So in one way and another, he did learn to drive all sorts of horses, and through the most crowded streets in London city. One day his father took him on his own cab and as they were standing waiting for a passenger, his father left him alone for a few minutes. Hearing a noise, Diamond looked around to see what it was. There was a crossing near the cab-stand where a girl was sweeping. Some young roughs had picked a quarrel with her and were now trying to pull her broom away from her. Diamond was off his box in a moment and running to the help of the girl. The roughs began to act worse than ever. Just then Diamond's father came back and sent them flying. The girl thanked Diamond and began sweeping again as if nothing had happened.
She did not forget her friends, however. A moment after, she came running up with her broom over her shoulder, calling "Cab, there! Cab!" And when Diamond's father reached the curbstone, who should it be but Mrs. Coleman and Miss Coleman! Diamond and his father were very happy to see them again and gladly drove them home. When they wanted to pay for it, Diamond's father would not hear of it, but jumped on his box and drove away.
It was a long time since Diamond had seen North Wind or even thought much about her. Now, as his father drove along, he was thinking not about her but about the crossing sweeper. He was wondering what made him feel as if he knew her quite well when he could not remember anything of her. But a picture arose in his mind of a little girl running before the wind, and dragging her broom after her. From that, he recalled the whole adventure of the night when he had gone out with North Wind and made her put him down in a London street.
A few nights after this, Diamond woke up suddenly, believing he heard the north wind thundering along. But it was something quite different. South Wind was moaning around the chimneys, to be sure, for she was not very happy that night. But it was not her voice that had wakened Diamond. It was a loud angry voice, now growling like that of a beast, now raving like that of a madman. It was the voice of the drunken cabman whose room was just through the wall at the back of Diamond's bed.
At length, there came a cry from the woman and a scream from the baby. Diamond thought it was time somebody did something. He jumped up and went to see. The voice of the crying baby guided him to the right door and he peeped in. The drunken cabman had dropped into a chair, his wife lay sobbing on the bed, and the baby was wailing in its cradle.
Diamond's first thought was to run away from the misery of it. But he remembered at once that he had been at the back of the north wind. People who had been there must always try to destroy misery wherever they saw it. But what could he do? Well, there was the baby. He stole in and lifted it into his arms and soon had it on his knee, smiling at the light that came in from the street lamp. He began to sing to it in a low voice—the song of the river as it ran over the soft grass and among the flowers in the country at the back of the north wind. He sang on till the baby went sound asleep. He himself got sleepier and sleepier, though the cabman and his wife only got wider awake all the time. At length, Diamond found himself nodding. He got up and laid the baby gently in its cradle and stole quietly out and home again to his own bed.
"Wife," said the cabman, "did you see that angel?"
"Yes," answered his wife, "it is little Diamond who lives in the next yard."
She knew him well enough. She was the neighbor who had the fire lighted and the tea ready for them when Diamond and his mother came home from Sandwich on that rainy, gloomy night. Her husband was somehow very sorry now and ashamed of the misery he had caused—was it the song of the river which Diamond had sung that caused it? He tried hard to forget where the drink shop stood and for a good many weeks managed to keep away from it.