Текст книги "Страна Северного Ветра / At the Back of the North Wind"

Автор книги: Джордж МакДональд

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“Yes I do. Only I can't show it. All my love is down at the bottom of my

heart. But I feel it bubbling there.”

“What do you want me to do next, dear North Wind?” said Diamond, wishing

to show his love by being obedient.

“What do you want to do yourself?”

“I want to go into the country at your back.”

“Then you must go through me.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I mean just what I say. You must walk on as if I were an open door, and

go right through me.”

“But that will hurt you.”

“Not in the least. It will hurt you, though.”

“I don't mind that, if you tell me to do it.”

“Do it,” said North Wind.

Diamond walked towards her instantly. When he reached her knees, he put

out his hand to lay it on her, but nothing was there save an intense

cold. He walked on. Then all grew white about him; and the cold stung

him like fire. He walked on still, groping through the whiteness. It

thickened about him. At last, it got into his heart, and he lost all

sense. I would say that he fainted–only whereas in common faints all

grows black about you, he felt swallowed up in whiteness. It was when he

reached North Wind's heart that he fainted and fell. But as he fell, he

rolled over the threshold, and it was thus that Diamond got to the back

of the north wind.

CHAPTER X. AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND

I HAVE now come to the most difficult part of my story. And why? Because

I do not know enough about it. And why should I not know as much about

this part as about any other part? For of course I could know nothing

about the story except Diamond had told it; and why should not Diamond

tell about the country at the back of the north wind, as well as about

his adventures in getting there? Because, when he came back, he had

forgotten a great deal, and what he did remember was very hard to tell.

Things there are so different from things here! The people there do not

speak the same language for one thing. Indeed, Diamond insisted that

there they do not speak at all. I do not think he was right, but it may

well have appeared so to Diamond. The fact is, we have different reports

of the place from the most trustworthy people. Therefore we are bound

to believe that it appears somewhat different to different people. All,

however, agree in a general way about it.

I will tell you something of what two very different people have

reported, both of whom knew more about it, I believe, than Herodotus.

One of them speaks from his own experience, for he visited the country;

the other from the testimony of a young peasant girl who came back from

it for a month's visit to her friends. The former was a great Italian

of noble family, who died more than five hundred years ago; the latter a

Scotch shepherd who died not forty years ago.

The Italian, then, informs us that he had to enter that country through

a fire so hot that he would have thrown himself into boiling glass to

cool himself. This was not Diamond's experience, but then Durante–that

was the name of the Italian, and it means Lasting, for his books will

last as long as there are enough men in the world worthy of having

them–Durante was an elderly man, and Diamond was a little boy, and so

their experience must be a little different. The peasant girl, on the

other hand, fell fast asleep in a wood, and woke in the same country.

In describing it, Durante says that the ground everywhere smelt sweetly,

and that a gentle, even-tempered wind, which never blew faster or

slower, breathed in his face as he went, making all the leaves point one

way, not so as to disturb the birds in the tops of the trees, but, on

the contrary, sounding a bass to their song. He describes also a little

river which was so full that its little waves, as it hurried along, bent

the grass, full of red and yellow flowers, through which it flowed. He

says that the purest stream in the world beside this one would look as

if it were mixed with something that did not belong to it, even although

it was flowing ever in the brown shadow of the trees, and neither sun

nor moon could shine upon it. He seems to imply that it is always the

month of May in that country. It would be out of place to describe here

the wonderful sights he saw, for the music of them is in another key

from that of this story, and I shall therefore only add from the account

of this traveller, that the people there are so free and so just and so

healthy, that every one of them has a crown like a king and a mitre like

a priest.

The peasant girl–Kilmeny was her name–could not report such grand

things as Durante, for, as the shepherd says, telling her story as I

tell Diamond's–

           “Kilmeny had been she knew not where,

           And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;

           Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,

           Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.

           But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,

           And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,

           When she spoke of the lovely forms she had seen,

           And a land where sin had never been;

           A land of love and a land of light,

           Withouten sun, or moon, or night;

           Where the river swayed a living stream,

           And the light a pure and cloudless beam:

           The land of vision it would seem,

           And still an everlasting dream.”

The last two lines are the shepherd's own remark, and a matter of

opinion. But it is clear, I think, that Kilmeny must have described

the same country as Durante saw, though, not having his experience, she

could neither understand nor describe it so well.

Now I must give you such fragments of recollection as Diamond was able

to bring back with him.

When he came to himself after he fell, he found himself at the back of

the north wind. North Wind herself was nowhere to be seen. Neither

was there a vestige of snow or of ice within sight. The sun too had

vanished; but that was no matter, for there was plenty of a certain

still rayless light. Where it came from he never found out; but he

thought it belonged to the country itself. Sometimes he thought it came

out of the flowers, which were very bright, but had no strong colour.

He said the river–for all agree that there is a river there–flowed

not only through, but over grass: its channel, instead of being rock,

stones, pebbles, sand, or anything else, was of pure meadow grass, not

over long. He insisted that if it did not sing tunes in people's ears,

it sung tunes in their heads, in proof of which I may mention that, in

the troubles which followed, Diamond was often heard singing; and when

asked what he was singing, would answer, “One of the tunes the river

at the back of the north wind sung.” And I may as well say at once that

Diamond never told these things to any one but–no, I had better not say

who it was; but whoever it was told me, and I thought it would be well

to write them for my child-readers.

He could not say he was very happy there, for he had neither his father

nor mother with him, but he felt so still and quiet and patient and

contented, that, as far as the mere feeling went, it was something

better than mere happiness. Nothing went wrong at the back of the north

wind. Neither was anything quite right, he thought. Only everything was

going to be right some day. His account disagreed with that of Durante,

and agreed with that of Kilmeny, in this, that he protested there was no

wind there at all. I fancy he missed it. At all events we could not do

without wind. It all depends on how big our lungs are whether the wind

is too strong for us or not.

When the person he told about it asked him whether he saw anybody he

knew there, he answered, “Only a little girl belonging to the gardener,

who thought he had lost her, but was quite mistaken, for there she was

safe enough, and was to come back some day, as I came back, if they

would only wait.”

“Did you talk to her, Diamond?”

“No. Nobody talks there. They only look at each other, and understand

everything.”

“Is it cold there?”

“No.”

“Is it hot?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“You never think about such things there.”

“What a queer place it must be!”

“It's a very good place.”

“Do you want to go back again?”

“No; I don't think I have left it; I feel it here, somewhere.”

“Did the people there look pleased?”

“Yes–quite pleased, only a little sad.”

“Then they didn't look glad?”

“They looked as if they were waiting to be gladder some day.”

This was how Diamond used to answer questions about that country. And

now I will take up the story again, and tell you how he got back to this

country.

CHAPTER XI. HOW DIAMOND GOT HOME AGAIN

WHEN one at the back of the north wind wanted to know how things were

going with any one he loved, he had to go to a certain tree, climb the

stem, and sit down in the branches. In a few minutes, if he kept very

still, he would see something at least of what was going on with the

people he loved.

One day when Diamond was sitting in this tree, he began to long very

much to get home again, and no wonder, for he saw his mother crying.

Durante says that the people there may always follow their wishes,

because they never wish but what is good. Diamond's wish was to get

home, and he would fain follow his wish.

But how was he to set about it? If he could only see North Wind! But the

moment he had got to her back, she was gone altogether from his sight.

He had never seen her back. She might be sitting on her doorstep still,

looking southwards, and waiting, white and thin and blue-eyed, until she

was wanted. Or she might have again become a mighty creature, with

power to do that which was demanded of her, and gone far away upon many

missions. She must be somewhere, however. He could not go home without

her, and therefore he must find her. She could never have intended to

leave him always away from his mother. If there had been any danger of

that, she would have told him, and given him his choice about going. For

North Wind was right honest. How to find North Wind, therefore, occupied

all his thoughts.

In his anxiety about his mother, he used to climb the tree every day,

and sit in its branches. However many of the dwellers there did so, they

never incommoded one another; for the moment one got into the tree, he

became invisible to every one else; and it was such a wide-spreading

tree that there was room for every one of the people of the country

in it, without the least interference with each other. Sometimes, on

getting down, two of them would meet at the root, and then they would

smile to each other more sweetly than at any other time, as much as to

say, “Ah, you've been up there too!”

One day he was sitting on one of the outer branches of the tree, looking

southwards after his home. Far away was a blue shining sea, dotted with

gleaming and sparkling specks of white. Those were the icebergs. Nearer

he saw a great range of snow-capped mountains, and down below him the

lovely meadow-grass of the country, with the stream flowing and flowing

through it, away towards the sea. As he looked he began to wonder, for

the whole country lay beneath him like a map, and that which was near

him looked just as small as that which he knew to be miles away. The

ridge of ice which encircled it appeared but a few yards off, and no

larger than the row of pebbles with which a child will mark out the

boundaries of the kingdom he has appropriated on the sea-shore. He

thought he could distinguish the vapoury form of North Wind, seated as

he had left her, on the other side. Hastily he descended the tree, and

to his amazement found that the map or model of the country still lay at

his feet. He stood in it. With one stride he had crossed the river; with

another he had reached the ridge of ice; with the third he stepped over

its peaks, and sank wearily down at North Wind's knees. For there she

sat on her doorstep. The peaks of the great ridge of ice were as lofty

as ever behind her, and the country at her back had vanished from

Diamond's view.

North Wind was as still as Diamond had left her. Her pale face was white

as the snow, and her motionless eyes were as blue as the caverns in the

ice. But the instant Diamond touched her, her face began to change like

that of one waking from sleep. Light began to glimmer from the blue of

her eyes.

A moment more, and she laid her hand on Diamond's head, and began

playing with his hair. Diamond took hold of her hand, and laid his face

to it. She gave a little start.

“How very alive you are, child!” she murmured. “Come nearer to me.”

By the help of the stones all around he clambered up beside her, and

laid himself against her bosom. She gave a great sigh, slowly lifted her

arms, and slowly folded them about him, until she clasped him close. Yet

a moment, and she roused herself, and came quite awake; and the cold of

her bosom, which had pierced Diamond's bones, vanished.

“Have you been sitting here ever since I went through you, dear North

Wind?” asked Diamond, stroking her hand.

“Yes,” she answered, looking at him with her old kindness.

“Ain't you very tired?”

“No; I've often had to sit longer. Do you know how long you have been?”

“Oh! years and years,” answered Diamond.

“You have just been seven days,” returned North Wind.

“I thought I had been a hundred years!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Yes, I daresay,” replied North Wind. “You've been away from here seven

days; but how long you may have been in there is quite another thing.

Behind my back and before my face things are so different! They don't go

at all by the same rule.”

“I'm very glad,” said Diamond, after thinking a while.

“Why?” asked North Wind.

“Because I've been such a long time there, and such a little while away

from mother. Why, she won't be expecting me home from Sandwich yet!”

“No. But we mustn't talk any longer. I've got my orders now, and we must

be off in a few minutes.”

Next moment Diamond found himself sitting alone on the rock. North Wind

had vanished. A creature like a great humble-bee or cockchafer flew past

his face; but it could be neither, for there were no insects amongst the

ice. It passed him again and again, flying in circles around him, and he

concluded that it must be North Wind herself, no bigger than Tom Thumb

when his mother put him in the nutshell lined with flannel. But she was

no longer vapoury and thin. She was solid, although tiny. A moment more,

and she perched on his shoulder.

“Come along, Diamond,” she said in his ear, in the smallest and highest

of treble voices; “it is time we were setting out for Sandwich.”

Diamond could just see her, by turning his head towards his shoulder as

far as he could, but only with one eye, for his nose came between her

and the other.

“Won't you take me in your arms and carry me?” he said in a whisper, for

he knew she did not like a loud voice when she was small.

“Ah! you ungrateful boy,” returned North Wind, smiling “how dare you

make game of me? Yes, I will carry you, but you shall walk a bit for

your impertinence first. Come along.”

She jumped from his shoulder, but when Diamond looked for her upon the

ground, he could see nothing but a little spider with long legs that

made its way over the ice towards the south. It ran very fast indeed for

a spider, but Diamond ran a long way before it, and then waited for

it. It was up with him sooner than he had expected, however, and it

had grown a good deal. And the spider grew and grew and went faster and

faster, till all at once Diamond discovered that it was not a spider,

but a weasel; and away glided the weasel, and away went Diamond after

it, and it took all the run there was in him to keep up with the weasel.

And the weasel grew, and grew, and grew, till all at once Diamond saw

that the weasel was not a weasel but a cat. And away went the cat, and

Diamond after it. And when he had run half a mile, he found the cat

waiting for him, sitting up and washing her face not to lose time. And

away went the cat again, and Diamond after it. But the next time he came

up with the cat, the cat was not a cat, but a hunting-leopard. And the

hunting-leopard grew to a jaguar, all covered with spots like eyes.

And the jaguar grew to a Bengal tiger. And at none of them was Diamond

afraid, for he had been at North Wind's back, and he could be afraid of

her no longer whatever she did or grew. And the tiger flew over the snow

in a straight line for the south, growing less and less to Diamond's

eyes till it was only a black speck upon the whiteness; and then it

vanished altogether. And now Diamond felt that he would rather not run

any farther, and that the ice had got very rough. Besides, he was near

the precipices that bounded the sea, so he slackened his pace to a walk,

saying aloud to himself:

“When North Wind has punished me enough for making game of her, she will

come back to me; I know she will, for I can't go much farther without

her.”

“You dear boy! It was only in fun. Here I am!” said North Wind's voice

behind him.

Diamond turned, and saw her as he liked best to see her, standing beside

him, a tall lady.

“Where's the tiger?” he asked, for he knew all the creatures from a

picture book that Miss Coleman had given him. “But, of course,” he

added, “you were the tiger. I was puzzled and forgot. I saw it such a

long way off before me, and there you were behind me. It's so odd, you

know.”

“It must look very odd to you, Diamond: I see that. But it is no more

odd to me than to break an old pine in two.”

“Well, that's odd enough,” remarked Diamond.

“So it is! I forgot. Well, none of these things are odder to me than it

is to you to eat bread and butter.”

“Well, that's odd too, when I think of it,” persisted Diamond. “I should

just like a slice of bread and butter! I'm afraid to say how long it

is–how long it seems to me, that is–since I had anything to eat.”

“Come then,” said North Wind, stooping and holding out her arms. “You

shall have some bread and butter very soon. I am glad to find you want

some.”

Diamond held up his arms to meet hers, and was safe upon her bosom.

North Wind bounded into the air. Her tresses began to lift and rise and

spread and stream and flow and flutter; and with a roar from her hair

and an answering roar from one of the great glaciers beside them, whose

slow torrent tumbled two or three icebergs at once into the waves at

their feet, North Wind and Diamond went flying southwards.

CHAPTER XII. WHO MET DIAMOND AT SANDWICH

As THEY flew, so fast they went that the sea slid away from under them

like a great web of shot silk, blue shot with grey, and green shot with

purple. They went so fast that the stars themselves appeared to sail

away past them overhead, “like golden boats,” on a blue sea turned

upside down. And they went so fast that Diamond himself went the other

way as fast–I mean he went fast asleep in North Wind's arms.

When he woke, a face was bending over him; but it was not North Wind's;

it was his mother's. He put out his arms to her, and she clasped him to

her bosom and burst out crying. Diamond kissed her again and again to

make her stop. Perhaps kissing is the best thing for crying, but it will

not always stop it.

“What is the matter, mother?” he said.

“Oh, Diamond, my darling! you have been so ill!” she sobbed.

“No, mother dear. I've only been at the back of the north wind,”

 returned Diamond.

“I thought you were dead,” said his mother.

But that moment the doctor came in.

“Oh! there!” said the doctor with gentle cheerfulness; “we're better

to-day, I see.”

Then he drew the mother aside, and told her not to talk to Diamond, or

to mind what he might say; for he must be kept as quiet as possible. And

indeed Diamond was not much inclined to talk, for he felt very strange

and weak, which was little wonder, seeing that all the time he had been

away he had only sucked a few lumps of ice, and there could not be much

nourishment in them.

Now while he is lying there, getting strong again with chicken broth and

other nice things, I will tell my readers what had been taking place at

his home, for they ought to be told it.

They may have forgotten that Miss Coleman was in a very poor state of

health. Now there were three reasons for this. In the first place,

her lungs were not strong. In the second place, there was a gentleman

somewhere who had not behaved very well to her. In the third place, she

had not anything particular to do. These three nots together are enough

to make a lady very ill indeed. Of course she could not help the first

cause; but if the other two causes had not existed, that would have been

of little consequence; she would only have to be a little careful. The

second she could not help quite; but if she had had anything to do,

and had done it well, it would have been very difficult for any man to

behave badly to her. And for this third cause of her illness, if she had

had anything to do that was worth doing, she might have borne his bad

behaviour so that even that would not have made her ill. It is not

always easy, I confess, to find something to do that is worth doing, but

the most difficult things are constantly being done, and she might have

found something if she had tried. Her fault lay in this, that she had

not tried. But, to be sure, her father and mother were to blame that

they had never set her going. Only then again, nobody had told her

father and mother that they ought to set her going in that direction. So

as none of them would find it out of themselves, North Wind had to teach

them.

We know that North Wind was very busy that night on which she left

Diamond in the cathedral. She had in a sense been blowing through

and through the Colemans' house the whole of the night. First, Miss

Coleman's maid had left a chink of her mistress's window open, thinking

she had shut it, and North Wind had wound a few of her hairs round the

lady's throat. She was considerably worse the next morning. Again, the

ship which North Wind had sunk that very night belonged to Mr. Coleman.

Nor will my readers understand what a heavy loss this was to him until

I have informed them that he had been getting poorer and poorer for some

time. He was not so successful in his speculations as he had been,

for he speculated a great deal more than was right, and it was time he

should be pulled up. It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor;

but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, and some kinds of

speculation lead a man deep into dishonesty before he thinks what he is

about. Poverty will not make a man worthless–he may be worth a great

deal more when he is poor than he was when he was rich; but dishonesty

goes very far indeed to make a man of no value–a thing to be thrown

out in the dust-hole of the creation, like a bit of a broken basin, or a

dirty rag. So North Wind had to look after Mr. Coleman, and try to make

an honest man of him. So she sank the ship which was his last venture,

and he was what himself and his wife and the world called ruined.

Nor was this all yet. For on board that vessel Miss Coleman's lover was

a passenger; and when the news came that the vessel had gone down, and

that all on board had perished, we may be sure she did not think

the loss of their fine house and garden and furniture the greatest

misfortune in the world.

Of course, the trouble did not end with Mr. Coleman and his family.

Nobody can suffer alone. When the cause of suffering is most deeply

hidden in the heart, and nobody knows anything about it but the man

himself, he must be a great and a good man indeed, such as few of us

have known, if the pain inside him does not make him behave so as to

cause all about him to be more or less uncomfortable. But when a man

brings money-troubles on himself by making haste to be rich, then

most of the people he has to do with must suffer in the same way with

himself. The elm-tree which North Wind blew down that very night, as

if small and great trials were to be gathered in one heap, crushed Miss

Coleman's pretty summer-house: just so the fall of Mr. Coleman crushed

the little family that lived over his coach-house and stable. Before

Diamond was well enough to be taken home, there was no home for him

to go to. Mr. Coleman–or his creditors, for I do not know the

particulars–had sold house, carriage, horses, furniture, and

everything. He and his wife and daughter and Mrs. Crump had gone to live

in a small house in Hoxton, where he would be unknown, and whence he

could walk to his place of business in the City. For he was not an old

man, and hoped yet to retrieve his fortunes. Let us hope that he lived

to retrieve his honesty, the tail of which had slipped through his

fingers to the very last joint, if not beyond it.

Of course, Diamond's father had nothing to do for a time, but it was

not so hard for him to have nothing to do as it was for Miss Coleman. He

wrote to his wife that, if her sister would keep her there till he got

a place, it would be better for them, and he would be greatly obliged

to her. Meantime, the gentleman who had bought the house had allowed his

furniture to remain where it was for a little while.

Diamond's aunt was quite willing to keep them as long as she could. And

indeed Diamond was not yet well enough to be moved with safety.

When he had recovered so far as to be able to go out, one day his mother

got her sister's husband, who had a little pony-cart, to carry them

down to the sea-shore, and leave them there for a few hours. He had

some business to do further on at Ramsgate, and would pick them up as he

returned. A whiff of the sea-air would do them both good, she said, and

she thought besides she could best tell Diamond what had happened if she

had him quite to herself.