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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 Na
rather rudely, I thought.
“Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, Na
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, Na
“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 fu
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, Na
doing what you were told not to do? And isn't that true?”
“I can't get any sense into him,” exclaimed Na
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.