But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung, And the airs of heaven played round her tongue, When she spoke of the lovely forms she had seen, And a land where sin had never been;A land of love and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night;Where the river swayed a living stream, And the light a pure and cloudless beam:
The land of vision it would seem, And still an everlasting dream."The last two lines are the shepherd's own remark, and a matter of opinion. But it is clear, I think, that Kilmeny must have described the same country as Durante saw, though, not having his experience, she could neither understand nor describe it so well.
Now I must give you such fragments of recollection as Diamond was able to bring back with him.
When he came to himself after he fell, he found himself at the back of the north wind. North Wind herself was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was there a vestige of snow or of ice within sight.
The sun too had vanished; but that was no matter, for there was plenty of a certain still rayless light. Where it came from he never found out; but he thought it belonged to the country itself.
Sometimes he thought it came out of the flowers, which were very bright, but had no strong colour. He said the river--for all agree that there is a river there--flowed not only through, but over grass: its channel, instead of being rock, stones, pebbles, sand, or anything else, was of pure meadow grass, not over long. He insisted that if it did not sing tunes in people's ears, it sung tunes in their heads, in proof of which I may mention that, in the troubles which followed, Diamond was often heard singing; and when asked what he was singing, would answer, "One of the tunes the river at the back of the north wind sung." And I may as well say at once that Diamond never told these things to any one but--no, I had better not say who it was;but whoever it was told me, and I thought it would be well to write them for my child-readers.
He could not say he was very happy there, for he had neither his father nor mother with him, but he felt so still and quiet and patient and contented, that, as far as the mere feeling went, it was something better than mere happiness. Nothing went wrong at the back of the north wind. Neither was anything quite right, he thought. Only everything was going to be right some day.
His account disagreed with that of Durante, and agreed with that of Kilmeny, in this, that he protested there was no wind there at all.
I fancy he missed it. At all events we could not do without wind.
It all depends on how big our lungs are whether the wind is too strong for us or not.
When the person he told about it asked him whether he saw anybody he knew there, he answered, "Only a little girl belonging to the gardener, who thought he had lost her, but was quite mistaken, for there she was safe enough, and was to come back some day, as I came back, if they would only wait.""Did you talk to her, Diamond?"
"No. Nobody talks there. They only look at each other, and understand everything.""Is it cold there?"
"No."
"Is it hot?"
"No."
"What is it then?"
"You never think about such things there.""What a queer place it must be!"
"It's a very good place."
"Do you want to go back again?"
"No; I don't think I have left it; I feel it here, somewhere.""Did the people there look pleased?"
"Yes--quite pleased, only a little sad."
"Then they didn't look glad?"
"They looked as if they were waiting to be gladder some day."This was how Diamond used to answer questions about that country.
And now I will take up the story again, and tell you how he got back to this country.
