to promise well for getting into the sky, but Diamond had learned
to look through the look of things. The voice must have meant
that he was to go down this stair; and down this stair Diamond went,
without waiting to think more about it.

It was such a nice stair, so cool and soft--all the sides as well
as the steps grown with moss and grass and ferns! Down and down
Diamond went--a long way, until at last he heard the gurgling
and splashing of a little stream; nor had he gone much farther
before he met it--yes, met it coming up the stairs to meet him,
running up just as naturally as if it had been doing the other thing.
Neither was Diamond in the least surprised to see it pitching itself
from one step to another as it climbed towards him: he never
thought it was odd--and no more it was, there. It would have been
odd here. It made a merry tune as it came, and its voice was like
the laughter he had heard from the sky. This appeared promising;
and he went on, down and down the stair, and up and up the stream,
till at last he came where it hurried out from under a stone,
and the stair stopped altogether. And as the stream bubbled up,
the stone shook and swayed with its force; and Diamond thought he
would try to lift it. Lightly it rose to his hand, forced up by the
stream from below; and, by what would have seemed an unaccountable
perversion of things had he been awake, threatened to come tumbling
upon his head. But he avoided it, and when it fell, got upon it.
He now saw that the opening through which the water came pouring
in was over his head, and with the help of the stone he scrambled
out by it, and found himself on the side of a grassy hill which
rounded away from him in every direction, and down which came
the brook which vanished in the hole. But scarcely had he noticed
so much as this before a merry shouting and laughter burst upon him,