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