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.
CHAPTER XIV.
OLD DIAMOND
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 the very horse. He'd carry a small house any day. I bought him cheap, and I'll sell him cheap."
"Oh, I don't want him," said Diamond's father. "A body must have time to think over an affair of so much importance. And there's the cab too. That would come to a deal of money."
"I could fit you there, I daresay," said his friend. "But come and look at the animal, anyhow."
"Since I lost my own old pair, as was Mr. Coleman's," said Diamond's father, turning to accompany the cab-master, "I ain't almost got the heart to look a horse in the face. It's a thousand pities to part man and horse."
"So it is," returned his friend sympathetically.
But what was the ex-coachman's delight, when, on going into the stable where his friend led him, he found the horse he wanted him to buy was no other than his own old Diamond, grown very thin and bony and long-legged, as if they, had been doing what they could to fit him for Hansom work!
"He ain't a Hansom horse," said Diamond's father indignantly.
"Well, you're right. He ain't handsome, but he's a good un" said his owner.
"Who says he ain't handsome? He's one of the handsomest horses a gentleman's coachman ever druv," said Diamond's father; remarking to himself under his breath—"though I says it as shouldn't"—for he did not feel inclined all at once to confess that his own old horse could have sunk so low.
"Well," said his friend, "all I say is—There's a animal for you, as strong as a church; an'll go like a train, leastways a parly," he added, correcting himself.
But the coachman had a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. For the old horse, hearing his voice, had turned his long neck, and when his old friend went up to him and laid his hand on his side, he whinnied for joy, and laid his big head on his master's breast. This settled the matter. The coachman's arms were round the horse's neck in a moment, and he fairly broke down and cried. The cab-master had never been so fond of a horse himself as to hug him like that, but he saw in a moment how it was. And he must have been a good-hearted fellow, for I never heard of such an idea coming into the head of any other man with a horse to sell: instead of putting something on to the price because he was now pretty sure of selling him, he actually took a pound off what he had meant to ask for him,
