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