The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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THE SECRET GARDEN

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Author of

“The best snow toys under 30 dollarsShuttle,” “The Making of a Marchioness,”“The Methods of Lady Walderhurst,” “The Lass o’Lowries,” “Through One Administration,” “Little LordFauntleroy,” “A Lady of Quality,” etc.

Contents

CHAPTER I.
THERE IS NO ONE LEFT

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncleeverybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It wastrue, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hairand a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because shehad been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Herfather had held a position under the English Government and had always beenbusy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only togo to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a littlegirl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah,who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she mustkeep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly,fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became asickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She neverremembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and theother native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own wayin everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by hercrying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish alittle pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her toread and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months,and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in ashorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want toknow how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakenedfeeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw that the servantwho stood by her bedside was not her Ayah.

“Why did you come?” she said to the strange woman. “I willnot let you stay. Send my Ayah to me.”

The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could notcome and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, shelooked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayahto come to Missie Sahib.

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in itsregular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while thosewhom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no onewould tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left aloneas the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and beganto play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she wasmaking a flower-bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into littleheaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering toherself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when shereturned.

“Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!” she said, because to call a native apig is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heardher mother come out on the veranda with someone. She was with a fair young manand they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair youngman who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer whohad just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at hermother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the MemSahib—Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else—wassuch a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair waslike curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to bedisdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thinand floating, and Mary said they were “full of lace.” They lookedfuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all.They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boyofficer’s face.

“Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?” Mary heard her say.

“Awfully,” the young man answered in a trembling voice.“Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeksago.”

The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

“Oh, I know I ought!” she cried. “I only stayed to go to thatsilly dinner party. What a fool I was!”

At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from theservants’ quarters that she clutched the young man’s arm, and Marystood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder.“What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped.

“Someone has died,” answered the boy officer. “You did notsay it had broken out among your servants.”

“I did not know!” the Mem Sahib cried. “Come with me! Comewith me!” and she turned and ran into the house.

After that appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morningwas explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form andpeople were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and itwas because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts. Beforethe next day three other servants were dead and others had run away in terror.There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.

During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in thenursery and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought of her, nobody wantedher, and strange things happened of which she knew nothing. Mary alternatelycried and slept through the hours. She only knew that people were ill and thatshe heard mysterious and frightening sounds. Once she crept into thedining-room and found it empty, though a partly finished meal was on the tableand chairs and plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back when thediners rose suddenly for some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits,and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It wassweet, and she did not know how strong it was. Very soon it made her intenselydrowsy, and she went back to her nursery and shut herself in again, frightenedby cries she heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of feet. The wine madeher so sleepy that she could scarcely keep her eyes open and she lay down onher bed and knew nothing more for a long time.

Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but shewas not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried in and outof the bungalow.

When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectlystill. She had never known it to be so silent before. She heard neither voicesnor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera and allthe trouble was over. She wondered also who would take care of her now her Ayahwas dead. There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some newstories. Mary had been rather tired of the old ones. She did not cry becauseher nurse had died. She was not an affectionate child and had never cared muchfor anyone. The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera hadfrightened her, and she had been angry because no one seemed to remember thatshe was alive. Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no onewas fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothingbut themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely someone wouldremember and come to look for her.

But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and moresilent. She heard something rustling on the matting and when she looked downshe saw a little snake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels.She was not frightened, because he was a harmless little thing who would nothurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out of the room. He slipped under thedoor as she watched him.

“How queer and quiet it is,” she said. “It sounds as if therewere no one in the bungalow but me and the snake.”

Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on theveranda. They were men’s footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow andtalked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them and they seemed toopen doors and look into rooms.

“What desolation!” she heard one voice say. “That pretty,pretty woman! I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though noone ever saw her.”

Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a fewminutes later. She looked an ugly, cross little thing and was frowning becauseshe was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected. The first manwho came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father. Helooked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that healmost jumped back.

“Barney!” he cried out. “There is a child here! A childalone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!”

“I am Mary Lennox,” the little girl said, drawing herself upstiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call her father’s bungalow“A place like this!” “I fell asleep when everyone had thecholera and I have only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?”

“It is the child no one ever saw!” exclaimed the man, turning tohis companions. “She has actually been forgotten!”

“Why was I forgotten?” Mary said, stamping her foot. “Whydoes nobody come?”

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even thoughtshe saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.

“Poor little kid!” he said. “There is nobody left tocome.”

It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that she had neitherfather nor mother left; that they had died and been carried away in the night,and that the few native servants who had not died also had left the house asquickly as they could get out of it, none of them even remembering that therewas a Missie Sahib. That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that therewas no one in the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.

CHAPTER II.
MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY

Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance and she had thought hervery pretty, but as she knew very little of her she could scarcely have beenexpected to love her or to miss her very much when she was gone. She did notmiss her at all, in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed child she gave herentire thought to herself, as she had always done. If she had been older shewould no doubt have been very anxious at being left alone in the world, but shewas very young, and as she had always been taken care of, she supposed shealways would be. What she thought was that she would like to know if she wasgoing to nice people, who would be polite to her and give her her own way asher Ayah and the other native servants had done.

She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman’s housewhere she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English clergymanwas poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and they wore shabbyclothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Maryhated their untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable to them that after thefirst day or two nobody would play with her. By the second day they had givenher a nickname which made her furious.

It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a little boy with impudent blueeyes and a turned-up nose, and Mary hated him. She was playing by herself undera tree, just as she had been playing the day the cholera broke out. She wasmaking heaps of earth and paths for a garden and Basil came and stood near towatch her. Presently he got rather interested and suddenly made a suggestion.

“Why don’t you put a heap of stones there and pretend it is arockery?” he said. “There in the middle,” and he leaned overher to point.

“Go away!” cried Mary. “I don’t want boys. Goaway!”

For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was alwaysteasing his sisters. He danced round and round her and made faces and sang andlaughed.

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
    How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
    And marigolds all in a row.”

He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too; and the crosserMary got, the more they sang “Mistress Mary, quite contrary”; andafter that as long as she stayed with them they called her “Mistress MaryQuite Contrary” when they spoke of her to each other, and often when theyspoke to her.

“You are going to be sent home,” Basil said to her, “at theend of the week. And we’re glad of it.”

“I am glad of it, too,” answered Mary. “Where is home?”

“She doesn’t know where home is!” said Basil, withseven-year-old scorn. “It’s England, of course. Our grandmama livesthere and our sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You are not going to yourgrandmama. You have none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr.Archibald Craven.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” snapped Mary.

“I know you don’t,” Basil answered. “You don’tknow anything. Girls never do. I heard father and mother talking about him. Helives in a great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes nearhim. He’s so cross he won’t let them, and they wouldn’t comeif he would let them. He’s a hunchback, and he’s horrid.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Mary; and she turned her back andstuck her fingers in her ears, because she would not listen any more.

But she thought over it a great deal afterward; and when Mrs. Crawford told herthat night that she was going to sail away to England in a few days and go toher uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite Manor, she lookedso stony and stubbornly uninterested that they did not know what to think abouther. They tried to be kind to her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs.Crawford attempted to kiss her, and held herself stiffly when Mr. Crawfordpatted her shoulder.

“She is such a plain child,” Mrs. Crawford said pityingly,afterward. “And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a verypretty manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in achild. The children call her ‘Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,’ andthough it’s naughty of them, one can’t help understandingit.”

“Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty mannersoftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty ways too. It isvery sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to remember that many peoplenever even knew that she had a child at all.”

“I believe she scarcely ever looked at her,” sighed Mrs. Crawford.“When her Ayah was dead there was no one to give a thought to the littlething. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in thatdeserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his skin when heopened the door and found her standing by herself in the middle of theroom.”

Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer’s wife,who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school. She was verymuch absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was rather glad to hand thechild over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven sent to meet her, in London. Thewoman was his housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs.Medlock. She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. Shewore a very purple dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a blackbonnet with purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled when she movedher head. Mary did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked peoplethere was nothing remarkable in that; besides which it was very evident Mrs.Medlock did not think much of her.

“My word! she’s a plain little piece of goods!” she said.“And we’d heard that her mother was a beauty. She hasn’thanded much of it down, has she, ma’am?”

“Perhaps she will improve as she grows older,” the officer’swife said good-naturedly. “If she were not so sallow and had a nicerexpression, her features are rather good. Children alter so much.”

“She’ll have to alter a good deal,” answered Mrs. Medlock.“And, there’s nothing likely to improve children atMisselthwaite—if you ask me!”

They thought Mary was not listening because she was standing a little apartfrom them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She was watchingthe passing buses and cabs and people, but she heard quite well and was madevery curious about her uncle and the place he lived in. What sort of a placewas it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback? She had never seenone. Perhaps there were none in India.

Since she had been living in other people’s houses and had had no Ayah,she had begun to feel lonely and to think queer thoughts which were new to her.She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to anyone even whenher father and mother had been alive. Other children seemed to belong to theirfathers and mothers, but she had never seemed to really be anyone’slittle girl. She had had servants, and food and clothes, but no one had takenany notice of her. She did not know that this was because she was adisagreeable child; but then, of course, she did not know she was disagreeable.She often thought that other people were, but she did not know that she was soherself.

She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, withher common, highly colored face and her common fine bonnet. When the next daythey set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked through the station tothe railway carriage with her head up and trying to keep as far away from heras she could, because she did not want to seem to belong to her. It would havemade her angry to think people imagined she was her little girl.

But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her and her thoughts. Shewas the kind of woman who would “stand no nonsense from youngones.” At least, that is what she would have said if she had been asked.She had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria’s daughterwas going to be married, but she had a comfortable, well paid place ashousekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and the only way in which she could keep itwas to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. She never daredeven to ask a question.

“Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera,” Mr. Craven hadsaid in his short, cold way. “Captain Lennox was my wife’s brotherand I am their daughter’s guardian. The child is to be brought here. Youmust go to London and bring her yourself.”

So she packed her small trunk and made the journey.

Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and fretful.She had nothing to read or to look at, and she had folded her thin littleblack-gloved hands in her lap. Her black dress made her look yellower thanever, and her limp light hair straggled from under her black crêpe hat.

“A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life,” Mrs.Medlock thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.)She had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at lastshe got tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk, hard voice.

“I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are goingto,” she said. “Do you know anything about your uncle?”

“No,” said Mary.

“Never heard your father and mother talk about him?”

“No,” said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered thather father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular.Certainly they had never told her things.

“Humph,” muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsivelittle face. She did not say any more for a few moments and then she beganagain.

“I suppose you might as well be told something—to prepare you. Youare going to a queer place.”

Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by herapparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on.

“Not but that it’s a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr.Craven’s proud of it in his way—and that’s gloomy enough,too. The house is six hundred years old and it’s on the edge of the moor,and there’s near a hundred rooms in it, though most of them’s shutup and locked. And there’s pictures and fine old furniture and thingsthat’s been there for ages, and there’s a big park round it andgardens and trees with branches trailing to the ground—some ofthem.” She paused and took another breath. “But there’snothing else,” she ended suddenly.

Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike India,and anything new rather attracted her. But she did not intend to look as if shewere interested. That was one of her unhappy, disagreeable ways. So she satstill.

“Well,” said Mrs. Medlock. “What do you think of it?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “I know nothing about suchplaces.”

That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh.

“Eh!” she said, “but you are like an old woman. Don’tyou care?”

“It doesn’t matter” said Mary, “whether I care ornot.”

“You are right enough there,” said Mrs. Medlock. “Itdoesn’t. What you’re to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for Idon’t know, unless because it’s the easiest way. He’snot going to trouble himself about you, that’s sure and certain. He nevertroubles himself about no one.”

She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something in time.

“He’s got a crooked back,” she said. “That set himwrong. He was a sour young man and got no good of all his money and big placetill he was married.”

Mary’s eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention not to seem tocare. She had never thought of the hunchback’s being married and she wasa trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative woman shecontinued with more interest. This was one way of passing some of the time, atany rate.

“She was a sweet, pretty thing and he’d have walked the world overto get her a blade o’ grass she wanted. Nobody thought she’d marryhim, but she did, and people said she married him for his money. But shedidn’t—she didn’t,” positively. “When shedied—”

Mary gave a little involuntary jump.

“Oh! did she die!” she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She hadjust remembered a French fairy story she had once read called “Riquet àla Houppe.” It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princessand it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.

“Yes, she died,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “And it made himqueerer than ever. He cares about nobody. He won’t see people. Most ofthe time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up inthe West Wing and won’t let anyone but Pitcher see him. Pitcher’san old fellow, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows hisways.”

It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel cheerful. Ahouse with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with their doorslocked—a house on the edge of a moor—whatsoever a moorwas—sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also!She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it seemedquite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in gray slantinglines and splash and stream down the window-panes. If the pretty wife had beenalive she might have made things cheerful by being something like her ownmother and by running in and out and going to parties as she had done in frocks“full of lace.” But she was not there any more.

“You needn’t expect to see him, because ten to one youwon’t,” said Mrs. Medlock. “And you mustn’t expect thatthere will be people to talk to you. You’ll have to play about and lookafter yourself. You’ll be told what rooms you can go into and what roomsyou’re to keep out of. There’s gardens enough. But whenyou’re in the house don’t go wandering and poking about. Mr. Cravenwon’t have it.”

“I shall not want to go poking about,” said sour little Mary andjust as suddenly as she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald Cravenshe began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to deserveall that had happened to him.

And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the railwaycarriage and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which looked as if it would go onforever and ever. She watched it so long and steadily that the grayness grewheavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III.
ACROSS THE MOOR

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought alunchbasket at one of the stations and they had some chicken and cold beef andbread and butter and some hot tea. The rain seemed to be streaming down moreheavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet and glisteningwaterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlockcheered up very much over her tea and chicken and beef. She ate a great dealand afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared at her and watchedher fine bonnet slip on one side until she herself fell asleep once more in thecorner of the carriage, lulled by the splashing of the rain against thewindows. It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train had stopped at astation and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.

“You have had a sleep!” she said. “It’s time to openyour eyes! We’re at Thwaite Station and we’ve got a long drivebefore us.”

Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while Mrs. Medlock collected herparcels. The little girl did not offer to help her, because in India nativeservants always picked up or carried things and it seemed quite proper thatother people should wait on one.

The station was a small one and nobody but themselves seemed to be getting outof the train. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, good-naturedway, pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary found outafterward was Yorkshire.

“I see tha’s got back,” he said. “An’ tha’sbrowt th’ young ’un with thee.”

“Aye, that’s her,” answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with aYorkshire accent herself and jerking her head over her shoulder toward Mary.“How’s thy Missus?”

“Well enow. Th’ carriage is waitin’ outside for thee.”

A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform. Mary saw thatit was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman who helped her in. Hislong waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his hat were shining anddripping with rain as everything was, the burly station-master included.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove off,the little girl found herself seated in a comfortably cushioned corner, but shewas not inclined to go to sleep again. She sat and looked out of the window,curious to see something of the road over which she was being driven to thequeer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken of. She was not at all a timid child andshe was not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no knowing whatmight happen in a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut up—a housestanding on the edge of a moor.

“What is a moor?” she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.

“Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you’ll see,”the woman answered. “We’ve got to drive five miles across MisselMoor before we get to the Manor. You won’t see much because it’s adark night, but you can see something.”

Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness of her corner, keepingher eyes on the window. The carriage lamps cast rays of light a little distanceahead of them and she caught glimpses of the things they passed. After they hadleft the station they had driven through a tiny village and she had seenwhitewashed cottages and the lights of a public house. Then they had passed achurch and a vicarage and a little shop-window or so in a cottage with toys andsweets and odd things set out for sale. Then they were on the highroad and shesaw hedges and trees. After that there seemed nothing different for a longtime—or at least it seemed a long time to her.

At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they were climbing up-hill,and presently there seemed to be no more hedges and no more trees. She couldsee nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either side. She leaned forwardand pressed her face against the window just as the carriage gave a big jolt.

“Eh! We’re on the moor now sure enough,” said Mrs. Medlock.

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which seemed tobe cut through bushes and low-growing things which ended in the great expanseof dark apparently spread out before and around them. A wind was rising andmaking a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.

“It’s—it’s not the sea, is it?” said Mary,looking round at her companion.

“No, not it,” answered Mrs. Medlock. “Nor it isn’tfields nor mountains, it’s just miles and miles and miles of wild landthat nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on butwild ponies and sheep.”

“I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it,” saidMary. “It sounds like the sea just now.”

“That’s the wind blowing through the bushes,” Mrs. Medlocksaid. “It’s a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, thoughthere’s plenty that likes it—particularly when the heather’sin bloom.”

On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, thewind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went up and down,and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge beneath which waterrushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary felt as if the drive wouldnever come to an end and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of blackocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.

“I don’t like it,” she said to herself. “I don’tlike it,” and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.

The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road when she first caught sightof a light. Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and drew a long sigh ofrelief.

“Eh, I am glad to see that bit o’ light twinkling,” sheexclaimed. “It’s the light in the lodge window. We shall get a goodcup of tea after a bit, at all events.”

It was “after a bit,” as she said, for when the carriage passedthrough the park gates there was still two miles of avenue to drive through andthe trees (which nearly met overhead) made it seem as if they were drivingthrough a long dark vault.

They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an immenselylong but low-built house which seemed to ramble round a stone court. At firstMary thought that there were no lights at all in the windows, but as she gotout of the carriage she saw that one room in a corner upstairs showed a dullglow.

The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped panels ofoak studded with big iron nails and bound with great iron bars. It opened intoan enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits onthe walls and the figures in the suits of armor made Mary feel that she did notwant to look at them. As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small,odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked.

A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for them.

“You are to take her to her room,” he said in a husky voice.“He doesn’t want to see her. He’s going to London in themorning.”

“Very well, Mr. Pitcher,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “So long asI know what’s expected of me, I can manage.”

“What’s expected of you, Mrs. Medlock,” Mr. Pitcher said,“is that you make sure that he’s not disturbed and that hedoesn’t see what he doesn’t want to see.”

And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long corridor andup a short flight of steps and through another corridor and another, until adoor opened in a wall and she found herself in a room with a fire in it and asupper on a table.

Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:

“Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you’lllive—and you must keep to them. Don’t you forget that!”

It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she hadperhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life.

CHAPTER IV.
MARTHA

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid hadcome into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on the hearth-rug rakingout the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for a few moments and thenbegan to look about the room. She had never seen a room at all like it andthought it curious and gloomy. The walls were covered with tapestry with aforest scene embroidered on it. There were fantastically dressed people underthe trees and in the distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle.There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were inthe forest with them. Out of a deep window she could see a great climbingstretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like anendless, dull, purplish sea.

“What is that?” she said, pointing out of the window.

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and pointedalso.

“That there?” she said.

“Yes.”

“That’s th’ moor,” with a good-natured grin.“Does tha’ like it?”

“No,” answered Mary. “I hate it.”

“That’s because tha’rt not used to it,” Martha said,going back to her hearth. “Tha’ thinks it’s too big an’bare now. But tha’ will like it.”

“Do you?” inquired Mary.

“Aye, that I do,” answered Martha, cheerfully polishing away at thegrate. “I just love it. It’s none bare. It’s coveredwi’ growin’ things as smells sweet. It’s fair lovely inspring an’ summer when th’ gorse an’ broom an’heather’s in flower. It smells o’ honey an’ there’ssuch a lot o’ fresh air—an’ th’ sky looks so highan’ th’ bees an’ skylarks makes such a nice noisehummin’ an’ singin’. Eh! I wouldn’t live away fromth’ moor for anythin’.”

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native servants shehad been used to in India were not in the least like this. They were obsequiousand servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were theirequals. They made salaams and called them “protector of the poor”and names of that sort. Indian servants were commanded to do things, not asked.It was not the custom to say “please” and “thank you”and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the face when she was angry. Shewondered a little what this girl would do if one slapped her in the face. Shewas a round, rosy, good-natured looking creature, but she had a sturdy waywhich made Mistress Mary wonder if she might not even slap back—if theperson who slapped her was only a little girl.

“You are a strange servant,” she said from her pillows, ratherhaughtily.

Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and laughed,without seeming the least out of temper.

“Eh! I know that,” she said. “If there was a grand Missus atMisselthwaite I should never have been even one of th’ under housemaids.I might have been let to be scullerymaid but I’d never have been letupstairs. I’m too common an’ I talk too much Yorkshire. But this isa funny house for all it’s so grand. Seems like there’s neitherMaster nor Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an’ Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, hewon’t be troubled about anythin’ when he’s here, an’he’s nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock gave me th’ place outo’ kindness. She told me she could never have done it if Misselthwaitehad been like other big houses.”

“Are you going to be my servant?” Mary asked, still in herimperious little Indian way.

Martha began to rub her grate again.

“I’m Mrs. Medlock’s servant,” she said stoutly.“An’ she’s Mr. Craven’s—but I’m to do thehousemaid’s work up here an’ wait on you a bit. But you won’tneed much waitin’ on.”

“Who is going to dress me?” demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad Yorkshire inher amazement.

“Canna’ tha’ dress thysen!” she said.

“What do you mean? I don’t understand your language,” saidMary.

“Eh! I forgot,” Martha said. “Mrs. Medlock told me I’dhave to be careful or you wouldn’t know what I was sayin’. I meancan’t you put on your own clothes?”

“No,” answered Mary, quite indignantly. “I never did in mylife. My Ayah dressed me, of course.”

“Well,” said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she wasimpudent, “it’s time tha’ should learn. Tha’ cannotbegin younger. It’ll do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My motheralways said she couldn’t see why grand people’s childrendidn’t turn out fair fools—what with nurses an’ bein’washed an’ dressed an’ took out to walk as if they waspuppies!”

“It is different in India,” said Mistress Mary disdainfully. Shecould scarcely stand this.

But Martha was not at all crushed.

“Eh! I can see it’s different,” she answered almostsympathetically. “I dare say it’s because there’s such a loto’ blacks there instead o’ respectable white people. When I heardyou was comin’ from India I thought you was a black too.”

Mary sat up in bed furious.

“What!” she said. “What! You thought I was a native.You—you daughter of a pig!”

Martha stared and looked hot.

“Who are you callin’ names?” she said. “Youneedn’t be so vexed. That’s not th’ way for a young lady totalk. I’ve nothin’ against th’ blacks. When you read about’em in tracts they’re always very religious. You always read as ablack’s a man an’ a brother. I’ve never seen a blackan’ I was fair pleased to think I was goin’ to see one close. WhenI come in to light your fire this mornin’ I crep’ up to your bedan’ pulled th’ cover back careful to look at you. An’ thereyou was,” disappointedly, “no more black than me—for allyou’re so yeller.”

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation.

“You thought I was a native! You dared! You don’t know anythingabout natives! They are not people—they’re servants who must salaamto you. You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!”

She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl’s simplestare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away fromeverything she understood and which understood her, that she threw herself facedownward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. She sobbed sounrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a little frightened andquite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent over her.

“Eh! you mustn’t cry like that there!” she begged. “Youmustn’t for sure. I didn’t know you’d be vexed. I don’tknow anythin’ about anythin’—just like you said. I beg yourpardon, Miss. Do stop cryin’.”

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer Yorkshirespeech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She gradually ceasedcrying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

“It’s time for thee to get up now,” she said. “Mrs.Medlock said I was to carry tha’ breakfast an’ tea an’ dinnerinto th’ room next to this. It’s been made into a nursery for thee.I’ll help thee on with thy clothes if tha’ll get out o’ bed.If th’ buttons are at th’ back tha’ cannot button them uptha’self.”

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the wardrobewere not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night before with Mrs.Medlock.

“Those are not mine,” she said. “Mine are black.”

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with coolapproval:

“Those are nicer than mine.”

“These are th’ ones tha’ must put on,” Martha answered.“Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get ’em in London. He said‘I won’t have a child dressed in black wanderin’ about like alost soul,’ he said. ‘It’d make the place sadder than it is.Put color on her.’ Mother she said she knew what he meant. Mother alwaysknows what a body means. She doesn’t hold with blackhersel’.”

“I hate black things,” said Mary.

The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha had“buttoned up” her little sisters and brothers but she had neverseen a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for heras if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.

“Why doesn’t tha’ put on tha’ own shoes?” shesaid when Mary quietly held out her foot.

“My Ayah did it,” answered Mary, staring. “It was thecustom.”

She said that very often—“It was the custom.” The nativeservants were always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestorshad not done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, “Itis not the custom” and one knew that was the end of the matter.

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but stand andallow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was ready for breakfastshe began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite Manor would end by teachingher a number of things quite new to her—things such as putting on her ownshoes and stockings, and picking up things she let fall. If Martha had been awell-trained fine young lady’s maid she would have been more subservientand respectful and would have known that it was her business to brush hair, andbutton boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only anuntrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage with aswarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of doing anythingbut waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who were either babies inarms or just learning to totter about and tumble over things.

If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused she would perhapshave laughed at Martha’s readiness to talk, but Mary only listened to hercoldly and wondered at her freedom of manner. At first she was not at allinterested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in her good-tempered, homelyway, Mary began to notice what she was saying.

“Eh! you should see ’em all,” she said. “There’stwelve of us an’ my father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tellyou my mother’s put to it to get porridge for ’em all. They tumbleabout on th’ moor an’ play there all day an’ mother saysth’ air of th’ moor fattens ’em. She says she believes theyeat th’ grass same as th’ wild ponies do. Our Dickon, he’stwelve years old and he’s got a young pony he calls his own.”

“Where did he get it?” asked Mary.

“He found it on th’ moor with its mother when it was a little onean’ he began to make friends with it an’ give it bits o’bread an’ pluck young grass for it. And it got to like him so it followshim about an’ it lets him get on its back. Dickon’s a kind ladan’ animals likes him.”

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought sheshould like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as shehad never before been interested in anyone but herself, it was the dawning ofa healthy sentiment. When she went into the room which had been made into anursery for her, she found that it was rather like the one she had slept in. Itwas not a child’s room, but a grown-up person’s room, with gloomyold pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center wasset with a good substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very smallappetite, and she looked with something more than indifference at the firstplate Martha set before her.

“I don’t want it,” she said.

“Tha’ doesn’t want thy porridge!” Martha exclaimedincredulously.

“No.”

“Tha’ doesn’t know how good it is. Put a bit o’ treacleon it or a bit o’ sugar.”

“I don’t want it,” repeated Mary.

“Eh!” said Martha. “I can’t abide to see good victualsgo to waste. If our children was at this table they’d clean it bare infive minutes.”

“Why?” said Mary coldly.

“Why!” echoed Martha. “Because they scarce ever had theirstomachs full in their lives. They’re as hungry as young hawks an’foxes.”

“I don’t know what it is to be hungry,” said Mary, with theindifference of ignorance.

Martha looked indignant.

“Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plainenough,” she said outspokenly. “I’ve no patience with folk assits an’ just stares at good bread an’ meat. My word! don’t Iwish Dickon and Phil an’ Jane an’ th’ rest of ’em hadwhat’s here under their pinafores.”

“Why don’t you take it to them?” suggested Mary.

“It’s not mine,” answered Martha stoutly. “An’this isn’t my day out. I get my day out once a month same as th’rest. Then I go home an’ clean up for mother an’ give her aday’s rest.”

Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

“You wrap up warm an’ run out an’ play you,” saidMartha. “It’ll do you good and give you some stomach for yourmeat.”

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, buteverything looked dull and wintry.

“Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?”

“Well, if tha’ doesn’t go out tha’lt have to stay in,an’ what has tha’ got to do?”

Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had preparedthe nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be better to goand see what the gardens were like.

“Who will go with me?” she inquired.

Martha stared.

“You’ll go by yourself,” she answered. “You’llhave to learn to play like other children does when they haven’t gotsisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on th’ moor by himselfan’ plays for hours. That’s how he made friends with th’pony. He’s got sheep on th’ moor that knows him, an’ birds ascomes an’ eats out of his hand. However little there is to eat, he alwayssaves a bit o’ his bread to coax his pets.”

It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out, thoughshe was not aware of it. There would be, birds outside though there would notbe ponies or sheep. They would be different from the birds in India and itmight amuse her to look at them.

Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots and sheshowed her her way downstairs.

“If tha’ goes round that way tha’ll come to th’gardens,” she said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery.“There’s lots o’ flowers in summer-time, but there’snothin’ bloomin’ now.” She seemed to hesitate a second beforeshe added, “One of th’ gardens is locked up. No one has been in itfor ten years.”

“Why?” asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked dooradded to the hundred in the strange house.

“Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won’t letno one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th’ door an’ dug ahole and buried th’ key. There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bellringing—I must run.”

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in theshrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no one had beeninto for ten years. She wondered what it would look like and whether there wereany flowers still alive in it. When she had passed through the shrubbery gateshe found herself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks withclipped borders. There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens clipped intostrange shapes, and a large pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. Butthe flower-beds were bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This wasnot the garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You couldalways walk into a garden.

She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end of the path she wasfollowing, there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing over it. She wasnot familiar enough with England to know that she was coming upon thekitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing. She went towardthe wall and found that there was a green door in the ivy, and that it stoodopen. This was not the closed garden, evidently, and she could go into it.

She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all roundit and that it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed to open intoone another. She saw another open green door, revealing bushes and pathwaysbetween beds containing winter vegetables. Fruit-trees were trained flatagainst the wall, and over some of the beds there were glass frames. The placewas bare and ugly enough, Mary thought, as she stood and stared about her. Itmight be nicer in summer when things were green, but there was nothing prettyabout it now.

Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the doorleading from the second garden. He looked startled when he saw Mary, and thentouched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not seem at all pleased tosee her—but then she was displeased with his garden and wore her“quite contrary” expression, and certainly did not seem at allpleased to see him.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“One o’ th’ kitchen-gardens,” he answered.

“What is that?” said Mary, pointing through the other green door.

“Another of ’em,” shortly. “There’s another ont’other side o’ th’ wall an’ there’s th’orchard t’other side o’ that.”

“Can I go in them?” asked Mary.

“If tha’ likes. But there’s nowt to see.”

Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second greendoor. There, she found more walls and winter vegetables and glass frames, butin the second wall there was another green door and it was not open. Perhaps itled into the garden which no one had seen for ten years. As she was not at alla timid child and always did what she wanted to do, Mary went to the green doorand turned the handle. She hoped the door would not open because she wanted tobe sure she had found the mysterious garden—but it did open quite easilyand she walked through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls allround it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-treesgrowing in the winter-browned grass—but there was no green door to beseen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the upper endof the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to end with theorchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place at the other side.She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and when she stood still shesaw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one ofthem, and suddenly he burst into his winter song—almost as if he hadcaught sight of her and was calling to her.

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly littlewhistle gave her a pleased feeling—even a disagreeable little girl may belonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens hadmade this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself. If shehad been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she wouldhave broken her heart, but even though she was “Mistress Mary QuiteContrary” she was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought alook into her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to himuntil he flew away. He was not like an Indian bird and she liked him andwondered if she should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysteriousgarden and knew all about it.

Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought so muchof the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to see what it waslike. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If he had liked his wife somuch why did he hate her garden? She wondered if she should ever see him, butshe knew that if she did she should not like him, and he would not like her,and that she should only stand and stare at him and say nothing, though sheshould be wanting dreadfully to ask him why he had done such a queer thing.

“People never like me and I never like people,” she thought.“And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were alwaystalking and laughing and making noises.”

She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at her, andas she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped rather suddenly on thepath.

“I believe that tree was in the secret garden—I feel sure itwas,” she said. “There was a wall round the place and there was nodoor.”

She walked back into the first kitchen-garden she had entered and found the oldman digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched him a few momentsin her cold little way. He took no notice of her and so at last she spoke tohim.

“I have been into the other gardens,” she said.

“There was nothin’ to prevent thee,” he answered crustily.

“I went into the orchard.”

“There was no dog at th’ door to bite thee,” he answered.

“There was no door there into the other garden,” said Mary.

“What garden?” he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for amoment.

“The one on the other side of the wall,” answered Mistress Mary.“There are trees there—I saw the tops of them. A bird with a redbreast was sitting on one of them and he sang.”

To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed itsexpression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quitedifferent. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person lookedwhen he smiled. She had not thought of it before.

He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to whistle—alow soft whistle. She could not understand how such a surly man could make sucha coaxing sound.

Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. She heard a soft littlerushing flight through the air—and it was the bird with the red breastflying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth quite near tothe gardener’s foot.

“Here he is,” chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the birdas if he were speaking to a child.

“Where has tha’ been, tha’ cheeky little beggar?” hesaid. “I’ve not seen thee before today. Has tha begun tha’courtin’ this early in th’ season? Tha’rt too forrad.”

The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his softbright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar and not theleast afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly, looking for seedsand insects. It actually gave Mary a queer feeling in her heart, because he wasso pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a person. He had a tiny plump bodyand a delicate beak, and slender delicate legs.

“Will he always come when you call him?” she asked almost in awhisper.

“Aye, that he will. I’ve knowed him ever since he was a fledgling.He come out of th’ nest in th’ other garden an’ when first heflew over th’ wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an’we got friendly. When he went over th’ wall again th’ rest ofth’ brood was gone an’ he was lonely an’ he come back tome.”

“What kind of a bird is he?” Mary asked.

“Doesn’t tha’ know? He’s a robin redbreast an’they’re th’ friendliest, curiousest birds alive. They’realmost as friendly as dogs—if you know how to get on with ’em.Watch him peckin’ about there an’ lookin’ round at us nowan’ again. He knows we’re talkin’ about him.”

It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked at theplump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both proud and fond of him.

“He’s a conceited one,” he chuckled. “He likes to hearfolk talk about him. An’ curious—bless me, there never was his likefor curiosity an’ meddlin’. He’s always comin’ to seewhat I’m plantin’. He knows all th’ things Mester Cravennever troubles hissel’ to find out. He’s th’ head gardener,he is.”

The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped andlooked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed at her withgreat curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out all about her. Thequeer feeling in her heart increased.

“Where did the rest of the brood fly to?” she asked.

“There’s no knowin’. The old ones turn ’em out o’their nest an’ make ’em fly an’ they’re scatteredbefore you know it. This one was a knowin’ one an’ he knew he waslonely.”

Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very hard.

“I’m lonely,” she said.

She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feelsour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at her and shelooked at the robin.

The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her aminute.

“Art tha’ th’ little wench from India?” he asked.

Mary nodded.

“Then no wonder tha’rt lonely. Tha’lt be lonlier beforetha’s done,” he said.

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soilwhile the robin hopped about very busily employed.

“What is your name?” Mary inquired.

He stood up to answer her.

“Ben Weatherstaff,” he answered, and then he added with a surlychuckle, “I’m lonely mysel’ except when he’s withme,” and he jerked his thumb toward the robin. “He’sth’ only friend I’ve got.”

“I have no friends at all,” said Mary. “I never had. My Ayahdidn’t like me and I never played with anyone.”

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and old BenWeatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.

“Tha’ an’ me are a good bit alike,” he said. “Wewas wove out of th’ same cloth. We’re neither of us goodlookin’ an’ we’re both of us as sour as we look. We’vegot the same nasty tempers, both of us, I’ll warrant.”

This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth aboutherself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to you,whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but she wonderedif she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also wondered if shelooked as sour as he had looked before the robin came. She actually began towonder also if she was “nasty tempered.” She felt uncomfortable.

Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near her and she turned round.She was standing a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin had flown onto one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a song. BenWeatherstaff laughed outright.

“What did he do that for?” asked Mary.

“He’s made up his mind to make friends with thee,” repliedBen. “Dang me if he hasn’t took a fancy to thee.”

“To me?” said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly andlooked up.

“Would you make friends with me?” she said to the robin just as ifshe was speaking to a person. “Would you?” And she did not say iteither in her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a toneso soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she hadbeen when she heard him whistle.

“Why,” he cried out, “tha’ said that as nice an’human as if tha’ was a real child instead of a sharp old woman.Tha’ said it almost like Dickon talks to his wild things on th’moor.”

“Do you know Dickon?” Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry.

“Everybody knows him. Dickon’s wanderin’ about everywhere.Th’ very blackberries an’ heather-bells knows him. I warrantth’ foxes shows him where their cubs lies an’ th’ skylarksdoesn’t hide their nests from him.”

Mary would have liked to ask some more questions. She was almost as curiousabout Dickon as she was about the deserted garden. But just that moment therobin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his wings, spread themand flew away. He had made his visit and had other things to do.

“He has flown over the wall!” Mary cried out, watching him.“He has flown into the orchard—he has flown across the otherwall—into the garden where there is no door!”

“He lives there,” said old Ben. “He came out o’th’ egg there. If he’s courtin’, he’s makin’ upto some young madam of a robin that lives among th’ old rose-treesthere.”

“Rose-trees,” said Mary. “Are there rose-trees?”

Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig.

“There was ten year’ ago,” he mumbled.

“I should like to see them,” said Mary. “Where is the greendoor? There must be a door somewhere.”

Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked whenshe first saw him.

“There was ten year’ ago, but there isn’t now,” hesaid.

“No door!” cried Mary. “There must be.”

“None as anyone can find, an’ none as is anyone’s business.Don’t you be a meddlesome wench an’ poke your nose where it’sno cause to go. Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an’ playyou. I’ve no more time.”

And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and walkedoff, without even glancing at her or saying good-by.

CHAPTER V.
THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR

At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the others.Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha kneeling uponthe hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her breakfast in thenursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each breakfast she gazed outof the window across to the huge moor which seemed to spread out on all sidesand climb up to the sky, and after she had stared for a while she realized thatif she did not go out she would have to stay in and do nothing—and so shewent out. She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done,and she did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along thepaths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herselfstronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor. She ran onlyto make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at her face androared and held her back as if it were some giant she could not see. But thebig breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs withsomething which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red colorinto her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anythingabout it.

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one morningknowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her breakfast shedid not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it away, but took up herspoon and began to eat it and went on eating it until her bowl was empty.

“Tha’ got on well enough with that this mornin’, didn’ttha’?” said Martha.

“It tastes nice today,” said Mary, feeling a little surprisedherself.

“It’s th’ air of th’ moor that’s givin’thee stomach for tha’ victuals,” answered Martha. “It’slucky for thee that tha’s got victuals as well as appetite. There’sbeen twelve in our cottage as had th’ stomach an’ nothin’ toput in it. You go on playin’ you out o’ doors every day an’you’ll get some flesh on your bones an’ you won’t be soyeller.”

“I don’t play,” said Mary. “I have nothing to playwith.”

“Nothin’ to play with!” exclaimed Martha. “Our childrenplays with sticks and stones. They just runs about an’ shouts an’looks at things.” Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There wasnothing else to do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered aboutthe paths in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but thoughseveral times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was toosurly. Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade and turnedaway as if he did it on purpose.

One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk outsidethe gardens with the walls round them. There were bare flower-beds on eitherside of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly. There was one part of thewall where the creeping dark green leaves were more bushy than elsewhere. Itseemed as if for a long time that part had been neglected. The rest of it hadbeen clipped and made to look neat, but at this lower end of the walk it hadnot been trimmed at all.

A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff, Mary stopped to noticethis and wondered why it was so. She had just paused and was looking up at along spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet andheard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of the wall, perched BenWeatherstaff’s robin redbreast, tilting forward to look at her with hissmall head on one side.

“Oh!” she cried out, “is it you—is it you?” Andit did not seem at all queer to her that she spoke to him as if she were surethat he would understand and answer her.

He did answer. He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as if he weretelling her all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress Mary as if sheunderstood him, too, though he was not speaking in words. It was as if he said:

“Good morning! Isn’t the wind nice? Isn’t the sun nice?Isn’t everything nice? Let us both chirp and hop and twitter. Come on!Come on!”

Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the wallshe ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary—she actuallylooked almost pretty for a moment.

“I like you! I like you!” she cried out, pattering down the walk;and she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do inthe least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and whistledback at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the topof a tree, where he perched and sang loudly.

That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him. He had been swinging ona tree-top then and she had been standing in the orchard. Now she was on theother side of the orchard and standing in the path outside a wall—muchlower down—and there was the same tree inside.

“It’s in the garden no one can go into,” she said to herself.“It’s the garden without a door. He lives in there. How I wish Icould see what it is like!”

She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning. Thenshe ran down the path through the other door and then into the orchard, andwhen she stood and looked up there was the tree on the other side of the wall,and there was the robin just finishing his song and beginning to preen hisfeathers with his beak.

“It is the garden,” she said. “I am sure it is.”

She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall, but sheonly found what she had found before—that there was no door in it. Thenshe ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walk outside thelong ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end of it and looked at it, butthere was no door; and then she walked to the other end, looking again, butthere was no door.

“It’s very queer,” she said. “Ben Weatherstaff saidthere was no door and there is no door. But there must have been one ten yearsago, because Mr. Craven buried the key.”

This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested andfeel that she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite Manor. In Indiashe had always felt hot and too languid to care much about anything. The factwas that the fresh wind from the moor had begun to blow the cobwebs out of heryoung brain and to waken her up a little.

She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her supper atnight she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable. She did not feel cross whenMartha chattered away. She felt as if she rather liked to hear her, and at lastshe thought she would ask her a question. She asked it after she had finishedher supper and had sat down on the hearth-rug before the fire.

“Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?” she said.

She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all. She wasvery young, and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and sisters, and shefound it dull in the great servants’ hall downstairs where the footmanand upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech and looked upon her as acommon little thing, and sat and whispered among themselves. Martha liked totalk, and the strange child who had lived in India, and been waited upon by“blacks,” was novelty enough to attract her.

She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked.

“Art tha’ thinkin’ about that garden yet?” she said.“I knew tha’ would. That was just the way with me when I firstheard about it.”

“Why did he hate it?” Mary persisted.

Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable.

“Listen to th’ wind wutherin’ round the house,” shesaid. “You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out on ittonight.”

Mary did not know what “wutherin’” meant until she listened,and then she understood. It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar whichrushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see werebuffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in. But oneknew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe and warminside a room with a red coal fire.

“But why did he hate it so?” she asked, after she had listened. Sheintended to know if Martha did.

Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

“Mind,” she said, “Mrs. Medlock said it’s not to betalked about. There’s lots o’ things in this place that’s notto be talked over. That’s Mr. Craven’s orders. His troubles arenone servants’ business, he says. But for th’ garden hewouldn’t be like he is. It was Mrs. Craven’s garden that she hadmade when first they were married an’ she just loved it, an’ theyused to ’tend the flowers themselves. An’ none o’ th’gardeners was ever let to go in. Him an’ her used to go in an’ shutth’ door an’ stay there hours an’ hours, readin’ andtalkin’. An’ she was just a bit of a girl an’ there was anold tree with a branch bent like a seat on it. An’ she made roses growover it an’ she used to sit there. But one day when she was sittin’there th’ branch broke an’ she fell on th’ ground an’was hurt so bad that next day she died. Th’ doctors thought he’d goout o’ his mind an’ die, too. That’s why he hates it. Noone’s never gone in since, an’ he won’t let anyone talkabout it.”

Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and listened tothe wind “wutherin’.” It seemed to be“wutherin’” louder than ever.

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things hadhappened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had feltas if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run inthe wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for thefirst time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry forsomeone.

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something else. Shedid not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely distinguish itfrom the wind itself. It was a curious sound—it seemed almost as if achild were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded rather like a childcrying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure this sound was inside thehouse, not outside it. It was far away, but it was inside. She turned round andlooked at Martha.

“Do you hear anyone crying?” she said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

“No,” she answered. “It’s th’ wind. Sometimes itsounds like as if someone was lost on th’ moor an’ wailin’.It’s got all sorts o’ sounds.”

“But listen,” said Mary. “It’s in the house—downone of those long corridors.”

And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere downstairs; fora great rushing draft blew along the passage and the door of the room they satin was blown open with a crash, and as they both jumped to their feet the lightwas blown out and the crying sound was swept down the far corridor so that itwas to be heard more plainly than ever.

“There!” said Mary. “I told you so! It is someonecrying—and it isn’t a grown-up person.”

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it theyboth heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a bang, andthen everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased“wutherin’” for a few moments.

“It was th’ wind,” said Martha stubbornly. “An’if it wasn’t, it was little Betty Butterworth, th’ scullery-maid.She’s had th’ toothache all day.”

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary stare veryhard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth.

CHAPTER VI.
“THERE WAS SOMEONE CRYING—THERE WAS!”

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked outof her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and cloud. There could beno going out today.

“What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?” she askedMartha.

“Try to keep from under each other’s feet mostly,” Marthaanswered. “Eh! there does seem a lot of us then. Mother’s agood-tempered woman but she gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out inth’ cow-shed and plays there. Dickon he doesn’t mind th’ wet.He goes out just th’ same as if th’ sun was shinin’. He sayshe sees things on rainy days as doesn’t show when it’s fairweather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he broughtit home in th’ bosom of his shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had beenkilled nearby an’ th’ hole was swum out an’ th’ resto’ th’ litter was dead. He’s got it at home now. He found ahalf-drowned young crow another time an’ he brought it home, too,an’ tamed it. It’s named Soot because it’s so black,an’ it hops an’ flies about with him everywhere.”

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha’s familiartalk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when shestopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when she livedin India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the moorlandcottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never hadquite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble about and amuse themselveslike a litter of rough, good-natured collie puppies. Mary was most attracted bythe mother and Dickon. When Martha told stories of what “mother”said or did they always sounded comfortable.

“If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it,” said Mary.“But I have nothing.”

Martha looked perplexed.

“Can tha’ knit?” she asked.

“No,” answered Mary.

“Can tha’ sew?”

“No.”

“Can tha’ read?”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn’t tha read somethin’, or learn a bit o’spellin’? Tha’st old enough to be learnin’ thy book a goodbit now.”

“I haven’t any books,” said Mary. “Those I had wereleft in India.”

“That’s a pity,” said Martha. “If Mrs. Medlock’dlet thee go into th’ library, there’s thousands o’ booksthere.”

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by anew idea. She made up her mind to go and find it herself. She was not troubledabout Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to be in her comfortablehousekeeper’s sitting-room downstairs. In this queer place one scarcelyever saw anyone at all. In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, andwhen their master was away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, wherethere was a huge kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a largeservants’ hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten everyday, and where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was outof the way.

Mary’s meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no onetroubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked at herevery day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her what to do. Shesupposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children. In Indiashe had always been attended by her Ayah, who had followed her about and waitedon her, hand and foot. She had often been tired of her company. Now she wasfollowed by nobody and was learning to dress herself because Martha looked asthough she thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have thingshanded to her and put on.

“Hasn’t tha’ got good sense?” she said once, when Maryhad stood waiting for her to put on her gloves for her. “Our Susan Ann istwice as sharp as thee an’ she’s only four year’ old.Sometimes tha’ looks fair soft in th’ head.”

Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her thinkseveral entirely new things.

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha hadswept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs. She was thinkingover the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the library. She didnot care very much about the library itself, because she had read very fewbooks; but to hear of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closeddoors. She wondered if they were all really locked and what she would find ifshe could get into any of them. Were there a hundred really? Whyshouldn’t she go and see how many doors she could count? It would besomething to do on this morning when she could not go out. She had never beentaught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing at all aboutauthority, so she would not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock ifshe might walk about the house, even if she had seen her.

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she beganher wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors andit led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again. There weredoors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls. Sometimes they werepictures of dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of menand women in queer, grand costumes made of satin and velvet. She found herselfin one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She hadnever thought there could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down thisplace and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as ifthey were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house.Some were pictures of children—little girls in thick satin frocks whichreached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleevesand lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks. Shealways stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, andwhere they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes. There was a stiff,plain little girl rather like herself. She wore a green brocade dress and helda green parrot on her finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

“Where do you live now?” said Mary aloud to her. “I wish youwere here.”

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed as ifthere was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self,wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, whereit seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked. Since so many roomshad been built, people must have lived in them, but it all seemed so empty thatshe could not quite believe it true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turningthe handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock had said theywere, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of them and turned it.She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned withoutdifficulty and that when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavilyopened. It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom. There wereembroidered hangings on the wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen inIndia stood about the room. A broad window with leaded panes looked out uponthe moor; and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain littlegirl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

“Perhaps she slept here once,” said Mary. “She stares at meso that she makes me feel queer.”

After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that shebecame quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, though shehad not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestrieswith strange scenes worked on them. There were curious pieces of furniture andcurious ornaments in nearly all of them.

In one room, which looked like a lady’s sitting-room, the hangings wereall embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little elephantsmade of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had their mahouts orpalanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than the others and some wereso tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory in India andshe knew all about elephants. She opened the door of the cabinet and stood on afootstool and played with these for quite a long time. When she got tired sheset the elephants in order and shut the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she hadseen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just after she hadclosed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her jump andlook around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In thecorner of the sofa there was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered itthere was a hole, and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair offrightened eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a littlegray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made acomfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near her. If therewas no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did notlook lonely at all.

“If they wouldn’t be so frightened I would take them back withme,” said Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther, andshe turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by turning down the wrongcorridor and was obliged to ramble up and down until she found the right one;but at last she reached her own floor again, though she was some distance fromher own room and did not know exactly where she was.

“I believe I have taken a wrong turning again,” she said, standingstill at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall.“I don’t know which way to go. How still everything is!”

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that thestillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite like the oneshe had heard last night; it was only a short one, a fretful childish whinemuffled by passing through walls.

“It’s nearer than it was,” said Mary, her heart beatingrather faster. “And it iscrying.”

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back,feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a door which fell openand showed her that there was another part of the corridor behind it, and Mrs.Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very crosslook on her face.

“What are you doing here?” she said, and she took Mary by the armand pulled her away. “What did I tell you?”

“I turned round the wrong corner,” explained Mary. “Ididn’t know which way to go and I heard someone crying.” She quitehated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

“You didn’t hear anything of the sort,” said the housekeeper.“You come along back to your own nursery or I’ll box yourears.”

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one passage anddown another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room.

“Now,” she said, “you stay where you’re told to stay oryou’ll find yourself locked up. The master had better get you agoverness, same as he said he would. You’re one that needs someone tolook sharp after you. I’ve got enough to do.”

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went and saton the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground her teeth.

“There wassomeone crying—there was—therewas!” she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had found outa great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a long journey, andat any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time, and she had playedwith the ivory elephants and had seen the gray mouse and its babies in theirnest in the velvet cushion.

CHAPTER VII.
THE KEY TO THE GARDEN

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bedimmediately, and called to Martha.

“Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”

The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept away in thenight by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, deep blue skyarched high over the moorland. Never, never had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue.In India skies were hot and blazing; this was of a deep cool blue which almostseemed to sparkle like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here andthere, high, high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-whitefleece. The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead ofgloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

“Aye,” said Martha with a cheerful grin. “Th’storm’s over for a bit. It does like this at this time o’ th’year. It goes off in a night like it was pretendin’ it had never beenhere an’ never meant to come again. That’s because th’springtime’s on its way. It’s a long way off yet, but it’scomin’.”

“I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England,”Mary said.

“Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black leadbrushes. “Nowt o’ th’ soart!”

“What does that mean?” asked Mary seriously. In India the nativesspoke different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was notsurprised when Martha used words she did not know.

Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.

“There now,” she said. “I’ve talked broad Yorkshireagain like Mrs. Medlock said I mustn’t. ‘Nowt o’ th’soart’ means ‘nothin’-of-the-sort,’” slowly andcarefully, “but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshire’s th’sunniest place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha’d liketh’ moor after a bit. Just you wait till you see th’ gold-coloredgorse blossoms an’ th’ blossoms o’ th’ broom, an’th’ heather flowerin’, all purple bells, an’ hundredso’ butterflies flutterin’ an’ bees hummin’ an’skylarks soarin’ up an’ singin’. You’ll want to get outon it at sunrise an’ live out on it all day like Dickon does.”

“Could I ever get there?” asked Mary wistfully, looking through herwindow at the far-off blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such aheavenly color.

“I don’t know,” answered Martha. “Tha’s neverused tha’ legs since tha’ was born, it seems to me. Tha’couldn’t walk five mile. It’s five mile to our cottage.”

“I should like to see your cottage.”

Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing brushand began to rub the grate again. She was thinking that the small plain facedid not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the first morning shesaw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan Ann’s when she wantedsomething very much.

“I’ll ask my mother about it,” she said. “She’sone o’ them that nearly always sees a way to do things. It’s my dayout today an’ I’m goin’ home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlockthinks a lot o’ mother. Perhaps she could talk to her.”

“I like your mother,” said Mary.

“I should think tha’ did,” agreed Martha, polishing away.

“I’ve never seen her,” said Mary.

“No, tha’ hasn’t,” replied Martha.

She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the back ofher hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite positively.

“Well, she’s that sensible an’ hard workin’ an’good-natured an’ clean that no one could help likin’ her whetherthey’d seen her or not. When I’m goin’ home to her on my dayout I just jump for joy when I’m crossin’ the moor.”

“I like Dickon,” added Mary. “And I’ve never seenhim.”

“Well,” said Martha stoutly, “I’ve told thee thatth’ very birds likes him an’ th’ rabbits an’ wild sheepan’ ponies, an’ th’ foxes themselves. I wonder,”staring at her reflectively, “what Dickon would think of thee?”

“He wouldn’t like me,” said Mary in her stiff, cold littleway. “No one does.”

Martha looked reflective again.

“How does tha’ like thysel’?” she inquired, reallyquite as if she were curious to know.

Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.

“Not at all—really,” she answered. “But I never thoughtof that before.”

Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection.

“Mother said that to me once,” she said. “She was at herwash-tub an’ I was in a bad temper an’ talkin’ ill of folk,an’ she turns round on me an’ says: ‘Tha’ young vixen,tha’! There tha’ stands sayin’ tha’ doesn’t likethis one an’ tha’ doesn’t like that one. How does tha’like thysel’?’ It made me laugh an’ it brought me to mysenses in a minute.”

She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her breakfast. Shewas going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage, and she was goingto help her mother with the washing and do the week’s baking and enjoyherself thoroughly.

Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the house. Shewent out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the first thing she didwas to run round and round the fountain flower garden ten times. She countedthe times carefully and when she had finished she felt in better spirits. Thesunshine made the whole place look different. The high, deep, blue sky archedover Misselthwaite as well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face andlooking up into it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on oneof the little snow-white clouds and float about. She went into the firstkitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two othergardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him good. He spoke toher of his own accord.

“Springtime’s comin,’” he said. “Cannottha’ smell it?”

Mary sniffed and thought she could.

“I smell something nice and fresh and damp,” she said.

“That’s th’ good rich earth,” he answered, diggingaway. “It’s in a good humor makin’ ready to grow things.It’s glad when plantin’ time comes. It’s dull in th’winter when it’s got nowt to do. In th’ flower gardens out therethings will be stirrin’ down below in th’ dark. Th’sun’s warmin’ ’em. You’ll see bits o’ greenspikes stickin’ out o’ th’ black earth after a bit.”

“What will they be?” asked Mary.

“Crocuses an’ snowdrops an’ daffydowndillys. Has tha’never seen them?”

“No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains inIndia,” said Mary. “And I think things grow up in a night.”

“These won’t grow up in a night,” said Weatherstaff.“Tha’ll have to wait for ’em. They’ll poke up a bithigher here, an’ push out a spike more there, an’ uncurl a leafthis day an’ another that. You watch ’em.”

“I am going to,” answered Mary.

Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew atonce that the robin had come again. He was very pert and lively, and hoppedabout so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and looked at her soslyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question.

“Do you think he remembers me?” she said.

“Remembers thee!” said Weatherstaff indignantly. “He knowsevery cabbage stump in th’ gardens, let alone th’ people.He’s never seen a little wench here before, an’ he’s bent onfindin’ out all about thee. Tha’s no need to try to hide anythingfrom him.”

“Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where helives?” Mary inquired.

“What garden?” grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.

“The one where the old rose-trees are.” She could not help asking,because she wanted so much to know. “Are all the flowers dead, or do someof them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?”

“Ask him,” said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward therobin. “He’s the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside itfor ten year’.”

Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years ago.

She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just as shehad begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha’s mother. She wasbeginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people tolike—when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one ofthe people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall over whichshe could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked up and down themost interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and it was all through BenWeatherstaff’s robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flower-bed ather left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things out ofthe earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But she knew he hadfollowed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almosttrembled a little.

“You do remember me!” she cried out. “You do! You areprettier than anything else in the world!”

She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail andtwittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like satin andhe puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty thatit was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person arobin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had ever been contrary in herlife when he allowed her to draw closer and closer to him, and bend down andtalk and try to make something like robin sounds.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as that! Heknew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand toward him or startlehim in the least tiniest way. He knew it because he was a realperson—only nicer than any other person in the world. She was so happythat she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the perennialplants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were tall shrubs andlow ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and as the robin hoppedabout under them she saw him hop over a small pile of freshly turned up earth.He stopped on it to look for a worm. The earth had been turned up because a doghad been trying to dig up a mole and he had scratched quite a deep hole.

Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she lookedshe saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was something likea ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up into a tree nearby sheput out her hand and picked the ring up. It was more than a ring, however; itwas an old key which looked as if it had been buried a long time.

Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face as ithung from her finger.

“Perhaps it has been buried for ten years,” she said in a whisper.“Perhaps it is the key to the garden!”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY

She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, andthought about it. As I have said before, she was not a child who had beentrained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All she thoughtabout the key was that if it was the key to the closed garden, and she couldfind out where the door was, she could perhaps open it and see what was insidethe walls, and what had happened to the old rose-trees. It was because it hadbeen shut up so long that she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must bedifferent from other places and that something strange must have happened to itduring ten years. Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every dayand shut the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own andplay it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but wouldthink the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The thought ofthat pleased her very much.

Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred mysteriously closedrooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse herself, had set her inactivebrain to working and was actually awakening her imagination. There is no doubtthat the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.Just as it had given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirredher blood, so the same things had stirred her mind. In India she had alwaysbeen too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but in thisplace she was beginning to care and to want to do new things. Already she feltless “contrary,” though she did not know why.

She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk. No one butherself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and look at thewall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it. The ivy was the baffling thing.Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but thickly growing,glossy, dark green leaves. She was very much disappointed. Something of hercontrariness came back to her as she paced the walk and looked over it at thetree-tops inside. It seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it andnot be able to get in. She took the key in her pocket when she went back to thehouse, and she made up her mind that she would always carry it with her whenshe went out, so that if she ever should find the hidden door she would beready.

Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but she wasback at her work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever and in the best ofspirits.

“I got up at four o’clock,” she said. “Eh! it waspretty on th’ moor with th’ birds gettin’ up an’th’ rabbits scamperin’ about an’ th’ sun risin’.I didn’t walk all th’ way. A man gave me a ride in his cartan’ I did enjoy myself.”

She was full of stories of the delights of her day out. Her mother had beenglad to see her and they had got the baking and washing all out of the way. Shehad even made each of the children a doughcake with a bit of brown sugar in it.

“I had ’em all pipin’ hot when they came in fromplayin’ on th’ moor. An’ th’ cottage all smelt o’nice, clean hot bakin’ an’ there was a good fire, an’ theyjust shouted for joy. Our Dickon he said our cottage was good enough for aking to live in.”

In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her mother hadsewed patches on torn clothes and mended stockings and Martha had told themabout the little girl who had come from India and who had been waited on allher life by what Martha called “blacks” until she didn’t knowhow to put on her own stockings.

“Eh! they did like to hear about you,” said Martha. “Theywanted to know all about th’ blacks an’ about th’ ship youcame in. I couldn’t tell ’em enough.”

Mary reflected a little.

“I’ll tell you a great deal more before your next day out,”she said, “so that you will have more to talk about. I dare say theywould like to hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officersgoing to hunt tigers.”

“My word!” cried delighted Martha. “It would set ’emclean off their heads. Would tha’ really do that, Miss? It would be sameas a wild beast show like we heard they had in York once.”

“India is quite different from Yorkshire,” Mary said slowly, as shethought the matter over. “I never thought of that. Did Dickon and yourmother like to hear you talk about me?”

“Why, our Dickon’s eyes nearly started out o’ his head, theygot that round,” answered Martha. “But mother, she was put outabout your seemin’ to be all by yourself like. She said,‘Hasn’t Mr. Craven got no governess for her, nor no nurse?’and I said, ‘No, he hasn’t, though Mrs. Medlock says he will whenhe thinks of it, but she says he mayn’t think of it for two or threeyears.’”

“I don’t want a governess,” said Mary sharply.

“But mother says you ought to be learnin’ your book by this timean’ you ought to have a woman to look after you, an’ she says:‘Now, Martha, you just think how you’d feel yourself, in a bigplace like that, wanderin’ about all alone, an’ no mother. You doyour best to cheer her up,’ she says, an’ I said I would.”

Mary gave her a long, steady look.

“You do cheer me up,” she said. “I like to hear youtalk.”

Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held in herhands under her apron.

“What does tha’ think,” she said, with a cheerful grin.“I’ve brought thee a present.”

“A present!” exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full offourteen hungry people give anyone a present!

“A man was drivin’ across the moor peddlin’,” Marthaexplained. “An’ he stopped his cart at our door. He had potsan’ pans an’ odds an’ ends, but mother had no money to buyanythin’. Just as he was goin’ away our ’Lizabeth Ellencalled out, ‘Mother, he’s got skippin’-ropes with redan’ blue handles.’ An’ mother she calls out quite sudden,‘Here, stop, mister! How much are they?’ An’ he says‘Tuppence’, an’ mother she began fumblin’ in her pocketan’ she says to me, ‘Martha, tha’s brought me thy wages likea good lass, an’ I’ve got four places to put every penny, butI’m just goin’ to take tuppence out of it to buy that child askippin’-rope,’ an’ she bought one an’ here itis.”

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. It wasa strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end, but MaryLennox had never seen a skipping-rope before. She gazed at it with a mystifiedexpression.

“What is it for?” she asked curiously.

“For!” cried out Martha. “Does tha’ mean thatthey’ve not got skippin’-ropes in India, for all they’ve gotelephants and tigers and camels! No wonder most of ’em’s black.This is what it’s for; just watch me.”

And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand,began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair to stare ather, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to stare at her, too, andwonder what on earth this common little cottager had the impudence to be doingunder their very noses. But Martha did not even see them. The interest andcuriosity in Mistress Mary’s face delighted her, and she went on skippingand counted as she skipped until she had reached a hundred.

“I could skip longer than that,” she said when she stopped.“I’ve skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but Iwasn’t as fat then as I am now, an’ I was in practice.”

Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself.

“It looks nice,” she said. “Your mother is a kind woman. Doyou think I could ever skip like that?”

“You just try it,” urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope.“You can’t skip a hundred at first, but if you practiceyou’ll mount up. That’s what mother said. She says,‘Nothin’ will do her more good than skippin’ rope. It’sth’ sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play out in th’ freshair skippin’ an’ it’ll stretch her legs an’ armsan’ give her some strength in ’em.’”

It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in MistressMary’s arms and legs when she first began to skip. She was not veryclever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.

“Put on tha’ things and run an’ skip out o’doors,” said Martha. “Mother said I must tell you to keep outo’ doors as much as you could, even when it rains a bit, so as tha’wrap up warm.”

Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping-rope over her arm. Sheopened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something and turnedback rather slowly.

“Martha,” she said, “they were your wages. It was yourtwo-pence really. Thank you.” She said it stiffly because she was notused to thanking people or noticing that they did things for her. “Thankyou,” she said, and held out her hand because she did not know what elseto do.

Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed tothis sort of thing either. Then she laughed.

“Eh! th’ art a queer, old-womanish thing,” she said.“If tha’d been our ’Lizabeth Ellen tha’d have given mea kiss.”

Mary looked stiffer than ever.

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

Martha laughed again.

“Nay, not me,” she answered. “If tha’ was different,p’raps tha’d want to thysel’. But tha’ isn’t. Runoff outside an’ play with thy rope.”

Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room. Yorkshirepeople seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle to her. At firstshe had disliked her very much, but now she did not. The skipping-rope was awonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and skipped and counted, until hercheeks were quite red, and she was more interested than she had ever been sinceshe was born. The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing—not arough wind, but one which came in delightful little gusts and brought a freshscent of newly turned earth with it. She skipped round the fountain garden, andup one walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden andsaw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping abouthim. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and looked ather with a curious expression. She had wondered if he would notice her. Shewanted him to see her skip.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word. P’raps tha’art a young ’un, after all, an’ p’raps tha’s gotchild’s blood in thy veins instead of sour buttermilk. Tha’sskipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name’s Ben Weatherstaff. Iwouldn’t have believed tha’ could do it.”

“I never skipped before,” Mary said. “I’m justbeginning. I can only go up to twenty.”

“Tha’ keep on,” said Ben. “Tha’ shapes wellenough at it for a young ’un that’s lived with heathen. Just seehow he’s watchin’ thee,” jerking his head toward the robin.“He followed after thee yesterday. He’ll be at it again today.He’ll be bound to find out what th’ skippin’-rope is.He’s never seen one. Eh!” shaking his head at the bird,“tha’ curiosity will be th’ death of thee sometime iftha’ doesn’t look sharp.”

Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every fewminutes. At length she went to her own special walk and made up her mind to tryif she could skip the whole length of it. It was a good long skip and she beganslowly, but before she had gone half-way down the path she was so hot andbreathless that she was obliged to stop. She did not mind much, because she hadalready counted up to thirty. She stopped with a little laugh of pleasure, andthere, lo and behold, was the robin swaying on a long branch of ivy. He hadfollowed her and he greeted her with a chirp. As Mary had skipped toward himshe felt something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump, andwhen she saw the robin she laughed again.

“You showed me where the key was yesterday,” she said. “Youought to show me the door today; but I don’t believe you know!”

The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and heopened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing inthe world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—andthey are nearly always doing it.

Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah’s stories, andshe always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic.

One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was astronger one than the rest. It was strong enough to wave the branches of thetrees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing sprays ofuntrimmed ivy hanging from the wall. Mary had stepped close to the robin, andsuddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails, and more suddenlystill she jumped toward it and caught it in her hand. This she did because shehad seen something under it—a round knob which had been covered by theleaves hanging over it. It was the knob of a door.

She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside. Thickas the ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging curtain, though somehad crept over wood and iron. Mary’s heart began to thump and her handsto shake a little in her delight and excitement. The robin kept singing andtwittering away and tilting his head on one side, as if he were as excited asshe was. What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron andwhich her fingers found a hole in?

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put herhand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She putthe key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to seeif anyone was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, andshe took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held backthe swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which openedslowly—slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her backagainst it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, andwonder, and delight.

She was standing insidethe secret garden.

CHAPTER IX.
THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANYONE EVER LIVED IN

It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place anyone could imagine. Thehigh walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbingroses which were so thick that they were matted together. Mary Lennox knew theywere roses because she had seen a great many roses in India. All the ground wascovered with grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes whichwere surely rosebushes if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roseswhich had so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There wereother trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place lookstrangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swungdown long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there theyhad caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept from onetree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves. There were neitherleaves nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead oralive, but their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort ofhazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass,where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It wasthis hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious. Maryhad thought it must be different from other gardens which had not been left allby themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other place she hadever seen in her life.

“How still it is!” she whispered. “How still!”

Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who hadflown to his treetop, was still as all the rest. He did not even flutter hiswings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.

“No wonder it is still,” she whispered again. “I am the firstperson who has spoken in here for ten years.”

She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid ofawakening someone. She was glad that there was grass under her feet and thather steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the fairy-like gray archesbetween the trees and looked up at the sprays and tendrils which formed them.

“I wonder if they are all quite dead,” she said. “Is it all aquite dead garden? I wish it wasn’t.”

If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood was aliveby looking at it, but she could only see that there were only gray or brownsprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a tiny leaf-bud anywhere.

But she was insidethe wonderful garden and she could come through thedoor under the ivy any time and she felt as if she had found a world all herown.

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky overthis particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant and soft thanit was over the moor. The robin flew down from his tree-top and hopped about orflew after her from one bush to another. He chirped a good deal and had a verybusy air, as if he were showing her things. Everything was strange and silentand she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from anyone, but somehow she didnot feel lonely at all. All that troubled her was her wish that she knewwhether all the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived and mightput out leaves and buds as the weather got warmer. She did not want it to be aquite dead garden. If it were a quite alive garden, how wonderful it would be,and what thousands of roses would grow on every side!

Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she came in and after she hadwalked about for a while she thought she would skip round the whole garden,stopping when she wanted to look at things. There seemed to have been grasspaths here and there, and in one or two corners there were alcoves of evergreenwith stone seats or tall moss-covered flower urns in them.

As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There hadonce been a flowerbed in it, and she thought she saw something sticking out ofthe black earth—some sharp little pale green points. She remembered whatBen Weatherstaff had said and she knelt down to look at them.

“Yes, they are tiny growing things and they mightbe crocuses orsnowdrops or daffodils,” she whispered.

She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp earth. Sheliked it very much.

“Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places,” shesaid. “I will go all over the garden and look.”

She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and kept her eyes on the ground.She looked in the old border beds and among the grass, and after she had goneround, trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so many more sharp, palegreen points, and she had become quite excited again.

“It isn’t a quite dead garden,” she cried out softly toherself. “Even if the roses are dead, there are other thingsalive.”

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick insome of the places where the green points were pushing their way through thatshe thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow. She searched aboutuntil she found a rather sharp piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weededout the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

“Now they look as if they could breathe,” she said, after she hadfinished with the first ones. “I am going to do ever so many more.I’ll do all I can see. If I haven’t time today I can cometomorrow.”

She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself soimmensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under thetrees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat off, andthen her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass andthe pale green points all the time.

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardeningbegun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Wheregardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with thesoil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben’s sizeand yet had had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once.

Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her middaydinner. In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when she put on hercoat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could not believe that shehad been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time;and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in clearedplaces, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass andweeds had been smothering them.

“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round ather new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they heardher.

Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door andslipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such bright eyesand ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

“Two pieces o’ meat an’ two helps o’ ricepuddin’!” she said. “Eh! mother will be pleased when I tellher what th’ skippin’-rope’s done for thee.”

In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had foundherself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion. She had put itback in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it and just now shewondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

“Martha,” she said, “what are those white roots that looklike onions?”

“They’re bulbs,” answered Martha. “Lots o’ springflowers grow from ’em. Th’ very little ones are snowdrops an’crocuses an’ th’ big ones are narcissuses an’ jonquils anddaffydowndillys. Th’ biggest of all is lilies an’ purple flags. Eh!they are nice. Dickon’s got a whole lot of ’em planted in our bito’ garden.”

“Does Dickon know all about them?” asked Mary, a new idea takingpossession of her.

“Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says hejust whispers things out o’ th’ ground.”

“Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no onehelped them?” inquired Mary anxiously.

“They’re things as helps themselves,” said Martha.“That’s why poor folk can afford to have ’em. If youdon’t trouble ’em, most of ’em’ll work away undergroundfor a lifetime an’ spread out an’ have little ’uns.There’s a place in th’ park woods here where there’ssnowdrops by thousands. They’re the prettiest sight in Yorkshire whenth’ spring comes. No one knows when they was first planted.”

“I wish the spring was here now,” said Mary. “I want to seeall the things that grow in England.”

She had finished her dinner and gone to her favorite seat on the hearth-rug.

“I wish—I wish I had a little spade,” she said.

“Whatever does tha’ want a spade for?” asked Martha,laughing. “Art tha’ goin’ to take to diggin’? I musttell mother that, too.”

Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She must be careful if she meantto keep her secret kingdom. She wasn’t doing any harm, but if Mr. Cravenfound out about the open door he would be fearfully angry and get a new key andlock it up forevermore. She really could not bear that.

“This is such a big lonely place,” she said slowly, as if she wereturning matters over in her mind. “The house is lonely, and the park islonely, and the gardens are lonely. So many places seem shut up. I never didmany things in India, but there were more people to look at—natives andsoldiers marching by—and sometimes bands playing, and my Ayah told mestories. There is no one to talk to here except you and Ben Weatherstaff. Andyou have to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff won’t speak to me often. Ithought if I had a little spade I could dig somewhere as he does, and I mightmake a little garden if he would give me some seeds.”

Martha’s face quite lighted up.

“There now!” she exclaimed, “if that wasn’t one ofth’ things mother said. She says, ‘There’s such a loto’ room in that big place, why don’t they give her a bit forherself, even if she doesn’t plant nothin’ but parsley an’radishes? She’d dig an’ rake away an’ be right down happyover it.’ Them was the very words she said.”

“Were they?” said Mary. “How many things she knows,doesn’t she?”

“Eh!” said Martha. “It’s like she says: ‘A womanas brings up twelve children learns something besides her A B C.Children’s as good as ’rithmetic to set you findin’ outthings.’”

“How much would a spade cost—a little one?” Mary asked.

“Well,” was Martha’s reflective answer, “at Thwaitevillage there’s a shop or so an’ I saw little garden sets with aspade an’ a rake an’ a fork all tied together for two shillings.An’ they was stout enough to work with, too.”

“I’ve got more than that in my purse,” said Mary. “Mrs.Morrison gave me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr.Craven.”

“Did he remember thee that much?” exclaimed Martha.

“Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week to spend. She gives meone every Saturday. I didn’t know what to spend it on.”

“My word! that’s riches,” said Martha. “Tha’ canbuy anything in th’ world tha’ wants. Th’ rent of our cottageis only one an’ threepence an’ it’s like pullin’eye-teeth to get it. Now I’ve just thought of somethin’,”putting her hands on her hips.

“What?” said Mary eagerly.

“In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o’ flower-seeds for apenny each, and our Dickon he knows which is th’ prettiest ones an’how to make ’em grow. He walks over to Thwaite many a day just forth’ fun of it. Does tha’ know how to print letters?”suddenly.

“I know how to write,” Mary answered.

Martha shook her head.

“Our Dickon can only read printin’. If tha’ could print wecould write a letter to him an’ ask him to go an’ buy th’garden tools an’ th’ seeds at th’ same time.”

“Oh! you’re a good girl!” Mary cried. “You are, really!I didn’t know you were so nice. I know I can print letters if I try.Let’s ask Mrs. Medlock for a pen and ink and some paper.”

“I’ve got some of my own,” said Martha. “I bought’em so I could print a bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday. I’llgo and get it.”

She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin littlehands together with sheer pleasure.

“If I have a spade,” she whispered, “I can make the earthnice and soft and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and can make flowers grow thegarden won’t be dead at all—it will come alive.”

She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned with herpen and ink and paper she was obliged to clear the table and carry the platesand dishes downstairs and when she got into the kitchen Mrs. Medlock was thereand told her to do something, so Mary waited for what seemed to her a long timebefore she came back. Then it was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon.Mary had been taught very little because her governesses had disliked her toomuch to stay with her. She could not spell particularly well but she found thatshe could print letters when she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated toher:

“My Dear Dickon:

This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present. Miss Mary hasplenty of money and will you go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds and aset of garden tools to make a flower-bed. Pick the prettiest ones and easy togrow because she has never done it before and lived in India which isdifferent. Give my love to mother and everyone of you. Miss Mary is going totell me a lot more so that on my next day out you can hear about elephants andcamels and gentlemen going hunting lions and tigers.

    “Your loving sister,
                “Martha Phœbe Sowerby.”

“We’ll put the money in th’ envelope an’ I’ll getth’ butcher boy to take it in his cart. He’s a great friendo’ Dickon’s,” said Martha.

“How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?”

“He’ll bring ’em to you himself. He’ll like to walkover this way.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mary, “then I shall see him! I never thoughtI should see Dickon.”

“Does tha’ want to see him?” asked Martha suddenly, for Maryhad looked so pleased.

“Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see himvery much.”

Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered something.

“Now to think,” she broke out, “to think o’ meforgettin’ that there; an’ I thought I was goin’ to tell youfirst thing this mornin’. I asked mother—and she said she’dask Mrs. Medlock her own self.”

“Do you mean—” Mary began.

“What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottagesome day and have a bit o’ mother’s hot oat cake, an’ butter,an’ a glass o’ milk.”

It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To thinkof going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue! To think ofgoing into the cottage which held twelve children!

“Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?” she asked, quiteanxiously.

“Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and howclean she keeps the cottage.”

“If I went I should see your mother as well as Dickon,” said Mary,thinking it over and liking the idea very much. “She doesn’t seemto be like the mothers in India.”

Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon ended by making herfeel quiet and thoughtful. Martha stayed with her until tea-time, but they satin comfortable quiet and talked very little. But just before Martha wentdownstairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a question.

“Martha,” she said, “has the scullery-maid had the toothacheagain today?”

Martha certainly started slightly.

“What makes thee ask that?” she said.

“Because when I waited so long for you to come back I opened the door andwalked down the corridor to see if you were coming. And I heard that far-offcrying again, just as we heard it the other night. There isn’t a windtoday, so you see it couldn’t have been the wind.”

“Eh!” said Martha restlessly. “Tha’ mustn’t gowalkin’ about in corridors an’ listenin’. Mr. Craven would bethat there angry there’s no knowin’ what he’d do.”

“I wasn’t listening,” said Mary. “I was just waitingfor you—and I heard it. That’s three times.”

“My word! There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bell,” said Martha,and she almost ran out of the room.

“It’s the strangest house anyone ever lived in,” said Marydrowsily, as she dropped her head on the cushioned seat of the armchair nearher. Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope had made her feel so comfortablytired that she fell asleep.

CHAPTER X.
DICKON

The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret Gardenwas what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, andshe liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her inno one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world insome fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-storybooks, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories. Sometimespeople went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought must berather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she wasbecoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was beginningto like to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. Shecould run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The bulbs inthe secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice clear places weremade round them that they had all the breathing space they wanted, and really,if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to cheer up under the dark earth andwork tremendously. The sun could get at them and warm them, and when the raincame down it could reach them at once, so they began to feel very much alive.

Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now she had somethinginteresting to be determined about, she was very much absorbed, indeed. Sheworked and dug and pulled up weeds steadily, only becoming more pleased withher work every hour instead of tiring of it. It seemed to her like afascinating sort of play. She found many more of the sprouting pale greenpoints than she had ever hoped to find. They seemed to be starting upeverywhere and each day she was sure she found tiny new ones, some so tiny thatthey barely peeped above the earth. There were so many that she remembered whatMartha had said about the “snowdrops by the thousands,” and aboutbulbs spreading and making new ones. These had been left to themselves for tenyears and perhaps they had spread, like the snowdrops, into thousands. Shewondered how long it would be before they showed that they were flowers.Sometimes she stopped digging to look at the garden and try to imagine what itwould be like when it was covered with thousands of lovely things in bloom.

During that week of sunshine, she became more intimate with Ben Weatherstaff.She surprised him several times by seeming to start up beside him as if shesprang out of the earth. The truth was that she was afraid that he would pickup his tools and go away if he saw her coming, so she always walked toward himas silently as possible. But, in fact, he did not object to her as strongly ashe had at first. Perhaps he was secretly rather flattered by her evident desirefor his elderly company. Then, also, she was more civil than she had been. Hedid not know that when she first saw him she spoke to him as she would havespoken to a native, and had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire manwas not accustomed to salaam to his masters, and be merely commanded by them todo things.

“Tha’rt like th’ robin,” he said to her one morningwhen he lifted his head and saw her standing by him. “I never knows whenI shall see thee or which side tha’ll come from.”

“He’s friends with me now,” said Mary.

“That’s like him,” snapped Ben Weatherstaff.“Makin’ up to th’ women folk just for vanity an’flightiness. There’s nothin’ he wouldn’t do for th’sake o’ showin’ off an’ flirtin’ his tail-feathers.He’s as full o’ pride as an egg’s full o’ meat.”

He very seldom talked much and sometimes did not even answer Mary’squestions except by a grunt, but this morning he said more than usual. He stoodup and rested one hobnailed boot on the top of his spade while he looked herover.

“How long has tha’ been here?” he jerked out.

“I think it’s about a month,” she answered.

“Tha’s beginnin’ to do Misselthwaite credit,” he said.“Tha’s a bit fatter than tha’ was an’ tha’s notquite so yeller. Tha’ looked like a young plucked crow when tha’first came into this garden. Thinks I to myself I never set eyes on an uglier,sourer faced young ’un.”

Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much of her looks she was notgreatly disturbed.

“I know I’m fatter,” she said. “My stockings aregetting tighter. They used to make wrinkles. There’s the robin, BenWeatherstaff.”

There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever. Hisred waistcoat was as glossy as satin and he flirted his wings and tail andtilted his head and hopped about with all sorts of lively graces. He seemeddetermined to make Ben Weatherstaff admire him. But Ben was sarcastic.

“Aye, there tha’ art!” he said. “Tha’ can put upwith me for a bit sometimes when tha’s got no one better. Tha’sbeen reddenin’ up thy waistcoat an’ polishin’ thy feathersthis two weeks. I know what tha’s up to. Tha’s courtin’ somebold young madam somewhere tellin’ thy lies to her about bein’th’ finest cock robin on Missel Moor an’ ready to fight allth’ rest of ’em.”

“Oh! look at him!” exclaimed Mary.

The robin was evidently in a fascinating, bold mood. He hopped closer andcloser and looked at Ben Weatherstaff more and more engagingly. He flew on tothe nearest currant bush and tilted his head and sang a little song right athim.

“Tha’ thinks tha’ll get over me by doin’ that,”said Ben, wrinkling his face up in such a way that Mary felt sure he was tryingnot to look pleased. “Tha’ thinks no one can stand out againstthee—that’s what tha’ thinks.”

The robin spread his wings—Mary could scarcely believe her eyes. He flewright up to the handle of Ben Weatherstaff’s spade and alighted on thetop of it. Then the old man’s face wrinkled itself slowly into a newexpression. He stood still as if he were afraid to breathe—as if he wouldnot have stirred for the world, lest his robin should start away. He spokequite in a whisper.

“Well, I’m danged!” he said as softly as if he were sayingsomething quite different. “Tha’ does know how to get at achap—tha’ does! Tha’s fair unearthly, tha’s soknowin’.”

And he stood without stirring—almost without drawing hisbreath—until the robin gave another flirt to his wings and flew away.Then he stood looking at the handle of the spade as if there might be Magic init, and then he began to dig again and said nothing for several minutes.

But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was not afraidto talk to him.

“Have you a garden of your own?” she asked.

“No. I’m bachelder an’ lodge with Martin at th’gate.”

“If you had one,” said Mary, “what would you plant?”

“Cabbages an’ ’taters an’ onions.”

“But if you wanted to make a flower garden,” persisted Mary,“what would you plant?”

“Bulbs an’ sweet-smellin’ things—but mostlyroses.”

Mary’s face lighted up.

“Do you like roses?” she said.

Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it aside before he answered.

“Well, yes, I do. I was learned that by a young lady I was gardener to.She had a lot in a place she was fond of, an’ she loved ’em likethey was children—or robins. I’ve seen her bend over an’ kiss’em.” He dragged out another weed and scowled at it. “Thatwere as much as ten year’ ago.”

“Where is she now?” asked Mary, much interested.

“Heaven,” he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil,“’cording to what parson says.”

“What happened to the roses?” Mary asked again, more interestedthan ever.

“They was left to themselves.”

Mary was becoming quite excited.

“Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left tothemselves?” she ventured.

“Well, I’d got to like ’em—an’ I likedher—an’ she liked ’em,” Ben Weatherstaff admittedreluctantly. “Once or twice a year I’d go an’ work at’em a bit—prune ’em an’ dig about th’ roots. Theyrun wild, but they was in rich soil, so some of ’em lived.”

“When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can youtell whether they are dead or alive?” inquired Mary.

“Wait till th’ spring gets at ’em—wait till th’sun shines on th’ rain and th’ rain falls on th’ sunshinean’ then tha’ll find out.”

“How—how?” cried Mary, forgetting to be careful.

“Look along th’ twigs an’ branches an’ if tha’see a bit of a brown lump swelling here an’ there, watch it afterth’ warm rain an’ see what happens.” He stopped suddenly andlooked curiously at her eager face. “Why does tha’ care so muchabout roses an’ such, all of a sudden?” he demanded.

Mistress Mary felt her face grow red. She was almost afraid to answer.

“I—I want to play that—that I have a garden of my own,”she stammered. “I—there is nothing for me to do. I havenothing—and no one.”

“Well,” said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her,“that’s true. Tha’ hasn’t.”

He said it in such an odd way that Mary wondered if he was actually a littlesorry for her. She had never felt sorry for herself; she had only felt tiredand cross, because she disliked people and things so much. But now the worldseemed to be changing and getting nicer. If no one found out about the secretgarden, she should enjoy herself always.

She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes longer and asked him as manyquestions as she dared. He answered everyone of them in his queer grunting wayand he did not seem really cross and did not pick up his spade and leave her.He said something about roses just as she was going away and it reminded her ofthe ones he had said he had been fond of.

“Do you go and see those other roses now?” she asked.

“Not been this year. My rheumatics has made me too stiff in th’joints.”

He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite suddenly he seemed to getangry with her, though she did not see why he should.

“Now look here!” he said sharply. “Don’t tha’ askso many questions. Tha’rt th’ worst wench for askin’questions I’ve ever come across. Get thee gone an’ play thee.I’ve done talkin’ for today.”

And he said it so crossly that she knew there was not the least use in stayinganother minute. She went skipping slowly down the outside walk, thinking himover and saying to herself that, queer as it was, here was another person whomshe liked in spite of his crossness. She liked old Ben Weatherstaff. Yes, shedid like him. She always wanted to try to make him talk to her. Also she beganto believe that he knew everything in the world about flowers.

There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round the secret garden and endedat a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she would slipround this walk and look into the wood and see if there were any rabbitshopping about. She enjoyed the skipping very much and when she reached thelittle gate she opened it and went through because she heard a low, peculiarwhistling sound and wanted to find out what it was.

It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite caught her breath as she stoppedto look at it. A boy was sitting under a tree, with his back against it,playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny looking boy about twelve. Helooked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppiesand never had Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in anyboy’s face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brownsquirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush nearby a cockpheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep out, and quite near himwere two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with tremulous noses—andactually it appeared as if they were all drawing near to watch him and listento the strange low little call his pipe seemed to make.

When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost as lowas and rather like his piping.

“Don’t tha’ move,” he said. “It’d flight’em.”

Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and began to rise fromthe ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he were movingat all, but at last he stood on his feet and then the squirrel scampered backup into the branches of his tree, the pheasant withdrew his head and therabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop away, though not at all as ifthey were frightened.

“I’m Dickon,” the boy said. “I know tha’rt MissMary.”

Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at first that he was Dickon. Whoelse could have been charming rabbits and pheasants as the natives charm snakesin India? He had a wide, red, curving mouth and his smile spread all over hisface.

“I got up slow,” he explained, “because if tha’ makes aquick move it startles ’em. A body ’as to move gentle an’speak low when wild things is about.”

He did not speak to her as if they had never seen each other before but as ifhe knew her quite well. Mary knew nothing about boys and she spoke to him alittle stiffly because she felt rather shy.

“Did you get Martha’s letter?” she asked.

He nodded his curly, rust-colored head.

“That’s why I come.”

He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground beside himwhen he piped.

“I’ve got th’ garden tools. There’s a little spadean’ rake an’ a fork an’ hoe. Eh! they are good ’uns.There’s a trowel, too. An’ th’ woman in th’ shop threwin a packet o’ white poppy an’ one o’ blue larkspur when Ibought th’ other seeds.”

“Will you show the seeds to me?” Mary said.

She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. Itsounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him,though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny faceand a rough, rusty-red head. As she came closer to him she noticed that therewas a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as ifhe were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funnyface with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.

“Let us sit down on this log and look at them,” she said.

They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of his coatpocket. He untied the string and inside there were ever so many neater andsmaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one.

“There’s a lot o’ mignonette an’ poppies,” hesaid. “Mignonette’s th’ sweetest smellin’ thing asgrows, an’ it’ll grow wherever you cast it, same as poppies will.Them as’ll come up an’ bloom if you just whistle to ’em,them’s th’ nicest of all.”

He stopped and turned his head quickly, his poppy-cheeked face lighting up.

“Where’s that robin as is callin’ us?” he said.

The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries, and Marythought she knew whose it was.

“Is it really calling us?” she asked.

“Aye,” said Dickon, as if it was the most natural thing in theworld, “he’s callin’ someone he’s friends with.That’s same as sayin’ ‘Here I am. Look at me. I wants a bitof a chat.’ There he is in the bush. Whose is he?”

“He’s Ben Weatherstaff’s, but I think he knows me alittle,” answered Mary.

“Aye, he knows thee,” said Dickon in his low voice again.“An’ he likes thee. He’s took thee on. He’ll tell meall about thee in a minute.”

He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement Mary had noticedbefore, and then he made a sound almost like the robin’s own twitter. Therobin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered quite as if he werereplying to a question.

“Aye, he’s a friend o’ yours,” chuckled Dickon.

“Do you think he is?” cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know.“Do you think he really likes me?”

“He wouldn’t come near thee if he didn’t,” answeredDickon. “Birds is rare choosers an’ a robin can flout a body worsethan a man. See, he’s making up to thee now. ‘Cannot tha’ seea chap?’ he’s sayin’.”

And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered andtilted as he hopped on his bush.

“Do you understand everything birds say?” said Mary.

Dickon’s grin spread until he seemed all wide, red, curving mouth, and herubbed his rough head.

“I think I do, and they think I do,” he said. “I’velived on th’ moor with ’em so long. I’ve watched ’embreak shell an’ come out an’ fledge an’ learn to flyan’ begin to sing, till I think I’m one of ’em. Sometimes Ithink p’raps I’m a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, oreven a beetle, an’ I don’t know it.”

He laughed and came back to the log and began to talk about the flower seedsagain. He told her what they looked like when they were flowers; he told herhow to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them.

“See here,” he said suddenly, turning round to look at her.“I’ll plant them for thee myself. Where is tha’garden?”

Mary’s thin hands clutched each other as they lay on her lap. She did notknow what to say, so for a whole minute she said nothing. She had never thoughtof this. She felt miserable. And she felt as if she went red and then pale.

“Tha’s got a bit o’ garden, hasn’t tha’?”Dickon said.

It was true that she had turned red and then pale. Dickon saw her do it, and asshe still said nothing, he began to be puzzled.

“Wouldn’t they give thee a bit?” he asked.“Hasn’t tha’ got any yet?”

She held her hands tighter and turned her eyes toward him.

“I don’t know anything about boys,” she said slowly.“Could you keep a secret, if I told you one? It’s a great secret. Idon’t know what I should do if anyone found it out. I believe I shoulddie!” She said the last sentence quite fiercely.

Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his roughhead again, but he answered quite good-humoredly.

“I’m keepin’ secrets all th’ time,” he said.“If I couldn’t keep secrets from th’ other lads, secretsabout foxes’ cubs, an’ birds’ nests, an’ wildthings’ holes, there’d be naught safe on th’ moor. Aye, I cankeep secrets.”

Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve but shedid it.

“I’ve stolen a garden,” she said very fast. “Itisn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody caresfor it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already. Idon’t know.”

She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life.

“I don’t care, I don’t care! Nobody has any right to take itfrom me when I care about it and they don’t. They’re letting itdie, all shut in by itself,” she ended passionately, and she threw herarms over her face and burst out crying—poor little Mistress Mary.

Dickon’s curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder.

“Eh-h-h!” he said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the wayhe did it meant both wonder and sympathy.

“I’ve nothing to do,” said Mary. “Nothing belongs tome. I found it myself and I got into it myself. I was only just like the robin,and they wouldn’t take it from the robin.”

“Where is it?” asked Dickon in a dropped voice.

Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew she felt contrary again,and obstinate, and she did not care at all. She was imperious and Indian, andat the same time hot and sorrowful.

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” she said.

She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew sothickly. Dickon followed her with a queer, almost pitying, look on his face. Hefelt as if he were being led to look at some strange bird’s nest and mustmove softly. When she stepped to the wall and lifted the hanging ivy hestarted. There was a door and Mary pushed it slowly open and they passed intogether, and then Mary stood and waved her hand round defiantly.

“It’s this,” she said. “It’s a secret garden, andI’m the only one in the world who wants it to be alive.”

Dickon looked round and round about it, and round and round again.

“Eh!” he almost whispered, “it is a queer, pretty place!It’s like as if a body was in a dream.”

CHAPTER XI.
THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH

For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched him,and then he began to walk about softly, even more lightly than Mary had walkedthe first time she had found herself inside the four walls. His eyes seemed tobe taking in everything—the gray trees with the gray creepers climbingover them and hanging from their branches, the tangle on the walls and amongthe grass, the evergreen alcoves with the stone seats and tall flower urnsstanding in them.

“I never thought I’d see this place,” he said at last, in awhisper.

“Did you know about it?” asked Mary.

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

“We must talk low,” he said, “or someone’ll hear usan’ wonder what’s to do in here.”

“Oh! I forgot!” said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her handquickly against her mouth. “Did you know about the garden?” sheasked again when she had recovered herself.

Dickon nodded.

“Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside,” heanswered. “Us used to wonder what it was like.”

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his roundeyes looked queerly happy.

“Eh! the nests as’ll be here come springtime,” he said.“It’d be th’ safest nestin’ place in England. No onenever comin’ near an’ tangles o’ trees an’ roses tobuild in. I wonder all th’ birds on th’ moor don’t buildhere.”

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

“Will there be roses?” she whispered. “Can you tell? Ithought perhaps they were all dead.”

“Eh! No! Not them—not all of ’em!” he answered.“Look here!”

He stepped over to the nearest tree—an old, old one with gray lichen allover its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He tooka thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its blades.

“There’s lots o’ dead wood as ought to be cut out,” hesaid. “An’ there’s a lot o’ old wood, but it made somenew last year. This here’s a new bit,” and he touched a shoot whichlooked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray.

Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive quite?”

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

“It’s as wick as you or me,” he said; and Mary rememberedthat Martha had told her that “wick” meant “alive” or“lively.”

“I’m glad it’s wick!” she cried out in her whisper.“I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count howmany wick ones there are.”

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They wentfrom tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his handand showed her things which she thought wonderful.

“They’ve run wild,” he said, “but th’ strongestones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th’others has growed an’ growed, an’ spread an’ spread, tillthey’s a wonder. See here!” and he pulled down a thick gray,dry-looking branch. “A body might think this was dead wood, but Idon’t believe it is—down to th’ root. I’ll cut it lowdown an’ see.”

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not farabove the earth.

“There!” he said exultantly. “I told thee so. There’sgreen in that wood yet. Look at it.”

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

“When it looks a bit greenish an’ juicy like that, it’swick,” he explained. “When th’ inside is dry an’ breakseasy, like this here piece I’ve cut off, it’s done for.There’s a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of, an’ ifth’ old wood’s cut off an’ it’s dug round, and tookcare of there’ll be—” he stopped and lifted his face to lookup at the climbing and hanging sprays above him—“there’ll bea fountain o’ roses here this summer.”

They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong andclever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood away, and couldtell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green life in it. In thecourse of half an hour Mary thought she could tell too, and when he cut througha lifeless-looking branch she would cry out joyfully under her breath when shecaught sight of the least shade of moist green. The spade, and hoe, and forkwere very useful. He showed her how to use the fork while he dug about rootswith the spade and stirred the earth and let the air in.

They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses when hecaught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of surprise.

“Why!” he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. “Whodid that there?”

It was one of Mary’s own little clearings round the pale green points.

“I did it,” said Mary.

“Why, I thought tha’ didn’t know nothin’ aboutgardenin’,” he exclaimed.

“I don’t,” she answered, “but they were so little, andthe grass was so thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room tobreathe. So I made a place for them. I don’t even know what theyare.”

Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile.

“Tha’ was right,” he said. “A gardener couldn’thave told thee better. They’ll grow now like Jack’s bean-stalk.They’re crocuses an’ snowdrops, an’ these here isnarcissuses,” turning to another patch, “an here’sdaffydowndillys. Eh! they will be a sight.”

He ran from one clearing to another.

“Tha’ has done a lot o’ work for such a little wench,”he said, looking her over.

“I’m growing fatter,” said Mary, “and I’m growingstronger. I used always to be tired. When I dig I’m not tired at all. Ilike to smell the earth when it’s turned up.”

“It’s rare good for thee,” he said, nodding his head wisely.“There’s naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good cleanearth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things whenth’ rain falls on ’em. I get out on th’ moor many a day whenit’s rainin’ an’ I lie under a bush an’ listen toth’ soft swish o’ drops on th’ heather an’ I just sniffan’ sniff. My nose end fair quivers like a rabbit’s, mothersays.”

“Do you never catch cold?” inquired Mary, gazing at himwonderingly. She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.

“Not me,” he said, grinning. “I never ketched cold since Iwas born. I wasn’t brought up nesh enough. I’ve chased aboutth’ moor in all weathers same as th’ rabbits does. Mother saysI’ve sniffed up too much fresh air for twelve year’ to ever get tosniffin’ with cold. I’m as tough as a white-thorn knobstick.”

He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him andhelping him with her fork or the trowel.

“There’s a lot of work to do here!” he said once, lookingabout quite exultantly.

“Will you come again and help me to do it?” Mary begged.“I’m sure I can help, too. I can dig and pull up weeds, and dowhatever you tell me. Oh! do come, Dickon!”

“I’ll come every day if tha’ wants me, rain or shine,”he answered stoutly. “It’s the best fun I ever had in mylife—shut in here an’ wakenin’ up a garden.”

“If you will come,” said Mary, “if you will help me to makeit alive I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do,” sheended helplessly. What could you do for a boy like that?

“I’ll tell thee what tha’ll do,” said Dickon, with hishappy grin. “Tha’ll get fat an’ tha’ll get as hungry asa young fox an’ tha’ll learn how to talk to th’ robin same asI do. Eh! we’ll have a lot o’ fun.”

He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and busheswith a thoughtful expression.

“I wouldn’t want to make it look like a gardener’s garden,all clipped an’ spick an’ span, would you?” he said.“It’s nicer like this with things runnin’ wild, an’swingin’ an’ catchin’ hold of each other.”

“Don’t let us make it tidy,” said Mary anxiously. “Itwouldn’t seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.”

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

“It’s a secret garden sure enough,” he said, “but seemslike someone besides th’ robin must have been in it since it was shut upten year’ ago.”

“But the door was locked and the key was buried,” said Mary.“No one could get in.”

“That’s true,” he answered. “It’s a queer place.Seems to me as if there’d been a bit o’ prunin’ done herean’ there, later than ten year’ ago.”

“But how could it have been done?” said Mary.

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

“Aye! how could it!” he murmured. “With th’ door lockedan’ th’ key buried.”

Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should neverforget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Of course, it did seemto begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon began to clear places toplant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung at her when he wanted to teaseher.

“Are there any flowers that look like bells?” she inquired.

“Lilies o’ th’ valley does,” he answered, digging awaywith the trowel, “an’ there’s Canterbury bells, an’campanulas.”

“Let’s plant some,” said Mary.

“There’s lilies o’ th, valley here already; I saw ’em.They’ll have growed too close an’ we’ll have to separate’em, but there’s plenty. Th’ other ones takes two years tobloom from seed, but I can bring you some bits o’ plants from our cottagegarden. Why does tha’ want ’em?”

Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and of howshe had hated them and of their calling her “Mistress Mary QuiteContrary.”

“They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang—

‘Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
    How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
    And marigolds all in a row.’

I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers likesilver bells.”

She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the earth.

“I wasn’t as contrary as they were.”

But Dickon laughed.

“Eh!” he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw hewas sniffing up the scent of it. “There doesn’t seem to be no needfor no one to be contrary when there’s flowers an’ such like,an’ such lots o’ friendly wild things runnin’ aboutmakin’ homes for themselves, or buildin’ nests an’singin’ an’ whistlin’, does there?”

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

“Dickon,” she said, “you are as nice as Martha said you were.I like you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like fivepeople.”

Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the grate. Hedid look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round blue eyes and redcheeks and happy looking turned-up nose.

“Only five folk as tha’ likes?” he said. “Who isth’ other four?”

“Your mother and Martha,” Mary checked them off on her fingers,“and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff.”

Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his armover his mouth.

“I know tha’ thinks I’m a queer lad,” he said,“but I think tha’ art th’ queerest little lass I eversaw.”

Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a question shehad never dreamed of asking anyone before. And she tried to ask it inYorkshire because that was his language, and in India a native was alwayspleased if you knew his speech.

“Does tha’ like me?” she said.

“Eh!” he answered heartily, “that I does. I likes theewonderful, an’ so does th’ robin, I do believe!”

“That’s two, then,” said Mary. “That’s two forme.”

And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary wasstartled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard strike thehour of her midday dinner.

“I shall have to go,” she said mournfully. “And you will haveto go too, won’t you?”

Dickon grinned.

“My dinner’s easy to carry about with me,” he said.“Mother always lets me put a bit o’ somethin’ in mypocket.”

He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy littlebundle tied up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white handkerchief. It heldtwo thick pieces of bread with a slice of something laid between them.

“It’s oftenest naught but bread,” he said, “butI’ve got a fine slice o’ fat bacon with it today.”

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

“Run on an’ get thy victuals,” he said. “I’ll bedone with mine first. I’ll get some more work done before I start backhome.”

He sat down with his back against a tree.

“I’ll call th’ robin up,” he said, “and give himth’ rind o’ th’ bacon to peck at. They likes a bit o’fat wonderful.”

Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly it seemed as if he might be asort of wood fairy who might be gone when she came into the garden again. Heseemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-way to the door in the walland then she stopped and went back.

“Whatever happens, you—you never would tell?” she said.

His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread andbacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.

“If tha’ was a missel thrush an’ showed me where thy nestwas, does tha’ think I’d tell anyone? Not me,” he said.“Tha’ art as safe as a missel thrush.”

And she was quite sure she was.

CHAPTER XII.
“MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?”

Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her room.Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright pink. Herdinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near it.

“Tha’s a bit late,” she said. “Where has tha’been?”

“I’ve seen Dickon!” said Mary. “I’ve seenDickon!”

“I knew he’d come,” said Martha exultantly. “How doestha’ like him?”

“I think—I think he’s beautiful!” said Mary in adetermined voice.

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

“Well,” she said, “he’s th’ best lad as ever wasborn, but us never thought he was handsome. His nose turns up too much.”

“I like it to turn up,” said Mary.

“An’ his eyes is so round,” said Martha, a trifle doubtful.“Though they’re a nice color.”

“I like them round,” said Mary. “And they are exactly thecolor of the sky over the moor.”

Martha beamed with satisfaction.

“Mother says he made ’em that color with always lookin’ up atth’ birds an’ th’ clouds. But he has got a big mouth,hasn’t he, now?”

“I love his big mouth,” said Mary obstinately. “I wish minewere just like it.”

Martha chuckled delightedly.

“It’d look rare an’ funny in thy bit of a face,” shesaid. “But I knowed it would be that way when tha’ saw him. How didtha’ like th’ seeds an’ th’ garden tools?”

“How did you know he brought them?” asked Mary.

“Eh! I never thought of him not bringin’ ’em. He’d besure to bring ’em if they was in Yorkshire. He’s such a trustylad.”

Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but she didnot. She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening tools, and therewas only one moment when Mary was frightened. This was when she began to askwhere the flowers were to be planted.

“Who did tha’ ask about it?” she inquired.

“I haven’t asked anybody yet,” said Mary, hesitating.

“Well, I wouldn’t ask th’ head gardener. He’s toogrand, Mr. Roach is.”

“I’ve never seen him,” said Mary. “I’ve only seenundergardeners and Ben Weatherstaff.”

“If I was you, I’d ask Ben Weatherstaff,” advised Martha.“He’s not half as bad as he looks, for all he’s so crabbed.Mr. Craven lets him do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven wasalive, an’ he used to make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he’dfind you a corner somewhere out o’ the way.”

“If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one couldmindmy having it, could they?” Mary said anxiously.

“There wouldn’t be no reason,” answered Martha. “Youwouldn’t do no harm.”

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the tableshe was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but Martha stoppedher.

“I’ve got somethin’ to tell you,” she said. “Ithought I’d let you eat your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back thismornin’ and I think he wants to see you.”

Mary turned quite pale.

“Oh!” she said. “Why! Why! He didn’t want to see mewhen I came. I heard Pitcher say he didn’t.”

“Well,” explained Martha, “Mrs. Medlock says it’sbecause o’ mother. She was walkin’ to Thwaite village an’ shemet him. She’d never spoke to him before, but Mrs. Craven had been to ourcottage two or three times. He’d forgot, but mother hadn’tan’ she made bold to stop him. I don’t know what she said to himabout you but she said somethin’ as put him in th’ mind to see youbefore he goes away again, tomorrow.”

“Oh!” cried Mary, “is he going away tomorrow? I am soglad!”

“He’s goin’ for a long time. He mayn’t come back tillautumn or winter. He’s goin’ to travel in foreign places.He’s always doin’ it.”

“Oh! I’m so glad—so glad!” said Mary thankfully.

If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be time towatch the secret garden come alive. Even if he found out then and took it awayfrom her she would have had that much at least.

“When do you think he will want to see—”

She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. Medlockwalked in. She had on her best black dress and cap, and her collar was fastenedwith a large brooch with a picture of a man’s face on it. It was acolored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years ago, and she always woreit when she was dressed up. She looked nervous and excited.

“Your hair’s rough,” she said quickly. “Go and brushit. Martha, help her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring herto him in his study.”

All the pink left Mary’s cheeks. Her heart began to thump and she feltherself changing into a stiff, plain, silent child again. She did not evenanswer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom, followed byMartha. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and her hair brushed, andafter she was quite tidy she followed Mrs. Medlock down the corridors, insilence. What was there for her to say? She was obliged to go and see Mr.Craven and he would not like her, and she would not like him. She knew what hewould think of her.

She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At last Mrs.Medlock knocked at a door, and when someone said, “Come in,” theyentered the room together. A man was sitting in an armchair before the fire,and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.

“This is Miss Mary, sir,” she said.

“You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you totake her away,” said Mr. Craven.

When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a plainlittle thing, twisting her thin hands together. She could see that the man inthe chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with high, rather crookedshoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white. He turned his head overhis high shoulders and spoke to her.

“Come here!” he said.

Mary went to him.

He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been somiserable. He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him and as ifhe did not know what in the world to do with her.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Mary.

“Do they take good care of you?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.

“You are very thin,” he said.

“I am getting fatter,” Mary answered in what she knew was herstiffest way.

What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely saw her,as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly keep his thoughtsupon her.

“I forgot you,” he said. “How could I remember you? Iintended to send you a governess or a nurse, or someone of that sort, but Iforgot.”

“Please,” began Mary. “Please—” and then the lumpin her throat choked her.

“What do you want to say?” he inquired.

“I am—I am too big for a nurse,” said Mary. “Andplease—please don’t make me have a governess yet.”

He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.

“That was what the Sowerby woman said,” he muttered absent-mindedly.

Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.

“Is she—is she Martha’s mother?” she stammered.

“Yes, I think so,” he replied.

“She knows about children,” said Mary. “She has twelve. Sheknows.”

He seemed to rouse himself.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to play out of doors,” Mary answered, hoping that her voicedid not tremble. “I never liked it in India. It makes me hungry here, andI am getting fatter.”

He was watching her.

“Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will,” he said.“She thought you had better get stronger before you had agoverness.”

“It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over themoor,” argued Mary.

“Where do you play?” he asked next.

“Everywhere,” gasped Mary. “Martha’s mother sent me askipping-rope. I skip and run—and I look about to see if things arebeginning to stick up out of the earth. I don’t do any harm.”

“Don’t look so frightened,” he said in a worried voice.“You could not do any harm, a child like you! You may do what youlike.”

Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see theexcited lump which she felt jump into it. She came a step nearer to him.

“May I?” she said tremulously.

Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.

“Don’t look so frightened,” he exclaimed. “Of courseyou may. I am your guardian, though I am a poor one for any child. I cannotgive you time or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but Iwish you to be happy and comfortable. I don’t know anything aboutchildren, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need. I sent for youtoday because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talkedabout you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and runningabout.”

“She knows all about children,” Mary said again in spite ofherself.

“She ought to,” said Mr. Craven. “I thought her rather boldto stop me on the moor, but she said—Mrs. Craven had been kind toher.” It seemed hard for him to speak his dead wife’s name.“She is a respectable woman. Now I have seen you I think she saidsensible things. Play out of doors as much as you like. It’s a big placeand you may go where you like and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anythingyou want?” as if a sudden thought had struck him. “Do you wanttoys, books, dolls?”

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit ofearth?”

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and thatthey were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them comealive,” Mary faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

“Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I wasalways ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in thesand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”

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

“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehowshe must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her hisdark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “Youremind me of someone else who loved the earth and things that grow. When yousee a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “takeit, child, and make it come alive.”

“May I take it from anywhere—if it’s not wanted?”

“Anywhere,” he answered. “There! You must go now, I amtired.” He touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. “Good-by. I shallbe away all summer.”

Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been waiting inthe corridor.

“Mrs. Medlock,” Mr. Craven said to her, “now I have seen thechild I understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate beforeshe begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in thegarden. Don’t look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh airand romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now and then and she maysometimes go to the cottage.”

Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved to hear that she need not“look after” Mary too much. She had felt her a tiresome charge andhad indeed seen as little of her as she dared. In addition to this she was fondof Martha’s mother.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “Susan Sowerby and me went toschool together and she’s as sensible and good-hearted a woman asyou’d find in a day’s walk. I never had any children myself andshe’s had twelve, and there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Marycan get no harm from them. I’d always take Susan Sowerby’s adviceabout children myself. She’s what you might call healthy-minded—ifyou understand me.”

“I understand,” Mr. Craven answered. “Take Miss Mary away nowand send Pitcher to me.”

When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back to herroom. She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact, hurried back aftershe had removed the dinner service.

“I can have my garden!” cried Mary. “I may have it where Ilike! I am not going to have a governess for a long time! Your mother is comingto see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me could notdo any harm and I may do what I like—anywhere!”

“Eh!” said Martha delightedly, “that was nice of himwasn’t it?”

“Martha,” said Mary solemnly, “he is really a nice man, onlyhis face is so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together.”

She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so much longerthan she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would have to set out earlyon his five-mile walk. When she slipped through the door under the ivy, she sawhe was not working where she had left him. The gardening tools were laidtogether under a tree. She ran to them, looking all round the place, but therewas no Dickon to be seen. He had gone away and the secret garden wasempty—except for the robin who had just flown across the wall and sat ona standard rose-bush watching her.

“He’s gone,” she said woefully. “Oh! was he—washe—was he only a wood fairy?”

Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye. It was apiece of paper, in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had printed forMartha to send to Dickon. It was fastened on the bush with a long thorn, and ina minute she knew Dickon had left it there. There were some roughly printedletters on it and a sort of picture. At first she could not tell what it was.Then she saw it was meant for a nest with a bird sitting on it. Underneath werethe printed letters and they said:

“I will cum bak.”

CHAPTER XIII.
“I AM COLIN”

Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and sheshowed it to Martha.

“Eh!” said Martha with great pride. “I never knew our Dickonwas as clever as that. That there’s a picture of a missel thrush on hernest, as large as life an’ twice as natural.”

Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had meant thatshe might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was her nest and she waslike a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that queer, common boy!

She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep lookingforward to the morning.

But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly in thespringtime. She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain beating withheavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in torrents and the windwas “wuthering” round the corners and in the chimneys of the hugeold house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable and angry.

“The rain is as contrary as I ever was,” she said. “It camebecause it knew I did not want it.”

She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not cry, butshe lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she hated the wind andits “wuthering.” She could not go to sleep again. The mournfulsound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she had felt happyit would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it “wuthered” andhow the big raindrops poured down and beat against the pane!

“It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and oncrying,” she said.

She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour, whensuddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward the doorlistening. She listened and she listened.

“It isn’t the wind now,” she said in a loud whisper.“That isn’t the wind. It is different. It is that crying I heardbefore.”

The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a far-offfaint sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes and each minuteshe became more and more sure. She felt as if she must find out what it was. Itseemed even stranger than the secret garden and the buried key. Perhaps thefact that she was in a rebellious mood made her bold. She put her foot out ofbed and stood on the floor.

“I am going to find out what it is,” she said. “Everybody isin bed and I don’t care about Mrs. Medlock—I don’tcare!”

There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out of theroom. The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was too excited to mindthat. She thought she remembered the corners she must turn to find the shortcorridor with the door covered with tapestry—the one Mrs. Medlock hadcome through the day she lost herself. The sound had come up that passage. Soshe went on with her dim light, almost feeling her way, her heart beating soloud that she fancied she could hear it. The far-off faint crying went on andled her. Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was thisthe right corner to turn? She stopped and thought. Yes it was. Down thispassage and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to theright again. Yes, there was the tapestry door.

She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood in thecorridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was not loud. Itwas on the other side of the wall at her left and a few yards farther on therewas a door. She could see a glimmer of light coming from beneath it. TheSomeone was crying in that room, and it was quite a young Someone.

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

It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. There was a low fireglowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the side of a carvedfour-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was lying a boy, cryingfretfully.

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep again andwas dreaming without knowing it.

The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to haveeyes too big for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over his foreheadin heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He looked like a boy whohad been ill, but he was crying more as if he were tired and cross than as ifhe were in pain.

Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her breath. Thenshe crept across the room, and, as she drew nearer, the light attracted theboy’s attention and he turned his head on his pillow and stared at her,his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed immense.

“Who are you?” he said at last in a half-frightened whisper.“Are you a ghost?”

“No, I am not,” Mary answered, her own whisper sounding halffrightened. “Are you one?”

He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what strange eyeshe had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for his face because theyhad black lashes all round them.

“No,” he replied after waiting a moment or so. “I amColin.”

“Who is Colin?” she faltered.

“I am Colin Craven. Who are you?”

“I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle.”

“He is my father,” said the boy.

“Your father!” gasped Mary. “No one ever told me he had aboy! Why didn’t they?”

“Come here,” he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on herwith an anxious expression.

She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.

“You are real, aren’t you?” he said. “I have such realdreams very often. You might be one of them.”

Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she put apiece of it between his fingers.

“Rub that and see how thick and warm it is,” she said. “Iwill pinch you a little if you like, to show you how real I am. For a minute Ithought you might be a dream too.”

“Where did you come from?” he asked.

“From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn’t go to sleep andI heard someone crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you cryingfor?”

“Because I couldn’t go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell meyour name again.”

“Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?”

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a littlemore as if he believed in her reality.

“No,” he answered. “They daren’t.”

“Why?” asked Mary.

“Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won’t letpeople see me and talk me over.”

“Why?” Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.

“Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My fatherwon’t let people talk me over either. The servants are not allowed tospeak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan’t live. Myfather hates to think I may be like him.”

“Oh, what a queer house this is!” Mary said. “What a queerhouse! Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens arelocked up—and you! Have you been locked up?”

“No. I stay in this room because I don’t want to be moved out ofit. It tires me too much.”

“Does your father come and see you?” Mary ventured.

“Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn’t want to seeme.”

“Why?” Mary could not help asking again.

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

“My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me.He thinks I don’t know, but I’ve heard people talking. He almosthates me.”

“He hates the garden, because she died,” said Mary half speaking toherself.

“What garden?” the boy asked.

“Oh! just—just a garden she used to like,” Mary stammered.“Have you been here always?”

“Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside, butI won’t stay because people stare at me. I used to wear an iron thing tokeep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from London to see me and saidit was stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me out in the fresh air. Ihate fresh air and I don’t want to go out.”

“I didn’t when first I came here,” said Mary. “Why doyou keep looking at me like that?”

“Because of the dreams that are so real,” he answered ratherfretfully. “Sometimes when I open my eyes I don’t believe I’mawake.”

“We’re both awake,” said Mary. She glanced round the roomwith its high ceiling and shadowy corners and dim fire-light. “It looksquite like a dream, and it’s the middle of the night, and everybody inthe house is asleep—everybody but us. We are wide awake.”

“I don’t want it to be a dream,” the boy said restlessly.

Mary thought of something all at once.

“If you don’t like people to see you,” she began, “doyou want me to go away?”

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

“No,” he said. “I should be sure you were a dream if youwent. If you are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk. I want to hearabout you.”

Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on thecushioned stool. She did not want to go away at all. She wanted to stay in themysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

“What do you want me to tell you?” she said.

He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to knowwhich corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had been doing; ifshe disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had lived before she came toYorkshire. She answered all these questions and many more and he lay back onhis pillow and listened. He made her tell him a great deal about India andabout her voyage across the ocean. She found out that because he had been aninvalid he had not learned things as other children had. One of his nurses hadtaught him to read when he was quite little and he was always reading andlooking at pictures in splendid books.

Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all sorts ofwonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have been amused,however. He could have anything he asked for and was never made to do anythinghe did not like to do.

“Everyone is obliged to do what pleases me,” he said indifferently.“It makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to growup.”

He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to matterto him at all. He seemed to like the sound of Mary’s voice. As she wenton talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way. Once or twice she wonderedif he were not gradually falling into a doze. But at last he asked a questionwhich opened up a new subject.

“How old are you?” he asked.

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

“How do you know that?” he demanded in a surprised voice.

“Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key wasburied. And it has been locked for ten years.”

Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.

“What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the keyburied?” he exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

“It—it was the garden Mr. Craven hates,” said Mary nervously.“He locked the door. No one—no one knew where he buried thekey.”

“What sort of a garden is it?” Colin persisted eagerly.

“No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years,” wasMary’s careful answer.

But it was too late to be careful. He was too much like herself. He too had hadnothing to think about and the idea of a hidden garden attracted him as it hadattracted her. He asked question after question. Where was it? Had she neverlooked for the door? Had she never asked the gardeners?

“They won’t talk about it,” said Mary. “I think theyhave been told not to answer questions.”

“I would make them,” said Colin.

“Could you?” Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If hecould make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

“Everyone is obliged to please me. I told you that,” he said.“If I were to live, this place would sometime belong to me. They all knowthat. I would make them tell me.”

Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see quiteplainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the whole worldbelonged to him. How peculiar he was and how coolly he spoke of not living.

“Do you think you won’t live?” she asked, partly because shewas curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.

“I don’t suppose I shall,” he answered as indifferently as hehad spoken before. “Ever since I remember anything I have heard peoplesay I shan’t. At first they thought I was too little to understand andnow they think I don’t hear. But I do. My doctor is my father’scousin. He is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when myfather is dead. I should think he wouldn’t want me to live.”

“Do you want to live?” inquired Mary.

“No,” he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. “But Idon’t want to die. When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until Icry and cry.”

“I have heard you crying three times,” Mary said, “but I didnot know who it was. Were you crying about that?” She did so want him toforget the garden.

“I dare say,” he answered. “Let us talk about something else.Talk about that garden. Don’t you want to see it?”

“Yes,” answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

“I do,” he went on persistently. “I don’t think I everreally wanted to see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want thekey dug up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in mychair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them open thedoor.”

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars andlooked more immense than ever.

“They have to please me,” he said. “I will make them take methere and I will let you go, too.”

Mary’s hands clutched each other. Everything would bespoiled—everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never againfeel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

“Oh, don’t—don’t—don’t—don’t dothat!” she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

“Why?” he exclaimed. “You said you wanted to see it.”

“I do,” she answered almost with a sob in her throat, “but ifyou make them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secretagain.”

He leaned still farther forward.

“A secret,” he said. “What do you mean? Tell me.”

Mary’s words almost tumbled over one another.

“You see—you see,” she panted, “if no one knows butourselves—if there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy—ifthere was—and we could find it; and if we could slip through it togetherand shut it behind us, and no one knew anyone was inside and we called it ourgarden and pretended that—that we were missel thrushes and it was ournest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds andmade it all come alive—”

“Is it dead?” he interrupted her.

“It soon will be if no one cares for it,” she went on. “Thebulbs will live but the roses—”

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

“What are bulbs?” he put in quickly.

“They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in theearth now—pushing up pale green points because the spring iscoming.”

“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like? Youdon’t see it in rooms if you are ill.”

“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine,and things pushing up and working under the earth,” said Mary. “Ifthe garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things growbigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don’t you see? Oh,don’t you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?”

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

“I never had a secret,” he said, “except that one about notliving to grow up. They don’t know I know that, so it is a sort ofsecret. But I like this kind better.”

“If you won’t make them take you to the garden,” pleadedMary, “perhaps—I feel almost sure I can find out how to get insometime. And then—if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, andif you can always do what you want to do, perhaps—perhaps we might findsome boy who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be asecret garden.”

“I should—like—that,” he said very slowly, his eyeslooking dreamy. “I should like that. I should not mind fresh air in asecret garden.”

Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of keeping thesecret seemed to please him. She felt almost sure that if she kept on talkingand could make him see the garden in his mind as she had seen it he would likeit so much that he could not bear to think that everybody might tramp in to itwhen they chose.

“I’ll tell you what I thinkit would be like, if we could gointo it,” she said. “It has been shut up so long things have growninto a tangle perhaps.”

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the roses whichmighthave clambered from tree to tree and hung down—about themany birds which mighthave built their nests there because it was sosafe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben Weatherstaff, and there wasso much to tell about the robin and it was so easy and safe to talk about itthat she ceased to be afraid. The robin pleased him so much that he smileduntil he looked almost beautiful, and at first Mary had thought that he waseven plainer than herself, with his big eyes and heavy locks of hair.

“I did not know birds could be like that,” he said. “But ifyou stay in a room you never see things. What a lot of things you know. I feelas if you had been inside that garden.”

She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He evidently did notexpect an answer and the next moment he gave her a surprise.

“I am going to let you look at something,” he said. “Do yousee that rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over themantel-piece?”

Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a curtainof soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

“Yes,” she answered.

“There is a cord hanging from it,” said Colin. “Go and pullit.”

Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the silkcurtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a picture. It wasthe picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had bright hair tied up with ablue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were exactly like Colin’s unhappyones, agate gray and looking twice as big as they really were because of theblack lashes all round them.

“She is my mother,” said Colin complainingly. “I don’tsee why she died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it.”

“How queer!” said Mary.

“If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always,” hegrumbled. “I dare say I should have lived, too. And my father would nothave hated to look at me. I dare say I should have had a strong back. Draw thecurtain again.”

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

“She is much prettier than you,” she said, “but her eyes arejust like yours—at least they are the same shape and color. Why is thecurtain drawn over her?”

He moved uncomfortably.

“I made them do it,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t liketo see her looking at me. She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable.Besides, she is mine and I don’t want everyone to see her.”

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

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

“She would do as I told her to do,” he answered. “And Ishould tell her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I amglad you came.”

“So am I,” said Mary. “I will come as often as I can,but”—she hesitated—“I shall have to look every day forthe garden door.”

“Yes, you must,” said Colin, “and you can tell me about itafterward.”

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

“I think you shall be a secret, too,” he said. “I will nottell them until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room andsay that I want to be by myself. Do you know Martha?”

“Yes, I know her very well,” said Mary. “She waits onme.”

He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.

“She is the one who is asleep in the other room. The nurse went awayyesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes Martha attendto me when she wants to go out. Martha shall tell you when to come here.”

Then Mary understood Martha’s troubled look when she had asked questionsabout the crying.

“Martha knew about you all the time?” she said.

“Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me andthen Martha comes.”

“I have been here a long time,” said Mary. “Shall I go awaynow? Your eyes look sleepy.”

“I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me,” he said rathershyly.

“Shut your eyes,” said Mary, drawing her footstool closer,“and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand andstroke it and sing something quite low.”

“I should like that perhaps,” he said drowsily.

Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she leanedagainst the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a very low littlechanting song in Hindustani.

“That is nice,” he said more drowsily still, and she went onchanting and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes werelying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep.So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without making a sound.

CHAPTER XIV.
A YOUNG RAJAH

The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stoppedpouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was so busy thatMary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the afternoon she asked herto come and sit with her in the nursery. She came bringing the stocking she wasalways knitting when she was doing nothing else.

“What’s the matter with thee?” she asked as soon as they satdown. “Tha’ looks as if tha’d somethin’ to say.”

“I have. I have found out what the crying was,” said Mary.

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

“Tha’ hasn’t!” she exclaimed. “Never!”

“I heard it in the night,” Mary went on. “And I got up andwent to see where it came from. It was Colin. I found him.”

Martha’s face became red with fright.

“Eh! Miss Mary!” she said half crying. “Tha’shouldn’t have done it—tha’ shouldn’t! Tha’ll getme in trouble. I never told thee nothin’ about him—but tha’llget me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what’ll mother do!”

“You won’t lose your place,” said Mary. “He was glad Icame. We talked and talked and he said he was glad I came.”

“Was he?” cried Martha. “Art tha’ sure? Tha’doesn’t know what he’s like when anything vexes him. He’s abig lad to cry like a baby, but when he’s in a passion he’ll fairscream just to frighten us. He knows us daren’t call our souls ourown.”

“He wasn’t vexed,” said Mary. “I asked him if I shouldgo away and he made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstooland talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. Hewouldn’t let me go. He let me see his mother’s picture. Before Ileft him I sang him to sleep.”

Martha fairly gasped with amazement.

“I can scarcely believe thee!” she protested. “It’s asif tha’d walked straight into a lion’s den. If he’d been likehe is most times he’d have throwed himself into one of his tantrums androused th’ house. He won’t let strangers look at him.”

“He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at me.We stared!” said Mary.

“I don’t know what to do!” cried agitated Martha. “IfMrs. Medlock finds out, she’ll think I broke orders and told thee and Ishall be packed back to mother.”

“He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It’sto be a sort of secret just at first,” said Mary firmly. “And hesays everybody is obliged to do as he pleases.”

“Aye, that’s true enough—th’ bad lad!” sighedMartha, wiping her forehead with her apron.

“He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him everyday. And you are to tell me when he wants me.”

“Me!” said Martha; “I shall lose my place—I shall forsure!”

“You can’t if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybodyis ordered to obey him,” Mary argued.

“Does tha’ mean to say,” cried Martha with wide open eyes,“that he was nice to thee!”

“I think he almost liked me,” Mary answered.

“Then tha’ must have bewitched him!” decided Martha, drawinga long breath.

“Do you mean Magic?” inquired Mary. “I’ve heard aboutMagic in India, but I can’t make it. I just went into his room and I wasso surprised to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and staredat me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he was.And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of the night andnot knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other questions. Andwhen I asked him if I must go away he said I must not.”

“Th’ world’s comin’ to a end!” gasped Martha.

“What is the matter with him?” asked Mary.

“Nobody knows for sure and certain,” said Martha. “Mr. Cravenwent off his head like when he was born. Th’ doctors thought he’dhave to be put in a ’sylum. It was because Mrs. Craven died like I toldyou. He wouldn’t set eyes on th’ baby. He just raved and saidit’d be another hunchback like him and it’d better die.”

“Is Colin a hunchback?” Mary asked. “He didn’t looklike one.”

“He isn’t yet,” said Martha. “But he began all wrong.Mother said that there was enough trouble and raging in th’ house to setany child wrong. They was afraid his back was weak an’ they’vealways been takin’ care of it—keepin’ him lyin’ downand not lettin’ him walk. Once they made him wear a brace but he frettedso he was downright ill. Then a big doctor came to see him an’ made themtake it off. He talked to th’ other doctor quite rough—in a politeway. He said there’d been too much medicine and too much lettin’him have his own way.”

“I think he’s a very spoiled boy,” said Mary.

“He’s th’ worst young nowt as ever was!” said Martha.“I won’t say as he hasn’t been ill a good bit. He’s hadcoughs an’ colds that’s nearly killed him two or three times. Oncehe had rheumatic fever an’ once he had typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did geta fright then. He’d been out of his head an’ she was talkin’to th’ nurse, thinkin’ he didn’t know nothin’,an’ she said, ‘He’ll die this time sure enough, an’best thing for him an’ for everybody.’ An’ she looked at himan’ there he was with his big eyes open, starin’ at her as sensibleas she was herself. She didn’t know wha’d happen but he just staredat her an’ says, ‘You give me some water an’ stoptalkin’.’”

“Do you think he will die?” asked Mary.

“Mother says there’s no reason why any child should live that getsno fresh air an’ doesn’t do nothin’ but lie on his backan’ read picture-books an’ take medicine. He’s weak and hatesth’ trouble o’ bein’ taken out o’ doors, an’ hegets cold so easy he says it makes him ill.”

Mary sat and looked at the fire.

“I wonder,” she said slowly, “if it would not do him good togo out into a garden and watch things growing. It did me good.”

“One of th’ worst fits he ever had,” said Martha, “wasone time they took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He’d beenreadin’ in a paper about people gettin’ somethin’ he called‘rose cold’ an’ he began to sneeze an’ said he’dgot it an’ then a new gardener as didn’t know th’ rulespassed by an’ looked at him curious. He threw himself into a passionan’ he said he’d looked at him because he was going to be ahunchback. He cried himself into a fever an’ was ill all night.”

“If he ever gets angry at me, I’ll never go and see himagain,” said Mary.

“He’ll have thee if he wants thee,” said Martha.“Tha’ may as well know that at th’ start.”

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

“I dare say th’ nurse wants me to stay with him a bit,” shesaid. “I hope he’s in a good temper.”

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

“Well, tha’ has bewitched him,” she said. “He’sup on his sofa with his picture-books. He’s told the nurse to stay awayuntil six o’clock. I’m to wait in the next room. Th’ minuteshe was gone he called me to him an’ says, ‘I want Mary Lennox tocome and talk to me, and remember you’re not to tell anyone.’You’d better go as quick as you can.”

Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as much asshe wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.

There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in thedaylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed. There were rich colors inthe rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the walls which made it lookglowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky and falling rain. Colinlooked rather like a picture himself. He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gownand sat against a big brocaded cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek.

“Come in,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you allmorning.”

“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” answered Mary.“You don’t know how frightened Martha is. She says Mrs. Medlockwill think she told me about you and then she will be sent away.”

He frowned.

“Go and tell her to come here,” he said. “She is in the nextroom.”

Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. Colin wasstill frowning.

“Have you to do what I please or have you not?” he demanded.

“I have to do what you please, sir,” Martha faltered, turning quitered.

“Has Medlock to do what I please?”

“Everybody has, sir,” said Martha.

“Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlocksend you away if she finds it out?”

“Please don’t let her, sir,” pleaded Martha.

“I’ll send heraway if she dares to say a word about such athing,” said Master Craven grandly. “She wouldn’t like that,I can tell you.”

“Thank you, sir,” bobbing a curtsy, “I want to do my duty,sir.”

“What I want is your duty” said Colin more grandly still.“I’ll take care of you. Now go away.”

When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at him asif he had set her wondering.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked her. “What areyou thinking about?”

“I am thinking about two things.”

“What are they? Sit down and tell me.”

“This is the first one,” said Mary, seating herself on the bigstool. “Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies andemeralds and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as youspoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them—in a minute.I think they would have been killed if they hadn’t.”

“I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently,” he said,“but first tell me what the second thing was.”

“I was thinking,” said Mary, “how different you are fromDickon.”

“Who is Dickon?” he said. “What a queer name!”

She might as well tell him, she thought she could talk about Dickon withoutmentioning the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha talk about him.Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring him nearer.

“He is Martha’s brother. He is twelve years old,” sheexplained. “He is not like anyone else in the world. He can charm foxesand squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays avery soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen.”

There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one suddenlytoward him.

“There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,” he exclaimed.“Come and look at it.”

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned toone of them.

“Can he do that?” he asked eagerly.

“He played on his pipe and they listened,” Mary explained.“But he doesn’t call it Magic. He says it’s because he liveson the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as ifhe was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robinquestions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps.”

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spotson his cheeks burned.

“Tell me some more about him,” he said.

“He knows all about eggs and nests,” Mary went on. “And heknows where foxes and badgers and otters live. He keeps them secret so thatother boys won’t find their holes and frighten them. He knows abouteverything that grows or lives on the moor.”

“Does he like the moor?” said Colin. “How can he whenit’s such a great, bare, dreary place?”

“It’s the most beautiful place,” protested Mary.“Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of littlecreatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chipperingor singing or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fununder the earth or in the trees or heather. It’s their world.”

“How do you know all that?” said Colin, turning on his elbow tolook at her.

“I have never been there once, really,” said Mary suddenlyremembering. “I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous.Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it youfeel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in theheather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey—and allfull of bees and butterflies.”

“You never see anything if you are ill,” said Colin restlessly. Helooked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wonderingwhat it was.

“You can’t if you stay in a room,” said Mary.

“I couldn’t go on the moor,” he said in a resentful tone.

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

“You might—sometime.”

He moved as if he were startled.

“Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die.”

“How do you know?” said Mary unsympathetically. She didn’tlike the way he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic.She felt rather as if he almost boasted about it.

“Oh, I’ve heard it ever since I remember,” he answeredcrossly. “They are always whispering about it and thinking I don’tnotice. They wish I would, too.”

Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together.

“If they wished I would,” she said, “I wouldn’t. Whowishes you would?”

“The servants—and of course Dr. Craven because he would getMisselthwaite and be rich instead of poor. He daren’t say so, but healways looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had typhoid fever his face gotquite fat. I think my father wishes it, too.”

“I don’t believe he does,” said Mary quite obstinately.

That made Colin turn and look at her again.

“Don’t you?” he said.

And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were thinking. Andthere was quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both of them thinking strangethings children do not usually think of.

“I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the ironthing off,” said Mary at last “Did he say you were going todie?”

“No.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t whisper,” Colin answered. “Perhaps he knew Ihated whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud. He said, ‘Thelad might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.’It sounded as if he was in a temper.”

“I’ll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps,” saidMary reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one wayor the other. “I believe Dickon would. He’s always talking aboutlive things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill.He’s always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying—or lookingdown at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes andthey are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh withhis wide mouth—and his cheeks are as red—as red as cherries.”

She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed at theremembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes.

“See here,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about dying; Idon’t like it. Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk aboutDickon. And then we will look at your pictures.”

It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to talkabout the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people who lived in it onsixteen shillings a week—and the children who got fat on the moor grasslike the wild ponies. And about Dickon’s mother—and theskipping-rope—and the moor with the sun on it—and about pale greenpoints sticking up out of the black sod. And it was all so alive that Marytalked more than she had ever talked before—and Colin both talked andlistened as he had never done either before. And they both began to laugh overnothings as children will when they are happy together. And they laughed sothat in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinaryhealthy natural ten-year-old creatures—instead of a hard, little,unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they forgotabout the time. They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben Weatherstaff andhis robin, and Colin was actually sitting up as if he had forgotten about hisweak back, when he suddenly remembered something.

“Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of,” hesaid. “We are cousins.”

It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered thissimple thing that they laughed more than ever, because they had got into thehumor to laugh at anything. And in the midst of the fun the door opened and inwalked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock.

Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back because hehad accidentally bumped against her.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almoststarting out of her head. “Good Lord!”

“What is this?” said Dr. Craven, coming forward. “What doesit mean?”

Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again. Colin answered as if neither thedoctor’s alarm nor Mrs. Medlock’s terror were of the slightestconsequence. He was as little disturbed or frightened as if an elderly cat anddog had walked into the room.

“This is my cousin, Mary Lennox,” he said. “I asked her tocome and talk to me. I like her. She must come and talk to me whenever I sendfor her.”

Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock.

“Oh, sir” she panted. “I don’t know how it’shappened. There’s not a servant on the place tha’d dare totalk—they all have their orders.”

“Nobody told her anything,” said Colin. “She heard me cryingand found me herself. I am glad she came. Don’t be silly, Medlock.”

Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain that hedare not oppose his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt his pulse.

“I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not goodfor you, my boy,” he said.

“I should be excited if she kept away,” answered Colin, his eyesbeginning to look dangerously sparkling. “I am better. She makes mebetter. The nurse must bring up her tea with mine. We will have teatogether.”

Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but therewas evidently nothing to be done.

“He does look rather better, sir,” ventured Mrs. Medlock.“But”—thinking the matter over—“he looked betterthis morning before she came into the room.”

“She came into the room last night. She stayed with me a long time. Shesang a Hindustani song to me and it made me go to sleep,” said Colin.“I was better when I wakened up. I wanted my breakfast. I want my teanow. Tell nurse, Medlock.”

Dr. Craven did not stay very long. He talked to the nurse for a few minuteswhen she came into the room and said a few words of warning to Colin. He mustnot talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill; he must not forget thathe was very easily tired. Mary thought that there seemed to be a number ofuncomfortable things he was not to forget.

Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr.Craven’s face.

“I wantto forget it,” he said at last. “She makes meforget it. That is why I want her.”

Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left the room. He gave a puzzled glanceat the little girl sitting on the large stool. She had become a stiff, silentchild again as soon as he entered and he could not see what the attraction was.The boy actually did look brighter, however—and he sighed rather heavilyas he went down the corridor.

“They are always wanting me to eat things when I don’t wantto,” said Colin, as the nurse brought in the tea and put it on the tableby the sofa. “Now, if you’ll eat I will. Those muffins look so niceand hot. Tell me about Rajahs.”

CHAPTER XV.
NEST BUILDING

After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and the sunwhich poured down was quite hot. Though there had been no chance to see eitherthe secret garden or Dickon, Mistress Mary had enjoyed herself very much. Theweek had not seemed long. She had spent hours of every day with Colin in hisroom, talking about Rajahs or gardens or Dickon and the cottage on the moor.They had looked at the splendid books and pictures and sometimes Mary had readthings to Colin, and sometimes he had read a little to her. When he was amusedand interested she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid at all, exceptthat his face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa.

“You are a sly young one to listen and get out of your bed to gofollowing things up like you did that night,” Mrs. Medlock said once.“But there’s no saying it’s not been a sort of blessing tothe lot of us. He’s not had a tantrum or a whining fit since you madefriends. The nurse was just going to give up the case because she was so sickof him, but she says she doesn’t mind staying now you’ve gone onduty with her,” laughing a little.

In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the secretgarden. There were certain things she wanted to find out from him, but she feltthat she must find them out without asking him direct questions. In the firstplace, as she began to like to be with him, she wanted to discover whether hewas the kind of boy you could tell a secret to. He was not in the least likeDickon, but he was evidently so pleased with the idea of a garden no one knewanything about that she thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had notknown him long enough to be sure. The second thing she wanted to find out wasthis: If he could be trusted—if he really could—wouldn’t itbe possible to take him to the garden without having anyone find it out? Thegrand doctor had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had said that hewould not mind fresh air in a secret garden. Perhaps if he had a great deal offresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw things growing he might notthink so much about dying. Mary had seen herself in the glass sometimes latelywhen she had realized that she looked quite a different creature from the childshe had seen when she arrived from India. This child looked nicer. Even Marthahad seen a change in her.

“Th’ air from th’ moor has done thee good already,” shehad said. “Tha’rt not nigh so yeller and tha’rt not nigh soscrawny. Even tha’ hair doesn’t slamp down on tha’ head soflat. It’s got some life in it so as it sticks out a bit.”

“It’s like me,” said Mary. “It’s growing strongerand fatter. I’m sure there’s more of it.”

“It looks it, for sure,” said Martha, ruffling it up a little roundher face. “Tha’rt not half so ugly when it’s that wayan’ there’s a bit o’ red in tha’ cheeks.”

If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be good forColin. But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps he would not liketo see Dickon.

“Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?” she inquiredone day.

“I always hated it,” he answered, “even when I was verylittle. Then when they took me to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriageeverybody used to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and thenthey would begin to whisper and I knew then they were saying I shouldn’tlive to grow up. Then sometimes the ladies would pat my cheeks and say‘Poor child!’ Once when a lady did that I screamed out loud and bither hand. She was so frightened she ran away.”

“She thought you had gone mad like a dog,” said Mary, not at alladmiringly.

“I don’t care what she thought,” said Colin, frowning.

“I wonder why you didn’t scream and bite me when I came into yourroom?” said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly.

“I thought you were a ghost or a dream,” he said. “Youcan’t bite a ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don’tcare.”

“Would you hate it if—if a boy looked at you?” Mary askeduncertainly.

He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.

“There’s one boy,” he said quite slowly, as if he werethinking over every word, “there’s one boy I believe Ishouldn’t mind. It’s that boy who knows where the foxeslive—Dickon.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind him,” said Mary.

“The birds don’t and other animals,” he said, still thinkingit over, “perhaps that’s why I shouldn’t. He’s a sortof animal charmer and I am a boy animal.”

Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both laughing agreat deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in his hole very funnyindeed.

What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.

On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very early. Thesun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and there was something sojoyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Shedrew up the blinds and opened the window itself and a great waft of fresh,scented air blew in upon her. The moor was blue and the whole world looked asif something Magic had happened to it. There were tender little fluting soundshere and there and everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to tune upfor a concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun.

“It’s warm—warm!” she said. “It will make thegreen points push up and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots workand struggle with all their might under the earth.”

She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, breathingbig breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because she remembered whatDickon’s mother had said about the end of his nose quivering like arabbit’s.

“It must be very early,” she said. “The little clouds are allpink and I’ve never seen the sky look like this. No one is up. Idon’t even hear the stable boys.”

A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.

“I can’t wait! I am going to see the garden!”

She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her clothes infive minutes. She knew a small side door which she could unbolt herself and sheflew downstairs in her stocking feet and put on her shoes in the hall. Sheunchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprangacross the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, whichseemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and warmsweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing coming fromevery bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in thesky and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded withspringtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself andknew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ranaround the shrubs and paths towards the secret garden.

“It is all different already,” she said. “The grass isgreener and things are sticking up everywhere and things are uncurling andgreen buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon willcome.”

The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds whichbordered the walk by the lower wall. There were things sprouting and pushingout from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually here and thereglimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the stems of crocuses. Sixmonths before Mistress Mary would not have seen how the world was waking up,but now she missed nothing.

When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she wasstartled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw—caw of a crow and itcame from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat a bigglossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed. Shehad never seen a crow so close before and he made her a little nervous, but thenext moment he spread his wings and flapped away across the garden. She hopedhe was not going to stay inside and she pushed the door open wondering if hewould. When she got fairly into the garden she saw that he probably did intendto stay because he had alighted on a dwarf apple-tree and under the apple-treewas lying a little reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both of them werewatching the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling on thegrass working hard.

Mary flew across the grass to him.

“Oh, Dickon! Dickon!” she cried out. “How could you get hereso early! How could you! The sun has only just got up!”

He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a bit ofthe sky.

“Eh!” he said. “I was up long before him. How could I havestayed abed! Th’ world’s all fair begun again this mornin’,it has. An’ it’s workin’ an’ hummin’ an’scratchin’ an’ pipin’ an’ nest-buildin’ an’breathin’ out scents, till you’ve got to be out on it ’steado’ lyin’ on your back. When th’ sun did jump up, th’moor went mad for joy, an’ I was in the midst of th’ heather,an’ I run like mad myself, shoutin’ an’ singin’.An’ I come straight here. I couldn’t have stayed away. Why,th’ garden was lyin’ here waitin’!”

Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running herself.

“Oh, Dickon! Dickon!” she said. “I’m so happy I canscarcely breathe!”

Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed animal rose from itsplace under the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing once, flew down fromits branch and settled quietly on his shoulder.

“This is th’ little fox cub,” he said, rubbing the littlereddish animal’s head. “It’s named Captain. An’ thishere’s Soot. Soot he flew across th’ moor with me an’ Captainhe run same as if th’ hounds had been after him. They both felt same as Idid.”

Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary. WhenDickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and Captain trottedquietly close to his side.

“See here!” said Dickon. “See how these has pushed up,an’ these an’ these! An’ Eh! Look at these here!”

He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They had comeupon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange and gold. Mary benther face down and kissed and kissed them.

“You never kiss a person in that way,” she said when she lifted herhead. “Flowers are so different.”

He looked puzzled but smiled.

“Eh!” he said, “I’ve kissed mother many a time that waywhen I come in from th’ moor after a day’s roamin’ an’she stood there at th’ door in th’ sun, lookin’ so gladan’ comfortable.”

They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many wonders thatthey were obliged to remind themselves that they must whisper or speak low. Heshowed her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which had seemed dead. He showedher ten thousand new green points pushing through the mould. They put theireager young noses close to the earth and sniffed its warmed springtimebreathing; they dug and pulled and laughed low with rapture until MistressMary’s hair was as tumbled as Dickon’s and her cheeks were almostas poppy red as his.

There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in themidst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it was morewonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted through the treesto a close grown corner, a little flare of red-breasted bird with somethinghanging from its beak. Dickon stood quite still and put his hand on Mary almostas if they had suddenly found themselves laughing in a church.

“We munnot stir,” he whispered in broad Yorkshire. “We munnotscarce breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin’ when I seed him last.It’s Ben Weatherstaff’s robin. He’s buildin’ his nest.He’ll stay here if us don’t flight him.”

They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.

“Us mustn’t seem as if us was watchin’ him too close,”said Dickon. “He’d be out with us for good if he got th’notion us was interferin’ now. He’ll be a good bit different tillall this is over. He’s settin’ up housekeepin’. He’llbe shyer an’ readier to take things ill. He’s got no time forvisitin’ an’ gossipin’. Us must keep still a bit an’try to look as if us was grass an’ trees an’ bushes. Then whenhe’s got used to seein’ us I’ll chirp a bit an’he’ll know us’ll not be in his way.”

Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, how totry to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the queer thing asif it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world, and she felt itmust be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched him for a few minutescarefully, wondering if it was possible for him to quietly turn green and putout branches and leaves. But he only sat wonderfully still, and when he spokedropped his voice to such a softness that it was curious that she could hearhim, but she could.

“It’s part o’ th’ springtime, this nest-buildin’is,” he said. “I warrant it’s been goin’ on inth’ same way every year since th’ world was begun. They’vegot their way o’ thinkin’ and doin’ things an’ a bodyhad better not meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easier than anyother season if you’re too curious.”

“If we talk about him I can’t help looking at him,” Mary saidas softly as possible. “We must talk of something else. There issomething I want to tell you.”

“He’ll like it better if us talks o’ somethin’else,” said Dickon. “What is it tha’s got to tell me?”

“Well—do you know about Colin?” she whispered.

He turned his head to look at her.

“What does tha’ know about him?” he asked.

“I’ve seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. Hewants me to come. He says I’m making him forget about being ill anddying,” answered Mary.

Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from hisround face.

“I am glad o’ that,” he exclaimed. “I’m rightdown glad. It makes me easier. I knowed I must say nothin’ about himan’ I don’t like havin’ to hide things.”

“Don’t you like hiding the garden?” said Mary.

“I’ll never tell about it,” he answered. “But I says tomother, ‘Mother,’ I says, ‘I got a secret to keep. It’snot a bad ’un, tha’ knows that. It’s no worse thanhidin’ where a bird’s nest is. Tha’ doesn’t mind it,does tha’?’”

Mary always wanted to hear about mother.

“What did she say?” she asked, not at all afraid to hear.

Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.

“It was just like her, what she said,” he answered. “She givemy head a bit of a rub an’ laughed an’ she says, ‘Eh, lad,tha’ can have all th’ secrets tha’ likes. I’ve knowedthee twelve year’.’”

“How did you know about Colin?” asked Mary.

“Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad aswas like to be a cripple, an’ they knowed Mester Craven didn’t likehim to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs. Cravenwas such a pretty young lady an’ they was so fond of each other. Mrs.Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an’ shedoesn’t mind talkin’ to mother before us children, because sheknows us has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha’ find out abouthim? Martha was in fine trouble th’ last time she came home. She saidtha’d heard him frettin’ an’ tha’ was askin’questions an’ she didn’t know what to say.”

Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which hadwakened her and about the faint far-off sounds of the complaining voice whichhad led her down the dark corridors with her candle and had ended with heropening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the carven four-posted bedin the corner. When she described the small ivory-white face and the strangeblack-rimmed eyes Dickon shook his head.

“Them’s just like his mother’s eyes, only hers was alwayslaughin’, they say,” he said. “They say as Mr. Cravencan’t bear to see him when he’s awake an’ it’s becausehis eyes is so like his mother’s an’ yet looks so different in hismiserable bit of a face.”

“Do you think he wants to die?” whispered Mary.

“No, but he wishes he’d never been born. Mother she saysthat’s th’ worst thing on earth for a child. Them as is not wantedscarce ever thrives. Mester Craven he’d buy anythin’ as money couldbuy for th’ poor lad but he’d like to forget as he’s onearth. For one thing, he’s afraid he’ll look at him some day andfind he’s growed hunchback.”

“Colin’s so afraid of it himself that he won’t sit up,”said Mary. “He says he’s always thinking that if he should feel alump coming he should go crazy and scream himself to death.”

“Eh! he oughtn’t to lie there thinkin’ things likethat,” said Dickon. “No lad could get well as thought them sorto’ things.”

The fox was lying on the grass close by him, looking up to ask for a pat nowand then, and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly and thought a fewminutes in silence. Presently he lifted his head and looked round the garden.

“When first we got in here,” he said, “it seemed likeeverything was gray. Look round now and tell me if tha’ doesn’t seea difference.”

Mary looked and caught her breath a little.

“Why!” she cried, “the gray wall is changing. It is as if agreen mist were creeping over it. It’s almost like a green gauzeveil.”

“Aye,” said Dickon. “An’ it’ll be greener andgreener till th’ gray’s all gone. Can tha’ guess what I wasthinkin’?”

“I know it was something nice,” said Mary eagerly. “I believeit was something about Colin.”

“I was thinkin’ that if he was out here he wouldn’t bewatchin’ for lumps to grow on his back; he’d be watchin’ forbuds to break on th’ rose-bushes, an’ he’d likely behealthier,” explained Dickon. “I was wonderin’ if us couldever get him in th’ humor to come out here an’ lie under th’trees in his carriage.”

“I’ve been wondering that myself. I’ve thought of it almostevery time I’ve talked to him,” said Mary. “I’vewondered if he could keep a secret and I’ve wondered if we could bringhim here without anyone seeing us. I thought perhaps you could push hiscarriage. The doctor said he must have fresh air and if he wants us to take himout no one dare disobey him. He won’t go out for other people and perhapsthey will be glad if he will go out with us. He could order the gardeners tokeep away so they wouldn’t find out.”

Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain’s back.

“It’d be good for him, I’ll warrant,” he said.“Us’d not be thinkin’ he’d better never been born.Us’d be just two children watchin’ a garden grow, an’he’d be another. Two lads an’ a little lass just lookin’ onat th’ springtime. I warrant it’d be better than doctor’sstuff.”

“He’s been lying in his room so long and he’s always been soafraid of his back that it has made him queer,” said Mary. “Heknows a good many things out of books but he doesn’t know anything else.He says he has been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doorsand hates gardens and gardeners. But he likes to hear about this garden becauseit is a secret. I daren’t tell him much but he said he wanted to seeit.”

“Us’ll have him out here sometime for sure,” said Dickon.“I could push his carriage well enough. Has tha’ noticed howth’ robin an’ his mate has been workin’ while we’vebeen sittin’ here? Look at him perched on that branch wonderin’where it’d be best to put that twig he’s got in his beak.”

He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and lookedat him inquiringly, still holding his twig. Dickon spoke to him as BenWeatherstaff did, but Dickon’s tone was one of friendly advice.

“Wheres’ever tha’ puts it,” he said, “it’llbe all right. Tha’ knew how to build tha’ nest before tha’came out o’ th’ egg. Get on with thee, lad. Tha’st got notime to lose.”

“Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!” Mary said, laughingdelightedly. “Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and makes fun of him, and hehops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he likes it.Ben Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones thrown athim than not be noticed.”

Dickon laughed too and went on talking.

“Tha’ knows us won’t trouble thee,” he said to therobin. “Us is near bein’ wild things ourselves. Us isnest-buildin’ too, bless thee. Look out tha’ doesn’t tell onus.”

And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary knewthat when he flew away with his twig to his own corner of the garden thedarkness of his dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell their secret forthe world.

CHAPTER XVI.
“I WON’T!” SAID MARY

They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in returning tothe house and was also in such a hurry to get back to her work that she quiteforgot Colin until the last moment.

“Tell Colin that I can’t come and see him yet,” she said toMartha. “I’m very busy in the garden.”

Martha looked rather frightened.

“Eh! Miss Mary,” she said, “it may put him all out of humorwhen I tell him that.”

But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not aself-sacrificing person.

“I can’t stay,” she answered. “Dickon’s waitingfor me;” and she ran away.

The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. Alreadynearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of the roses andtrees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon had brought a spade of his own andhe had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that by this time it was plain thatthough the lovely wild place was not likely to become a “gardener’sgarden” it would be a wilderness of growing things before the springtimewas over.

“There’ll be apple blossoms an’ cherry blossomsoverhead,” Dickon said, working away with all his might. “An’there’ll be peach an’ plum trees in bloom against th’ walls,an’ th’ grass’ll be a carpet o’ flowers.”

The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the robinand his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of lightning.Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away over the tree-topsin the park. Each time he came back and perched near Dickon and cawed severaltimes as if he were relating his adventures, and Dickon talked to him just ashe had talked to the robin. Once when Dickon was so busy that he did not answerhim at first, Soot flew on to his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with hislarge beak. When Mary wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under atree and once he took his pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strangelittle notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened.

“Tha’s a good bit stronger than tha’ was,” Dickon said,looking at her as she was digging. “Tha’s beginning to lookdifferent, for sure.”

Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.

“I’m getting fatter and fatter every day,” she said quiteexultantly. “Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses. Marthasays my hair is growing thicker. It isn’t so flat and stringy.”

The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays slanting underthe trees when they parted.

“It’ll be fine tomorrow,” said Dickon. “I’ll beat work by sunrise.”

“So will I,” said Mary.

She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her. She wanted totell Colin about Dickon’s fox cub and the rook and about what thespringtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear. So it was notvery pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see Martha standingwaiting for her with a doleful face.

“What is the matter?” she asked. “What did Colin say when youtold him I couldn’t come?”

“Eh!” said Martha, “I wish tha’d gone. He was nighgoin’ into one o’ his tantrums. There’s been a nice to do allafternoon to keep him quiet. He would watch the clock all th’time.”

Mary’s lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used toconsidering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why anill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She knewnothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and nervous and whodid not know that they could control their tempers and need not make otherpeople ill and nervous, too. When she had had a headache in India she had doneher best to see that everybody else also had a headache or something quite asbad. And she felt she was quite right; but of course now she felt that Colinwas quite wrong.

He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying flat on hisback in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she came in. This was abad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff manner.

“Why didn’t you get up?” she said.

“I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming,” heanswered, without looking at her. “I made them put me back in bed thisafternoon. My back ached and my head ached and I was tired. Why didn’tyou come?”

“I was working in the garden with Dickon,” said Mary.

Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.

“I won’t let that boy come here if you go and stay with him insteadof coming to talk to me,” he said.

Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion without making anoise. She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what happened.

“If you send Dickon away, I’ll never come into this roomagain!” she retorted.

“You’ll have to if I want you,” said Colin.

“I won’t!” said Mary.

“I’ll make you,” said Colin. “They shall drag youin.”

“Shall they, Mr. Rajah!” said Mary fiercely. “They may dragme in but they can’t make me talk when they get me here. I’ll sitand clench my teeth and never tell you one thing. I won’t even look atyou. I’ll stare at the floor!”

They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other. If they had beentwo little street boys they would have sprung at each other and had arough-and-tumble fight. As it was, they did the next thing to it.

“You are a selfish thing!” cried Colin.

“What are you?” said Mary. “Selfish people always say that.Anyone is selfish who doesn’t do what they want. You’re moreselfish than I am. You’re the most selfish boy I ever saw.”

“I’m not!” snapped Colin. “I’m not as selfish asyour fine Dickon is! He keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all bymyself. He’s selfish, if you like!”

Mary’s eyes flashed fire.

“He’s nicer than any other boy that ever lived!” she said.“He’s—he’s like an angel!” It might sound rathersilly to say that but she did not care.

“A nice angel!” Colin sneered ferociously. “He’s acommon cottage boy off the moor!”

“He’s better than a common Rajah!” retorted Mary.“He’s a thousand times better!”

Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get the better ofhim. The truth was that he had never had a fight with anyone like himself inhis life and, upon the whole, it was rather good for him, though neither he norMary knew anything about that. He turned his head on his pillow and shut hiseyes and a big tear was squeezed out and ran down his cheek. He was beginningto feel pathetic and sorry for himself—not for anyone else.

“I’m not as selfish as you, because I’m always ill, andI’m sure there is a lump coming on my back,” he said. “And Iam going to die besides.”

“You’re not!” contradicted Mary unsympathetically.

He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never heard such a thingsaid before. He was at once furious and slightly pleased, if a person could beboth at one time.

“I’m not?” he cried. “I am! You know I am! Everybodysays so.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Mary sourly. “You just saythat to make people sorry. I believe you’re proud of it. I don’tbelieve it! If you were a nice boy it might be true—but you’re toonasty!”

In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy rage.

“Get out of the room!” he shouted and he caught hold of his pillowand threw it at her. He was not strong enough to throw it far and it only fellat her feet, but Mary’s face looked as pinched as a nutcracker.

“I’m going,” she said. “And I won’t comeback!”

She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned round and spokeagain.

“I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things,” she said.“Dickon brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you allabout them. Now I won’t tell you a single thing!”

She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her greatastonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if she had been listeningand, more amazing still—she was laughing. She was a big handsome youngwoman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at all, as she could not bearinvalids and she was always making excuses to leave Colin to Martha or anyoneelse who would take her place. Mary had never liked her, and she simply stoodand gazed up at her as she stood giggling into her handkerchief..

“What are you laughing at?” she asked her.

“At you two young ones,” said the nurse. “It’s the bestthing that could happen to the sickly pampered thing to have someone to standup to him that’s as spoiled as himself;” and she laughed into herhandkerchief again. “If he’d had a young vixen of a sister to fightwith it would have been the saving of him.”

“Is he going to die?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said the nurse.“Hysterics and temper are half what ails him.”

“What are hysterics?” asked Mary.

“You’ll find out if you work him into a tantrum afterthis—but at any rate you’ve given him something to have hystericsabout, and I’m glad of it.”

Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she had comein from the garden. She was cross and disappointed but not at all sorry forColin. She had looked forward to telling him a great many things and she hadmeant to try to make up her mind whether it would be safe to trust him with thegreat secret. She had been beginning to think it would be, but now she hadchanged her mind entirely. She would never tell him and he could stay in hisroom and never get any fresh air and die if he liked! It would serve him right!She felt so sour and unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost forgot aboutDickon and the green veil creeping over the world and the soft wind blowingdown from the moor.

Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been temporarilyreplaced by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden box on the table and itscover had been removed and revealed that it was full of neat packages.

“Mr. Craven sent it to you,” said Martha. “It looks as if ithad picture-books in it.”

Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room.“Do you want anything—dolls—toys—books?” Sheopened the package wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what sheshould do with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were severalbeautiful books such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens and werefull of pictures. There were two or three games and there was a beautifullittle writing-case with a gold monogram on it and a gold pen and inkstand.

Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out of hermind. She had not expected him to remember her at all and her hard little heartgrew quite warm.

“I can write better than I can print,” she said, “and thefirst thing I shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am muchobliged.”

If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her presentsat once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read some of thegardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he would have enjoyedhimself so much he would never once have thought he was going to die or haveput his hand on his spine to see if there was a lump coming. He had a way ofdoing that which she could not bear. It gave her an uncomfortable frightenedfeeling because he always looked so frightened himself. He said that if he felteven quite a little lump some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow.Something he had heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him theidea and he had thought over it in secret until it was quite firmly fixed inhis mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his father’s back had begun to show itscrookedness in that way when he was a child. He had never told anyone but Marythat most of his “tantrums” as they called them grew out of hishysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had told her.

“He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired,” shesaid to herself. “And he has been cross today. Perhaps—perhaps hehas been thinking about it all afternoon.”

She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking.

“I said I would never go back again—” she hesitated, knittingher brows—“but perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see—if hewants me—in the morning. Perhaps he’ll try to throw his pillow atme again, but—I think—I’ll go.”

CHAPTER XVII.
A TANTRUM

She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the garden andshe was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought her supper and shehad eaten it, she was glad to go to bed. As she laid her head on the pillow shemurmured to herself:

“I’ll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and thenafterward—I believe—I’ll go to see him.”

She thought it was the middle of the night when she was awakened by suchdreadful sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant. What wasit—what was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors wereopened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and someone wascrying and screaming at the same time, screaming and crying in a horrible way.

“It’s Colin,” she said. “He’s having one of thosetantrums the nurse called hysterics. How awful it sounds.”

As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people were sofrightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather than hear them.She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and shivering.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” shekept saying. “I can’t bear it.”

Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then sheremembered how he had driven her out of the room and thought that perhaps thesight of her might make him worse. Even when she pressed her hands more tightlyover her ears she could not keep the awful sounds out. She hated them so andwas so terrified by them that suddenly they began to make her angry and shefelt as if she should like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten him as hewas frightening her. She was not used to anyone’s tempers but her own.She took her hands from her ears and sprang up and stamped her foot.

“He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody oughtto beat him!” she cried out.

Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door openedand the nurse came in. She was not laughing now by any means. She even lookedrather pale.

“He’s worked himself into hysterics,” she said in a greathurry. “He’ll do himself harm. No one can do anything with him. Youcome and try, like a good child. He likes you.”

“He turned me out of the room this morning,” said Mary, stampingher foot with excitement.

The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth was that she had been afraid shemight find Mary crying and hiding her head under the bed-clothes.

“That’s right,” she said. “You’re in the righthumor. You go and scold him. Give him something new to think of. Do go, child,as quick as ever you can.”

It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been funny aswell as dreadful—that it was funny that all the grown-up people were sofrightened that they came to a little girl just because they guessed she wasalmost as bad as Colin himself.

She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the higherher temper mounted. She felt quite wicked by the time she reached the door. Sheslapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to the four-posted bed.

“You stop!” she almost shouted. “You stop! I hate you!Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let youscream yourself to death! You willscream yourself to death in a minute,and I wish you would!”

A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought nor said such things, butit just happened that the shock of hearing them was the best possible thing forthis hysterical boy whom no one had ever dared to restrain or contradict.

He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he actuallyalmost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the furious littlevoice. His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he was gaspingand choking; but savage little Mary did not care an atom.

“If you scream another scream,” she said, “I’ll screamtoo—and I can scream louder than you can and I’ll frighten you,I’ll frighten you!”

He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so. The screamwhich had been coming almost choked him. The tears were streaming down his faceand he shook all over.

“I can’t stop!” he gasped and sobbed. “Ican’t—I can’t!”

“You can!” shouted Mary. “Half that ails you is hysterics andtemper—just hysterics—hysterics—hysterics!” and shestamped each time she said it.

“I felt the lump—I felt it,” choked out Colin. “I knewI should. I shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die,” and hebegan to writhe again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but hedidn’t scream.

“You didn’t feel a lump!” contradicted Mary fiercely.“If you did it was only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps.There’s nothing the matter with your horrid back—nothing buthysterics! Turn over and let me look at it!”

She liked the word “hysterics” and felt somehow as if it had aneffect on him. He was probably like herself and had never heard it before.

“Nurse,” she commanded, “come here and show me his back thisminute!”

The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together near thedoor staring at her, their mouths half open. All three had gasped with frightmore than once. The nurse came forward as if she were half afraid. Colin washeaving with great breathless sobs.

“Perhaps he—he won’t let me,” she hesitated in a lowvoice.

Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs:

“Sh-show her! She-she’ll see then!”

It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could becounted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not count themas she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little face. She lookedso sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her head aside to hide thetwitching of her mouth. There was just a minute’s silence, for even Colintried to hold his breath while Mary looked up and down his spine, and down andup, as intently as if she had been the great doctor from London.

“There’s not a single lump there!” she said at last.“There’s not a lump as big as a pin—except backbone lumps,and you can only feel them because you’re thin. I’ve got backbonelumps myself, and they used to stick out as much as yours do, until I began toget fatter, and I am not fat enough yet to hide them. There’s not a lumpas big as a pin! If you ever say there is again, I shall laugh!”

No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish wordshad on him. If he had ever had anyone to talk to about his secretterrors—if he had ever dared to let himself ask questions—if he hadhad childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge closed house,breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people who were most of themignorant and tired of him, he would have found out that most of his fright andillness was created by himself. But he had lain and thought of himself and hisaches and weariness for hours and days and months and years. And now that anangry unsympathetic little girl insisted obstinately that he was not as ill ashe thought he was he actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth.

“I didn’t know,” ventured the nurse, “that he thoughthe had a lump on his spine. His back is weak because he won’t try to situp. I could have told him there was no lump there.” Colin gulped andturned his face a little to look at her.

“C-could you?” he said pathetically.

“Yes, sir.”

“There!” said Mary, and she gulped too.

Colin turned on his face again and but for his long-drawn broken breaths, whichwere the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he lay still for a minute, thoughgreat tears streamed down his face and wet the pillow. Actually the tears meantthat a curious great relief had come to him. Presently he turned and looked atthe nurse again and strangely enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he spoketo her.

“Do you think—I could—live to grow up?” he said.

The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some of theLondon doctor’s words.

“You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not giveway to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air.”

Colin’s tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying andthis perhaps made him feel gentle. He put out his hand a little toward Mary,and I am glad to say that, her own tantum having passed, she was softened tooand met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort of making up.

“I’ll—I’ll go out with you, Mary,” he said.“I shan’t hate fresh air if we can find—” He rememberedjust in time to stop himself from saying “if we can find the secretgarden” and he ended, “I shall like to go out with you if Dickonwill come and push my chair. I do so want to see Dickon and the fox and thecrow.”

The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the pillows. Thenshe made Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to Mary, who really was veryglad to get it after her excitement. Mrs. Medlock and Martha gladly slippedaway, and after everything was neat and calm and in order the nurse looked asif she would very gladly slip away also. She was a healthy young woman whoresented being robbed of her sleep and she yawned quite openly as she looked atMary, who had pushed her big footstool close to the four-posted bed and washolding Colin’s hand.

“You must go back and get your sleep out,” she said.“He’ll drop off after a while—if he’s not too upset.Then I’ll lie down myself in the next room.”

“Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?”Mary whispered to Colin.

His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her appealingly.

“Oh, yes!” he answered. “It’s such a soft song. I shallgo to sleep in a minute.”

“I will put him to sleep,” Mary said to the yawning nurse.“You can go if you like.”

“Well,” said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. “If hedoesn’t go to sleep in half an hour you must call me.”

“Very well,” answered Mary.

The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone Colinpulled Mary’s hand again.

“I almost told,” he said; “but I stopped myself in time. Iwon’t talk and I’ll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lotof nice things to tell me. Have you—do you think you have found outanything at all about the way into the secret garden?”

Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heartrelented.

“Ye-es,” she answered, “I think I have. And if you will go tosleep I will tell you tomorrow.” His hand quite trembled.

“Oh, Mary!” he said. “Oh, Mary! If I could get into it Ithink I should live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayahsong—you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what youimagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep.”

“Yes,” answered Mary. “Shut your eyes.”

He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speakvery slowly and in a very low voice.

“I think it has been left alone so long—that it has grown all intoa lovely tangle. I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed untilthey hang from the branches and walls and creep over the ground—almostlike a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but many—are alive andwhen the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses. I thinkthe ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working theirway out of the dark. Now the spring hasbegun—perhaps—perhaps—”

The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she saw itand went on.

“Perhaps they are coming up through the grass—perhaps there areclusters of purple crocuses and gold ones—even now. Perhaps the leavesare beginning to break out and uncurl—and perhaps—the gray ischanging and a green gauze veil is creeping—and creepingover—everything. And the birds are coming to look at it—because itis—so safe and still. Andperhaps—perhaps—perhaps—” very softly and slowlyindeed, “the robin has found a mate—and is building a nest.”

And Colin was asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII.
“THA’ MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME”

Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning. She slept late because shewas tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told her that thoughColin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always was after he hadworn himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate her breakfast slowly as shelistened.

“He says he wishes tha’ would please go and see him as soon astha’ can,” Martha said. “It’s queer what a fancyhe’s took to thee. Tha’ did give it him last night forsure—didn’t tha? Nobody else would have dared to do it. Eh! poorlad! He’s been spoiled till salt won’t save him. Mother says asth’ two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his ownway—or always to have it. She doesn’t know which is th’worst. Tha’ was in a fine temper tha’self, too. But he says to mewhen I went into his room, ‘Please ask Miss Mary if she’ll pleasecome an’ talk to me?’ Think o’ him saying please! Will yougo, Miss?”

“I’ll run and see Dickon first,” said Mary. “No,I’ll go and see Colin first and tell him—I know what I’lltell him,” with a sudden inspiration.

She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin’s room and for a second helooked disappointed. He was in bed. His face was pitifully white and there weredark circles round his eyes.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “My head aches and I acheall over because I’m so tired. Are you going somewhere?”

Mary went and leaned against his bed.

“I won’t be long,” she said. “I’m going toDickon, but I’ll come back. Colin, it’s—it’s somethingabout the garden.”

His whole face brightened and a little color came into it.

“Oh! is it?” he cried out. “I dreamed about it all night. Iheard you say something about gray changing into green, and I dreamed I wasstanding in a place all filled with trembling little green leaves—andthere were birds on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still.I’ll lie and think about it until you come back.”

In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden. The fox and the crow werewith him again and this time he had brought two tame squirrels.

“I came over on the pony this mornin’,” he said. “Eh!he is a good little chap—Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets. Thishere one he’s called Nut an’ this here other one’s calledShell.”

When he said “Nut” one squirrel leaped on to his right shoulder andwhen he said “Shell” the other one leaped on to his left shoulder.

When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at their feet, Sootsolemnly listening on a tree and Nut and Shell nosing about close to them, itseemed to Mary that it would be scarcely bearable to leave such delightfulness,but when she began to tell her story somehow the look in Dickon’s funnyface gradually changed her mind. She could see he felt sorrier for Colin thanshe did. He looked up at the sky and all about him.

“Just listen to them birds—th’ world seems full of’em—all whistlin’ an’ pipin’,” he said.“Look at ’em dartin’ about, an’ hearken at ’emcallin’ to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th’world’s callin’. The leaves is uncurlin’ so you can see’em—an’, my word, th’ nice smells there isabout!” sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. “An’ thatpoor lad lyin’ shut up an’ seein’ so little that he gets tothinkin’ o’ things as sets him screamin’. Eh! my! we mun gethim out here—we mun get him watchin’ an listenin’ an’sniffin’ up th’ air an’ get him just soaked through wi’sunshine. An’ we munnot lose no time about it.”

When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire though atother times he tried to modify his dialect so that Mary could betterunderstand. But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact been trying tolearn to speak it herself. So she spoke a little now.

“Aye, that we mun,” she said (which meant “Yes, indeed, wemust”). “I’ll tell thee what us’ll do first,” sheproceeded, and Dickon grinned, because when the little wench tried to twist hertongue into speaking Yorkshire it amused him very much. “He’s tooka graidely fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to see Sootan’ Captain. When I go back to the house to talk to him I’ll ax himif tha’ canna’ come an’ see him tomorrowmornin’—an’ bring tha’ creatures wi’thee—an’ then—in a bit, when there’s more leaves out,an’ happen a bud or two, we’ll get him to come out an’tha’ shall push him in his chair an’ we’ll bring him herean’ show him everything.”

When she stopped she was quite proud of herself. She had never made a longspeech in Yorkshire before and she had remembered very well.

“Tha’ mun talk a bit o’ Yorkshire like that to MesterColin,” Dickon chuckled. “Tha’ll make him laugh an’there’s nowt as good for ill folk as laughin’ is. Mother says shebelieves as half a hour’s good laugh every mornin’ ’ud cure achap as was makin’ ready for typhus fever.”

“I’m going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day,” saidMary, chuckling herself.

The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it seemed as ifMagicians were passing through it drawing loveliness out of the earth and theboughs with wands. It was hard to go away and leave it all, particularly as Nuthad actually crept on to her dress and Shell had scrambled down the trunk ofthe apple-tree they sat under and stayed there looking at her with inquiringeyes. But she went back to the house and when she sat down close toColin’s bed he began to sniff as Dickon did though not in such anexperienced way.

“You smell like flowers and—and fresh things,” he cried outquite joyously. “What is it you smell of? It’s cool and warm andsweet all at the same time.”

“It’s th’ wind from th’ moor,” said Mary.“It comes o’ sittin’ on th’ grass under a treewi’ Dickon an’ wi’ Captain an’ Soot an’ Nutan’ Shell. It’s th’ springtime an’ out o’ doorsan’ sunshine as smells so graidely.”

She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know how broadly Yorkshiresounds until you have heard someone speak it. Colin began to laugh.

“What are you doing?” he said. “I never heard you talk likethat before. How funny it sounds.”

“I’m givin’ thee a bit o’ Yorkshire,” answeredMary triumphantly. “I canna’ talk as graidely as Dickon an’Martha can but tha’ sees I can shape a bit. Doesn’t tha’understand a bit o’ Yorkshire when tha’ hears it? An’tha’ a Yorkshire lad thysel’ bred an’ born! Eh! I wondertha’rt not ashamed o’ thy face.”

And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could not stopthemselves and they laughed until the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening thedoor to come in drew back into the corridor and stood listening amazed.

“Well, upon my word!” she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshireherself because there was no one to hear her and she was so astonished.“Whoever heard th’ like! Whoever on earth would ha’ thoughtit!”

There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin could never hear enoughof Dickon and Captain and Soot and Nut and Shell and the pony whose name wasJump. Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump. He was a tinylittle shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging over his eyes and with apretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose. He was rather thin with living on moorgrass but he was as tough and wiry as if the muscle in his little legs had beenmade of steel springs. He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment hesaw Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his head across his shoulderand then Dickon had talked into his ear and Jump had talked back in odd littlewhinnies and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him give Mary his small fronthoof and kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle.

“Does he really understand everything Dickon says?” Colin asked.

“It seems as if he does,” answered Mary. “Dickon saysanything will understand if you’re friends with it for sure, but you haveto be friends for sure.”

Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be staringat the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking.

“I wish I was friends with things,” he said at last, “butI’m not. I never had anything to be friends with, and I can’t bearpeople.”

“Can’t you bear me?” asked Mary.

“Yes, I can,” he answered. “It’s funny but I even likeyou.”

“Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him,” said Mary. “He saidhe’d warrant we’d both got the same nasty tempers. I think you arelike him too. We are all three alike—you and I and Ben Weatherstaff. Hesaid we were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.But I don’t feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin andDickon.”

“Did you feel as if you hated people?”

“Yes,” answered Mary without any affectation. “I should havedetested you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon.”

Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.

“Mary,” he said, “I wish I hadn’t said what I did aboutsending Dickon away. I hated you when you said he was like an angel and Ilaughed at you but—but perhaps he is.”

“Well, it was rather funny to say it,” she admitted frankly,“because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clotheshave patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but—but if anangel did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor—if there was a Yorkshireangel—I believe he’d understand the green things and know how tomake them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickondoes and they’d know he was friends for sure.”

“I shouldn’t mind Dickon looking at me,” said Colin; “Iwant to see him.”

“I’m glad you said that,” answered Mary,“because—because—”

Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell him.Colin knew something new was coming.

“Because what?” he cried eagerly.

Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and caughthold of both his hands.

“Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I trustyou—for sure—for sure?” she implored.

Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer.

“Yes—yes!”

“Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow morning, and he’llbring his creatures with him.”

“Oh! Oh!” Colin cried out in delight.

“But that’s not all,” Mary went on, almost pale with solemnexcitement. “The rest is better. There is a door into the garden. I foundit. It is under the ivy on the wall.”

If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted“Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” but he was weak and rather hysterical;his eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped for breath.

“Oh! Mary!” he cried out with a half sob. “Shall I see it?Shall I get into it? Shall I liveto get into it?” and he clutchedher hands and dragged her toward him.

“Of course you’ll see it!” snapped Mary indignantly.“Of course you’ll live to get into it! Don’t be silly!”

And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish that she brought him tohis senses and he began to laugh at himself and a few minutes afterward she wassitting on her stool again telling him not what she imagined the secret gardento be like but what it really was, and Colin’s aches and tiredness wereforgotten and he was listening enraptured.

“It is just what you thought it would be,” he said at last.“It sounds just as if you had really seen it. You know I said that whenyou told me first.”

Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth.

“I had seen it—and I had been in,” she said. “I foundthe key and got in weeks ago. But I daren’t tell you—Idaren’t because I was so afraid I couldn’t trust you—forsure!”

CHAPTER XIX.
“IT HAS COME!”

Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had histantrum. He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred and healways found, when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his bed, sulky andstill so hysterical that he was ready to break into fresh sobbing at the leastword. In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the difficulties of thesevisits. On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon.

“How is he?” he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when hearrived. “He will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day. Theboy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence.”

“Well, sir,” answered Mrs. Medlock, “you’ll scarcelybelieve your eyes when you see him. That plain sour-faced child that’salmost as bad as himself has just bewitched him. How she’s done itthere’s no telling. The Lord knows she’s nothing to look at and youscarcely ever hear her speak, but she did what none of us dare do. She justflew at him like a little cat last night, and stamped her feet and ordered himto stop screaming, and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop,and this afternoon—well just come up and see, sir. It’s pastcrediting.”

The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his patient’s room wasindeed rather astonishing to him. As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he heardlaughing and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his dressing-gown and he wassitting up quite straight looking at a picture in one of the garden books andtalking to the plain child who at that moment could scarcely be called plain atall because her face was so glowing with enjoyment.

“Those long spires of blue ones—we’ll have a lot ofthose,” Colin was announcing. “They’re calledDel-phin-iums.”

“Dickon says they’re larkspurs made big and grand,” criedMistress Mary. “There are clumps there already.”

Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite still and Colin lookedfretful.

“I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy,” Dr. Cravensaid a trifle nervously. He was rather a nervous man.

“I’m better now—much better,” Colin answered, ratherlike a Rajah. “I’m going out in my chair in a day or two if it isfine. I want some fresh air.”

Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse and looked at him curiously.

“It must be a very fine day,” he said, “and you must be verycareful not to tire yourself.”

“Fresh air won’t tire me,” said the young Rajah.

As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman had shrieked aloudwith rage and had insisted that fresh air would give him cold and kill him, itis not to be wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat startled.

“I thought you did not like fresh air,” he said.

“I don’t when I am by myself,” replied the Rajah; “butmy cousin is going out with me.”

“And the nurse, of course?” suggested Dr. Craven.

“No, I will not have the nurse,” so magnificently that Mary couldnot help remembering how the young native Prince had looked with his diamondsand emeralds and pearls stuck all over him and the great rubies on the smalldark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach with salaams andreceive his orders.

“My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when she iswith me. She made me better last night. A very strong boy I know will push mycarriage.”

Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome hysterical boy should chanceto get well he himself would lose all chance of inheriting Misselthwaite; buthe was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak one, and he did not intendto let him run into actual danger.

“He must be a strong boy and a steady boy,” he said. “And Imust know something about him. Who is he? What is his name?”

“It’s Dickon,” Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow thateverybody who knew the moor must know Dickon. And she was right, too. She sawthat in a moment Dr. Craven’s serious face relaxed into a relieved smile.

“Oh, Dickon,” he said. “If it is Dickon you will be safeenough. He’s as strong as a moor pony, is Dickon.”

“And he’s trusty,” said Mary. “He’s th’trustiest lad i’ Yorkshire.” She had been talking Yorkshire toColin and she forgot herself.

“Did Dickon teach you that?” asked Dr. Craven, laughing outright.

“I’m learning it as if it was French,” said Mary rathercoldly. “It’s like a native dialect in India. Very clever peopletry to learn them. I like it and so does Colin.”

“Well, well,” he said. “If it amuses you perhaps itwon’t do you any harm. Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?”

“No,” Colin answered. “I wouldn’t take it at first andafter Mary made me quiet she talked me to sleep—in a lowvoice—about the spring creeping into a garden.”

“That sounds soothing,” said Dr. Craven, more perplexed than everand glancing sideways at Mistress Mary sitting on her stool and looking downsilently at the carpet. “You are evidently better, but you mustremember—”

“I don’t want to remember,” interrupted the Rajah, appearingagain. “When I lie by myself and remember I begin to have painseverywhere and I think of things that make me begin to scream because I hatethem so. If there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget you were illinstead of remembering it I would have him brought here.” And he waved athin hand which ought really to have been covered with royal signet rings madeof rubies. “It is because my cousin makes me forget that she makes mebetter.”

Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a “tantrum”;usually he was obliged to remain a very long time and do a great many things.This afternoon he did not give any medicine or leave any new orders and he wasspared any disagreeable scenes. When he went downstairs he looked verythoughtful and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock in the library she felt that hewas a much puzzled man.

“Well, sir,” she ventured, “could you have believedit?”

“It is certainly a new state of affairs,” said the doctor.“And there’s no denying it is better than the old one.”

“I believe Susan Sowerby’s right—I do that,” said Mrs.Medlock. “I stopped in her cottage on my way to Thwaite yesterday and hada bit of talk with her. And she says to me, ‘Well, Sarah Ann, shemayn’t be a good child, an’ she mayn’t be a pretty one, butshe’s a child, an’ children needs children.’ We went toschool together, Susan Sowerby and me.”

“She’s the best sick nurse I know,” said Dr. Craven.“When I find her in a cottage I know the chances are that I shall save mypatient.”

Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby.

“She’s got a way with her, has Susan,” she went on quitevolubly. “I’ve been thinking all morning of one thing she saidyesterday. She says, ‘Once when I was givin’ th’ children abit of a preach after they’d been fightin’ I ses to ’em all,“When I was at school my jography told as th’ world was shaped likea orange an’ I found out before I was ten that th’ whole orangedoesn’t belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarteran’ there’s times it seems like there’s not enow quarters togo round. But don’t you—none o’ you—think as you ownth’ whole orange or you’ll find out you’re mistaken,an’ you won’t find it out without hard knocks.” ‘Whatchildren learns from children,’ she says, ‘is that there’s nosense in grabbin’ at th’ whole orange—peel an’ all. Ifyou do you’ll likely not get even th’ pips, an’ them’stoo bitter to eat.’”

“She’s a shrewd woman,” said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat.

“Well, she’s got a way of saying things,” ended Mrs. Medlock,much pleased. “Sometimes I’ve said to her, ‘Eh! Susan, if youwas a different woman an’ didn’t talk such broad YorkshireI’ve seen the times when I should have said you was clever.’”

That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his eyes inthe morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it—smiled because hefelt so curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be awake, and he turnedover and stretched his limbs luxuriously. He felt as if tight strings which hadheld him had loosened themselves and let him go. He did not know that Dr.Craven would have said that his nerves had relaxed and rested themselves.Instead of lying and staring at the wall and wishing he had not awakened, hismind was full of the plans he and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of thegarden and of Dickon and his wild creatures. It was so nice to have things tothink about. And he had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard feetrunning along the corridor and Mary was at the door. The next minute she was inthe room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of fresh airfull of the scent of the morning.

“You’ve been out! You’ve been out! There’s that nicesmell of leaves!” he cried.

She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright withthe air and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it.

“It’s so beautiful!” she said, a little breathless with herspeed. “You never saw anything so beautiful! It has come!Ithought it had come that other morning, but it was only coming. It is here now!It has come, the Spring! Dickon says so!”

“Has it?” cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about ithe felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in bed.

“Open the window!” he added, laughing half with joyful excitementand half at his own fancy. “Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!”

And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a moment moreit was opened wide and freshness and softness and scents and birds’ songswere pouring through.

“That’s fresh air,” she said. “Lie on your back anddraw in long breaths of it. That’s what Dickon does when he’s lyingon the moor. He says he feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and hefeels as if he could live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it.”

She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she caught Colin’sfancy.

“’Forever and ever’! Does it make him feel like that?”he said, and he did as she told him, drawing in long deep breaths over and overagain until he felt that something quite new and delightful was happening tohim.

Mary was at his bedside again.

“Things are crowding up out of the earth,” she ran on in a hurry.“And there are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and the greenveil has covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry abouttheir nests for fear they may be too late that some of them are even fightingfor places in the secret garden. And the rose-bushes look as wick as wick canbe, and there are primroses in the lanes and woods, and the seeds we plantedare up, and Dickon has brought the fox and the crow and the squirrels and anew-born lamb.”

And then she paused for breath. The new-born lamb Dickon had found three daysbefore lying by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the moor. It was notthe first motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do with it. He hadtaken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had let it lie near thefire and had fed it with warm milk. It was a soft thing with a darling sillybaby face and legs rather long for its body. Dickon had carried it over themoor in his arms and its feeding bottle was in his pocket with a squirrel, andwhen Mary had sat under a tree with its limp warmness huddled on her lap shehad felt as if she were too full of strange joy to speak. A lamb—a lamb!A living lamb who lay on your lap like a baby!

She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening and drawing inlong breaths of air when the nurse entered. She started a little at the sightof the open window. She had sat stifling in the room many a warm day becauseher patient was sure that open windows gave people cold.

“Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?” she inquired.

“No,” was the answer. “I am breathing long breaths of freshair. It makes you strong. I am going to get up to the sofa for breakfast. Mycousin will have breakfast with me.”

The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give the order for two breakfasts.She found the servants’ hall a more amusing place than theinvalid’s chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news fromupstairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young reclusewho, as the cook said, “had found his master, and good for him.”The servants’ hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler,who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion that theinvalid would be all the better “for a good hiding.”

When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was put upon the table hemade an announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like manner.

“A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb,are coming to see me this morning. I want them brought upstairs as soon as theycome,” he said. “You are not to begin playing with the animals inthe servants’ hall and keep them there. I want them here.”

The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“I’ll tell you what you can do,” added Colin, waving hishand. “You can tell Martha to bring them here. The boy is Martha’sbrother. His name is Dickon and he is an animal charmer.”

“I hope the animals won’t bite, Master Colin,” said thenurse.

“I told you he was a charmer,” said Colin austerely.“Charmers’ animals never bite.”

“There are snake-charmers in India,” said Mary. “And they canput their snakes’ heads in their mouths.”

“Goodness!” shuddered the nurse.

They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring in upon them.Colin’s breakfast was a very good one and Mary watched him with seriousinterest.

“You will begin to get fatter just as I did,” she said. “Inever wanted my breakfast when I was in India and now I always want it.”

“I wanted mine this morning,” said Colin. “Perhaps it was thefresh air. When do you think Dickon will come?”

He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary held up her hand.

“Listen!” she said. “Did you hear a caw?”

Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world to hear inside ahouse, a hoarse “caw-caw.”

“Yes,” he answered.

“That’s Soot,” said Mary. “Listen again. Do you hear ableat—a tiny one?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Colin, quite flushing.

“That’s the new-born lamb,” said Mary. “He’scoming.”

Dickon’s moorland boots were thick and clumsy and though he tried to walkquietly they made a clumping sound as he walked through the long corridors.Mary and Colin heard him marching—marching, until he passed through thetapestry door on to the soft carpet of Colin’s own passage.

“If you please, sir,” announced Martha, opening the door, “ifyou please, sir, here’s Dickon an’ his creatures.”

Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile. The new-born lamb was in his armsand the little red fox trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left shoulder andSoot on his right and Shell’s head and paws peeped out of his coatpocket.

Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared—as he had stared when he firstsaw Mary; but this was a stare of wonder and delight. The truth was that inspite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood what this boywould be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels and his lamb wereso near to him and his friendliness that they seemed almost to be part ofhimself. Colin had never talked to a boy in his life and he was so overwhelmedby his own pleasure and curiosity that he did not even think of speaking.

But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt embarrassedbecause the crow had not known his language and had only stared and had notspoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were always like that untilthey found out about you. He walked over to Colin’s sofa and put thenew-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned tothe warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds andbutt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side. Of course noboy could have helped speaking then.

“What is it doing?” cried Colin. “What does it want?”

“It wants its mother,” said Dickon, smiling more and more. “Ibrought it to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha’d like to see itfeed.”

He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket.

“Come on, little ’un,” he said, turning the small woollywhite head with a gentle brown hand. “This is what tha’s after.Tha’ll get more out o’ this than tha’ will out o’ silkvelvet coats. There now,” and he pushed the rubber tip of the bottle intothe nuzzling mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.

After that there was no wondering what to say. By the time the lamb fell asleepquestions poured forth and Dickon answered them all. He told them how he hadfound the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago. He had beenstanding on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him swing higher andhigher into the sky until he was only a speck in the heights of blue.

“I’d almost lost him but for his song an’ I waswonderin’ how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if he’d getout o’ th’ world in a minute—an’ just then I heardsomethin’ else far off among th’ gorse bushes. It was a weakbleatin’ an’ I knowed it was a new lamb as was hungry an’ Iknowed it wouldn’t be hungry if it hadn’t lost its mother somehow,so I set off searchin’. Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in an’out among th’ gorse bushes an’ round an’ round an’ Ialways seemed to take th’ wrong turnin’. But at last I seed a bito’ white by a rock on top o’ th’ moor an’ I climbed upan’ found th’ little ’un half dead wi’ cold an’clemmin’.”

While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and cawedremarks about the scenery while Nut and Shell made excursions into the bigtrees outside and ran up and down trunks and explored branches. Captain curledup near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from preference.

They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all theflowers by their country names and knew exactly which ones were already growingin the secret garden.

“I couldna’ say that there name,” he said, pointing to oneunder which was written “Aquilegia,” “but us calls that acolumbine, an’ that there one it’s a snapdragon and they both growwild in hedges, but these is garden ones an’ they’re biggeran’ grander. There’s some big clumps o’ columbine inth’ garden. They’ll look like a bed o’ blue an’ whitebutterflies flutterin’ when they’re out.”

“I’m going to see them,” cried Colin. “I am going tosee them!”

“Aye, that tha’ mun,” said Mary quite seriously.“An’ tha’ munnot lose no time about it.”

CHAPTER XX.
“I SHALL LIVE FOREVER—AND EVER—AND EVER!”

But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came somevery windy days and then Colin was threatened with a cold, which two thingshappening one after the other would no doubt have thrown him into a rage butthat there was so much careful and mysterious planning to do and almost everyday Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to talk about what was happeningon the moor and in the lanes and hedges and on the borders of streams. Thethings he had to tell about otters’ and badgers’ andwater-rats’ houses, not to mention birds’ nests and field-mice andtheir burrows, were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement when youheard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with whatthrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working.

“They’re same as us,” said Dickon, “only they have tobuild their homes every year. An’ it keeps ’em so busy they fairscuffle to get ’em done.”

The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made before Colincould be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden. No one must see thechair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned a certain corner of theshrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the ivied walls. As each daypassed, Colin had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the mysterysurrounding 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 wassimply going out with Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not objectto their looking at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about theirroute. They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other and goround among the fountain flower-beds as if they were looking at the“bedding-out plants” the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been havingarranged. That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would thinkit at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks and losethemselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as serious andelaborately thought out as the plans of march made by great generals in time ofwar.

Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in theinvalid’s apartments had of course filtered through the servants’hall into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstandingthis, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders from MasterColin’s room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartmentno 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 belooked 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 theboy and had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about his uncanny looks and waysand his insane tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest was that he might dieat any moment and there had been numerous fanciful descriptions of a humpedback 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 thehitherto 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 alot easier to stand up under. Don’t you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if youfind yourself in the middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby’s Dickonmore at home than you or me could ever be.”

There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privatelybelieved. When Mr. Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently.

“He’d be at home in Buckingham Palace or at the bottom of a coalmine,” 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. Whenthe bedroom door was opened a large crow, which seemed quite at home perched onthe high back of a carven chair, announced the entrance of a visitor by saying“Caw—Caw” quite loudly. In spite of Mrs. Medlock’swarning, Mr. Roach only just escaped being sufficiently undignified to jumpbackward.

The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on his sofa. He was sitting in anarmchair and a young lamb was standing by him shaking its tail in feeding-lambfashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle. A squirrel was perchedon Dickon’s bent back attentively nibbling a nut. The little girl fromIndia 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 waswhat the head gardener felt happened.

“Oh, you are Roach, are you?” he said. “I sent for you togive you some very important orders.”

“Very good, sir,” answered Roach, wondering if he was to receiveinstructions to fell all the oaks in the park or to transform the orchards intowater-gardens.

“I am going out in my chair this afternoon,” said Colin. “Ifthe fresh air agrees with me I may go out every day. When I go, none of thegardeners are to be anywhere near the Long Walk by the garden walls. No one isto be there. I shall go out about two o’clock and everyone must keep awayuntil I send word that they may go back to their work.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that theoaks might remain and that the orchards were safe.

“Mary,” said Colin, turning to her, “what is that thing yousay in India when you have finished talking and want people to go?”

“You say, ‘You have my permission to go,’” answeredMary.

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. Medlocktook him out of the room.

Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled until healmost laughed.

“My word!” he said, “he’s got a fine lordly way withhim, hasn’t he? You’d think he was a whole Royal Family rolled intoone—Prince Consort and all.”

“Eh!” protested Mrs. Medlock, “we’ve had to let himtrample all over everyone of us ever since he had feet and he thinksthat’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 sheteaches him that the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerbysays. 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 Ishall 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 cameand he was quiet while they were eating it. She wondered why and asked himabout it.

“What big eyes you’ve got, Colin,” she said. “When youare thinking they get as big as saucers. What are you thinking aboutnow?”

“I can’t help thinking about what it will look like,” heanswered.

“The garden?” asked Mary.

“The springtime,” he said. “I was thinking that I’vereally never seen it before. I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I neverlooked at it. I didn’t even think about it.”

“I never saw it in India because there wasn’t any,” saidMary.

Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than shehad and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful booksand pictures.

“That morning when you ran in and said ‘It’s come! It’scome!’, you made me feel quite queer. It sounded as if things were comingwith a great procession and big bursts and wafts of music. I’ve a picturelike it in one of my books—crowds of lovely people and children withgarlands and branches with blossoms on them, everyone laughing and dancing andcrowding and playing on pipes. That was why I said, ‘Perhaps we shallhear golden trumpets’ and told you to throw open the window.”

“How funny!” said Mary. “That’s really just what itfeels like. And if all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds andwild creatures danced past at once, what a crowd it would be! I’m surethey’d dance and sing and flute and that would be the wafts ofmusic.”

They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but becausethey both so liked it.

A little later the nurse made Colin ready. She noticed that instead of lyinglike a log while his clothes were put on he sat up and made some efforts tohelp himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the time.

“This is one of his good days, sir,” she said to Dr. Craven, whodropped in to inspect him. “He’s in such good spirits that it makeshim stronger.”

“I’ll call in again later in the afternoon, after he has comein,” said Dr. Craven. “I must see how the going out agrees withhim. I wish,” in a very low voice, “that he would let you go withhim.”

“I’d rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay herewhile 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 downstairs and put him in hiswheeled chair near which Dickon waited outside. After the manservant hadarranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand to him and to thenurse.

“You have my permission to go,” he said, and they both disappearedquickly and it must be confessed giggled when they were safely inside thehouse.

Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily. Mistress Marywalked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the sky. The archof it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed like white birdsfloating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. The wind swept in softbig breaths down from the moor and was strange with a wild clear scentedsweetness. Colin kept lifting his thin chest to draw it in, and his big eyeslooked as if it were they which were listening—listening, instead of hisears.

“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 wonderfultoday.”

Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took. In factevery gardener or gardener’s lad had been witched away. But they wound inand out among the shrubbery and out and round the fountain beds, followingtheir carefully planned route for the mere mysterious pleasure of it. But whenat last they turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls the excited sense ofan approaching thrill made them, for some curious reason they could not haveexplained, begin to speak in whispers.

“This is it,” breathed Mary. “This is where I used to walk upand down and wonder and wonder.”

“Is it?” cried Colin, and his eyes began to search the ivy witheager 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 comeagain!”

“And that,” said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a biglilac bush, “is where he perched on the little heap of earth and showedme the key.”

Then Colin sat up.

“Where? Where? There?” he cried, and his eyes were as big as thewolf’s in Red Riding-Hood, when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon toremark 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 thewall. And this is the ivy the wind blew back,” and she took hold of thehanging green curtain.

“Oh! is it—is it!” gasped Colin.

“And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push himin—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 gaspedwith delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held them thereshutting out everything until they were inside and the chair stopped as if bymagic and the door was closed. Not till then did he take them away and lookround and round and round as Dickon and Mary had done. And over walls and earthand trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender littleleaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in thealcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold andpurple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head andthere were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents andscents. 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 anddifferent because a pink glow of color had actually crept all overhim—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 andthen one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. Oneknows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes outand stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up andwatches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown thingshappening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart standsstill at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—whichhas been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands ofyears. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes whenone stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep goldstillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowlyagain and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Thensometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of starswaiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off musicmakes it true; and sometimes a look in someone’s eyes.

And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt theSpringtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon thewhole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautifuland kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came andcrowded everything it possibly could into that one place. More than once Dickonpaused in what he was doing and stood still with a sort of growing wonder inhis 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 thirteenyears, 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 merejoy. “I’ll warrant it’s the graidelest one as ever was inthis world.”

“Does tha’ think,” said Colin with dreamy carefulness,“as happen it was made loike this ’ere all o’ purpose forme?”

“My word!” cried Mary admiringly, “that there is a bito’ good Yorkshire. Tha’rt shapin’ first-rate—thattha’ art.”

And delight reigned.

They drew the chair under the plum-tree, which was snow-white with blossoms andmusical 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 andwhite, and here and there one had burst open wide. Between the blossomingbranches 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. Theybrought him things to look at—buds which were opening, buds which weretight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green, the feather ofa woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty shell of some bird earlyhatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round and round the garden, stoppingevery other moment to let him look at wonders springing out of the earth ortrailing down from trees. It was like being taken in state round the country ofa 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 bekep’ so busy it’ll make his head swim. Tha’ll see himflyin’ backward an’ for’ard carryin’ worms nigh as bigas himsel’ an’ that much noise goin’ on in th’ nestwhen he gets there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which big mouthto drop th’ first piece in. An’ gapin’ beaks an’squawks on every side. Mother says as when she sees th’ work a robin hasto keep them gapin’ beaks filled, she feels like she was a lady withnothin’ to do. She says she’s seen th’ little chaps when itseemed like th’ sweat must be droppin’ off ’em, though folkcan’t see it.”

This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to cover theirmouths with their hands, remembering that they must not be heard. Colin hadbeen 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 excitedenjoyment it is rather difficult never to laugh above a whisper.

Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour thesunshine grew more golden. The wheeled chair had been drawn back under thecanopy and Dickon had sat down on the grass and had just drawn out his pipewhen 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 abrief moment of stillness.

“Yes,” answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a verygentle sound.

Mary gazed at the tree and thought.

“The branches are quite gray and there’s not a single leafanywhere,” Colin went on. “It’s quite dead, isn’tit?”

“Aye,” admitted Dickon. “But them roses as has climbed allover it will near hide every bit o’ th’ dead wood whenthey’re full o’ leaves an’ flowers. It won’t look deadthen. 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 hismate.”

Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the flash ofred-breasted bird with something in his beak. He darted through the greennessand into the close-grown corner and was out of sight. Colin leaned back on hiscushion 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 Dickonafterward. “I know it was Magic.” For both she and Dickon had beenafraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had broken off tenyears ago and they had talked it over together and Dickon had stood and rubbedhis head in a troubled way.

“We mun look as if it wasn’t no different from th’ othertrees,” he had said. “We couldn’t never tell him how itbroke, poor lad. If he says anything about it we mun—we mun try to lookcheerful.”

“Aye, that we mun,” had answered Mary.

But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the tree. Shewondered and wondered in those few moments if there was any reality in thatother thing Dickon had said. He had gone on rubbing his rust-red hair in apuzzled 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 ratherhesitatingly. “An’ mother she thinks maybe she’s aboutMisselthwaite many a time lookin’ after Mester Colin, same as all mothersdo when they’re took out o’ th’ world. They have to comeback, tha’ sees. Happen she’s been in the garden an’ happenit 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 inMagic. Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked Magic, of course goodMagic, on everything near him and that was why people liked him so much andwild creatures knew he was their friend. She wondered, indeed, if it were notpossible that his gift had brought the robin just at the right moment whenColin asked that dangerous question. She felt that his Magic was working allthe afternoon and making Colin look like an entirely different boy. It did notseem possible that he could be the crazy creature who had screamed and beatenand bitten his pillow. Even his ivory whiteness seemed to change. The faintglow of color which had shown on his face and neck and hands when he first gotinside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were made offlesh instead of ivory or wax.

They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was sosuggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some.

“Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to therhododendron walk,” he said. “And then you and Dickon can bring ithere.”

It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth wasspread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, adelightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic errandspaused to inquire what was going on and were led into investigating crumbs withgreat activity. Nut and Shell whisked up trees with pieces of cake and Soottook the entire half of a buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked at andexamined and turned it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decidedto swallow it all joyfully in one gulp.

The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow hour. The sun was deepening thegold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were flying pastless often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the tea-basket wasrepacked ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin was lying against hiscushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his forehead and his facelooking quite a natural color.

“I don’t want this afternoon to go,” he said; “but Ishall come back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the dayafter.”

“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 heremyself.”

“That tha’ will,” said Dickon. “Us’ll have theewalkin’ about here an’ diggin’ same as other folk aforelong.”

Colin flushed tremendously.

“Walk!” he said. “Dig! Shall I?”

Dickon’s glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary hadever 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 otherfolks!”

Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin’s answer.

“Nothing really ails them,” he said, “but they are so thinand 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’ltstop bein’ afraid in a bit.”

“I shall?” said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wonderingabout things.

They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping lower. Itwas that hour when everything stills itself, and they really had had a busy andexciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were resting luxuriously. Even thecreatures had ceased moving about and had drawn together and were resting nearthem. Soot had perched on a low branch and drawn up one leg and dropped thegray film drowsily over his eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if hemight snore in a minute.

In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half liftedhis 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’sindignant face glaring at them over the wall from the top of a ladder! Heactually 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 tojump down and deal with her; but as she came toward him he evidently thoughtbetter of it and stood on the top step of his ladder shaking his fist down ather.

“I never thowt much o’ thee!” he harangued. “Icouldna’ abide thee th’ first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawnybuttermilk-faced young besom, allus askin’ questions an’pokin’ tha’ nose where it wasna, wanted. I never knowed howtha’ got so thick wi’ me. If it hadna’ been for th’robin— Drat him—”

“Ben Weatherstaff,” called out Mary, finding her breath. She stoodbelow him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. “Ben Weatherstaff, itwas 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’simpidint enow for anythin’. Him showin’ thee th’ way! Him!Eh! tha’ young nowt”—she could see his next words burst outbecause he was overpowered by curiosity—“however i’ thisworld did tha’ get in?”

“It was the robin who showed me the way,” she protestedobstinately. “He didn’t know he was doing it but he did. And Ican’t tell you from here while you’re shaking your fist atme.”

He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his jawactually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw coming over thegrass toward him.

At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised that hehad only sat up and listened as if he were spellbound. But in the midst of ithe had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to Dickon.

“Wheel me over there!” he commanded. “Wheel me quite closeand stop right in front of him!”

And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which madehis jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes which cametoward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach because a young Rajahleaned back in it with royal command in his great black-rimmed eyes and a thinwhite hand extended haughtily toward him. And it stopped right under BenWeatherstaff’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 wasbefore him as if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and gazed and gulped a lumpdown 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 overhis forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice.

“Who tha’ art?” he said. “Aye, that Ido—wi’ tha’ mother’s eyes starin’ at me outo’ tha’ face. Lord knows how tha’ come here. But tha’rtth’ poor cripple.”

Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and he satbolt upright.

“I’m not a cripple!” he cried out furiously. “I’mnot!”

“He’s not!” cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in herfierce indignation. “He’s not got a lump as big as a pin! I lookedand there was none there—not one!”

Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if hecould never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth shook and his voiceshook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and he could onlyremember the things he had heard.

“Tha’—tha’ hasn’t got a crooked back?” hesaid 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 tantrumsrushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been accused of crookedlegs—even in whispers—and the perfectly simple belief in theirexistence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff’s voice was more thanRajah flesh and blood could endure. His anger and insulted pride made himforget everything but this one moment and filled him with a power he had neverknown before, an almost unnatural strength.

“Come here!” he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tearthe 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 andfelt herself turn pale.

“He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!” she gabbledover to herself under her breath as fast as ever she could.

There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on the ground, Dickonheld Colin’s arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet were on thegrass. Colin was standing upright—upright—as straight as an arrowand looking strangely tall—his head thrown back and his strange eyesflashing lightning.

“Look at me!” he flung up at Ben Weatherstaff. “Just look atme—you! Just look at me!”

“He’s as straight as I am!” cried Dickon. “He’sas straight as any lad i’ Yorkshire!”

What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He choked andgulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he struck hisold hands together.

“Eh!” he burst forth, “th’ lies folk tells!Tha’rt as thin as a lath an’ as white as a wraith, butthere’s not a knob on thee. Tha’lt make a mon yet. God blessthee!”

Dickon held Colin’s arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter. Hestood 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 aboutit! You get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Marywill 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 queerrush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin straightColin standing on his feet with his head thrown back.

“Eh! lad,” he almost whispered. “Eh! my lad!” And thenremembering himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said,“Yes, sir! Yes, sir!” and obediently disappeared as he descendedthe 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 thedoor under the ivy.

Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his cheeksand he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling.

“I can stand,” he said, and his head was still held up and he saidit 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 crocusesin the grass.

Colin looked down at them.

“Aye,” he said slowly, “there couldna’ be bigger Magicthan 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 afew feet away from him. “I’m going to be standing when Weatherstaffcomes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down Iwill 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 supportedhimself 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 standingthere and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath.

“What art sayin’?” he asked rather testily because he did notwant his attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proudface.

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! Youcan do it! You can!”

She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him on hisfeet looking like that. She could not bear that he should give in before BenWeatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that helooked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on BenWeatherstaff in his funny imperious way.

“Look at me!” he commanded. “Look at me all over! Am I ahunchback? Have I got crooked legs?”

Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had recovered alittle 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 cripplean’ half-witted?”

“Half-witted!” said Colin angrily. “Who thought that?”

“Lots o’ fools,” said Ben. “Th’ world’sfull 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 anddown, 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 puttha’ legs on th’ ground in such a hurry I knowed tha’ was allright. Sit thee down on th’ rug a bit young Mester an’ give me thyorders.”

There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding in hismanner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as she could as they had comedown the Long Walk. The chief thing to be remembered, she had told him, wasthat Colin was getting well—getting well. The garden was doing it. No onemust 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 everyday,” announced Colin. “But it is to be a secret. My orders arethat no one is to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked andmade it come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help—but you mustcome 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 lookinground, “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’ Ididn’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’!” criedDickon. “I couldn’t make out how it had been done.”

“She was so fond of it—she was!” said Ben Weatherstaffslowly. “An’ she was such a pretty young thing. She says to meonce, ‘Ben,’ says she laughin’, ‘if ever I’m illor if I go away you must take care of my roses.’ When she did go awayth’ orders was no one was ever to come nigh. But I come,” withgrumpy 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’tdone 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 hishand and took it up. An odd expression came into his face and he began toscratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but presently as theywatched him—Mary with quite breathless interest—he drove the end ofthe trowel into the soil and turned some over.

“You can do it! You can do it!” said Mary to herself. “I tellyou, you can!”

Dickon’s round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not aword. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.

Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spokeexultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.

“Tha’ said as tha’d have me walkin’ about here same asother folk—an’ tha’ said tha’d have me diggin’. Ithowt tha’ was just leein’ to please me. This is only th’first day an’ I’ve walked—an’ here I amdiggin’.”

Ben Weatherstaff’s mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he endedby 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 canget 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 forgettingrheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and wider than a newdigger with thin white hands could make it. Mary slipped out to run and bringback a watering-can. When Dickon had deepened the hole Colin went on turningthe soft earth over and over. He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing withthe strangely new exercise, slight as it was.

“I want to do it before the sun goes quite—quite down,” hesaid.

Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on purpose. BenWeatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the greenhouse. He hobbled overthe grass as fast as he could. He had begun to be excited, too. He knelt downby the hole and broke the pot from the mould.

“Here, lad,” he said, handing the plant to Colin. “Set it inthe earth thysel’ same as th’ king does when he goes to a newplace.”

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin’s flush grew deeper as heset the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. It wasfilled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning forward on herhands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward to see what was beingdone. Nut and Shell chattered about it from a cherry-tree.

“It’s planted!” said Colin at last. “And the sun isonly slipping over the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when itgoes. That’s part of the Magic.”

And Dickon helped him, and the Magic—or whatever it was—so gave himstrength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange lovelyafternoon 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. Hehad indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send someone out toexplore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his room the poor manlooked him over seriously.

“You should not have stayed so long,” he said. “You must notoverexert 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. “Iam afraid it would not be wise.”

“It would not be wise to try to stop me,” said Colin quiteseriously. “I am going.”

Even Mary had found out that one of Colin’s chief peculiarities was thathe did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his way ofordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island all his life andas he had been the king of it he had made his own manners and had had no one tocompare himself with. Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and sinceshe had been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that her own manners hadnot been of the kind which is usual or popular. Having made this discovery shenaturally thought it of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat andlooked at him curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wantedto 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 somesatisfaction. “He won’t get Misselthwaite at all now I’m notgoing 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 havehad to be polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never havedone it.”

“Am I rude?” Colin inquired undisturbedly.

“If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort ofman,” said Mary, “he would have slapped you.”

“But he daren’t,” said Colin.

“No, he daren’t,” answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thingout quite without prejudice. “Nobody ever dared to do anything youdidn’t like—because you were going to die and things like that. Youwere such a poor thing.”

“But,” announced Colin stubbornly, “I am not going to be apoor thing. I won’t let people think I’m one. I stood on my feetthis afternoon.”

“It is always having your own way that has made you so queer,” Marywent on, thinking aloud.

Colin turned his head, frowning.

“Am I queer?” he demanded.

“Yes,” answered Mary, “very. But you needn’t becross,” she added impartially, “because so am I queer—and sois Ben Weatherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before I began to likepeople and before I found the garden.”

“I don’t want to be queer,” said Colin. “I am not goingto be,” and he frowned again with determination.

He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw hisbeautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face.

“I shall stop being queer,” he said, “if I go every day tothe garden. There is Magic in there—good Magic, you know, Mary. I am surethere is.”

“So am I,” said Mary.

“Even if it isn’t real Magic,” Colin said, “we canpretend it is. Somethingis there—something!”

“It’s Magic,” said Mary, “but not black. It’s aswhite as snow.”

They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months thatfollowed—the wonderful months—the radiant months—the amazingones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have never had agarden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you will know thatit would take a whole book to describe all that came to pass there. At first itseemed 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 greenthings began to show buds and the buds began to unfurl and show color, everyshade of blue, every shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In itshappy 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 frombetween the bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely clingingthings to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass in sheaves, andthe green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies of the blue and whiteflower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines or campanulas.

“She was main fond o’ them—she was,” Ben Weatherstaffsaid. “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 onth’ earth—not her. She just loved it but she said as th’ bluesky 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 defyingflowers which had lived in the garden for years and which it might be confessedseemed rather to wonder how such new people had got there. And theroses—the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial,wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up thewalls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades—theycame alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds—andbuds—tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst anduncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims andfilling the garden air.

Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning he wasbrought out and every hour of each day when it didn’t rain he spent inthe garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the grass“watching things growing,” he said. If you watched long enough, hedeclared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Also you could make theacquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on various unknown butevidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of straw or featheror food, or climbing blades of grass as if they were trees from whose tops onecould look out to explore the country. A mole throwing up its mound at the endof its burrow and making its way out at last with the long-nailed paws whichlooked 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 Dickonrevealed them all and added foxes’ ways, otters’ ways,ferrets’ ways, squirrels’ ways, and trout’ andwater-rats’ and badgers’ ways, there was no end to the things totalk about and think over.

And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really once stoodon his feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and when Mary told him of thespell she had worked he was excited and approved of it greatly. He talked of itconstantly.

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he saidwisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how tomake it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happenuntil 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 BenWeatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah standing onhis feet under a tree and looking very grand but also very beautifully smiling.

“Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff,” he said. “I want you andDickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going totell 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 boyhoodhe had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like asailor.)

“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 amgoing to begin now with this experiment.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this wasthe first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries.

It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stageshe had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a greatmany singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy. When heheld up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you it seemed as if you believedhim almost in spite of yourself though he was only ten years old—going oneleven. At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly feltthe 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 anyone knowsanything 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 knowssome Magic, but perhaps he doesn’t know he knows it. He charms animalsand people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been ananimal charmer—which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. Iam sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get holdof it and make it do things for us—like electricity and horses andsteam.”

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and reallycould 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 oratorproceeded. “Then something began pushing things up out of the soil andmaking things out of nothing. One day things weren’t there and anotherthey 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 keepsaying 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. Ihave never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tellme I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimessince I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees atthe sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something werepushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is alwayspushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out ofMagic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels andpeople. 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 bea man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some andput it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don’tknow how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling itperhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I wasgoing to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast asshe could, ‘You can do it! You can do it!’ and I did. I had to trymyself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me—and so didDickon’s. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I canremember I am going to say, ‘Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! Iam going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!’ And you mustall 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 drillwe shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment succeeds. Youlearn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until theystay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If youkeep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you andit will stay and do things.”

“I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirswho said words over and over thousands of times,” said Mary.

“I’ve heard Jem Fettleworth’s wife say th’ same thingover thousands o’ times—callin’ Jem a drunken brute,”said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. “Summat allus come o’ that, sureenough. He gave her a good hidin’ an’ went to th’ Blue Lionan’ 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 usedthe wrong Magic until she made him beat her. If she’d used the rightMagic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldn’t have got as drunkas a lord and perhaps—perhaps he might have bought her a newbonnet.”

Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little oldeyes.

“Tha’rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, MesterColin,” he said. “Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I’ll giveher a bit of a hint o’ what Magic will do for her. She’d be rarean’ pleased if th’ sinetifik ’sperimentworked—an’ so ’ud Jem.”

Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with curiousdelight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a long-eared whiterabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly while it laid its earsalong its back and enjoyed itself.

“Do you think the experiment will work?” Colin asked him, wonderingwhat he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he sawhim looking at him or at one of his “creatures” with his happy widesmile.

He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.

“Aye,” he answered, “that I do. It’ll work same asth’ seeds do when th’ sun shines on ’em. It’ll work forsure. Shall us begin it now?”

Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs anddevotees in illustrations Colin suggested that they should all sit cross-leggedunder 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 bysayin’ 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 ofthe 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 aprayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being what he called“agen’ prayer-meetin’s” but this being theRajah’s affair he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to begratified at being called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnlyenraptured. Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made somecharmer’s signal no one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged likethe rest, the crow, the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near andmade part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their owndesire.

“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 ifhe felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful look inthem. The light shone on him through the tree canopy.

“Now we will begin,” he said. “Shall we sway backward andforward, Mary, as if we were dervishes?”

“I canna’ do no swayin’ back’ard andfor’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 atrifle testily. “They turned me out o’ th’ church choirth’ only time I ever tried it.”

No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin’s face was noteven crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic.

“Then I will chant,” he said. And he began, looking like a strangeboy spirit. “The sun is shining—the sun is shining. That is theMagic. 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 inme—the Magic is in me. It is in me—it is in me. It’s ineveryone of us. It’s in Ben Weatherstaff’s back. Magic! Magic! Comeand help!”

He said it a great many times—not a thousand times but quite a goodlynumber. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer andbeautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began to feelsoothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The humming of the beesin the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and drowsily melted into adoze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a handresting on the lamb’s back. Soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddledclose to him on his shoulder, the gray film dropped over his eyes. At lastColin 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 ajerk.

“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 stubbornold party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up his mind that ifhe were sent away he would climb his ladder and look over the wall so that hemight be ready to hobble back if there were any stumbling.

The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was formed. Itreally did look like a procession. Colin was at its head with Dickon on oneside and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and the“creatures” trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub keepingclose to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to nibble and Sootfollowing with the solemnity of a person who felt himself in charge.

It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards itstopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon’s arm and privately BenWeatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand fromits support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all the time andhe looked very grand.

“The Magic is in me!” he kept saying. “The Magic is making mestrong! I can feel it! I can feel it!”

It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him. He saton the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the grass andseveral times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but he would not giveup until he had gone all round the garden. When he returned to the canopy treehis cheeks were flushed and he looked triumphant.

“I did it! The Magic worked!” he cried. “That is my firstscientific discovery.”

“What will Dr. Craven say?” broke out Mary.

“He won’t say anything,” Colin answered, “because hewill not be told. This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to knowanything about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like anyother boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken back init. I won’t have people whispering and asking questions and I won’tlet my father hear about it until the experiment has quite succeeded. Thensometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his studyand say ‘Here I am; I am like any other boy. I am quite well and I shalllive to be a man. It has been done by a scientific experiment.’”

“He will think he is in a dream,” cried Mary. “He won’tbelieve his eyes.”

Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was going toget well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had been aware ofit. And the thought which stimulated him more than any other was this imaginingwhat his father would look like when he saw that he had a son who was asstraight and strong as other fathers’ sons. One of his darkest miseriesin the unhealthy morbid past days had been his hatred of being a sicklyweak-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 Ibegin 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 allEngland.”

Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

“Weatherstaff,” he said, “that is disrespectful. You must nottake liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works Ishall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer.”

“Ax pardon—ax pardon, sir” answered Ben, touching hisforehead in salute. “I ought to have seed it wasn’t a jokin’matter,” but his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. Hereally did not mind being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad wasgaining strength and spirit.

CHAPTER XXIV.
“LET THEM LAUGH”

The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the cottage onthe 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 Colinand Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes andcabbages, 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 moorsongs or talked to Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught tohelp him.

“We’d never get on as comfortable as we do,” Mrs. Sowerbysaid, “if it wasn’t for Dickon’s garden. Anything’llgrow for him. His ’taters and cabbages is twice th’ size of anyoneelse’s an’ they’ve got a flavor with ’em asnobody’s has.”

When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. Aftersupper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that was her quiettime. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on and hear stories of theday. She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickonhad bought penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown brightsweet-scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grewborders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he couldsave year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in timeinto fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshirebecause he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerowflowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stoneswere to be seen.

“All a chap’s got to do to make ’em thrive, mother,” hewould say, “is to be friends with ’em for sure. They’re justlike th’ ‘creatures.’ If they’re thirsty give ’emdrink and if they’re hungry give ’em a bit o’ food. They wantto live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if I’d been a badlad and somehow treated them heartless.”

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened atMisselthwaite 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 wasdoing him good. But it was not long before it was agreed between the twochildren 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 thethrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze which hadseemed 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 Colinand the final drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with theincident of Ben Weatherstaff’s angry face peering over the wall andMester Colin’s sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sowerby’snice-looking face quite change color several times.

“My word!” she said. “It was a good thing that little lasscame to th’ Manor. It’s been th’ makin’ o’ heran’ th’ savin, o’ him. Standin’ on his feet! An’us all thinkin’ he was a poor half-witted lad with not a straight bone inhim.”

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 wellan’ 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’sfillin’ out and doesn’t look so sharp an’ th’ waxycolor 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. Ifthe doctor knew he’d found out he could stand on his feet he’dlikely write and tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin’s savin’th’ secret to tell himself. He’s goin’ to practise his Magicon his legs every day till his father comes back an’ then he’sgoin’ to march into his room an’ show him he’s as straight asother lads. But him an’ Miss Mary thinks it’s best plan to do a bito’ groanin’ an’ frettin’ now an’ then to throwfolk off th’ scent.”

Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had finishedhis last sentence.

“Eh!” she said, “that pair’s enjoyin’theirselves I’ll warrant. They’ll get a good bit o’actin’ out of it an’ there’s nothin’ children likes asmuch 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 weretwinkling 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 notcarryin’ him careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin’as he can an’ never lifts his head until we’re out o’ sighto’ th’ house. An’ he grunts an’ frets a good bit whenhe’s bein’ settled into his chair. Him an’ Miss Mary’sboth got to enjoyin’ it an’ when he groans an’ complainsshe’ll say, ‘Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weakas that, poor Colin?’—but th’ trouble is that sometimes theycan scarce keep from burstin’ out laughin’. When we get safe intothe garden they laugh till they’ve no breath left to laugh with.An’ they have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin’s cushions tokeep the gardeners from hearin’, if any of, ’em’sabout.”

“Th’ more they laugh th’ better for ’em!” saidMrs. Sowerby, still laughing herself. “Good healthy child laughin’sbetter than pills any day o’ th’ year. That pair’ll plump upfor sure.”

“They are plumpin’ up,” said Dickon. “They’rethat hungry they don’t know how to get enough to eat without makin’talk. Mester Colin says if he keeps sendin’ for more food theywon’t believe he’s an invalid at all. Miss Mary says she’lllet him eat her share, but he says that if she goes hungry she’ll getthin an’ they mun both get fat at once.”

Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty that shequite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon laughed withher.

“I’ll tell thee what, lad,” Mrs. Sowerby said when she couldspeak. “I’ve thought of a way to help ’em. When tha’goes to ’em in th’ mornin’s tha’ shall take a pailo’ good new milk an’ I’ll bake ’em a crusty cottageloaf 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 offth’ 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 wondertha’ art! Tha’ always sees a way out o’ things. They wasquite in a pother yesterday. They didn’t see how they was to managewithout 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 feelslike young wolves an’ food’s flesh an’ blood to’em,” said Mrs. Sowerby. Then she smiled Dickon’s own curvingsmile. “Eh! but they’re enjoyin’ theirselves for sure,”she said.

She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creature—and shehad 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 sourcesof entertainment. The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had beenunconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse and then by Dr.Craven himself.

“Your appetite. Is improving very much, Master Colin,” the nursehad said one day. “You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreedwith you.”

“Nothing disagrees with me now” replied Colin, and then seeing thenurse looking at him curiously he suddenly remembered that perhaps he ought notto appear too well just yet. “At least things don’t so oftendisagree with me. It’s the fresh air.”

“Perhaps it is,” said the nurse, still looking at him with amystified expression. “But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it.”

“How she stared at you!” said Mary when she went away. “As ifshe thought there must be something to find out.”

“I won’t have her finding out things,” said Colin. “Noone must begin to find out yet.”

When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled, also. He asked a number ofquestions, 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 anyone know where I go,” he answered. “I goto a place I like. Everyone has orders to keep out of the way. I won’tbe watched and stared at. You know that!”

“You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done youharm—I do not think so. The nurse says that you eat much more than youhave 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 liveare often—different.”

Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin’s wrist and he pushed uphis sleeve and felt his arm.

“You are not feverish,” he said thoughtfully, “and such fleshas you have gained is healthy. If you can keep this up, my boy, we need nottalk of dying. Your father will be happy to hear of this remarkableimprovement.”

“I won’t have him told!” Colin broke forth fiercely.“It will only disappoint him if I get worse again—and I may getworse this very night. I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might bebeginning to have one now. I won’t have letters written to myfather—I won’t—I won’t! You are making me angry and youknow that is bad for me. I feel hot already. I hate being written about andbeing talked over as much as I hate being stared at!”

“Hush-h! my boy,” Dr. Craven soothed him. “Nothing shall bewritten without your permission. You are too sensitive about things. You mustnot undo the good which has been done.”

He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse heprivately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned to thepatient.

“The boy is extraordinarily better,” he said. “His advanceseems almost abnormal. But of course he is doing now of his own free will whatwe could not make him do before. Still, he excites himself very easily andnothing must be said to irritate him.”

Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously. From this timedated 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 towork myself into a big one. Perhaps I couldn’t have one at all. That lumpdoesn’t come in my throat now and I keep thinking of nice things insteadof horrible ones. But if they talk about writing to my father I shall have todo something.”

He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible to carryout this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an amazing appetiteand the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of home-made bread andfresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and clotted cream. Mary alwaysbreakfasted with him and when they found themselves at thetable—particularly if there were delicate slices of sizzling ham sendingforth tempting odors from under a hot silver cover—they would look intoeach other’s eyes in desperation.

“I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary,” Colinalways ended by saying. “We can send away some of the lunch and a greatdeal of the dinner.”

But they never found they could send away anything and the highly polishedcondition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened much comment.

“I do wish,” Colin would say also, “I do wish the slices ofham were thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for anyone.”

“It’s enough for a person who is going to die,” answered Marywhen first she heard this, “but it’s not enough for a person who isgoing to live. I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice freshheather and gorse smells from the moor come pouring in at the openwindow.”

The morning that Dickon—after they had been enjoying themselves in thegarden for about two hours—went behind a big rosebush and brought forthtwo tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with cream on thetop of it, and that the other held cottage-made currant buns folded in a cleanblue 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 bunswere! And what delicious fresh milk!

“Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon,” said Colin. “Itmakes 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. Heliked this so much that he improved upon it.

“Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude isextreme.”

And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with buns anddrank milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner of any hungrylittle boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing in moorland airand whose breakfast was more than two hours behind him.

This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind. Theyactually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people to providefood for she might not have enough to satisfy two extra appetites every day. Sothey 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 thegarden where Mary had first found him piping to the wild creatures there was adeep little hollow where you could build a sort of tiny oven with stones androast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs were a previously unknown luxuryand very hot potatoes with salt and fresh butter in them were fit for awoodland king—besides being deliciously satisfying. You could buy bothpotatoes and eggs and eat as many as you liked without feeling as if you weretaking food out of the mouths of fourteen people.

Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under theplum-tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after its briefblossom-time was ended. After the ceremony Colin always took his walkingexercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found power atintervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more steadily and covermore ground. And each day his belief in the Magic grew stronger—as wellit might. He tried one experiment after another as he felt himself gainingstrength and it was Dickon who showed him the best things of all.

“Yesterday,” he said one morning after an absence, “I went toThwaite for mother an’ near th’ Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth.He’s the strongest chap on th’ moor. He’s the championwrestler an’ he can jump higher than any other chap an’ throwth’ hammer farther. He’s gone all th’ way to Scotland forth’ sports some years. He’s knowed me ever since I was a little’un an’ he’s a friendly sort an’ I axed him somequestions. Th’ gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o’ thee,Mester Colin, and I says, ‘How did tha’ make tha’ musclesstick out that way, Bob? Did tha’ do anythin’ extra to makethysel’ 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 myarms 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’ delicatechap?’ an’ I says, ‘No, but I knows a young gentlemanthat’s gettin’ well of a long illness an’ I wish I knowedsome o’ them tricks to tell him about.’ I didn’t say no namesan’ he didn’t ask none. He’s friendly same as I saidan’ he stood up an’ showed me good-natured like, an’ Iimitated 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 saystha’ mun do ’em gentle at first an’ be careful not to tirethysel’. 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 butsimple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with widening eyes. Hecould do a few while he was sitting down. Presently he did a few gently whilehe stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary began to do them also. Soot, whowas watching the performance, became much disturbed and left his branch andhopped about restlessly because he could not do them too.

From that time the exercises were part of the day’s duties as much as theMagic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of them eachtime they tried, and such appetites were the results that but for the basketDickon put down behind the bush each morning when he arrived they would havebeen lost. But the little oven in the hollow and Mrs. Sowerby’s bountieswere so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and the nurse and Dr. Craven becamemystified again. You can trifle with your breakfast and seem to disdain yourdinner if you are full to the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richlyfrothed 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 takesome nourishment. And yet see how they look.”

“Look!” exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. “Eh! I’mmoithered to death with them. They’re a pair of young Satans. Burstingtheir jackets one day and the next turning up their noses at the best mealsCook can tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and breadsauce did they set a fork into yesterday—and the poor woman fairinventeda pudding for them—and back it’s sent. She almostcried. She’s afraid she’ll be blamed if they starve themselves intotheir graves.”

Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully, He wore an extremelyworried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed him the almostuntouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look at—but it waseven more worried when he sat down by Colin’s sofa and examined him. Hehad been called to London on business and had not seen the boy for nearly twoweeks. When young things begin to gain health they gain it rapidly. The waxentinge had left, Colins skin and a warm rose showed through it; his beautifuleyes were clear and the hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples hadfilled out. His once dark, heavy locks had begun to look as if they spranghealthily from his forehead and were soft and warm with life. His lips werefuller and of a normal color. In fact as an imitation of a boy who was aconfirmed invalid he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in hishand 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 havegained 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 soundwhich 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 withreproachful dignity, “and it got into my throat.”

“But,” she said afterward to Colin, “I couldn’t stopmyself. It just burst out because all at once I couldn’t help rememberingthat last big potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bitthrough 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 offthe trees,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “They stay out in the groundsall day and see no one but each other. And if they want anything different toeat from what’s sent up to them they need only ask for it.”

“Well,” said Dr. Craven, “so long as going without foodagrees with them we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a newcreature.”

“So is the girl,” said Mrs. Medlock. “She’s begun to bedownright pretty since she’s filled out and lost her ugly little sourlook. Her hair’s grown thick and healthy looking and she’s got abright color. The glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now herand Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhapsthey’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 newmiracles. In the robin’s nest there were Eggs and the robin’s matesat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and carefulwings. At first she was very nervous and the robin himself was indignantlywatchful. Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown corner in those days, butwaited until by the quiet working of some mysterious spell he seemed to haveconveyed to the soul of the little pair that in the garden there was nothingwhich was not quite like themselves—nothing which did not understand thewonderfulness of what was happening to them—the immense, tender,terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been oneperson in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost beingthat if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round andcrash through space and come to an end—if there had been even one who didnot feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness even in thatgolden springtime air. But they all knew it and felt it and the robin and hismate knew they knew it.

At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For somemysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first moment he set hisdew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger but a sort ofrobin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin (which is a quite distinctlanguage not to be mistaken for any other). To speak robin to a robin is likespeaking French to a Frenchman. Dickon always spoke it to the robin himself, sothe queer gibberish he used when he spoke to humans did not matter in theleast. The robin thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were notintelligent enough to understand feathered speech. His movements also wererobin. They never startled one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous orthreatening. Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not evendisturbing.

But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other two. Inthe first place the boy creature did not come into the garden on his legs. Hewas pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild animals were thrownover him. That in itself was doubtful. Then when he began to stand up and moveabout he did it in a queer unaccustomed way and the others seemed to have tohelp 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 theslow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. Whencats are preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very slowly. The robintalked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days but after that hedecided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so great that he wasafraid it might be injurious to the Eggs.

When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was animmense relief. But for a long time—or it seemed a long time to therobin—he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other humansdid. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying downfor 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 flyby his parents he had done much the same sort of thing. He had taken shortflights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So it occurred to himthat this boy was learning to fly—or rather to walk. He mentioned this tohis mate and when he told her that the Eggs would probably conduct themselvesin the same way after they were fledged she was quite comforted and even becameeagerly interested and derived great pleasure from watching the boy over theedge of her nest—though she always thought that the Eggs would be muchcleverer and learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans werealways more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them never seemed really tolearn 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 ofthe children at times did unusual things. They would stand under the trees andmove their arms and legs and heads about in a way which was neither walking norrunning nor sitting down. They went through these movements at intervals everyday and the robin was never able to explain to his mate what they were doing ortying to do. He could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flapabout in such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently wasdoing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions were notof a dangerous nature. Of course neither the robin nor his mate had ever heardof the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his exercises for making the musclesstand out like lumps. Robins are not like human beings; their muscles arealways exercised from the first and so they develop themselves in a naturalmanner. If you have to fly about to find every meal you eat, your muscles donot become atrophied (atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like theothers, 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 assafe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the fact that you could watchso many curious things going on made setting a most entertaining occupation. Onwet days the Eggs’ mother sometimes felt even a little dull because thechildren did not come into the garden.

But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. Onemorning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was beginning to feela little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his sofa because it was notsafe to get up and walk about, Mary had an inspiration.

“Now that I am a real boy,” Colin had said, “my legs and armsand all my body are so full of Magic that I can’t keep them still. Theywant to be doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in themorning, Mary, when it’s quite early and the birds are just shoutingoutside and everything seems just shouting for joy—even the trees andthings we can’t really hear—I feel as if I must jump out of bed andshout myself. If I did it, just think what would happen!”

Mary giggled inordinately.

“The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running andthey would be sure you had gone crazy and they’d send for thedoctor,” she said.

Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look—how horrifiedby his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright.

“I wish my father would come home,” he said. “I want to tellhim myself. I’m always thinking about it—but we couldn’t goon like this much longer. I can’t stand lying still and pretending, andbesides 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 roomsthere 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 oneever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I wascoming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the second timeI heard you crying.”

Colin started up on his sofa.

“A hundred rooms no one goes into,” he said. “It soundsalmost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. Wheel me in mychair and nobody would know we went.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Mary. “No one woulddare to follow us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do ourexercises. There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivoryelephants. 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 tolook at the part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as thepicture-gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and leaveus alone until I send for him again.”

Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had wheeled thechair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in obedience toorders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As soon as Mary had madesure 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,” hesaid, “and then I am going to jump and then we will do BobHaworth’s exercises.”

And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the portraits andfound the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and holding the parrot onher finger.

“All these,” said Colin, “must be my relations. They lived along 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 asyou looked when you came here. Now you are a great deal fatter and betterlooking.”

“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 themouse 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 firstpilgrimage. They found new corridors and corners and flights of steps and newold pictures they liked and weird old things they did not know the use of. Itwas a curiously entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in thesame house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were milesaway from them was a fascinating thing.

“I’m glad we came,” Colin said. “I never knew I livedin 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 whenthey returned to Colin’s room it was not possible to send the luncheonaway untouched.

When the nurse carried the tray downstairs she slapped it down on the kitchendresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly polished dishes andplates.

“Look at that!” she said. “This is a house of mystery, andthose two children are the greatest mysteries in it.”

“If they keep that up every day,” said the strong young footmanJohn, “there’d be small wonder that he weighs twice as much todayas he did a month ago. I should have to give up my place in time, for fear ofdoing my muscles an injury.”

That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin’sroom. She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because shethought the change might have been made by chance. She said nothing today butshe sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantel. She could look at itbecause 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 hadstared a few minutes. “I always know when you want me to tell yousomething. You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keepit like that.”

“Why?” asked Mary.

“Because it doesn’t make me angry any more to see her laughing. Iwakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the Magicwas filling the room and making everything so splendid that I couldn’tlie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was quite light andthere was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and somehow that made me go andpull the cord. She looked right down at me as if she were laughing because shewas glad I was standing there. It made me like to look at her. I want to seeher laughing like that all the time. I think she must have been a sort of Magicperson perhaps.”

“You are so like her now,” said Mary, “that sometimes I thinkperhaps you are her ghost made into a boy.”

That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered herslowly.

“If I were her ghost—my father would be fond of me,” he said.

“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 Ithink I should tell him about the Magic. It might make him morecheerful.”

CHAPTER XXVI.
“IT’S MOTHER!”

Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning’sincantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.

“I like to do it,” he explained, “because when I grow up andmake great scientific discoveries I shall be obliged to lecture about them andso this is practise. I can only give short lectures now because I am veryyoung, and besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he were in church and hewould go to sleep.”

“Th’ best thing about lecturin’,” said Ben, “isthat a chap can get up an’ say aught he pleases an’ no other chapcan answer him back. I wouldn’t be agen’ lecturin’ a bitmysel’ sometimes.”

But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes on himand kept them there. He looked him over with critical affection. It was not somuch the lecture which interested him as the legs which looked straighter andstronger each day, the boyish head which held itself up so well, the once sharpchin and hollow cheeks which had filled and rounded out and the eyes which hadbegun to hold the light he remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colinfelt Ben’s earnest gaze meant that he was much impressed he wondered whathe was reflecting on and once when he had seemed quite entranced he questionedhim.

“What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?” he asked.

“I was thinkin’” answered Ben, “as I’d warranttha’s gone up three or four pound this week. I was lookin’ attha’ calves an’ tha’ shoulders. I’d like to get thee ona pair o’ scales.”

“It’s the Magic and—and Mrs. Sowerby’s buns and milkand things,” said Colin. “You see the scientific experiment hassucceeded.”

That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he was ruddywith running and his funny face looked more twinkling than usual. As they had agood deal of weeding to do after the rains they fell to work. They always hadplenty to do after a warm deep sinking rain. The moisture which was good forthe flowers was also good for the weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grassand points of leaves which must be pulled up before their roots took too firmhold. Colin was as good at weeding as anyone in these days and he couldlecture while he was doing it.

“The Magic works best when you work, yourself,” he said thismorning. “You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I am going to readbooks about bones and muscles, but I am going to write a book about Magic. I ammaking it up now. I keep finding out things.”

It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his trowel andstood up on his feet. He had been silent for several minutes and they had seenthat he was thinking out lectures, as he often did. When he dropped his troweland stood upright it seemed to Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thoughthad made him do it. He stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threwout his arms exultantly. Color glowed in his face and his strange eyes widenedwith 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?” hedemanded.

Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could see morethings than most people could and many of them were things he never talkedabout. 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 itmyself—when I looked at my hand digging with the trowel—and I hadto stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it is real! I’mwell—I’m well!”

“Aye, that th’ art!” said Dickon.

“I’m well! I’m well!” said Colin again, and his facewent quite red all over.

He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought aboutit, but just at that minute something had rushed all through him—a sortof rapturous belief and realization and it had been so strong that he could nothelp 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 outabout people and creatures and everything that grows—likeDickon—and I shall never stop making Magic. I’m well! I’mwell! I feel—I feel as if I want to shout out something—somethingthankful, joyful!”

Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round at him.

“Tha’ might sing th’ Doxology,” he suggested in hisdryest grunt. He had no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make thesuggestion 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 BenWeatherstaff.

Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer’s smile.

“They sing it i’ church,” he said. “Mother says shebelieves 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 feltbetter than Colin did himself. He understood by a sort of instinct so naturalthat he did not know it was understanding. He pulled off his cap and lookedround still smiling.

“Tha’ must take off tha’ cap,” he said to Colin,“an’ so mun tha’, Ben—an’ tha’ mun standup, tha’ knows.”

Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as hewatched Dickon intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his knees and baredhis head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look on his old face as ifhe 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 asimple 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 jawsset 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 itmeans just what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to theMagic.” He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. “Perhaps they areboth the same thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing itagain, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It’s my song.How does it begin? ‘Praise God from whom all blessingsflow’?”

And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as musically asthey could and Dickon’s swelled quite loud and beautiful—and at thesecond line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his throat and at the third linehe 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 hadhappened to him which had happened when he found out that Colin was not acripple—his chin was twitching and he was staring and winking and hisleathery old cheeks were wet.

“I never seed no sense in th’ Doxology afore,” he saidhoarsely, “but I may change my mind i’ time. I should saytha’d gone up five pound this week Mester Colin—five on’em!”

Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his attention andhis 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 stilllistening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the sunlight driftingthrough the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, and her nice fresh facesmiling across the greenery she was rather like a softly colored illustrationin one of Colin’s books. She had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemedto take everything in—all of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the“creatures” and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly as shehad 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 wentacross the grass at a run.

Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both felttheir pulses beat faster.

“It’s mother!” Dickon said again when they met halfway.“I knowed tha’ wanted to see her an’ I told her whereth’ door was hid.”

Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his eyes quitedevoured her face.

“Even when I was ill I wanted to see you,” he said, “you andDickon and the secret garden. I’d never wanted to see anyone or anythingbefore.”

The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own. Sheflushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed to sweep over hereyes.

“Eh! dear lad!” she broke out tremulously. “Eh! dearlad!” as if she had not known she were going to say it. She did not say,“Mester Colin,” but just “dear lad” quite suddenly. Shemight have said it to Dickon in the same way if she had seen something in hisface 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 thymother tha’ made my heart jump.”

“Do you think,” said Colin a little awkwardly, “that willmake my father like me?”

“Aye, for sure, dear lad,” she answered and she gave his shoulder asoft 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 likedrumsticks i’ stockin’ two month’ ago—an’ I heardfolk 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 abit,” 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 bea finer pair i’ Yorkshire, thank God for it.”

She put both hands on Mistress Mary’s shoulders and looked her littleface over in a motherly fashion.

“An’ thee, too!” she said. “Tha’rt grown near ashearty as our ’Lisabeth Ellen. I’ll warrant tha’rt like thymother 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” anddescribed the plain sallow child she had said that she had no confidencewhatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. “It doesn’t stand toreason 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 onlyknown that she looked “different” and seemed to have a great dealmore hair and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her pleasure inlooking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear that she might someday look like her.

Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole story ofit and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin walked on one sideof her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept looking up at her comfortablerosy face, secretly curious about the delightful feeling she gave them—asort of warm, supported feeling. It seemed as if she understood them as Dickonunderstood his “creatures.” She stooped over the flowers and talkedabout them as if they were children. Soot followed her and once or twice cawedat her and flew upon her shoulder as if it were Dickon’s. When they toldher about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed amotherly 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 hadwings instead o’ legs,” she said.

It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland cottageway that at last she was told about the Magic.

“Do you believe in Magic?” asked Colin after he had explained aboutIndian fakirs. “I do hope you do.”

“That I do, lad,” she answered. “I never knowed it by thatname but what does th’ name matter? I warrant they call it a differentname i’ France an’ a different one i’ Germany. Th’ samething as set th’ seeds swellin’ an’ th’ sunshinin’ 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 ofour names. Th’ Big Good Thing doesn’t stop to worrit, bless thee.It goes on makin’ worlds by th’ million—worlds like us. Neverthee 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 eyesat her. “Suddenly I felt how different I was—how strong my arms andlegs were, you know—and how I could dig and stand—and I jumped upand wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen.”

“Th’ Magic listened when tha’ sung th’ Doxology. Itwould ha’ listened to anything tha’d sung. It was th’ joythat mattered. Eh! lad, lad—what’s names to th’ JoyMaker,” and she gave his shoulders a quick soft pat again.

She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and when thehungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding place, she sat downwith them under their tree and watched them devour their food, laughing andquite gloating over their appetites. She was full of fun and made them laugh atall sorts of odd things. She told them stories in broad Yorkshire and taughtthem new words. She laughed as if she could not help it when they told her ofthe increasing difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still afretful invalid.

“You see we can’t help laughing nearly all the time when we aretogether,” 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 thanever.”

“There’s one thing that comes into my mind so often,” saidMary, “and I can scarcely ever hold in when I think of it suddenly. Ikeep 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—andsuppose some morning it should look like one—what should we do!”

“Bless us all, I can see tha’ has a good bit o’ playactin’ to do,” said Susan Sowerby. “But tha’won’t have to keep it up much longer. Mester Craven’ll comehome.”

“Do you think he will?” asked Colin. “Why?”

Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.

“I suppose it ’ud nigh break thy heart if he found out beforetha’ told him in tha’ own way,” she said. “Tha’slaid awake nights plannin’ it.”

“I couldn’t bear anyone else to tell him,” said Colin.“I think about different ways every day, I think now I just want to runinto 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 comeback—that he mun.”

One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to hercottage. They planned it all. They were to drive over the moor and lunch out ofdoors among the heather. They would see all the twelve children andDickon’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 wastime for Colin to be wheeled back also. But before he got into his chair hestood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a kind of bewilderedadoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held itfast.

“You are just what I—what I wanted,” he said. “I wishyou were my mother—as well as Dickon’s!”

All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms closeagainst the bosom under the blue cloak—as if he had been Dickon’sbrother. 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. Thyfather mun come back to thee—he mun!”

CHAPTER XXVII.
IN THE GARDEN

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have beendiscovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in anycentury before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astoundingwill be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange newthing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it canbe done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not donecenturies ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the lastcentury was that thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful aselectric batteries—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one aspoison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous asletting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there afterit 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 abouther dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to bepleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored andwretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she wasnot at all aware of it. They began to push her about for her own good. When hermind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded withchildren, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshirehousemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day,and also with a moor boy and his “creatures,” there was no roomleft for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestionand made her yellow and tired.

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears andweakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourlyon humps and early death, he was a hysterical half-crazy little hypochondriacwho knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that hecould get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When newbeautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to comeback to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured intohim like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple andthere was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happento anyone 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 anagreeable 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 alivewith it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away beautiful places inthe Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains of Switzerland and he was aman who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark and heart-brokenthinking. He had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any otherthoughts in the place of the dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes andthought them; he had lain on mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentiansblooming all about him and flower breaths filling all the air and he hadthought them. A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy andhe had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately toallow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted hishome and his duties. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded over him thatthe sight of him was a wrong done to other people because it was as if hepoisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers thought he must be eitherhalf mad or a man with some hidden crime on his soul. He, was a tall man with adrawn face and crooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotelregisters was, “Archibald Craven, Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire,England.”

He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his studyand told her she might have her “bit of earth.” He had been in themost beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more than a fewdays. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had been on the tops ofmountains whose heads were in the clouds and had looked down on other mountainswhen the sun rose and touched them with such light as made it seem as if theworld were just being born.

But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he realizedthat for the first time in ten years a strange thing had happened. He was in awonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had been walking alone throughsuch beauty as might have lifted, any man’s soul out of shadow. He hadwalked a long way and it had not lifted his. But at last he had felt tired andhad thrown himself down to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clearlittle stream which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way through theluscious damp greenness. Sometimes it made a sound rather like very lowlaughter as it bubbled over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip theirheads to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed like athing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valleywas very, very still.

As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Cravengradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the valleyitself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat and gazedat the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing at its edge. Therewas one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing so close to the stream thatits leaves were wet and at these he found himself looking as he remembered hehad looked at such things years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly howlovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. Hedid not know that just that simple thought was slowly filling hismind—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 hadrisen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away. But of course hedid not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to growquieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate blueness. Hedid not know how long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last hemoved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly and stood on the mosscarpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself. Somethingseemed to have been unbound and released in him, very quietly.

“What is it?” he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his handover his forehead. “I almost feel as if—I were alive!”

I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to be ableto explain how this had happened to him. Neither does anyone else yet. He didnot understand at all himself—but he remembered this strange hour monthsafterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he found out quite by accidentthat 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 anew reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did not know that itcould be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his darkthoughts and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley andwent on his wandering way again. But, strange as it seemed to him, there wereminutes—sometimes half-hours—when, without his knowing why, theblack burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man andnot a dead one. Slowly—slowly—for no reason that he knewof—he was “coming alive” with the garden.

As the golden summer changed into the deep golden autumn he went to the Lake ofComo. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his days upon thecrystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the soft thick verdure ofthe hills and tramped until he was tired so that he might sleep. But by thistime he had begun to sleep better, he knew, and his dreams had ceased to be aterror to him.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “my body is growing stronger.”

It was growing stronger but—because of the rare peaceful hours when histhoughts were changed—his soul was slowly growing stronger, too. He beganto think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home. Now and then hewondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he should feel when hewent and stood by the carved four-posted bed again and looked down at thesharply chiseled ivory-white face while it slept and, the black lashes rimmedso 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 washigh and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The stillness oflake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go into the villa helived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace at the water’s edgeand sat upon a seat and breathed in all the heavenly scents of the night. Hefelt the strange calmness stealing over him and it grew deeper and deeper untilhe fell asleep.

He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his dream wasso real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He remembered afterwardhow intensely wide awake and alert he had thought he was. He thought that as hesat and breathed in the scent of the late roses and listened to the lapping ofthe water at his feet he heard a voice calling. It was sweet and clear andhappy and far away. It seemed very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if ithad been at his very side.

“Archie! Archie! Archie!” it said, and then again, sweeter andclearer than before, “Archie! Archie!”

He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real voiceand 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 sweetlyall through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was brilliantmorning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an Italian servantand was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa were, to accepting withoutquestion any strange thing his foreign master might do. No one ever knew whenhe would go out or come in or where he would choose to sleep or if he wouldroam about the garden or lie in the boat on the lake all night. The man held asalver with some letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven tookthem. When he had gone away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in hishand and looking at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him and somethingmore—a lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had nothappened as he thought—as if something had changed. He was rememberingthe dream—the real—real dream.

“In the garden!” he said, wondering at himself. “In thegarden! 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 atthe top of the rest was an English letter and came from Yorkshire. It wasdirected in a plain woman’s hand but it was not a hand he knew. He openedit, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first words attracted hisattention at once.

“Dear Sir:

I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you once on the moor. It wasabout Miss Mary I spoke. I will make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I wouldcome home if I was you. I think you would be glad to come and—if you willexcuse 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 keptthinking about the dream.

“I will go back to Misselthwaite,” he said. “Yes, I’llgo at once.”

And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to prepare forhis return to England.

In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad journey hefound himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in all the ten yearspast. During those years he had only wished to forget him. Now, though he didnot intend to think about him, memories of him constantly drifted into hismind. He remembered the black days when he had raved like a madman because thechild was alive and the mother was dead. He had refused to see it, and when hehad gone to look at it at last it had been, such a weak wretched thing thateveryone had been sure it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of thosewho took care of it the days passed and it lived and then everyone believed itwould 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 themere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his own misery. The firsttime after a year’s absence he returned to Misselthwaite and the smallmiserable looking thing languidly and indifferently lifted to his face thegreat gray eyes with black lashes round them, so like and yet so horriblyunlike the happy eyes he had adored, he could not bear the sight of them andturned away pale as death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when hewas asleep, and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with avicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from furiesdangerous 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 himthrough mountain passes and golden plains the man who was “comingalive” began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily anddeeply.

“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—quitetoo late. What have I been thinking of!”

Of course this was the wrong Magic—to begin by saying “toolate.” Even Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing ofMagic—either black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered ifSusan Sowerby had taken courage and written to him only because the motherlycreature had realized that the boy was much worse—was fatally ill. If hehad not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possessionof him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had brought asort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of theworst 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 andcontrol him?” he thought. “I will go and see her on my way toMisselthwaite.”

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 bobbingseven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him that their mother had goneto the other side of the moor early in the morning to help a woman who had anew baby. “Our Dickon,” they volunteered, was over at the Manorworking in one of the gardens where he went several days each week.

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and roundred-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he awoke tothe fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at their friendlygrins 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 eachof, you,” he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leavingecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. Why did itseem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been sure he could neverfeel again—that sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple bloom ofdistance and a warming of the heart at drawing, nearer to the great old housewhich had held those of his blood for six hundred years? How he had driven awayfrom it the last time, shuddering to think of its closed rooms and the boylying in the four-posted bed with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible thatperhaps he might find him changed a little for the better and that he mightovercome his shrinking from him? How real that dream had been—howwonderful and clear the voice which called back to him, “In thegarden—In the garden!”

“I will try to find the key,” he said. “I will try to openthe door. I must—though I don’t know why.”

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the usualceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to the remoterooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went into the library andsent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat excited and curious andflustered.

“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 bechanging for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding—and hisways—”

“Has he become more—more peculiar?” her master, asked,knitting his brows anxiously.

“That’s it, sir. He’s growing very peculiar—when youcompare him with what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenlyhe began to eat something enormous—and then he stopped again all at onceand 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 thingswe’ve gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave a bodytrembling 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, justwithout warning—not long after one of his worst tantrums he suddenlyinsisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan Sowerby’sboy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to both Miss Mary andDickon, 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 onflesh—but we’re afraid it may be a sort of bloat. He laughssometimes in a queer way when he’s alone with Miss Mary. He never used tolaugh at all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you’ll allowhim. 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 ahuman 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 awayhe 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 inand when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went out of the room. Hetook his way, as Mary had done, through the door in the shrubbery and among thelaurels and the fountain beds. The fountain was playing now and was encircledby beds of brilliant autumn flowers. He crossed the lawn and turned into theLong Walk by the ivied walls. He did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyeswere on the path. He felt as if he were being drawn back to the place he had solong forsaken, and he did not know why. As he drew near to it his step becamestill more slow. He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick overit—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 afterhe had paused he started and listened—asking himself if he were walkingin a dream.

The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, no humanbeing had passed that portal for ten lonely years—and yet inside thegarden there were sounds. They were the sounds of running scuffling feetseeming to chase round and round under the trees, they were strange sounds oflowered suppressed voices—exclamations and smothered joyous cries. Itseemed actually like the laughter of young things, the uncontrollable laughterof children who were trying not to be heard but who in a moment or so—astheir excitement mounted—would burst forth. What in heaven’s namewas he dreaming of—what in heaven’s name did he hear? Was he losinghis reason and thinking he heard things which were not for human ears? Was itthat the far clear voice had meant?

And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds forgot tohush themselves. The feet ran faster and faster—they were nearing thegarden door—there was quick strong young breathing and a wild outbreak oflaughing shouts which could not be contained—and the door in the wall wasflung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through it atfull 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 resultof his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to look at him inamazement 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 runninghad sent splendid color leaping to his face. He threw the thick hair back fromhis forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes—eyes full of boyishlaughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes which madeMr. Craven gasp for breath.

“Who—What? Who!” he stammered.

This was not what Colin had expected—this was not what he had planned. Hehad never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing out—winninga race—perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to his verytallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed through the doortoo, believed that he managed to make himself look taller than he had everlooked before—inches taller.

“Father,” he said, “I’m Colin. You can’t believeit. I scarcely can myself. I’m Colin.”

Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he saidhurriedly:

“In the garden! In the garden!”

“Yes,” hurried on Colin. “It was the garden that didit—and Mary and Dickon and the creatures—and the Magic. No oneknows. We kept it to tell you when you came. I’m well, I can beat Mary ina race. I’m going to be an athlete.”

He said it all so like a healthy boy—his face flushed, his words tumblingover each other in his eagerness—that Mr. Craven’s soul shook withunbelieving joy.

Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father’s arm.

“Aren’t you glad, Father?” he ended. “Aren’t youglad? 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 tellme all about it.”

And so they led him in.

The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue andflaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standingtogether—lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered wellwhen the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the yeartheir late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and hung andclustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing trees made onefeel that one, stood in an embowered temple of gold. The newcomer stood silentjust as the children had done when they came into its grayness. He looked roundand round.

“I thought it would be dead,” he said.

“Mary thought so at first,” said Colin. “But it camealive.”

Then they sat down under their tree—all but Colin, who wanted to standwhile he told the story.

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, as itwas poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and wild creatures,the weird midnight meeting—the coming of the spring—the passion ofinsulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah to his feet to defy old BenWeatherstaff to his face. The odd companionship, the play acting, the greatsecret so carefully kept. The listener laughed until tears came into his eyesand sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete,the Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy younghuman thing.

“Now,” he said at the end of the story, “it need not be asecret any more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when theysee me—but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walkback with you, Father—to the house.”

Ben Weatherstaff’s duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but onthis occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen andbeing invited into the servants’ hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a glass ofbeer he was on the spot—as he had hoped to be—when the mostdramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present generationactually 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 havecaught 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 hishand.

“Aye, that I did,” he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

“Both of them?” suggested Mrs. Medlock.

“Both of ’em,” returned Ben Weatherstaff. “Thank yekindly, ma’am, I could sup up another mug of it.”

“Together?” said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug inher excitement.

“Together, ma’am,” and Ben gulped down half of his new mug atone gulp.

“Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to eachother?”

“I didna’ hear that,” said Ben, “along o’ onlybein’ on th’ stepladder lookin over th’ wall. But I’lltell thee this. There’s been things goin’ on outside as you housepeople knows nowt about. An’ what tha’ll find out tha’ll findout soon.”

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and wavedhis mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the shrubbery a pieceof the lawn.

“Look there,” he said, “if tha’s curious. Lookwhat’s comin’ across th’ grass.”

When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek andevery man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the servants’hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes almost starting outof their heads.

Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of themhad never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air and his eyesfull of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy inYorkshire—Master Colin!

THE END

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