章节正文
of person you are talking to.--I want you to come out with me."
"I want to go to sleep," said Diamond, very nearly crying, for he
did not like to be scolded, even when he deserved it.
"You shall sleep all the better to-morrow night."
"Besides," said Diamond, "you are out in Mr. Dyves's garden,
and I can't get there. I can only get into our own yard."
"Will you take your head out of the bed-clothes?" said the voice,
just a little angrily.
"No!" answered Diamond, half peevish, half frightened.
The instant he said the word, a tremendous blast of wind crashed
in a board of the wall, and swept the clothes off Diamond.
He started up in terror. Leaning over him was the large, beautiful,
pale face of a woman. Her dark eyes looked a little angry,
for they had just begun to flash; but a quivering in her sweet
upper lip made her look as if she were going to cry. What was
the most strange was that away from her head streamed out her black
hair in every direction, so that the darkness in the hay-loft
looked as if it were made of her, hair but as Diamond gazed at her
in speechlessamazement, mingled with confidence--for the boy was
entranced with her mighty beauty--her hair began to gather itself
out of the darkness, and fell down all about her again, till her
face looked out of the midst of it like a moon out of a cloud.
From her eyes came all the light by which Diamond saw her face and her,
hair; and that was all he did see of her yet. The wind was over and gone.
"Will you go with me now, you little Diamond? I am sorry I was
forced to be so rough with you," said the lady.
"I will; yes, I will," answered Diamond, holding out both his arms.
"But," he added, dropping them, "how shall I get my clothes?
They are in mother's room, and the door is locked."
"Oh, never mind your clothes. You will not be cold. I shall take
care of that. Nobody is cold with the north wind."
"I thought everybody was," said Diamond.
"That is a great mistake. Most people make it, however. They are
cold because they are not with the north wind, but without it."
If Diamond had been a little older, and had supposed himself
a good deal wiser, he would have thought the lady was joking.
But he was not older, and did not fancy himself wiser, and therefore
understood her well enough. Again he stretched out his arms.
The lady's face drew back a little.
"Follow me, Diamond," she said.
"Yes," said Diamond, only a little ruefully.
"You're not afraid?" said the North Wind.
"No, ma'am; but mother never would let me go without shoes:
she never said anything about clothes, so I dare say she wouldn't
mind that."
"I know your mother very well," said the lady. "She is a good woman.
I have visited her often. I was with her when you were born.
I saw her laugh and cry both at once. I love your mother, Diamond."
"How was it you did not know my name, then, ma'am? Please am I
to say ma'am to you, ma'am?"
"One question at a time, dear boy. I knew your name quite well,
but I wanted to hear what you would say for it. Don't you remember
that day when the man was finding fault with your name--how I blew
the window in?"
"Yes, yes," answered Diamond, eagerly. "Our window opens like a door,
right over the coach-house door. And the wind--you, ma'am--came in,
and blew the Bible out of the man's hands, and the leaves went
all flutter, flutter on the floor, and my mother picked it up
and gave it back to him open, and there----"
"Was your name in the Bible--the sixth stone in the high
priest's breastplate."
"Oh!--a stone, was it?" said Diamond. "I thought it had been a horse--
I did."
"Never mind. A horse is better than a stone any day. Well, you see,
I know all about you and your mother."
"Yes. I will go with you."
"Now for the next question: you're not to call me ma'am. You must
call me just my own name--respectfully, you know--just North Wind."
"Well, please, North Wind, you are so beautiful, I am quite ready
to go with you."
"You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all
at once, Diamond."
"But what's beautiful can't be bad. You're not bad, North Wind?"
"No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad,
and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty.
So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they
are beautiful."
"Well, I will go with you because you are beautiful and good, too."
"Ah, but there's another thing, Diamond:--What if I should look
ugly without being bad--look ugly myself because I am making ugly
things beautiful?--What then?"
"I don't quite understand you, North Wind. You tell me what then."
"Well, I will tell you. If you see me with my face all black,
don't be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big
as the whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times
worse than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife--even if you see me looking
in at people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife--
you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change
into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me,
for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold.
If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when
you look at me and can't see me the least like the North Wind.
I may look something very awful. Do you understand?"
"Quite well," said little Diamond.
"Come along, then," said North Wind, and disappeared behind
the mountain of hay.
Diamond crept out of bed and followed her.
CHAPTER II
THE LAWN
WHEN Diamond got round the corner of the hay, for a moment he hesitated.
The stair by which he would naturally have gone down to the door
was at the other side of the loft, and looked very black indeed;
for it was full of North Wind's hair, as she descended before him.
And just beside him was the ladder going straight down into the stable,
up which his father always came to fetch the hay for Diamond's dinner.
Through the opening in the floor the faint gleam of the-stable lantern
was enticing, and Diamond thought he would run down that way.
The stair went close past the loose-box in which Diamond the horse lived.
When Diamond the boy was half-way down, he remembered that it
was of no use to go this way, for the stable-door was locked.
But at the same moment there was horse Diamond's great head
poked out of his box on to the ladder, for he knew boy Diamond
although he was in his night-gown, and wanted him to pull his
ears for him. This Diamond did very gently for a minute or so,
and patted and stroked his neck too, and kissed the big horse,
and had begun to take the bits of straw and hay out of his mane,
when all at once he recollected that the Lady North Wind was waiting
for him in the yard.
"Good night, Diamond," he said, and darted up the ladder,
across the loft, and down the stair to the door. But when he
got out into the yard, there was no lady.
Now it is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and
find nobody. Children in particular have not made up their minds to it;
they generally cry at nobody, especially when they wake up at night.
But it was an especialdisappointment to Diamond, for his little heart
had been beating with joy: the face of the North Wind was so grand!
To have a lady like that for a friend--with such long hair, too!
Why, it was longer than twenty Diamonds' tails! She was gone.
And there he stood, with his bare feet on the stones of the paved yard.
It was a clear night overhead, and the stars were shining.
Orion in particular was making the most of his bright belt
and golden sword. But the moon was only a poor thin crescent.
There was just one great, jagged, black and gray cloud in the sky,
with a steep side to it like a precipice; and the moon was against
this side, and looked as if she had tumbled off the top of the
cloud-hill, and broken herself in rolling down the precipice.
She did not seem comfortable, for she was looking down into the
deep pit waiting for her. At least that was what Diamond thought
as he stood for a moment staring at her. But he was quite wrong,
for the moon was not afraid, and there was no pit she was going
down into, for there were no sides to it, and a pit without sides
to it is not a pit at all. Diamond, however, had not been out so late
before in all his life, and things looked so strange about him!--
just as if he had got into Fairyland, of which he knew quite as much
as anybody; for his mother had no money to buy books to set him
wrong on the subject. I have seen this world--only sometimes,
just now and then, you know--look as strange as ever I saw Fairyland.
But I confess that I have not yet seen Fairyland at its best.
I am always going to see it so some time. But if you had been out
in the face and not at the back of the North Wind, on a cold rather
frosty night, and in your night-gown, you would have felt it all
quite as strange as Diamond did. He cried a little, just a little,
he was so disappointed to lose the lady: of course, you, little man,
wouldn't have done that! But for my part, I don't mind people
crying so much as I mind what they cry about, and how they cry--
whether they cry quietly like ladies and gentlemen, or go shrieking
like vulgar emperors, or ill-natured cooks; for all emperors are
not gentlemen, and all cooks are not ladies--nor all queens and
princesses for that matter, either.
But it can't be denied that a little gentle crying does one good.
It did Diamond good; for as soon as it was over he was a brave
boy again.
"She shan't say it was my fault, anyhow!" said Diamond. "I daresay
she is hiding somewhere to see what I will do. I will look for her."
So he went round the end of the stable towards the kitchen-garden.
But the moment he was clear of the shelter of the stable, sharp as
a knife came the wind against his little chest and his bare legs.
Still he would look in the kitchen-garden, and went on.
But when he got round the weeping-ash that stood in the corner,
the wind blew much stronger, and it grew stronger and stronger
till he could hardly fight against it. And it was so cold!
All the flashy spikes of the stars seemed to have got somehow
into the wind. Then he thought of what the lady had said about
people being cold because they were not with the North Wind.
How it was that he should have guessed what she meant at that very
moment I cannot tell, but I have observed that the most wonderful
thing in the world is how people come to understand anything.
He turned his back to the wind, and trotted again towards the yard;
whereupon, strange to say, it blew so much more gently against his
calves than it had blown against his shins that he began to feel
almost warm by contrast.
You must not think it was cowardly of Diamond to turn his back
to the wind: he did so only because he thought Lady North Wind
had said something like telling him to do so. If she had said
to him that he must hold his face to it, Diamond would have held
his face to it. But the most foolish thing is to fight for no good,
and to please nobody.
Well, it was just as if the wind was pushing Diamond along.
If he turned round, it grew very sharp on his legs especially,
and so he thought the wind might really be Lady North Wind, though he
could not see her, and he had better let her blow him wherever
she pleased. So she blew and blew, and he went and went, until he
found himself standing at a door in a wall, which door led from the
yard into a little belt of shrubbery, flanking Mr. Coleman's house.
Mr. Coleman was his father's master, and the owner of Diamond.
He opened the door, and went through the shrubbery, and out
into the middle of the lawn, still hoping to find North Wind.
The soft grass was very pleasant to his bare feet, and felt warm
after the stones of the yard; but the lady was nowhere to be seen.
Then he began to think that after all he must have done wrong,
and she was offended with him for not following close after her,
"I want to go to sleep," said Diamond, very nearly crying, for he
did not like to be scolded, even when he deserved it.
"You shall sleep all the better to-morrow night."
"Besides," said Diamond, "you are out in Mr. Dyves's garden,
and I can't get there. I can only get into our own yard."
"Will you take your head out of the bed-clothes?" said the voice,
just a little angrily.
"No!" answered Diamond, half peevish, half frightened.
The instant he said the word, a tremendous blast of wind crashed
in a board of the wall, and swept the clothes off Diamond.
He started up in terror. Leaning over him was the large, beautiful,
pale face of a woman. Her dark eyes looked a little angry,
for they had just begun to flash; but a quivering in her sweet
upper lip made her look as if she were going to cry. What was
the most strange was that away from her head streamed out her black
hair in every direction, so that the darkness in the hay-loft
looked as if it were made of her, hair but as Diamond gazed at her
in speechlessamazement, mingled with confidence--for the boy was
entranced with her mighty beauty--her hair began to gather itself
out of the darkness, and fell down all about her again, till her
face looked out of the midst of it like a moon out of a cloud.
From her eyes came all the light by which Diamond saw her face and her,
hair; and that was all he did see of her yet. The wind was over and gone.
"Will you go with me now, you little Diamond? I am sorry I was
forced to be so rough with you," said the lady.
"I will; yes, I will," answered Diamond, holding out both his arms.
"But," he added, dropping them, "how shall I get my clothes?
They are in mother's room, and the door is locked."
"Oh, never mind your clothes. You will not be cold. I shall take
care of that. Nobody is cold with the north wind."
"I thought everybody was," said Diamond.
"That is a great mistake. Most people make it, however. They are
cold because they are not with the north wind, but without it."
If Diamond had been a little older, and had supposed himself
a good deal wiser, he would have thought the lady was joking.
But he was not older, and did not fancy himself wiser, and therefore
understood her well enough. Again he stretched out his arms.
The lady's face drew back a little.
"Follow me, Diamond," she said.
"Yes," said Diamond, only a little ruefully.
"You're not afraid?" said the North Wind.
"No, ma'am; but mother never would let me go without shoes:
she never said anything about clothes, so I dare say she wouldn't
mind that."
"I know your mother very well," said the lady. "She is a good woman.
I have visited her often. I was with her when you were born.
I saw her laugh and cry both at once. I love your mother, Diamond."
"How was it you did not know my name, then, ma'am? Please am I
to say ma'am to you, ma'am?"
"One question at a time, dear boy. I knew your name quite well,
but I wanted to hear what you would say for it. Don't you remember
that day when the man was finding fault with your name--how I blew
the window in?"
"Yes, yes," answered Diamond, eagerly. "Our window opens like a door,
right over the coach-house door. And the wind--you, ma'am--came in,
and blew the Bible out of the man's hands, and the leaves went
all flutter, flutter on the floor, and my mother picked it up
and gave it back to him open, and there----"
"Was your name in the Bible--the sixth stone in the high
priest's breastplate."
"Oh!--a stone, was it?" said Diamond. "I thought it had been a horse--
I did."
"Never mind. A horse is better than a stone any day. Well, you see,
I know all about you and your mother."
"Yes. I will go with you."
"Now for the next question: you're not to call me ma'am. You must
call me just my own name--respectfully, you know--just North Wind."
"Well, please, North Wind, you are so beautiful, I am quite ready
to go with you."
"You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all
at once, Diamond."
"But what's beautiful can't be bad. You're not bad, North Wind?"
"No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad,
and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty.
So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they
are beautiful."
"Well, I will go with you because you are beautiful and good, too."
"Ah, but there's another thing, Diamond:--What if I should look
ugly without being bad--look ugly myself because I am making ugly
things beautiful?--What then?"
"I don't quite understand you, North Wind. You tell me what then."
"Well, I will tell you. If you see me with my face all black,
don't be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big
as the whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times
worse than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife--even if you see me looking
in at people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife--
you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change
into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me,
for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold.
If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when
you look at me and can't see me the least like the North Wind.
I may look something very awful. Do you understand?"
"Quite well," said little Diamond.
"Come along, then," said North Wind, and disappeared behind
the mountain of hay.
Diamond crept out of bed and followed her.
CHAPTER II
THE LAWN
WHEN Diamond got round the corner of the hay, for a moment he hesitated.
The stair by which he would naturally have gone down to the door
was at the other side of the loft, and looked very black indeed;
for it was full of North Wind's hair, as she descended before him.
And just beside him was the ladder going straight down into the stable,
up which his father always came to fetch the hay for Diamond's dinner.
Through the opening in the floor the faint gleam of the-stable lantern
was enticing, and Diamond thought he would run down that way.
The stair went close past the loose-box in which Diamond the horse lived.
When Diamond the boy was half-way down, he remembered that it
was of no use to go this way, for the stable-door was locked.
But at the same moment there was horse Diamond's great head
poked out of his box on to the ladder, for he knew boy Diamond
although he was in his night-gown, and wanted him to pull his
ears for him. This Diamond did very gently for a minute or so,
and patted and stroked his neck too, and kissed the big horse,
and had begun to take the bits of straw and hay out of his mane,
when all at once he recollected that the Lady North Wind was waiting
for him in the yard.
"Good night, Diamond," he said, and darted up the ladder,
across the loft, and down the stair to the door. But when he
got out into the yard, there was no lady.
Now it is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and
find nobody. Children in particular have not made up their minds to it;
they generally cry at nobody, especially when they wake up at night.
But it was an especialdisappointment to Diamond, for his little heart
had been beating with joy: the face of the North Wind was so grand!
To have a lady like that for a friend--with such long hair, too!
Why, it was longer than twenty Diamonds' tails! She was gone.
And there he stood, with his bare feet on the stones of the paved yard.
It was a clear night overhead, and the stars were shining.
Orion in particular was making the most of his bright belt
and golden sword. But the moon was only a poor thin crescent.
There was just one great, jagged, black and gray cloud in the sky,
with a steep side to it like a precipice; and the moon was against
this side, and looked as if she had tumbled off the top of the
cloud-hill, and broken herself in rolling down the precipice.
She did not seem comfortable, for she was looking down into the
deep pit waiting for her. At least that was what Diamond thought
as he stood for a moment staring at her. But he was quite wrong,
for the moon was not afraid, and there was no pit she was going
down into, for there were no sides to it, and a pit without sides
to it is not a pit at all. Diamond, however, had not been out so late
before in all his life, and things looked so strange about him!--
just as if he had got into Fairyland, of which he knew quite as much
as anybody; for his mother had no money to buy books to set him
wrong on the subject. I have seen this world--only sometimes,
just now and then, you know--look as strange as ever I saw Fairyland.
But I confess that I have not yet seen Fairyland at its best.
I am always going to see it so some time. But if you had been out
in the face and not at the back of the North Wind, on a cold rather
frosty night, and in your night-gown, you would have felt it all
quite as strange as Diamond did. He cried a little, just a little,
he was so disappointed to lose the lady: of course, you, little man,
wouldn't have done that! But for my part, I don't mind people
crying so much as I mind what they cry about, and how they cry--
whether they cry quietly like ladies and gentlemen, or go shrieking
like vulgar emperors, or ill-natured cooks; for all emperors are
not gentlemen, and all cooks are not ladies--nor all queens and
princesses for that matter, either.
But it can't be denied that a little gentle crying does one good.
It did Diamond good; for as soon as it was over he was a brave
boy again.
"She shan't say it was my fault, anyhow!" said Diamond. "I daresay
she is hiding somewhere to see what I will do. I will look for her."
So he went round the end of the stable towards the kitchen-garden.
But the moment he was clear of the shelter of the stable, sharp as
a knife came the wind against his little chest and his bare legs.
Still he would look in the kitchen-garden, and went on.
But when he got round the weeping-ash that stood in the corner,
the wind blew much stronger, and it grew stronger and stronger
till he could hardly fight against it. And it was so cold!
All the flashy spikes of the stars seemed to have got somehow
into the wind. Then he thought of what the lady had said about
people being cold because they were not with the North Wind.
How it was that he should have guessed what she meant at that very
moment I cannot tell, but I have observed that the most wonderful
thing in the world is how people come to understand anything.
He turned his back to the wind, and trotted again towards the yard;
whereupon, strange to say, it blew so much more gently against his
calves than it had blown against his shins that he began to feel
almost warm by contrast.
You must not think it was cowardly of Diamond to turn his back
to the wind: he did so only because he thought Lady North Wind
had said something like telling him to do so. If she had said
to him that he must hold his face to it, Diamond would have held
his face to it. But the most foolish thing is to fight for no good,
and to please nobody.
Well, it was just as if the wind was pushing Diamond along.
If he turned round, it grew very sharp on his legs especially,
and so he thought the wind might really be Lady North Wind, though he
could not see her, and he had better let her blow him wherever
she pleased. So she blew and blew, and he went and went, until he
found himself standing at a door in a wall, which door led from the
yard into a little belt of shrubbery, flanking Mr. Coleman's house.
Mr. Coleman was his father's master, and the owner of Diamond.
He opened the door, and went through the shrubbery, and out
into the middle of the lawn, still hoping to find North Wind.
The soft grass was very pleasant to his bare feet, and felt warm
after the stones of the yard; but the lady was nowhere to be seen.
Then he began to think that after all he must have done wrong,
and she was offended with him for not following close after her,
- instant [´instənt]
a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词) - tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- amazement [ə´meizmənt] n.惊愕；惊奇 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- flutter [´flʌtə] vi.飘扬；摆 n.拍动 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- disappointment [,disə´pɔintmənt] n.失望；挫折 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- serpent [´sə:pənt] n.大毒蛇；阴险的人 (高中英语单词)
- ladder [´lædə] n.梯子；阶梯 (高中英语单词)
- half-way [´hɑ:fwei] ad.半途；几乎 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- speechless [´spi:tʃləs] a.说不出话的 (英语四级单词)
- precipice [´presipis] n.悬崖；危急的处境 (英语四级单词)
- fairyland [´fɛərilænd] n.仙境，奇境 (英语四级单词)
- vulgar [´vʌlgə] a.粗俗的；大众的 (英语四级单词)
- cowardly [´kauədli] a.&ad.胆小的(地) (英语四级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- especial [i´speʃəl] a.特别的，特殊的 (英语六级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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