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.

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