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  • CHAPTER XI THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH

  • For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched him, and then

  • he began to walk about softly, even more lightly than Mary had walked the first time

  • she had found herself inside the four walls.

  • His eyes seemed to be taking in everything- -the gray trees with the gray creepers

  • climbing over them and hanging from their branches, the tangle on the walls and among

  • the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the

  • stone seats and tall flower urns standing in them.

  • "I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper.

  • "Did you know about it?" asked Mary.

  • She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her.

  • "We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's to do in

  • here."

  • "Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand quickly

  • against her mouth. "Did you know about the garden?" she asked

  • again when she had recovered herself.

  • Dickon nodded. "Martha told me there was one as no one

  • ever went inside," he answered. "Us used to wonder what it was like."

  • He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his round eyes

  • looked queerly happy. "Eh! the nests as'll be here come

  • springtime," he said.

  • "It'd be th' safest nestin' place in England.

  • No one never comin' near an' tangles o' trees an' roses to build in.

  • I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't build here."

  • Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

  • "Will there be roses?" she whispered.

  • "Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead."

  • "Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered.

  • "Look here!"

  • He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen all over its

  • bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches.

  • He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.

  • "There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said.

  • "An' there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year.

  • This here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead

  • of hard, dry gray.

  • Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

  • "That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive quite?"

  • Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

  • "It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her

  • that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively." "I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her

  • whisper.

  • "I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how

  • many wick ones there are." She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon

  • was as eager as she was.

  • They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush.

  • Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought

  • wonderful.

  • "They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on it.

  • The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an' growed, an' spread

  • an' spread, till they's a wonder.

  • See here!" and he pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch.

  • "A body might think this was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root.

  • I'll cut it low down an' see."

  • He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not far

  • above the earth. "There!" he said exultantly.

  • "I told thee so.

  • There's green in that wood yet. Look at it."

  • Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.

  • "When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he explained.

  • "When th' inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here piece I've cut off, it's

  • done for.

  • There's a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of, an' if th' old wood's

  • cut off an' it's dug round, and took care of there'll be--" he stopped and lifted his

  • face to look up at the climbing and hanging

  • sprays above him--"there'll be a fountain o' roses here this summer."

  • They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree.

  • He was very strong and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead

  • wood away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green

  • life in it.

  • In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell too, and when he cut through

  • a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out joyfully under her breath when she caught

  • sight of the least shade of moist green.

  • The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful.

  • He showed her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and stirred

  • the earth and let the air in.

  • They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses when he

  • caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of surprise.

  • "Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away.

  • "Who did that there?" It was one of Mary's own little clearings

  • round the pale green points.

  • "I did it," said Mary. "Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin'

  • about gardenin'," he exclaimed.

  • "I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so thick and

  • strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe.

  • So I made a place for them.

  • I don't even know what they are." Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling

  • his wide smile. "Tha' was right," he said.

  • "A gardener couldn't have told thee better.

  • They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops, an' these

  • here is narcissuses," turning to another patch, "an here's daffydowndillys.

  • Eh! they will be a sight."

  • He ran from one clearing to another. "Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a

  • little wench," he said, looking her over. "I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm

  • growing stronger.

  • I used always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all.

  • I like to smell the earth when it's turned up."

  • "It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely.

  • "There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh

  • growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em.

  • I get out on th' moor many a day when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush an' listen

  • to th' soft swish o' drops on th' heather an' I just sniff an' sniff.

  • My nose end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says."

  • "Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.

  • She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.

  • "Not me," he said, grinning. "I never ketched cold since I was born.

  • I wasn't brought up nesh enough.

  • I've chased about th' moor in all weathers same as th' rabbits does.

  • Mother says I've sniffed up too much fresh air for twelve year' to ever get to

  • sniffin' with cold.

  • I'm as tough as a white-thorn knobstick." He was working all the time he was talking

  • and Mary was following him and helping him with her fork or the trowel.

  • "There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite exultantly.

  • "Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged.

  • "I'm sure I can help, too.

  • I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me.

  • Oh! do come, Dickon!" "I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain

  • or shine," he answered stoutly.

  • "It's the best fun I ever had in my life-- shut in here an' wakenin' up a garden."

  • "If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive I'll--I don't know

  • what I'll do," she ended helplessly.

  • What could you do for a boy like that? "I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said

  • Dickon, with his happy grin.

  • "Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll learn how to talk to

  • th' robin same as I do. Eh! we'll have a lot o' fun."

  • He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and bushes with a

  • thoughtful expression.

  • "I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped an' spick

  • an' span, would you?" he said.

  • "It's nicer like this with things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of

  • each other." "Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary

  • anxiously.

  • "It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it was tidy."

  • Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look.

  • "It's a secret garden sure enough," he said, "but seems like some one besides th'

  • robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' ago."

  • "But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary.

  • "No one could get in." "That's true," he answered.

  • "It's a queer place.

  • Seems to me as if there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an' there, later than ten

  • year' ago." "But how could it have been done?" said

  • Mary.

  • He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head.

  • "Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th' door locked an' th' key buried."

  • Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should never forget

  • that first morning when her garden began to grow.

  • Of course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning.

  • When Dickon began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung

  • at her when he wanted to tease her.

  • "Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired.

  • "Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, "an' there's

  • Canterbury bells, an' campanulas."

  • "Let's plant some," said Mary. "There's lilies o' th, valley here already;

  • I saw 'em. They'll have growed too close an' we'll

  • have to separate 'em, but there's plenty.

  • Th' other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring you some bits o'

  • plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha' want 'em?"

  • Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and of how

  • she had hated them and of their calling her "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary."

  • "They used to dance round and sing at me.

  • They sang--

  • 'Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

  • With silver bells, and cockle shells, And marigolds all in a row.'

  • I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers like silver

  • bells." She frowned a little and gave her trowel a

  • rather spiteful dig into the earth.

  • "I wasn't as contrary as they were." But Dickon laughed.

  • "Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was sniffing up the

  • scent of it.

  • "There doesn't seem to be no need for no one to be contrary when there's flowers an'

  • such like, an' such lots o' friendly wild things runnin' about makin' homes for

  • themselves, or buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?"

  • Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped frowning.

  • "Dickon," she said, "you are as nice as Martha said you were.

  • I like you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like five people."

  • Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the grate.

  • He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round blue eyes and red

  • cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose.

  • "Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th' other four?"

  • "Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the robin and Ben

  • Weatherstaff."

  • Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his arm over

  • his mouth.

  • "I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art th' queerest

  • little lass I ever saw." Then Mary did a strange thing.

  • She leaned forward and asked him a question she had never dreamed of asking any one

  • before.

  • And she tried to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India

  • a native was always pleased if you knew his speech.

  • "Does tha' like me?" she said.

  • "Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an' so does th'

  • robin, I do believe!" "That's two, then," said Mary.

  • "That's two for me."

  • And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully.

  • Mary was startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard strike the

  • hour of her midday dinner.

  • "I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And you will have to go too, won't you?"

  • Dickon grinned. "My dinner's easy to carry about with me,"

  • he said.

  • "Mother always lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."

  • He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy little

  • bundle tied up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white handkerchief.

  • It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of something laid between them.

  • "It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice o' fat bacon

  • with it today."

  • Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it.

  • "Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be done with mine first.

  • I'll get some more work done before I start back home."

  • He sat down with his back against a tree. "I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and

  • give him th' rind o' th' bacon to peck at.

  • They likes a bit o' fat wonderful." Mary could scarcely bear to leave him.

  • Suddenly it seemed as if he might be a sort of wood fairy who might be gone when she

  • came into the garden again.

  • He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-way to the door in the

  • wall and then she stopped and went back. "Whatever happens, you--you never would

  • tell?" she said.

  • His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread and bacon,

  • but he managed to smile encouragingly.

  • "If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does tha' think I'd

  • tell any one? Not me," he said.

  • "Tha' art as safe as a missel thrush."

  • And she was quite sure she was.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XII "MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?"

  • Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her room.

  • Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright pink.

  • Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near it.

  • "Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?"

  • "I've seen Dickon!" said Mary.

  • "I've seen Dickon!" "I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly.

  • "How does tha' like him?" "I think--I think he's beautiful!" said

  • Mary in a determined voice.

  • Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.

  • "Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never thought he was

  • handsome.

  • His nose turns up too much." "I like it to turn up," said Mary.

  • "An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful.

  • "Though they're a nice color."

  • "I like them round," said Mary. "And they are exactly the color of the sky

  • over the moor." Martha beamed with satisfaction.

  • "Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds an' th'

  • clouds. But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he,

  • now?"

  • "I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately.

  • "I wish mine were just like it." Martha chuckled delightedly.

  • "It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said.

  • "But I knowed it would be that way when tha' saw him.

  • How did tha' like th' seeds an' th' garden tools?"

  • "How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary.

  • "Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em.

  • He'd be sure to bring 'em if they was in Yorkshire.

  • He's such a trusty lad."

  • Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but she did not.

  • She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening tools, and there was only one

  • moment when Mary was frightened.

  • This was when she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted.

  • "Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired. "I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary,

  • hesitating.

  • "Well, I wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."

  • "I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen undergardeners and Ben

  • Weatherstaff."

  • "If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha.

  • "He's not half as bad as he looks, for all he's so crabbed.

  • Mr. Craven lets him do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was

  • alive, an' he used to make her laugh. She liked him.

  • Perhaps he'd find you a corner somewhere out o' the way."

  • "If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one could mind my having it, could

  • they?"

  • Mary said anxiously. "There wouldn't be no reason," answered

  • Martha. "You wouldn't do no harm."

  • Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the table she was

  • going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but Martha stopped her.

  • "I've got somethin' to tell you," she said.

  • "I thought I'd let you eat your dinner first.

  • Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he wants to see you."

  • Mary turned quite pale.

  • "Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I

  • came. I heard Pitcher say he didn't."

  • "Well," explained Martha, "Mrs. Medlock says it's because o' mother.

  • She was walkin' to Thwaite village an' she met him.

  • She'd never spoke to him before, but Mrs. Craven had been to our cottage two or three

  • times. He'd forgot, but mother hadn't an' she made

  • bold to stop him.

  • I don't know what she said to him about you but she said somethin' as put him in th'

  • mind to see you before he goes away again, tomorrow."

  • "Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away tomorrow?

  • I am so glad!" "He's goin' for a long time.

  • He mayn't come back till autumn or winter.

  • He's goin' to travel in foreign places. He's always doin' it."

  • "Oh! I'm so glad--so glad!" said Mary thankfully.

  • If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be time to watch

  • the secret garden come alive.

  • Even if he found out then and took it away from her she would have had that much at

  • least. "When do you think he will want to see--"

  • She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. Medlock walked

  • in.

  • She had on her best black dress and cap, and her collar was fastened with a large

  • brooch with a picture of a man's face on it.

  • It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years ago, and she always wore

  • it when she was dressed up. She looked nervous and excited.

  • "Your hair's rough," she said quickly.

  • "Go and brush it. Martha, help her to slip on her best dress.

  • Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him in his study."

  • All the pink left Mary's cheeks.

  • Her heart began to thump and she felt herself changing into a stiff, plain,

  • silent child again.

  • She did not even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom,

  • followed by Martha.

  • She said nothing while her dress was changed, and her hair brushed, and after

  • she was quite tidy she followed Mrs. Medlock down the corridors, in silence.

  • What was there for her to say?

  • She was obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and she would

  • not like him. She knew what he would think of her.

  • She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before.

  • At last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door, and when some one said, "Come in," they entered

  • the room together.

  • A man was sitting in an armchair before the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.

  • "This is Miss Mary, sir," she said. "You can go and leave her here.

  • I will ring for you when I want you to take her away," said Mr. Craven.

  • When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a plain little

  • thing, twisting her thin hands together.

  • She could see that the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with high,

  • rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white.

  • He turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her.

  • "Come here!" he said. Mary went to him.

  • He was not ugly.

  • His face would have been handsome if it had not been so miserable.

  • He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him and as if he did not know

  • what in the world to do with her.

  • "Are you well?" he asked. "Yes," answered Mary.

  • "Do they take good care of you?" "Yes."

  • He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.

  • "You are very thin," he said. "I am getting fatter," Mary answered in

  • what she knew was her stiffest way.

  • What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely

  • saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly keep his thoughts

  • upon her.

  • "I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember you?

  • I intended to send you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I

  • forgot."

  • "Please," began Mary. "Please--" and then the lump in her throat

  • choked her. "What do you want to say?" he inquired.

  • "I am--I am too big for a nurse," said Mary.

  • "And please--please don't make me have a governess yet."

  • He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.

  • "That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absentmindedly.

  • Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.

  • "Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.

  • "Yes, I think so," he replied. "She knows about children," said Mary.

  • "She has twelve.

  • She knows." He seemed to rouse himself.

  • "What do you want to do?"

  • "I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did not

  • tremble. "I never liked it in India.

  • It makes me hungry here, and I am getting fatter."

  • He was watching her. "Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good.

  • Perhaps it will," he said.

  • "She thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess."

  • "It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor," argued Mary.

  • "Where do you play?" he asked next.

  • "Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope.

  • I skip and run--and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick up out of the

  • earth.

  • I don't do any harm." "Don't look so frightened," he said in a

  • worried voice. "You could not do any harm, a child like

  • you!

  • You may do what you like." Mary put her hand up to her throat because

  • she was afraid he might see the excited lump which she felt jump into it.

  • She came a step nearer to him.

  • "May I?" she said tremulously. Her anxious little face seemed to worry him

  • more than ever. "Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed.

  • "Of course you may.

  • I am your guardian, though I am a poor one for any child.

  • I cannot give you time or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted;

  • but I wish you to be happy and comfortable.

  • I don't know anything about children, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all

  • you need. I sent for you to-day because Mrs. Sowerby

  • said I ought to see you.

  • Her daughter had talked about you. She thought you needed fresh air and

  • freedom and running about." "She knows all about children," Mary said

  • again in spite of herself.

  • "She ought to," said Mr. Craven. "I thought her rather bold to stop me on

  • the moor, but she said--Mrs. Craven had been kind to her."

  • It seemed hard for him to speak his dead wife's name.

  • "She is a respectable woman. Now I have seen you I think she said

  • sensible things.

  • Play out of doors as much as you like. It's a big place and you may go where you

  • like and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?" as if a sudden

  • thought had struck him.

  • "Do you want toys, books, dolls?" "Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a

  • bit of earth?"

  • In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they

  • were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

  • "Earth!" he repeated.

  • "What do you mean?" "To plant seeds in--to make things grow--to

  • see them come alive," Mary faltered. He gazed at her a moment and then passed

  • his hand quickly over his eyes.

  • "Do you--care about gardens so much," he said slowly.

  • "I didn't know about them in India," said Mary.

  • "I was always ill and tired and it was too hot.

  • I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them.

  • But here it is different."

  • Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

  • "A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have

  • reminded him of something.

  • When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

  • "You can have as much earth as you want," he said.

  • "You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow.

  • When you see a bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, "take it, child,

  • and make it come alive."

  • "May I take it from anywhere--if it's not wanted?"

  • "Anywhere," he answered. "There!

  • You must go now, I am tired."

  • He touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. "Good-by.

  • I shall be away all summer."

  • Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been waiting in the

  • corridor.

  • "Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I understand

  • what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before she begins

  • lessons.

  • Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in the garden.

  • Don't look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh air and romping

  • about.

  • Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now and then and she may sometimes go to the

  • cottage." Mrs. Medlock looked pleased.

  • She was relieved to hear that she need not "look after" Mary too much.

  • She had felt her a tiresome charge and had indeed seen as little of her as she dared.

  • In addition to this she was fond of Martha's mother.

  • "Thank you, sir," she said.

  • "Susan Sowerby and me went to school together and she's as sensible and good-

  • hearted a woman as you'd find in a day's walk.

  • I never had any children myself and she's had twelve, and there never was healthier

  • or better ones. Miss Mary can get no harm from them.

  • I'd always take Susan Sowerby's advice about children myself.

  • She's what you might call healthy-minded-- if you understand me."

  • "I understand," Mr. Craven answered.

  • "Take Miss Mary away now and send Pitcher to me."

  • When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back to her

  • room.

  • She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact, hurried back after she

  • had removed the dinner service. "I can have my garden!" cried Mary.

  • "I may have it where I like!

  • I am not going to have a governess for a long time!

  • Your mother is coming to see me and I may go to your cottage!

  • He says a little girl like me could not do any harm and I may do what I like--

  • anywhere!" "Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was

  • nice of him wasn't it?"

  • "Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face is so miserable

  • and his forehead is all drawn together." She ran as quickly as she could to the

  • garden.

  • She had been away so much longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon

  • would have to set out early on his five- mile walk.

  • When she slipped through the door under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she

  • had left him. The gardening tools were laid together

  • under a tree.

  • She ran to them, looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen.

  • He had gone away and the secret garden was empty--except for the robin who had just

  • flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush watching her.

  • "He's gone," she said woefully.

  • "Oh! was he--was he--was he only a wood fairy?"

  • Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye.

  • It was a piece of paper, in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had printed for

  • Martha to send to Dickon.

  • It was fastened on the bush with a long thorn, and in a minute she knew Dickon had

  • left it there. There were some roughly printed letters on

  • it and a sort of picture.

  • At first she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest with a

  • bird sitting on it. Underneath were the printed letters and

  • they said:

  • "I will cum bak."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XIII "I AM COLIN"

  • Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and she showed

  • it to Martha. "Eh!" said Martha with great pride.

  • "I never knew our Dickon was as clever as that.

  • That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest, as large as life an' twice as

  • natural."

  • Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message.

  • He had meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret.

  • Her garden was her nest and she was like a missel thrush.

  • Oh, how she did like that queer, common boy!

  • She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep looking forward to

  • the morning.

  • But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly in the

  • springtime.

  • She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain beating with heavy drops against

  • her window.

  • It was pouring down in torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and

  • in the chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable and

  • angry.

  • "The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said.

  • "It came because it knew I did not want it."

  • She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face.

  • She did not cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she

  • hated the wind and its "wuthering."

  • She could not go to sleep again. The mournful sound kept her awake because

  • she felt mournful herself. If she had felt happy it would probably

  • have lulled her to sleep.

  • How it "wuthered" and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against the pane!

  • "It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying," she

  • said.

  • She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour, when suddenly

  • something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward the door listening.

  • She listened and she listened.

  • "It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper.

  • "That isn't the wind. It is different.

  • It is that crying I heard before."

  • The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a far-off faint

  • sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes and each

  • minute she became more and more sure.

  • She felt as if she must find out what it was.

  • It seemed even stranger than the secret garden and the buried key.

  • Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood made her bold.

  • She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor.

  • "I am going to find out what it is," she said.

  • "Everybody is in bed and I don't care about Mrs. Medlock--I don't care!"

  • There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out of the room.

  • The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was too excited to mind that.

  • She thought she remembered the corners she must turn to find the short corridor with

  • the door covered with tapestry--the one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she

  • lost herself.

  • The sound had come up that passage. So she went on with her dim light, almost

  • feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she fancied she could hear it.

  • The far-off faint crying went on and led her.

  • Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again.

  • Was this the right corner to turn?

  • She stopped and thought. Yes it was.

  • Down this passage and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to the

  • right again.

  • Yes, there was the tapestry door. She pushed it open very gently and closed

  • it behind her, and she stood in the corridor and could hear the crying quite

  • plainly, though it was not loud.

  • It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few yards farther on there was a

  • door. She could see a glimmer of light coming

  • from beneath it.

  • The Someone was crying in that room, and it was quite a young Someone.

  • So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing in the

  • room!

  • It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it.

  • There was a low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the

  • side of a carved four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was lying a boy,

  • crying fretfully.

  • Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep again and was

  • dreaming without knowing it.

  • The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to have eyes

  • too big for it.

  • He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead in heavy locks and made

  • his thin face seem smaller.

  • He looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were tired and

  • cross than as if he were in pain. Mary stood near the door with her candle in

  • her hand, holding her breath.

  • Then she crept across the room, and, as she drew nearer, the light attracted the boy's

  • attention and he turned his head on his pillow and stared at her, his gray eyes

  • opening so wide that they seemed immense.

  • "Who are you?" he said at last in a half- frightened whisper.

  • "Are you a ghost?" "No, I am not," Mary answered, her own

  • whisper sounding half frightened.

  • "Are you one?" He stared and stared and stared.

  • Mary could not help noticing what strange eyes he had.

  • They were agate gray and they looked too big for his face because they had black

  • lashes all round them. "No," he replied after waiting a moment or

  • so.

  • "I am Colin." "Who is Colin?" she faltered.

  • "I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"

  • "I am Mary Lennox.

  • Mr. Craven is my uncle." "He is my father," said the boy.

  • "Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy!

  • Why didn't they?"

  • "Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with an anxious

  • expression. She came close to the bed and he put out

  • his hand and touched her.

  • "You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very often.

  • You might be one of them."

  • Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she put a piece of it

  • between his fingers. "Rub that and see how thick and warm it

  • is," she said.

  • "I will pinch you a little if you like, to show you how real I am.

  • For a minute I thought you might be a dream too."

  • "Where did you come from?" he asked.

  • "From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep

  • and I heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was.

  • What were you crying for?"

  • "Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached.

  • Tell me your name again." "Mary Lennox.

  • Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"

  • He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a little more

  • as if he believed in her reality.

  • "No," he answered. "They daren't."

  • "Why?" asked Mary. "Because I should have been afraid you

  • would see me.

  • I won't let people see me and talk me over."

  • "Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified

  • every moment.

  • "Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down.

  • My father won't let people talk me over either.

  • The servants are not allowed to speak about me.

  • If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live.

  • My father hates to think I may be like him."

  • "Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said.

  • "What a queer house!

  • Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are locked

  • up--and you! Have you been locked up?"

  • "No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it.

  • It tires me too much." "Does your father come and see you?"

  • Mary ventured.

  • "Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep.

  • He doesn't want to see me." "Why?"

  • Mary could not help asking again.

  • A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.

  • "My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me.

  • He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking.

  • He almost hates me." "He hates the garden, because she died,"

  • said Mary half speaking to herself.

  • "What garden?" the boy asked. "Oh! just--just a garden she used to like,"

  • Mary stammered. "Have you been here always?"

  • "Nearly always.

  • Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside, but I won't stay because

  • people stare at me.

  • I used to wear an iron thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from

  • London to see me and said it was stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me out

  • in the fresh air.

  • I hate fresh air and I don't want to go out."

  • "I didn't when first I came here," said Mary.

  • "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

  • "Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully.

  • "Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake."

  • "We're both awake," said Mary.

  • She glanced round the room with its high ceiling and shadowy corners and dim fire-

  • light.

  • "It looks quite like a dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the

  • house is asleep--everybody but us. We are wide awake."

  • "I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.

  • Mary thought of something all at once. "If you don't like people to see you," she

  • began, "do you want me to go away?"

  • He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.

  • "No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you

  • went.

  • If you are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk.

  • I want to hear about you."

  • Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the cushioned

  • stool. She did not want to go away at all.

  • She wanted to stay in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious

  • boy. "What do you want me to tell you?" she

  • said.

  • He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to know which

  • corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had been doing; if she disliked

  • the moor as he disliked it; where she had lived before she came to Yorkshire.

  • She answered all these questions and many more and he lay back on his pillow and

  • listened.

  • He made her tell him a great deal about India and about her voyage across the

  • ocean.

  • She found out that because he had been an invalid he had not learned things as other

  • children had.

  • One of his nurses had taught him to read when he was quite little and he was always

  • reading and looking at pictures in splendid books.

  • Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all sorts of

  • wonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have been amused,

  • however.

  • He could have anything he asked for and was never made to do anything he did not like

  • to do. "Everyone is obliged to do what pleases

  • me," he said indifferently.

  • "It makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to grow up."

  • He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to matter to

  • him at all.

  • He seemed to like the sound of Mary's voice.

  • As she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way.

  • Once or twice she wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze.

  • But at last he asked a question which opened up a new subject.

  • "How old are you?" he asked.

  • "I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so are you."

  • "How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.

  • "Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was buried.

  • And it has been locked for ten years." Colin half sat up, turning toward her,

  • leaning on his elbows.

  • "What garden door was locked? Who did it?

  • Where was the key buried?" he exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

  • "It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously.

  • "He locked the door. No one--no one knew where he buried the

  • key."

  • "What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.

  • "No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's careful answer.

  • But it was too late to be careful.

  • He was too much like herself. He too had had nothing to think about and

  • the idea of a hidden garden attracted him as it had attracted her.

  • He asked question after question.

  • Where was it? Had she never looked for the door?

  • Had she never asked the gardeners? "They won't talk about it," said Mary.

  • "I think they have been told not to answer questions."

  • "I would make them," said Colin. "Could you?"

  • Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened.

  • If he could make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

  • "Everyone is obliged to please me.

  • I told you that," he said. "If I were to live, this place would

  • sometime belong to me. They all know that.

  • I would make them tell me."

  • Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see quite

  • plainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the whole world belonged to

  • him.

  • How peculiar he was and how coolly he spoke of not living.

  • "Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was curious and partly

  • in hope of making him forget the garden.

  • "I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had spoken before.

  • "Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say I shan't.

  • At first they thought I was too little to understand and now they think I don't hear.

  • But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin.

  • He is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my father is dead.

  • I should think he wouldn't want me to live."

  • "Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

  • "No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion.

  • "But I don't want to die. When I feel ill I lie here and think about

  • it until I cry and cry."

  • "I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know who it was.

  • Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget the garden.

  • "I dare say," he answered.

  • "Let us talk about something else. Talk about that garden.

  • Don't you want to see it?" "Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

  • "I do," he went on persistently.

  • "I don't think I ever really wanted to see anything before, but I want to see that

  • garden. I want the key dug up.

  • I want the door unlocked.

  • I would let them take me there in my chair. That would be getting fresh air.

  • I am going to make them open the door."

  • He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars and looked

  • more immense than ever. "They have to please me," he said.

  • "I will make them take me there and I will let you go, too."

  • Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be spoiled--everything!

  • Dickon would never come back.

  • She would never again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

  • "Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

  • He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

  • "Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

  • "I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make them open the

  • door and take you in like that it will never be a secret again."

  • He leaned still farther forward.

  • "A secret," he said. "What do you mean?

  • Tell me." Mary's words almost tumbled over one

  • another.

  • "You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if there was a door,

  • hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could find it; and if we could

  • slip through it together and shut it behind

  • us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and pretended that-

  • -that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if we played there almost

  • every day and dug and planted seeds and made it all come alive--"

  • "Is it dead?" he interrupted her. "It soon will be if no one cares for it,"

  • she went on.

  • "The bulbs will live but the roses--" He stopped her again as excited as she was

  • herself. "What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

  • "They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops.

  • They are working in the earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is

  • coming."

  • "Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?

  • You don't see it in rooms if you are ill."

  • "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things

  • pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary.

  • "If the garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things grow

  • bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive.

  • Don't you see?

  • Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?"

  • He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on his face.

  • "I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to grow up.

  • They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret.

  • But I like this kind better."

  • "If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary, "perhaps--I feel

  • almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime.

  • And then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can always do

  • what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some boy who would push you, and

  • we could go alone and it would always be a secret garden."

  • "I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy.

  • "I should like that.

  • I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."

  • Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of keeping the

  • secret seemed to please him.

  • She felt almost sure that if she kept on talking and could make him see the garden

  • in his mind as she had seen it he would like it so much that he could not bear to

  • think that everybody might tramp in to it when they chose.

  • "I'll tell you what I think it would be like, if we could go into it," she said.

  • "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle perhaps."

  • He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the roses which might

  • have clambered from tree to tree and hung down--about the many birds which might have

  • built their nests there because it was so safe.

  • And then she told him about the robin and Ben Weatherstaff, and there was so much to

  • tell about the robin and it was so easy and safe to talk about it that she ceased to be

  • afraid.

  • The robin pleased him so much that he smiled until he looked almost beautiful,

  • and at first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than herself, with his big

  • eyes and heavy locks of hair.

  • "I did not know birds could be like that," he said.

  • "But if you stay in a room you never see things.

  • What a lot of things you know.

  • I feel as if you had been inside that garden."

  • She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything.

  • He evidently did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a surprise.

  • "I am going to let you look at something," he said.

  • "Do you see that rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?"

  • Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it.

  • It was a curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

  • "Yes," she answered. "There is a cord hanging from it," said

  • Colin.

  • "Go and pull it." Mary got up, much mystified, and found the

  • cord.

  • When she pulled it the silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it

  • uncovered a picture. It was the picture of a girl with a

  • laughing face.

  • She had bright hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were

  • exactly like Colin's unhappy ones, agate gray and looking twice as big as they

  • really were because of the black lashes all round them.

  • "She is my mother," said Colin complainingly.

  • "I don't see why she died.

  • Sometimes I hate her for doing it." "How queer!" said Mary.

  • "If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always," he grumbled.

  • "I dare say I should have lived, too.

  • And my father would not have hated to look at me.

  • I dare say I should have had a strong back. Draw the curtain again."

  • Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.

  • "She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like yours--at least

  • they are the same shape and color.

  • Why is the curtain drawn over her?" He moved uncomfortably.

  • "I made them do it," he said. "Sometimes I don't like to see her looking

  • at me.

  • She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable.

  • Besides, she is mine and I don't want everyone to see her."

  • There were a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke.

  • "What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she inquired.

  • "She would do as I told her to do," he answered.

  • "And I should tell her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day.

  • I am glad you came."

  • "So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often as I can, but"--she

  • hesitated--"I shall have to look every day for the garden door."

  • "Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward."

  • He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke again.

  • "I think you shall be a secret, too," he said.

  • "I will not tell them until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room

  • and say that I want to be by myself.

  • Do you know Martha?" "Yes, I know her very well," said Mary.

  • "She waits on me." He nodded his head toward the outer

  • corridor.

  • "She is the one who is asleep in the other room.

  • The nurse went away yesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes

  • Martha attend to me when she wants to go out.

  • Martha shall tell you when to come here."

  • Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked questions about the

  • crying. "Martha knew about you all the time?" she

  • said.

  • "Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and

  • then Martha comes." "I have been here a long time," said Mary.

  • "Shall I go away now?

  • Your eyes look sleepy." "I wish I could go to sleep before you

  • leave me," he said rather shyly.

  • "Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will do what my

  • Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it and sing

  • something quite low."

  • "I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.

  • Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she leaned

  • against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a very low little

  • chanting song in Hindustani.

  • "That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting and

  • stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were lying close against

  • his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep.

  • So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without making a sound.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XIV A YOUNG RAJAH

  • The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped

  • pouring down. There could be no going out of doors.

  • Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the

  • afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery.

  • She came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing nothing

  • else. "What's the matter with thee?" she asked as

  • soon as they sat down.

  • "Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." "I have.

  • I have found out what the crying was," said Mary.

  • Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled eyes.

  • "Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!"

  • "I heard it in the night," Mary went on.

  • "And I got up and went to see where it came from.

  • It was Colin. I found him."

  • Martha's face became red with fright.

  • "Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done it--tha'

  • shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble.

  • I never told thee nothin' about him--but tha'll get me in trouble.

  • I shall lose my place and what'll mother do!"

  • "You won't lose your place," said Mary.

  • "He was glad I came. We talked and talked and he said he was

  • glad I came." "Was he?" cried Martha.

  • "Art tha' sure?

  • Tha' doesn't know what he's like when anything vexes him.

  • He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but when he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to

  • frighten us.

  • He knows us daren't call our souls our own."

  • "He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he

  • made me stay.

  • He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and talked to him about India and

  • about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't let me go.

  • He let me see his mother's picture.

  • Before I left him I sang him to sleep." Martha fairly gasped with amazement.

  • "I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested.

  • "It's as if tha'd walked straight into a lion's den.

  • If he'd been like he is most times he'd have throwed himself into one of his

  • tantrums and roused th' house.

  • He won't let strangers look at him." "He let me look at him.

  • I looked at him all the time and he looked at me.

  • We stared!" said Mary.

  • "I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha.

  • "If Mrs. Medlock finds out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be

  • packed back to mother."

  • "He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet.

  • It's to be a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly.

  • "And he says everybody is obliged to do as he pleases."

  • "Aye, that's true enough--th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her forehead with her

  • apron.

  • "He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him

  • every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me."

  • "Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place-- I shall for sure!"

  • "You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is ordered to obey

  • him," Mary argued.

  • "Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was nice to thee!"

  • "I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.

  • "Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long breath.

  • "Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India, but I

  • can't make it.

  • I just went into his room and I was so surprised to see him I stood and stared.

  • And then he turned round and stared at me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and

  • I thought perhaps he was.

  • And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of the night and not

  • knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other questions.

  • And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must not."

  • "Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.

  • "What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.

  • "Nobody knows for sure and certain," said Martha.

  • "Mr. Craven went off his head like when he was born.

  • Th' doctors thought he'd have to be put in a 'sylum.

  • It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you.

  • He wouldn't set eyes on th' baby.

  • He just raved and said it'd be another hunchback like him and it'd better die."

  • "Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked.

  • "He didn't look like one."

  • "He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began all wrong.

  • Mother said that there was enough trouble and raging in th' house to set any child

  • wrong.

  • They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been takin' care of it--

  • keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk.

  • Once they made him wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill.

  • Then a big doctor came to see him an' made them take it off.

  • He talked to th' other doctor quite rough-- in a polite way.

  • He said there'd been too much medicine and too much lettin' him have his own way."

  • "I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.

  • "He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha.

  • "I won't say as he hasn't been ill a good bit.

  • He's had coughs an' colds that's nearly killed him two or three times.

  • Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he had typhoid.

  • Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then.

  • He'd been out of his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't

  • know nothin', an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing for him

  • an' for everybody.'

  • An' she looked at him an' there he was with his big eyes open, starin' at her as

  • sensible as she was herself.

  • She didn't know wha'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give me some

  • water an' stop talkin'.'" "Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.

  • "Mother says there's no reason why any child should live that gets no fresh air

  • an' doesn't do nothin' but lie on his back an' read picture-books an' take medicine.

  • He's weak and hates th' trouble o' bein' taken out o' doors, an' he gets cold so

  • easy he says it makes him ill." Mary sat and looked at the fire.

  • "I wonder," she said slowly, "if it would not do him good to go out into a garden and

  • watch things growing. It did me good."

  • "One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they took him out

  • where the roses is by the fountain.

  • He'd been readin' in a paper about people gettin' somethin' he called 'rose cold' an'

  • he began to sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't know th'

  • rules passed by an' looked at him curious.

  • He threw himself into a passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to

  • be a hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an' was ill

  • all night."

  • "If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said Mary.

  • "He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha.

  • "Tha' may as well know that at th' start."

  • Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.

  • "I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said.

  • "I hope he's in a good temper."

  • She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a puzzled

  • expression. "Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said.

  • "He's up on his sofa with his picture- books.

  • He's told the nurse to stay away until six o'clock.

  • I'm to wait in the next room.

  • Th' minute she was gone he called me to him an' says, 'I want Mary Lennox to come and

  • talk to me, and remember you're not to tell any one.'

  • You'd better go as quick as you can."

  • Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as much as

  • she wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.

  • There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in the daylight

  • she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed.

  • There were rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the

  • walls which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky

  • and falling rain.

  • Colin looked rather like a picture himself. He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown

  • and sat against a big brocaded cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek.

  • "Come in," he said.

  • "I've been thinking about you all morning." "I've been thinking about you, too,"

  • answered Mary. "You don't know how frightened Martha is.

  • She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me about you and then she will be sent

  • away." He frowned.

  • "Go and tell her to come here," he said.

  • "She is in the next room." Mary went and brought her back.

  • Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. Colin was still frowning.

  • "Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded.

  • "I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red.

  • "Has Medlock to do what I please?"

  • "Everybody has, sir," said Martha. "Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss

  • Mary to me, how can Medlock send you away if she finds it out?"

  • "Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.

  • "I'll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing," said Master

  • Craven grandly.

  • "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you." "Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want

  • to do my duty, sir." "What I want is your duty" said Colin more

  • grandly still.

  • "I'll take care of you. Now go away."

  • When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at him as if he

  • had set her wondering.

  • "Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her.

  • "What are you thinking about?" "I am thinking about two things."

  • "What are they?

  • Sit down and tell me." "This is the first one," said Mary, seating

  • herself on the big stool. "Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah.

  • He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him.

  • He spoke to his people just as you spoke to Martha.

  • Everybody had to do everything he told them--in a minute.

  • I think they would have been killed if they hadn't."

  • "I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first tell me

  • what the second thing was." "I was thinking," said Mary, "how different

  • you are from Dickon."

  • "Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!"

  • She might as well tell him, she thought she could talk about Dickon without mentioning

  • the secret garden.

  • She had liked to hear Martha talk about him.

  • Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring him nearer.

  • "He is Martha's brother.

  • He is twelve years old," she explained. "He is not like any one else in the world.

  • He can charm foxes and squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes.

  • He plays a very soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen."

  • There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one suddenly toward

  • him.

  • "There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this," he exclaimed.

  • "Come and look at it."

  • The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned to one

  • of them. "Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.

  • "He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained.

  • "But he doesn't call it Magic. He says it's because he lives on the moor

  • so much and he knows their ways.

  • He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so.

  • I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other

  • in soft chirps."

  • Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spots on his

  • cheeks burned. "Tell me some more about him," he said.

  • "He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on.

  • "And he knows where foxes and badgers and otters live.

  • He keeps them secret so that other boys won't find their holes and frighten them.

  • He knows about everything that grows or lives on the moor."

  • "Does he like the moor?" said Colin.

  • "How can he when it's such a great, bare, dreary place?"

  • "It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary.

  • "Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all

  • busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing or

  • squeaking to each other.

  • They are so busy and having such fun under the earth or in the trees or heather.

  • It's their world." "How do you know all that?" said Colin,

  • turning on his elbow to look at her.

  • "I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering.

  • "I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous.

  • Martha told me about it first and then Dickon.

  • When Dickon talks about it you feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you

  • were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey--

  • and all full of bees and butterflies."

  • "You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly.

  • He looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wondering what it

  • was.

  • "You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.

  • "I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.

  • Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.

  • "You might--sometime." He moved as if he were startled.

  • "Go on the moor!

  • How could I? I am going to die."

  • "How do you know?" said Mary unsympathetically.

  • She didn't like the way he had of talking about dying.

  • She did not feel very sympathetic. She felt rather as if he almost boasted

  • about it.

  • "Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly.

  • "They are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice.

  • They wish I would, too."

  • Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together.

  • "If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't.

  • Who wishes you would?"

  • "The servants--and of course Dr. Craven because he would get Misselthwaite and be

  • rich instead of poor. He daren't say so, but he always looks

  • cheerful when I am worse.

  • When I had typhoid fever his face got quite fat.

  • I think my father wishes it, too." "I don't believe he does," said Mary quite

  • obstinately.

  • That made Colin turn and look at her again. "Don't you?" he said.

  • And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were thinking.

  • And there was quite a long silence.

  • Perhaps they were both of them thinking strange things children do not usually

  • think.

  • "I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron thing

  • off," said Mary at last "Did he say you were going to die?"

  • "No.".

  • "What did he say?" "He didn't whisper," Colin answered.

  • "Perhaps he knew I hated whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud.

  • He said, 'The lad might live if he would make up his mind to it.

  • Put him in the humor.' It sounded as if he was in a temper."

  • "I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary reflecting.

  • She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one way or the other.

  • "I believe Dickon would.

  • He's always talking about live things. He never talks about dead things or things

  • that are ill.

  • He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying--or looking down at the earth

  • to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and they are so

  • wide open with looking about.

  • And he laughs such a big laugh with his wide mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as

  • red as cherries."

  • She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed at the

  • remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes.

  • "See here," she said.

  • "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it.

  • Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon.

  • And then we will look at your pictures."

  • It was the best thing she could have said.

  • To talk about Dickon meant to talk about the moor and about the cottage and the

  • fourteen people who lived in it on sixteen shillings a week--and the children who got

  • fat on the moor grass like the wild ponies.

  • And about Dickon's mother--and the skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on

  • it--and about pale green points sticking up out of the black sod.

  • And it was all so alive that Mary talked more than she had ever talked before--and

  • Colin both talked and listened as he had never done either before.

  • And they both began to laugh over nothings as children will when they are happy

  • together.

  • And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had

  • been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year- old creatures--instead of a hard, little,

  • unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

  • They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they forgot about

  • the time.

  • They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben Weatherstaff and his robin, and Colin

  • was actually sitting up as if he had forgotten about his weak back, when he

  • suddenly remembered something.

  • "Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of," he said.

  • "We are cousins."

  • It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered this simple thing

  • that they laughed more than ever, because they had got into the humor to laugh at

  • anything.

  • And in the midst of the fun the door opened and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock.

  • Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back because he had

  • accidentally bumped against her.

  • "Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almost starting out of her

  • head. "Good Lord!"

  • "What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward.

  • "What does it mean?" Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah

  • again.

  • Colin answered as if neither the doctor's alarm nor Mrs. Medlock's terror were of the

  • slightest consequence.

  • He was as little disturbed or frightened as if an elderly cat and dog had walked into

  • the room. "This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said.

  • "I asked her to come and talk to me.

  • I like her. She must come and talk to me whenever I

  • send for her." Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs.

  • Medlock.

  • "Oh, sir" she panted. "I don't know how it's happened.

  • There's not a servant on the place tha'd dare to talk--they all have their orders."

  • "Nobody told her anything," said Colin.

  • "She heard me crying and found me herself. I am glad she came.

  • Don't be silly, Medlock."

  • Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain that he

  • dare not oppose his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt his pulse.

  • "I am afraid there has been too much excitement.

  • Excitement is not good for you, my boy," he said.

  • "I should be excited if she kept away," answered Colin, his eyes beginning to look

  • dangerously sparkling. "I am better.

  • She makes me better.

  • The nurse must bring up her tea with mine. We will have tea together."

  • Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but there was

  • evidently nothing to be done.

  • "He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock.

  • "But"--thinking the matter over--"he looked better this morning before she came into

  • the room."

  • "She came into the room last night. She stayed with me a long time.

  • She sang a Hindustani song to me and it made me go to sleep," said Colin.

  • "I was better when I wakened up.

  • I wanted my breakfast. I want my tea now.

  • Tell nurse, Medlock." Dr. Craven did not stay very long.

  • He talked to the nurse for a few minutes when she came into the room and said a few

  • words of warning to Colin.

  • He must not talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill; he must not forget

  • that he was very easily tired.

  • Mary thought that there seemed to be a number of uncomfortable things he was not

  • to forget.

  • Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr. Craven's

  • face. "I want to forget it," he said at last.

  • "She makes me forget it.

  • That is why I want her." Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left

  • the room. He gave a puzzled glance at the little girl

  • sitting on the large stool.

  • She had become a stiff, silent child again as soon as he entered and he could not see

  • what the attraction was.

  • The boy actually did look brighter, however--and he sighed rather heavily as he

  • went down the corridor.

  • "They are always wanting me to eat things when I don't want to," said Colin, as the

  • nurse brought in the tea and put it on the table by the sofa.

  • "Now, if you'll eat I will.

  • Those muffins look so nice and hot. Tell me about Rajahs."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XV NEST BUILDING

  • After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and the sun which

  • poured down was quite hot.

  • Though there had been no chance to see either the secret garden or Dickon,

  • Mistress Mary had enjoyed herself very much.

  • The week had not seemed long.

  • She had spent hours of every day with Colin in his room, talking about Rajahs or

  • gardens or Dickon and the cottage on the moor.

  • They had looked at the splendid books and pictures and sometimes Mary had read things

  • to Colin, and sometimes he had read a little to her.

  • When he was amused and interested she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid

  • at all, except that his face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa.

  • "You are a sly young one to listen and get out of your bed to go following things up

  • like you did that night," Mrs. Medlock said once.

  • "But there's no saying it's not been a sort of blessing to the lot of us.

  • He's not had a tantrum or a whining fit since you made friends.

  • The nurse was just going to give up the case because she was so sick of him, but

  • she says she doesn't mind staying now you've gone on duty with her," laughing a

  • little.

  • In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the secret garden.

  • There were certain things she wanted to find out from him, but she felt that she

  • must find them out without asking him direct questions.

  • In the first place, as she began to like to be with him, she wanted to discover whether

  • he was the kind of boy you could tell a secret to.

  • He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently so pleased with the idea of a

  • garden no one knew anything about that she thought perhaps he could be trusted.

  • But she had not known him long enough to be sure.

  • The second thing she wanted to find out was this: If he could be trusted--if he really

  • could--wouldn't it be possible to take him to the garden without having any one find

  • it out?

  • The grand doctor had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had said that he would

  • not mind fresh air in a secret garden.

  • Perhaps if he had a great deal of fresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw

  • things growing he might not think so much about dying.

  • Mary had seen herself in the glass sometimes lately when she had realized that

  • she looked quite a different creature from the child she had seen when she arrived

  • from India.

  • This child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen a change in her.

  • "Th' air from th' moor has done thee good already," she had said.

  • "Tha'rt not nigh so yeller and tha'rt not nigh so scrawny.

  • Even tha' hair doesn't slamp down on tha' head so flat.

  • It's got some life in it so as it sticks out a bit."

  • "It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter.

  • I'm sure there's more of it."

  • "It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling it up a little round her face.

  • "Tha'rt not half so ugly when it's that way an' there's a bit o' red in tha' cheeks."

  • If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be good for Colin.

  • But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps he would not like to see

  • Dickon.

  • "Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one day.

  • "I always hated it," he answered, "even when I was very little.

  • Then when they took me to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriage everybody used

  • to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and then they would begin to

  • whisper and I knew then they were saying I shouldn't live to grow up.

  • Then sometimes the ladies would pat my cheeks and say 'Poor child!'

  • Once when a lady did that I screamed out loud and bit her hand.

  • She was so frightened she ran away." "She thought you had gone mad like a dog,"

  • said Mary, not at all admiringly.

  • "I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning.

  • "I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your room?" said Mary.

  • Then she began to smile slowly.

  • "I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he said.

  • "You can't bite a ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don't care."

  • "Would you hate it if--if a boy looked at you?"

  • Mary asked uncertainly. He lay back on his cushion and paused

  • thoughtfully.

  • "There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over every word,

  • "there's one boy I believe I shouldn't mind.

  • It's that boy who knows where the foxes live--Dickon."

  • "I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary.

  • "The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over, "perhaps

  • that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer and I am a

  • boy animal."

  • Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both laughing a

  • great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in his hole very funny

  • indeed.

  • What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.

  • On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very early.

  • The sun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and there was something

  • so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

  • She drew up the blinds and opened the window itself and a great waft of fresh,

  • scented air blew in upon her.

  • The moor was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had happened

  • to it.

  • There were tender little fluting sounds here and there and everywhere, as if scores

  • of birds were beginning to tune up for a concert.

  • Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun.

  • "It's warm--warm!" she said.

  • "It will make the green points push up and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and

  • roots work and struggle with all their might under the earth."

  • She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, breathing big

  • breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because she remembered what

  • Dickon's mother had said about the end of his nose quivering like a rabbit's.

  • "It must be very early," she said. "The little clouds are all pink and I've

  • never seen the sky look like this.

  • No one is up. I don't even hear the stable boys."

  • A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.

  • "I can't wait!

  • I am going to see the garden!" She had learned to dress herself by this

  • time and she put on her clothes in five minutes.

  • She knew a small side door which she could unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in

  • her stocking feet and put on her shoes in the hall.

  • She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprang across

  • the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have

  • turned green, and with the sun pouring down

  • on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing

  • coming from every bush and tree.

  • She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and

  • pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she

  • must flute and sing aloud herself and knew

  • that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it.

  • She ran around the shrubs and paths towards the secret garden.

  • "It is all different already," she said.

  • "The grass is greener and things are sticking up everywhere and things are

  • uncurling and green buds of leaves are showing.

  • This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come."

  • The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which bordered the

  • walk by the lower wall.

  • There were things sprouting and pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and

  • there were actually here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among

  • the stems of crocuses.

  • Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen how the world was waking up, but

  • now she missed nothing.

  • When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she was

  • startled by a curious loud sound.

  • It was the caw--caw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she

  • looked up, there sat a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very

  • wisely indeed.

  • She had never seen a crow so close before and he made her a little nervous, but the

  • next moment he spread his wings and flapped away across the garden.

  • She hoped he was not going to stay inside and she pushed the door open wondering if

  • he would.

  • When she got fairly into the garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay because

  • he had alighted on a dwarf apple-tree and under the apple-tree was lying a little

  • reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both

  • of them were watching the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling

  • on the grass working hard. Mary flew across the grass to him.

  • "Oh, Dickon!

  • Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early!

  • How could you! The sun has only just got up!"

  • He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a bit of the

  • sky. "Eh!" he said.

  • "I was up long before him.

  • How could I have stayed abed! Th' world's all fair begun again this

  • mornin', it has.

  • An' it's workin' an' hummin' an' scratchin' an' pipin' an' nest-buildin' an' breathin'

  • out scents, till you've got to be out on it 'stead o' lyin' on your back.

  • When th' sun did jump up, th' moor went mad for joy, an' I was in the midst of th'

  • heather, an' I run like mad myself, shoutin' an' singin'.

  • An' I come straight here.

  • I couldn't have stayed away. Why, th' garden was lyin' here waitin'!"

  • Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running herself.

  • "Oh, Dickon!

  • Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!"

  • Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed animal rose from its

  • place under the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing once, flew down from its

  • branch and settled quietly on his shoulder.

  • "This is th' little fox cub," he said, rubbing the little reddish animal's head.

  • "It's named Captain. An' this here's Soot.

  • Soot he flew across th' moor with me an' Captain he run same as if th' hounds had

  • been after him. They both felt same as I did."

  • Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary.

  • When Dickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and Captain trotted

  • quietly close to his side.

  • "See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an'

  • these! An' Eh! Look at these here!"

  • He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him.

  • They had come upon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange and

  • gold.

  • Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them.

  • "You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her head.

  • "Flowers are so different."

  • He looked puzzled but smiled.

  • "Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a time that way when I come in from th' moor

  • after a day's roamin' an' she stood there at th' door in th' sun, lookin' so glad an'

  • comfortable."

  • They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many wonders that they

  • were obliged to remind themselves that they must whisper or speak low.

  • He showed her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which had seemed dead.

  • He showed her ten thousand new green points pushing through the mould.

  • They put their eager young noses close to the earth and sniffed its warmed springtime

  • breathing; they dug and pulled and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary's hair

  • was as tumbled as Dickon's and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.

  • There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in the midst of

  • them came a delight more delightful than all, because it was more wonderful.

  • Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted through the trees to a close grown

  • corner, a little flare of red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak.

  • Dickon stood quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly

  • found themselves laughing in a church. "We munnot stir," he whispered in broad

  • Yorkshire.

  • "We munnot scarce breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin' when I seed

  • him last. It's Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

  • He's buildin' his nest.

  • He'll stay here if us don't fight him." They settled down softly upon the grass and

  • sat there without moving. "Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him

  • too close," said Dickon.

  • "He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin' now.

  • He'll be a good bit different till all this is over.

  • He's settin' up housekeepin'.

  • He'll be shyer an' readier to take things ill.

  • He's got no time for visitin' an' gossipin'.

  • Us must keep still a bit an' try to look as if us was grass an' trees an' bushes.

  • Then when he's got used to seein' us I'll chirp a bit an' he'll know us'll not be in

  • his way."

  • Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, how to try to

  • look like grass and trees and bushes.

  • But he had said the queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in

  • the world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched him for

  • a few minutes carefully, wondering if it

  • was possible for him to quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves.

  • But he only sat wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a

  • softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could.

  • "It's part o' th' springtime, this nest- buildin' is," he said.

  • "I warrant it's been goin' on in th' same way every year since th' world was begun.

  • They've got their way o' thinkin' and doin' things an' a body had better not meddle.

  • You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you're too

  • curious."

  • "If we talk about him I can't help looking at him," Mary said as softly as possible.

  • "We must talk of something else. There is something I want to tell you."

  • "He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon.

  • "What is it tha's got to tell me?" "Well--do you know about Colin?" she

  • whispered.

  • He turned his head to look at her. "What does tha' know about him?" he asked.

  • "I've seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this

  • week.

  • He wants me to come. He says I'm making him forget about being

  • ill and dying," answered Mary. Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as

  • the surprise died away from his round face.

  • "I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right down glad.

  • It makes me easier. I knowed I must say nothin' about him an' I

  • don't like havin' to hide things."

  • "Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary.

  • "I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But I says to mother, 'Mother,' I says, 'I

  • got a secret to keep.

  • It's not a bad 'un, tha' knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where a bird's

  • nest is. Tha' doesn't mind it, does tha'?'"

  • Mary always wanted to hear about mother.

  • "What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear.

  • Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly. "It was just like her, what she said," he

  • answered.

  • "She give my head a bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can

  • have all th' secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'"

  • "How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary.

  • "Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad as was like

  • to be a cripple, an' they knowed Mester Craven didn't like him to be talked about.

  • Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs. Craven was such a pretty young lady

  • an' they was so fond of each other.

  • Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she doesn't mind

  • talkin' to mother before us children, because she knows us has been brought up to

  • be trusty.

  • How did tha' find out about him? Martha was in fine trouble th' last time

  • she came home.

  • She said tha'd heard him frettin' an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't know

  • what to say."

  • Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which had wakened her

  • and about the faint far-off sounds of the complaining voice which had led her down

  • the dark corridors with her candle and had

  • ended with her opening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the carven four-

  • posted bed in the corner.

  • When she described the small ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed eyes

  • Dickon shook his head.

  • "Them's just like his mother's eyes, only hers was always laughin', they say," he

  • said.

  • "They say as Mr. Craven can't bear to see him when he's awake an' it's because his

  • eyes is so like his mother's an' yet looks so different in his miserable bit of a

  • face."

  • "Do you think he wants to die?" whispered Mary.

  • "No, but he wishes he'd never been born. Mother she says that's th' worst thing on

  • earth for a child.

  • Them as is not wanted scarce ever thrives. Mester Craven he'd buy anythin' as money

  • could buy for th' poor lad but he'd like to forget as he's on earth.

  • For one thing, he's afraid he'll look at him some day and find he's growed

  • hunchback." "Colin's so afraid of it himself that he

  • won't sit up," said Mary.

  • "He says he's always thinking that if he should feel a lump coming he should go

  • crazy and scream himself to death." "Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin'

  • things like that," said Dickon.

  • "No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things."

  • The fox was lying on the grass close by him, looking up to ask for a pat now and

  • then, and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly and thought a few minutes in

  • silence.

  • Presently he lifted his head and looked round the garden.

  • "When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was gray.

  • Look round now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference."

  • Mary looked and caught her breath a little. "Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is

  • changing.

  • It is as if a green mist were creeping over it.

  • It's almost like a green gauze veil." "Aye," said Dickon.

  • "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's all gone.

  • Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?" "I know it was something nice," said Mary

  • eagerly.

  • "I believe it was something about Colin."

  • "I was thinkin' that if he was out here he wouldn't be watchin' for lumps to grow on

  • his back; he'd be watchin' for buds to break on th' rose-bushes, an' he'd likely

  • be healthier," explained Dickon.

  • "I was wonderin' if us could ever get him in th' humor to come out here an' lie under

  • th' trees in his carriage." "I've been wondering that myself.

  • I've thought of it almost every time I've talked to him," said Mary.

  • "I've wondered if he could keep a secret and I've wondered if we could bring him

  • here without any one seeing us.

  • I thought perhaps you could push his carriage.

  • The doctor said he must have fresh air and if he wants us to take him out no one dare

  • disobey him.

  • He won't go out for other people and perhaps they will be glad if he will go out

  • with us. He could order the gardeners to keep away

  • so they wouldn't find out."

  • Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back.

  • "It'd be good for him, I'll warrant," he said.

  • "Us'd not be thinkin' he'd better never been born.

  • Us'd be just two children watchin' a garden grow, an' he'd be another.

  • Two lads an' a little lass just lookin' on at th' springtime.

  • I warrant it'd be better than doctor's stuff."

  • "He's been lying in his room so long and he's always been so afraid of his back that

  • it has made him queer," said Mary. "He knows a good many things out of books

  • but he doesn't know anything else.

  • He says he has been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doors and

  • hates gardens and gardeners. But he likes to hear about this garden

  • because it is a secret.

  • I daren't tell him much but he said he wanted to see it."

  • "Us'll have him out here sometime for sure," said Dickon.

  • "I could push his carriage well enough.

  • Has tha' noticed how th' robin an' his mate has been workin' while we've been sittin'

  • here?

  • Look at him perched on that branch wonderin' where it'd be best to put that

  • twig he's got in his beak."

  • He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and looked at him

  • inquiringly, still holding his twig.

  • Dickon spoke to him as Ben Weatherstaff did, but Dickon's tone was one of friendly

  • advice. "Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll

  • be all right.

  • Tha' knew how to build tha' nest before tha' came out o' th' egg.

  • Get on with thee, lad. Tha'st got no time to lose."

  • "Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!"

  • Mary said, laughing delightedly. "Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and makes fun

  • of him, and he hops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he

  • likes it.

  • Ben Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones thrown at him than

  • not be noticed." Dickon laughed too and went on talking.

  • "Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin.

  • "Us is near bein' wild things ourselves. Us is nest-buildin' too, bless thee.

  • Look out tha' doesn't tell on us."

  • And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary knew

  • that when he flew away with his twig to his own corner of the garden the darkness of

  • his dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell their secret for the world.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVI "I WON'T!"

  • SAID MARY

  • They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in returning to the house

  • and was also in such a hurry to get back to her work that she quite forgot Colin until

  • the last moment.

  • "Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha.

  • "I'm very busy in the garden." Martha looked rather frightened.

  • "Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell him that."

  • But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a self-

  • sacrificing person.

  • "I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting for me;" and she ran

  • away. The afternoon was even lovelier and busier

  • than the morning had been.

  • Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of the roses and

  • trees had been pruned or dug about.

  • Dickon had brought a spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so

  • that by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild place was not likely to

  • become a "gardener's garden" it would be a

  • wilderness of growing things before the springtime was over.

  • "There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead," Dickon said, working

  • away with all his might.

  • "An' there'll be peach an' plum trees in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll

  • be a carpet o' flowers."

  • The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the robin and

  • his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of lightning.

  • Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away over the tree-tops in the

  • park.

  • Each time he came back and perched near Dickon and cawed several times as if he

  • were relating his adventures, and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the

  • robin.

  • Once when Dickon was so busy that he did not answer him at first, Soot flew on to

  • his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with his large beak.

  • When Mary wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once he

  • took his pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strange little notes and two

  • squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened.

  • "Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking at her as she was

  • digging.

  • "Tha's beginning to look different, for sure."

  • Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.

  • "I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite exultantly.

  • "Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses.

  • Martha says my hair is growing thicker.

  • It isn't so flat and stringy." The sun was beginning to set and sending

  • deep gold-colored rays slanting under the trees when they parted.

  • "It'll be fine tomorrow," said Dickon.

  • "I'll be at work by sunrise." "So will I," said Mary.

  • She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her.

  • She wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox cub and the rook and about what the

  • springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear.

  • So it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see Martha

  • standing waiting for her with a doleful face.

  • "What is the matter?" she asked.

  • "What did Colin say when you told him I couldn't come?"

  • "Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He was nigh goin' into one o' his tantrums.

  • There's been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him quiet.

  • He would watch the clock all th' time." Mary's lips pinched themselves together.

  • She was no more used to considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason

  • why an ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best.

  • She knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and nervous and who

  • did not know that they could control their tempers and need not make other people ill

  • and nervous, too.

  • When she had had a headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody

  • else also had a headache or something quite as bad.

  • And she felt she was quite right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite

  • wrong. He was not on his sofa when she went into

  • his room.

  • He was lying flat on his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she

  • came in. This was a bad beginning and Mary marched

  • up to him with her stiff manner.

  • "Why didn't you get up?" she said. "I did get up this morning when I thought

  • you were coming," he answered, without looking at her.

  • "I made them put me back in bed this afternoon.

  • My back ached and my head ached and I was tired.

  • Why didn't you come?"

  • "I was working in the garden with Dickon," said Mary.

  • Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.

  • "I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of coming to talk

  • to me," he said. Mary flew into a fine passion.

  • She could fly into a passion without making a noise.

  • She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what happened.

  • "If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!" she retorted.

  • "You'll have to if I want you," said Colin. "I won't!" said Mary.

  • "I'll make you," said Colin.

  • "They shall drag you in." "Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary

  • fiercely. "They may drag me in but they can't make me

  • talk when they get me here.

  • I'll sit and clench my teeth and never tell you one thing.

  • I won't even look at you. I'll stare at the floor!"

  • They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other.

  • If they had been two little street boys they would have sprung at each other and

  • had a rough-and-tumble fight.

  • As it was, they did the next thing to it. "You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin.

  • "What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people always say that.

  • Any one is selfish who doesn't do what they want.

  • You're more selfish than I am. You're the most selfish boy I ever saw."

  • "I'm not!" snapped Colin.

  • "I'm not as selfish as your fine Dickon is! He keeps you playing in the dirt when he

  • knows I am all by myself. He's selfish, if you like!"

  • Mary's eyes flashed fire.

  • "He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said.

  • "He's--he's like an angel!" It might sound rather silly to say that but

  • she did not care.

  • "A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously.

  • "He's a common cottage boy off the moor!" "He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted

  • Mary.

  • "He's a thousand times better!" Because she was the stronger of the two she

  • was beginning to get the better of him.

  • The truth was that he had never had a fight with any one like himself in his life and,

  • upon the whole, it was rather good for him, though neither he nor Mary knew anything

  • about that.

  • He turned his head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big tear was squeezed out

  • and ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel pathetic and sorry

  • for himself--not for any one else.

  • "I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there is a lump

  • coming on my back," he said. "And I am going to die besides."

  • "You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically.

  • He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation.

  • He had never heard such a thing said before.

  • He was at once furious and slightly pleased, if a person could be both at one

  • time.

  • "I'm not?" he cried. "I am!

  • You know I am! Everybody says so."

  • "I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly.

  • "You just say that to make people sorry. I believe you're proud of it.

  • I don't believe it! If you were a nice boy it might be true--

  • but you're too nasty!"

  • In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy rage.

  • "Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his pillow and threw it at

  • her.

  • He was not strong enough to throw it far and it only fell at her feet, but Mary's

  • face looked as pinched as a nutcracker. "I'm going," she said.

  • "And I won't come back!"

  • She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned round and spoke again.

  • "I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said.

  • "Dickon brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you all about them.

  • Now I won't tell you a single thing!"

  • She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her great

  • astonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if she had been listening and,

  • more amazing still--she was laughing.

  • She was a big handsome young woman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at

  • all, as she could not bear invalids and she was always making excuses to leave Colin to

  • Martha or any one else who would take her place.

  • Mary had never liked her, and she simply stood and gazed up at her as she stood

  • giggling into her handkerchief..

  • "What are you laughing at?" she asked her. "At you two young ones," said the nurse.

  • "It's the best thing that could happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one

  • to stand up to him that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into her

  • handkerchief again.

  • "If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight with it would have been the saving of

  • him." "Is he going to die?"

  • "I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse.

  • "Hysterics and temper are half what ails him."

  • "What are hysterics?" asked Mary.

  • "You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this--but at any rate you've

  • given him something to have hysterics about, and I'm glad of it."

  • Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she had come in

  • from the garden. She was cross and disappointed but not at

  • all sorry for Colin.

  • She had looked forward to telling him a great many things and she had meant to try

  • to make up her mind whether it would be safe to trust him with the great secret.

  • She had been beginning to think it would be, but now she had changed her mind

  • entirely.

  • She would never tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and

  • die if he liked! It would serve him right!

  • She felt so sour and unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost forgot about Dickon

  • and the green veil creeping over the world and the soft wind blowing down from the

  • moor.

  • Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been temporarily replaced

  • by interest and curiosity.

  • There was a wooden box on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it

  • was full of neat packages. "Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha.

  • "It looks as if it had picture-books in it."

  • Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room.

  • "Do you want anything--dolls--toys--books?"

  • She opened the package wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what she

  • should do with it if he had. But he had not sent one.

  • There were several beautiful books such as Colin had, and two of them were about

  • gardens and were full of pictures.

  • There were two or three games and there was a beautiful little writing-case with a gold

  • monogram on it and a gold pen and inkstand. Everything was so nice that her pleasure

  • began to crowd her anger out of her mind.

  • She had not expected him to remember her at all and her hard little heart grew quite

  • warm.

  • "I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first thing I shall write

  • with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am much obliged."

  • If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her presents at

  • once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read some of the gardening

  • books and perhaps tried playing the games,

  • and he would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he was

  • going to die or have put his hand on his spine to see if there was a lump coming.

  • He had a way of doing that which she could not bear.

  • It gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always looked so

  • frightened himself.

  • He said that if he felt even quite a little lump some day he should know his hunch had

  • begun to grow.

  • Something he had heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him the

  • idea and he had thought over it in secret until it was quite firmly fixed in his

  • mind.

  • Mrs. Medlock had said his father's back had begun to show its crookedness in that way

  • when he was a child.

  • He had never told any one but Mary that most of his "tantrums" as they called them

  • grew out of his hysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had

  • told her.

  • "He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she said to herself.

  • "And he has been cross today. Perhaps--perhaps he has been thinking about

  • it all afternoon."

  • She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking.

  • "I said I would never go back again--" she hesitated, knitting her brows--"but

  • perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see-- if he wants me--in the morning.

  • Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me again, but--I think--I'll go."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVII A TANTRUM

  • She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the garden and she

  • was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought her supper and she had eaten

  • it, she was glad to go to bed.

  • As she laid her head on the pillow she murmured to herself:

  • "I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterward--I believe--I'll

  • go to see him."

  • She thought it was the middle of the night when she was awakened by such dreadful

  • sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant.

  • What was it--what was it?

  • The next minute she felt quite sure she knew.

  • Doors were opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and some one

  • was crying and screaming at the same time, screaming and crying in a horrible way.

  • "It's Colin," she said.

  • "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse called hysterics.

  • How awful it sounds."

  • As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people were so

  • frightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather than hear them.

  • She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and shivering.

  • "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," she kept saying.

  • "I can't bear it."

  • Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she remembered how

  • he had driven her out of the room and thought that perhaps the sight of her might

  • make him worse.

  • Even when she pressed her hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep

  • the awful sounds out.

  • She hated them so and was so terrified by them that suddenly they began to make her

  • angry and she felt as if she should like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten him

  • as he was frightening her.

  • She was not used to any one's tempers but her own.

  • She took her hands from her ears and sprang up and stamped her foot.

  • "He ought to be stopped!

  • Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody ought to beat him!" she cried out.

  • Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door opened and

  • the nurse came in.

  • She was not laughing now by any means. She even looked rather pale.

  • "He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry.

  • "He'll do himself harm.

  • No one can do anything with him. You come and try, like a good child.

  • He likes you."

  • "He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her foot with

  • excitement. The stamp rather pleased the nurse.

  • The truth was that she had been afraid she might find Mary crying and hiding her head

  • under the bed-clothes. "That's right," she said.

  • "You're in the right humor.

  • You go and scold him. Give him something new to think of.

  • Do go, child, as quick as ever you can."

  • It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been funny as

  • well as dreadful--that it was funny that all the grown-up people were so frightened

  • that they came to a little girl just

  • because they guessed she was almost as bad as Colin himself.

  • She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the higher her

  • temper mounted.

  • She felt quite wicked by the time she reached the door.

  • She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to the four-posted bed.

  • "You stop!" she almost shouted.

  • "You stop! I hate you!

  • Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house

  • and let you scream yourself to death!

  • You will scream yourself to death in a minute, and I wish you would!"

  • A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought nor said such things, but it just

  • happened that the shock of hearing them was the best possible thing for this hysterical

  • boy whom no one had ever dared to restrain or contradict.

  • He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he actually

  • almost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the furious little voice.

  • His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he was gasping and choking;

  • but savage little Mary did not care an atom.

  • "If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll scream too--and I can scream louder

  • than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten you!"

  • He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so.

  • The scream which had been coming almost choked him.

  • The tears were streaming down his face and he shook all over.

  • "I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't--I can't!"

  • "You can!" shouted Mary.

  • "Half that ails you is hysterics and temper--just hysterics--hysterics--

  • hysterics!" and she stamped each time she said it.

  • "I felt the lump--I felt it," choked out Colin.

  • "I knew I should.

  • I shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die," and he began to writhe again

  • and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't scream.

  • "You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely.

  • "If you did it was only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps.

  • There's nothing the matter with your horrid back--nothing but hysterics!

  • Turn over and let me look at it!" She liked the word "hysterics" and felt

  • somehow as if it had an effect on him.

  • He was probably like herself and had never heard it before.

  • "Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his back this minute!"

  • The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together near the door

  • staring at her, their mouths half open. All three had gasped with fright more than

  • once.

  • The nurse came forward as if she were half afraid.

  • Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs.

  • "Perhaps he--he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice.

  • Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs:

  • "Sh-show her!

  • She-she'll see then!" It was a poor thin back to look at when it

  • was bared.

  • Every rib could be counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not

  • count them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little face.

  • She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her head aside to hide the

  • twitching of her mouth.

  • There was just a minute's silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while Mary

  • looked up and down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if she had been the

  • great doctor from London.

  • "There's not a single lump there!" she said at last.

  • "There's not a lump as big as a pin--except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them

  • because you're thin.

  • I've got backbone lumps myself, and they used to stick out as much as yours do,

  • until I began to get fatter, and I am not fat enough yet to hide them.

  • There's not a lump as big as a pin!

  • If you ever say there is again, I shall laugh!"

  • No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish words had on

  • him.

  • If he had ever had any one to talk to about his secret terrors--if he had ever dared to

  • let himself ask questions--if he had had childish companions and had not lain on his

  • back in the huge closed house, breathing an

  • atmosphere heavy with the fears of people who were most of them ignorant and tired of

  • him, he would have found out that most of his fright and illness was created by

  • himself.

  • But he had lain and thought of himself and his aches and weariness for hours and days

  • and months and years.

  • And now that an angry unsympathetic little girl insisted obstinately that he was not

  • as ill as he thought he was he actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth.

  • "I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that he thought he had a lump on his spine.

  • His back is weak because he won't try to sit up.

  • I could have told him there was no lump there."

  • Colin gulped and turned his face a little to look at her.

  • "C-could you?" he said pathetically.

  • "Yes, sir." "There!" said Mary, and she gulped too.

  • Colin turned on his face again and but for his long-drawn broken breaths, which were

  • the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he lay still for a minute, though great tears

  • streamed down his face and wet the pillow.

  • Actually the tears meant that a curious great relief had come to him.

  • Presently he turned and looked at the nurse again and strangely enough he was not like

  • a Rajah at all as he spoke to her.

  • "Do you think--I could--live to grow up?" he said.

  • The nurse was neither clever nor soft- hearted but she could repeat some of the

  • London doctor's words.

  • "You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give way to your

  • temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air."

  • Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying and this perhaps

  • made him feel gentle.

  • He put out his hand a little toward Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantum

  • having passed, she was softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was

  • a sort of making up.

  • "I'll--I'll go out with you, Mary," he said.

  • "I shan't hate fresh air if we can find--" He remembered just in time to stop himself

  • from saying "if we can find the secret garden" and he ended, "I shall like to go

  • out with you if Dickon will come and push my chair.

  • I do so want to see Dickon and the fox and the crow."

  • The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the pillows.

  • Then she made Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to Mary, who really was very

  • glad to get it after her excitement.

  • Mrs. Medlock and Martha gladly slipped away, and after everything was neat and

  • calm and in order the nurse looked as if she would very gladly slip away also.

  • She was a healthy young woman who resented being robbed of her sleep and she yawned

  • quite openly as she looked at Mary, who had pushed her big footstool close to the four-

  • posted bed and was holding Colin's hand.

  • "You must go back and get your sleep out," she said.

  • "He'll drop off after a while--if he's not too upset.

  • Then I'll lie down myself in the next room."

  • "Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?"

  • Mary whispered to Colin.

  • His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her appealingly.

  • "Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft song.

  • I shall go to sleep in a minute."

  • "I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse.

  • "You can go if you like." "Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at

  • reluctance.

  • "If he doesn't go to sleep in half an hour you must call me."

  • "Very well," answered Mary.

  • The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone Colin pulled

  • Mary's hand again. "I almost told," he said; "but I stopped

  • myself in time.

  • I won't talk and I'll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lot of nice things to

  • tell me.

  • Have you--do you think you have found out anything at all about the way into the

  • secret garden?" Mary looked at his poor little tired face

  • and swollen eyes and her heart relented.

  • "Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have. And if you will go to sleep I will tell you

  • tomorrow." His hand quite trembled.

  • "Oh, Mary!" he said.

  • "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should

  • live to grow up!

  • Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah song--you could just tell me softly as

  • you did that first day what you imagine it looks like inside?

  • I am sure it will make me go to sleep."

  • "Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes."

  • He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speak very

  • slowly and in a very low voice.

  • "I think it has been left alone so long-- that it has grown all into a lovely tangle.

  • I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the

  • branches and walls and creep over the ground--almost like a strange gray mist.

  • Some of them have died but many--are alive and when the summer comes there will be

  • curtains and fountains of roses.

  • I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their

  • way out of the dark. Now the spring has begun--perhaps--perhaps-

  • -"

  • The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she saw it and went

  • on.

  • "Perhaps they are coming up through the grass--perhaps there are clusters of purple

  • crocuses and gold ones--even now.

  • Perhaps the leaves are beginning to break out and uncurl--and perhaps--the gray is

  • changing and a green gauze veil is creeping--and creeping over--everything.

  • And the birds are coming to look at it-- because it is--so safe and still.

  • And perhaps--perhaps--perhaps--" very softly and slowly indeed, "the robin has

  • found a mate--and is building a nest."

  • And Colin was asleep.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVIII "THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME"

  • Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning.

  • She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told

  • her that though.

  • Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always was after he had worn

  • himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she

  • listened.

  • "He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon as tha' can," Martha said.

  • "It's queer what a fancy he's took to thee. Tha' did give it him last night for sure--

  • didn't tha?

  • Nobody else would have dared to do it. Eh! poor lad!

  • He's been spoiled till salt won't save him.

  • Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own

  • way--or always to have it. She doesn't know which is th' worst.

  • Tha' was in a fine temper tha'self, too.

  • But he says to me when I went into his room, 'Please ask Miss Mary if she'll

  • please come an' talk to me?' Think o' him saying please!

  • Will you go, Miss?"

  • "I'll run and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin first and tell

  • him--I know what I'll tell him," with a sudden inspiration.

  • She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room and for a second he looked

  • disappointed. He was in bed.

  • His face was pitifully white and there were dark circles round his eyes.

  • "I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache all over because

  • I'm so tired.

  • Are you going somewhere?" Mary went and leaned against his bed.

  • "I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon, but I'll come back.

  • Colin, it's--it's something about the garden."

  • His whole face brightened and a little color came into it.

  • "Oh! is it?" he cried out.

  • "I dreamed about it all night I heard you say something about gray changing into

  • green, and I dreamed I was standing in a place all filled with trembling little

  • green leaves--and there were birds on nests

  • everywhere and they looked so soft and still.

  • I'll lie and think about it until you come back."

  • In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden.

  • The fox and the crow were with him again and this time he had brought two tame

  • squirrels.

  • "I came over on the pony this mornin'," he said.

  • "Eh! he is a good little chap--Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets.

  • This here one he's called Nut an' this here other one's called Shell."

  • When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right shoulder and when he said

  • "Shell" the other one leaped on to his left shoulder.

  • When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at their feet, Soot solemnly

  • listening on a tree and Nut and Shell nosing about close to them, it seemed to

  • Mary that it would be scarcely bearable to

  • leave such delightfulness, but when she began to tell her story somehow the look in

  • Dickon's funny face gradually changed her mind.

  • She could see he felt sorrier for Colin than she did.

  • He looked up at the sky and all about him.

  • "Just listen to them birds--th' world seems full of 'em--all whistlin' an' pipin'," he

  • said. "Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken at

  • 'em callin' to each other.

  • Come springtime seems like as if all th' world's callin'.

  • The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see 'em- -an', my word, th' nice smells there is

  • about!" sniffing with his happy turned-up nose.

  • "An' that poor lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets to thinkin' o'

  • things as sets him screamin'.

  • Eh! my! we mun get him out here--we mun get him watchin' an listenin' an' sniffin' up

  • th' air an' get him just soaked through wi' sunshine.

  • An' we munnot lose no time about it."

  • When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire though at other

  • times he tried to modify his dialect so that Mary could better understand.

  • But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact been trying to learn to speak it

  • herself. So she spoke a little now.

  • "Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed, we must").

  • "I'll tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded, and Dickon grinned, because when

  • the little wench tried to twist her tongue into speaking Yorkshire it amused him very

  • much.

  • "He's took a graidely fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to see

  • Soot an' Captain.

  • When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see him

  • tomorrow mornin'--an'. bring tha' creatures wi' thee--an' then--in a bit, when there's

  • more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two,

  • we'll get him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll bring him

  • here an' show him everything." When she stopped she was quite proud of

  • herself.

  • She had never made a long speech in Yorkshire before and she had remembered

  • very well. "Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that

  • to Mester Colin," Dickon chuckled.

  • "Tha'll make him laugh an' there's nowt as good for ill folk as laughin' is.

  • Mother says she believes as half a hour's good laugh every mornin' 'ud cure a chap as

  • was makin' ready for typhus fever."

  • "I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day," said Mary, chuckling herself.

  • The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it seemed as if

  • Magicians were passing through it drawing loveliness out of the earth and the boughs

  • with wands.

  • It was hard to go away and leave it all, particularly as Nut had actually crept on

  • to her dress and Shell had scrambled down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under

  • and stayed there looking at her with inquiring eyes.

  • But she went back to the house and when she sat down close to Colin's bed he began to

  • sniff as Dickon did though not in such an experienced way.

  • "You smell like flowers and--and fresh things," he cried out quite joyously.

  • "What is it you smell of? It's cool and warm and sweet all at the

  • same time."

  • "It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin' on th' grass under a

  • tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an' Soot an' Nut an' Shell.

  • It's th' springtime an' out o' doors an' sunshine as smells so graidely."

  • She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know how broadly Yorkshire

  • sounds until you have heard some one speak it.

  • Colin began to laugh.

  • "What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk like that before.

  • How funny it sounds." "I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire,"

  • answered Mary triumphantly.

  • "I canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an' Martha can but tha' sees I can shape a bit.

  • Doesn't tha' understand a bit o' Yorkshire when tha' hears it?

  • An' tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel' bred an' born!

  • Eh! I wonder tha'rt not ashamed o' thy face."

  • And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could not stop

  • themselves and they laughed until the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening the door to

  • come in drew back into the corridor and stood listening amazed.

  • "Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshire herself because

  • there was no one to hear her and she was so astonished.

  • "Whoever heard th' like!

  • Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!" There was so much to talk about.

  • It seemed as if Colin could never hear enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot and

  • Nut and Shell and the pony whose name was Jump.

  • Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump.

  • He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging over his eyes and with

  • a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose.

  • He was rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough and wiry as if

  • the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel springs.

  • He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment he saw Dickon and he had trotted

  • up to him and put his head across his shoulder and then Dickon had talked into

  • his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies and puffs and snorts.

  • Dickon had made him give Mary his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with

  • his velvet muzzle.

  • "Does he really understand everything Dickon says?"

  • Colin asked. "It seems as if he does," answered Mary.

  • "Dickon says anything will understand if you're friends with it for sure, but you

  • have to be friends for sure."

  • Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be staring at

  • the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking. "I wish I was friends with things," he said

  • at last, "but I'm not.

  • I never had anything to be friends with, and I can't bear people."

  • "Can't you bear me?" asked Mary. "Yes, I can," he answered.

  • "It's funny but I even like you."

  • "Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary.

  • "He said he'd warrant we'd both got the same nasty tempers.

  • I think you are like him too.

  • We are all three alike--you and I and Ben Weatherstaff.

  • He said we were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.

  • But I don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin and Dickon."

  • "Did you feel as if you hated people?" "Yes," answered Mary without any

  • affectation.

  • "I should have detested you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon."

  • Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.

  • "Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about sending Dickon away.

  • I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at you but--but perhaps

  • he is."

  • "Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly, "because his nose does

  • turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have patches all over them and he

  • talks broad Yorkshire, but--but if an angel

  • did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor- -if there was a Yorkshire angel--I believe

  • he'd understand the green things and know how to make them grow and he would know how

  • to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon

  • does and they'd know he was friends for sure."

  • "I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin; "I want to see him."

  • "I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because--because--"

  • Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell him.

  • Colin knew something new was coming.

  • "Because what?" he cried eagerly. Mary was so anxious that she got up from

  • her stool and came to him and caught hold of both his hands.

  • "Can I trust you?

  • I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I trust you--for sure--for sure?" she

  • implored. Her face was so solemn that he almost

  • whispered his answer.

  • "Yes--yes!" "Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow

  • morning, and he'll bring his creatures with him."

  • "Oh! Oh!"

  • Colin cried out in delight. "But that's not all," Mary went on, almost

  • pale with solemn excitement. "The rest is better.

  • There is a door into the garden.

  • I found it. It is under the ivy on the wall."

  • If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted "Hooray!

  • Hooray!

  • Hooray!" but he was weak and rather hysterical; his eyes grew bigger and bigger

  • and he gasped for breath. "Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob.

  • "Shall I see it?

  • Shall I get into it? Shall I live to get into it?" and he

  • clutched her hands and dragged her toward him.

  • "Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly.

  • "Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't be silly!"

  • And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish that she brought him to his

  • senses and he began to laugh at himself and a few minutes afterward she was sitting on

  • her stool again telling him not what she

  • imagined the secret garden to be like but what it really was, and Colin's aches and

  • tiredness were forgotten and he was listening enraptured.

  • "It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last.

  • "It sounds just as if you had really seen it.

  • You know I said that when you told me first."

  • Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth.

  • "I had seen it--and I had been in," she said.

  • "I found the key and got in weeks ago.

  • But I daren't tell you--I daren't because I was so afraid I couldn't trust you--for

  • sure!"

  • >

  • CHAPTER XIX "IT HAS COME!"

  • Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had his tantrum.

  • He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred and he always found, when he

  • arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his bed, sulky and still so hysterical that he

  • was ready to break into fresh sobbing at the least word.

  • In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits.

  • On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon.

  • "How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived.

  • "He will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day.

  • The boy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence."

  • "Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes when you see

  • him. That plain sour-faced child that's almost

  • as bad as himself has just bewitched him.

  • How she's done it there's no telling. The Lord knows she's nothing to look at and

  • you scarcely ever hear her speak, but she did what none of us dare do.

  • She just flew at him like a little cat last night, and stamped her feet and ordered him

  • to stop screaming, and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop, and this

  • afternoon--well just come up and see, sir.

  • It's past crediting." The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he

  • entered his patient's room was indeed rather astonishing to him.

  • As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he heard laughing and chattering.

  • Colin was on his sofa in his dressing-gown and he was sitting up quite straight

  • looking at a picture in one of the garden books and talking to the plain child who at

  • that moment could scarcely be called plain

  • at all because her face was so glowing with enjoyment.

  • "Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those," Colin was announcing.

  • "They're called Del-phin-iums."

  • "Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Mistress Mary.

  • "There are clumps there already." Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped.

  • Mary became quite still and Colin looked fretful.

  • "I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy," Dr. Craven said a trifle

  • nervously.

  • He was rather a nervous man. "I'm better now--much better," Colin

  • answered, rather like a Rajah. "I'm going out in my chair in a day or two

  • if it is fine.

  • I want some fresh air." Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his

  • pulse and looked at him curiously.

  • "It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not to tire

  • yourself." "Fresh air won't tire me," said the young

  • Rajah.

  • As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman had shrieked aloud with

  • rage and had insisted that fresh air would give him cold and kill him, it is not to be

  • wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat startled.

  • "I thought you did not like fresh air," he said.

  • "I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah; "but my cousin is going out with

  • me." "And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr.

  • Craven.

  • "No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Mary could not help

  • remembering how the young native Prince had looked with his diamonds and emeralds and

  • pearls stuck all over him and the great

  • rubies on the small dark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach with

  • salaams and receive his orders. "My cousin knows how to take care of me.

  • I am always better when she is with me.

  • She made me better last night. A very strong boy I know will push my

  • carriage." Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed.

  • If this tiresome hysterical boy should chance to get well he himself would lose

  • all chance of inheriting Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous man, though he

  • was a weak one, and he did not intend to let him run into actual danger.

  • "He must be a strong boy and a steady boy," he said.

  • "And I must know something about him.

  • Who is he? What is his name?"

  • "It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow that everybody who knew

  • the moor must know Dickon.

  • And she was right, too. She saw that in a moment Dr. Craven's

  • serious face relaxed into a relieved smile. "Oh, Dickon," he said.

  • "If it is Dickon you will be safe enough.

  • He's as strong as a moor pony, is Dickon." "And he's trusty," said Mary.

  • "He's th' trustiest lad i' Yorkshire." She had been talking Yorkshire to Colin and

  • she forgot herself.

  • "Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven, laughing outright.

  • "I'm learning it as if it was French," said Mary rather coldly.

  • "It's like a native dialect in India.

  • Very clever people try to learn them. I like it and so does Colin."

  • "Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't do you

  • any harm.

  • Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?"

  • "No," Colin answered.

  • "I wouldn't take it at first and after Mary made me quiet she talked me to sleep--in a

  • low voice--about the spring creeping into a garden."

  • "That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more perplexed than ever and glancing

  • sideways at Mistress Mary sitting on her stool and looking down silently at the

  • carpet.

  • "You are evidently better, but you must remember--"

  • "I don't want to remember," interrupted the Rajah, appearing again.

  • "When I lie by myself and remember I begin to have pains everywhere and I think of

  • things that make me begin to scream because I hate them so.

  • If there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget you were ill instead of

  • remembering it I would have him brought here."

  • And he waved a thin hand which ought really to have been covered with royal signet

  • rings made of rubies. "It is because my cousin makes me forget

  • that she makes me better."

  • Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a "tantrum"; usually he was obliged

  • to remain a very long time and do a great many things.

  • This afternoon he did not give any medicine or leave any new orders and he was spared

  • any disagreeable scenes.

  • When he went downstairs he looked very thoughtful and when he talked to Mrs.

  • Medlock in the library she felt that he was a much puzzled man.

  • "Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have believed it?"

  • "It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor.

  • "And there's no denying it is better than the old one."

  • "I believe Susan Sowerby's right--I do that," said Mrs. Medlock.

  • "I stopped in her cottage on my way to Thwaite yesterday and had a bit of talk

  • with her.

  • And she says to me, 'Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a good child, an' she mayn't be a

  • pretty one, but she's a child, an' children needs children.'

  • We went to school together, Susan Sowerby and me."

  • "She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr. Craven.

  • "When I find her in a cottage I know the chances are that I shall save my patient."

  • Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby.

  • "She's got a way with her, has Susan," she went on quite volubly.

  • "I've been thinking all morning of one thing she said yesterday.

  • She says, 'Once when I was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd

  • been fightin' I ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my jography told as th' world was

  • shaped like a orange an' I found out before

  • I was ten that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody.

  • No one owns more than his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not

  • enow quarters to go round.

  • But don't you--none o' you--think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find out

  • you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks."

  • 'What children learns from children,' she says, 'is that there's no sense in grabbin'

  • at th' whole orange--peel an' all. If you do you'll likely not get even th'

  • pips, an' them's too bitter to eat.'"

  • "She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat.

  • "Well, she's got a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock, much pleased.

  • "Sometimes I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan, if you was a different woman an' didn't talk

  • such broad Yorkshire I've seen the times when I should have said you was clever.'"

  • That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his eyes in

  • the morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it--smiled because he felt so

  • curiously comfortable.

  • It was actually nice to be awake, and he turned over and stretched his limbs

  • luxuriously. He felt as if tight strings which had held

  • him had loosened themselves and let him go.

  • He did not know that Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves had relaxed and rested

  • themselves.

  • Instead of lying and staring at the wall and wishing he had not awakened, his mind

  • was full of the plans he and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden and of

  • Dickon and his wild creatures.

  • It was so nice to have things to think about.

  • And he had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard feet running along

  • the corridor and Mary was at the door.

  • The next minute she was in the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a

  • waft of fresh air full of the scent of the morning.

  • "You've been out!

  • You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!" he

  • cried.

  • She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright with the air

  • and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it.

  • "It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed.

  • "You never saw anything so beautiful! It has come!

  • I thought it had come that other morning, but it was only coming.

  • It is here now! It has come, the Spring!

  • Dickon says so!"

  • "Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he felt his heart

  • beat. He actually sat up in bed.

  • "Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and half at his own

  • fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!"

  • And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a moment more it

  • was opened wide and freshness and softness and scents and birds' songs were pouring

  • through.

  • "That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw in long breaths

  • of it. That's what Dickon does when he's lying on

  • the moor.

  • He says he feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and he feels as if he

  • could live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it."

  • She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she caught Colin's fancy.

  • "'Forever and ever'!

  • Does it make him feel like that?" he said, and he did as she told him, drawing in long

  • deep breaths over and over again until he felt that something quite new and

  • delightful was happening to him.

  • Mary was at his bedside again. "Things are crowding up out of the earth,"

  • she ran on in a hurry.

  • "And there are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and the green veil has

  • covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about their nests for

  • fear they may be too late that some of them

  • are even fighting for places in the secret garden.

  • And the rose-bushes look as wick as wick can be, and there are primroses in the

  • lanes and woods, and the seeds we planted are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and

  • the crow and the squirrels and a new-born lamb."

  • And then she paused for breath.

  • The new-born lamb Dickon had found three days before lying by its dead mother among

  • the gorse bushes on the moor. It was not the first motherless lamb he had

  • found and he knew what to do with it.

  • He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had let it lie near the

  • fire and had fed it with warm milk.

  • It was a soft thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its

  • body.

  • Dickon had carried it over the moor in his arms and its feeding bottle was in his

  • pocket with a squirrel, and when Mary had sat under a tree with its limp warmness

  • huddled on her lap she had felt as if she were too full of strange joy to speak.

  • A lamb--a lamb! A living lamb who lay on your lap like a

  • baby!

  • She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening and drawing in long

  • breaths of air when the nurse entered. She started a little at the sight of the

  • open window.

  • She had sat stifling in the room many a warm day because her patient was sure that

  • open windows gave people cold. "Are you sure you are not chilly, Master

  • Colin?" she inquired.

  • "No," was the answer. "I am breathing long breaths of fresh air.

  • It makes you strong. I am going to get up to the sofa for

  • breakfast.

  • My cousin will have breakfast with me." The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to

  • give the order for two breakfasts.

  • She found the servants' hall a more amusing place than the invalid's chamber and just

  • now everybody wanted to hear the news from upstairs.

  • There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young recluse who, as the cook

  • said, "had found his master, and good for him."

  • The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler, who was a man

  • with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion that the invalid would be all

  • the better "for a good hiding."

  • When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was put upon the table he

  • made an announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like manner.

  • "A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb, are coming

  • to see me this morning. I want them brought upstairs as soon as

  • they come," he said.

  • "You are not to begin playing with the animals in the servants' hall and keep them

  • there. I want them here."

  • The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough.

  • "Yes, sir," she answered. "I'll tell you what you can do," added

  • Colin, waving his hand.

  • "You can tell Martha to bring them here. The boy is Martha's brother.

  • His name is Dickon and he is an animal charmer."

  • "I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin," said the nurse.

  • "I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely.

  • "Charmers' animals never bite."

  • "There are snake-charmers in India," said Mary.

  • "And they can put their snakes' heads in their mouths."

  • "Goodness!" shuddered the nurse.

  • They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring in upon them.

  • Colin's breakfast was a very good one and Mary watched him with serious interest.

  • "You will begin to get fatter just as I did," she said.

  • "I never wanted my breakfast when I was in India and now I always want it."

  • "I wanted mine this morning," said Colin.

  • "Perhaps it was the fresh air. When do you think Dickon will come?"

  • He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary held up her hand.

  • "Listen!" she said.

  • "Did you hear a caw?" Colin listened and heard it, the oddest

  • sound in the world to hear inside a house, a hoarse "caw-caw."

  • "Yes," he answered.

  • "That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again.

  • Do you hear a bleat--a tiny one?" "Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing.

  • "That's the new-born lamb," said Mary.

  • "He's coming." Dickon's moorland boots were thick and

  • clumsy and though he tried to walk quietly they made a clumping sound as he walked

  • through the long corridors.

  • Mary and Colin heard him marching-- marching, until he passed through the

  • tapestry door on to the soft carpet of Colin's own passage.

  • "If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you please, sir,

  • here's Dickon an' his creatures." Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide

  • smile.

  • The new-born lamb was in his arms and the little red fox trotted by his side.

  • Nut sat on his left shoulder and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped

  • out of his coat pocket.

  • Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared-- as he had stared when he first saw Mary;

  • but this was a stare of wonder and delight.

  • The truth was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood

  • what this boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels and his

  • lamb were so near to him and his

  • friendliness that they seemed almost to be part of himself.

  • Colin had never talked to a boy in his life and he was so overwhelmed by his own

  • pleasure and curiosity that he did not even think of speaking.

  • But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward.

  • He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had

  • only stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met.

  • Creatures were always like that until they found out about you.

  • He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and

  • immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to

  • nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt

  • its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side.

  • Of course no boy could have helped speaking then.

  • "What is it doing?" cried Colin.

  • "What does it want?" "It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling

  • more and more. "I brought it to thee a bit hungry because

  • I knowed tha'd like to see it feed."

  • He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket.

  • "Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with a gentle brown

  • hand.

  • "This is what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' this than tha' will

  • out o' silk velvet coats.

  • There now," and he pushed the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the

  • lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.

  • After that there was no wondering what to say.

  • By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all.

  • He told them how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago.

  • He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him swing higher

  • and higher into the sky until he was only a speck in the heights of blue.

  • "I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin' how a chap could hear it when

  • it seemed as if he'd get out o' th' world in a minute--an' just then I heard

  • somethin' else far off among th' gorse bushes.

  • It was a weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new lamb as was hungry an' I knowed it

  • wouldn't be hungry if it hadn't lost its mother somehow, so I set off searchin'.

  • Eh! I did have a look for it.

  • I went in an' out among th' gorse bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed to

  • take th' wrong turnin'.

  • But at last I seed a bit o' white by a rock on top o' th' moor an' I climbed up an'

  • found th' little 'un half dead wi' cold an' clemmin'."

  • While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and cawed remarks

  • about the scenery while Nut and Shell made excursions into the big trees outside and

  • ran up and down trunks and explored branches.

  • Captain curled up near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from preference.

  • They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all the

  • flowers by their country names and knew exactly which ones were already growing in

  • the secret garden.

  • "I couldna' say that there name," he said, pointing to one under which was written

  • "Aquilegia," "but us calls that a columbine, an' that there one it's a

  • snapdragon and they both grow wild in

  • hedges, but these is garden ones an' they're bigger an' grander.

  • There's some big clumps o' columbine in th' garden.

  • They'll look like a bed o' blue an' white butterflies flutterin' when they're out."

  • "I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am going to see them!"

  • "Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously.

  • "An' tha' munnot lose no time about it."

  • >

CHAPTER XI THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH

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パート2 - シークレットガーデン オーディオブック フランシス・ホジソン・バーネット著 (Chs 11-19) (Part 2 - The Secret Garden Audiobook by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Chs 11-19))

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    capt.izutsu3336 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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