
his heart was troubled and fluttered painfully. A second peal of thunder
burst over his head, and almost choked him with fear. Nor did he recover
until the great blast that followed, having torn some tiles off the
roof, sent a spout of wind down into his bed and over his face, which
brought him wide awake, and gave him back his courage. The same moment
he heard a mighty yet musical voice calling him.

“Come up, Diamond,” it said. “It's all ready. I'm waiting for you.”

He looked out of the bed, and saw a gigantic, powerful, but most lovely
arm--with a hand whose fingers were nothing the less ladylike that they
could have strangled a boa-constrictor, or choked a tigress off its
prey--stretched down through a big hole in the roof. Without a moment's
hesitation he reached out his tiny one, and laid it in the grand palm
before him.




CHAPTER VI. OUT IN THE STORM


THE hand felt its way up his arm, and, grasping it gently and strongly
above the elbow, lifted Diamond from the bed. The moment he was through
the hole in the roof, all the winds of heaven seemed to lay hold upon
him, and buffet him hither and thither. His hair blew one way, his
night-gown another, his legs threatened to float from under him, and
his head to grow dizzy with the swiftness of the invisible assailant.
Cowering, he clung with the other hand to the huge hand which held his
arm, and fear invaded his heart.

“Oh, North Wind!” he murmured, but the words vanished from his lips as
he had seen the soap-bubbles that burst too soon vanish from the mouth
of his pipe. The wind caught them, and they were nowhere. They couldn't
get out at all, but were torn away and strangled. And yet North Wind
heard them, and in her answer it seemed to Diamond that just because she
was so big and could not help it, and just because her ear and her mouth
must seem to him so dreadfully far away, she spoke to him more tenderly
and graciously than ever before. Her voice was like the bass of a deep
organ, without the groan in it; like the most delicate of violin tones
without the wail in it; like the most glorious of trumpet-ejaculations
without the defiance in it; like the sound of falling water without
the clatter and clash in it: it was like all of them and neither
of them--all of them without their faults, each of them without its
peculiarity: after all, it was more like his mother's voice than
anything else in the world.

“Diamond, dear,” she said, “be a man. What is fearful to you is not the
least fearful to me.”

“But it can't hurt you,” murmured Diamond, “for you're it.”

“Then if I'm it, and have you in my arms, how can it hurt you?”

“Oh yes! I see,” whispered Diamond. “But it looks so dreadful, and it
pushes me about so.”

“Yes, it does, my dear. That is what it was sent for.”

At the same moment, a peal of thunder which shook Diamond's heart
against the sides of his bosom hurtled out of the heavens: I cannot
say out of the sky, for there was no sky. Diamond had not seen the
lightning, for he had been intent on finding the face of North Wind.
Every moment the folds of her garment would sweep across his eyes and
blind him, but between, he could just persuade himself that he saw great
glories of woman's eyes looking down through rifts in the mountainous
clouds over his head.

He trembled so at the thunder, that his knees failed him, and he sunk
down at North Wind's feet, and clasped her round the column of her
ankle. She instantly stooped, lifted him from the roof--up--up into her
bosom, and held him there, saying, as if to an inconsolable child--

“Diamond, dear, this will never do.”

“Oh yes, it will,” answered Diamond. “I am all right now--quite
comfortable, I assure you, dear North Wind. If you will only let me stay
here, I shall be all right indeed.”

“But you will feel the wind here, Diamond.”

“I don't mind that a bit, so long as I feel your arms through it,”
 answered Diamond, nestling closer to her grand bosom.

“Brave boy!” returned North Wind, pressing him closer.

“No,” said Diamond, “I don't see that. It's not courage at all, so long
as I feel you there.”

“But hadn't you better get into my hair? Then you would not feel the
wind; you will here.”

“Ah, but, dear North Wind, you don't know how nice it is to feel your
arms about me. It is a thousand times better to have them and the wind
together, than to have only your hair and the back of your neck and no
wind at all.”

“But it is surely more comfortable there?”

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being
comfortable.”

“Yes, indeed there are. Well, I will keep you in front of me. You will
feel the wind, but not too much. I shall only want one arm to take care
of you; the other will be quite enough to sink the ship.”

“Oh, dear North Wind! how can you talk so?”

“My dear boy, I never talk; I always mean what I say.”

“Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?”

“Yes.”

“It's not like you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Quite easily. Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one
arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like
you.”

“Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know.”

“No. Nobody can be two mes.”

“Well, which me is me?”

“Now I must think. There looks to be two.”

“Yes. That's the very point.--You can't be knowing the thing you don't
know, can you?”

“No.”

“Which me do you know?”

“The kindest, goodest, best me in the world,” answered Diamond, clinging
to North Wind.

“Why am I good to you?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you ever done anything for me?”

“No.”

“Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you.”

“Yes.”

“Why should I choose?”

“Because--because--because you like.”

“Why should I like to be good to you?”

“I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me.”

“That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good.”

“Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?”

“That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?”

“I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?”

“Because I am.”

“There it is again,” said Diamond. “I don't see that you are. It looks
quite the other thing.”

“Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that
is good.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the other me as well?”

“No. I can't. I shouldn't like to.”

“There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?”

“Yes.”

“And you are sure there can't be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do
know,--else there would be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do
know?”

“Yes.”

“Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I
confess freely. Have you anything more to object?”

“No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied.”

“Then I will tell you something you might object. You might say that the
me you know is like the other me, and that I am cruel all through.”

“I know that can't be, because you are so kind.”

“But that kindness might be only a pretence for the sake of being more
cruel afterwards.”

Diamond clung to her tighter than ever, crying--

“No, no, dear North Wind; I can't believe that. I don't believe it. I
won't believe it. That would kill me. I love you, and you must love me,
else how did I come to love you? How could you know how to put on such a
beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest? No. You may sink
as many ships as you like, and I won't say another word. I can't say I
shall like to see it, you know.”

“That's quite another thing,” said North Wind; and as she spoke she gave
one spring from the roof of the hay-loft, and rushed up into the clouds,
with Diamond on her left arm close to her heart. And as if the clouds
knew she had come, they burst into a fresh jubilation of thunderous
light. For a few moments, Diamond seemed to be borne up through the
depths of an ocean of dazzling flame; the next, the winds were writhing
around him like a storm of serpents. For they were in the midst of
the clouds and mists, and they of course took the shapes of the wind,
eddying and wreathing and whirling and shooting and dashing about like
grey and black water, so that it was as if the wind itself had taken
shape, and he saw the grey and black wind tossing and raving most madly
all about him. Now it blinded him by smiting him upon the eyes; now it
deafened him by bellowing in his ears; for even when the thunder came he
knew now that it was the billows of the great ocean of the air dashing
against each other in their haste to fill the hollow scooped out by the
lightning; now it took his breath quite away by sucking it from his body
with the speed of its rush. But he did not mind it. He only gasped first
and then laughed, for the arm of North Wind was about him, and he was
leaning against her bosom. It is quite impossible for me to describe
what he saw. Did you ever watch a great wave shoot into a winding
passage amongst rocks? If you ever did, you would see that the water
rushed every way at once, some of it even turning back and opposing
the rest; greater confusion you might see nowhere except in a crowd of
frightened people. Well, the wind was like that, except that it went
much faster, and therefore was much wilder, and twisted and shot and
curled and dodged and clashed and raved ten times more madly than
anything else in creation except human passions. Diamond saw the threads
of the lady's hair streaking it all. In parts indeed he could not tell
which was hair and which was black storm and vapour. It seemed sometimes
that all the great billows of mist-muddy wind were woven out of the
crossing lines of North Wind's infinite hair, sweeping in endless
intertwistings. And Diamond felt as the wind seized on his hair, which
his mother kept rather long, as if he too was a part of the storm, and
some of its life went out from him. But so sheltered was he by North
Wind's arm and bosom that only at times, in the fiercer onslaught of
some curl-billowed eddy, did he recognise for a moment how wild was the
storm in which he was carried, nestling in its very core and formative
centre.

It seemed to Diamond likewise that they were motionless in this centre,
and that all the confusion and fighting went on around them. Flash after
flash illuminated the fierce chaos, revealing in varied yellow and blue
and grey and dusky red the vapourous contention; peal after peal of
thunder tore the infinite waste; but it seemed to Diamond that North
Wind and he were motionless, all but the hair. It was not so. They were
sweeping with the speed of the wind itself towards the sea.




CHAPTER VII. THE CATHEDRAL


I MUST not go on describing what cannot be described, for nothing is
more wearisome.

Before they reached the sea, Diamond felt North Wind's hair just
beginning to fall about him.

“Is the storm over, North Wind?” he called out.

“No, Diamond. I am only waiting a moment to set you down. You would not
like to see the ship sunk, and I am going to give you a place to stop in
till I come back for you.”

“Oh! thank you,” said Diamond. “I shall be sorry to leave you, North
Wind, but I would rather not see the ship go down. And I'm afraid the
poor people will cry, and I should hear them. Oh, dear!”

“There are a good many passengers on board; and to tell the truth,
Diamond, I don't care about your hearing the cry you speak of. I am
afraid you would not get it out of your little head again for a long
time.”

“But how can you bear it then, North Wind? For I am sure you are kind. I
shall never doubt that again.”

“I will tell you how I am able to bear it, Diamond: I am always hearing,
through every noise, through all the noise I am making myself even, the
sound of a far-off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it
means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it
were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in
which I make such a storm; but what I do hear is quite enough to make
me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you
could hear it.”

“No, it wouldn't,” returned Diamond, stoutly. “For they wouldn't hear
the music of the far-away song; and if they did, it wouldn't do them
any good. You see you and I are not going to be drowned, and so we might
enjoy it.”

“But you have never heard the psalm, and you don't know what it is like.
Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is
coming to swallow up all cries.”

“But that won't do them any good--the people, I mean,” persisted
Diamond.

“It must. It must,” said North Wind, hurriedly. “It wouldn't be the song
it seems to be if it did not swallow up all their fear and pain too, and
set them singing it themselves with the rest. I am sure it will. And do
you know, ever since I knew I had hair, that is, ever since it began
to go out and away, that song has been coming nearer and nearer. Only I
must say it was some thousand years before I heard it.”

“But how can you say it was coming nearer when you did not hear it?”
 asked doubting little Diamond.

“Since I began to hear it, I know it is growing louder, therefore I
judge it was coming nearer and nearer until I did hear it first. I'm not
so very old, you know--a few thousand years only--and I was quite a baby
when I heard the noise first, but I knew it must come from the voices
of people ever so much older and wiser than I was. I can't sing at all,
except now and then, and I can never tell what my song is going to be; I
only know what it is after I have sung it.--But this will never do. Will
you stop here?”

“I can't see anywhere to stop,” said Diamond. “Your hair is all down
like a darkness, and I can't see through it if I knock my eyes into it
ever so much.”

“Look, then,” said North Wind; and, with one sweep of her great white
arm, she swept yards deep of darkness like a great curtain from before
the face of the boy.

And lo! it was a blue night, lit up with stars. Where it did not shine
with stars it shimmered with the milk of the stars, except where, just
opposite to Diamond's face, the grey towers of a cathedral blotted out
each its own shape of sky and stars.

“Oh! what's that?” cried Diamond, struck with a kind of terror, for he
had never seen a cathedral, and it rose before him with an awful reality
in the midst of the wide spaces, conquering emptiness with grandeur.

“A very good place for you to wait in,” said North Wind. “But we shall
go in, and you shall judge for yourself.”

There was an open door in the middle of one of the towers, leading out
upon the roof, and through it they passed. Then North Wind set Diamond
on his feet, and he found himself at the top of a stone stair, which
went twisting away down into the darkness for only a little light came
in at the door. It was enough, however, to allow Diamond to see that
North Wind stood beside him. He looked up to find her face, and saw that
she was no longer a beautiful giantess, but the tall gracious lady he
liked best to see. She took his hand, and, giving him the broad part
of the spiral stair to walk on, led him down a good way; then, opening
another little door, led him out upon a narrow gallery that ran all
round the central part of the church, on the ledges of the windows
of the clerestory, and through openings in the parts of the wall that
divided the windows from each other. It was very narrow, and except when
they were passing through the wall, Diamond saw nothing to keep him
from falling into the church. It lay below him like a great silent gulf
hollowed in stone, and he held his breath for fear as he looked down.

“What are you trembling for, little Diamond?” said the lady, as she
walked gently along, with her hand held out behind her leading him, for
there was not breadth enough for them to walk side by side.

“I am afraid of falling down there,” answered Diamond. “It is so deep
down.”

“Yes, rather,” answered North Wind; “but you were a hundred times higher
a few minutes ago.”

“Ah, yes, but somebody's arm was about me then,” said Diamond, putting
his little mouth to the beautiful cold hand that had a hold of his.

“What a dear little warm mouth you've got!” said North Wind. “It is a
pity you should talk nonsense with it. Don't you know I have a hold of
you?”

“Yes; but I'm walking on my own legs, and they might slip. I can't trust
myself so well as your arms.”

“But I have a hold of you, I tell you, foolish child.”

“Yes, but somehow I can't feel comfortable.”

“If you were to fall, and my hold of you were to give way, I should be
down after you in a less moment than a lady's watch can tick, and catch
you long before you had reached the ground.”

“I don't like it though,” said Diamond.

“Oh! oh! oh!” he screamed the next moment, bent double with terror, for
North Wind had let go her hold of his hand, and had vanished, leaving
him standing as if rooted to the gallery.

She left the words, “Come after me,” sounding in his ears.

But move he dared not. In a moment more he would from very terror have
fallen into the church, but suddenly there came a gentle breath of cool
wind upon his face, and it kept blowing upon him in little puffs, and at
every puff Diamond felt his faintness going away, and his fear with it.
Courage was reviving in his little heart, and still the cool wafts of
the soft wind breathed upon him, and the soft wind was so mighty and
strong within its gentleness, that in a minute more Diamond was marching
along the narrow ledge as fearless for the time as North Wind herself.

He walked on and on, with the windows all in a row on one side of him,
and the great empty nave of the church echoing to every one of his brave
strides on the other, until at last he came to a little open door, from
which a broader stair led him down and down and down, till at last all
at once he found himself in the arms of North Wind, who held him close
to her, and kissed him on the forehead. Diamond nestled to her, and
murmured into her bosom,--“Why did you leave me, dear North Wind?”

“Because I wanted you to walk alone,” she answered.

“But it is so much nicer here!” said Diamond.

“I daresay; but I couldn't hold a little coward to my heart. It would
make me so cold!”

“But I wasn't brave of myself,” said Diamond, whom my older readers will
have already discovered to be a true child in this, that he was given to
metaphysics. “It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave.
Wasn't it now, North Wind?”

“Yes: I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you
couldn't know what it was without feeling it: therefore it was given
you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next
time?”

“Yes, I do. But trying is not much.”

“Yes, it is--a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning
is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The
coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he
is made so, and never had to try.”

“How kind you are, North Wind!”

“I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.”

“I don't quite understand that.”

“Never mind; you will some day. There is no hurry about understanding it
now.”

“Who blew the wind on me that made me brave?”

“I did.”

“I didn't see you.”

“Therefore you can believe me.”

“Yes, yes; of course. But how was it that such a little breath could be
so strong?”

“That I don't know.”

“But you made it strong?”

“No: I only blew it. I knew it would make you strong, just as it did the
man in the boat, you remember. But how my breath has that power I cannot
tell. It was put into it when I was made. That is all I know. But really
I must be going about my work.”

“Ah! the poor ship! I wish you would stop here, and let the poor ship
go.”

“That I dare not do. Will you stop here till I come back?”

“Yes. You won't be long?”

“Not longer than I can help. Trust me, you shall get home before the
morning.”

In a moment North Wind was gone, and the next Diamond heard a moaning
about the church, which grew and grew to a roaring. The storm was up
again, and he knew that North Wind's hair was flying.

The church was dark. Only a little light came through the windows, which
were almost all of that precious old stained glass which is so much
lovelier than the new. But Diamond could not see how beautiful they
were, for there was not enough of light in the stars to show the colours
of them. He could only just distinguish them from the walls, He looked
up, but could not see the gallery along which he had passed. He could
only tell where it was far up by the faint glimmer of the windows of
the clerestory, whose sills made part of it. The church grew very lonely
about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken
it. Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

He began to feel his way about the place, and for a while went wandering
up and down. His little footsteps waked little answering echoes in the
great house. It wasn't too big to mind him. It was as if the church knew
he was there, and meant to make itself his house. So it went on giving
back an answer to every step, until at length Diamond thought he should
like to say something out loud, and see what the church would answer.
But he found he was afraid to speak. He could not utter a word for fear
of the loneliness. Perhaps it was as well that he did not, for the sound
of a spoken word would have made him feel the place yet more deserted
and empty. But he thought he could sing. He was fond of singing, and
at home he used to sing, to tunes of his own, all the nursery rhymes he
knew. So he began to try `Hey diddle diddle', but it wouldn't do. Then
he tried `Little Boy Blue', but it was no better. Neither would `Sing a
Song of Sixpence' sing itself at all. Then he tried `Poor old Cockytoo',
but he wouldn't do. They all sounded so silly! and he had never thought
them silly before. So he was quiet, and listened to the echoes that came
out of the dark corners in answer to his footsteps.

At last he gave a great sigh, and said, “I'm so tired.” But he did not
hear the gentle echo that answered from far away over his head, for at
the same moment he came against the lowest of a few steps that stretched
across the church, and fell down and hurt his arm. He cried a little
first, and then crawled up the steps on his hands and knees. At the top
he came to a little bit of carpet, on which he lay down; and there he
lay staring at the dull window that rose nearly a hundred feet above his
head.

Now this was the eastern window of the church, and the moon was at that
moment just on the edge of the horizon. The next, she was peeping over
it. And lo! with the moon, St. John and St. Paul, and the rest of them,
began to dawn in the window in their lovely garments. Diamond did not
know that the wonder-working moon was behind, and he thought all the
light was coming out of the window itself, and that the good old men
were appearing to help him, growing out of the night and the darkness,
because he had hurt his arm, and was very tired and lonely, and North
Wind was so long in coming. So he lay and looked at them backwards over
his head, wondering when they would come down or what they would do
next. They were very dim, for the moonlight was not strong enough for
the colours, and he had enough to do with his eyes trying to make out
their shapes. So his eyes grew tired, and more and more tired, and his
eyelids grew so heavy that they would keep tumbling down over his eyes.
He kept lifting them and lifting them, but every time they were heavier
than the last. It was no use: they were too much for him. Sometimes
before he had got them half up, down they were again; and at length he
gave it up quite, and the moment he gave it up, he was fast asleep.




CHAPTER VIII. THE EAST WINDOW


THAT Diamond had fallen fast asleep is very evident from the strange
things he now fancied as taking place. For he thought he heard a sound
as of whispering up in the great window. He tried to open his eyes, but
he could not. And the whispering went on and grew louder and louder,
until he could hear every word that was said. He thought it was the
Apostles talking about him. But he could not open his eyes.

“And how comes he to be lying there, St. Peter?” said one.

“I think I saw him a while ago up in the gallery, under the Nicodemus
window. Perhaps he has fallen down.

“What do you think, St. Matthew?”

“I don't think he could have crept here after falling from such a
height. He must have been killed.”

“What are we to do with him? We can't leave him lying there. And we
could not make him comfortable up here in the window: it's rather
crowded already. What do you say, St. Thomas?”

“Let's go down and look at him.”

There came a rustling, and a chinking, for some time, and then there was
a silence, and Diamond felt somehow that all the Apostles were standing
round him and looking down on him. And still he could not open his eyes.

“What is the matter with him, St. Luke?” asked one.

“There's nothing the matter with him,” answered St. Luke, who must
have joined the company of the Apostles from the next window, one would
think. “He's in a sound sleep.”

“I have it,” cried another. “This is one of North Wind's tricks. She
has caught him up and dropped him at our door, like a withered leaf or a
foundling baby. I don't understand that woman's conduct, I must say. As
if we hadn't enough to do with our money, without going taking care
of other people's children! That's not what our forefathers built
cathedrals for.”

Now Diamond could not bear to hear such things against North Wind, who,
he knew, never played anybody a trick. She was far too busy with her own
work for that. He struggled hard to open his eyes, but without success.

“She should consider that a church is not a place for pranks, not to
mention that we live in it,” said another.

“It certainly is disrespectful of her. But she always is disrespectful.
What right has she to bang at our windows as she has been doing the
whole of this night? I daresay there is glass broken somewhere. I know
my blue robe is in a dreadful mess with the rain first and the dust
after. It will cost me shillings to clean it.”

Then Diamond knew that they could not be Apostles, talking like this.
They could only be the sextons and vergers and such-like, who got up at
night, and put on the robes of deans and bishops, and called each other
grand names, as the foolish servants he had heard his father tell of
call themselves lords and ladies, after their masters and mistresses.
And he was so angry at their daring to abuse North Wind, that he jumped
up, crying--“North Wind knows best what she is about. She has a good
right to blow the cobwebs from your windows, for she was sent to do it.
She sweeps them away from grander places, I can tell you, for I've been
with her at it.”

This was what he began to say, but as he spoke his eyes came wide open,
and behold, there were neither Apostles nor vergers there--not even a
window with the effigies of holy men in it, but a dark heap of hay all
about him, and the little panes in the roof of his loft glimmering blue
in the light of the morning. Old Diamond was coming awake down below in
the stable. In a moment more he was on his feet, and shaking himself so
that young Diamond's bed trembled under him.

“He's grand at shaking himself,” said Diamond. “I wish I could shake
myself like that. But then I can wash myself, and he can't. What fun
it would be to see Old Diamond washing his face with his hoofs and iron
shoes! Wouldn't it be a picture?”

So saying, he got up and dressed himself. Then he went out into the
garden. There must have been a tremendous wind in the night, for
although all was quiet now, there lay the little summer-house crushed
to the ground, and over it the great elm-tree, which the wind had broken
across, being much decayed in the middle. Diamond almost cried to see
the wilderness of green leaves, which used to be so far up in the blue
air, tossing about in the breeze, and liking it best when the wind blew
it most, now lying so near the ground, and without any hope of ever
getting up into the deep air again.

“I wonder how old the tree is!” thought Diamond. “It must take a long
time to get so near the sky as that poor tree was.”

“Yes, indeed,” said a voice beside him, for Diamond had spoken the last
words aloud.

Diamond started, and looking around saw a clergyman, a brother of Mrs.
Coleman, who happened to be visiting her. He was a great scholar, and
was in the habit of rising early.

“Who are you, my man?” he added.

“Little Diamond,” answered the boy.

“Oh! I have heard of you. How do you come to be up so early?”

“Because the sham Apostles talked such nonsense, they waked me up.”

The clergyman stared. Diamond saw that he had better have held his
tongue, for he could not explain things.

“You must have been dreaming, my little man,” said he. “Dear! dear!” he
went on, looking at the tree, “there has been terrible work here. This
is the north wind's doing. What a pity! I wish we lived at the back of
it, I'm sure.”

“Where is that sir?” asked Diamond.

“Away in the Hyperborean regions,” answered the clergyman, smiling.

“I never heard of the place,” returned Diamond.

“I daresay not,” answered the clergyman; “but if this tree had been
there now, it would not have been blown down, for there is no wind
there.”

“But, please, sir, if it had been there,” said Diamond, “we should not
have had to be sorry for it.”

“Certainly not.”

“Then we shouldn't have had to be glad for it, either.”

“You're quite right, my boy,” said the clergyman, looking at him very
kindly, as he turned away to the house, with his eyes bent towards the
earth. But Diamond thought within himself, “I will ask North Wind next
time I see her to take me to that country. I think she did speak about
it once before.”




CHAPTER IX. HOW DIAMOND GOT TO THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND


WHEN Diamond went home to breakfast, he found his father and mother
already seated at the table. They were both busy with their bread and
butter, and Diamond sat himself down in his usual place. His mother
looked up at him, and, after watching him for a moment, said:

“I don't think the boy is looking well, husband.”

“Don't you? Well, I don't know. I think he looks pretty bobbish. How do
you feel yourself, Diamond, my boy?”

“Quite well, thank you, father; at least, I think I've got a little
headache.”

“There! I told you,” said his father and mother both at once.

“The child's very poorly” added his mother.

“The child's quite well,” added his father.

And then they both laughed.

“You see,” said his mother, “I've had a letter from my sister at
Sandwich.”

“Sleepy old hole!” said his father.

“Don't abuse the place; there's good people in it,” said his mother.

“Right, old lady,” returned his father; “only I don't believe there are
more than two pair of carriage-horses in the whole blessed place.”

“Well, people can get to heaven without carriages--or coachmen either,
husband. Not that I should like to go without my coachman, you know. But
about the boy?”

“What boy?”

“That boy, there, staring at you with his goggle-eyes.”

“Have I got goggle-eyes, mother?” asked Diamond, a little dismayed.

“Not too goggle,” said his mother, who was quite proud of her boy's
eyes, only did not want to make him vain.

“Not too goggle; only you need not stare so.”

“Well, what about him?” said his father.

“I told you I had got a letter.”

“Yes, from your sister; not from Diamond.”

“La, husband! you've got out of bed the wrong leg first this morning, I
do believe.”

“I always get out with both at once,” said his father, laughing.

“Well, listen then. His aunt wants the boy to go down and see her.”

“And that's why you want to make out that he ain't looking well.”

“No more he is. I think he had better go.”

“Well, I don't care, if you can find the money,” said his father.

“I'll manage that,” said his mother; and so it was agreed that Diamond
should go to Sandwich.

I will not describe the preparations Diamond made. You would have
thought he had been going on a three months' voyage. Nor will I describe
the journey, for our business is now at the place. He was met at the
station by his aunt, a cheerful middle-aged woman, and conveyed in
safety to the sleepy old town, as his father called it. And no wonder
that it was sleepy, for it was nearly dead of old age.

Diamond went about staring with his beautiful goggle-eyes, at the quaint
old streets, and the shops, and the houses. Everything looked very
strange, indeed; for here was a town abandoned by its nurse, the sea,
like an old oyster left on the shore till it gaped for weariness. It
used to be one of the five chief seaports in England, but it began to
hold itself too high, and the consequence was the sea grew less and less
intimate with it, gradually drew back, and kept more to itself, till at
length it left it high and dry: Sandwich was a seaport no more; the sea
went on with its own tide-business a long way off, and forgot it. Of
course it went to sleep, and had no more to do with ships. That's what
comes to cities and nations, and boys and girls, who say, “I can do
without your help. I'm enough for myself.”

Diamond soon made great friends with an old woman who kept a toyshop,
for his mother had given him twopence for pocket-money before he left,
and he had gone into her shop to spend it, and she got talking to him.
She looked very funny, because she had not got any teeth, but Diamond
liked her, and went often to her shop, although he had nothing to spend
there after the twopence was gone.

One afternoon he had been wandering rather wearily about the streets
for some time. It was a hot day, and he felt tired. As he passed the
toyshop, he stepped in.

“Please may I sit down for a minute on this box?” he said, thinking the
old woman was somewhere in the shop. But he got no answer, and sat down
without one. Around him were a great many toys of all prices, from a
penny up to shillings. All at once he heard a gentle whirring somewhere
amongst them. It made him start and look behind him. There were the
sails of a windmill going round and round almost close to his ear. He
thought at first it must be one of those toys which are wound up and go
with clockwork; but no, it was a common penny toy, with the windmill at
the end of a whistle, and when the whistle blows the windmill goes. But
the wonder was that there was no one at the whistle end blowing, and
yet the sails were turning round and round--now faster, now slower, now
faster again.

“What can it mean?” said Diamond, aloud.

“It means me,” said the tiniest voice he had ever heard.

“Who are you, please?” asked Diamond.

“Well, really, I begin to be ashamed of you,” said the voice. “I wonder
how long it will be before you know me; or how often I might take you in
before you got sharp enough to suspect me. You are as bad as a baby that
doesn't know his mother in a new bonnet.”

“Not quite so bad as that, dear North Wind,” said Diamond, “for I didn't
see you at all, and indeed I don't see you yet, although I recognise
your voice. Do grow a little, please.”

“Not a hair's-breadth,” said the voice, and it was the smallest voice
that ever spoke. “What are you doing here?”

“I am come to see my aunt. But, please, North Wind, why didn't you come
back for me in the church that night?”

“I did. I carried you safe home. All the time you were dreaming about
the glass Apostles, you were lying in my arms.”

“I'm so glad,” said Diamond. “I thought that must be it, only I wanted
to hear you say so. Did you sink the ship, then?”

“Yes.”

“And drown everybody?”

“Not quite. One boat got away with six or seven men in it.”

“How could the boat swim when the ship couldn't?”

“Of course I had some trouble with it. I had to contrive a bit, and
manage the waves a little. When they're once thoroughly waked up, I have
a good deal of trouble with them sometimes. They're apt to get stupid
with tumbling over each other's heads. That's when they're fairly at it.
However, the boat got to a desert island before noon next day.”

“And what good will come of that?”

“I don't know. I obeyed orders. Good bye.”

“Oh! stay, North Wind, do stay!” cried Diamond, dismayed to see the
windmill get slower and slower.

“What is it, my dear child?” said North Wind, and the windmill began
turning again so swiftly that Diamond could scarcely see it. “What a big
voice you've got! and what a noise you do make with it? What is it you
want? I have little to do, but that little must be done.”

“I want you to take me to the country at the back of the north wind.”

“That's not so easy,” said North Wind, and was silent for so long that
Diamond thought she was gone indeed. But after he had quite given her
up, the voice began again.

“I almost wish old Herodotus had held his tongue about it. Much he knew
of it!”

“Why do you wish that, North Wind?”

“Because then that clergyman would never have heard of it, and set you
wanting to go. But we shall see. We shall see. You must go home now, my
dear, for you don't seem very well, and I'll see what can be done for
you. Don't wait for me. I've got to break a few of old Goody's toys;
she's thinking too much of her new stock. Two or three will do. There!
go now.”

Diamond rose, quite sorry, and without a word left the shop, and went
home.

It soon appeared that his mother had been right about him, for that same
afternoon his head began to ache very much, and he had to go to bed.

He awoke in the middle of the night. The lattice window of his room had
blown open, and the curtains of his little bed were swinging about in
the wind.

“If that should be North Wind now!” thought Diamond.

But the next moment he heard some one closing the window, and his aunt
came to his bedside. She put her hand on his face, and said--

“How's your head, dear?”

“Better, auntie, I think.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Oh, yes! I should, please.”

So his aunt gave him some lemonade, for she had been used to nursing
sick people, and Diamond felt very much refreshed, and laid his head
down again to go very fast asleep, as he thought. And so he did, but
only to come awake again, as a fresh burst of wind blew the lattice
open a second time. The same moment he found himself in a cloud of North
Wind's hair, with her beautiful face, set in it like a moon, bending
over him.

“Quick, Diamond!” she said. “I have found such a chance!”

“But I'm not well,” said Diamond.

“I know that, but you will be better for a little fresh air. You shall
have plenty of that.”

“You want me to go, then?”

“Yes, I do. It won't hurt you.”

“Very well,” said Diamond; and getting out of the bed-clothes, he jumped
into North Wind's arms.

“We must make haste before your aunt comes,” said she, as she glided out
of the open lattice and left it swinging.

The moment Diamond felt her arms fold around him he began to feel
better. It was a moonless night, and very dark, with glimpses of stars
when the clouds parted.

“I used to dash the waves about here,” said North Wind, “where cows and
sheep are feeding now; but we shall soon get to them. There they are.”

And Diamond, looking down, saw the white glimmer of breaking water far
below him.

“You see, Diamond,” said North Wind, “it is very difficult for me to
get you to the back of the north wind, for that country lies in the very
north itself, and of course I can't blow northwards.”

“Why not?” asked Diamond.

“You little silly!” said North Wind. “Don't you see that if I were to
blow northwards I should be South Wind, and that is as much as to say
that one person could be two persons?”

“But how can you ever get home at all, then?”

“You are quite right--that is my home, though I never get farther than
the outer door. I sit on the doorstep, and hear the voices inside. I am
nobody there, Diamond.”

“I'm very sorry.”

“Why?”

“That you should be nobody.”

“Oh, I don't mind it. Dear little man! you will be very glad some day
to be nobody yourself. But you can't understand that now, and you had
better not try; for if you do, you will be certain to go fancying some
egregious nonsense, and making yourself miserable about it.”

“Then I won't,” said Diamond.

“There's a good boy. It will all come in good time.”

“But you haven't told me how you get to the doorstep, you know.”

“It is easy enough for me. I have only to consent to be nobody, and
there I am. I draw into myself and there I am on the doorstep. But you
can easily see, or you have less sense than I think, that to drag you,
you heavy thing, along with me, would take centuries, and I could not
give the time to it.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry!” said Diamond.

“What for now, pet?”

“That I'm so heavy for you. I would be lighter if I could, but I don't
know how.”

“You silly darling! Why, I could toss you a hundred miles from me if I
liked. It is only when I am going home that I shall find you heavy.”

“Then you are going home with me?”

“Of course. Did I not come to fetch you just for that?”

“But all this time you must be going southwards.”

“Yes. Of course I am.”

“How can you be taking me northwards, then?”

“A very sensible question. But you shall see. I will get rid of a few of
these clouds--only they do come up so fast! It's like trying to blow a
brook dry. There! What do you see now?”

“I think I see a little boat, away there, down below.”

“A little boat, indeed! Well! She's a yacht of two hundred tons; and the
captain of it is a friend of mine; for he is a man of good sense, and
can sail his craft well. I've helped him many a time when he little
thought it. I've heard him grumbling at me, when I was doing the very
best I could for him. Why, I've carried him eighty miles a day, again
and again, right north.”

“He must have dodged for that,” said Diamond, who had been watching the
vessels, and had seen that they went other ways than the wind blew.

“Of course he must. But don't you see, it was the best I could do? I
couldn't be South Wind. And besides it gave him a share in the business.
It is not good at all--mind that, Diamond--to do everything for those
you love, and not give them a share in the doing. It's not kind. It's
making too much of yourself, my child. If I had been South Wind, he
would only have smoked his pipe all day, and made himself stupid.”

“But how could he be a man of sense and grumble at you when you were
doing your best for him?”

“Oh! you must make allowances,” said North Wind, “or you will never do
justice to anybody.--You do understand, then, that a captain may sail
north----”

“In spite of a north wind--yes,” supplemented Diamond.

“Now, I do think you must be stupid, my dear” said North Wind. “Suppose
the north wind did not blow where would he be then?”

“Why then the south wind would carry him.”

“So you think that when the north wind stops the south wind blows.
Nonsense. If I didn't blow, the captain couldn't sail his eighty miles
a day. No doubt South Wind would carry him faster, but South Wind is
sitting on her doorstep then, and if I stopped there would be a dead
calm. So you are all wrong to say he can sail north in spite of me; he
sails north by my help, and my help alone. You see that, Diamond?”

“Yes, I do, North Wind. I am stupid, but I don't want to be stupid.”

“Good boy! I am going to blow you north in that little craft, one of the
finest that ever sailed the sea. Here we are, right over it. I shall
be blowing against you; you will be sailing against me; and all will be
just as we want it. The captain won't get on so fast as he would like,
but he will get on, and so shall we. I'm just going to put you on board.
Do you see in front of the tiller--that thing the man is working, now to
one side, now to the other--a round thing like the top of a drum?”

“Yes,” said Diamond.

“Below that is where they keep their spare sails, and some stores of
that sort. I am going to blow that cover off. The same moment I will
drop you on deck, and you must tumble in. Don't be afraid, it is of no
depth, and you will fall on sail-cloth. You will find it nice and warm
and dry-only dark; and you will know I am near you by every roll and
pitch of the vessel. Coil yourself up and go to sleep. The yacht shall
be my cradle and you shall be my baby.”

“Thank you, dear North Wind. I am not a bit afraid,” said Diamond.

In a moment they were on a level with the bulwarks, and North Wind sent
the hatch of the after-store rattling away over the deck to leeward. The
next, Diamond found himself in the dark, for he had tumbled through the
hole as North Wind had told him, and the cover was replaced over his
head. Away he went rolling to leeward, for the wind began all at once to
blow hard. He heard the call of the captain, and the loud trampling of
the men over his head, as they hauled at the main sheet to get the boom
on board that they might take in a reef in the mainsail. Diamond felt
about until he had found what seemed the most comfortable place, and
there he snuggled down and lay.

Hours after hours, a great many of them, went by; and still Diamond
lay there. He never felt in the least tired or impatient, for a strange
pleasure filled his heart. The straining of the masts, the creaking of
the boom, the singing of the ropes, the banging of the blocks as they
put the vessel about, all fell in with the roaring of the wind above,
the surge of the waves past her sides, and the thud with which every now
and then one would strike her; while through it all Diamond could hear
the gurgling, rippling, talking flow of the water against her planks,
as she slipped through it, lying now on this side, now on that--like a
subdued air running through the grand music his North Wind was making
about him to keep him from tiring as they sped on towards the country at
the back of her doorstep.

How long this lasted Diamond had no idea. He seemed to fall asleep
sometimes, only through the sleep he heard the sounds going on. At
length the weather seemed to get worse. The confusion and trampling of
feet grew more frequent over his head; the vessel lay over more and
more on her side, and went roaring through the waves, which banged and
thumped at her as if in anger. All at once arose a terrible uproar. The
hatch was blown off; a cold fierce wind swept in upon him; and a long
arm came with it which laid hold of him and lifted him out. The same
moment he saw the little vessel far below him righting herself. She had
taken in all her sails and lay now tossing on the waves like a sea-bird
with folded wings. A short distance to the south lay a much larger
vessel, with two or three sails set, and towards it North Wind was
carrying Diamond. It was a German ship, on its way to the North Pole.

“That vessel down there will give us a lift now,” said North Wind; “and
after that I must do the best I can.”

She managed to hide him amongst the flags of the big ship, which were
all snugly stowed away, and on and on they sped towards the north. At
length one night she whispered in his ear, “Come on deck, Diamond;” and
he got up at once and crept on deck. Everything looked very strange.
Here and there on all sides were huge masses of floating ice, looking
like cathedrals, and castles, and crags, while away beyond was a blue
sea.

“Is the sun rising or setting?” asked Diamond.

“Neither or both, which you please. I can hardly tell which myself. If
he is setting now, he will be rising the next moment.”

“What a strange light it is!” said Diamond. “I have heard that the sun
doesn't go to bed all the summer in these parts. Miss Coleman told me
that. I suppose he feels very sleepy, and that is why the light he sends
out looks so like a dream.”

“That will account for it well enough for all practical purposes,” said
North Wind.

Some of the icebergs were drifting northwards; one was passing very near
the ship. North Wind seized Diamond, and with a single bound lighted on
one of them--a huge thing, with sharp pinnacles and great clefts. The
same instant a wind began to blow from the south. North Wind hurried
Diamond down the north side of the iceberg, stepping by its jags and
splintering; for this berg had never got far enough south to be melted
and smoothed by the summer sun. She brought him to a cave near the
water, where she entered, and, letting Diamond go, sat down as if weary
on a ledge of ice.

Diamond seated himself on the other side, and for a while was enraptured
with the colour of the air inside the cave. It was a deep, dazzling,
lovely blue, deeper than the deepest blue of the sky. The blue seemed to
be in constant motion, like the blackness when you press your eyeballs
with your fingers, boiling and sparkling. But when he looked across to
North Wind he was frightened; her face was worn and livid.

“What is the matter with you, dear North Wind?” he said.

“Nothing much. I feel very faint. But you mustn't mind it, for I can
bear it quite well. South Wind always blows me faint. If it were not for
the cool of the thick ice between me and her, I should faint altogether.
Indeed, as it is, I fear I must vanish.”

Diamond stared at her in terror, for he saw that her form and face were
growing, not small, but transparent, like something dissolving, not in
water, but in light. He could see the side of the blue cave through her
very heart. And she melted away till all that was left was a pale face,
like the moon in the morning, with two great lucid eyes in it.

“I am going, Diamond,” she said.

“Does it hurt you?” asked Diamond.

“It's very uncomfortable,” she answered; “but I don't mind it, for I
shall come all right again before long. I thought I should be able to go
with you all the way, but I cannot. You must not be frightened though.
Just go straight on, and you will come all right. You'll find me on the
doorstep.”

As she spoke, her face too faded quite away, only Diamond thought he
could still see her eyes shining through the blue. When he went closer,
however, he found that what he thought her eyes were only two hollows in
the ice. North Wind was quite gone; and Diamond would have cried, if he
had not trusted her so thoroughly. So he sat still in the blue air of
the cavern listening to the wash and ripple of the water all about the
base of the iceberg, as it sped on and on into the open sea northwards.
It was an excellent craft to go with the current, for there was twice as
much of it below water as above. But a light south wind was blowing too,
and so it went fast.

After a little while Diamond went out and sat on the edge of his
floating island, and looked down into the ocean beneath him. The white
sides of the berg reflected so much light below the water, that he could
see far down into the green abyss. Sometimes he fancied he saw the eyes
of North Wind looking up at him from below, but the fancy never lasted
beyond the moment of its birth. And the time passed he did not know how,
for he felt as if he were in a dream. When he got tired of the green
water, he went into the blue cave; and when he got tired of the blue
cave he went out and gazed all about him on the blue sea, ever sparkling
in the sun, which kept wheeling about the sky, never going below the
horizon. But he chiefly gazed northwards, to see whether any land were
appearing. All this time he never wanted to eat. He broke off little
bits of the berg now and then and sucked them, and he thought them very
nice.

At length, one time he came out of his cave, he spied far off on the
horizon, a shining peak that rose into the sky like the top of some
tremendous iceberg; and his vessel was bearing him straight towards
it. As it went on the peak rose and rose higher and higher above the
horizon; and other peaks rose after it, with sharp edges and jagged
ridges connecting them. Diamond thought this must be the place he was
going to; and he was right; for the mountains rose and rose, till he saw
the line of the coast at their feet and at length the iceberg drove into
a little bay, all around which were lofty precipices with snow on their
tops, and streaks of ice down their sides. The berg floated slowly up to
a projecting rock. Diamond stepped on shore, and without looking behind
him began to follow a natural path which led windingly towards the top
of the precipice.

When he reached it, he found himself on a broad table of ice,
along which he could walk without much difficulty. Before him, at a
considerable distance, rose a lofty ridge of ice, which shot up into
fantastic pinnacles and towers and battlements. The air was very cold,
and seemed somehow dead, for there was not the slightest breath of wind.

In the centre of the ridge before him appeared a gap like the opening
of a valley. But as he walked towards it, gazing, and wondering whether
that could be the way he had to take, he saw that what had appeared a
gap was the form of a woman seated against the ice front of the ridge,
leaning forwards with her hands in her lap, and her hair hanging down to
the ground.

“It is North Wind on her doorstep,” said Diamond joyfully, and hurried
on.

He soon came up to the place, and there the form sat, like one of
the great figures at the door of an Egyptian temple, motionless, with
drooping arms and head. Then Diamond grew frightened, because she did
not move nor speak. He was sure it was North Wind, but he thought she
must be dead at last. Her face was white as the snow, her eyes were
blue as the air in the ice-cave, and her hair hung down straight, like
icicles. She had on a greenish robe, like the colour in the hollows of a
glacier seen from far off.

He stood up before her, and gazed fearfully into her face for a few
minutes before he ventured to speak. At length, with a great effort and
a trembling voice, he faltered out--

“North Wind!”

“Well, child?” said the form, without lifting its head.

“Are you ill, dear North Wind?”

“No. I am waiting.”

“What for?”

“Till I'm wanted.”

“You don't care for me any more,” said Diamond, almost crying now.

“Yes I do. Only I can't show it. All my love is down at the bottom of my
heart. But I feel it bubbling there.”

“What do you want me to do next, dear North Wind?” said Diamond, wishing
to show his love by being obedient.

“What do you want to do yourself?”

“I want to go into the country at your back.”

“Then you must go through me.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I mean just what I say. You must walk on as if I were an open door, and
go right through me.”

“But that will hurt you.”

“Not in the least. It will hurt you, though.”

“I don't mind that, if you tell me to do it.”

“Do it,” said North Wind.

Diamond walked towards her instantly. When he reached her knees, he put
out his hand to lay it on her, but nothing was there save an intense
cold. He walked on. Then all grew white about him; and the cold stung
him like fire. He walked on still, groping through the whiteness. It
thickened about him. At last, it got into his heart, and he lost all
sense. I would say that he fainted--only whereas in common faints all
grows black about you, he felt swallowed up in whiteness. It was when he
reached North Wind's heart that he fainted and fell. But as he fell, he
rolled over the threshold, and it was thus that Diamond got to the back
of the north wind.




CHAPTER X. AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND


I HAVE now come to the most difficult part of my story. And why? Because
I do not know enough about it. And why should I not know as much about
this part as about any other part? For of course I could know nothing
about the story except Diamond had told it; and why should not Diamond
tell about the country at the back of the north wind, as well as about
his adventures in getting there? Because, when he came back, he had
forgotten a great deal, and what he did remember was very hard to tell.
Things there are so different from things here! The people there do not
speak the same language for one thing. Indeed, Diamond insisted that
there they do not speak at all. I do not think he was right, but it may
well have appeared so to Diamond. The fact is, we have different reports
of the place from the most trustworthy people. Therefore we are bound
to believe that it appears somewhat different to different people. All,
however, agree in a general way about it.

I will tell you something of what two very different people have
reported, both of whom knew more about it, I believe, than Herodotus.
One of them speaks from his own experience, for he visited the country;
the other from the testimony of a young peasant girl who came back from
it for a month's visit to her friends. The former was a great Italian
of noble family, who died more than five hundred years ago; the latter a
Scotch shepherd who died not forty years ago.

The Italian, then, informs us that he had to enter that country through
a fire so hot that he would have thrown himself into boiling glass to
cool himself. This was not Diamond's experience, but then Durante--that
was the name of the Italian, and it means Lasting, for his books will
last as long as there are enough men in the world worthy of having
them--Durante was an elderly man, and Diamond was a little boy, and so
their experience must be a little different. The peasant girl, on the
other hand, fell fast asleep in a wood, and woke in the same country.

In describing it, Durante says that the ground everywhere smelt sweetly,
and that a gentle, even-tempered wind, which never blew faster or
slower, breathed in his face as he went, making all the leaves point one
way, not so as to disturb the birds in the tops of the trees, but, on
the contrary, sounding a bass to their song. He describes also a little
river which was so full that its little waves, as it hurried along, bent
the grass, full of red and yellow flowers, through which it flowed. He
says that the purest stream in the world beside this one would look as
if it were mixed with something that did not belong to it, even although
it was flowing ever in the brown shadow of the trees, and neither sun
nor moon could shine upon it. He seems to imply that it is always the
month of May in that country. It would be out of place to describe here
the wonderful sights he saw, for the music of them is in another key
from that of this story, and I shall therefore only add from the account
of this traveller, that the people there are so free and so just and so
healthy, that every one of them has a crown like a king and a mitre like
a priest.

The peasant girl--Kilmeny was her name--could not report such grand
things as Durante, for, as the shepherd says, telling her story as I
tell Diamond's--

           “Kilmeny had been she knew not where,
           And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
           Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
           Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.
           But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
           And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,
           When she spoke of the lovely forms she had seen,
           And a land where sin had never been;
           A land of love and a land of light,
           Withouten sun, or moon, or night;
           Where the river swayed a living stream,
           And the light a pure and cloudless beam:
           The land of vision it would seem,
           And still an everlasting dream.”


The last two lines are the shepherd's own remark, and a matter of
opinion. But it is clear, I think, that Kilmeny must have described
the same country as Durante saw, though, not having his experience, she
could neither understand nor describe it so well.

Now I must give you such fragments of recollection as Diamond was able
to bring back with him.

When he came to himself after he fell, he found himself at the back of
the north wind. North Wind herself was nowhere to be seen. Neither
was there a vestige of snow or of ice within sight. The sun too had
vanished; but that was no matter, for there was plenty of a certain
still rayless light. Where it came from he never found out; but he
thought it belonged to the country itself. Sometimes he thought it came
out of the flowers, which were very bright, but had no strong colour.
He said the river--for all agree that there is a river there--flowed
not only through, but over grass: its channel, instead of being rock,
stones, pebbles, sand, or anything else, was of pure meadow grass, not
over long. He insisted that if it did not sing tunes in people's ears,
it sung tunes in their heads, in proof of which I may mention that, in
the troubles which followed, Diamond was often heard singing; and when
asked what he was singing, would answer, “One of the tunes the river
at the back of the north wind sung.” And I may as well say at once that
Diamond never told these things to any one but--no, I had better not say
who it was; but whoever it was told me, and I thought it would be well
to write them for my child-readers.

He could not say he was very happy there, for he had neither his father
nor mother with him, but he felt so still and quiet and patient and
contented, that, as far as the mere feeling went, it was something
better than mere happiness. Nothing went wrong at the back of the north
wind. Neither was anything quite right, he thought. Only everything was
going to be right some day. His account disagreed with that of Durante,
and agreed with that of Kilmeny, in this, that he protested there was no
wind there at all. I fancy he missed it. At all events we could not do
without wind. It all depends on how big our lungs are whether the wind
is too strong for us or not.

When the person he told about it asked him whether he saw anybody he
knew there, he answered, “Only a little girl belonging to the gardener,
who thought he had lost her, but was quite mistaken, for there she was
safe enough, and was to come back some day, as I came back, if they
would only wait.”

“Did you talk to her, Diamond?”

“No. Nobody talks there. They only look at each other, and understand
everything.”

“Is it cold there?”

“No.”

“Is it hot?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“You never think about such things there.”

“What a queer place it must be!”

“It's a very good place.”

“Do you want to go back again?”

“No; I don't think I have left it; I feel it here, somewhere.”

“Did the people there look pleased?”

“Yes--quite pleased, only a little sad.”

“Then they didn't look glad?”

“They looked as if they were waiting to be gladder some day.”

This was how Diamond used to answer questions about that country. And
now I will take up the story again, and tell you how he got back to this
country.




CHAPTER XI. HOW DIAMOND GOT HOME AGAIN


WHEN one at the back of the north wind wanted to know how things were
going with any one he loved, he had to go to a certain tree, climb the
stem, and sit down in the branches. In a few minutes, if he kept very
still, he would see something at least of what was going on with the
people he loved.

One day when Diamond was sitting in this tree, he began to long very
much to get home again, and no wonder, for he saw his mother crying.
Durante says that the people there may always follow their wishes,
because they never wish but what is good. Diamond's wish was to get
home, and he would fain follow his wish.

But how was he to set about it? If he could only see North Wind! But the
moment he had got to her back, she was gone altogether from his sight.
He had never seen her back. She might be sitting on her doorstep still,
looking southwards, and waiting, white and thin and blue-eyed, until she
was wanted. Or she might have again become a mighty creature, with
power to do that which was demanded of her, and gone far away upon many
missions. She must be somewhere, however. He could not go home without
her, and therefore he must find her. She could never have intended to
leave him always away from his mother. If there had been any danger of
that, she would have told him, and given him his choice about going. For
North Wind was right honest. How to find North Wind, therefore, occupied
all his thoughts.

In his anxiety about his mother, he used to climb the tree every day,
and sit in its branches. However many of the dwellers there did so, they
never incommoded one another; for the moment one got into the tree, he
became invisible to every one else; and it was such a wide-spreading
tree that there was room for every one of the people of the country
in it, without the least interference with each other. Sometimes, on
getting down, two of them would meet at the root, and then they would
smile to each other more sweetly than at any other time, as much as to
say, “Ah, you've been up there too!”

One day he was sitting on one of the outer branches of the tree, looking
southwards after his home. Far away was a blue shining sea, dotted with
gleaming and sparkling specks of white. Those were the icebergs. Nearer
he saw a great range of snow-capped mountains, and down below him the
lovely meadow-grass of the country, with the stream flowing and flowing
through it, away towards the sea. As he looked he began to wonder, for
the whole country lay beneath him like a map, and that which was near
him looked just as small as that which he knew to be miles away. The
ridge of ice which encircled it appeared but a few yards off, and no
larger than the row of pebbles with which a child will mark out the
boundaries of the kingdom he has appropriated on the sea-shore. He
thought he could distinguish the vapoury form of North Wind, seated as
he had left her, on the other side. Hastily he descended the tree, and
to his amazement found that the map or model of the country still lay at
his feet. He stood in it. With one stride he had crossed the river; with
another he had reached the ridge of ice; with the third he stepped over
its peaks, and sank wearily down at North Wind's knees. For there she
sat on her doorstep. The peaks of the great ridge of ice were as lofty
as ever behind her, and the country at her back had vanished from
Diamond's view.

North Wind was as still as Diamond had left her. Her pale face was white
as the snow, and her motionless eyes were as blue as the caverns in the
ice. But the instant Diamond touched her, her face began to change like
that of one waking from sleep. Light began to glimmer from the blue of
her eyes.

A moment more, and she laid her hand on Diamond's head, and began
playing with his hair. Diamond took hold of her hand, and laid his face
to it. She gave a little start.

“How very alive you are, child!” she murmured. “Come nearer to me.”

By the help of the stones all around he clambered up beside her, and
laid himself against her bosom. She gave a great sigh, slowly lifted her
arms, and slowly folded them about him, until she clasped him close. Yet
a moment, and she roused herself, and came quite awake; and the cold of
her bosom, which had pierced Diamond's bones, vanished.

“Have you been sitting here ever since I went through you, dear North
Wind?” asked Diamond, stroking her hand.

“Yes,” she answered, looking at him with her old kindness.

“Ain't you very tired?”

“No; I've often had to sit longer. Do you know how long you have been?”

“Oh! years and years,” answered Diamond.

“You have just been seven days,” returned North Wind.

“I thought I had been a hundred years!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Yes, I daresay,” replied North Wind. “You've been away from here seven
days; but how long you may have been in there is quite another thing.
Behind my back and before my face things are so different! They don't go
at all by the same rule.”

“I'm very glad,” said Diamond, after thinking a while.

“Why?” asked North Wind.

“Because I've been such a long time there, and such a little while away
from mother. Why, she won't be expecting me home from Sandwich yet!”

“No. But we mustn't talk any longer. I've got my orders now, and we must
be off in a few minutes.”

Next moment Diamond found himself sitting alone on the rock. North Wind
had vanished. A creature like a great humble-bee or cockchafer flew past
his face; but it could be neither, for there were no insects amongst the
ice. It passed him again and again, flying in circles around him, and he
concluded that it must be North Wind herself, no bigger than Tom Thumb
when his mother put him in the nutshell lined with flannel. But she was
no longer vapoury and thin. She was solid, although tiny. A moment more,
and she perched on his shoulder.

“Come along, Diamond,” she said in his ear, in the smallest and highest
of treble voices; “it is time we were setting out for Sandwich.”

Diamond could just see her, by turning his head towards his shoulder as
far as he could, but only with one eye, for his nose came between her
and the other.

“Won't you take me in your arms and carry me?” he said in a whisper, for
he knew she did not like a loud voice when she was small.

“Ah! you ungrateful boy,” returned North Wind, smiling “how dare you
make game of me? Yes, I will carry you, but you shall walk a bit for
your impertinence first. Come along.”

She jumped from his shoulder, but when Diamond looked for her upon the
ground, he could see nothing but a little spider with long legs that
made its way over the ice towards the south. It ran very fast indeed for
a spider, but Diamond ran a long way before it, and then waited for
it. It was up with him sooner than he had expected, however, and it
had grown a good deal. And the spider grew and grew and went faster and
faster, till all at once Diamond discovered that it was not a spider,
but a weasel; and away glided the weasel, and away went Diamond after
it, and it took all the run there was in him to keep up with the weasel.
And the weasel grew, and grew, and grew, till all at once Diamond saw
that the weasel was not a weasel but a cat. And away went the cat, and
Diamond after it. And when he had run half a mile, he found the cat
waiting for him, sitting up and washing her face not to lose time. And
away went the cat again, and Diamond after it. But the next time he came
up with the cat, the cat was not a cat, but a hunting-leopard. And the
hunting-leopard grew to a jaguar, all covered with spots like eyes.
And the jaguar grew to a Bengal tiger. And at none of them was Diamond
afraid, for he had been at North Wind's back, and he could be afraid of
her no longer whatever she did or grew. And the tiger flew over the snow
in a straight line for the south, growing less and less to Diamond's
eyes till it was only a black speck upon the whiteness; and then it
vanished altogether. And now Diamond felt that he would rather not run
any farther, and that the ice had got very rough. Besides, he was near
the precipices that bounded the sea, so he slackened his pace to a walk,
saying aloud to himself:

“When North Wind has punished me enough for making game of her, she will
come back to me; I know she will, for I can't go much farther without
her.”

“You dear boy! It was only in fun. Here I am!” said North Wind's voice
behind him.

Diamond turned, and saw her as he liked best to see her, standing beside
him, a tall lady.

“Where's the tiger?” he asked, for he knew all the creatures from a
picture book that Miss Coleman had given him. “But, of course,” he
added, “you were the tiger. I was puzzled and forgot. I saw it such a
long way off before me, and there you were behind me. It's so odd, you
know.”

“It must look very odd to you, Diamond: I see that. But it is no more
odd to me than to break an old pine in two.”

“Well, that's odd enough,” remarked Diamond.

“So it is! I forgot. Well, none of these things are odder to me than it
is to you to eat bread and butter.”

“Well, that's odd too, when I think of it,” persisted Diamond. “I should
just like a slice of bread and butter! I'm afraid to say how long it
is--how long it seems to me, that is--since I had anything to eat.”

“Come then,” said North Wind, stooping and holding out her arms. “You
shall have some bread and butter very soon. I am glad to find you want
some.”

Diamond held up his arms to meet hers, and was safe upon her bosom.
North Wind bounded into the air. Her tresses began to lift and rise and
spread and stream and flow and flutter; and with a roar from her hair
and an answering roar from one of the great glaciers beside them, whose
slow torrent tumbled two or three icebergs at once into the waves at
their feet, North Wind and Diamond went flying southwards.




CHAPTER XII. WHO MET DIAMOND AT SANDWICH


As THEY flew, so fast they went that the sea slid away from under them
like a great web of shot silk, blue shot with grey, and green shot with
purple. They went so fast that the stars themselves appeared to sail
away past them overhead, “like golden boats,” on a blue sea turned
upside down. And they went so fast that Diamond himself went the other
way as fast--I mean he went fast asleep in North Wind's arms.

When he woke, a face was bending over him; but it was not North Wind's;
it was his mother's. He put out his arms to her, and she clasped him to
her bosom and burst out crying. Diamond kissed her again and again to
make her stop. Perhaps kissing is the best thing for crying, but it will
not always stop it.

“What is the matter, mother?” he said.

“Oh, Diamond, my darling! you have been so ill!” she sobbed.

“No, mother dear. I've only been at the back of the north wind,”
 returned Diamond.

“I thought you were dead,” said his mother.

But that moment the doctor came in.

“Oh! there!” said the doctor with gentle cheerfulness; “we're better
to-day, I see.”

Then he drew the mother aside, and told her not to talk to Diamond, or
to mind what he might say; for he must be kept as quiet as possible. And
indeed Diamond was not much inclined to talk, for he felt very strange
and weak, which was little wonder, seeing that all the time he had been
away he had only sucked a few lumps of ice, and there could not be much
nourishment in them.

Now while he is lying there, getting strong again with chicken broth and
other nice things, I will tell my readers what had been taking place at
his home, for they ought to be told it.

They may have forgotten that Miss Coleman was in a very poor state of
health. Now there were three reasons for this. In the first place,
her lungs were not strong. In the second place, there was a gentleman
somewhere who had not behaved very well to her. In the third place, she
had not anything particular to do. These three nots together are enough
to make a lady very ill indeed. Of course she could not help the first
cause; but if the other two causes had not existed, that would have been
of little consequence; she would only have to be a little careful. The
second she could not help quite; but if she had had anything to do,
and had done it well, it would have been very difficult for any man to
behave badly to her. And for this third cause of her illness, if she had
had anything to do that was worth doing, she might have borne his bad
behaviour so that even that would not have made her ill. It is not
always easy, I confess, to find something to do that is worth doing, but
the most difficult things are constantly being done, and she might have
found something if she had tried. Her fault lay in this, that she had
not tried. But, to be sure, her father and mother were to blame that
they had never set her going. Only then again, nobody had told her
father and mother that they ought to set her going in that direction. So
as none of them would find it out of themselves, North Wind had to teach
them.

We know that North Wind was very busy that night on which she left
Diamond in the cathedral. She had in a sense been blowing through
and through the Colemans' house the whole of the night. First, Miss
Coleman's maid had left a chink of her mistress's window open, thinking
she had shut it, and North Wind had wound a few of her hairs round the
lady's throat. She was considerably worse the next morning. Again, the
ship which North Wind had sunk that very night belonged to Mr. Coleman.
Nor will my readers understand what a heavy loss this was to him until
I have informed them that he had been getting poorer and poorer for some
time. He was not so successful in his speculations as he had been,
for he speculated a great deal more than was right, and it was time he
should be pulled up. It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor;
but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, and some kinds of
speculation lead a man deep into dishonesty before he thinks what he is
about. Poverty will not make a man worthless--he may be worth a great
deal more when he is poor than he was when he was rich; but dishonesty
goes very far indeed to make a man of no value--a thing to be thrown
out in the dust-hole of the creation, like a bit of a broken basin, or a
dirty rag. So North Wind had to look after Mr. Coleman, and try to make
an honest man of him. So she sank the ship which was his last venture,
and he was what himself and his wife and the world called ruined.

Nor was this all yet. For on board that vessel Miss Coleman's lover was
a passenger; and when the news came that the vessel had gone down, and
that all on board had perished, we may be sure she did not think
the loss of their fine house and garden and furniture the greatest
misfortune in the world.

Of course, the trouble did not end with Mr. Coleman and his family.
Nobody can suffer alone. When the cause of suffering is most deeply
hidden in the heart, and nobody knows anything about it but the man
himself, he must be a great and a good man indeed, such as few of us
have known, if the pain inside him does not make him behave so as to
cause all about him to be more or less uncomfortable. But when a man
brings money-troubles on himself by making haste to be rich, then
most of the people he has to do with must suffer in the same way with
himself. The elm-tree which North Wind blew down that very night, as
if small and great trials were to be gathered in one heap, crushed Miss
Coleman's pretty summer-house: just so the fall of Mr. Coleman crushed
the little family that lived over his coach-house and stable. Before
Diamond was well enough to be taken home, there was no home for him
to go to. Mr. Coleman--or his creditors, for I do not know the
particulars--had sold house, carriage, horses, furniture, and
everything. He and his wife and daughter and Mrs. Crump had gone to live
in a small house in Hoxton, where he would be unknown, and whence he
could walk to his place of business in the City. For he was not an old
man, and hoped yet to retrieve his fortunes. Let us hope that he lived
to retrieve his honesty, the tail of which had slipped through his
fingers to the very last joint, if not beyond it.

Of course, Diamond's father had nothing to do for a time, but it was
not so hard for him to have nothing to do as it was for Miss Coleman. He
wrote to his wife that, if her sister would keep her there till he got
a place, it would be better for them, and he would be greatly obliged
to her. Meantime, the gentleman who had bought the house had allowed his
furniture to remain where it was for a little while.

Diamond's aunt was quite willing to keep them as long as she could. And
indeed Diamond was not yet well enough to be moved with safety.

When he had recovered so far as to be able to go out, one day his mother
got her sister's husband, who had a little pony-cart, to carry them
down to the sea-shore, and leave them there for a few hours. He had
some business to do further on at Ramsgate, and would pick them up as he
returned. A whiff of the sea-air would do them both good, she said, and
she thought besides she could best tell Diamond what had happened if she
had him quite to herself.




CHAPTER XIII. THE SEASIDE


DIAMOND and his mother sat down upon the edge of the rough grass that
bordered the sand. The sun was just far enough past its highest not to
shine in their eyes when they looked eastward. A sweet little wind blew
on their left side, and comforted the mother without letting her know
what it was that comforted her. Away before them stretched the sparkling
waters of the ocean, every wave of which flashed out its own delight
back in the face of the great sun, which looked down from the stillness
of its blue house with glorious silent face upon its flashing children.
On each hand the shore rounded outwards, forming a little bay. There
were no white cliffs here, as further north and south, and the place was
rather dreary, but the sky got at them so much the better. Not a house,
not a creature was within sight. Dry sand was about their feet, and
under them thin wiry grass, that just managed to grow out of the
poverty-stricken shore.

“Oh dear!” said Diamond's mother, with a deep sigh, “it's a sad world!”

“Is it?” said Diamond. “I didn't know.”

“How should you know, child? You've been too well taken care of, I
trust.”

“Oh yes, I have,” returned Diamond. “I'm sorry! I thought you were taken
care of too. I thought my father took care of you. I will ask him about
it. I think he must have forgotten.”

“Dear boy!” said his mother, “your father's the best man in the world.”

“So I thought!” returned Diamond with triumph. “I was sure of it!--Well,
doesn't he take very good care of you?”

“Yes, yes, he does,” answered his mother, bursting into tears. “But
who's to take care of him? And how is he to take care of us if he's got
nothing to eat himself?”

“Oh dear!” said Diamond with a gasp; “hasn't he got anything to eat? Oh!
I must go home to him.”

“No, no, child. He's not come to that yet. But what's to become of us, I
don't know.”

“Are you very hungry, mother? There's the basket. I thought you put
something to eat in it.”

“O you darling stupid! I didn't say I was hungry,” returned his mother,
smiling through her tears.

“Then I don't understand you at all,” said Diamond. “Do tell me what's
the matter.”

“There are people in the world who have nothing to eat, Diamond.”

“Then I suppose they don't stop in it any longer. They--they--what you
call--die--don't they?”

“Yes, they do. How would you like that?”

“I don't know. I never tried. But I suppose they go where they get
something to eat.”

“Like enough they don't want it,” said his mother, petulantly.

“That's all right then,” said Diamond, thinking I daresay more than he
chose to put in words.

“Is it though? Poor boy! how little you know about things! Mr. Coleman's
lost all his money, and your father has nothing to do, and we shall have
nothing to eat by and by.”

“Are you sure, mother?”

“Sure of what?”

“Sure that we shall have nothing to eat.”

“No, thank Heaven! I'm not sure of it. I hope not.”

“Then I can't understand it, mother. There's a piece of gingerbread in
the basket, I know.”

“O you little bird! You have no more sense than a sparrow that picks
what it wants, and never thinks of the winter and the frost and, the
snow.”

“Ah--yes--I see. But the birds get through the winter, don't they?”

“Some of them fall dead on the ground.”

“They must die some time. They wouldn't like to be birds always. Would
you, mother?”

“What a child it is!” thought his mother, but she said nothing.

“Oh! now I remember,” Diamond went on. “Father told me that day I went
to Epping Forest with him, that the rose-bushes, and the may-bushes, and
the holly-bushes were the bird's barns, for there were the hips, and the
haws, and the holly-berries, all ready for the winter.”

“Yes; that's all very true. So you see the birds are provided for. But
there are no such barns for you and me, Diamond.”

“Ain't there?”

“No. We've got to work for our bread.”

“Then let's go and work,” said Diamond, getting up.

“It's no use. We've not got anything to do.”

“Then let's wait.”

“Then we shall starve.”

“No. There's the basket. Do you know, mother, I think I shall call that
basket the barn.”

“It's not a very big one. And when it's empty--where are we then?”

“At auntie's cupboard,” returned Diamond promptly.

“But we can't eat auntie's things all up and leave her to starve.”

“No, no. We'll go back to father before that. He'll have found a
cupboard somewhere by that time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don't know it. But I haven't got even a cupboard, and I've always had
plenty to eat. I've heard you say I had too much, sometimes.”

“But I tell you that's because I've had a cupboard for you, child.”

“And when yours was empty, auntie opened hers.”

“But that can't go on.”

“How do you know? I think there must be a big cupboard somewhere, out of
which the little cupboards are filled, you know, mother.”

“Well, I wish I could find the door of that cupboard,” said his mother.
But the same moment she stopped, and was silent for a good while. I
cannot tell whether Diamond knew what she was thinking, but I think I
know. She had heard something at church the day before, which came back
upon her--something like this, that she hadn't to eat for tomorrow as
well as for to-day; and that what was not wanted couldn't be missed.
So, instead of saying anything more, she stretched out her hand for the
basket, and she and Diamond had their dinner.

And Diamond did enjoy it. For the drive and the fresh air had made him
quite hungry; and he did not, like his mother, trouble himself about
what they should dine off that day week. The fact was he had lived so
long without any food at all at the back of the north wind, that he knew
quite well that food was not essential to existence; that in fact, under
certain circumstances, people could live without it well enough.

His mother did not speak much during their dinner. After it was over she
helped him to walk about a little, but he was not able for much and soon
got tired. He did not get fretful, though. He was too glad of having the
sun and the wind again, to fret because he could not run about. He lay
down on the dry sand, and his mother covered him with a shawl. She then
sat by his side, and took a bit of work from her pocket. But Diamond
felt rather sleepy, and turned on his side and gazed sleepily over the
sand. A few yards off he saw something fluttering.

“What is that, mother?” he said.

“Only a bit of paper,” she answered.

“It flutters more than a bit of paper would, I think,” said Diamond.

“I'll go and see if you like,” said his mother. “My eyes are none of the
best.”

So she rose and went and found that they were both right, for it was a
little book, partly buried in the sand. But several of its leaves were
clear of the sand, and these the wind kept blowing about in a very
flutterful manner. She took it up and brought it to Diamond.

“What is it, mother?” he asked.

“Some nursery rhymes, I think,” she answered.

“I'm too sleepy,” said Diamond. “Do read some of them to me.”

“Yes, I will,” she said, and began one.--“But this is such nonsense!”
 she said again. “I will try to find a better one.”

She turned the leaves searching, but three times, with sudden puffs, the
wind blew the leaves rustling back to the same verses.

“Do read that one,” said Diamond, who seemed to be of the same mind as
the wind. “It sounded very nice. I am sure it is a good one.”

So his mother thought it might amuse him, though she couldn't find any
sense in it. She never thought he might understand it, although she
could not.

Now I do not exactly know what the mother read, but this is what Diamond
heard, or thought afterwards that he had heard. He was, however, as I
have said, very sleepy. And when he thought he understood the verses he
may have been only dreaming better ones. This is how they went--

I know a river whose waters run asleep run run ever singing in the
shallows dumb in the hollows sleeping so deep and all the swallows that
dip their feathers in the hollows or in the shallows are the merriest
swallows of all for the nests they bake with the clay they cake with
the water they shake from their wings that rake the water out of the
shallows or the hollows will hold together in any weather and so the
swallows are the merriest fellows and have the merriest children and
are built so narrow like the head of an arrow to cut the air and go just
where the nicest water is flowing and the nicest dust is blowing for
each so narrow like head of an arrow is only a barrow to carry the
mud he makes from the nicest water flowing and the nicest dust that is
blowing to build his nest for her he loves best with the nicest cakes
which the sunshine bakes all for their merry children all so callow with
beaks that follow gaping and hollow wider and wider after their father
or after their mother the food-provider who brings them a spider or a
worm the poor hider down in the earth so there's no dearth for their
beaks as yellow as the buttercups growing beside the flowing of the
singing river always and ever growing and blowing for fast as the sheep
awake or asleep crop them and crop them they cannot stop them but up
they creep and on they go blowing and so with the daisies the little
white praises they grow and they blow and they spread out their crown
and they praise the sun and when he goes down their praising is done and
they fold up their crown and they sleep every one till over the plain
he's shining amain and they're at it again praising and praising such
low songs raising that no one hears them but the sun who rears them and
the sheep that bite them are the quietest sheep awake or asleep with the
merriest bleat and the little lambs are the merriest lambs they forget
to eat for the frolic in their feet and the lambs and their dams are
the whitest sheep with the woolliest wool and the longest wool and the
trailingest tails and they shine like snow in the grasses that grow by
the singing river that sings for ever and the sheep and the lambs are
merry for ever because the river sings and they drink it and the lambs
and their dams are quiet and white because of their diet for what they
bite is buttercups yellow and daisies white and grass as green as the
river can make it with wind as mellow to kiss it and shake it as never
was seen but here in the hollows beside the river where all the swallows
are merriest of fellows for the nests they make with the clay they cake
in the sunshine bake till they are like bone as dry in the wind as a
marble stone so firm they bind the grass in the clay that dries in the
wind the sweetest wind that blows by the river flowing for ever but
never you find whence comes the wind that blows on the hollows and over
the shallows where dip the swallows alive it blows the life as it goes
awake or asleep into the river that sings as it flows and the life it
blows into the sheep awake or asleep with the woolliest wool and the
trailingest tails and it never fails gentle and cool to wave the wool
and to toss the grass as the lambs and the sheep over it pass and tug
and bite with their teeth so white and then with the sweep of their
trailing tails smooth it again and it grows amain and amain it grows and
the wind as it blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and down on
the shallows till every feather doth shake and quiver and all their
feathers go all together blowing the life and the joy so rife into the
swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children for the
wind that blows is the life of the river flowing for ever that washes
the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white
praises and buttercups bonny so golden and sunny with butter and honey
that whiten the sheep awake or asleep that nibble and bite and grow
whiter than white and merry and quiet on the sweet diet fed by the river
and tossed for ever by the wind that tosses the swallow that crosses
over the shallows dipping his wings to gather the water and bake the
cake that the wind shall make as hard as a bone as dry as a stone it's
all in the wind that blows from behind and all in the river that flows
for ever and all in the grasses and the white daisies and the merry
sheep awake or asleep and the happy swallows skimming the shallows and
it's all in the wind that blows from behind.


Here Diamond became aware that his mother had stopped reading.

“Why don't you go on, mother dear?” he asked.

“It's such nonsense!” said his mother. “I believe it would go on for
ever.”

“That's just what it did,” said Diamond.

“What did?” she asked.

“Why, the river. That's almost the very tune it used to sing.”

His mother was frightened, for she thought the fever was coming on
again. So she did not contradict him.

“Who made that poem?” asked Diamond.

“I don't know,” she answered. “Some silly woman for her children, I
suppose--and then thought it good enough to print.”

“She must have been at the back of the north wind some time or other,
anyhow,” said Diamond. “She couldn't have got a hold of it anywhere
else. That's just how it went.” And he began to chant bits of it here
and there; but his mother said nothing for fear of making him, worse;
and she was very glad indeed when she saw her brother-in-law jogging
along in his little cart. They lifted Diamond in, and got up themselves,
and away they went, “home again, home again, home again,” as Diamond
sang. But he soon grew quiet, and before they reached Sandwich he was
fast asleep and dreaming of the country at the back of the north wind.




CHAPTER XIV. OLD DIAMOND


AFTER this Diamond recovered so fast, that in a few days he was quite
able to go home as soon as his father had a place for them to go. Now
his father having saved a little money, and finding that no situation
offered itself, had been thinking over a new plan. A strange occurrence
it was which turned his thoughts in that direction. He had a friend in
the Bloomsbury region, who lived by letting out cabs and horses to the
cabmen. This man, happening to meet him one day as he was returning from
an unsuccessful application, said to him:

“Why don't you set up for yourself now--in the cab line, I mean?”

“I haven't enough for that,” answered Diamond's father.

“You must have saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with
me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a
few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got
bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go
enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like
the wind, and he ain't got wind enough, for he ain't so young as he once
was. But for a four-wheeler as takes families and their luggages, he's
the very horse. He'd carry a small house any day. I bought him cheap,
and I'll sell him cheap.”

“Oh, I don't want him,” said Diamond's father. “A body must have time
to think over an affair of so much importance. And there's the cab too.
That would come to a deal of money.”

“I could fit you there, I daresay,” said his friend. “But come and look
at the animal, anyhow.”

“Since I lost my own old pair, as was Mr. Coleman's,” said Diamond's
father, turning to accompany the cab-master, “I ain't almost got the
heart to look a horse in the face. It's a thousand pities to part man
and horse.”

“So it is,” returned his friend sympathetically.

But what was the ex-coachman's delight, when, on going into the stable
where his friend led him, he found the horse he wanted him to buy was
no other than his own old Diamond, grown very thin and bony and
long-legged, as if they, had been doing what they could to fit him for
Hansom work!

“He ain't a Hansom horse,” said Diamond's father indignantly.

“Well, you're right. He ain't handsome, but he's a good un” said his
owner.

“Who says he ain't handsome? He's one of the handsomest horses a
gentleman's coachman ever druv,” said Diamond's father; remarking to
himself under his breath--“though I says it as shouldn't”--for he did
not feel inclined all at once to confess that his own old horse could
have sunk so low.

“Well,” said his friend, “all I say is--There's a animal for you, as
strong as a church; an'll go like a train, leastways a parly,” he added,
correcting himself.

But the coachman had a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. For the
old horse, hearing his voice, had turned his long neck, and when his
old friend went up to him and laid his hand on his side, he whinnied
for joy, and laid his big head on his master's breast. This settled the
matter. The coachman's arms were round the horse's neck in a moment, and
he fairly broke down and cried. The cab-master had never been so fond of
a horse himself as to hug him like that, but he saw in a moment how it
was. And he must have been a good-hearted fellow, for I never heard of
such an idea coming into the head of any other man with a horse to sell:
instead of putting something on to the price because he was now pretty
sure of selling him, he actually took a pound off what he had meant to
ask for him, saying to himself it was a shame to part old friends.

Diamond's father, as soon as he came to himself, turned and asked how
much he wanted for the horse.

“I see you're old friends,” said the owner.

“It's my own old Diamond. I liked him far the best of the pair, though
the other was good. You ain't got him too, have you?”

“No; nothing in the stable to match him there.”

“I believe you,” said the coachman. “But you'll be wanting a long price
for him, I know.”

“No, not so much. I bought him cheap, and as I say, he ain't for my
work.”

The end of it was that Diamond's father bought old Diamond again, along
with a four-wheeled cab. And as there were some rooms to be had over the
stable, he took them, wrote to his wife to come home, and set up as a
cabman.




CHAPTER XV. THE MEWS


IT WAS late in the afternoon when Diamond and his mother and the baby
reached London. I was so full of Diamond that I forgot to tell you a
baby had arrived in the meantime. His father was waiting for them with
his own cab, but they had not told Diamond who the horse was; for his
father wanted to enjoy the pleasure of his surprise when he found it
out. He got in with his mother without looking at the horse, and his
father having put up Diamond's carpet-bag and his mother's little trunk,
got upon the box himself and drove off; and Diamond was quite proud of
riding home in his father's own carriage. But when he got to the mews,
he could not help being a little dismayed at first; and if he had never
been to the back of the north wind, I am afraid he would have cried a
little. But instead of that, he said to himself it was a fine thing all
the old furniture was there. And instead of helping his mother to be
miserable at the change, he began to find out all the advantages of the
place; for every place has some advantages, and they are always
better worth knowing than the disadvantages. Certainly the weather was
depressing, for a thick, dull, persistent rain was falling by the time
they reached home. But happily the weather is very changeable; and
besides, there was a good fire burning in the room, which their
neighbour with the drunken husband had attended to for them; and the
tea-things were put out, and the kettle was boiling on the fire. And
with a good fire, and tea and bread and butter, things cannot be said to
be miserable.

Diamond's father and mother were, notwithstanding, rather miserable, and
Diamond began to feel a kind of darkness beginning to spread over his
own mind. But the same moment he said to himself, “This will never do.
I can't give in to this. I've been to the back of the north wind. Things
go right there, and so I must try to get things to go right here. I've
got to fight the miserable things. They shan't make me miserable if I
can help it.” I do not mean that he thought these very words. They are
perhaps too grown-up for him to have thought, but they represent the
kind of thing that was in his heart and his head. And when heart and
head go together, nothing can stand before them.

“What nice bread and butter this is!” said Diamond.

“I'm glad you like it, my dear” said his father. “I bought the butter
myself at the little shop round the corner.”

“It's very nice, thank you, father. Oh, there's baby waking! I'll take
him.”

“Sit still, Diamond,” said his mother. “Go on with your bread and
butter. You're not strong enough to lift him yet.”

So she took the baby herself, and set him on her knee. Then Diamond
began to amuse him, and went on till the little fellow was shrieking
with laughter. For the baby's world was his mother's arms; and the
drizzling rain, and the dreary mews, and even his father's troubled
face could not touch him. What cared baby for the loss of a hundred
situations? Yet neither father nor mother thought him hard-hearted
because he crowed and laughed in the middle of their troubles. On the
contrary, his crowing and laughing were infectious. His little heart was
so full of merriment that it could not hold it all, and it ran over into
theirs. Father and mother began to laugh too, and Diamond laughed till
he had a fit of coughing which frightened his mother, and made them all
stop. His father took the baby, and his mother put him to bed.

But it was indeed a change to them all, not only from Sandwich, but from
their old place, instead of the great river where the huge barges with
their mighty brown and yellow sails went tacking from side to side like
little pleasure-skiffs, and where the long thin boats shot past with
eight and sometimes twelve rowers, their windows now looked out upon a
dirty paved yard. And there was no garden more for Diamond to run into
when he pleased, with gay flowers about his feet, and solemn sun-filled
trees over his head. Neither was there a wooden wall at the back of
his bed with a hole in it for North Wind to come in at when she liked.
Indeed, there was such a high wall, and there were so many houses about
the mews, that North Wind seldom got into the place at all, except when
something must be done, and she had a grand cleaning out like other
housewives; while the partition at the head of Diamond's new bed only
divided it from the room occupied by a cabman who drank too much beer,
and came home chiefly to quarrel with his wife and pinch his children.
It was dreadful to Diamond to hear the scolding and the crying. But it
could not make him miserable, because he had been at the back of the
north wind.

If my reader find it hard to believe that Diamond should be so good,
he must remember that he had been to the back of the north wind. If he
never knew a boy so good, did he ever know a boy that had been to the
back of the north wind? It was not in the least strange of Diamond to
behave as he did; on the contrary, it was thoroughly sensible of him.

We shall see how he got on.




CHAPTER XVI. DIAMOND MAKES A BEGINNING


THE wind blew loud, but Diamond slept a deep sleep, and never heard
it. My own impression is that every time when Diamond slept well and
remembered nothing about it in the morning, he had been all that night
at the back of the north wind. I am almost sure that was how he woke
so refreshed, and felt so quiet and hopeful all the day. Indeed he said
this much, though not to me--that always when he woke from such a sleep
there was a something in his mind, he could not tell what--could not
tell whether it was the last far-off sounds of the river dying away in
the distance, or some of the words of the endless song his mother had
read to him on the sea-shore. Sometimes he thought it must have been
the twittering of the swallows--over the shallows, you, know; but it may
have been the chirping of the dingy sparrows picking up their breakfast
in the yard--how can I tell? I don't know what I know, I only know what
I think; and to tell the truth, I am more for the swallows than the
sparrows. When he knew he was coming awake, he would sometimes try hard
to keep hold of the words of what seemed a new song, one he had not
heard before--a song in which the words and the music somehow appeared
to be all one; but even when he thought he had got them well fixed in
his mind, ever as he came awaker--as he would say--one line faded away
out of it, and then another, and then another, till at last there was
nothing left but some lovely picture of water or grass or daisies, or
something else very common, but with all the commonness polished off it,
and the lovely soul of it, which people so seldom see, and, alas! yet
seldomer believe in, shining out. But after that he would sing the
oddest, loveliest little songs to the baby--of his own making, his
mother said; but Diamond said he did not make them; they were made
somewhere inside him, and he knew nothing about them till they were
coming out.

When he woke that first morning he got up at once, saying to himself,
“I've been ill long enough, and have given a great deal of trouble; I
must try and be of use now, and help my mother.” When he went into her
room he found her lighting the fire, and his father just getting out of
bed. They had only the one room, besides the little one, not much more
than a closet, in which Diamond slept. He began at once to set things
to rights, but the baby waking up, he took him, and nursed him till
his mother had got the breakfast ready. She was looking gloomy, and his
father was silent; and indeed except Diamond had done all he possibly
could to keep out the misery that was trying to get in at doors and
windows, he too would have grown miserable, and then they would have
been all miserable together. But to try to make others comfortable is
the only way to get right comfortable ourselves, and that comes partly
of not being able to think so much about ourselves when we are helping
other people. For our Selves will always do pretty well if we don't pay
them too much attention. Our Selves are like some little children who
will be happy enough so long as they are left to their own games, but
when we begin to interfere with them, and make them presents of too nice
playthings, or too many sweet things, they begin at once to fret and
spoil.

“Why, Diamond, child!” said his mother at last, “you're as good to your
mother as if you were a girl--nursing the baby, and toasting the bread,
and sweeping up the hearth! I declare a body would think you had been
among the fairies.”

Could Diamond have had greater praise or greater pleasure? You see
when he forgot his Self his mother took care of his Self, and loved and
praised his Self. Our own praises poison our Selves, and puff and swell
them up, till they lose all shape and beauty, and become like great
toadstools. But the praises of father or mother do our Selves good, and
comfort them and make them beautiful. They never do them any harm. If
they do any harm, it comes of our mixing some of our own praises with
them, and that turns them nasty and slimy and poisonous.

When his father had finished his breakfast, which he did rather in a
hurry, he got up and went down into the yard to get out his horse and
put him to the cab.

“Won't you come and see the cab, Diamond?” he said.

“Yes, please, father--if mother can spare me a minute,” answered
Diamond.

“Bless the child! I don't want him,” said his mother cheerfully.

But as he was following his father out of the door, she called him back.

“Diamond, just hold the baby one minute. I have something to say to your
father.”

So Diamond sat down again, took the baby in his lap, and began poking
his face into its little body, laughing and singing all the while,
so that the baby crowed like a little bantam. And what he sang was
something like this--such nonsense to those that couldn't understand it!
but not to the baby, who got all the good in the world out of it:--
baby's a-sleeping wake up baby for all the swallows are the merriest
fellows and have the yellowest children who would go sleeping and
snore like a gaby disturbing his mother and father and brother and all
a-boring their ears with his snoring snoring snoring for himself and no
other for himself in particular wake up baby sit up perpendicular hark
to the gushing hark to the rushing where the sheep are the woolliest and
the lambs the unruliest and their tails the whitest and their eyes the
brightest and baby's the bonniest and baby's the funniest and baby's the
shiniest and baby's the tiniest and baby's the merriest and baby's
the worriest of all the lambs that plague their dams and mother's
the whitest of all the dams that feed the lambs that go crop-cropping
without stop-stopping and father's the best of all the swallows that
build their nest out of the shining shallows and he has the merriest
children that's baby and Diamond and Diamond and baby and baby and
Diamond and Diamond and baby--


Here Diamond's knees went off in a wild dance which tossed the baby
about and shook the laughter out of him in immoderate peals. His mother
had been listening at the door to the last few lines of his song, and
came in with the tears in her eyes. She took the baby from him, gave him
a kiss, and told him to run to his father.

By the time Diamond got into the yard, the horse was between the shafts,
and his father was looping the traces on. Diamond went round to look at
the horse. The sight of him made him feel very queer. He did not know
much about different horses, and all other horses than their own were
very much the same to him. But he could not make it out. This was
Diamond and it wasn't Diamond. Diamond didn't hang his head like that;
yet the head that was hanging was very like the one that Diamond used
to hold so high. Diamond's bones didn't show through his skin like that;
but the skin they pushed out of shape so was very like Diamond's skin;
and the bones might be Diamond's bones, for he had never seen the shape
of them. But when he came round in front of the old horse, and he put
out his long neck, and began sniffing at him and rubbing his upper lip
and his nose on him, then Diamond saw it could be no other than old
Diamond, and he did just as his father had done before--put his arms
round his neck and cried--but not much.

“Ain't it jolly, father?” he said. “Was there ever anybody so lucky as
me? Dear old Diamond!”

And he hugged the horse again, and kissed both his big hairy cheeks. He
could only manage one at a time, however--the other cheek was so far off
on the other side of his big head.

His father mounted the box with just the same air, as Diamond thought,
with which he had used to get upon the coach-box, and Diamond said
to himself, “Father's as grand as ever anyhow.” He had kept his brown
livery-coat, only his wife had taken the silver buttons off and put
brass ones instead, because they did not think it polite to Mr. Coleman
in his fallen fortunes to let his crest be seen upon the box of a cab.
Old Diamond had kept just his collar; and that had the silver crest upon
it still, for his master thought nobody would notice that, and so let it
remain for a memorial of the better days of which it reminded him--not
unpleasantly, seeing it had been by no fault either of his or of the old
horse's that they had come down in the world together.

“Oh, father, do let me drive a bit,” said Diamond, jumping up on the box
beside him.

His father changed places with him at once, putting the reins into his
hands. Diamond gathered them up eagerly.

“Don't pull at his mouth,” said his father, “just feel, at it gently
to let him know you're there and attending to him. That's what I call
talking to him through the reins.”

“Yes, father, I understand,” said Diamond. Then to the horse he said,
“Go on Diamond.” And old Diamond's ponderous bulk began at once to move
to the voice of the little boy.

But before they had reached the entrance of the mews, another voice
called after young Diamond, which, in his turn, he had to obey, for it
was that of his mother. “Diamond! Diamond!” it cried; and Diamond pulled
the reins, and the horse stood still as a stone.

“Husband,” said his mother, coming up, “you're never going to trust him
with the reins--a baby like that?”

“He must learn some day, and he can't begin too soon. I see already he's
a born coachman,” said his father proudly. “And I don't see well how
he could escape it, for my father and my grandfather, that's his
great-grandfather, was all coachmen, I'm told; so it must come natural
to him, any one would think. Besides, you see, old Diamond's as proud of
him as we are our own selves, wife. Don't you see how he's turning round
his ears, with the mouths of them open, for the first word he speaks to
tumble in? He's too well bred to turn his head, you know.”

“Well, but, husband, I can't do without him to-day. Everything's got to
be done, you know. It's my first day here. And there's that baby!”

“Bless you, wife! I never meant to take him away--only to the bottom of
Endell Street. He can watch his way back.”

“No thank you, father; not to-day,” said Diamond. “Mother wants me.
Perhaps she'll let me go another day.”

“Very well, my man,” said his father, and took the reins which Diamond
was holding out to him.

Diamond got down, a little disappointed of course, and went with his
mother, who was too pleased to speak. She only took hold of his hand as
tight as if she had been afraid of his running away instead of glad that
he would not leave her.

Now, although they did not know it, the owner of the stables, the same
man who had sold the horse to his father, had been standing just inside
one of the stable-doors, with his hands in his pockets, and had heard
and seen all that passed; and from that day John Stonecrop took a great
fancy to the little boy. And this was the beginning of what came of it.

The same evening, just as Diamond was feeling tired of the day's work,
and wishing his father would come home, Mr. Stonecrop knocked at the
door. His mother went and opened it.

“Good evening, ma'am,” said he. “Is the little master in?”

“Yes, to be sure he is--at your service, I'm sure, Mr. Stonecrop,” said
his mother.

“No, no, ma'am; it's I'm at his service. I'm just a-going out with my
own cab, and if he likes to come with me, he shall drive my old horse
till he's tired.”

“It's getting rather late for him,” said his mother thoughtfully. “You
see he's been an invalid.”

Diamond thought, what a funny thing! How could he have been an invalid
when he did not even know what the word meant? But, of course, his
mother was right.

“Oh, well,” said Mr. Stonecrop, “I can just let him drive through
Bloomsbury Square, and then he shall run home again.”

“Very good, sir. And I'm much obliged to you,” said his mother.
And Diamond, dancing with delight, got his cap, put his hand in Mr.
Stonecrop's, and went with him to the yard where the cab was waiting.
He did not think the horse looked nearly so nice as Diamond, nor Mr.
Stonecrop nearly so grand as his father; but he was none, the less
pleased. He got up on the box, and his new friend got up beside him.

“What's the horse's name?” whispered Diamond, as he took the reins from
the man.

“It's not a nice name,” said Mr. Stonecrop. “You needn't call him by it.
I didn't give it him. He'll go well enough without it. Give the boy a
whip, Jack. I never carries one when I drive old----”

He didn't finish the sentence. Jack handed Diamond a whip, with which,
by holding it half down the stick, he managed just to flack the haunches
of the horse; and away he went.

“Mind the gate,” said Mr. Stonecrop; and Diamond did mind the gate, and
guided the nameless horse through it in safety, pulling him this way and
that according as was necessary. Diamond learned to drive all the sooner
that he had been accustomed to do what he was told, and could obey the
smallest hint in a moment. Nothing helps one to get on like that. Some
people don't know how to do what they are told; they have not been used
to it, and they neither understand quickly nor are able to turn what
they do understand into action quickly. With an obedient mind one learns
the rights of things fast enough; for it is the law of the universe, and
to obey is to understand.

“Look out!” cried Mr. Stonecrop, as they were turning the corner into
Bloomsbury Square.

It was getting dusky now. A cab was approaching rather rapidly from
the opposite direction, and Diamond pulling aside, and the other driver
pulling up, they only just escaped a collision. Then they knew each
other.

“Why, Diamond, it's a bad beginning to run into your own father,” cried
the driver.

“But, father, wouldn't it have been a bad ending to run into your own
son?” said Diamond in return; and the two men laughed heartily.

“This is very kind of you, I'm sure, Stonecrop,” said his father.

“Not a bit. He's a brave fellow, and'll be fit to drive on his own hook
in a week or two. But I think you'd better let him drive you home now,
for his mother don't like his having over much of the night air, and I
promised not to take him farther than the square.”

“Come along then, Diamond,” said his father, as he brought his cab up to
the other, and moved off the box to the seat beside it. Diamond jumped
across, caught at the reins, said “Good-night, and thank you, Mr.
Stonecrop,” and drove away home, feeling more of a man than he had ever
yet had a chance of feeling in all his life. Nor did his father find it
necessary to give him a single hint as to his driving. Only I suspect
the fact that it was old Diamond, and old Diamond on his way to his
stable, may have had something to do with young Diamond's success.

“Well, child,” said his mother, when he entered the room, “you've not
been long gone.”

“No, mother; here I am. Give me the baby.”

“The baby's asleep,” said his mother.

“Then give him to me, and I'll lay him down.”

But as Diamond took him, he woke up and began to laugh. For he was
indeed one of the merriest children. And no wonder, for he was as plump
as a plum-pudding, and had never had an ache or a pain that lasted more
than five minutes at a time. Diamond sat down with him and began to sing
to him.

baby baby babbing your father's gone a-cabbing to catch a shilling for
its pence to make the baby babbing dance for old Diamond's a duck they
say he can swim but the duck of diamonds is baby that's him and of all
the swallows the merriest fellows that bake their cake with the water
they shake out of the river flowing for ever and make dust into clay on
the shiniest day to build their nest father's the best and mother's the
whitest and her eyes are the brightest of all the dams that watch their
lambs cropping the grass where the waters pass singing for ever and of
all the lambs with the shakingest tails and the jumpingest feet baby's
the funniest baby's the bonniest and he never wails and he's always
sweet and Diamond's his nurse and Diamond's his nurse and Diamond's his
nurse


When Diamond's rhymes grew scarce, he always began dancing the baby.
Some people wondered that such a child could rhyme as he did, but his
rhymes were not very good, for he was only trying to remember what he
had heard the river sing at the back of the north wind.




CHAPTER XVII. DIAMOND GOES ON


DIAMOND became a great favourite with all the men about the mews. Some
may think it was not the best place in the world for him to be brought
up in; but it must have been, for there he was. At first, he heard a
good many rough and bad words; but he did not like them, and so they did
him little harm. He did not know in the least what they meant, but there
was something in the very sound of them, and in the tone of voice in
which they were said, which Diamond felt to be ugly. So they did not
even stick to him, not to say get inside him. He never took any notice
of them, and his face shone pure and good in the middle of them, like
a primrose in a hailstorm. At first, because his face was so quiet
and sweet, with a smile always either awake or asleep in his eyes, and
because he never heeded their ugly words and rough jokes, they said he
wasn't all there, meaning that he was half an idiot, whereas he was a
great deal more there than they had the sense to see. And before long
the bad words found themselves ashamed to come out of the men's mouths
when Diamond was near. The one would nudge the other to remind him that
the boy was within hearing, and the words choked themselves before they
got any farther. When they talked to him nicely he had always a good
answer, sometimes a smart one, ready, and that helped much to make them
change their minds about him.

One day Jack gave him a curry-comb and a brush to try his hand upon
old Diamond's coat. He used them so deftly, so gently, and yet so
thoroughly, as far as he could reach, that the man could not help
admiring him.

“You must make haste and, grow” he said. “It won't do to have a horse's
belly clean and his back dirty, you know.”

“Give me a leg,” said Diamond, and in a moment he was on the old horse's
back with the comb and brush. He sat on his withers, and reaching
forward as he ate his hay, he curried and he brushed, first at one side
of his neck, and then at the other. When that was done he asked for a
dressing-comb, and combed his mane thoroughly. Then he pushed himself on
to his back, and did his shoulders as far down as he could reach. Then
he sat on his croup, and did his back and sides; then he turned around
like a monkey, and attacked his hind-quarters, and combed his tail. This
last was not so easy to manage, for he had to lift it up, and every now
and then old Diamond would whisk it out of his hands, and once he sent
the comb flying out of the stable door, to the great amusement of the
men. But Jack fetched it again, and Diamond began once more, and did not
leave off until he had done the whole business fairly well, if not in
a first-rate, experienced fashion. All the time the old horse went
on eating his hay, and, but with an occasional whisk of his tail when
Diamond tickled or scratched him, took no notice of the proceeding.
But that was all a pretence, for he knew very well who it was that
was perched on his back, and rubbing away at him with the comb and the
brush. So he was quite pleased and proud, and perhaps said to himself
something like this--

“I'm a stupid old horse, who can't brush his own coat; but there's my
young godson on my back, cleaning me like an angel.”

I won't vouch for what the old horse was thinking, for it is very
difficult to find out what any old horse is thinking.

“Oh dear!” said Diamond when he had done, “I'm so tired!”

And he laid himself down at full length on old Diamond's back.

By this time all the men in the stable were gathered about the two
Diamonds, and all much amused. One of them lifted him down, and from
that time he was a greater favourite than before. And if ever there was
a boy who had a chance of being a prodigy at cab-driving, Diamond was
that boy, for the strife came to be who should have him out with him on
the box.

His mother, however, was a little shy of the company for him, and
besides she could not always spare him. Also his father liked to have
him himself when he could; so that he was more desired than enjoyed
among the cabmen.

But one way and another he did learn to drive all sorts of horses, and
to drive them well, and that through the most crowded streets in London
City. Of course there was the man always on the box-seat beside him, but
before long there was seldom the least occasion to take the reins
from out of his hands. For one thing he never got frightened, and
consequently was never in too great a hurry. Yet when the moment came
for doing something sharp, he was always ready for it. I must once more
remind my readers that he had been to the back of the north wind.

One day, which was neither washing-day, nor cleaning-day nor
marketing-day, nor Saturday, nor Monday--upon which consequently Diamond
could be spared from the baby--his father took him on his own cab. After
a stray job or two by the way, they drew up in the row upon the stand
between Cockspur Street and Pall Mall. They waited a long time, but
nobody seemed to want to be carried anywhere. By and by ladies would be
going home from the Academy exhibition, and then there would be a chance
of a job.

“Though, to be sure,” 

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