At The Back Of The North Wind
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: MacDonald, George
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 507636
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Wiretap Electronic Text Archive
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: norwind.txt
subject: diamond
subject: wind
subject: north
subject: mother
subject: father
subject: public
subject: domain
subject: george
subject: routledge
subject: sons
subject: york
subject: broome
subject: street
subject: chapter
subject: hay
subject: loft
subject: tell
subject: macdonald
subject: english
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: macdonald-at-212.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: macdonald-at-212.htm
sort title: At The Back Of The North Wind
full text: AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND by GEORGE MAC DONALD Digitized by Cardinalis Etext Press, C.E.K. Posted to Wiretap in July 1993, as norwind.txt. This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND BY GEORGE MAC DONALD AUTHOR OF "DEALINGS WITH FAIRIES," "RANALD BANNERMAN," ETC., ETC. ___________ GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET 1871 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…