That night he had a very curious dream which I think my readers would
like to have told them. They would, at least, if they are as fond of
nice dreams as I am, and don't have enough of them of their own.
He dreamed that he was running about in the twilight in the old garden.
He thought he was waiting for North Wind, but she did not come. So he
would run down to the back gate, and see if she were there. He ran and
ran. It was a good long garden out of his dream, but in his dream it
had grown so long and spread out so wide that the gate he wanted was
nowhere. He ran and ran, but instead of coming to the gate found himself
in a beautiful country, not like any country he had ever been in before.
There were no trees of any size; nothing bigger in fact than hawthorns,
which were full of may-blossom. The place in which they grew was wild
and dry, mostly covered with grass, but having patches of heath. It
extended on every side as far as he could see. But although it was so
wild, yet wherever in an ordinary heath you might have expected furze
bushes, or holly, or broom, there grew roses--wild and rare--all kinds.
On every side, far and near, roses were glowing. There too was the
gum-cistus, whose flowers fall every night and come again the next
morning, lilacs and syringas and laburnums, and many shrubs besides,
of which he did not know the names; but the roses were everywhere. He
wandered on and on, wondering when it would come to an end. It was of no
use going back, for there was no house to be seen anywhere. But he was
not frightened, for you know Diamond was used to things that were
rather out of the way. He threw himself down under a rose-bush, and fell
asleep.
He woke, not out of his dream, but into it, thinking he heard a child's
voice, calling “Diamond, Diamond!” He jumped up, but all was still about
him. The rose-bushes were pouring out their odours in clouds. He could
see the scent like mists of the same colour as the rose, issuing like
a slow fountain and spreading in the air till it joined the thin rosy
vapour which hung over all the wilderness. But again came the voice
calling him, and it seemed to come from over his head. He looked up, but
saw only the deep blue sky full of stars--more brilliant, however, than
he had seen them before; and both sky and stars looked nearer to the
earth.
While he gazed up, again he heard the cry. At the same moment he saw one
of the biggest stars over his head give a kind of twinkle and jump,
as if it went out and came in again. He threw himself on his back,
and fixed his eyes upon it. Nor had he gazed long before it went out,
leaving something like a scar in the blue. But as he went on gazing he
saw a face where the star had been--a merry face, with bright eyes.
The eyes appeared not only to see Diamond, but to know that Diamond had
caught sight of them, for the face withdrew the same moment. Again came
the voice, calling “Diamond, Diamond;” and in jumped the star to its
place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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