“Do go on, Diamond. Don’t mind me,” I said.
He began again at once. While he sang, Nanny and Jim sat a little way off, one hemming a pocket-handkerchief, and the other reading a story to her, but they never heeded Diamond. This is as near what he sang as I can recollect, or reproduce rather.
What would you see if I took you up
To my little nest in the air?
You would see the sky like a clear blue cup
Turned upside downwards there.What would you do if I took you there
To my little nest in the tree?
My child with cries would trouble the air,
To get what she could but see.What would you get in the top of the tree
For all your crying and grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you see—
You could only gather a leaf.But when you had lost your greedy grief,
Content to see from afar,
You would find in your hand a withering leaf,
In your heart a shining star.
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. Dulcimer crowed with pleasure; but when the roar of thunder came after it, the little brother gave a loud cry of terror. Nanny and Jim came running up to us, pale with fear. Diamond’s face, too, was paler than usual, but with delight. Some of the glory seemed to have clung to it, and remained shining.
“You’re not frightened—are you, Diamond?” I said.
“No. Why should I be?” he answered with his usual question, looking up in my face with calm shining eyes.
“He ain’t got sense to be frightened,” said Nanny, going up to him and giving him a pitying hug.
“Perhaps there’s more sense in not being frightened, Nanny,” I returned. “Do you think the lightning can do as it likes?”
“It might kill you,” said Jim.
“Oh, no, it mightn’t!” said Diamond.
As he spoke there came another great flash, and a tearing crack.
“There’s a tree struck!” I said; and when we looked round, after the blinding of the flash had left our eyes, we saw a huge bough of the beech-tree in which was Diamond’s nest hanging to the ground like the broken wing of a bird.
“There!” cried Nanny; “I told you so. If you had been up there you see what would have happened, you little silly!”
“No, I don’t,” said Diamond, and began to sing to Dulcimer. All I could hear of the song, for the other children were going on with their chatter, was—
The clock struck one,
And the mouse came down.
Dickery, dickery, dock!
Then there came a blast of wind, and the rain followed in straight-pouring lines, as if out of a watering-pot. Diamond jumped up with his little Dulcimer in his arms, and Nanny caught up the little boy, and they ran for the cottage. Jim vanished with a double shuffle, and I went into the house.
When I came out again to return home, the clouds were gone, and the evening sky glimmered through the trees, blue, and pale-green towards the west, I turned my steps a little aside to look at the stricken beech. I saw the bough torn from the stem, and that was all the twilight would allow me to see. While I stood gazing, down from the sky came a sound of singing, but the voice was neither of lark nor of nightingale: it was sweeter than either: it was the voice of Diamond, up in his airy nest:—
The lightning and thunder,
They go and they come;
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.
And then the voice ceased.
“Good night, Diamond,” I said.
“Good night, sir,” answered Diamond.
As I walked away pondering, I saw the great black top of the beech 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.
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 tonight,” 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
