Algernon Blackwood

“ The sun has been very tiresome all day--overheating the currents."
"Uncle, you ask it everything," whispered Tim, "simply everything!"
"Say how we love it, please," sighed Judy. "I feel it closing both my eyes."
"It's over all my face," put in Maria, drawing her breath in loudly.
"But my hair's lifting!" Judy exclaimed. "Oh, it's lovely, lovely!"
Uncle Felix straightened himself up in the darkness. They could hear him breathing with the effort. "Please tell us what you do," he said. "We all can feel you touching us. ”

“ The swishing, rushing, hushing sound it makes--that's its hair against the walls and tiles, you see."
"It is a woman, then?" said Tim proudly. All looked up, wondering. An extraordinary thing was in the air. A mystery that had puzzled them for ages was about to be explained. They drew closer round the sofa, and Maria blundered against the table, knocking some books off with a resounding noise. It was their way of reminding him that he had promised. "Hush, hush!" said Uncle Felix, holding up a finger and glancing over his shoulder into the darkened room. "It may be coming now... Listen!" ”

“ And their own laughter went out to follow it across the night.
The room became suddenly very still again. Some one had closed the window. The twig no longer tapped. The game was over. Uncle Felix collected them, an exhausted crew, upon the sofa by his side.
"It was very wonderful," he whispered. "We've done what no one has ever done before. We've played with the Night-Wind, and the Night- Wind's played with us. It feels happier now. It will always be our friend."
"It was awfully strong," said Tim in a tone of awe. "It fairly banged me."
"But awfully gentle," Judy sighed. ”

“ Moreover, it came out only after dark--an ominous and suspicious characteristic rather.
"Why isn't there a day-wind too?" inquired Judy thoughtfully.
"There is, but it's quite a different thing," Uncle Felix answered. "You might as well ask why midday and midnight aren't the same because they both come at twelve o'clock. They're simply different things."
"Of course," Tim helped him unexpectedly; "and a man can't be a woman, can it?"
The Night-Wind's nature, accordingly, remained a mystery rather, and its sex was also undetermined. ”

“ He knew everything--everything in the world. "It's unhappy as well as shy," he sighed, "because nothing will play with it. Everything is asleep at night. It comes out just when other things are going in. ”

“ It's awfully shy--"
"Why is it awfully shy?" asked Judy in an undertone.
"Because people make it mean so much more than it means to mean," he replied darkly. "It never gets a chance to be just itself and play its own lonely game--"
"We've called it things," she stated.
"But we haven't written books about it and put it into poetry," Uncle Felix corrected her with an audacity that silenced them. "We play our game; it plays its."
"It plays its," repeated Tim, amused by the sound of the words. ”

“ Birds, tucked away in nests and hiding-places, don't even answer at all. The butterflies are gone, the insects lost. Leaves and twigs don't care about being blown when there's no one there to see them. ”