sense in it. She never thought he might understand it, although she

could not.

Now I do not exactly know what the mother read, but this is what Diamond

heard, or thought afterwards that he had heard. He was, however, as I

have said, very sleepy. And when he thought he understood the verses he

may have been only dreaming better ones. This is how they went--

I know a river whose waters run asleep run run ever singing in the

shallows dumb in the hollows sleeping so deep and all the swallows that

dip their feathers in the hollows or in the shallows are the merriest

swallows of all for the nests they bake with the clay they cake with

the water they shake from their wings that rake the water out of the

shallows or the hollows will hold together in any weather and so the

swallows are the merriest fellows and have the merriest children and

are built so narrow like the head of an arrow to cut the air and go just

where the nicest water is flowing and the nicest dust is blowing for

each so narrow like head of an arrow is only a barrow to carry the

mud he makes from the nicest water flowing and the nicest dust that is

blowing to build his nest for her he loves best with the nicest cakes

which the sunshine bakes all for their merry children all so callow with

beaks that follow gaping and hollow wider and wider after their father

or after their mother the food-provider who brings them a spider or a

worm the poor hider down in the earth so there's no dearth for their

beaks as yellow as the buttercups growing beside the flowing of the

singing river always and ever growing and blowing for fast as the sheep

awake or asleep crop them and crop them they cannot stop them but up

they creep and on they go blowing and so with the daisies the little

white praises they grow and they blow and they spread out their crown

and they praise the sun and when he goes down their praising is done and

they fold up their crown and they sleep every one till over the plain

he's shining amain and they're at it again praising and praising such

low songs raising that no one hears them but the sun who rears them and

the sheep that bite them are the quietest sheep awake or asleep with the

merriest bleat and the little lambs are the merriest lambs they forget

to eat for the frolic in their feet and the lambs and their dams are

the whitest sheep with the woolliest wool and the longest wool and the

trailingest tails and they shine like snow in the grasses that grow by

the singing river that sings for ever and the sheep and the lambs are

merry for ever because the river sings and they drink it and the lambs

and their dams are quiet and white because of their diet for what they

bite is buttercups yellow and daisies white and grass as green as the

river can make it with wind as mellow to kiss it and shake it as never

was seen but here in the hollows beside the river where all the swallows

are merriest of fellows for the nests they make with the clay they cake

in the sunshine bake till they are like bone as dry in the wind as a

marble stone so firm they bind the grass in the clay that dries in the

wind the sweetest wind that blows by the river flowing for ever but

never you find whence comes the wind that blows on the hollows and over

the shallows where dip the swallows alive it blows the life as it goes

awake or asleep into the river that sings as it flows and the life it

blows into the sheep awake or asleep with the woolliest wool and the

trailingest tails and it never fails gentle and cool to wave the wool

and to toss the grass as the lambs and the sheep over it pass and tug

and bite with their teeth so white and then with the sweep of their

trailing tails smooth it again and it grows amain and amain it grows and

the wind as it blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and down on

the shallows till every feather doth shake and quiver and all their

feathers go all together blowing the life and the joy so rife into the

swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children for the

wind that blows is the life of the river flowing for ever that washes

the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white

praises and buttercups bonny so golden and sunny with butter and honey

that whiten the sheep awake or asleep that nibble and bite and grow

whiter than white and merry and quiet on the sweet diet fed by the river

and tossed for ever by the wind that tosses the swallow that crosses

over the shallows dipping his wings to gather the water and bake the

cake that the wind shall make as hard as a bone as dry as a stone it's

all in the wind that blows from behind and all in the river that flows

for ever and all in the grasses and the white daisies and the merry

sheep awake or asleep and the happy swallows skimming the shallows and

it's all in the wind that blows from behind.

Here Diamond became aware that his mother had stopped reading.

“Why don't you go on, mother dear?” he asked.

“It's such nonsense!” said his mother. “I believe it would go on for

ever.”

“That's just what it did,” said Diamond.

“What did?” she asked.

“Why, the river. That's almost the very tune it used to sing.”

His mother was frightened, for she thought the fever was coming on

again. So she did not contradict him.

“Who made that poem?” asked Diamond.

“I don't know,” she answered. “Some silly woman for her children, I

suppose--and then thought it good enough to print.”

“She must have been at the back of the north wind some time or other,

anyhow,” said Diamond. “She couldn't have got a hold of it anywhere

else. That's just how it went.” And he began to chant bits of it here

and there; but his mother said nothing for fear of making him, worse;

and she was very glad indeed when she saw her brother-in-law jogging

along in his little cart. They lifted Diamond in, and got up themselves,

and away they went, “home again, home again, home again,” as Diamond

sang. But he soon grew quiet, and before they reached Sandwich he was

fast asleep and dreaming of the country at the back of the north wind.

AFTER this Diamond recovered so fast, that in a few days he was quite

able to go home as soon as his father had a place for them to go. Now

his father having saved a little money, and finding that no situation

offered itself, had been thinking over a new plan. A strange occurrence

it was which turned his thoughts in that direction. He had a friend in

the Bloomsbury region, who lived by letting out cabs and horses to the

cabmen. This man, happening to meet him one day as he was returning from

an unsuccessful application, said to him:

“Why don't you set up for yourself now--in the cab line, I mean?”

“I haven't enough for that,” answered Diamond's father.

“You must have saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with

me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a

few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got

bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go

enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like

the wind, and he ain't got wind enough, for he ain't so young as he once

was. But for a four-wheeler as takes families and their luggages, he's