AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND

CHAPTER I. THE HAY-LOFT


I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old
Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable
that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My
story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right
account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who
went there.

He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by any means
at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew. For one
side of the room was built only of boards, and the boards were so old
that you might run a penknife through into the north wind. And then let
them settle between them which was the sharper! I know that when you
pulled it out again the wind would be after it like a cat after a mouse,
and you would know soon enough you were not at the back of the north
wind. Still, this room was not very cold, except when the north wind
blew stronger than usual: the room I have to do with now was always
cold, except in summer, when the sun took the matter into his own hands.
Indeed, I am not sure whether I ought to call it a room at all; for it
was just a loft where they kept hay and straw and oats for the horses.

And when little Diamond--but stop: I must tell you that his father, who
was a coachman, had named him after a favourite horse, and his mother
had had no objection:--when little Diamond, then, lay there in bed, he
could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark, or moving
sleepily in their dreams. For Diamond's father had built him a bed in
the loft with boards all round it, because they had so little room in
their own end over the coach-house; and Diamond's father put old Diamond
in the stall under the bed, because he was a quiet horse, and did not
go to sleep standing, but lay down like a reasonable creature. But,
although he was a surprisingly reasonable creature, yet, when young
Diamond woke in the middle of the night, and felt the bed shaking in the
blasts of the north wind, he could not help wondering whether, if the
wind should blow the house down, and he were to fall through into
the manger, old Diamond mightn't eat him up before he knew him in his
night-gown. And although old Diamond was very quiet all night long, yet
when he woke he got up like an earthquake, and then young Diamond knew
what o'clock it was, or at least what was to be done next, which was--to
go to sleep again as fast as he could.