At the Back of the Northwind illustrated by Frank C. Papé and Arthur Hughes, 2nd Part

HOW DIAMOND GOT HOME AGAIN

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. 

For there she sat on her doorstep.


WHO MET DIAMOND AT SANDWICH
 

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.

North WIND CHANGES TO A TIGER

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.

THE SEASIDE

DIAMOND and his mother sat down upon the edge of the rough grass that bordered the sand. The sun was just far enough past its highest not to shine in their eyes when they looked eastward. A sweet little wind blew on their left side, and comforted the mother without letting her know what it was that comforted her. Away before them stretched the sparkling waters of the ocean, every wave of which flashed out its own delight back in the face of the great sun,...

OLD DIAMOND 

THE WIND AND THE SWALLOWS

But the coachman had a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. For the old horse, hearing his voice, had turned his long neck, and when his old friend went up to him and laid his hand on his side, he whinnied for joy, and laid his big head on his master's breast. This settled the matter. The coachman's arms were round the horse's neck in a moment, and he fairly broke down and cried. The cab-master had never been so fond of a horse himself as to hug him like that, but he saw in a moment how it was. 

THE MEWS

He got in with his mother without looking at the horse, and his father having put up Diamond's carpet-bag and his mother's little trunk, got upon the box himself and drove off; and Diamond was quite proud of riding home in his father's own carriage.

So she took the baby herself, and set him on her knee. Then Diamond began to amuse him, and went on till the little fellow was shrieking with laughter.

DIAMOND MAKES A BEGINNING

So Diamond sat down again, took the baby in his lap, and began poking his face into its little body, laughing and singing all the while, so that the baby crowed like a little bantam. 

DIAMOND GOES ON

...and in a moment he was on the old horse's back with the comb and brush. He sat on his withers, and reaching forward as he ate his hay, he curried and he brushed, first at one side of his neck, and then at the other. When that was done he asked for a dressing-comb, and combed his mane thoroughly. Then he pushed himself on to his back, and did his shoulders as far down as he could reach. 

He got hold of the broom at her end and pulled along with her. But the boys proceeded
to rougher measures, and one of them hit Diamond onthe nose, and made it bleed; and as he could not let go the broom to mind his nose, he was soon a dreadful figure.

...but you see my daughter is still very poorly, and she can't bear the motion of the omnibuses. Indeed we meant to walk a bit first before we took a cab, but just at the corner, for as hot as the sun was, a cold wind came down the street, and I saw that Miss Coleman must not face it. But to think we should have fallen upon you, of all the cabmen in London! I didn't know you had got a cab.” 

THE DRUNKEN CABMAN

So he got up and put on part of his clothes, and went down the stair,...

At length Diamond grew tired of singing, and began to talk to the baby instead. And as soon as he stopped singing, the cabman began to wake up. His brain was a little clearer now, his temper a little smoother, and his heart not quite so dirty. He began to listen and he went on listening, and heard Diamond saying to the baby something like this, for he thought the cabman was asleep:
“Poor daddy! Baby's daddy takes too much beer and gin, and that makes him somebody else, and not his own self at all....

DIAMOND LEARNS TO READ

Blowing his horn, and beating his drum,

 And crying aloud, “Come all of you, come!”

 And all the creatures they marched before him,

 And marshalled him home with a high cockolorum.

LITTLE BOY BLUE IN THE WOOD

SAL'S NANNY

The last policeman he questioned looked down upon him from the summit of six feet two inches, and replied with another question, but kindly:

“What do you want there, my small kid? It ain't where you was bred, I guess.

“No sir” answered Diamond. “I live in Bloomsbury.”

When he got used to the darkness, he discovered his friend lying with closed eyes and a white suffering face on a heap of little better than rags in a corner of the den.

ANOTHER EARLY BIRD

... but there Diamond could help Diamond. He held his head very low till his little master had got it over and turned it round, and then he lifted his head, and shook it on to his shoulders. 

“That or something else,” answered Diamond, so very quietly that his mother held his head back and stared in his face. 

DIAMOND'S DREAM

When he went to bed, which he did early, being more tired, as you may suppose, than usual, he was still thinking what the nonsense could be like which the angels sang when they were too happy to sing sense. But before coming to any conclusion he fell fast asleep.

and a number of naked little boys came running, every one eager to get to him first. At the shoulders of each fluttered two little wings, which were of no use for flying, as they were mere buds; only being made for it they could not help fluttering as if they were flying.

THE LITTLE BOYS' GAMBOLS

DIAMOND TAKES A FARE THE WRONG WAY RIGHT

But as he turned to go back, some idlers, not content with chaffing him, showed a mind to the fare the young woman had given him. They were just pulling him off the box, and Diamond was shouting for the police, when a pale-faced man, in very shabby clothes, but with the look of a gentleman somewhere about him, came up, and making good use of his stick, drove them off.

...and to his delight Miss Coleman put her arms round him and kissed him, and there was payment for him!

THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

Meantime Mr. Raymond was going from bed to bed, talking to the little people. Every one knew him, and every one was eager to have a look, and a smile, and a kind word from him. 

LITTLE DAYLIGHT

There was great jubilation in the palace, for this was the first baby the queen had had, and there is as much happiness over a new baby in a palace as in a cottage. 

Of course the old hag was there without being asked. Not to be asked was just what she wanted, that she might have a sort of reason for doing what she wished to do. For somehow even the wickedest of creatures likes a pretext for doing the wrong thing. 

All at once he spied something in the middle of the grass. What could it be? It moved; it came nearer. Was it a human creature, gliding across—a girl dressed in white, gleaming in the moonshine? She came nearer and nearer. He crept behind a tree and watched, wondering.

RUBY

Diamond's father could not help thinking it a pretty close bargain. He should have both the girl and the horse to feed, and only six hours' work out of the horse.

“It will save your own horse,” said Mr. Raymond.

“That is true,” answered Joseph; “but all I can get by my own horse is only enough to keep us, and if I save him and feed your horse and the girl—don't you see, sir?” 

Diamond's father went the very next day to Mr. Raymond, and accepted his proposal; so that the week after having got another stall in the same stable, he had two horses instead of one. Oddly enough, the name of the new horse was Ruby, for he was a very red chestnut. 

NANNY'S DREAM

And as I stared and wondered, a door opened in the side of it, near the ground, and a curious little old man, with a crooked thing over his shoulder, looked out, and said: 'Come along, Nanny; my lady wants you. We're come to fetch you.” 

...and there was one great round window above us, and I saw the blue sky and the clouds, and such lots of stars, all so big and shining as hard as ever they could!

AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE MOON

THE NORTH WIND DOTH BLOW

It was great fun to see Diamond teaching her how to hold the baby, and wash and dress him, and often they laughed together over her awkwardness.

Of God's gifts a baby is of the greatest; therefore it is no wonder that when this one came, she was as heartily welcomed by the little household as if she had brought plenty with her.

DIAMOND AND RUBY

He heard the two horses talking to each other—in a strange language, which yet, somehow or other, he could understand, and turn over in his mind in English. The first words he heard were from Diamond, who apparently had been already quarrelling with Ruby. 

THE PROSPECT BRIGHTENS

...and in walked Mr. Raymond with a smile on his face. Joseph got up and received him respectfully, but not very cordially. 

IN THE COUNTRY

Joseph returned to town the same night, and the next morning" drove Ruby and Diamond down, with the carriage behind them, and Mr. Raymond and a lady in the carriage.

I MAKE DIAMOND'S ACQUAINTANCE

LITTLE BO PEEP ASLEEP

Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep,

 And didn't know where to find them;

 They were over the height and out of sight,

 Trailing their tails behind them.

  Little Bo Peep woke out of her sleep,

  Jump'd up and set out to find them:

   “The silly things, they've got no wings,

   And they've left their trails behind them:

As Diamond went on singing, it grew very dark, and just as he ceased there came a great flash of lightning, that blinded us all for a moment. 

...and heard the murmur as of many dim half-articulate voices filling the solitude around Diamond's
nest.

DIAMOND QUESTIONS NORTH WIND

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. 

She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of
a wild furzy common.

When they saw North Wind, instead of turning round and vanishing again with a thump of their heels, they cantered slowly up to her and snuffled all about her with their long upper lips, which moved every way at once. That was their way of kissing her; and, as she talked to Diamond, she would every now and then stroke down their furry backs, or lift and play with their long ears. They would, Diamond thought, have leaped upon her lap, but that he was there already. 

ONCE MORE

He rose, and looking out of the window saw something white against his beech-tree. It was North Wind. She was holding by one hand to a top branch. Her hair and her garments went floating away behind her over the tree, whose top was swaying about while the others were still. 

AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND

I walked up the winding stair, and entered his room. A lovely figure, as white and almost as clear as alabaster, was lying on the bed. I saw at once how it was. They thought he was dead. I knew that he had gone to the back of the north wind.