| Share page |
|
370 At the Back of the North Wind
He ran to the house, and I went home.
His mistress had rung for him only to send him to bed, for she was very careful over him, and I daresay thought he was not looking well. When he reached his own room, he opened both his windows, one of which looked to the north and the other to the east, to find how the wind blew. It blew right in at the northern window. Diamond was very glad, for he thought perhaps North Wind herself would come now: a real north wind had never blown all the time since he left London. But, as she always came of herself, and never when he was looking for her, and indeed almost never when he was thinking of her, he shut the east window, and went to bed. Perhaps some of my readers may wonder that he could go to sleep with such an expectation; and, indeed, if I had not known him, I should have wondered at it myself; but it was one of his peculiarities, and seemed nothing strange in him. He was so full of quietness that he could go to sleep almost at any time, if he only composed himself and let the sleep come. This time he went fast asleep as usual.
But he woke in the dim blue night. The moon had vanished. He thought he had heard a knocking at his door.
" Somebody wants me," he said to himself, and jumping out of bed, ran to open it.
But there was no one there. He closed it again, and, the noise still continuing, found that another door was rattling. It belonged to a closet, he thought, but he had never been able to open it. The wind |
||