“Once you know these,” she said, “you cannot possibly go wrong. To make it easier, I’ve put each Wind into a little simple rhyme, for you.”
“I’m listening,” he said eagerly.
“The North Wind is one of the worst and most dangerous, because it blows so much faster than you think. It’s taken you ten miles before you think you’ve gone two. In starting with a North Wind, always fly against it; then it will bring you home easily. If you fly with it, you may be swept so far that the day will catch you before you can get home; and then you’re as good as lost. Even birds fly warily when this wind is about. It has no lulls or resting-places in it; it blows steadily on and on, and conquers everything it comes against — everything except the mountains.”
“And its rhyme?” asked Jimbo, all ears.
“It will show you the joy of the birds, my child, You shall know their terrible bliss; It will teach you to hide, when the night is wild, From the storm’s too passionate kiss. For the Wind of the North Is a volleying forth That will lift you with springs In the heart of your wings, And may sweep you away To the edge of the day. So, beware of the Wind of the North, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the North!”
“I think I like him all the same,” said Jimbo. “But I’ll remember always to fly against him.”
“The East Wind is worse still, for it hurts,” continued the governess. “It stings and cuts. It’s like the breath of an ice-creature; it brings hail and sleet and cold rain that beat down wings and blind the eyes. Like the North Wind, too, it is dreadfully swift and full of little whirlwinds, and may easily carry you into the light of day that would prove your destruction. Avoid it always; no hiding-place is safe from it. This is the rhyme:
“It will teach you the secrets the eagles know Of the tempests’ and whirlwinds’ birth; And the magical weaving of rain and snow As they fall from the sky to the earth. But an Easterly wind Is for ever unkind; It will torture and twist you And never assist you, But will drive you with might To the verge of the night. So, beware of the Wind of the East, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the East.”
“The West Wind is really a very nice and jolly wind in itself,” she went on, “but it’s dangerous for a special reason: it will carry you out to sea. The Empty House is only a few miles from the coast, and a strong West Wind would take you there almost before you had time to get down to earth again. And there’s no use struggling against a really steady West Wind, for it’s simply tireless. Luckily, it rarely blows at night, but goes down with the sun. Often, too, it blows hard to the coast, and then drops suddenly, leaving you among the fogs and mists of the sea.”
“Rather a nice, exciting sort of wind though,” remarked Jimbo, waiting for the rhyme.
“So, at last, you shall know from their lightest breath To which heaven each wind belongs; And shall master their meaning for life or death By the shout of their splendid songs. Yet the Wind of the West Is a wind unblest; It is lifted and kissed By the spirits of mist; It will clasp you and flee To the wastes of the sea. So, beware of the Wind of the West, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the West!”
“A jolly wind,” observed Jimbo again. “But that doesn’t leave much over to fly with,” he added sadly. “They all seem dangerous or cruel.”
“Yes,” she laughed, “and so they are till you can master them — then they’re kind, only one that’s really always safe and kind is the Wind of the South. It’s a sweet, gentle wind, beloved of all that flies, and you can’t possibly mistake it. You can tell it at once by the murmuring way it stirs the grasses and the tops of the trees. Its taste is soft and sweet in the mouth like wine, and there’s always a faint perfume about it like gardens in summer. It is the joy of this wind that makes all flying things sing. With a South Wind you can go anywhere and no harm can come to you.”
“Dear old South Wind,” cried Jimbo, rubbing his hands with delight. “I hope it will blow soon.”
“Its rhyme is very easy, too, though you will always be able to tell it without that,” she added.
“For this is the favourite Wind of all, Beloved of the stars and night; In the rustle of leaves you shall hear it call To the passionate joys of flight. It will carry you forth in its wonderful hair To the far-away courts of the sky, And the breath of its lips is a murmuring prayer For the safety of all who fly. For the Wind of the South Is like wine in the mouth, With its whispering showers And perfume of flowers, When it falls like a sigh From the heart of the sky.”
“Oh!” interrupted Jimbo, rubbing his hands, “that is nice. That’s my wind!”
“It will bear you aloft With a pressure so soft That you hardly shall guess Whose the gentle caress.”
“Hooray!” he cried again.
“It’s the kindest of weathers For our red feathers, And blows open the way To the Gardens of Play. So, fly out with the Wind of the South, my child, With the wonderful Wind of the South.”
“Oh, I love the South Wind already,” he shouted, clapping his hands again. “I hope it will blow very, very soon.”
“It may be rising even now,” answered the governess, leading him to the window. But, as they gazed at the summer landscape lying in the fading light of the sunset, all was still and resting. The air was hushed, the leaves motionless. There was no call just then to flight from among the tree-tops, and he went back into the room disappointed.
“But why can’t we escape at once?” he asked again, after he had given his promise to remember all she had told him, and to be extra careful if he ever went out flying alone.
“Jimbo, dear, I’ve told you before, it’s because your body isn’t ready for you yet,” she answered patiently. “There’s hardly any circulation in it, and if you forced your way back now the shock might stop your heart beating altogether. Then you’d be really dead, and escape would be impossible.”
The boy sat on the edge of the bed staring intently at her while she spoke. Something clutched at his heart. He felt his Older Self, with its greater knowledge, rising up out of the depths within him. The child struggled with the old soul for possession.
“Have you got any circulation?” he asked abruptly at length. “I mean, has your heart stopped beating?”
But the smile called up by his words froze on her lips. She crossed to the window and stood with her back to the fading light, avoiding his eyes.
“My case, Jimbo, is a little different from yours,” she said presently. “The important thing is to make certain about your escape. Never mind about me.”
“But escape without you is nothing,” he said, the Older Self now wholly in possession. “I simply wouldn’t go. I’d rather stay here — with you.”
The governess made no reply, but she turned her back to the room and leaned out of the window. Jimbo fancied he heard a sob. He felt a great big heart swelling up within his little body, and he crossed over beside her. For some minutes they stood there in silence, watching the stars that were already shining faintly in the sky.
“Whatever happens,” he said, nestling against her, “I shan’t go from here without you. Remember that!”
He was going to say a lot more, but somehow or other, when she stooped over to kiss his head — he hardly came up to her shoulder — it all ran suddenly out of his mind, and the little child dropped back into possession again. The tide of his thoughts that seemed about to rise, fast and furious, sank away completely, leaving his mind a clean-washed slate without a single image; and presently, without any more words, the governess left him and went through the trap-door into the silence and mystery of the house below.
Several hours later, about the middle of the night, there came over him a most disagreeable sensation of nausea and dizziness. The ground rose and fell beneath his feet, the walls swam about sideways, and the ceiling slid off into the air. It only lasted a few minutes, however, and Jimbo knew from what she had told him that it was the Flying Sickness which always followed the first long flight.
But, about the same time, another little body, l
ying in a night-nursery bed, was being convulsed with a similar attack; and the sickness of the little prisoner in the Empty House had its parallel, strangely enough, in the half-tenanted body miles away in a different world.
CHAPTER XIII. PLEASURES OF FLIGHT
Since the night when Jimbo had nearly fallen into the yard and risked capture, Fright, the horrible owner of the house, had kept himself well out of the way, and had allowed himself to be neither seen nor heard.
But the boy was not foolish enough to fall into the other trap, and imagine, therefore, that He did not know what was going on. Jimbo felt quite sure that He was only waiting his chance; and the governess’s avoidance of the subject tended to confirm this supposition.
“He’s disappeared somewhere and taken the children with him,” she declared when he questioned her. “And now you know almost as much as I do.”
“But not quite!” he laughed mischievously.
“Enough, though,” she replied. “We want all our energy for escape when it comes. Don’t bother about anything else for the moment.”
During the day, when he was alone, his thoughts and fancies often terrified him; but at night, when he was rushing through the heavens, the intense delight of flying drove all minor emotions out of his consciousness, and he even forgot his one great desire — to escape. One night, however, something happened that brought it back more keenly than ever.
He had been out flying alone, but had not gone far when he noticed that an easterly wind had begun to rise and was blowing steadily behind him. With the recent instructions fresh in his head, he thought it wiser to turn homewards rather than fight his way back later against a really strong wind from this quarter. Flying low along the surface of the fields so as to avoid its full force, he suddenly rose up with a good sweep and settled on the top of the wall enclosing the yard.
The moonlight lay bright over everything. His approach had been very quiet. He was just about to sail across to the window when something caught his eye, and he hesitated a moment, and stared.
Something was moving at the other end of the courtyard.
It seemed to him that the moonlight suddenly grew pale and ghastly; the night air turned chilly; shivers began to run up and down his back.
He folded his wings and watched.
At the end of the yard he saw several figures moving busily to and fro in the shadow of the wall. They were very small; but close beside them all the time stood a much larger figure which seemed to be directing their movements. There was no need to look twice; it was impossible to mistake these terrible little people and their hideous overseer. Horror rushed over the boy, and a wild scream was out in the night before he could possibly prevent it. At the same moment a cloud passed over the face of the moon and the yard was shrouded in darkness.
A minute later the cloud passed off; but while it was still too dark to see clearly, Jimbo was conscious of a rushing, whispering sound in the air, and something went past him at a tremendous pace into the sky. The wind stirred his hair as it passed, and a moment later he heard voices far away in the distance — up in the sky or within the house he could not tell — singing mournfully the song he now knew so well: —
We dance with phantoms and with shadows play.
But when he looked down at the yard he saw that it was deserted, and the corner by the little upright stones lay in the clear moonlight, empty of figures, large or small.
Shivering with fright, he flew across to the window ledge, and almost tumbled into the arms of the governess who was standing close inside.
“What’s the matter, child?” she asked in a voice that trembled a little.
And, still shuddering, he told her how he thought he had seen the children working by the gravestones. All her efforts to calm him at first failed, but after a bit she drew his thoughts to pleasanter things, and he was not so certain after all that he had not been deceived by the cunning of the moonlight and the shadows.
A long interval passed, and no further sign was given by the owner of the house or his band of frightened children. Jimbo soon lost himself again in the delights of flying and the joy of his increasing powers.
Most of all he enjoyed the quiet, starlit nights before the moon was up; for the moon dazzled the eyes in the rarefied air where they flew, whereas the stars gave just enough light to steer by without making it uncomfortable.
Moreover, the moon often filled him with a kind of faint terror, as of death; he could never gaze at her white face for long without feeling that something entered his heart with those silver rays — something that boded him no good. He never spoke of this to the governess; indeed, he only recognised it himself when the moon was near the full; but it lay always in the depths of his being, and he felt dimly that it would have to be reckoned with before he could really escape for good. He took no liberties when the moon was at the full.
He loved to hover — for he had learned by this time that most difficult of all flying feats; to hold the body vertical and whirr the wings without rising or advancing — he loved to hover on windless nights over ponds and rivers and see the stars reflected in their still pools. Indeed, sometimes he hovered till he dropped, and only saved himself from a wetting by sweeping up in a tremendous curve along the surface of the water, and thus up into the branches of the trees where the governess sat waiting for him. And then, after a little rest, they would launch forth again and fly over fields and woods, sometimes even as far as the hills that ran down the coast of the sea itself.
They usually flew at a height of about a thousand feet, and the earth passed beneath them like a great streaked shadow. But as soon as the moon was up the whole country turned into a fairyland of wonder. Her light touched the woods with a softened magic, and the fields and hedges became frosted most delicately. Beneath a thin transparency of mist the water shone with a silvery brilliance that always enabled them to distinguish it from the land at any height; while the farms and country houses were swathed in tender grey shadows through which the trees and chimneys pierced in slender lines of black. It was wonderful to watch the shadows everywhere spinning their blue veil of distance that lent even to the commonest objects something of enchantment and mystery.
Those were wonderful journeys they made together into the pathways of the silent night, along the unknown courses, into that hushed centre where they could almost hear the beatings of her great heart — like winged thoughts searching the huge vault, till the boy ached with the sensations of speed and distance, and the old yellow moon seemed to stagger across the sky.
Sometimes they rose very high into freezing air, so high that the earth became a dull shadow specked with light. They saw the trains running in all directions with thin threads of smoke shining in the glare of the open fire-boxes. But they seemed very tiny trains indeed, and stirred in him no recollections of the semi-annual visits to London town when he went to the dentist, and lunched with the dreaded grandmother or the stiff and fashionable aunts.
And when they came down again from these perilous heights, the scents of the earth rose to meet them, the perfume of woods and fields, and the smells of the open country.
There was, too, the delight, the curious delight of windy nights, when the wind smote and buffeted them, knocking them suddenly sideways, whistling through their feathers as if it wanted to tear them from their sockets; rushing furiously up underneath their wings with repeated blows; turning them round, and backwards and forwards, washing them from head to foot in a tempestuous sea of rapid and unexpected motion.
It was, of course, far easier to fly with a wind than without one. The difficulty with a violent wind was to get down — not to keep up. The gusts drove up against the under-surfaces of their wings and kept them afloat, so that by merely spreading them like sails they could sweep and circle without a single stroke. Jimbo soon learned to manœuvre so that he could turn the strength of a great wind to his own purposes, and revel in its boisterous waves and currents like a strong swimmer in a rough sea.
; And to listen to the wind as it swept backwards and forwards over the surface of the earth below was another pleasure; for everything it touched gave out a definite note. He soon got to know the long sad cry from the willows, and the little whispering in the tops of the poplar trees; the crisp, silvery rattle of the birches, and the deep roar from oaks and beech woods. The sound of a forest was like the shouting of the sea.
But far more lovely, when they descended a little, and the wind was more gentle, were the low pipings among the reeds and the little wayward murmurs under the hedgerows.
The pine trees, however, drew them most, with their weird voices, now far away, now near, rising upwards with a wind of sighs.
There was a grove of these trees that trooped down to the waters of a little lake in the hills, and to this spot they often flew when the wind was low and the music likely, therefore, to be to their taste. For, even when there was no perceptible wind, these trees seemed always full of mysterious, mournful whisperings; their branches held soft music that never quite died away, even when all other trees were silent and motionless.
Besides these special expeditions, they flew everywhere and anywhere. They visited the birds in their nests in lofty trees, and exchanged the time of night with wise-eyed owls staring out upon them from the ivy. They hovered up the face of great cliffs, and passed the hawks asleep on perilous ledges; skimmed over lonely marshes, frightening the water-birds paddling in and out among the reeds. They followed the windings of streams, singing among the meadows, and flew along the wet sands as they watched the moon rise out of the sea.
These flights were unadulterated pleasure, and Jimbo thought he could never have enough of them.
He soon began to notice, too, that the trees emanated something that affected his own condition. When he sat in their branches this was very noticeable. Currents of force passed from them into himself. And even when he flew over their crests he was aware that some woods exhaled vigorous, life-giving forces, while others tired and depleted him. Nothing was visible actually, but fine waves seemed to beat up against his eyes and thoughts, making him stronger or weaker, happy or melancholy, full of hope and courage, or listless and indifferent.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 10