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  • CHAPTER XX "I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!"

  • But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came some very

  • windy days and then Colin was threatened with a cold, which two things happening one

  • after the other would no doubt have thrown

  • him into a rage but that there was so much careful and mysterious planning to do and

  • almost every day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to talk about what was

  • happening on the moor and in the lanes and hedges and on the borders of streams.

  • The things he had to tell about otters' and badgers' and water-rats' houses, not to

  • mention birds' nests and field-mice and their burrows, were enough to make you

  • almost tremble with excitement when you

  • heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with what

  • thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working.

  • "They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they have to build their homes every year.

  • An' it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to get 'em done."

  • The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made before Colin could

  • be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden.

  • No one must see the chair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned a certain

  • corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the ivied walls.

  • As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the

  • mystery surrounding the garden was one of its greatest charms.

  • Nothing must spoil that.

  • No one must ever suspect that they had a secret.

  • People must think that he was simply going out with Mary and Dickon because he liked

  • them and did not object to their looking at him.

  • They had long and quite delightful talks about their route.

  • They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other and go round among

  • the fountain flower-beds as if they were looking at the "bedding-out plants" the

  • head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having arranged.

  • That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would think it at all

  • mysterious.

  • They would turn into the shrubbery walks and lose themselves until they came to the

  • long walls.

  • It was almost as serious and elaborately thought out as the plans of march made by

  • great generals in time of war.

  • Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the invalid's apartments

  • had of course filtered through the servants' hall into the stable yards and

  • out among the gardeners, but

  • notwithstanding this, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders

  • from Master Colin's room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartment no

  • outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to him.

  • "Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, "what's to do

  • now?

  • His Royal Highness that wasn't to be looked at calling up a man he's never set eyes

  • on." Mr. Roach was not without curiosity.

  • He had never caught even a glimpse of the boy and had heard a dozen exaggerated

  • stories about his uncanny looks and ways and his insane tempers.

  • The thing he had heard oftenest was that he might die at any moment and there had been

  • numerous fanciful descriptions of a humped back and helpless limbs, given by people

  • who had never seen him.

  • "Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach," said Mrs. Medlock, as she led him

  • up the back staircase to the corridor on to which opened the hitherto mysterious

  • chamber.

  • "Let's hope they're changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock," he answered.

  • "They couldn't well change for the worse," she continued; "and queer as it all is

  • there's them as finds their duties made a lot easier to stand up under.

  • Don't you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the middle of a menagerie

  • and Martha Sowerby's Dickon more at home than you or me could ever be."

  • There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately believed.

  • When Mr. Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently.

  • "He'd be at home in Buckingham Palace or at the bottom of a coal mine," he said.

  • "And yet it's not impudence, either. He's just fine, is that lad."

  • It was perhaps well he had been prepared or he might have been startled.

  • When the bedroom door was opened a large crow, which seemed quite at home perched on

  • the high back of a carven chair, announced the entrance of a visitor by saying "Caw--

  • Caw" quite loudly.

  • In spite of Mrs. Medlock's warning, Mr. Roach only just escaped being sufficiently

  • undignified to jump backward. The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on

  • his sofa.

  • He was sitting in an armchair and a young lamb was standing by him shaking its tail

  • in feeding-lamb fashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle.

  • A squirrel was perched on Dickon's bent back attentively nibbling a nut.

  • The little girl from India was sitting on a big footstool looking on.

  • "Here is Mr. Roach, Master Colin," said Mrs. Medlock.

  • The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor over--at least that was what the

  • head gardener felt happened.

  • "Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I sent for you to give you some very

  • important orders."

  • "Very good, sir," answered Roach, wondering if he was to receive instructions to fell

  • all the oaks in the park or to transform the orchards into water-gardens.

  • "I am going out in my chair this afternoon," said Colin.

  • "If the fresh air agrees with me I may go out every day.

  • When I go, none of the gardeners are to be anywhere near the Long Walk by the garden

  • walls. No one is to be there.

  • I shall go out about two o'clock and everyone must keep away until I send word

  • that they may go back to their work."

  • "Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that the oaks might remain

  • and that the orchards were safe.

  • "Mary," said Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing you say in India when you

  • have finished talking and want people to go?"

  • "You say, 'You have my permission to go,'" answered Mary.

  • The Rajah waved his hand. "You have my permission to go, Roach," he

  • said.

  • "But, remember, this is very important." "Caw--Caw!" remarked the crow hoarsely but

  • not impolitely. "Very good, sir.

  • Thank you, sir," said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took him out of the room.

  • Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled until he almost

  • laughed.

  • "My word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordly way with him, hasn't he?

  • You'd think he was a whole Royal Family rolled into one--Prince Consort and all.".

  • "Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to let him trample all over every one of us

  • ever since he had feet and he thinks that's what folks was born for."

  • "Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives," suggested Mr. Roach.

  • "Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said Mrs. Medlock.

  • "If he does live and that Indian child stays here I'll warrant she teaches him

  • that the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says.

  • And he'll be likely to find out the size of his own quarter."

  • Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions.

  • "It's all safe now," he said.

  • "And this afternoon I shall see it--this afternoon I shall be in it!"

  • Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with Colin.

  • She did not think he looked tired but he was very quiet before their lunch came and

  • he was quiet while they were eating it. She wondered why and asked him about it.

  • "What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said.

  • "When you are thinking they get as big as saucers.

  • What are you thinking about now?"

  • "I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered.

  • "The garden?" asked Mary. "The springtime," he said.

  • "I was thinking that I've really never seen it before.

  • I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at it.

  • I didn't even think about it."

  • "I never saw it in India because there wasn't any," said Mary.

  • Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and

  • at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.

  • "That morning when you ran in and said 'It's come!

  • It's come!', you made me feel quite queer.

  • It sounded as if things were coming with a great procession and big bursts and wafts

  • of music.

  • I've a picture like it in one of my books-- crowds of lovely people and children with

  • garlands and branches with blossoms on them, everyone laughing and dancing and

  • crowding and playing on pipes.

  • That was why I said, 'Perhaps we shall hear golden trumpets' and told you to throw open

  • the window." "How funny!" said Mary.

  • "That's really just what it feels like.

  • And if all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds and wild creatures danced

  • past at once, what a crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and sing and flute

  • and that would be the wafts of music."

  • They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but because they

  • both so liked it. A little later the nurse made Colin ready.

  • She noticed that instead of lying like a log while his clothes were put on he sat up

  • and made some efforts to help himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the

  • time.

  • "This is one of his good days, sir," she said to Dr. Craven, who dropped in to

  • inspect him. "He's in such good spirits that it makes

  • him stronger."

  • "I'll call in again later in the afternoon, after he has come in," said Dr. Craven.

  • "I must see how the going out agrees with him.

  • I wish," in a very low voice, "that he would let you go with him."

  • "I'd rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay here while it's

  • suggested," answered the nurse.

  • With sudden firmness. "I hadn't really decided to suggest it,"

  • said the doctor, with his slight nervousness.

  • "We'll try the experiment.

  • Dickon's a lad I'd trust with a new-born child."

  • The strongest footman in the house carried Colin down stairs and put him in his

  • wheeled chair near which Dickon waited outside.

  • After the manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand to

  • him and to the nurse.

  • "You have my permission to go," he said, and they both disappeared quickly and it

  • must be confessed giggled when they were safely inside the house.

  • Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily.

  • Mistress Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the sky.

  • The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed like white birds

  • floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness.

  • The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange with a wild

  • clear scented sweetness.

  • Colin kept lifting his thin chest to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it

  • were they which were listening--listening, instead of his ears.

  • "There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he said.

  • "What is that scent the puffs of wind bring?"

  • "It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon.

  • "Eh! th' bees are at it wonderful today." Not a human creature was to be caught sight

  • of in the paths they took.

  • In fact every gardener or gardener's lad had been witched away.

  • But they wound in and out among the shrubbery and out and round the fountain

  • beds, following their carefully planned route for the mere mysterious pleasure of

  • it.

  • But when at last they turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls the excited sense

  • of an approaching thrill made them, for some curious reason they could not have

  • explained, begin to speak in whispers.

  • "This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where I used to walk up and down

  • and wonder and wonder." "Is it?" cried Colin, and his eyes began to

  • search the ivy with eager curiousness.

  • "But I can see nothing," he whispered. "There is no door."

  • "That's what I thought," said Mary. Then there was a lovely breathless silence

  • and the chair wheeled on.

  • "That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff works," said Mary.

  • "Is it?" said Colin. A few yards more and Mary whispered again.

  • "This is where the robin flew over the wall," she said.

  • "Is it?" cried Colin. "Oh! I wish he'd come again!"

  • "And that," said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a big lilac bush, "is where

  • he perched on the little heap of earth and showed me the key."

  • Then Colin sat up.

  • "Where? Where?

  • There?" he cried, and his eyes were as big as the wolf's in Red Riding-Hood, when Red

  • Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark on them.

  • Dickon stood still and the wheeled chair stopped.

  • "And this," said Mary, stepping on to the bed close to the ivy, "is where I went to

  • talk to him when he chirped at me from the top of the wall.

  • And this is the ivy the wind blew back," and she took hold of the hanging green

  • curtain. "Oh! is it--is it!" gasped Colin.

  • "And here is the handle, and here is the door.

  • Dickon push him in--push him in quickly!" And Dickon did it with one strong, steady,

  • splendid push.

  • But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he gasped with

  • delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held them there shutting out

  • everything until they were inside and the

  • chair stopped as if by magic and the door was closed.

  • Not till then did he take them away and look round and round and round as Dickon

  • and Mary had done.

  • And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green

  • veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray

  • urns in the alcoves and here and there

  • everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were

  • showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint

  • sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents.

  • And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely touch.

  • And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him.

  • He looked so strange and different because a pink glow of color had actually crept all

  • over him--ivory face and neck and hands and all.

  • "I shall get well!

  • I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary!

  • Dickon! I shall get well!

  • And I shall live forever and ever and ever!"

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXI BEN WEATHERSTAFF

  • One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then

  • one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

  • One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out

  • and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the

  • pale sky slowly changing and flushing and

  • marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's

  • heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the

  • sun--which has been happening every morning

  • for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

  • One knows it then for a moment or so.

  • And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the

  • mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be

  • saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries.

  • Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars

  • waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it

  • true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

  • And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime

  • inside the four high walls of a hidden garden.

  • That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and

  • radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy.

  • Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it

  • possibly could into that one place.

  • More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and stood still with a sort of

  • growing wonder in his eyes, shaking his head softly.

  • "Eh! it is graidely," he said.

  • "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen an' there's a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but

  • seems to me like I never seed one as graidely as this 'ere."

  • "Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy.

  • "I'll warrant it's the graidelest one as ever was in this world."

  • "Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it was made loike

  • this 'ere all o' purpose for me?" "My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that

  • there is a bit o' good Yorkshire.

  • Tha'rt shapin' first-rate--that tha' art." And delight reigned.

  • They drew the chair under the plum-tree, which was snow-white with blossoms and

  • musical with bees.

  • It was like a king's canopy, a fairy king's.

  • There were flowering cherry-trees near and apple-trees whose buds were pink and white,

  • and here and there one had burst open wide.

  • Between the blossoming branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked down like

  • wonderful eyes. Mary and Dickon worked a little here and

  • there and Colin watched them.

  • They brought him things to look at--buds which were opening, buds which were tight

  • closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green, the feather of a woodpecker

  • which had dropped on the grass, the empty shell of some bird early hatched.

  • Dickon pushed the chair slowly round and round the garden, stopping every other

  • moment to let him look at wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from

  • trees.

  • It was like being taken in state round the country of a magic king and queen and shown

  • all the mysterious riches it contained. "I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said

  • Colin.

  • "Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon.

  • "When th' eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head

  • swim.

  • Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as big as himsel' an'

  • that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he gets there as fair flusters him so as he

  • scarce knows which big mouth to drop th' first piece in.

  • An' gapin' beaks an' squawks on every side.

  • Mother says as when she sees th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks filled,

  • she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do.

  • She says she's seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be droppin'

  • off 'em, though folk can't see it."

  • This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to cover their mouths

  • with their hands, remembering that they must not be heard.

  • Colin had been instructed as to the law of whispers and low voices several days

  • before.

  • He liked the mysteriousness of it and did his best, but in the midst of excited

  • enjoyment it is rather difficult never to laugh above a whisper.

  • Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour the sunshine grew

  • more golden.

  • The wheeled chair had been drawn back under the canopy and Dickon had sat down on the

  • grass and had just drawn out his pipe when Colin saw something he had not had time to

  • notice before.

  • "That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said.

  • Dickon looked across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was a brief

  • moment of stillness.

  • "Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very gentle sound.

  • Mary gazed at the tree and thought. "The branches are quite gray and there's

  • not a single leaf anywhere," Colin went on.

  • "It's quite dead, isn't it?" "Aye," admitted Dickon.

  • "But them roses as has climbed all over it will near hide every bit o' th' dead wood

  • when they're full o' leaves an' flowers.

  • It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest of all."

  • Mary still gazed at the tree and thought. "It looks as if a big branch had been

  • broken off," said Colin.

  • "I wonder how it was done." "It's been done many a year," answered

  • Dickon. "Eh!" with a sudden relieved start and

  • laying his hand on Colin.

  • "Look at that robin! There he is!

  • He's been foragin' for his mate."

  • Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the flash of red-

  • breasted bird with something in his beak.

  • He darted through the greenness and into the close-grown corner and was out of

  • sight. Colin leaned back on his cushion again,

  • laughing a little.

  • "He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock.

  • I think I'd like some tea myself." And so they were safe.

  • "It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to Dickon afterward.

  • "I know it was Magic."

  • For both she and Dickon had been afraid Colin might ask something about the tree

  • whose branch had broken off ten years ago and they had talked it over together and

  • Dickon had stood and rubbed his head in a troubled way.

  • "We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees," he had said.

  • "We couldn't never tell him how it broke, poor lad.

  • If he says anything about it we mun--we mun try to look cheerful."

  • "Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary.

  • But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the tree.

  • She wondered and wondered in those few moments if there was any reality in that

  • other thing Dickon had said.

  • He had gone on rubbing his rust-red hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look

  • had begun to grow in his blue eyes. "Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady,"

  • he had gone on rather hesitatingly.

  • "An' mother she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite many a time lookin' after

  • Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when they're took out o' th' world.

  • They have to come back, tha' sees.

  • Happen she's been in the garden an' happen it was her set us to work, an' told us to

  • bring him here." Mary had thought he meant something about

  • Magic.

  • She was a great believer in Magic.

  • Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked Magic, of course good Magic, on

  • everything near him and that was why people liked him so much and wild creatures knew

  • he was their friend.

  • She wondered, indeed, if it were not possible that his gift had brought the

  • robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that dangerous question.

  • She felt that his Magic was working all the afternoon and making Colin look like an

  • entirely different boy.

  • It did not seem possible that he could be the crazy creature who had screamed and

  • beaten and bitten his pillow. Even his ivory whiteness seemed to change.

  • The faint glow of color which had shown on his face and neck and hands when he first

  • got inside the garden really never quite died away.

  • He looked as if he were made of flesh instead of ivory or wax.

  • They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was so

  • suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some.

  • "Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the rhododendron walk,"

  • he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring it

  • here."

  • It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth was spread

  • upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, a delightfully hungry

  • meal was eaten, and several birds on

  • domestic errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into investigating

  • crumbs with great activity.

  • Nut and Shell whisked up trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a

  • buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and made

  • hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all joyfully in one gulp.

  • The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow hour.

  • The sun was deepening the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the

  • birds were flying past less often.

  • Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the tea-basket was repacked ready to be

  • taken back to the house, and Colin was lying against his cushions with his heavy

  • locks pushed back from his forehead and his face looking quite a natural color.

  • "I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back tomorrow, and

  • the day after, and the day after, and the day after."

  • "You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary.

  • "I'm going to get nothing else," he answered.

  • "I've seen the spring now and I'm going to see the summer.

  • I'm going to see everything grow here. I'm going to grow here myself."

  • "That tha' will," said Dickon.

  • "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an' diggin' same as other folk afore long."

  • Colin flushed tremendously. "Walk!" he said.

  • "Dig! Shall I?"

  • Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious.

  • Neither he nor Mary had ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs.

  • "For sure tha' will," he said stoutly.

  • "Tha--tha's got legs o' thine own, same as other folks!"

  • Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer.

  • "Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and weak.

  • They shake so that I'm afraid to try to stand on them."

  • Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath.

  • "When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with renewed cheer.

  • "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit."

  • "I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering about things.

  • They were really very quiet for a little while.

  • The sun was dropping lower.

  • It was that hour when everything stills itself, and they really had had a busy and

  • exciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were resting

  • luxuriously.

  • Even the creatures had ceased moving about and had drawn together and were resting

  • near them.

  • Soot had perched on a low branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film

  • drowsily over his eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if he

  • might snore in a minute.

  • In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half lifted his

  • head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper:

  • "Who is that man?"

  • Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet. "Man!" they both cried in low quick voices.

  • Colin pointed to the high wall. "Look!" he whispered excitedly.

  • "Just look!"

  • Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben Weatherstaff's indignant face

  • glaring at them over the wall from the top of a ladder!

  • He actually shook his fist at Mary.

  • "If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd give thee a

  • hidin'!"

  • He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his energetic intention to jump

  • down and deal with her; but as she came toward him he evidently thought better of

  • it and stood on the top step of his ladder shaking his fist down at her.

  • "I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th' first time I set

  • eyes on thee.

  • A scrawny buttermilk-faced young besom, allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose

  • where it wasna, wanted. I never knowed how tha' got so thick wi'

  • me.

  • If it hadna' been for th' robin-- Drat him--"

  • "Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath.

  • She stood below him and called up to him with a sort of gasp.

  • "Ben Weatherstaff, it was the robin who showed me the way!"

  • Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of the wall, he

  • was so outraged. "Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at

  • her.

  • "Layin' tha' badness on a robin--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'.

  • Him showin' thee th' way!

  • Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"--she could see his next words burst out because he was

  • overpowered by curiosity--"however i' this world did tha' get in?"

  • "It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately.

  • "He didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell you from here while you're

  • shaking your fist at me."

  • He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his jaw actually

  • dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw coming over the grass

  • toward him.

  • At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised that he had

  • only sat up and listened as if he were spellbound.

  • But in the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to Dickon.

  • "Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop right in

  • front of him!"

  • And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which made his jaw

  • drop.

  • A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes which came toward him looking rather

  • like some sort of State Coach because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal

  • command in his great black-rimmed eyes and

  • a thin white hand extended haughtily toward him.

  • And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose.

  • It was really no wonder his mouth dropped open.

  • "Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah. How Ben Weatherstaff stared!

  • His red old eyes fixed themselves on what was before him as if he were seeing a

  • ghost. He gazed and gazed and gulped a lump down

  • his throat and did not say a word.

  • "Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously.

  • "Answer!"

  • Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes and over his

  • forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice.

  • "Who tha' art?" he said.

  • "Aye, that I do--wi' tha' mother's eyes starin' at me out o' tha' face.

  • Lord knows how tha' come here. But tha'rt th' poor cripple."

  • Colin forgot that he had ever had a back.

  • His face flushed scarlet and he sat bolt upright.

  • "I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously.

  • "I'm not!"

  • "He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce indignation.

  • "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there was none there--not

  • one!"

  • Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if he could

  • never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth shook and his

  • voice shook.

  • He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and he could only remember the

  • things he had heard. "Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he

  • said hoarsely.

  • "No!" shouted Colin. "Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?"

  • quavered Ben more hoarsely yet. It was too much.

  • The strength which Colin usually threw into his tantrums rushed through him now in a

  • new way.

  • Never yet had he been accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly

  • simple belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff's voice was

  • more than Rajah flesh and blood could endure.

  • His anger and insulted pride made him forget everything but this one moment and

  • filled him with a power he had never known before, an almost unnatural strength.

  • "Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the coverings off

  • his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come here!

  • Come here!

  • This minute!" Dickon was by his side in a second.

  • Mary caught her breath in a short gasp and felt herself turn pale.

  • "He can do it!

  • He can do it! He can do it!

  • He can!" she gabbled over to herself under her breath as fast as ever she could.

  • There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on the ground, Dickon held

  • Colin's arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet were on the grass.

  • Colin was standing upright--upright--as straight as an arrow and looking strangely

  • tall--his head thrown back and his strange eyes flashing lightning.

  • "Look at me!" he flung up at Ben Weatherstaff.

  • "Just look at me--you! Just look at me!"

  • "He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon.

  • "He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!" What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought

  • queer beyond measure.

  • He choked and gulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he

  • struck his old hands together. "Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells!

  • Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee.

  • Tha'lt make a mon yet. God bless thee!"

  • Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter.

  • He stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff in the face.

  • "I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away.

  • And you are to obey me. This is my garden.

  • Don't dare to say a word about it!

  • You get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet you

  • and bring you here. I want to talk to you.

  • We did not want you, but now you will have to be in the secret.

  • Be quick!"

  • Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer rush of

  • tears.

  • It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin straight Colin standing on his

  • feet with his head thrown back. "Eh! lad," he almost whispered.

  • "Eh! my lad!"

  • And then remembering himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said,

  • "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he

  • descended the ladder.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN

  • When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary.

  • "Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door under the ivy.

  • Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes.

  • There were scarlet spots on his cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs

  • of falling. "I can stand," he said, and his head was

  • still held up and he said it quite grandly.

  • "I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered Dickon.

  • "An' tha's stopped." "Yes, I've stopped," said Colin.

  • Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said.

  • "Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply. Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful

  • grin.

  • "Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these 'ere work

  • out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump of crocuses in the

  • grass.

  • Colin looked down at them. "Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be

  • bigger Magic than that there--there couldna' be."

  • He drew himself up straighter than ever.

  • "I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet away from him.

  • "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here.

  • I can rest against the tree if I like.

  • When I want to sit down I will sit down, but not before.

  • Bring a rug from the chair." He walked to the tree and though Dickon

  • held his arm he was wonderfully steady.

  • When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that he supported himself

  • against it, and he still held himself so straight that he looked tall.

  • When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him standing there and

  • he heard Mary muttering something under her breath.

  • "What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his attention

  • distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud face.

  • But she did not tell him.

  • What she was saying was this: "You can do it!

  • You can do it! I told you you could!

  • You can do it!

  • You can do it! You can!"

  • She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him on his

  • feet looking like that.

  • She could not bear that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff.

  • He did not give in.

  • She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his

  • thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in

  • his funny imperious way.

  • "Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over!

  • Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?"

  • Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had recovered a little and

  • answered almost in his usual way. "Not tha'," he said.

  • "Nowt o' th' sort.

  • What's tha' been doin' with thysel'--hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha'

  • was cripple an' half-witted?" "Half-witted!" said Colin angrily.

  • "Who thought that?"

  • "Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an'

  • they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?"

  • "Everyone thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly.

  • "I'm not!"

  • And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up and down,

  • down and up. "Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation.

  • "Nowt o' th' sort!

  • Tha's got too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on th'

  • ground in such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right.

  • Sit thee down on th' rug a bit young Mester an' give me thy orders."

  • There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding in his

  • manner.

  • Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as she could as they had come down the Long

  • Walk.

  • The chief thing to be remembered, she had told him, was that Colin was getting well--

  • getting well. The garden was doing it.

  • No one must let him remember about having humps and dying.

  • The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree.

  • "What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired.

  • "Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben.

  • "I'm kep' on by favor--because she liked me."

  • "She?" said Colin. "Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.

  • "My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly.

  • "This was her garden, wasn't it?" "Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff

  • looked about him too.

  • "She were main fond of it." "It is my garden now.

  • I am fond of it. I shall come here every day," announced

  • Colin.

  • "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that no one is to know that

  • we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and made

  • it come alive.

  • I shall send for you sometimes to help--but you must come when no one can see you."

  • Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile.

  • "I've come here before when no one saw me," he said.

  • "What!" exclaimed Colin. "When?"

  • "Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was about two

  • year' ago." "But no one has been in it for ten years!"

  • cried Colin.

  • "There was no door!" "I'm no one," said old Ben dryly.

  • "An' I didn't come through th' door. I come over th' wall.

  • Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'."

  • "Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon.

  • "I couldn't make out how it had been done."

  • "She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly.

  • "An' she was such a pretty young thing.

  • She says to me once, 'Ben,' says she laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go away

  • you must take care of my roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one

  • was ever to come nigh.

  • But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th' wall I come--until th' rheumatics

  • stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work once a year.

  • She'd gave her order first."

  • "It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said Dickon.

  • "I did wonder." "I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said

  • Colin.

  • "You'll know how to keep the secret." "Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben.

  • "An' it'll be easier for a man wi' rheumatics to come in at th' door."

  • On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel.

  • Colin stretched out his hand and took it up.

  • An odd expression came into his face and he began to scratch at the earth.

  • His thin hand was weak enough but presently as they watched him--Mary with quite

  • breathless interest--he drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some

  • over.

  • "You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself.

  • "I tell you, you can!" Dickon's round eyes were full of eager

  • curiousness but he said not a word.

  • Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.

  • Colin persevered.

  • After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke exultantly to Dickon in his

  • best Yorkshire.

  • "Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an' tha' said

  • tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please me.

  • This is only th' first day an' I've walked- -an' here I am diggin'."

  • Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended by

  • chuckling.

  • "Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow.

  • Tha'rt a Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too.

  • How'd tha' like to plant a bit o' somethin'?

  • I can get thee a rose in a pot." "Go and get it!" said Colin, digging

  • excitedly.

  • "Quick! Quick!"

  • It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way forgetting

  • rheumatics.

  • Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and wider than a new digger with

  • thin white hands could make it. Mary slipped out to run and bring back a

  • watering-can.

  • When Dickon had deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and

  • over.

  • He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new exercise,

  • slight as it was. "I want to do it before the sun goes quite-

  • -quite down," he said.

  • Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on purpose.

  • Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the greenhouse.

  • He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could.

  • He had begun to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot

  • from the mould.

  • "Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin.

  • "Set it in the earth thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place."

  • The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he set the

  • rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth.

  • It was filled in and pressed down and made steady.

  • Mary was leaning forward on her hands and knees.

  • Soot had flown down and marched forward to see what was being done.

  • Nut and Shell chattered about it from a cherry-tree.

  • "It's planted!" said Colin at last.

  • "And the sun is only slipping over the edge.

  • Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes.

  • That's part of the Magic."

  • And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so gave him strength that

  • when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange lovely afternoon for them there

  • he actually stood on his two feet-- laughing.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXIII MAGIC

  • Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to it.

  • He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some one out to explore

  • the garden paths.

  • When Colin was brought back to his room the poor man looked him over seriously.

  • "You should not have stayed so long," he said.

  • "You must not overexert yourself."

  • "I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well.

  • Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."

  • "I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven.

  • "I am afraid it would not be wise." "It would not be wise to try to stop me,"

  • said Colin quite seriously.

  • "I am going."

  • Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities was that he did not

  • know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his way of ordering people

  • about.

  • He had lived on a sort of desert island all his life and as he had been the king of it

  • he had made his own manners and had had no one to compare himself with.

  • Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since she had been at

  • Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind

  • which is usual or popular.

  • Having made this discovery she naturally thought it of enough interest to

  • communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him curiously for

  • a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone.

  • She wanted to make him ask her why she was doing it and of course she did.

  • "What are you looking at me for?" he said. "I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for

  • Dr. Craven."

  • "So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some satisfaction.

  • "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to die."

  • "I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary, "but I was thinking

  • just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be polite for ten

  • years to a boy who was always rude.

  • I would never have done it." "Am I rude?"

  • Colin inquired undisturbedly.

  • "If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man," said Mary,

  • "he would have slapped you." "But he daren't," said Colin.

  • "No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite without

  • prejudice.

  • "Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't like--because you were going to die

  • and things like that. You were such a poor thing."

  • "But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing.

  • I won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon."

  • "It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went on, thinking

  • aloud. Colin turned his head, frowning.

  • "Am I queer?" he demanded.

  • "Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross," she added

  • impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is Ben Weatherstaff.

  • But I am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I found the

  • garden." "I don't want to be queer," said Colin.

  • "I am not going to be," and he frowned again with determination.

  • He was a very proud boy.

  • He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw his beautiful smile begin and gradually

  • change his whole face. "I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I

  • go every day to the garden.

  • There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Mary.

  • I am sure there is." "So am I," said Mary.

  • "Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is.

  • Something is there--something!" "It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black.

  • It's as white as snow."

  • They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months that followed-

  • -the wonderful months--the radiant months-- the amazing ones.

  • Oh! the things which happened in that garden!

  • If you have never had a garden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden

  • you will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to pass

  • there.

  • At first it seemed that green things would never cease pushing their way through the

  • earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in the crevices of the walls.

  • Then the green things began to show buds and the buds began to unfurl and show

  • color, every shade of blue, every shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson.

  • In its happy days flowers had been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner.

  • Ben Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from between the

  • bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely clinging things to grow

  • on.

  • Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled

  • themselves with amazing armies of the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums

  • or columbines or campanulas.

  • "She was main fond o' them--she was," Ben Weatherstaff said.

  • "She liked them things as was allus pointin' up to th' blue sky, she used to

  • tell.

  • Not as she was one o' them as looked down on th' earth--not her.

  • She just loved it but she said as th' blue sky allus looked so joyful."

  • The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended them.

  • Satiny poppies of all tints danced in the breeze by the score, gaily defying flowers

  • which had lived in the garden for years and which it might be confessed seemed rather

  • to wonder how such new people had got there.

  • And the roses--the roses!

  • Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and

  • hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long

  • garlands falling in cascades--they came alive day by day, hour by hour.

  • Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first but swelling and working Magic

  • until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over

  • their brims and filling the garden air.

  • Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place.

  • Every morning he was brought out and every hour of each day when it didn't rain he

  • spent in the garden.

  • Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the grass "watching things

  • growing," he said. If you watched long enough, he declared,

  • you could see buds unsheath themselves.

  • Also you could make the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on

  • various unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of

  • straw or feather or food, or climbing

  • blades of grass as if they were trees from whose tops one could look out to explore

  • the country.

  • A mole throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and making its way out at last

  • with the long-nailed paws which looked so like elfish hands, had absorbed him one

  • whole morning.

  • Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees' ways, frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways,

  • gave him a new world to explore and when Dickon revealed them all and added foxes'

  • ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways,

  • squirrels' ways, and trout' and water-rats' and badgers' ways, there was no end to the

  • things to talk about and think over. And this was not the half of the Magic.

  • The fact that he had really once stood on his feet had set Colin thinking

  • tremendously and when Mary told him of the spell she had worked he was excited and

  • approved of it greatly.

  • He talked of it constantly. "Of course there must be lots of Magic in

  • the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to

  • make it.

  • Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make

  • them happen. I am going to try and experiment."

  • The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for Ben

  • Weatherstaff.

  • Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah standing on his feet under a tree

  • and looking very grand but also very beautifully smiling.

  • "Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said.

  • "I want you and Dickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I

  • am going to tell you something very important."

  • "Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead.

  • (One of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had

  • once run away to sea and had made voyages.

  • So he could reply like a sailor.) "I am going to try a scientific

  • experiment," explained the Rajah.

  • "When I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going to

  • begin now with this experiment."

  • "Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the first time he

  • had heard of great scientific discoveries.

  • It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she

  • had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular

  • things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy.

  • When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you it seemed as if you

  • believed him almost in spite of yourself though he was only ten years old--going on

  • eleven.

  • At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of

  • actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person.

  • "The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will be about

  • Magic.

  • Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows anything about it except a few people

  • in old books--and Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are

  • fakirs.

  • I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it.

  • He charms animals and people.

  • I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmer--which

  • is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal.

  • I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold

  • of it and make it do things for us--like electricity and horses and steam."

  • This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and

  • really could not keep still. "Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to

  • stand up quite straight.

  • "When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator proceeded.

  • "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of

  • nothing.

  • One day things weren't there and another they were.

  • I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious.

  • Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific.

  • I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?'

  • It's something.

  • It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it Magic.

  • I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tell me I am

  • sure that is Magic too.

  • Something pushes it up and draws it.

  • Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky

  • and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and

  • drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast.

  • Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing.

  • Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes

  • and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.

  • In this garden--in all the places.

  • The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man.

  • I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it

  • in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong.

  • I don't know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling

  • it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get

  • it.

  • When I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as

  • she could, 'You can do it! You can do it!' and I did.

  • I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and so did

  • Dickon's.

  • Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to

  • say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well!

  • I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!'

  • And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment Will you help, Ben

  • Weatherstaff?"

  • "Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!"

  • "If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through drill we

  • shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment succeeds.

  • You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they

  • stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic.

  • If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and

  • it will stay and do things."

  • "I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs who said

  • words over and over thousands of times," said Mary.

  • "I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th' same thing over thousands o' times--callin'

  • Jem a drunken brute," said Ben Weatherstaff dryly.

  • "Summat allus come o' that, sure enough.

  • He gave her a good hidin' an' went to th' Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord."

  • Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes.

  • Then he cheered up.

  • "Well," he said, "you see something did come of it.

  • She used the wrong Magic until she made him beat her.

  • If she'd used the right Magic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldn't have got

  • as drunk as a lord and perhaps--perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet."

  • Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little old eyes.

  • "Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straight- legged one, Mester Colin," he said.

  • "Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of a hint o' what Magic will do

  • for her. She'd be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik

  • 'speriment worked--an' so 'ud Jem."

  • Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with curious

  • delight.

  • Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a long-eared white rabbit in his arm

  • and stroked and stroked it softly while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed

  • itself.

  • "Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin asked him, wondering what he was

  • thinking.

  • He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he saw him looking at him or

  • at one of his "creatures" with his happy wide smile.

  • He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.

  • "Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when th'

  • sun shines on 'em.

  • It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?"

  • Colin was delighted and so was Mary.

  • Fired by recollections of fakirs and devotees in illustrations Colin suggested

  • that they should all sit cross-legged under the tree which made a canopy.

  • "It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin.

  • "I'm rather tired and I want to sit down." "Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' mustn't begin by

  • sayin' tha'rt tired.

  • Tha' might spoil th' Magic." Colin turned and looked at him--into his

  • innocent round eyes. "That's true," he said slowly.

  • "I must only think of the Magic."

  • It all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their circle.

  • Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into appearing at a prayer-

  • meeting.

  • Ordinarily he was very fixed in being what he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this

  • being the Rajah's affair he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified

  • at being called upon to assist.

  • Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured.

  • Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's signal no

  • one heard, for when he sat down, cross- legged like the rest, the crow, the fox,

  • the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near

  • and made part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own

  • desire. "The 'creatures' have come," said Colin

  • gravely.

  • "They want to help us." Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary

  • thought.

  • He held his head high as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a

  • wonderful look in them. The light shone on him through the tree

  • canopy.

  • "Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary,

  • as if we were dervishes?" "I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and

  • for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff.

  • "I've got th' rheumatics." "The Magic will take them away," said Colin

  • in a High Priest tone, "but we won't sway until it has done it.

  • We will only chant."

  • "I canna' do no chantin'" said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily.

  • "They turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it."

  • No one smiled.

  • They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not even crossed by a

  • shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic.

  • "Then I will chant," he said.

  • And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit.

  • "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic.

  • The flowers are growing--the roots are stirring.

  • That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic--being strong is

  • the Magic.

  • The Magic is in me--the Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me.

  • It's in every one of us. It's in Ben Weatherstaff's back.

  • Magic!

  • Magic! Come and help!"

  • He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly number.

  • Mary listened entranced.

  • She felt as if it were at once queer and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and

  • on. Ben Weatherstaff began to feel soothed into

  • a sort of dream which was quite agreeable.

  • The humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and

  • drowsily melted into a doze.

  • Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the

  • lamb's back.

  • Soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder, the gray film

  • dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped.

  • "Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced.

  • Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a jerk.

  • "You have been asleep," said Colin.

  • "Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm bound to

  • get out afore th' collection." He was not quite awake yet.

  • "You're not in church," said Colin.

  • "Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were?

  • I heard every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back.

  • Th' doctor calls it rheumatics."

  • The Rajah waved his hand. "That was the wrong Magic," he said.

  • "You will get better. You have my permission to go to your work.

  • But come back tomorrow."

  • "I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben.

  • It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt.

  • In fact, being a stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up

  • his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look over the wall so

  • that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any stumbling.

  • The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was formed.

  • It really did look like a procession.

  • Colin was at its head with Dickon on one side and Mary on the other.

  • Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb

  • and the fox cub keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping

  • to nibble and Soot following with the

  • solemnity of a person who felt himself in charge.

  • It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity.

  • Every few yards it stopped to rest.

  • Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but

  • now and then Colin took his hand from its support and walked a few steps alone.

  • His head was held up all the time and he looked very grand.

  • "The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong!

  • I can feel it!

  • I can feel it!" It seemed very certain that something was

  • upholding and uplifting him.

  • He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the grass and

  • several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but he would not give up

  • until he had gone all round the garden.

  • When he returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked

  • triumphant. "I did it!

  • The Magic worked!" he cried.

  • "That is my first scientific discovery.". "What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary.

  • "He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because he will not be told.

  • This is to be the biggest secret of all.

  • No one is to know anything about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and

  • run like any other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and

  • I shall be taken back in it.

  • I won't have people whispering and asking questions and I won't let my father hear

  • about it until the experiment has quite succeeded.

  • Then sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his

  • study and say 'Here I am; I am like any other boy.

  • I am quite well and I shall live to be a man.

  • It has been done by a scientific experiment.'"

  • "He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary.

  • "He won't believe his eyes." Colin flushed triumphantly.

  • He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more

  • than half the battle, if he had been aware of it.

  • And the thought which stimulated him more than any other was this imagining what his

  • father would look like when he saw that he had a son who was as straight and strong as

  • other fathers' sons.

  • One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had been his

  • hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was afraid to look at him.

  • "He'll be obliged to believe them," he said.

  • "One of the things I am going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make

  • scientific discoveries, is to be an athlete."

  • "We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben Weatherstaff.

  • "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion prize-fighter of all England."

  • Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

  • "Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful.

  • You must not take liberties because you are in the secret.

  • However much the Magic works I shall not be a prize-fighter.

  • I shall be a Scientific Discoverer." "Ax pardon--ax pardon, sir" answered Ben,

  • touching his forehead in salute.

  • "I ought to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," but his eyes twinkled and secretly

  • he was immensely pleased.

  • He really did not mind being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining

  • strength and spirit.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXIV "LET THEM LAUGH"

  • The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in.

  • Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall of

  • rough stones.

  • Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin and Mary

  • did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages,

  • turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother.

  • In the company of his "creatures" he did wonders there and was never tired of doing

  • them, it seemed.

  • While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to

  • Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

  • "We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it wasn't for

  • Dickon's garden. Anything'll grow for him.

  • His 'taters and cabbages is twice th' size of any one else's an' they've got a flavor

  • with 'em as nobody's has." When she found a moment to spare she liked

  • to go out and talk to him.

  • After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet

  • time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and

  • look on and hear stories of the day.

  • She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this

  • garden.

  • Dickon had bought penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-

  • scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of

  • mignonette and pinks and pansies and things

  • whose seeds he could save year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and

  • spread in time into fine clumps.

  • The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had tucked

  • moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice

  • until only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen.

  • "All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is to be friends

  • with 'em for sure.

  • They're just like th' 'creatures.' If they're thirsty give 'em drink and if

  • they're hungry give 'em a bit o' food. They want to live same as we do.

  • If they died I should feel as if I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them

  • heartless."

  • It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened at

  • Misselthwaite Manor.

  • At first she was only told that "Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into

  • the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was doing him good.

  • But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickon's

  • mother might "come into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was

  • "safe for sure."

  • So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the thrilling

  • details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze which had seemed like

  • deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never to reveal.

  • The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, the doubt of Mester Colin and

  • the final drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the incident

  • of Ben Weatherstaff's angry face peering

  • over the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sowerby's

  • nice-looking face quite change color several times.

  • "My word!" she said.

  • "It was a good thing that little lass came to th' Manor.

  • It's been th' makin' o' her an' th' savin, o' him.

  • Standin' on his feet!

  • An' us all thinkin' he was a poor half- witted lad with not a straight bone in

  • him." She asked a great many questions and her

  • blue eyes were full of deep thinking.

  • "What do they make of it at th' Manor--him being so well an' cheerful an' never

  • complainin'?" she inquired. "They don't know what to make of it,"

  • answered Dickon.

  • "Every day as comes round his face looks different.

  • It's fillin' out and doesn't look so sharp an' th' waxy color is goin'.

  • But he has to do his bit o' complainin'," with a highly entertained grin.

  • "What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby.

  • Dickon chuckled.

  • "He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened.

  • If the doctor knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and

  • tell Mester Craven.

  • Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself.

  • He's goin' to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father comes back

  • an' then he's goin' to march into his room an' show him he's as straight as other

  • lads.

  • But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan to do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now

  • an' then to throw folk off th' scent."

  • Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had finished his last

  • sentence. "Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin'

  • their-selves I'll warrant.

  • They'll get a good bit o' actin' out of it an' there's nothin' children likes as much

  • as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad."

  • Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her.

  • His eyes were twinkling with fun. "Mester Colin is carried down to his chair

  • every time he goes out," he explained.

  • "An' he flies out at John, th' footman, for not carryin' him careful enough.

  • He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an' never lifts his head until we're

  • out o' sight o' th' house.

  • An' he grunts an' frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his chair.

  • Him an' Miss Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an' complains she'll

  • say, 'Poor Colin!

  • Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that, poor Colin?'--but

  • th' trouble is that sometimes they can scarce keep from burstin' out laughin'.

  • When we get safe into the garden they laugh till they've no breath left to laugh with.

  • An' they have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the

  • gardeners from hearin', if any of, 'em's about."

  • "Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still laughing herself.

  • "Good healthy child laughin's better than pills any day o' th' year.

  • That pair'll plump up for sure."

  • "They are plumpin' up," said Dickon. "They're that hungry they don't know how to

  • get enough to eat without makin' talk.

  • Mester Colin says if he keeps sendin' for more food they won't believe he's an

  • invalid at all.

  • Miss Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if she goes hungry

  • she'll get thin an' they mun both get fat at once."

  • Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty that she

  • quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon laughed with her.

  • "I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said when she could speak.

  • "I've thought of a way to help 'em.

  • When tha' goes to 'em in th' mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new milk an' I'll

  • bake 'em a crusty cottage loaf or some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as you children

  • like.

  • Nothin's so good as fresh milk an' bread. Then they could take off th' edge o' their

  • hunger while they were in their garden an' th, fine food they get indoors 'ud polish

  • off th' corners."

  • "Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what a wonder tha' art!

  • Tha' always sees a way out o' things. They was quite in a pother yesterday.

  • They didn't see how they was to manage without orderin' up more food--they felt

  • that empty inside." "They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an'

  • health's comin' back to both of 'em.

  • Children like that feels like young wolves an' food's flesh an' blood to 'em," said

  • Mrs. Sowerby. Then she smiled Dickon's own curving smile.

  • "Eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves for sure," she said.

  • She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creature--and she had

  • never been more so than when she said their "play actin'" would be their joy.

  • Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources of entertainment.

  • The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had been unconsciously suggested

  • to them first by the puzzled nurse and then by Dr. Craven himself.

  • "Your appetite.

  • Is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had said one day.

  • "You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed with you."

  • "Nothing disagrees with me now" replied Colin, and then seeing the nurse looking at

  • him curiously he suddenly remembered that perhaps he ought not to appear too well

  • just yet.

  • "At least things don't so often disagree with me.

  • It's the fresh air." "Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still

  • looking at him with a mystified expression.

  • "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it." "How she stared at you!" said Mary when she

  • went away. "As if she thought there must be something

  • to find out."

  • "I won't have her finding out things," said Colin.

  • "No one must begin to find out yet." When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed

  • puzzled, also.

  • He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance.

  • "You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested.

  • "Where do you go?"

  • Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion.

  • "I will not let any one know where I go," he answered.

  • "I go to a place I like.

  • Every one has orders to keep out of the way.

  • I won't be watched and stared at. You know that!"

  • "You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harm--I do not think

  • so. The nurse says that you eat much more than

  • you have ever done before."

  • "Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is an unnatural

  • appetite." "I do not think so, as your food seems to

  • agree with you," said Dr. Craven.

  • "You are gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better."

  • "Perhaps--perhaps I am bloated and feverish," said Colin, assuming a

  • discouraging air of gloom.

  • "People who are not going to live are often--different."

  • Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist and he pushed

  • up his sleeve and felt his arm.

  • "You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully, "and such flesh as you have

  • gained is healthy. If you can keep this up, my boy, we need

  • not talk of dying.

  • Your father will be happy to hear of this remarkable improvement."

  • "I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth fiercely.

  • "It will only disappoint him if I get worse again--and I may get worse this very night.

  • I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might be beginning to have

  • one now.

  • I won't have letters written to my father-- I won't--I won't!

  • You are making me angry and you know that is bad for me.

  • I feel hot already.

  • I hate being written about and being talked over as much as I hate being stared at!"

  • "Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him. "Nothing shall be written without your

  • permission.

  • You are too sensitive about things. You must not undo the good which has been

  • done."

  • He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse he privately

  • warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned to the patient.

  • "The boy is extraordinarily better," he said.

  • "His advance seems almost abnormal.

  • But of course he is doing now of his own free will what we could not make him do

  • before. Still, he excites himself very easily and

  • nothing must be said to irritate him."

  • Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously.

  • From this time dated their plan of "play actin'."

  • "I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said Colin regretfully.

  • "I don't want to have one and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself into a

  • big one.

  • Perhaps I couldn't have one at all. That lump doesn't come in my throat now and

  • I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible ones.

  • But if they talk about writing to my father I shall have to do something."

  • He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible to carry

  • out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an amazing appetite and

  • the table near his sofa was set with a

  • breakfast of home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and

  • clotted cream.

  • Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found themselves at the table--

  • particularly if there were delicate slices of sizzling ham sending forth tempting

  • odors from under a hot silver cover--they

  • would look into each other's eyes in desperation.

  • "I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always ended by

  • saying.

  • "We can send away some of the lunch and a great deal of the dinner."

  • But they never found they could send away anything and the highly polished condition

  • of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened much comment.

  • "I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish the slices of ham were thicker, and

  • one muffin each is not enough for any one."

  • "It's enough for a person who is going to die," answered Mary when first she heard

  • this, "but it's not enough for a person who is going to live.

  • I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh heather and gorse

  • smells from the moor come pouring in at the open window."

  • The morning that Dickon--after they had been enjoying themselves in the garden for

  • about two hours--went behind a big rosebush and brought forth two tin pails and

  • revealed that one was full of rich new milk

  • with cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made currant buns folded

  • in a clean blue and white napkin, buns so carefully tucked in that they were still

  • hot, there was a riot of surprised joyfulness.

  • What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of!

  • What a kind, clever woman she must be!

  • How good the buns were! And what delicious fresh milk!

  • "Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin.

  • "It makes her think of ways to do things-- nice things.

  • She is a Magic person. Tell her we are grateful, Dickon--extremely

  • grateful."

  • He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times.

  • He enjoyed them. He liked this so much that he improved upon

  • it.

  • "Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme."

  • And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with buns and drank

  • milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner of any hungry little boy who had

  • been taking unusual exercise and breathing

  • in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours behind him.

  • This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind.

  • They actually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people to provide

  • food for she might not have enough to satisfy two extra appetites every day.

  • So they asked her to let them send some of their shillings to buy things.

  • Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park outside the garden

  • where Mary had first found him piping to the wild creatures there was a deep little

  • hollow where you could build a sort of tiny

  • oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it.

  • Roasted eggs were a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes with salt and

  • fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king--besides being deliciously

  • satisfying.

  • You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as many as you liked without feeling as

  • if you were taking food out of the mouths of fourteen people.

  • Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under the plum-

  • tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after its brief blossom-time

  • was ended.

  • After the ceremony Colin always took his walking exercise and throughout the day he

  • exercised his newly found power at intervals.

  • Each day he grew stronger and could walk more steadily and cover more ground.

  • And each day his belief in the Magic grew stronger--as well it might.

  • He tried one experiment after another as he felt himself gaining strength and it was

  • Dickon who showed him the best things of all.

  • "Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite for mother an'

  • near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth. He's the strongest chap on th' moor.

  • He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump higher than any other chap an' throw th'

  • hammer farther. He's gone all th' way to Scotland for th'

  • sports some years.

  • He's knowed me ever since I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him

  • some questions.

  • Th' gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee, Mester Colin, and I says,

  • 'How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out that way, Bob?

  • Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?'

  • An' he says 'Well, yes, lad, I did.

  • A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite once showed me how to exercise my arms an'

  • legs an' every muscle in my body.

  • An' I says, 'Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with 'em, Bob?' an' he

  • laughed an' says, 'Art tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, 'No, but I knows a young

  • gentleman that's gettin' well of a long

  • illness an' I wish I knowed some o' them tricks to tell him about.'

  • I didn't say no names an' he didn't ask none.

  • He's friendly same as I said an' he stood up an' showed me good-natured like, an' I

  • imitated what he did till I knowed it by heart."

  • Colin had been listening excitedly.

  • "Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?"

  • "Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up.

  • "But he says tha' mun do 'em gentle at first an' be careful not to tire thysel'.

  • Rest in between times an' take deep breaths an' don't overdo."

  • "I'll be careful," said Colin.

  • "Show me! Show me!

  • Dickon, you are the most Magic boy in the world!"

  • Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully practical but

  • simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with widening eyes.

  • He could do a few while he was sitting down.

  • Presently he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet.

  • Mary began to do them also.

  • Soot, who was watching the performance, became much disturbed and left his branch

  • and hopped about restlessly because he could not do them too.

  • From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as the Magic was.

  • It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of them each time they tried,

  • and such appetites were the results that but for the basket Dickon put down behind

  • the bush each morning when he arrived they would have been lost.

  • But the little oven in the hollow and Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that

  • Mrs. Medlock and the nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again.

  • You can trifle with your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to

  • the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oatcakes and

  • buns and heather honey and clotted cream.

  • "They are eating next to nothing," said the nurse.

  • "They'll die of starvation if they can't be persuaded to take some nourishment.

  • And yet see how they look."

  • "Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. "Eh! I'm moithered to death with them.

  • They're a pair of young Satans.

  • Bursting their jackets one day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals

  • Cook can tempt them with.

  • Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and bread sauce did they set a fork into

  • yesterday--and the poor woman fair invented a pudding for them--and back it's sent.

  • She almost cried.

  • She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve themselves into their graves."

  • Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully, He wore an extremely worried

  • expression when the nurse talked with him and showed him the almost untouched tray of

  • breakfast she had saved for him to look at-

  • -but it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa and examined him.

  • He had been called to London on business and had not seen the boy for nearly two

  • weeks.

  • When young things begin to gain health they gain it rapidly.

  • The waxen tinge had left, Colins skin and a warm rose showed through it; his beautiful

  • eyes were clear and the hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled

  • out.

  • His once dark, heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily from his

  • forehead and were soft and warm with life. His lips were fuller and of a normal color.

  • In fact as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed invalid he was a disgraceful

  • sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in his hand and

  • thought him over.

  • "I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything," he said.

  • "That will not do. You will lose all you have gained--and you

  • have gained amazingly.

  • You ate so well a short time ago." "I told you it was an unnatural appetite,"

  • answered Colin.

  • Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer sound which

  • she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost choking.

  • "What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her.

  • Mary became quite severe in her manner.

  • "It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with reproachful

  • dignity, "and it got into my throat." "But," she said afterward to Colin, "I

  • couldn't stop myself.

  • It just burst out because all at once I couldn't help remembering that last big

  • potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through that thick

  • lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it."

  • "Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?"

  • Dr. Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.

  • "There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the trees," Mrs.

  • Medlock answered. "They stay out in the grounds all day and

  • see no one but each other.

  • And if they want anything different to eat from what's sent up to them they need only

  • ask for it."

  • "Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with them we need not

  • disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature."

  • "So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock.

  • "She's begun to be downright pretty since she's filled out and lost her ugly little

  • sour look. Her hair's grown thick and healthy looking

  • and she's got a bright color.

  • The glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and Master Colin

  • laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones.

  • Perhaps they're growing fat on that."

  • "Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let them laugh."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXV THE CURTAIN

  • And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.

  • In the robin's nest there were Eggs and the robin's mate sat upon them keeping them

  • warm with her feathery little breast and careful wings.

  • At first she was very nervous and the robin himself was indignantly watchful.

  • Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown corner in those days, but waited until by

  • the quiet working of some mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of

  • the little pair that in the garden there

  • was nothing which was not quite like themselves--nothing which did not

  • understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them--the immense, tender,

  • terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs.

  • If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her

  • innermost being that if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl

  • round and crash through space and come to

  • an end--if there had been even one who did not feel it and act accordingly there could

  • have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air.

  • But they all knew it and felt it and the robin and his mate knew they knew it.

  • At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety.

  • For some mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon.

  • The first moment he set his dew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a

  • stranger but a sort of robin without beak or feathers.

  • He could speak robin (which is a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for

  • any other). To speak robin to a robin is like speaking

  • French to a Frenchman.

  • Dickon always spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he used

  • when he spoke to humans did not matter in the least.

  • The robin thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were not intelligent

  • enough to understand feathered speech. His movements also were robin.

  • They never startled one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous or threatening.

  • Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not even disturbing.

  • But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other two.

  • In the first place the boy creature did not come into the garden on his legs.

  • He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild animals were thrown over

  • him. That in itself was doubtful.

  • Then when he began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer unaccustomed way

  • and the others seemed to have to help him.

  • The robin used to secrete himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head tilted

  • first on one side and then on the other.

  • He thought that the slow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as

  • cats do. When cats are preparing to pounce they

  • creep over the ground very slowly.

  • The robin talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days but after that he

  • decided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so great that he was afraid

  • it might be injurious to the Eggs.

  • When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense

  • relief.

  • But for a long time--or it seemed a long time to the robin--he was a source of some

  • anxiety. He did not act as the other humans did.

  • He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while

  • and then getting up in a disconcerting manner to begin again.

  • One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn to fly by

  • his parents he had done much the same sort of thing.

  • He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest.

  • So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or rather to walk.

  • He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her that the Eggs would probably

  • conduct themselves in the same way after they were fledged she was quite comforted

  • and even became eagerly interested and

  • derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the edge of her nest--though she

  • always thought that the Eggs would be much cleverer and learn more quickly.

  • But then she said indulgently that humans were always more clumsy and slow than Eggs

  • and most of them never seemed really to learn to fly at all.

  • You never met them in the air or on tree- tops.

  • After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all three of the

  • children at times did unusual things.

  • They would stand under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a

  • way which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down.

  • They went through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never

  • able to explain to his mate what they were doing or tying to do.

  • He could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in such a

  • manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was doing the thing with

  • them, birds could be quite sure that the actions were not of a dangerous nature.

  • Of course neither the robin nor his mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler,

  • Bob Haworth, and his exercises for making the muscles stand out like lumps.

  • Robins are not like human beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first

  • and so they develop themselves in a natural manner.

  • If you have to fly about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become

  • atrophied (atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

  • When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like the others,

  • the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace and content.

  • Fears for the Eggs became things of the past.

  • Knowing that your Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the

  • fact that you could watch so many curious things going on made setting a most

  • entertaining occupation.

  • On wet days the Eggs' mother sometimes felt even a little dull because the children did

  • not come into the garden. But even on wet days it could not be said

  • that Mary and Colin were dull.

  • One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was beginning to feel

  • a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his sofa because it was not safe

  • to get up and walk about, Mary had an inspiration.

  • "Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my body are so

  • full of Magic that I can't keep them still.

  • They want to be doing things all the time.

  • Do you know that when I waken in the morning, Mary, when it's quite early and

  • the birds are just shouting outside and everything seems just shouting for joy--

  • even the trees and things we can't really

  • hear--I feel as if I must jump out of bed and shout myself.

  • If I did it, just think what would happen!" Mary giggled inordinately.

  • "The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and they would

  • be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor," she said.

  • Colin giggled himself.

  • He could see how they would all look--how horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to

  • see him standing upright. "I wish my father would come home," he

  • said.

  • "I want to tell him myself. I'm always thinking about it--but we

  • couldn't go on like this much longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending,

  • and besides I look too different.

  • I wish it wasn't raining today." It was then Mistress Mary had her

  • inspiration.

  • "Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are in this

  • house?" "About a thousand, I suppose," he answered.

  • "There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary.

  • "And one rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them.

  • No one ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out.

  • I lost my way when I was coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor.

  • That was the second time I heard you crying."

  • Colin started up on his sofa. "A hundred rooms no one goes into," he

  • said.

  • "It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them.

  • Wheel me in my chair and nobody would know we went."

  • "That's what I was thinking," said Mary.

  • "No one would dare to follow us. There are galleries where you could run.

  • We could do our exercises. There is a little Indian room where there

  • is a cabinet full of ivory elephants.

  • There are all sorts of rooms." "Ring the bell," said Colin.

  • When the nurse came in he gave his orders. "I want my chair," he said.

  • "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the part of the house which is not used.

  • John can push me as far as the picture- gallery because there are some stairs.

  • Then he must go away and leave us alone until I send for him again."

  • Rainy days lost their terrors that morning.

  • When the footman had wheeled the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two

  • together in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted.

  • As soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his own quarters

  • below stairs, Colin got out of his chair.

  • "I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, "and then I

  • am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's exercises."

  • And they did all these things and many others.

  • They looked at the portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade

  • and holding the parrot on her finger.

  • "All these," said Colin, "must be my relations.

  • They lived a long time ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my

  • great, great, great, great aunts.

  • She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but as you looked when you came

  • here. Now you are a great deal fatter and better

  • looking."

  • "So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed.

  • They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory elephants.

  • They found the rose-colored brocade boudoir and the hole in the cushion the mouse had

  • left, but the mice had grown up and run away and the hole was empty.

  • They saw more rooms and made more discoveries than Mary had made on her first

  • pilgrimage.

  • They found new corridors and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they

  • liked and weird old things they did not know the use of.

  • It was a curiously entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same

  • house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were miles away from

  • them was a fascinating thing.

  • "I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew I lived in such a big queer

  • old place. I like it.

  • We will ramble about every rainy day.

  • We shall always be finding new queer corners and things."

  • That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that when they

  • returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the luncheon away

  • untouched.

  • When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs she slapped it down on the kitchen dresser

  • so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly polished dishes and plates.

  • "Look at that!" she said.

  • "This is a house of mystery, and those two children are the greatest mysteries in it."

  • "If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John, "there'd be

  • small wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day as he did a month ago.

  • I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of doing my muscles an injury."

  • That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's room.

  • She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because she thought the change

  • might have been made by chance.

  • She said nothing today but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the

  • mantel. She could look at it because the curtain

  • had been drawn aside.

  • That was the change she noticed. "I know what you want me to tell you," said

  • Colin, after she had stared a few minutes. "I always know when you want me to tell you

  • something.

  • You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back.

  • I am going to keep it like that." "Why?" asked Mary.

  • "Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing.

  • I wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the Magic was

  • filling the room and making everything so splendid that I couldn't lie still.

  • I got up and looked out of the window.

  • The room was quite light and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and

  • somehow that made me go and pull the cord.

  • She looked right down at me as if she were laughing because she was glad I was

  • standing there. It made me like to look at her.

  • I want to see her laughing like that all the time.

  • I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."

  • "You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps you are her ghost

  • made into a boy." That idea seemed to impress Colin.

  • He thought it over and then answered her slowly.

  • "If I were her ghost--my father would be fond of me."

  • "Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary.

  • "I used to hate it because he was not fond of me.

  • If he grew fond of me I think I should tell him about the Magic.

  • It might make him more cheerful."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXVI "IT'S MOTHER!"

  • Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing.

  • After the morning's incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.

  • "I like to do it," he explained, "because when I grow up and make great scientific

  • discoveries I shall be obliged to lecture about them and so this is practise.

  • I can only give short lectures now because I am very young, and besides Ben

  • Weatherstaff would feel as if he were in church and he would go to sleep."

  • "Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up an' say aught he

  • pleases an' no other chap can answer him back.

  • I wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel' sometimes."

  • But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes on him and

  • kept them there.

  • He looked him over with critical affection.

  • It was not so much the lecture which interested him as the legs which looked

  • straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head which held itself up so well,

  • the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks which

  • had filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold the light he

  • remembered in another pair.

  • Sometimes when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze meant that he was much impressed he

  • wondered what he was reflecting on and once when he had seemed quite entranced he

  • questioned him.

  • "What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked.

  • "I was thinkin'" answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's, gone up three or four pound

  • this week.

  • I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders.

  • I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales." "It's the Magic and--and Mrs. Sowerby's

  • buns and milk and things," said Colin.

  • "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded."

  • That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture.

  • When he came he was ruddy with running and his funny face looked more twinkling than

  • usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do

  • after the rains they fell to work.

  • They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking rain.

  • The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for the weeds which thrust up

  • tiny blades of grass and points of leaves which must be pulled up before their roots

  • took too firm hold.

  • Colin was as good at weeding as any one in these days and he could lecture while he

  • was doing it. "The Magic works best when you work,

  • yourself," he said this morning.

  • "You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I am going to read books about bones and

  • muscles, but I am going to write a book about Magic.

  • I am making it up now.

  • I keep finding out things." It was not very long after he had said this

  • that he laid down his trowel and stood up on his feet.

  • He had been silent for several minutes and they had seen that he was thinking out

  • lectures, as he often did.

  • When he dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to Mary and Dickon as if

  • a sudden strong thought had made him do it.

  • He stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threw out his arms

  • exultantly. Color glowed in his face and his strange

  • eyes widened with joyfulness.

  • All at once he had realized something to the full.

  • "Mary! Dickon!" he cried.

  • "Just look at me!"

  • They stopped their weeding and looked at him.

  • "Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he demanded.

  • Dickon was looking at him very hard.

  • Being an animal charmer he could see more things than most people could and many of

  • them were things he never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy.

  • "Aye, that we do," he answered.

  • Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing.

  • "Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once I remembered it myself--when I looked

  • at my hand digging with the trowel--and I had to stand up on my feet to see if it was

  • real.

  • And it is real! I'm well--I'm well!"

  • "Aye, that th' art!" said Dickon. "I'm well!

  • I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all over.

  • He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought about it,

  • but just at that minute something had rushed all through him--a sort of rapturous

  • belief and realization and it had been so strong that he could not help calling out.

  • "I shall live forever and ever and ever!" he cried grandly.

  • "I shall find out thousands and thousands of things.

  • I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows--like Dickon--and

  • I shall never stop making Magic.

  • I'm well! I'm well!

  • I feel--I feel as if I want to shout out something--something thankful, joyful!"

  • Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round at him.

  • "Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt.

  • He had no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with any

  • particular reverence. But Colin was of an exploring mind and he

  • knew nothing about the Doxology.

  • "What is that?" he inquired. "Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll

  • warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff. Dickon answered with his all-perceiving

  • animal charmer's smile.

  • "They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th' skylarks

  • sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'." "If she says that, it must be a nice song,"

  • Colin answered.

  • "I've never been in a church myself. I was always too ill.

  • Sing it, Dickon. I want to hear it."

  • Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it.

  • He understood what Colin felt better than Colin did himself.

  • He understood by a sort of instinct so natural that he did not know it was

  • understanding. He pulled off his cap and looked round

  • still smiling.

  • "Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha', Ben--an' tha' mun

  • stand up, tha' knows."

  • Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as he watched

  • Dickon intently.

  • Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his knees and bared his head too with a sort of

  • puzzled half-resentful look on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was

  • doing this remarkable thing.

  • Dickon stood out among the trees and rose- bushes and began to sing in quite a simple

  • matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice:

  • "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below,

  • Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

  • Amen."

  • When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with his jaws set

  • obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on Colin.

  • Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative.

  • "It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it.

  • Perhaps it means just what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the

  • Magic." He stopped and thought in a puzzled way.

  • "Perhaps they are both the same thing.

  • How can we know the exact names of everything?

  • Sing it again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary.

  • I want to sing it, too.

  • It's my song. How does it begin?

  • 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?"

  • And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as musically as they

  • could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and beautiful--and at the second line Ben

  • Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his throat

  • and at the third line he joined in with such vigor that it seemed almost savage and

  • when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed that the very same thing had

  • happened to him which had happened when he

  • found out that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he was staring and

  • winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet.

  • "I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I may change

  • my mind i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound this

  • week Mester Colin--five on 'em!"

  • Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his attention and his

  • expression had become a startled one. "Who is coming in here?" he said quickly.

  • "Who is it?"

  • The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had entered.

  • She had come in with the last line of their song and she had stood still listening and

  • looking at them.

  • With the ivy behind her, the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her

  • long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was rather

  • like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books.

  • She had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in--all of them,

  • even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower that was in bloom.

  • Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that she was an intruder at

  • all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps.

  • "It's mother--that's who it is!" he cried and went across the grass at a run.

  • Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him.

  • They both felt their pulses beat faster.

  • "It's mother!" Dickon said again when they met halfway.

  • "I knowed tha' wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid."

  • Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his eyes quite

  • devoured her face.

  • "Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and the secret

  • garden. I'd never wanted to see any one or anything

  • before."

  • The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own.

  • She flushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed to sweep over her

  • eyes.

  • "Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously. "Eh! dear lad!" as if she had not known she

  • were going to say it. She did not say, "Mester Colin," but just

  • "dear lad" quite suddenly.

  • She might have said it to Dickon in the same way if she had seen something in his

  • face which touched her. Colin liked it.

  • "Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked.

  • She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes.

  • "Aye, that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my heart jump."

  • "Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my father like

  • me?"

  • "Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a soft quick pat.

  • "He mun come home--he mun come home." "Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff,

  • getting close to her.

  • "Look at th' lad's legs, wilt tha'? They was like drumsticks i' stockin' two

  • month' ago--an' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knock-kneed both at th' same

  • time.

  • Look at 'em now!" Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.

  • "They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said.

  • "Let him go on playin' an' workin' in the garden an' eatin' hearty an' drinkin'

  • plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i' Yorkshire, thank God for

  • it."

  • She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little face over

  • in a motherly fashion. "An' thee, too!" she said.

  • "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our 'Lisabeth Ellen.

  • I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too. Our Martha told me as Mrs. Medlock heard

  • she was a pretty woman.

  • Tha'lt be like a blush rose when tha' grows up, my little lass, bless thee."

  • She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and described the

  • plain sallow child she had said that she had no confidence whatever in what Mrs.

  • Medlock had heard.

  • "It doesn't stand to reason that a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou'

  • little lass," she had added obstinately. Mary had not had time to pay much attention

  • to her changing face.

  • She had only known that she looked "different" and seemed to have a great deal

  • more hair and that it was growing very fast.

  • But remembering her pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to

  • hear that she might some day look like her.

  • Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole story of it and

  • shown every bush and tree which had come alive.

  • Colin walked on one side of her and Mary on the other.

  • Each of them kept looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious

  • about the delightful feeling she gave them- -a sort of warm, supported feeling.

  • It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his "creatures."

  • She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if they were children.

  • Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her and flew upon her shoulder as if it

  • were Dickon's.

  • When they told her about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed

  • a motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.

  • "I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but I'm feared I

  • should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o' legs," she said.

  • It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland cottage way that

  • at last she was told about the Magic. "Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin

  • after he had explained about Indian fakirs.

  • "I do hope you do." "That I do, lad," she answered.

  • "I never knowed it by that name but what does th' name matter?

  • I warrant they call it a different name i' France an' a different one i' Germany.

  • Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th' sun shinin' made thee a well lad

  • an' it's th' Good Thing.

  • It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called out of our names.

  • Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless thee.

  • It goes on makin' worlds by th' million-- worlds like us.

  • Never thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it--

  • an' call it what tha' likes.

  • Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into th' garden."

  • "I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at her.

  • "Suddenly I felt how different I was--how strong my arms and legs were, you know--and

  • how I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and wanted to shout out something to

  • anything that would listen."

  • "Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology.

  • It would ha' listened to anything tha'd sung.

  • It was th' joy that mattered.

  • Eh! lad, lad--what's names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick

  • soft pat again.

  • She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and when the

  • hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding place, she sat down with

  • them under their tree and watched them

  • devour their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites.

  • She was full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things.

  • She told them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words.

  • She laughed as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing

  • difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful invalid.

  • "You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are together," explained

  • Colin. "And it doesn't sound ill at all.

  • We try to choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever."

  • "There's one thing that comes into my mind so often," said Mary, "and I can scarcely

  • ever hold in when I think of it suddenly.

  • I keep thinking suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon.

  • It isn't like one yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and suppose some

  • morning it should look like one--what should we do!"

  • "Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do," said Susan

  • Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keep it up much

  • longer.

  • Mester Craven'll come home." "Do you think he will?" asked Colin.

  • "Why?" Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.

  • "I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told him in tha'

  • own way," she said. "Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it."

  • "I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin.

  • "I think about different ways every day, I think now I just want to run into his

  • room."

  • "That'd be a fine start for him," said Susan Sowerby.

  • "I'd like to see his face, lad. I would that!

  • He mun come back--that he mun."

  • One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her cottage.

  • They planned it all. They were to drive over the moor and lunch

  • out of doors among the heather.

  • They would see all the twelve children and Dickon's garden and would not come back

  • until they were tired. Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to

  • the house and Mrs. Medlock.

  • It was time for Colin to be wheeled back also.

  • But before he got into his chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on

  • her with a kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her

  • blue cloak and held it fast.

  • "You are just what I--what I wanted," he said.

  • "I wish you were my mother--as well as Dickon's!"

  • All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms close against

  • the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been Dickon's brother.

  • The quick mist swept over her eyes.

  • "Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden,

  • I do believe. She couldna' keep out of it.

  • Thy father mun come back to thee--he mun!"

  • >

  • CHAPTER XXVII IN THE GARDEN

  • In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been

  • discovered. In the last century more amazing things

  • were found out than in any century before.

  • In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to

  • light.

  • At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they

  • begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the

  • world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.

  • One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--

  • just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as

  • sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.

  • To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a

  • scarlet fever germ get into your body.

  • If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you

  • live.

  • So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes

  • and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or

  • interested in anything, she was a yellow- faced, sickly, bored and wretched child.

  • Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it.

  • They began to push her about for her own good.

  • When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with

  • children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids,

  • with springtime and with secret gardens

  • coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his "creatures," there was no

  • room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion

  • and made her yellow and tired.

  • So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and

  • weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps

  • and early death, he was a hysterical half-

  • crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did

  • not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it.

  • When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to

  • come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into

  • him like a flood.

  • His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was nothing

  • weird about it at all.

  • Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or

  • discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and

  • push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one.

  • Two things cannot be in one place. "Where, you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle

  • cannot grow."

  • While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming alive with it,

  • there was a man wandering about certain far-away beautiful places in the Norwegian

  • fiords and the valleys and mountains of

  • Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark

  • and heart-broken thinking.

  • He had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the

  • place of the dark ones.

  • He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on mountain-sides with

  • sheets of deep blue gentians blooming all about him and flower breaths filling all

  • the air and he had thought them.

  • A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had let his soul

  • fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to allow any rift of light to

  • pierce through.

  • He had forgotten and deserted his home and his duties.

  • When he traveled about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong

  • done to other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom.

  • Most strangers thought he must be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on

  • his soul.

  • He, was a tall man with a drawn face and crooked shoulders and the name he always

  • entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald Craven, Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire,

  • England."

  • He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his study and told

  • her she might have her "bit of earth."

  • He had been in the most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more

  • than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest

  • spots.

  • He had been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and had looked

  • down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with such light as made it

  • seem as if the world were just being born.

  • But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he realized that

  • for the first time in ten years a strange thing had happened.

  • He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had been walking

  • alone through such beauty as might have lifted, any man's soul out of shadow.

  • He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his.

  • But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a carpet of

  • moss by a stream.

  • It was a clear little stream which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way

  • through the luscious damp greenness.

  • Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled over and round

  • stones.

  • He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in it and then flick their wings and

  • fly away. It seemed like a thing alive and yet its

  • tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper.

  • The valley was very, very still. As he sat gazing into the clear running of

  • the water, Archibald Craven gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet

  • as the valley itself.

  • He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not.

  • He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing at its

  • edge.

  • There was one lovely mass of blue forget- me-nots growing so close to the stream that

  • its leaves were wet and at these he found himself looking as he remembered he had

  • looked at such things years ago.

  • He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of blue its

  • hundreds of little blossoms were.

  • He did not know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--

  • filling and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside.

  • It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen

  • and risen until at last it swept the dark water away.

  • But of course he did not think of this himself.

  • He only knew that the valley seemed to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at

  • the bright delicate blueness.

  • He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last he

  • moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet,

  • drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself.

  • Something seemed to have been unbound and released in him, very quietly.

  • "What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over his forehead.

  • "I almost feel as if--I were alive!"

  • I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to be

  • able to explain how this had happened to him.

  • Neither does any one else yet.

  • He did not understand at all himself--but he remembered this strange hour months

  • afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he found out quite by accident

  • that on this very day Colin had cried out as he went into the secret garden:

  • "I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"

  • The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he slept a new

  • reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long.

  • He did not know that it could be kept.

  • By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts and they had come

  • trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his

  • wandering way again.

  • But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes--sometimes half-hours--when,

  • without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he

  • was a living man and not a dead one.

  • Slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knew of--he was "coming alive" with the garden.

  • As the golden summer changed into the deep golden autumn he went to the Lake of Como.

  • There he found the loveliness of a dream.

  • He spent his days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the soft

  • thick verdure of the hills and tramped until he was tired so that he might sleep.

  • But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he knew, and his dreams had ceased

  • to be a terror to him. "Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing

  • stronger."

  • It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when his thoughts were

  • changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too.

  • He began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home.

  • Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he should feel

  • when he went and stood by the carved four- posted bed again and looked down at the

  • sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it

  • slept and, the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.

  • He shrank from it.

  • One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and

  • full and all the world was purple shadow and silver.

  • The stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go into

  • the villa he lived in.

  • He walked down to a little bowered terrace at the water's edge and sat upon a seat and

  • breathed in all the heavenly scents of the night.

  • He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and it grew deeper and deeper until he

  • fell asleep.

  • He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his dream was so

  • real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming.

  • He remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought he was.

  • He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late roses and listened to

  • the lapping of the water at his feet he heard a voice calling.

  • It was sweet and clear and happy and far away.

  • It seemed very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very

  • side.

  • "Archie! Archie!

  • Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer than before, "Archie!

  • Archie!"

  • He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled.

  • It was such a real voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it.

  • "Lilias!

  • Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?"

  • "In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute.

  • "In the garden!"

  • And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken.

  • He slept soundly and sweetly all through the lovely night.

  • When he did awake at last it was brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring

  • at him.

  • He was an Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the

  • villa were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign master might

  • do.

  • No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or where he would choose to sleep

  • or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the boat on the lake all night.

  • The man held a salver with some letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven

  • took them.

  • When he had gone away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and

  • looking at the lake.

  • His strange calm was still upon him and something more--a lightness as if the cruel

  • thing which had been done had not happened as he thought--as if something had changed.

  • He was remembering the dream--the real-- real dream.

  • "In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself.

  • "In the garden!

  • But the door is locked and the key is buried deep."

  • When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one lying at

  • the top of the rest was an English letter and came from Yorkshire.

  • It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a hand he knew.

  • He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first words attracted his

  • attention at once.

  • "Dear Sir: I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak

  • to you once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary I spoke.

  • I will make bold to speak again.

  • Please, sir, I would come home if I was you.

  • I think you would be glad to come and--if you will excuse me, sir--I think your lady

  • would ask you to come if she was here.

  • Your obedient servant, Susan Sowerby."

  • Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope.

  • He kept thinking about the dream. "I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said.

  • "Yes, I'll go at once."

  • And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to prepare for his

  • return to England.

  • In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad journey he found

  • himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in all the ten years past.

  • During those years he had only wished to forget him.

  • Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him constantly

  • drifted into his mind.

  • He remembered the black days when he had raved like a madman because the child was

  • alive and the mother was dead.

  • He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at last it had been,

  • such a weak wretched thing that everyone had been sure it would die in a few days.

  • But to the surprise of those who took care of it the days passed and it lived and then

  • everyone believed it would be a deformed and crippled creature.

  • He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father at all.

  • He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had shrunk from the mere

  • thought of the boy and had buried himself in his own misery.

  • The first time after a year's absence he returned to Misselthwaite and the small

  • miserable looking thing languidly and indifferently lifted to his face the great

  • gray eyes with black lashes round them, so

  • like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had adored, he could not bear the

  • sight of them and turned away pale as death.

  • After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, and all he knew of him

  • was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper.

  • He could only be kept from furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in

  • every detail.

  • All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled him

  • through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming alive" began to

  • think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and deeply.

  • "Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself.

  • "Ten years is a long time.

  • It may be too late to do anything--quite too late.

  • What have I been thinking of!" Of course this was the wrong Magic--to

  • begin by saying "too late."

  • Even Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either black

  • or white. This he had yet to learn.

  • He wondered if Susan Sowerby had taken courage and written to him only because the

  • motherly creature had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill.

  • If he had not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession

  • of him he would have been more wretched than ever.

  • But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it.

  • Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to

  • believe in better things.

  • "Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good and control

  • him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to

  • Misselthwaite."

  • But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the cottage, seven

  • or eight children who were playing about gathered in a group and bobbing seven or

  • eight friendly and polite curtsies told him

  • that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the morning to

  • help a woman who had a new baby.

  • "Our Dickon," they volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens

  • where he went several days each week.

  • Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round red-cheeked

  • faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he awoke to the fact

  • that they were a healthy likable lot.

  • He smiled at their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and gave

  • it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest.

  • "If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each of, you," he

  • said.

  • Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and

  • nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

  • The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing.

  • Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been sure he could

  • never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple bloom of

  • distance and a warming of the heart at

  • drawing, nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six

  • hundred years?

  • How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering to think of its closed

  • rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed with the brocaded hangings.

  • Was it possible that perhaps he might find him changed a little for the better and

  • that he might overcome his shrinking from him?

  • How real that dream had been--how wonderful and clear the voice which called back to

  • him, "In the garden--In the garden!" "I will try to find the key," he said.

  • "I will try to open the door.

  • I must--though I don't know why."

  • When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the usual ceremony

  • noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to the remote rooms where he

  • usually lived attended by Pitcher.

  • He went into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock.

  • She came to him somewhat excited and curious and flustered.

  • "How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.

  • "Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's-- he's different, in a manner of speaking."

  • "Worse?" he suggested.

  • Mrs. Medlock really was flushed. "Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain,

  • "neither Dr. Craven, nor the nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

  • "Why is that?"

  • "To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be changing for the

  • worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--

  • and his ways--"

  • "Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master, asked, knitting his brows

  • anxiously. "That's it, sir.

  • He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with what he used to be.

  • He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began to eat something enormous--and then

  • he stopped again all at once and the meals were sent back just as they used to be.

  • You never knew, sir, perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken.

  • The things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave a body

  • trembling like a leaf.

  • He'd throw himself into such a state that Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible

  • for forcing him.

  • Well, sir, just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he suddenly

  • insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan Sowerby's boy Dickon

  • that could push his chair.

  • He took a fancy to both Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame

  • animals, and, if you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until

  • night."

  • "How does he look?" was the next question. "If he took his food natural, sir, you'd

  • think he was putting on flesh--but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat.

  • He laughs sometimes in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary.

  • He never used to laugh at all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if

  • you'll allow him.

  • He never was as puzzled in his life." "Where is Master Colin now?"

  • Mr. Craven asked. "In the garden, sir.

  • He's always in the garden--though not a human creature is allowed to go near for

  • fear they'll look at him." Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.

  • "In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he stood and

  • repeated it again and again. "In the garden!"

  • He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was standing in and

  • when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went out of the room.

  • He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door in the shrubbery and among the

  • laurels and the fountain beds.

  • The fountain was playing now and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn

  • flowers. He crossed the lawn and turned into the

  • Long Walk by the ivied walls.

  • He did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path.

  • He felt as if he were being drawn back to the place he had so long forsaken, and he

  • did not know why.

  • As he drew near to it his step became still more slow.

  • He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick over it--but he did not know

  • exactly where it lay--that buried key.

  • So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment after he

  • had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were walking in a dream.

  • The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, no human being

  • had passed that portal for ten lonely years--and yet inside the garden there were

  • sounds.

  • They were the sounds of running scuffling feet seeming to chase round and round under

  • the trees, they were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices--exclamations and

  • smothered joyous cries.

  • It seemed actually like the laughter of young things, the uncontrollable laughter

  • of children who were trying not to be heard but who in a moment or so--as their

  • excitement mounted--would burst forth.

  • What in heaven's name was he dreaming of-- what in heaven's name did he hear?

  • Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things which were not for human ears?

  • Was it that the far clear voice had meant?

  • And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds

  • forgot to hush themselves.

  • The feet ran faster and faster--they were nearing the garden door--there was quick

  • strong young breathing and a wild outbreak of laughing shows which could not be

  • contained--and the door in the wall was

  • flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through it at full

  • speed and, without seeing the outsider, dashed almost into his arms.

  • Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a result of his

  • unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to look at him in amazement at his

  • being there he truly gasped for breath.

  • He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his running

  • had sent splendid color leaping to his face.

  • He threw the thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray

  • eyes--eyes full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe.

  • It was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath.

  • "Who--What? Who!" he stammered.

  • This was not what Colin had expected--this was not what he had planned.

  • He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing out--winning a

  • race--perhaps it was even better.

  • He drew himself up to his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had

  • dashed through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look taller than

  • he had ever looked before--inches taller.

  • "Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it.

  • I scarcely can myself. I'm Colin."

  • Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he said

  • hurriedly: "In the garden!

  • In the garden!"

  • "Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden that did it--and Mary

  • and Dickon and the creatures--and the Magic.

  • No one knows.

  • We kept it to tell you when you came. I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race.

  • I'm going to be an athlete."

  • He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words tumbling over each

  • other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook with unbelieving joy.

  • Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm.

  • "Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. "Aren't you glad?

  • I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!"

  • Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still.

  • He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.

  • "Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last.

  • "And tell me all about it."

  • And so they led him in.

  • The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming

  • scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing together--lilies which

  • were white or white and ruby.

  • He remembered well when the first of them had been planted that just at this season

  • of the year their late glories should reveal themselves.

  • Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the

  • yellowing trees made one feel that one, stood in an embowered temple of gold.

  • The newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into its

  • grayness. He looked round and round.

  • "I thought it would be dead," he said.

  • "Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive."

  • Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand while he

  • told the story.

  • It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, as it was

  • poured forth in headlong boy fashion.

  • Mystery and Magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting--the coming of the

  • spring--the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah to his feet to

  • defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face.

  • The odd companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept.

  • The listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came into his

  • eyes when he was not laughing.

  • The Athlete, the Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable,

  • healthy young human thing. "Now," he said at the end of the story, "it

  • need not be a secret any more.

  • I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see me--but I am never

  • going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back with you, Father--to the

  • house."

  • Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on this occasion

  • he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen and being invited into the

  • servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a

  • glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most dramatic event

  • Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present generation actually took place.

  • One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn.

  • Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he might have caught

  • sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin.

  • "Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked.

  • Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  • "Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

  • "Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock. "Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff.

  • "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I could sup up another mug of it."

  • "Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her excitement.

  • "Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.

  • "Where was Master Colin? How did he look?

  • What did they say to each other?"

  • "I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' stepladder lookin, over

  • th' wall. But I'll tell thee this.

  • There's been things goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about.

  • An' what tha'll find out tha'll find out soon."

  • And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and waved

  • his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the shrubbery a piece of

  • the lawn.

  • "Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across th' grass."

  • When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek and every

  • man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the servants' hall and stood looking

  • through the window with their eyes almost starting out of their heads.

  • Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them

  • had never seen him.

  • And by his, side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as

  • strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire--Master Colin.

  • >

CHAPTER XX "I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!"

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パート3 - 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 20-27) (Part 3 - The Secret Garden Audiobook by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Chs 20-27))

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    capt.izutsu3336 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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