At the Back of the North Wind

“Do speak, North Wind,” he said at last.

“I never speak when I have nothing to say,” she replied.

“Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,” said Diamond.

“But I’m looking for something to say all the time.”

“But I don’t want you to say what’s hard to find. If you were to say one word to comfort me that wasn’t true, then I should know you must be a dream, for a great beautiful lady like you could never tell a lie.”

“But she mightn’t know how to say what she had to say, so that a little boy like you would understand it,” said North Wind. “Here, let us get down again, and I will try to tell you what I think. You musn’t suppose I am able to answer all your questions, though. There are a great many things I don’t understand more than you do.”

She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of a wild furzy common. There was a rabbit-warren underneath, and some of the rabbits came out of their holes, in the moonlight, looking very sober and wise, just like patriarchs standing in their tent-doors, and looking about them before going to bed. When they saw North Wind, instead of turning round and vanishing again with a thump of their heels, they cantered slowly up to her and snuffled all about her with their long upper lips, which moved every way at once. That was their way of kissing her; and, as she talked to Diamond, she would every now and then stroke down their furry backs, or lift and play with their long ears. They would, Diamond thought, have leaped upon her lap, but that he was there already.

“I think,” said she, after they had been sitting silent for a while, “that if I were only a dream, you would not have been able to love me so. You love me when you are not with me, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do,” answered Diamond, stroking her hand. “I see! I see! How could I be able to love you as I do if you weren’t there at all, you know? Besides, I couldn’t be able to dream anything half so beautiful all out of my own head; or if I did, I couldn’t love a fancy of my own like that, could I?”

“I think not. You might have loved me in a dream, dreamily, and forgotten me when you woke, I daresay, but not loved me like a real being as you love me. Even then, I don’t think you could dream anything that hadn’t something real like it somewhere. But you’ve seen me in many shapes, Diamond: you remember I was a wolf once—don’t you?”

“Oh yes—a good wolf that frightened a naughty drunken nurse.”

“Well, suppose I were to turn ugly, would you rather I weren’t a dream then?”

“Yes; for I should know that you were beautiful inside all the same. You would love me, and I should love you all the same. I shouldn’t like you to look ugly, you know. But I shouldn’t believe it a bit.”

“Not if you saw it?”

“No, not if I saw it ever so plain.”

“There’s my Diamond! I will tell you all I know about it then. I don’t think I am just what you fancy me to be. I have to shape myself various ways to various people. But the heart of me is true. People call me by dreadful names, and think they know all about me. But they don’t. Sometimes they call me Bad Fortune, sometimes Evil Chance, sometimes Ruin; and they have another name for me which they think the most dreadful of all.”

“What is that?” asked Diamond, smiling up in her face.

“I won’t tell you that name. Do you remember having to go through me to get into the country at my back?”

“Oh yes, I do. How cold you were, North Wind! and so white, all but your lovely eyes! My heart grew like a lump of ice, and then I forgot for a while.”

“You were very near knowing what they call me then. Would you be afraid of me if you had to go through me again?”

“No. Why should I? Indeed I should be glad enough, if it was only to get another peep of the country at your back.”

“You’ve never seen it yet.”

“Haven’t I, North Wind? Oh! I’m so sorry! I thought I had. What did I see then?”

“Only a picture of it. The real country at my real back is ever so much more beautiful than that. You shall see it one day—perhaps before very long.”

“Do they sing songs there?”

“Don’t you remember the dream you had about the little boys that dug for the stars?”

“Yes, that I do. I thought you must have had something to do with that dream, it was so beautiful.”

“Yes; I gave you that dream.”

“Oh! thank you. Did you give Nanny her dream too—about the moon and the bees?”

“Yes. I was the lady that sat at the window of the moon.”

“Oh, thank you. I was almost sure you had something to do with that too. And did you tell Mr. Raymond the story about the Princess Daylight?”

“I believe I had something to do with it. At all events he thought about it one night when he couldn’t sleep. But I want to ask you whether you remember the song the boy-angels sang in that dream of yours.”

“No. I couldn’t keep it, do what I would, and I did try.”

“That was my fault.”

“How could that be, North Wind?”

“Because I didn’t know it properly myself, and so I couldn’t teach it to you. I could only make a rough guess at something like what it would be, and so I wasn’t able to make you dream it hard enough to remember it. Nor would I have done so if I could, for it was not correct. I made you dream pictures of it, though. But you will hear the very song itself when you do get to the back of–”

“My own dear North Wind,” said Diamond, finishing the sentence for her, and kissing the arm that held him leaning against her.

“And now we’ve settled all this—for the time, at least,” said North Wind.

“But I can’t feel quite sure yet,” said Diamond.

“You must wait a while for that. Meantime you may be hopeful, and content not to be quite sure. Come now, I will take you home again, for it won’t do to tire you too much.”

“Oh, no, no. I’m not the least tired,” pleaded Diamond.

“It is better, though.”

“Very well; if you wish it,” yielded Diamond with a sigh.

“You are a dear good, boy” said North Wind. “I will come for you again to-morrow night and take you out for a longer time. We shall make a little journey together, in fact, we shall start earlier, and as the moon will be later, we shall have a little moonlight all the way.”

She rose, and swept over the meadow and the trees. In a few moments the Mound appeared below them. She sank a little, and floated in at the window of Diamond’s room. There she laid him on his bed, covered him over, and in a moment he was lapt in a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XXXVII. ONCE MORE

THE next night Diamond was seated by his open window, with his head on his hand, rather tired, but so eagerly waiting for the promised visit that he was afraid he could not sleep. But he started suddenly, and found that he had been already asleep. He rose, and looking out of the window saw something white against his beech-tree. It was North Wind. She was holding by one hand to a top branch. Her hair and her garments went floating away behind her over the tree, whose top was swaying about while the others were still.

“Are you ready, Diamond?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Diamond, “quite ready.”

In a moment she was at the window, and her arms came in and took him. She sailed away so swiftly that he could at first mark nothing but the speed with which the clouds above and the dim earth below went rushing past. But soon he began to see that the sky was very lovely, with mottled clouds all about the moon, on which she threw faint colours like those of mother-of-pearl, or an opal. The night was warm, and in the lady’s arms he did not feel the wind which down below was making waves in the ripe corn, and ripples on the rivers and lakes. At length they descended on the side of an open earthy hill, just where, from beneath a stone, a spring came bubbling out.