At the Back of the North Wind

me, and there was the garden and the summerhouse, far away, lying at the bottom of the moonlight. ‘There!’ said the little man; ‘we’ve brought you off! Do you see the little dog barking at us down there in the garden?’ I told him I couldn’t see anything so far. ‘Can you see anything so small and so far off?’ I said. ‘Bless you, child!’ said the little man; ‘I could pick up a needle out of the grass if I had only a long enough arm. There’s one lying by the door of the summerhouse now.’ I looked at his eyes. They were very small, but so bright that I think he saw by the light that went out of them. Then he took me up, and up again by a little stair in a corner of the room, and through another trapdoor, 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!”

“The little girl-angels had been polishing them,” said Diamond.

“What nonsense you do talk!” said Nanny.

“But my nonsense is just as good as yours, Nanny. When you have done, I’ll tell you my dream. The stars are in it⁠—not the moon, though. She was away somewhere. Perhaps she was gone to fetch you then. I don’t think that, though, for my dream was longer ago than yours. She might have been to fetch someone else, though; for we can’t fancy it’s only us that get such fine things done for them. But do tell me what came next.”

Perhaps one of my child-readers may remember whether the moon came down to fetch him or her the same night that Diamond had his dream. I cannot tell, of course. I know she did not come to fetch me, though I did think I could make her follow me when I was a boy⁠—not a very tiny one either.

“The little man took me all round the house, and made me look out of every window. Oh, it was beautiful! There we were, all up in the air, in such a nice, clean little house! ‘Your work will be to keep the windows bright,’ said the little man. ‘You won’t find it very difficult, for there ain’t much dust up here. Only, the frost settles on them sometimes, and the drops of rain leave marks on them.’ ‘I can easily clean them inside,’ I said; ‘but how am I to get the frost and rain off the outside of them?’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘it’s quite easy. There are ladders all about. You’ve only got to go out at the door, and climb about. There are a great many windows you haven’t seen yet, and some of them look into places you don’t know anything about. I used to clean them myself, but I’m getting rather old, you see. Ain’t I now?’ ‘I can’t tell,’ I answered. ‘You see I never saw you when you were younger.’ ‘Never saw the man in the moon?’ said he. ‘Not very near,’ I answered, ‘not to tell how young or how old he looked. I have seen the bundle of sticks on his back.’ For Jim had pointed that out to me. Jim was very fond of looking at the man in the moon. Poor Jim! I wonder he hasn’t been to see me. I’m afraid he’s ill too.”

“I’ll try to find out,” said Diamond, “and let you know.”

“Thank you,” said Nanny. “You and Jim ought to be friends.”

“But what did the man in the moon say, when you told him you had seen him with the bundle of sticks on his back?”

“He laughed. But I thought he looked offended too. His little nose turned up sharper, and he drew the corners of his mouth down from the tips of his ears into his neck. But he didn’t look cross, you know.”

“Didn’t he say anything?”

“Oh, yes! He said: ‘That’s all nonsense. What you saw was my bundle of dusters. I was going to clean the windows. It takes a good many, you know. Really, what they do say of their superiors down there!’ ‘It’s only because they don’t know better,’ I ventured to say. ‘Of course, of course,’ said the little man. ‘Nobody ever does know better. Well, I forgive them, and that sets it all right, I hope.’ ‘It’s very good of you,’ I said. ‘No!’ said he, ‘it’s not in the least good of me. I couldn’t be comfortable otherwise.’ After this he said nothing for a while, and I laid myself on the floor of his garret, and stared up and around at the great blue beautifulness. I had forgotten him almost, when at last he said: ‘Ain’t you done yet?’ ‘Done what?’ I asked. ‘Done saying your prayers,’ says he. ‘I wasn’t saying my prayers,’ I answered. ‘Oh, yes, you were,’ said he, ‘though you didn’t know it! And now I must show you something else.’

“He took my hand and led me down the stair again, and through a narrow passage, and through another, and another, and another. I don’t know how there could be room for so many passages in such a little house. The heart of it must be ever so much farther from the sides than they are from each other. How could it have an inside that was so independent of its outside? There’s the point. It was funny⁠—wasn’t it, Diamond?”

“No,” said Diamond. He was going to say that that was very much the sort of thing at the back of the north wind; but he checked himself and only added, “All right. I don’t see it. I don’t see why the inside should depend on the outside. It ain’t so with the crabs. They creep out of their outsides and make new ones. Mr. Raymond told me so.”

“I don’t see what that has got to do with it,” said Nanny.

“Then go on with