spied, far off upon the horizon, a shining peak that rose into the sky like the top of some tremendous iceberg; and his vessel was bearing him straight towards it. As it went on the peak rose and rose higher and higher above the horizon; and other peaks rose after it, with sharp edges and jagged ridges connecting them. Diamond thought this must be the place he was going to; and he was right; for the mountains rose and rose, till he saw the line of the coast at their feet, and at length the iceberg drove into a little bay, all round which were lofty precipices with snow on their tops, and streaks of ice down their sides. The berg floated slowly up to a projecting rock. Diamond stepped on shore, and without looking behind him began to follow a natural path which led windingly towards the top of the precipice. "What do you want me to do next, dear North Wind?" said Diamond, wishing to show his love by being obedient. "What do you want to do yourself?” "I want to go into the country at your back." "Then you must go through me." I don't know what you mean." "I mean just what I say. You must walk on as if I were an open door, and go right through me." "But that will hurt you." "Not in the least. It will hurt you, though." When he reached it, he found himself on a broad Diamond walked towards her instantly. When table of ice, along which he could walk without he reached her knees, he put out his hand to lay it much difficulty. Before him, at a considerable on her, but nothing was there save an intense cold. distance, rose a lofty ridge of ice, which shot up He walked on. Then all grew white about him; into fantastic pinnacles and towers and battle- and the cold stung him like fire. He walked on ments. The air was very cold, and seemed some-still, groping through the whiteness. It thickened how dead, for there was not the slightest breath of about him. At last, it got into his heart, and he wind. In the centre of the ridge before him appeared a gap like the opening of a valley. But as he walked towards it, gazing, and wondering whether that could be the way he had to take, he saw that what had appeared a gap was the form of a woman seated against the ice front of the ridge, leaning forward with her hands in her lap, and her hair hanging down to the ground. lost all sense. I would say that he fainted-only whereas in common faints all grows black about you, he felt swallowed up in whiteness. It was when he reached North Wind's heart that he fainted and fell. But as he fell, he rolled over the threshold, and it was thus that Diamond got to the back of the north wind. When he came to himself after he fell, he found himself at the back of the north wind. North "It is North Wind on her doorstep," said Dia- Wind herself was nowhere to be seen. Neither mond joyfully, and hurried on. He soon came up to the place, and there the form sat, like one of the great figures at the door of an Egyptian temple, motionless, with drooping arms and head. Then Diamond grew frightened, because she did not move nor speak. He was sure it was North Wind, but he thought she must be dead at last. Her face was white as the snow, her eyes were blue as the air in the ice-cave, and her hair hung down straight, like icicles. She had on a greenish robe, like the colour in the hollows of a glacier seen from far off. He stood up before her, and gazed fearfully into her face for a few minutes before he ventured to speak. At length, with a great effort and a trembling voice, he faltered out "North Wind !" 66 was there a vestige of snow or of ice within sight. Well, child?" said the form without lifting its back of the north wind sang." head. “Are you ill, dear North Wind?” "No. I am waiting." "What for?" "Till I'm wanted." 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 some "You don't care for me any more," said Dia- thing at least of what was going on with the people mond, almost crying now. 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. 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 "THERE SHE SAT ON HER DOORSTEP." 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 thought he could distin- North Wind was as still as Diamond had left her. Her pale face was white as the snow, and her motionless eyes were as blue as the caverns in the ice. But the instant Diamond touched her, her face began to change like that of one waking from sleep. Light began to glimmer from the blue of her eyes. A moment more, and she laid her hand on Diamond's head, and began playing with his hair. Diamond took hold of her hand, and laid his face to it. She gave a little start. "How very alive you are, child!" she murmured. "Come nearer to me." By the help of the stones all around he clambered up beside her, and laid himself against her bosom. She gave a great sigh, slowly lifted her arms, and slowly folded them about him, until she clasped him close. Yet a moment, and she roused herself, and came quite awake; and the cold of her bosom, which had pierced Diamond's bones, vanished. TWENTY MILES. [By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.] IT is a very myself on fire. There is a place where there is threaten ing summer's scorn. But a merciful shadow thrown by a high bank and hedge, and there, in defiance of all the laws of etiquette and the usages of society, I take off my coat and waistcoat, and walk along with them thrown over my arm, as though I were a tramp. I wonder what the few people I meet think of me, for I am decently attired, and have positively an all-round collar. How inexpressibly shocked that phaeton full of Lancastrians that has just passed me (I have a strong idea that I took tea with some of them last week) must be. What can the burly farmer in the chaise-cart who pulls up and says the morning interrogatively, "teaaking a weauork?" think. threatens, I wonder at all this; but much more do I wonder nevertheless. where the next beer-oasis in this dusty desert is. It threatens a blazing hot day. General Phoebus has donned his vividest scarlet coat, his brightest golden epaulettes (epaulettes were worn when I walked twenty miles), his sheeniest sword, his hat with the red and white cocks' feathers. He is determined upon a field-day, and serves out red-hot shot to his bombardiers. I leave the grey old legendary town of Lancaster, with its mighty castle, its crumbling church, its steep quaint streets. I leave the tranquil valley of the Lune; the one timber-laden schooner, and row of dismantled warehouses which now represent the once considerable maritime trade of Lancaster (oh, city of the Mersey, erst the haunt of the long-legged Liver, you have much to answer for!); I leave the rippling waters of Morecambe Bay, with its little pebbly watering-place of Poulton-le-Sands. I leave the blue shade of the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland; the memories of Peter Bell and his solitary donkey and the white doe of Rhylstone; the thousand beautiful spots in the loved district, sunlighted by the memories of learned Southey, and tuneful Wordsworth, and strong John Wilson, and gentle, docile, erring, Hartley Coleridge (there is not a cottager from Lancaster to Kendal, from Kendal to Windermere, but has stories to tell about "puir Hartley," affectionately recalling his simple face and ways); I leave all these to walk twenty miles to the town of spindles and smoke, bricks, and cotton-bales. I can give but a woman's reason for this perverse walk. I will walk it. There is a place called Scotforth, about two miles out, where I begin to fry. There is a place called Catterham (I think) two miles further, where I begin to broil. Then I begin to feel I had fortified myself with a good breakfast, and a "dobbin" of brown ale before I left Lancaster, and had sternly said to myself, "no beer till Garstang," which is half way. But at the very outset of my twenty miles, at Scotforth, I was sorely tempted to turn aside (two roads diverge there) towards the pleasant village of Cockerham, on the road to which I know of a beery nook, where there is a little woman, licensed to be drunk on the premises, in a tiny house, of which the back-door opens into a green churchyard, with tombstones hundreds of years old; a little dame, who, though a Catholic herself, has, in her little library on the hanging shelf beside her missal and Thomas A'Kempis, a copy of "Fuller's Worthies," and Barclay's "Apology for the Quakers." Oh! for a mug of brown beer at the sign of the "Travellers' Joy." Oh! for the sanded floor, the long clean pipe, the newspaper three weeks old, the " Worthies," the "Quakers!" Beer and happiness? Why not? There are times when a mug of ale, a pipe, and an old newspaper may be the essence of mundane felicity. Get away, you luxurious Persians. I hate your epicurean splendours; and, little boy, bind my brow with a simple hop-garland, and bring me some more beer. I did not turn off towards Cockerham, however, because I was ashamed. When I am on fire, however, and my stomach so full of hot dust, I throw shame to the winds, and say to resolution, "Get thee behind me." (I am always leaving that tiresome resolution behind.) In this strait, I met a tinker. He is black, but friendly. He is a humourist, as most tinkers are, and sells prayer books besides tin-pots, which most tinkers do. Straightway he knows of the whereabouts of beer, and proposes a libation. I accept. More than this, he insists upon "standing a pot." Am I to insult this tinker by refusing to accept his proffered hospitality? No! He and I dive down a cunning lane, which none but a tinker could discover, and the foaming felicity is poured out to us. The tinker drinks first: I insist upon his drinking first. When he hands me the pot, he points to the side of the vessel on which he has himself drunk, and suggests that I should apply my lips to the opposite side. "My mouth it may be sawdery," he says. Could Lord Chesterfield, in all his wiggishness and priggishness, have been politer than this? When we get into the high road again, the tinker sings me a Cumberland song, of which there are about nineteen verses, and of which I can understand about four lines. I can only make out that "th' Deil's i' th' lasses o' Pearith" (probably Penrith), and that "Sukey, th' prood mantymecker, tu luik at a navvy thowt sin," ," which is gratifying to know, surveying the society of navvies (excellent persons as they may be in their operative way) from a genteel point of view. I am dimly given to understand, however, in a subsequent stanza, that the haughty Sukey so far changed her opinion of navvies as to elope with one; and while I ponder over this sad decadence, and instance of how the mighty are fallen, the tinker bids me good day and leaves me. He is a worthy man. little market town-a big village rather, with many public-houses, and an amazing juvenile population. It possesses a railway station, and when I have finished my pipo, the train bound for Preston has filled up, and is ready to start again. I am sorely moved to abandon my twenty miles project, and take a second-class ticket for the rest of the journey. But self-shame (the strongest of all, for no man likes to look ridiculous in his own eyes) comes to my aid. The day seems lowering somewhat, and promises a cool afternoon, and I dismiss the locomotive as a mere figment-a puffing, drinking, smoking, superficial, inconsequential surfaceskimmer, skurrying through the country as though he were riding a race, or running away from a bailiff, or travelling for a house in the cotton trade. I walk resolutely on my journey from Garstang: the milestones altering their tone now, and announcing so many miles and a half to Preston. The treacherous sun, which has been playing a game of hide-and-seek with me all day, comes out again with a redoubled fury, and burns me to a white heat. Worse than this, I am between two long stages of beer, and a rustic, in a wide-awake hat, informs me that the next house of entertainment is at Cabus, "a bad fower mile fadder an.' Worse than all, there is no cottage, farmhouse, lodge-gate, to be seen where I can obtain a drink of water. I am parched, swollen, carbonised. A little girl passes me with an empty tin can in which she has carried her father's beer with his dinner to the hay-field. The vacuity of the vessel drives me to frenzy. My nature abhors such a vacuum. There are certainly pools where geese are gabbling, rivulets whither come the thirsty cows to drink, ditches where the lonely donkey There is a lull just now in the heat. General Phoebus has sheathed his sword for the moment, and is refreshing himself in his golden tent. The sky is almost colourless; the trees are dark and ominous; broad grey-green shadows are cast across the landscape. Perhaps it is going to rain. How glad I am that I have not got an umbrella But the hope is fallacious. All at once the sudden sun darts out again, General Phoebus is on horse-washes down his meal of thistles. But I have no back giving the word to fire and reload, and I begin to fry again. Five miles and a half to Garstang. Four miles and a half to Garstang-two-three-one mile to Garstang. The milestones are obliging, and run on manfully before me. It is just one o'clock in the afternoon when I enter Garstang itself; much to my own satisfaction, having attained my halfway house, and accomplished ten of my appointed twenty miles. I think I am entitled to bread and cheese at Garstang, likewise to the pipe of peace, which I take on a gate leading into a field, solacing myself meanwhile with a view of a pas-de-deux between a young peasant woman in a jacket and a lively mottled calf, which will not submit to be caught and bound with cords to the horns of a cart on any terms; frisking, and dodging, and scampering about, either with an instinctive prescience of the existence of such a thing as roast fillet of veal with mild stuffing, or rioting in that ignorance of the possibility of the shambles which is bliss to butcher's meat. I find Garstang a cup, waterproof cap, not even an egg-shell, in which I could scoop out water enough for a draught. I have broken my pipe, and cannot, even if I would, drink out of its bowl. I am ashamed of using my boot as a goblet. I might, it is true, lie down by the side of a ditch, and drink like a beast of the field; but I have no fancy for eating, while I drink, of the toad, the tadpole, the water-newt, the swimming-frog, the old rat, the ditch-dog, and the green mantle of the standing pool. Poor Tom could do no more than that, who was whipped from tything to tything, and whose food for seven long years was "mice, and rats, and such small deer." I lean over a bridge, beneath which ripples a little river. The channel is partially dry, but a clear, sparkling little stream hurries along over the pebbles most provokingly. I groan in bitterness of spirit as I see this tantalising river, and am about descending to its level, and making a desperate attempt to drink out of the hollow of my hands, at the risk of ruining my all-round collar, when, in my extremity on the river's bank, I descry Pot. Pot is of common red earthenware -broken, decayed, full of dried mud and sandbut I hail Pot as my friend, as my deliverer. I descend. I very nearly break my shins over a log of timber. I incur the peril of being indicted for poaching or trespassing in a fishing preserve. I seize Pot. Broken as he is, there is enough convexity in him to hold half-a-pint of water. I carefully clean out his incrustation of dried mud. I wipe him, polish him tenderly, as though I loved him. And then, oh, all ye water gods, I Drink! How often, how deeply, I know not; but I drink till I remember that the water swells a man, and that I should be a pretty sight if I were swelled; whereupon with a sigh I resign Pot, give him an extra polish, place him in a conspicuous spot for the benefit of some future thirsty wayfarer, and leave him, invoking a blessing upon his broken head. This done, I resume my way rejoicing. I catch up the milestones that were getting on ahead, and just as the cool of the afternoon begins, I am at my journey's end. I have walked my twenty miles, and am ready for the juicy steak, the cool tankard, the long deep sleep, and the welcome railway back to Lancaster. |