章节正文
swaying about against the sky in an upper wind, and heard the murmur
as of many dim half-articulate voices filling the solitude around
Diamond's nest.
CHAPTER XXXVI
DIAMOND QUESTIONS NORTH WIND
MY READERS will not wonder that, after this, I did my very best
to gain the friendship of Diamond. Nor did I find this at
all difficult, the child was so ready to trust. Upon one subject
alone was he reticent--the story of his relations with North Wind.
I fancy he could not quite make up his mind what to think of them.
At all events it was some little time before he trusted me with this,
only then he told me everything. If 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 Nanny ask,
rather rudely, I thought.
"Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, Nanny,"
answered 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, Nanny."
"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 funny one too,
both 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, Nanny. You know it was. Didn't you come to
grief for doing what you were told not to do? And isn't that true?"
"I can't get any sense into him," exclaimed Nanny, with an expression
of 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.
"Please, dear North Wind," he said, "I am so happy that I'm afraid
it's a dream. How am I to know that it's not a dream?"
"What does it matter?" returned North Wind.
"I should, cry" said Diamond.
"But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant one--
is it not?"
"That's just why I want it to be true."
"Have you forgotten what you said to Nanny about her dream?"
"It's not for the dream itself--I mean, it's not for the pleasure
of it," answered Diamond, "for I have that, whether it be a dream
or not; it's for you, North Wind; I can't bear to find it a dream,
because then I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I
could not bear that. You ain't a dream, are you, dear North Wind?
Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you'll be gone for ever.
I daren't dream about you once again if you ain't anybody."
"I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not
a dream, Diamond," said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone,
he thought.
"But it's not something better--it's you I want, North Wind,"
he persisted, already beginning to cry a little.
She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and sailed away
over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where a flock
of sheep was feeding.
"Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago says
about Bo-Peep--how she lost her sheep, but got twice as many lambs?"
asked North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and placing him in her
lap as before.
"Oh yes, I do, well enough," answered Diamond; "but I never just
quite liked that rhyme."
"Why not, child?"
"Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones
are better than one that's lost. I've been thinking about it
a great deal, and it seems to me that although any one sixpence
is as good as any other sixpence, not twenty lambs would do instead
of one sheep whose face you knew. Somehow, when once you've
looked into anybody's eyes, right deep down into them, I mean,
nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful
or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight.
So you see, North Wind, I can't help being frightened to think
that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all.
Do tell me that you are my own, real, beautiful North Wind."
Again she rose, and shot herself into the air, as if uneasy
because she could not answer him; and Diamond lay quiet in her arms,
waiting for what she would say. He tried to see up into her face,
for he was dreadfully afraid she was not answering him because she
could not say that she was not a dream; but she had let her hair
fall all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened
him still more.
"Do speak, North Wind," he said at last.
"I never speak when I have nothing to say," she replied.
"Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,"
said Diamond.
"But I'm looking for something to say all the time."
"But I don't want you to say what's hard to find. If you were
to say one word to comfort me that wasn't true, then I should know
you must be a dream, for a great beautiful lady like you could
never tell a lie."
"But she mightn't know how to say what she had to say, so that
a little boy like you would understand it," said North Wind.
"Here, let us get down again, and I will try to tell you what I think.
You musn't suppose I am able to answer all your questions, though.
There are a great many things I don't understand more than you do."
She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of a wild furzy common.
There was a rabbit-warren underneath, and some of the rabbits came
out of their holes, in the moonlight, looking very sober and wise,
just like patriarchs standing in their tent-doors, and looking
as of many dim half-articulate voices filling the solitude around
Diamond's nest.
CHAPTER XXXVI
DIAMOND QUESTIONS NORTH WIND
MY READERS will not wonder that, after this, I did my very best
to gain the friendship of Diamond. Nor did I find this at
all difficult, the child was so ready to trust. Upon one subject
alone was he reticent--the story of his relations with North Wind.
I fancy he could not quite make up his mind what to think of them.
At all events it was some little time before he trusted me with this,
only then he told me everything. If 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 Nanny ask,
rather rudely, I thought.
"Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, Nanny,"
answered 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, Nanny."
"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 funny one too,
both 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, Nanny. You know it was. Didn't you come to
grief for doing what you were told not to do? And isn't that true?"
"I can't get any sense into him," exclaimed Nanny, with an expression
of 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.
"Please, dear North Wind," he said, "I am so happy that I'm afraid
it's a dream. How am I to know that it's not a dream?"
"What does it matter?" returned North Wind.
"I should, cry" said Diamond.
"But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant one--
is it not?"
"That's just why I want it to be true."
"Have you forgotten what you said to Nanny about her dream?"
"It's not for the dream itself--I mean, it's not for the pleasure
of it," answered Diamond, "for I have that, whether it be a dream
or not; it's for you, North Wind; I can't bear to find it a dream,
because then I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I
could not bear that. You ain't a dream, are you, dear North Wind?
Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you'll be gone for ever.
I daren't dream about you once again if you ain't anybody."
"I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not
a dream, Diamond," said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone,
he thought.
"But it's not something better--it's you I want, North Wind,"
he persisted, already beginning to cry a little.
She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and sailed away
over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where a flock
of sheep was feeding.
"Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago says
about Bo-Peep--how she lost her sheep, but got twice as many lambs?"
asked North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and placing him in her
lap as before.
"Oh yes, I do, well enough," answered Diamond; "but I never just
quite liked that rhyme."
"Why not, child?"
"Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones
are better than one that's lost. I've been thinking about it
a great deal, and it seems to me that although any one sixpence
is as good as any other sixpence, not twenty lambs would do instead
of one sheep whose face you knew. Somehow, when once you've
looked into anybody's eyes, right deep down into them, I mean,
nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful
or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight.
So you see, North Wind, I can't help being frightened to think
that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all.
Do tell me that you are my own, real, beautiful North Wind."
Again she rose, and shot herself into the air, as if uneasy
because she could not answer him; and Diamond lay quiet in her arms,
waiting for what she would say. He tried to see up into her face,
for he was dreadfully afraid she was not answering him because she
could not say that she was not a dream; but she had let her hair
fall all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened
him still more.
"Do speak, North Wind," he said at last.
"I never speak when I have nothing to say," she replied.
"Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,"
said Diamond.
"But I'm looking for something to say all the time."
"But I don't want you to say what's hard to find. If you were
to say one word to comfort me that wasn't true, then I should know
you must be a dream, for a great beautiful lady like you could
never tell a lie."
"But she mightn't know how to say what she had to say, so that
a little boy like you would understand it," said North Wind.
"Here, let us get down again, and I will try to tell you what I think.
You musn't suppose I am able to answer all your questions, though.
There are a great many things I don't understand more than you do."
She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of a wild furzy common.
There was a rabbit-warren underneath, and some of the rabbits came
out of their holes, in the moonlight, looking very sober and wise,
just like patriarchs standing in their tent-doors, and looking
- sympathetic [,simpə´θetik]
a.同情的，有同情心的 (初中英语单词) - plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- despair [di´speə] vi.&n.绝望 (初中英语单词)
- mistress [´mistris] n.女主人；情妇；女能手 (初中英语单词)
- closet [´klɔzit] n.橱；私室；盥洗室 (初中英语单词)
- height [hait] n.高度；顶点；卓越 (初中英语单词)
- circuit [´sə:kit] n.环行 v.(绕....)环行 (初中英语单词)
- alight [ə´lait] a.燃着的 vi.下；降落 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- meadow [´medəu] n.草地；牧场 (初中英语单词)
- dreadfully [dredfuli] ad.可怕地；糟透地 (初中英语单词)
- underneath [,ʌndə´ni:θ] ad.&prep.在底下 (初中英语单词)
- moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- solitude [´sɔlitju:d] n.孤独；寂寞；荒凉 (高中英语单词)
- pretence [pri´tens] n.假装；托词；无理要求 (高中英语单词)
- ladder [´lædə] n.梯子；阶梯 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- expectation [,ekspek´teiʃən] n.期待(望)；预期 (高中英语单词)
- motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- drawing [´drɔ:iŋ] n.画图；制图；图样 (英语四级单词)
- composed [kəm´pəuzd] a.镇静自若的 (英语四级单词)
- delighted [di´laitid] a.高兴的；喜欢的 (英语四级单词)
- sorrowful [´sɔrəuful] a.悲伤的，使人伤心的 (英语四级单词)
- sixpence [´sikspəns] n.六便士(硬币) (英语四级单词)
- grassy [´grɑ:si] a.多草的；青草味的 (英语四级单词)
- rudely [´ru:dli] ad.粗鲁地；粗略地 (英语六级单词)
- unspeakable [ʌn´spi:kəbl] a.不能以言语表达的 (英语六级单词)
- arched [´ɑ:tʃid] a.弓形(结构)的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
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