Such was the effect of Rumpty-Dudget's three mud-spots.
But, although Hilda, Harold, and Hector were no longer quite the best children in the world, they were pretty good children as the world goes, and if it had not been for the north wind they would have got on together very well. But whenever that wind blew everything began to go wrong. Hilda wanted everything her own way; Harold wanted everything in his own pockets; and Hector wanted everything at cross-purposes. Then, too, the spots on Hilda's forehead, on Harold's nose, and on Hector's chin became blacker and blacker, and hotter and hotter, until the children were ready to cry from pain and vexation. But tears could do no more than soap and water to wash the spots away.
As soon as the wind began to blow from the south, however, the spots began to lose their blackness, and the pricking to lessen, until at last the children almost forgot their trouble. Yet it never altogether disappeared; and neither Tom the Cat nor the Fairy Aunt had the power to cure it. But Tom used to say that, unless Hilda and her two brothers would agree always to make the wind blow from the south, the hundred-and-first corner in Rumpty-Dudget's tower would sooner or later be filled.
'How can we make the wind blow one way or the other?' Hilda would ask.
'It all depends upon you, nevertheless,' Tom would reply. 'Winds do not move of themselves, but people pull them.'
'Well, I don't understand it,' Hilda would answer, after a little thinking; 'and if I don't, of course the boys don't either.'
At night, when the Fairy Aunt came in through the round window, and sat on their bedside to whisper stories about Fairyland into their ears, the children would sometimes ask her to take them all three up in her arms and carry them over the tops of the trees of the Forest of Mystery to her home far away on the other side. Then she would shake her head and say:
'While those spots are on your faces you cannot come with me.'
'Why not?' the children asked in their dream.
'Because they are a sign that a part of each of you belongs to Rumpty-Dudget; and he will not let go of that part, in spite of all that I can do.'
'Shall we never be able to go with you, then?' dreamed the children piteously.