At the Back of the North Wind

“Aha! little squirrel,” he cried, “my nest is built higher than yours.”

“You can be up here with your books as much as you like,” said his mistress. “I will have a little bell hung at the door, which I can ring when I want you. Half-way down the stair is the drawing-room.”

So Diamond was installed as page, and his new room got ready for him.

It was very soon after this that I came to know Diamond. I was then a tutor in a family whose estate adjoined the little property belonging to The Mound. I had made the acquaintance of Mr. Raymond in London some time before, and was walking up the drive towards the house to call upon him one fine warm evening, when I saw Diamond for the first time. He was sitting at the foot of a great beech-tree, a few yards from the road, with a book on his knees. He did not see me. I walked up behind the tree, and peeping over his shoulder, saw that he was reading a fairy-book.

“What are you reading?” I said, and spoke suddenly, with the hope of seeing a startled little face look round at me. Diamond turned his head as quietly as if he were only obeying his mother’s voice, and the calmness of his face rebuked my unkind desire and made me ashamed of it.

“I am reading the story of the Little Lady and the Goblin Prince,” said Diamond.

“I am sorry I don’t know the story,” I returned. “Who is it by?”

“Mr. Raymond made it.”

“Is he your uncle?” I asked at a guess.

“No. He’s my master.”

“What do you do for him?” I asked respectfully.

“Anything he wishes me to do,” he answered. “I am busy for him now. He gave me this story to read. He wants my opinion upon it.”

“Don’t you find it rather hard to make up your mind?”

“Oh dear no! Any story always tells me itself what I’m to think about it. Mr. Raymond doesn’t want me to say whether it is a clever story or not, but whether I like it, and why I like it. I never can tell what they call clever from what they call silly, but I always know whether I like a story or not.”

“And can you always tell why you like it or not?”

“No. Very often I can’t at all. Sometimes I can. I always know, but I can’t always tell why. Mr. Raymond writes the stories, and then tries them on me. Mother does the same when she makes jam. She’s made such a lot of jam since we came here! And she always makes me taste it to see if it’ll do. Mother knows by the face I make whether it will or not.”

At this moment I caught sight of two more children approaching. One was a handsome girl, the other a pale-faced, awkward-looking boy, who limped much on one leg. I withdrew a little, to see what would follow, for they seemed in some consternation. After a few hurried words, they went off together, and I pursued my way to the house, where I was as kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond as I could have desired. From them I learned something of Diamond, and was in consequence the more glad to find him, when I returned, seated in the same place as before.

“What did the boy and girl want with you, Diamond?” I asked.

“They had seen a creature that frightened them.”

“And they came to tell you about it?”

“They couldn’t get water out of the well for it. So they wanted me to go with them.”

“They’re both bigger than you.”

“Yes, but they were frightened at it.”

“And weren’t you frightened at it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m silly. I’m never frightened at things.”

I could not help thinking of the old meaning of the word silly.

“And what was it?” I asked.

“I think it was a kind of an angel—a very little one. It had a long body and great wings, which it drove about it so fast that they grew a thin cloud all round it. It flew backwards and forwards over the well, or hung right in the middle, making a mist of its wings, as if its business was to take care of the water.”

“And what did you do to drive it away?”

“I didn’t drive it away. I knew, whatever the creature was, the well was to get water out of. So I took the jug, dipped it in, and drew the water.”

“And what did the creature do?”

“Flew about.”

“And it didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Why should it? I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“What did your companions say then?”

“They said—`Thank you, Diamond. What a dear silly you are!’”

“And weren’t you angry with them?”

“No! Why should I? I should like if they would play with me a little; but they always like better to go away together when their work is over. They never heed me. I don’t mind it much, though. The other creatures are friendly. They don’t run away from me. Only they’re all so busy with their own work, they don’t mind me much.”

“Do you feel lonely, then?”

“Oh, no! When nobody minds me, I get into my nest, and look up. And then the sky does mind me, and thinks about me.”

“Where is your nest?”

He rose, saying, “I will show you,” and led me to the other side of the tree.

There hung a little rope-ladder from one of the lower boughs. The boy climbed up the ladder and got upon the bough. Then he climbed farther into the leafy branches, and went out of sight.

After a little while, I heard his voice coming down out of the tree.

“I am in my nest now,” said the voice.

“I can’t see you,” I returned.

“I can’t see you either, but I can see the first star peeping out of the sky. I should like to get up into the sky. Don’t you think I shall, some day?”

“Yes, I do. Tell me what more you see up there.”

“I don’t see anything more, except a few leaves, and the big sky over me. It goes swinging about. The earth is all behind my back. There comes another star! The wind is like kisses from a big lady. When I get up here I feel as if I were in North Wind’s arms.”

This was the first I heard of North Wind.

The whole ways and look of the child, so full of quiet wisdom, yet so ready to accept the judgment of others in his own dispraise, took hold of my heart, and I felt myself wonderfully drawn towards him. It seemed to me, somehow, as if little Diamond possessed the secret of life, and was himself what he was so ready to think the lowest living thing—an angel of God with something special to say or do. A gush of reverence came over me, and with a single goodnight, I turned and left him in his nest.

I saw him often after this, and gained so much of his confidence that he told me all I have told you. I cannot pretend to account for it. I leave that for each philosophical reader to do after his own fashion. The easiest way is that of Nanny and Jim, who said often to each other that Diamond had a tile loose. But Mr. Raymond was much of my opinion concerning the boy; while Mrs. Raymond confessed that she often rang her bell just to have once more the pleasure of seeing the lovely stillness of the boy’s face, with those blue eyes which seemed rather made for other people to look into than for himself to look out of.

It was plainer to others than to himself that he felt the desertion of Nanny and Jim. They appeared to regard him as a mere toy, except when they found he could minister to the scruple of using him—generally with success. They were, however, well-behaved to a wonderful degree; while I have little doubt that much of their good behaviour was owing to the unconscious influence of the boy they called God’s baby.

One very strange thing is that I could never find out where he got some of his many songs. At times they would be but bubbles blown out of a nursery rhyme, as was the following, which I heard him sing one evening to his little Dulcimer. There were about a score of sheep feeding in a paddock near him, their white wool dyed a pale rose in the light of the setting sun. Those in the long shadows from the trees were dead white; those in the sunlight were half glorified with pale rose.

Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep,And didn’t know where to find them;They were over the height and out of sight,Trailing their tails behind them.Little Bo Peep woke out of her sleep,Jump’d up and set out to find them:“The silly things, they’ve got no wings,And they’ve left their trails behind them:“They’ve taken their tails, but they’ve left their trails,And so I shall follow and find them;”For wherever a tail had dragged a trail,The long grass grew behind them.And day’s eyes and butter-cups, cow’s lips and crow’s feetWere glittering in the sun.She threw down her book, and caught up her crook,And after her sheep did run.She ran, and she ran, and ever as she ran,The grass grew higher and higher;Till over the hill the sun beganTo set in a flame of fire.She ran on still—up the grassy hill,And the grass grew higher and higher;When she reached its crown, the sun was down,And had left a trail of fire.The sheep and their tails were gone, all gone—And no more trail behind them!Yes, yes!  they were there—long-tailed and fair,But, alas!  she could not find them.Purple and gold, and rosy and blue,With their tails all white behind them,Her sheep they did run in the trail of the sun;She saw them, but could not find them.After the sun, like clouds they did run,But she knew they were her sheep:She sat down to cry, and look up at the sky,   But she cried herself asleep.And as she slept the dew fell fast,And the wind blew from the sky;And strange things took place that shun the day’s face,Because they are sweet and shy.Nibble, nibble, crop!  she heard as she woke:A hundred little lambsDid pluck and eat the grass so sweetThat grew in the trails of their dams.Little Bo Peep caught up her crook,And wiped the tears that did blind her.And nibble, nibble crop! without a stop!The lambs came eating behind her.Home, home she came, both tired and lame,With three times as many sheep.In a month or more, they’ll be as big as before,And then she’ll laugh in her sleep.But what would you say, if one fine day,When they’ve got their bushiest tails,Their grown up game should be just the same,And she have to follow their trails?Never weep, Bo Peep, though you lose your sheep,And do not know where to find them;‘Tis after the sun the mothers have run,And there are their lambs behind them.

I confess again to having touched up a little, but it loses far more in Diamond’s sweet voice singing it than it gains by a rhyme here and there.

Some of them were out of books Mr. Raymond had given him. These he always knew, but about the others he could seldom tell. Sometimes he would say, “I made that one.” but generally he would say, “I don’t know; I found it somewhere;” or “I got it at the back of the north wind.”

One evening I found him sitting on the grassy slope under the house, with his Dulcimer in his arms and his little brother rolling on the grass beside them. He was chanting in his usual way, more like the sound of a brook than anything else I can think of. When I went up to them he ceased his chant.

“Do go on, Diamond. Don’t mind me,” I said.

He began again at once. While he sang, Nanny and Jim sat a little way off, one hemming a pocket-handkerchief, and the other reading a story to her, but they never heeded Diamond. This is as near what he sang as I can recollect, or reproduce rather.

What would you see if I took you upTo my little nest in the air?You would see the sky like a clear blue cupTurned upside downwards there.What would you do if I took you thereTo my little nest in the tree?My child with cries would trouble the air,To get what she could but see.What would you get in the top of the treeFor all your crying and grief?Not a star would you clutch of all you see—You could only gather a leaf.But when you had lost your greedy grief,Content to see from afar,You would find in your hand a withering leaf,In your heart a shining star.

As Diamond went on singing, it grew very dark, and just as he ceased there came a great flash of lightning, that blinded us all for a moment. Dulcimer crowed with pleasure; but when the roar of thunder came after it, the little brother gave a loud cry of terror. Nanny and Jim came running up to us, pale with fear. Diamond’s face, too, was paler than usual, but with delight. Some of the glory seemed to have clung to it, and remained shining.

“You’re not frightened—are you, Diamond?” I said.

“No. Why should I be?” he answered with his usual question, looking up in my face with calm shining eyes.

“He ain’t got sense to be frightened,” said Nanny, going up to him and giving him a pitying hug.

“Perhaps there’s more sense in not being frightened, Nanny,” I returned. “Do you think the lightning can do as it likes?”

“It might kill you,” said Jim.

“Oh, no, it mightn’t!” said Diamond.

As he spoke there came another great flash, and a tearing crack.

“There’s a tree struck!” I said; and when we looked round, after the blinding of the flash had left our eyes, we saw a huge bough of the beech-tree in which was Diamond’s nest hanging to the ground like the broken wing of a bird.

“There!” cried Nanny; “I told you so. If you had been up there you see what would have happened, you little silly!”

“No, I don’t,” said Diamond, and began to sing to Dulcimer. All I could hear of the song, for the other children were going on with their chatter, was—

The clock struck one,And the mouse came down.Dickery, dickery, dock!

Then there came a blast of wind, and the rain followed in straight-pouring lines, as if out of a watering-pot. Diamond jumped up with his little Dulcimer in his arms, and Nanny caught up the little boy, and they ran for the cottage. Jim vanished with a double shuffle, and I went into the house.

When I came out again to return home, the clouds were gone, and the evening sky glimmered through the trees, blue, and pale-green towards the west, I turned my steps a little aside to look at the stricken beech. I saw the bough torn from the stem, and that was all the twilight would allow me to see. While I stood gazing, down from the sky came a sound of singing, but the voice was neither of lark nor of nightingale: it was sweeter than either: it was the voice of Diamond, up in his airy nest:—

The lightning and thunder,They go and they come;But the stars and the stillnessAre always at home.

And then the voice ceased.

“Good-night, Diamond,” I said.

“Good-night, sir,” answered Diamond.

As I walked away pondering, I saw the great black top of the beech swaying about against the sky in an upper wind, and heard the murmur as of many dim half-articulate voices filling the solitude around Diamond’s nest.

CHAPTER XXXVI. DIAMOND QUESTIONS NORTH WIND

MY READERS will not wonder that, after this, I did my very best to gain the friendship of Diamond. Nor did I find this at all difficult, the child was so ready to trust. Upon one subject alone was he reticent—the story of his relations with North Wind. I fancy he could not quite make up his mind what to think of them. At all events it was some little time before he trusted me with this, only then he told me everything. If I could not regard it all in exactly the same light as he did, I was, while guiltless of the least pretence, fully sympathetic, and he was satisfied without demanding of me any theory of difficult points involved. I let him see plainly enough, that whatever might be the explanation of the marvellous experience, I would have given much for a similar one myself.

On an evening soon after the thunderstorm, in a late twilight, with a half-moon high in the heavens, I came upon Diamond in the act of climbing by his little ladder into the beech-tree.

“What are you always going up there for, Diamond?” I heard Nanny ask, rather rudely, I thought.

“Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, Nanny,” answered Diamond, looking skywards as he climbed.

“You’ll break your neck some day,” she said.

“I’m going up to look at the moon to-night,” he added, without heeding her remark.

“You’ll see the moon just as well down here,” she returned.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’ll be no nearer to her up there.”

“Oh, yes! I shall. I must be nearer her, you know. I wish I could dream as pretty dreams about her as you can, Nanny.”

“You silly! you never have done about that dream. I never dreamed but that one, and it was nonsense enough, I’m sure.”

“It wasn’t nonsense. It was a beautiful dream—and a funny one too, both in one.”

“But what’s the good of talking about it that way, when you know it was only a dream? Dreams ain’t true.”

“That one was true, Nanny. You know it was. Didn’t you come to grief for doing what you were told not to do? And isn’t that true?”

“I can’t get any sense into him,” exclaimed Nanny, with an expression of mild despair. “Do you really believe, Diamond, that there’s a house in the moon, with a beautiful lady and a crooked old man and dusters in it?”

“If there isn’t, there’s something better,” he answered, and vanished in the leaves over our heads.

I went into the house, where I visited often in the evenings. When I came out, there was a little wind blowing, very pleasant after the heat of the day, for although it was late summer now, it was still hot. The tree-tops were swinging about in it. I took my way past the beech, and called up to see if Diamond were still in his nest in its rocking head.

“Are you there, Diamond?” I said.

“Yes, sir,” came his clear voice in reply.

“Isn’t it growing too dark for you to get down safely?”

“Oh, no, sir—if I take time to it. I know my way so well, and never let go with one hand till I’ve a good hold with the other.”

“Do be careful,” I insisted—foolishly, seeing the boy was as careful as he could be already.

“I’m coming,” he returned. “I’ve got all the moon I want to-night.”

I heard a rustling and a rustling drawing nearer and nearer. Three or four minutes elapsed, and he appeared at length creeping down his little ladder. I took him in my arms, and set him on the ground.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “That’s the north wind blowing, isn’t it, sir?”

“I can’t tell,” I answered. “It feels cool and kind, and I think it may be. But I couldn’t be sure except it were stronger, for a gentle wind might turn any way amongst the trunks of the trees.”

“I shall know when I get up to my own room,” said Diamond. “I think I hear my mistress’s bell. Good-night, sir.”

He ran to the house, and I went home.

His mistress had rung for him only to send him to bed, for she was very careful over him and I daresay thought he was not looking well. When he reached his own room, he opened both his windows, one of which looked to the north and the other to the east, to find how the wind blew. It blew right in at the northern window. Diamond was very glad, for he thought perhaps North Wind herself would come now: a real north wind had never blown all the time since he left London. But, as she always came of herself, and never when he was looking for her, and indeed almost never when he was thinking of her, he shut the east window, and went to bed. Perhaps some of my readers may wonder that he could go to sleep with such an expectation; and, indeed, if I had not known him, I should have wondered at it myself; but it was one of his peculiarities, and seemed nothing strange in him. He was so full of quietness that he could go to sleep almost any time, if he only composed himself and let the sleep come. This time he went fast asleep as usual.

But he woke in the dim blue night. The moon had vanished. He thought he heard a knocking at his door. “Somebody wants me,” he said to himself, and jumping out of bed, ran to open it.

But there was no one there. He closed it again, and, the noise still continuing, found that another door in the room was rattling. It belonged to a closet, he thought, but he had never been able to open it. The wind blowing in at the window must be shaking it. He would go and see if it was so.

The door now opened quite easily, but to his surprise, instead of a closet he found a long narrow room. The moon, which was sinking in the west, shone in at an open window at the further end. The room was low with a coved ceiling, and occupied the whole top of the house, immediately under the roof. It was quite empty. The yellow light of the half-moon streamed over the dark floor. He was so delighted at the discovery of the strange, desolate, moonlit place close to his own snug little room, that he began to dance and skip about the floor. The wind came in through the door he had left open, and blew about him as he danced, and he kept turning towards it that it might blow in his face. He kept picturing to himself the many places, lovely and desolate, the hill-sides and farm-yards and tree-tops and meadows, over which it had blown on its way to The Mound. And as he danced, he grew more and more delighted with the motion and the wind; his feet grew stronger, and his body lighter, until at length it seemed as if he were borne up on the air, and could almost fly. So strong did his feeling become, that at last he began to doubt whether he was not in one of those precious dreams he had so often had, in which he floated about on the air at will. But something made him look up, and to his unspeakable delight, he found his uplifted hands lying in those of North Wind, who was dancing with him, round and round the long bare room, her hair now falling to the floor, now filling the arched ceiling, her eyes shining on him like thinking stars, and the sweetest of grand smiles playing breezily about her beautiful mouth. She was, as so often before, of the height of a rather tall lady. She did not stoop in order to dance with him, but held his hands high in hers. When he saw her, he gave one spring, and his arms were about her neck, and her arms holding him to her bosom. The same moment she swept with him through the open window in at which the moon was shining, made a circuit like a bird about to alight, and settled with him in his nest on the top of the great beech-tree. There she placed him on her lap and began to hush him as if he were her own baby, and Diamond was so entirely happy that he did not care to speak a word. At length, however, he found that he was going to sleep, and that would be to lose so much, that, pleasant as it was, he could not consent.

“Please, dear North Wind,” he said, “I am so happy that I’m afraid it’s a dream. How am I to know that it’s not a dream?”

“What does it matter?” returned North Wind.

“I should, cry” said Diamond.

“But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant one—is it not?”

“That’s just why I want it to be true.”

“Have you forgotten what you said to Nanny about her dream?”

“It’s not for the dream itself—I mean, it’s not for the pleasure of it,” answered Diamond, “for I have that, whether it be a dream or not; it’s for you, North Wind; I can’t bear to find it a dream, because then I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I could not bear that. You ain’t a dream, are you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you’ll be gone for ever. I daren’t dream about you once again if you ain’t anybody.”

“I’m either not a dream, or there’s something better that’s not a dream, Diamond,” said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone, he thought.

“But it’s not something better—it’s you I want, North Wind,” he persisted, already beginning to cry a little.

She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and sailed away over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where a flock of sheep was feeding.

“Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago says about Bo-Peep—how she lost her sheep, but got twice as many lambs?” asked North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and placing him in her lap as before.

“Oh yes, I do, well enough,” answered Diamond; “but I never just quite liked that rhyme.”

“Why not, child?”

“Because it seems to say one’s as good as another, or two new ones are better than one that’s lost. I’ve been thinking about it a great deal, and it seems to me that although any one sixpence is as good as any other sixpence, not twenty lambs would do instead of one sheep whose face you knew. Somehow, when once you’ve looked into anybody’s eyes, right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight. So you see, North Wind, I can’t help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all. Do tell me that you are my own, real, beautiful North Wind.”

Again she rose, and shot herself into the air, as if uneasy because she could not answer him; and Diamond lay quiet in her arms, waiting for what she would say. He tried to see up into her face, for he was dreadfully afraid she was not answering him because she could not say that she was not a dream; but she had let her hair fall all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened him still more.