At the Back of the North Wind

“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.”