At the Back of the North Wind Illustrated - online book

A Complete Illustrated children's fantasy book by George MacDonald.

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North Wind                        57
She called him a kid} but she was not really a month older than he was; only she had had to work for her bread, and that so soon makes people older.
" But I shouldn't have been out so late if I hadn't got down to help you," said Diamond. "North Wind is gone home long ago."
" I think you must ha' got out o' one o' them Hidget Asylms," said the girl. "You said something about the north wind afore that I couldn't get the rights of."
So now, for the sake of his character, Diamond had to tell her the whole story.
She did not believe a word of it. She said she wasn't such a flat as to believe all that bosh. But as she spoke there came a great blast of wind through the arch, and set the barrel rolling. So they made haste to get out of it, for they had no notion of being rolled over and over as if they had been packed tight and wouldn't hurt, like a barrel of herrings.
"I thought we should have had a sleep," said Dia­mond; "but I can't say I'm very sleepy after all. Come, let's go on again."
They wandered on and on, sometimes sitting on a door-step, but always turning into lanes or fields when they had a chance.
They found themselves at last on a rising ground that sloped rather steeply on the other side. It was a waste kind of spot below, bounded by an irregular wall, with a few doors in it. Outside lay broken things in general, from garden-rollers to flower-pots and wine-bottles. But the moment they reached the brow of the rising ground, a gust of wind seized them and blew them down hill as
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