Chapter 1 of The Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Cast of characters.
Mary Lennox: read by Arielle Lipshaw
Mrs. Lennox: read by Caprisha Page
Colonel McGrew/Dr. Craven: read by Tyler Harms
Basil/Mrs. Sowerby: read by Victoria Martin
Mrs. Crawford: read by Availle
Officer's Wife: read by Pamela Krantz
Archibald Craven: read by Alex Lau
Mrs. Medlock:read by Grace Garrett
Station Master: read by Martin Geeson
Martha: read by Elizabeth Klett
Ben Weatherstaff: read by Andy Minter
Dickon: read by Charlotte Duckett
Colin Craven: read by Amanda Friday
Nurse: read by Kara Shallenberg
Mr. Roach: read by John Trevithick
Lilias Craven: read by Eden Rea-Hedrick
Chapter 1.THERE IS NO ONE LEFT
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite
Manor to live with her uncle everybody said
she was the most disagreeable-looking child
ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little
thin face and a little thin body, thin light
hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow,
and her face was yellow because she had been
born in India and had always been ill in one
way or another. Her father had held a position
under the English Government and had always
been busy and ill himself, and her mother
had been a great beauty who cared only to
go to parties and amuse herself with gay people.
She had not wanted a little girl 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 must keep 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 a sickly, fretful, toddling
thing she was kept out of the way also. She
never remembered seeing familiarly anything
but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other
native servants, and as they always obeyed
her and gave her her own way in everything,
because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she
was disturbed by her crying, by the time she
was six years old she was as tyrannical and
selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young
English governess who came to teach her to
read 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 a shorter time than the
first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really
want to know 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 awakened feeling
very cross, and she became crosser still when
she saw that the servant who stood by her
bedside was not her Ayah.
"Why did you come?" she said to the strange
woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah
to me."
The woman looked frightened, but she only
stammered that the Ayah could not come and
when Mary threw herself into a passion and
beat and kicked her, she looked only more
frightened and repeated that it was not possible
for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.
There was something mysterious in the air
that morning. Nothing was done in its regular
order and several of the native servants seemed
missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or
hurried about with ashy and scared faces.
But no one would tell her anything and her
Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone
as the morning went on, and at last she wandered
out into the garden and began to play by herself
under a tree near the veranda. She pretended
that she was making a flower-bed, and she
stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little
heaps of earth, all the time growing more
and more angry and muttering to herself the
things she would say and the names she would
call Saidie when she returned.
"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because
to call a native a pig is the worst insult
of all.
She was grinding her teeth and saying this
over and over again when she heard her mother
come out on the veranda with some one. She
was with a fair young man and they stood talking
together in low strange voices. Mary knew
the fair young man who looked like a boy.
She had heard that he was a very young officer
who had just come from England. The child
stared at him, but she stared most at her
mother. She always did this when she had a
chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib—Mary
used to call her that oftener than anything
else—was such a tall, slim, pretty person
and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was
like curly silk and she had a delicate little
nose which seemed to be disdaining things,
and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes
were thin and floating, and Mary said they
were "full of lace." They looked fuller 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
boy officer'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 weeks ago."
The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.
"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed
to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool
I was!"
At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing
broke out from the servants' quarters that
she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary
stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing
grew wilder and wilder. "What is it? What
is it?" Mrs. Lennox gasped.
"Some one has died," answered the boy officer.
"You did not say it had broken out among your
servants."
"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come
with me! Come with me!" and she turned and
ran into the house.
After that, appalling things happened, and
the mysteriousness of the morning was explained
to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its
most fatal form and people were dying like
flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the
night, and it was because she had just died
that the servants had wailed in the huts.
Before the 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 the nursery
and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought
of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things
happened of which she knew nothing. Mary alternately
cried and slept through the hours. She only
knew that people were ill and that she heard
mysterious and frightening sounds. Once she
crept into the dining-room and found it empty,
though a partly finished meal was on the table
and chairs and plates looked as if they had
been hastily pushed back when the diners 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 was sweet, and she did not know how strong
it was. Very soon it made her intensely drowsy,
and she went back to her nursery and shut
herself in again, frightened by cries she
heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound
of feet. The wine made her so sleepy that
she could scarcely keep her eyes open and
she lay down on her bed and knew nothing more
for a long time.
Many things happened during the hours in which
she slept so heavily, but she was not disturbed
by the wails and the sound of things being
carried in and out of the bungalow.
When she awakened she lay and stared at the
wall. The house was perfectly still. She had
never known it to be so silent before. She
heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered
if everybody had got well of the cholera and
all the trouble was over. She wondered also
who would take care of her now her Ayah was
dead. There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps
she would know some new stories. Mary had
been rather tired of the old ones. She did
not cry because her nurse had died. She was
not an affectionate child and had never cared
much for any one. The noise and hurrying about
and wailing over the cholera had frightened
her, and she had been angry because no one
seemed to remember that she was alive. Everyone
was too panic-stricken to think of a little
girl no one was fond of. When people had the
cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing
but themselves. But if everyone had got well
again, surely some one would remember and
come to look for her.
But no one came, and as she lay waiting the
house seemed to grow more and more silent.
She heard something rustling on the matting
and when she looked down she 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 not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry
to get out of the room. He slipped under the
door as she watched him.
"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It
sounds as if there were no one in the bungalow
but me and the snake."
Almost the next minute she heard footsteps
in the compound, and then on the veranda.
They were men's footsteps, and the men entered
the bungalow and talked in low voices. No
one went to meet or speak to them and they
seemed to open 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
no one ever saw her."
Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery
when they opened the door a few minutes later.
She looked an ugly, cross little thing and
was frowning because she was beginning to
be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected.
The first man who came in was a large officer
she had once seen talking to her father. He
looked tired and troubled, but when he saw
her he was so startled that he almost jumped
back.
"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child
here! A child alone! In a place like this!
Mercy on us, who is she!"
"I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said,
drawing herself up stiffly. She thought the
man was very rude to call her father's bungalow
"A place like this!" "I fell asleep when everyone
had the cholera and I have only just wakened
up. Why does nobody come?"
"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed
the man, turning to his companions. "She has
actually been forgotten!"
"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping
her foot. "Why does nobody come?"
The young man whose name was Barney looked
at her very sadly. Mary even thought she saw
him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.
"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody
left to come."
It was in that strange and sudden way that
Mary found out that she had neither father
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 as quickly as they could get
out of it, none of them even remembering that
there was a Missie Sahib. That was why the
place was so quiet. It was true that there
was 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 her very pretty,
but as she knew very little of her she could
scarcely have been expected to love her or
to miss her very much when she was gone. She
did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she
was a self-absorbed child she gave her entire
thought to herself, as she had always done.
If she had been older she would no doubt have
been very anxious at being left alone in the
world, but she was very young, and as she
had always been taken care of, she supposed
she always would be. What she thought was
that she would like to know if she was going
to nice people, who would be polite to her
and give her her own way as her Ayah and the
other native servants had done.
She knew that she was not going to stay at
the English clergyman's house where she was
taken at first. She did not want to stay.
The English clergyman was poor and he had
five children nearly all the same age and
they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling
and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated
their untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable
to them that after the first day or two nobody
would play with her. By the second day they
had given her a nickname which made her furious.
It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil
was a little boy with impudent blue eyes and
a turned-up nose, and Mary hated him. She
was playing by herself under a tree, just
as she had been playing the day the cholera
broke out. She was making heaps of earth and
paths for a garden and Basil came and stood
near to watch 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 a rockery?" he said. "There
in the middle," and he leaned over her to
point.
"Go away!" cried Mary. "I don't want boys.
Go away!"
For a moment Basil looked angry, and then
he began to tease. He was always teasing his
sisters. He danced round and round her and
made faces and sang and laughed.
"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 crosser Mary got,
the more they sang "Mistress Mary, quite contrary";
and after that as long as she stayed with
them they called her "Mistress Mary Quite
Contrary" when they spoke of her to each other,
and often when they spoke to her.
"You are going to be sent home," Basil said
to her, "at the end 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,
with seven-year-old scorn. "It's England,
of course. Our grandmama lives there and our
sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You
are not going to your grandmama. 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't
know anything. Girls never do. I heard father
and mother talking about him. He lives in
a great, big, desolate old house in the country
and no one goes near him. He's so cross he
won't let them, and they wouldn't come if
he would let them. He's a hunchback, and he's
horrid." "I don't believe you," said Mary;
and she turned her back and stuck 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 her that night
that she was going to sail away to England
in a few days and go to her uncle, Mr. Archibald
Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite Manor,
she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested
that they did not know what to think about
her. 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. Crawford patted her shoulder.
"She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford
said pityingly, afterward. "And her mother
was such a pretty creature. She had a very
pretty manner, too, and Mary has the most
unattractive ways I ever saw in a child. The
children call her 'Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,'
and though it's naughty of them, one can't
help understanding it."
"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty
face and her pretty manners oftener into the
nursery Mary might have learned some pretty
ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful
thing is gone, to remember that many people
never 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
little thing. Think of the servants running
away and leaving her all alone in that deserted
bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped
out of his skin when he opened the door and
found her standing by herself in the middle
of the room."
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 very much absorbed in her own little
boy and girl, and was rather glad to hand
the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald
Craven sent to meet her, in London. The woman
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. She wore a very purple dress, a black
silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black
bonnet with purple velvet flowers which stuck
up and trembled when she moved her head. Mary
did not like her at all, but as she very seldom
liked people there 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't handed much of it
down, has she, ma'am?" "Perhaps she will improve
as she grows older," the officer's wife said
good-naturedly. "If she were not so sallow
and had a nicer expression, 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 at Misselthwaite—if
you ask me!" They thought Mary was not listening
because she was standing a little apart from
them at the window of the private hotel they
had gone to. She was watching the passing
buses and cabs and people, but she heard quite
well and was made very curious about her uncle
and the place he lived in. What sort of a
place was it, and what would he be like? What
was a hunchback? She had never seen one. 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 when her father and mother had been alive.
Other children seemed to belong to their fathers
and mothers, but she had never seemed to really
be anyone's little girl. She had had servants,
and food and clothes, but no one had taken
any notice of her. She did not know that this
was because she was a disagreeable 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 so herself.
She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable
person she had ever seen, with her common,
highly colored face and her common fine bonnet.
When the next day they set out on their journey
to Yorkshire, she walked through the station
to the railway carriage with her head up and
trying to keep as far away from her as she
could, because she did not want to seem to
belong to her. It would have made 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. She was the kind
of woman who would "stand no nonsense from
young ones." 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 daughter was going to be married,
but she had a comfortable, well paid place
as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and
the only way in which she could keep it was
to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told
her to do. She never dared even to ask a question.
"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera,"
Mr. Craven had said in his short, cold way.
"Captain Lennox was my wife's brother and
I am their daughter's guardian. The child
is to be brought here. You must 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 little black-gloved hands in her
lap. Her black dress made her look yellower
than ever, and her limp light hair straggled
from under her black crepe 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 last
she 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 going to," 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 that her 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, unresponsive little face. She did
not say any more for a few moments and then
she began again.
"I suppose you might as well be told something—to
prepare you. You are going to a queer place."
Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock
looked rather discomfited by her apparent
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 shut up
and locked. And there's pictures and fine
old furniture and things that's been there
for ages, and there's a big park round it
and gardens and trees with branches trailing
to the ground—some of them." She paused
and took another breath. "But there's nothing
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 she were interested.
That was one of her unhappy, disagreeable
ways. So she sat still.
"Well," said Mrs. Medlock. "What do you think
of it?"
"Nothing," she answered. "I know nothing about
such places."
That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort
of laugh.
"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman.
Don't you care?"
"It doesn't matter" said Mary, "whether I
care or not."
"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock.
"It doesn't. What you're to be kept at Misselthwaite
Manor for I don't know, unless because it's
the easiest way. He's not going to trouble
himself about you, that's sure and certain.
He never troubles 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 him wrong. He was a sour young man and
got no good of all his money and big place
till he was married."
Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of
her intention not to seem to care. She had
never thought of the hunchback's being married
and she was a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock
saw this, and as she was a talkative woman
she continued with more interest. This was
one way of passing some of the time, at any
rate.
"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have
walked the world over to get her a blade o'
grass she wanted. Nobody thought she'd marry
him, but she did, and people said she married
him for his money. But she didn't—she didn't,"
positively. "When she died—"
Mary gave a little involuntary jump.
"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without
meaning to. She had just remembered a French
fairy story she had once read called "Riquet
a la Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback
and a beautiful princess and it had made her
suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.
"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And
it made him queerer than ever. He cares about
nobody. He won't see people. Most of the time
he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite
he shuts himself up in the West Wing and won't
let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's
an old fellow, but he took care of him when
he was a child and he knows his ways."
It sounded like something in a book and it
did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with
a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with
their doors locked—a house on the edge of
a moor—whatsoever a moor was—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 seemed quite
natural that the rain should have begun to
pour down in gray slanting lines and splash
and stream down the window-panes. If the pretty
wife had been alive she might have made things
cheerful by being something like her own mother
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 you won't," said Mrs. Medlock. "And
you mustn't expect that there will be people
to talk to you. You'll have to play about
and look after yourself. You'll be told what
rooms you can go into and what rooms you're
to keep out of. There's gardens enough. But
when you're in the house don't go wandering
and poking about. Mr. Craven won't have it."
"I shall not want to go poking about," said
sour little Mary and just as suddenly as she
had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald
Craven she began to cease to be sorry and
to think he was unpleasant enough to deserve
all that had happened to him.
And she turned her face toward the streaming
panes of the window of the railway carriage
and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which
looked as if it would go on forever and ever.
She watched it so long and steadily that the
grayness grew heavier 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 a lunchbasket at one
of the stations and they had some chicken
and cold beef and bread and butter and some
hot tea. The rain seemed to be streaming down
more heavily than ever and everybody in the
station wore wet and glistening waterproofs.
The guard lighted the lamps in the carriage,
and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over
her tea and chicken and beef. She ate a great
deal and afterward fell asleep herself, and
Mary sat and stared at her and watched her
fine bonnet slip on one side until she herself
fell asleep once more in the corner of the
carriage, lulled by the splashing of the rain
against the windows. It was quite dark when
she awakened again. The train had stopped
at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking
her.
"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time
to open your eyes! We're at Thwaite Station
and we've got a long drive before us."
Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open
while Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels.
The little girl did not offer to help her,
because in India native servants always picked
up or carried things and it seemed quite proper
that other people should wait on one.
The station was a small one and nobody but
themselves seemed to be getting out of the
train. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock
in a rough, good-natured way, pronouncing
his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary
found out afterward was Yorkshire.
"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's
browt th' young 'un with thee."
"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock,
speaking with a Yorkshire 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 that it was a smart
carriage and that it was a smart footman who
helped her in. His long waterproof coat and
the waterproof covering of his hat were shining
and dripping 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 she was 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
the queer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken of.
She was not at all a timid child and she was
not exactly frightened, but she felt that
there was no knowing what might happen in
a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut
up—a house standing 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 Missel Moor
before we get to the Manor. You won't see
much because it's a dark night, but you can
see something."
Mary asked no more questions but waited in
the darkness of her corner, keeping her eyes
on the window. The carriage lamps cast rays
of light a little distance ahead of them and
she caught glimpses of the things they passed.
After they had left the station they had driven
through a tiny village and she had seen whitewashed
cottages and the lights of a public house.
Then they had passed a church and a vicarage
and a little shop-window or so in a cottage
with toys and sweets and odd things set out
for sale. Then they were on the highroad and
she saw hedges and trees. After that there
seemed nothing different for a long time—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 could see nothing, in fact, but
a dense darkness on either side. She leaned
forward and 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 to be cut
through bushes and low-growing things which
ended in the great expanse of dark apparently
spread out before and around them. A wind
was rising and making 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't fields nor mountains, it's just miles
and miles and miles of wild land that nothing
grows on but heather and gorse and broom,
and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."
"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there
were water on it," said Mary. "It sounds like
the sea just now."
"That's the wind blowing through the bushes,"
Mrs. Medlock said. "It's a wild, dreary enough
place to my mind, though there's plenty that
likes it—particularly when the heather's
in bloom."
On and on they drove through the darkness,
and though the rain stopped, the wind 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 water rushed very fast with a great
deal of noise. Mary felt as if the drive would
never come to an end and that the wide, bleak
moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through
which she was passing on a strip of dry land.
"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I
don't like it," and she pinched her thin lips
more tightly together.
The horses were climbing up a hilly piece
of road when she first caught sight of a light.
Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and
drew a long sigh of relief.
"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling,"
she exclaimed. "It's the light in the lodge
window. We shall get a good cup of tea after
a bit, at all events."
It was "after a bit," as she said, for when
the carriage passed through the park gates
there was still two miles of avenue to drive
through and the trees (which nearly met overhead)
made it seem as if they were driving through
a long dark vault.
They drove out of the vault into a clear space
and stopped before an immensely long but low-built
house which seemed to ramble round a stone
court. At first Mary thought that there were
no lights at all in the windows, but as she
got out of the carriage she saw that one room
in a corner upstairs showed a dull glow.
The entrance door was a huge one made of massive,
curiously shaped panels of oak studded with
big iron nails and bound with great iron bars.
It opened into an enormous hall, which was
so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits
on the walls and the figures in the suits
of armor made Mary feel that she did not want
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 the morning."
"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered.
"So long as I 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 he doesn't see
what he doesn't want to see."
And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase
and down a long corridor and up a short flight
of steps and through another corridor and
another, until a door opened in a wall and
she found herself in a room with a fire in
it and a supper on a table.
Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:
"Well, here you are! This room and the next
are where you'll live—and you must keep
to them. Don't you forget that!"
It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at
Misselthwaite Manor and she had perhaps 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 had come into
her room to light the fire and was kneeling
on the hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily.
Mary lay and watched her for a few moments
and then began to look about the room. She
had never seen a room at all like it and thought
it curious and gloomy. The walls were covered
with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered
on it. There were fantastically dressed people
under the 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 in the forest
with them. Out of a deep window she could
see a great climbing stretch of land which
seemed to have no trees on it, and to look
rather like an endless, 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 pointed also.
"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 the grate. "I just love
it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin'
things as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in
spring an' summer when th' gorse an' broom
an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey
an' there's such a lot o' fresh air—an'
th' sky looks so high an' th' bees an' skylarks
makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'.
Eh! I wouldn't live away from th' moor for
anythin'."
Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled
expression. The native servants she had been
used to in India were not in the least like
this. They were obsequious and servile and
did not presume to talk to their masters as
if they were their equals. 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. She wondered a little what this
girl would do if one slapped her in the face.
She was a round, rosy, good-natured-looking
creature, but she had a sturdy way which made
Mistress Mary wonder if she might not even
slap back—if the person who slapped her
was only a little girl.
"You are a strange servant," she said from
her pillows, rather haughtily.
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 at Misselthwaite I should never
have been even one of th' under house-maids.
I might have been let to be scullerymaid but
I'd never have been let upstairs. I'm too
common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But
this is a funny house for all it's so grand.
Seems like there's neither Master nor Mistress
except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven,
he won't be troubled about anythin' when he's
here, an' he's nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock
gave me th' place out o' kindness. She told
me she could never have done it if Misselthwaite
had been like other big houses." "Are you
going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still
in her imperious 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 the
housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a
bit. But you won't need 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 in her amazement.
"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said.
"What do you mean? I don't understand your
language," said Mary.
"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock
told me I'd have to be careful or you wouldn't
know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put
on your own clothes?"
"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I
never did in my life. My Ayah dressed me,
of course."
"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the
least aware that she was impudent, "it's time
tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger.
It'll do thee good to wait on thysen a bit.
My mother always said she couldn't see why
grand people's children didn't turn out fair
fools—what with nurses an' bein' washed
an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they
was puppies!"
"It is different in India," said Mistress
Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand
this.
But Martha was not at all crushed.
"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered
almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because
there's such a lot o' blacks there instead
o' respectable white people. When I heard
you 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. "You
needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for
a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against
th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts
they're always very religious. You always
read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've
never seen a black an' I was fair pleased
to think I was goin' to see one close. When
I come in to light your fire this mornin'
I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover
back careful to look at you. An' there you
was," disappointedly, "no more black than
me—for all you'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 anything about natives!
They are not people—they're servants who
must salaam to 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 simple stare, and somehow
she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far
away from everything she understood and which
understood her, that she threw herself face
downward on the pillows and burst into passionate
sobbing. She sobbed so unrestrainedly that
good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a little
frightened and quite sorry for her. She went
to the bed and bent over her.
"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she
begged. "You mustn't for sure. I didn't know
you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about
anythin'—just like you said. I beg your
pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."
There was something comforting and really
friendly in her queer Yorkshire speech and
sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary.
She gradually ceased crying 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' dinner into 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 up tha'self."
When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes
Martha took from the wardrobe were 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 cool approval:
"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
a lost 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 always
knows what a body means. She doesn't hold
with black hersel'."
"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 never seen a child who stood still and
waited for another person to do things for
her as if she had neither hands nor feet of
her own.
"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?"
she said when Mary quietly held out her foot.
"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring.
"It was the custom."
She said that very often—"It was the custom."
The native servants were always saying it.
If one told them to do a thing their ancestors
had not done for a thousand years they gazed
at one mildly and said, "It is 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 and allow herself
to be dressed like a doll, but before she
was ready for breakfast she began to suspect
that her life at Misselthwaite Manor would
end by teaching her a number of things quite
new to her—things such as putting on her
own shoes and stockings, and picking up things
she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained
fine young lady's maid she would have been
more subservient and respectful and would
have known that it was her business to brush
hair, and button boots, and pick things up
and lay them away. She was, however, only
an untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been
brought up in a moorland cottage with a swarm
of little brothers and sisters who had never
dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves
and on the younger ones who were either babies
in arms 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 perhaps have laughed
at Martha's readiness to talk, but Mary only
listened to her coldly and wondered at her
freedom of manner. At first she was not at
all interested, but gradually, as the girl
rattled on in her good-tempered, homely way,
Mary began to notice what she was saying.
"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's
twelve of us an' my father only gets sixteen
shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's
put to it to get porridge for 'em all. They
tumble about on th' moor an' play there all
day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens
'em. She says she believes they eat th' grass
same as th' wild ponies do. Our Dickon, he's
twelve 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 one an' 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 follows him about an' it lets him get
on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals
likes him."
Mary had never possessed an animal pet of
her own and had always thought she should
like one. So she began to feel a slight interest
in Dickon, and as she had never before been
interested in any one but herself, it was
the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she
went into the room which had been made into
a nursery for her, she found that it was rather
like the one she had slept in. It was not
a child's room, but a grown-up person's room,
with gloomy old pictures on the walls and
heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center
was set with a good substantial breakfast.
But she had always had a very small appetite,
and she looked with something more than indifference
at the first plate Martha set before her.
"I don't want it," she said.
"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed
incredulously.
"No."
"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit
o' treacle on it or a bit o' sugar."
"I don't want it," repeated Mary.
"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good
victuals go to waste. If our children was
at this table they'd clean it bare in five
minutes."
"Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha.
"Because they scarce ever had their stomachs
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 the indifference of ignorance.
Martha looked indignant.
"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I
can see that plain enough," she said outspokenly.
"I've no patience with folk as sits an' just
stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't
I wish Dickon and Phil an' Jane an' th' rest
of 'em had what'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 a day's
rest."
Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast
and some marmalade.
"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you,"
said Martha. "It'll do you good and give you
some stomach for your meat."
Mary went to the window. There were gardens
and paths and big trees, but everything 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 prepared the
nursery she had not thought of amusement.
Perhaps it would be better to go and see what
the gardens were like.
"Who will go with me?" she inquired.
Martha stared.
"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll
have to learn to play like other children
does when they haven't got sisters and brothers.
Our Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself
an' plays for hours. That's how he made friends
with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor
that knows him, an' birds as comes an' eats
out of his hand. However little there is to
eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to
coax his pets."
It was really this mention of Dickon which
made Mary decide to go out, though she was
not aware of it. There would be, birds outside
though there would not be ponies or sheep.
They would be different from the birds in
India and it might amuse her to look at them.
Martha found her coat and hat for her and
a pair of stout little boots and she showed
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's nothin' bloomin'
now." She seemed to hesitate a second before
she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up.
No one has been in it for ten years."
"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here
was another locked door added to the hundred
in the strange house.
"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died
so sudden. He won't let no one go inside.
It was her garden. He locked th' door an'
dug a hole and buried th' key. There's Mrs.
Medlock's bell ringing—I must run."
After she was gone Mary turned down the walk
which led to the door in the shrubbery. She
could not help thinking about the garden which
no one had been into for ten years. She wondered
what it would look like and whether there
were any flowers still alive in it. When she
had passed through the shrubbery gate she
found herself in great gardens, with wide
lawns and winding walks with clipped borders.
There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens
clipped into strange shapes, and a large pool
with an old gray fountain in its midst. But
the flower-beds were bare and wintry and the
fountain was not playing. This was not the
garden which was shut up. How could a garden
be shut up? You could always walk into a garden.
She was just thinking this when she saw that,
at the end of the path she was following,
there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing
over it. She was not familiar enough with
England to know that she was coming upon the
kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit
were growing. She went toward the wall and
found that there was a green door in the ivy,
and that it stood open. 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 round it and that
it was only one of several walled gardens
which seemed to open into one another. She
saw another open green door, revealing bushes
and pathways between beds containing winter
vegetables. Fruit-trees were trained flat
against the wall, and over some of the beds
there were glass frames. The place was bare
and ugly enough, Mary thought, as she stood
and stared about her. It might be nicer in
summer when things were green, but there was
nothing pretty about it now.
Presently an old man with a spade over his
shoulder walked through the door leading from
the second garden. He looked startled when
he saw Mary, and then touched his cap. He
had a surly old face, and did not seem at
all pleased to see her—but then she was
displeased with his garden and wore her "quite
contrary" expression, and certainly did not
seem at all pleased 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
on t'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 green door. There,
she found more walls and winter vegetables
and glass frames, but in the second wall there
was another green door and it was not open.
Perhaps it led into the garden which no one
had seen for ten years. As she was not at
all a timid child and always did what she
wanted to do, Mary went to the green door
and turned the handle. She hoped the door
would not open because she wanted to be sure
she had found the mysterious garden—but
it did open quite easily and she walked through
it and found herself in an orchard. There
were walls all round it also and trees trained
against them, and there were bare fruit-trees
growing in the winter-browned grass—but
there was no green door to be seen anywhere.
Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered
the upper end of the garden she had noticed
that the wall did not seem to end with the
orchard 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 she saw a bird with a bright red
breast sitting on the topmost branch of one
of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter
song—almost as if he had caught sight of
her and was calling to her.
She stopped and listened to him and somehow
his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave
her a pleased feeling—even a disagreeable
little girl may be lonely, and the big closed
house and big bare moor and big bare gardens
had made this one feel as if there was no
one left in the world but herself. If she
had been an affectionate child, who had been
used to being loved, she would have broken
her heart, but even though she was "Mistress
Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and
the bright-breasted little bird brought a
look into her sour little face which was almost
a smile. She listened to him until he flew
away. He was not like an Indian bird and she
liked him and wondered if she should ever
see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious
garden and knew all about it.
Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever
to do that she thought so much of the deserted
garden. She was curious about it and wanted
to see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald
Craven buried the key? If he had liked his
wife so much why did he hate her garden? She
wondered if she should ever see him, but she
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 she should 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 always
talking and laughing and making noises."
She thought of the robin and of the way he
seemed to sing his song at her, and as she
remembered the tree-top he perched on she
stopped rather suddenly on the path.
"I believe that tree was in the secret garden—I
feel sure it was," she said. "There was a
wall round the place and there was no door."
She walked back into the first kitchen-garden
she had entered and found the old man digging
there. She went and stood beside him and watched
him a few moments in her cold little way.
He took no notice of her and so at last she
spoke to him.
"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 a moment.
"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 red breast
was sitting on one of them and he sang."
To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten
face actually changed its expression. A slow
smile spread over it and the gardener looked
quite different. It made her think that it
was curious how much nicer a person looked
when he smiled. She had not thought of it
before.
He turned about to the orchard side of his
garden and began to whistle—a low soft whistle.
She could not understand how such a surly
man could make such a coaxing sound. Almost
the next moment a wonderful thing happened.
She heard a soft little rushing flight through
the air—and it was the bird with the red
breast flying to them, and he actually alighted
on the big clod of earth quite near to the
gardener's foot.
"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then
he spoke to the bird as if he were speaking
to a child.
"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?"
he said. "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 soft bright eye
which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed
quite familiar and not the least afraid. He
hopped about and pecked the earth briskly,
looking for seeds and insects. It actually
gave Mary a queer feeling in her heart, because
he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so
like a person. He had a tiny plump body and
a delicate beak, and slender delicate legs.
"Will he always come when you call him?" she
asked almost in a whisper.
"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 he flew
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 of th' brood
was gone an' he was lonely an' he come back
to me."
"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're almost as friendly as dogs—if
you know how to get on with 'em. Watch him
peckin' about there an' lookin' round at us
now an' again. He knows we're talkin' about
him."
It was the queerest thing in the world to
see the old fellow. He looked at the plump
little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were
both proud and fond of him.
"He's a conceited one," he chuckled. "He likes
to hear folk talk about him. An' curious—bless
me, there never was his like for curiosity
an' meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what
I'm plantin'. He knows all th' things Mester
Craven never 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 and looked at
them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop
eyes gazed at her with great curiosity. It
really seemed as if he were finding out all
about her. The queer 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
scattered before you know it. This one was
a knowin' one an' he knew he was lonely."
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 feel sour and
cross. She seemed to find it out when the
robin looked at her and she looked at the
robin.
The old gardener pushed his cap back on his
bald head and stared at her a minute.
"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he
asked.
Mary nodded.
"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonlier
before tha's done," he said.
He began to dig again, driving his spade deep
into the rich black garden soil while 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 surly chuckle, "I'm lonely
mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked
his thumb toward the robin. "He's th' only
friend I've got."
"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I
never had. My Ayah didn't like me and I never
played with any one."
It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think
with blunt frankness, and old Ben Weatherstaff
was a Yorkshire moor man.
"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said.
"We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're
neither of us good lookin' an' we're both
of us as sour as we look. We've got the same
nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant."
This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had
never heard the truth about herself in her
life. Native servants always salaamed and
submitted to you, whatever you did. She had
never thought much about her looks, but she
wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben
Weatherstaff and she also wondered if she
looked as sour as he had looked before the
robin came. She actually began to wonder 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 on to one of its branches
and had burst out into a scrap of a song.
Ben Weatherstaff laughed outright.
"What did he do that for?" asked Mary.
"He's made up his mind to make friends with
thee," replied Ben. "Dang me if he hasn't
took a fancy to thee."
"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the
little tree softly and looked up.
"Would you make friends with me?" she said
to the robin just as if she was speaking to
a person. "Would you?" And she did not say
it either in her hard little voice or in her
imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so soft
and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff
was as surprised as she had been 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 warrant th' foxes shows him where
their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide
their nests from him."
Mary would have liked to ask some more questions.
She was almost as curious about Dickon as
she was about the deserted garden. But just
that moment the robin, who had ended his song,
gave a little shake of his wings, spread them
and 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 other wall—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'
up to some young madam of a robin that lives
among th' old rose-trees there."
"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 green door? There must be a door somewhere."
Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable
as he had looked when she first saw him.
"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't
now," he said.
"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be." "None
as any one can find, an' none as is any one's
business. Don't you be a meddlesome wench
an' poke your nose where it's no cause to
go. Here, I must go on with my work. Get you
gone an' play you. I've no more time."
And he actually stopped digging, threw his
spade over his shoulder and walked off, 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 upon the hearth building
her fire; every morning she ate her breakfast
in the nursery which had nothing amusing in
it; and after each breakfast she gazed out
of the window across to the huge moor which
seemed to spread out on all sides and climb
up to the sky, and after she had stared for
a while she realized that if she did not go
out she would have to stay in and do nothing—and
so she went 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 the paths and down
the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood
and making herself stronger by fighting with
the wind which swept down from the moor. She
ran only to make herself warm, and she hated
the wind which rushed at her face and roared
and held her back as if it were some giant
she could not see. But the big breaths of
rough fresh air blown over the heather filled
her lungs with something which was good for
her whole thin body and whipped some red color
into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes
when she did not know anything about it.
But after a few days spent almost entirely
out of doors she wakened one morning knowing
what it was to be hungry, and when she sat
down to her breakfast she did not glance disdainfully
at her porridge and push it away, but took
up her spoon 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't tha'?" said Martha.
"It tastes nice today," said Mary, feeling
a little surprised her self.
"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee
stomach for tha' victuals," answered Martha.
"It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals
as well as appetite. There's been twelve in
our cottage as had th' stomach an' nothin'
to put 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 so yeller."
"I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing
to play with."
"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha.
"Our children plays with sticks and stones.
They just runs about an' shouts an' looks
at things." Mary did not shout, but she looked
at things. There was nothing else to do. She
walked round and round the gardens and wandered
about the paths in the park. Sometimes she
looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but though several
times she saw him at work he was too busy
to look at her or was too surly. Once when
she was walking toward him he picked up his
spade and turned away as if he did it on purpose.
One place she went to oftener than to any
other. It was the long walk outside the gardens
with the walls round them. There were bare
flower-beds on either side of it and against
the walls ivy grew thickly. There was one
part of the wall where the creeping dark green
leaves were more bushy than elsewhere. It
seemed as if for a long time that part had
been neglected. The rest of it had been clipped
and made to look neat, but at this lower end
of the walk it had not been trimmed at all.
A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff,
Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why
it was so. She had just paused and was looking
up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the
wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet and heard
a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of
the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's
robin redbreast, tilting forward to look at
her with his small head on one side.
"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you—is it you?"
And it did not seem at all queer to her that
she spoke to him as if she were sure that
he would understand and answer her.
He did answer. He twittered and chirped and
hopped along the wall as if he were telling
her all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress
Mary as if she understood 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 wall she ran
after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly
Mary—she actually looked 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 in the least. But the robin seemed to be
quite satisfied and chirped and whistled back
at her. At last he spread his wings and made
a darting flight to the top of a tree, where
he perched and sang loudly. That reminded
Mary of the first time she had seen him. He
had been swinging on a tree-top then and she
had been standing in the orchard. Now she
was on the other side of the orchard and standing
in the path outside a wall—much lower 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 I could
see what it is like!"
She ran up the walk to the green door she
had entered the first morning. Then she ran
down the path through the other door and then
into the orchard, and when 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 his feathers
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 she only found
what she had found before—that there was
no door in it. Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens
again and out into the walk outside the long
ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end
of it and looked at it, but there was no door;
and then she walked to the other end, looking
again, but there was no door.
"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff
said there was no door and there is no door.
But there must have been one ten years ago,
because Mr. Craven buried the key."
This gave her so much to think of that she
began to be quite interested and feel that
she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite
Manor. In India she had always felt hot and
too languid to care much about anything. The
fact was that the fresh wind from the moor
had begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young
brain and to waken her up a little.
She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and
when she sat down to her supper at night she
felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable. She
did not feel cross when Martha chattered away.
She felt as if she rather liked to hear her,
and at last she thought she would ask her
a question. She asked it after she had finished
her 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 was very young,
and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers
and sisters, and she found it dull in the
great servants' hall downstairs where the
footman and upper-housemaids made fun of her
Yorkshire speech and looked upon her as a
common little thing, and sat and whispered
among themselves. Martha liked to talk, 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 first heard 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,"
she said. "You could bare stand up on the
moor if you was out on it tonight."
Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until
she listened, and then she understood. It
must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar
which rushed round and round the house as
if the giant no one could see were buffeting
it and beating at the walls and windows to
try to break in. But one knew he could not
get in, and somehow it made one feel very
safe and warm inside a room with a red coal
fire.
"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after
she had listened. She intended to know if
Martha did.
Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.
"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's
not to be talked about. There's lots o' things
in this place that's not to be talked over.
That's Mr. Craven's orders. His troubles are
none servants' business, he says. But for
th' garden he wouldn't be like he is. It was
Mrs. Craven's garden that she had made when
first they were married an' she just loved
it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves.
An' none o' th' gardeners was ever let to
go in. Him an' her used to go in an' shut
th' door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin'
and talkin'. An' she was just a bit of a girl
an' there was an old tree with a branch bent
like a seat on it. An' she made roses grow
over 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 go out o' his mind an' die, too.
That's why he hates it. No one's never gone
in since, an' he won't let any one talk about
it."
Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked
at the red fire and listened to the wind "wutherin'."
It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder than ever.
At that moment a very good thing was happening
to her. Four good things had happened to her,
in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor.
She had felt as if she had understood a robin
and that he had understood her; she had run
in the wind until her blood had grown warm;
she had been healthily hungry for the first
time in her life; and she had found out what
it was to be sorry for some one.
But as she was listening to the wind she began
to listen to something else. She did not know
what it was, because at first she could scarcely
distinguish it from the wind itself. It was
a curious sound—it seemed almost as if a
child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the
wind sounded rather like a child crying, but
presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure this
sound was inside the house, not outside it.
It was far away, but it was inside. She turned
round and looked at Martha.
"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.
Martha suddenly looked confused.
"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes
it sounds like as if some one was lost on
th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o'
sounds."
"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house—down
one of those long corridors."
And at that very moment a door must have been
opened somewhere downstairs; for a great rushing
draft blew along the passage and the door
of the room they sat in was blown open with
a crash, and as they both jumped to their
feet the light was blown out and the crying
sound was swept down the far corridor so that
it was to be heard more plainly than ever.
"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is
some one crying—and it isn't a grown-up
person."
Martha ran and shut the door and turned the
key, but before she did it they both heard
the sound of a door in some far passage shutting
with a bang, and then 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 very hard
at her. She did not believe she was speaking
the truth.
CHAPTER VI
"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING—THERE WAS!"
The next day the rain poured down in torrents
again, and when Mary looked out of her window
the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and
cloud. There could be no going out today.
"What do you do in your cottage when it rains
like this?" she asked Martha.
"Try to keep from under each other's feet
mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! there does
seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered
woman but she gets fair moithered. The biggest
ones goes out in th' 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
says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't
show when it's fair weather. He once found
a little fox cub half drowned in its hole
and he brought it home in th' bosom of his
shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had been
killed nearby an' th' hole was swum out an'
th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got
it at home now. He found a half-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 familiar talk. She had
even begun to find it interesting and to be
sorry when she stopped or went away. The stories
she had been told by her Ayah when she lived
in India had been quite unlike those Martha
had to tell about the moorland cottage which
held fourteen people who lived in four little
rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The
children seemed to tumble about and amuse
themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured
collie puppies. Mary was most attracted by
the 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 good bit now."
"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I
had were left in India."
"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd
let thee go into th' library, there's thousands
o' books there."
Mary did not ask where the library was, because
she was suddenly inspired by a new idea. She
made up her mind to go and find it herself.
She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs.
Medlock seemed always to be in her comfortable
housekeeper's sitting-room downstairs. In
this queer place one scarcely ever saw any
one at all. In fact, there was no one to see
but the servants, and when their master was
away they lived a luxurious life below stairs,
where there was a huge kitchen hung about
with shining brass and pewter, and a large
servants' hall where there were four or five
abundant meals eaten every day, and where
a great deal of lively romping went on when
Mrs. Medlock was out of the way.
Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha
waited on her, but no one troubled themselves
about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came
and looked at her every day or two, but no
one inquired what she did or told her what
to do. She supposed that perhaps this was
the English way of treating children. In India
she had always been attended by her Ayah,
who had followed her about and waited on her,
hand and foot. She had often been tired of
her company. Now she was followed by nobody
and was learning to dress herself because
Martha looked as though she thought she was
silly and stupid when she wanted to have things
handed to her and put on.
"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once,
when Mary had stood waiting for her to put
on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice
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 think several
entirely new things.
She stood at the window for about ten minutes
this morning after Martha had swept up the
hearth for the last time and gone downstairs.
She was thinking over the new idea which had
come to her when she heard of the library.
She did not care very much about the library
itself, because she had read very few books;
but to hear of it brought back to her mind
the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered
if they were all really locked and what she
would find if she could get into any of them.
Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't
she go and see how many doors she could count?
It would be something to do on this morning
when she could not go out. She had never been
taught to ask permission to do things, and
she knew nothing at all about authority, so
she would not have thought it necessary to
ask Mrs. Medlock if she 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 began her wanderings.
It was a long corridor and it branched into
other corridors and it led her up short flights
of steps which mounted to others again. There
were doors and doors, and there were pictures
on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures
of dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest
they were portraits of men and women in queer,
grand costumes made of satin and velvet. She
found herself in one long gallery whose walls
were covered with these portraits. She had
never thought there could be so many in any
house. She walked slowly down this place and
stared at the faces which also seemed to stare
at her. She felt as if they were wondering
what a little girl from India was doing in
their house. Some were pictures of children—little
girls in thick satin frocks which reached
to their feet and stood out about them, and
boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars
and long hair, or with big ruffs around their
necks. She always stopped to look at the children,
and wonder what their names were, and where
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 held a green parrot on her finger.
Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.
"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to
her. "I wish you were here."
Surely no other little girl ever spent such
a queer morning. It seemed as if there 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, where it seemed to her that no one but
herself had ever walked. Since so many rooms
had been built, people must have lived in
them, but it all seemed so empty that she
could not quite believe it true.
It was not until she climbed to the second
floor that she thought of turning the handle
of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs.
Medlock had said they were, 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 without
difficulty and that when she pushed upon the
door itself it slowly and heavily opened.
It was a massive door and opened into a big
bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on
the wall, and inlaid furniture such as she
had seen in India stood about the room. A
broad window with leaded panes looked out
upon the moor; and over the mantel was another
portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who
seemed to stare at her more curiously than
ever.
"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary.
"She stares at me so that she makes me feel
queer."
After that she opened more doors and more.
She saw so many rooms that she became quite
tired and began to think that there must be
a hundred, though she had not counted them.
In all of them there were old pictures or
old tapestries with strange scenes worked
on them. There were curious pieces of furniture
and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.
In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room,
the hangings were all embroidered velvet,
and in a cabinet were about a hundred little
elephants made of ivory. They were of different
sizes, and some had their mahouts or palanquins
on their backs. Some were much bigger than
the others and some were so tiny that they
seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory
in India and she knew all about elephants.
She opened the door of the cabinet and stood
on a footstool and played with these for quite
a long time. When she got tired she set the
elephants in order and shut the door of the
cabinet.
In all her wanderings through the long corridors
and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing
alive; but in this room she saw something.
Just after she had closed the cabinet door
she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her
jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace,
from which it seemed to come. In the corner
of the sofa there was a cushion, and in the
velvet which covered it there was a hole,
and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with
a pair of frightened eyes in it.
Mary crept softly across the room to look.
The bright eyes belonged to a little gray
mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into
the cushion and made a comfortable nest there.
Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near
her. If there was no one else alive in the
hundred rooms there were seven mice who did
not look lonely at all.
"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would
take them back with me," said Mary.
She had wandered about long enough to feel
too tired to wander any farther, and she turned
back. Two or three times she lost her way
by turning down the wrong corridor 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
from her own room and did not know exactly
where she was.
"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again,"
she said, standing still 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 the stillness
was broken by a sound. It was another cry,
but not quite like the one she had heard last
night; it was only a short one, a fretful
childish whine muffled by passing through
walls.
"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her
heart beating rather faster. "And it is crying."
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 open and 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 cross
look on her face.
"What are you doing here?" she said, and she
took Mary by the arm and pulled her away.
"What did I tell you?"
"I turned round the wrong corner," explained
Mary. "I didn't know which way to go and I
heard some one crying." She quite hated 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 your ears."
And she took her by the arm and half pushed,
half pulled her up one passage and down another
until she pushed her in at the door of her
own room.
"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told
to stay or you'll find yourself locked up.
The master had better get you a governess,
same as he said he would. You're one that
needs some one to look 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 sat on the hearth-rug,
pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground
her teeth.
"There was some one crying—there was—there
was!" she said to herself.
She had heard it twice now, and sometime she
would find out. She had found out a great
deal this morning. She felt as if she had
been on a long journey, and at any rate she
had had something to amuse her all the time,
and she had played with the ivory elephants
and had seen the gray mouse and its babies
in their nest in the velvet cushion.
CHAPTER VII
THE 
KEY TO THE GARDEN
Two days after this, when Mary opened her
eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, 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 the night
by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and
a brilliant, deep blue sky arched 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 almost seemed to sparkle like the waters
of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and
there, high, high in the arched blueness floated
small clouds of snow-white fleece. The far-reaching
world of the moor itself looked softly blue
instead of gloomy 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
been here an' never meant to come again. That's
because th' springtime's on its way. It's
a long way off yet, but it's comin'."
"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 lead brushes. "Nowt o' th'
soart!"
"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously.
In India the natives spoke different dialects
which only a few people understood, so she
was not surprised 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
Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock said I mustn't.
'Nowt o' th' soart' means 'nothin'-of-the-sort,'"
slowly and carefully, "but it takes so long
to say it. Yorkshire's th' sunniest place
on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd
like th' moor after a bit. Just you wait till
you see th' gold-colored gorse blossoms an'
th' blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather
flowerin', all purple bells, an' hundreds
o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin'
an' skylarks soarin' up an' singin'. You'll
want to get out on it as sunrise an' live
out on it all day like Dickon does." "Could
I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully, looking
through her window at the far-off blue. It
was so new and big and wonderful and such
a heavenly color.
"I don't know," answered Martha. "Tha's never
used 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 brush and began
to rub the grate again. She was thinking that
the small plain face did not look quite as
sour at this moment as it had done the first
morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle
like little Susan Ann's when she wanted something
very much.
"I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "She's
one o' them that nearly always sees a way
to do things. It's my day out today an' I'm
goin' home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks
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 of her hand
as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended
quite positively.
"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin'
an' goodnatured an' clean that no one could
help likin' her whether they'd seen her or
not. When I'm goin' home to her on my day
out I just jump for joy when I'm crossin'
the moor."
"I like Dickon," added Mary. "And I've never
seen him."
"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee
that th' very birds likes him an' th' rabbits
an' wild sheep an' 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 little way. "No one does."
Martha looked reflective again.
"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired,
really quite as if she were curious to know.
Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.
"Not at all—really," she answered. "But
I never thought of that before."
Martha grinned a little as if at some homely
recollection.
"Mother said that to me once," she said. "She
was at her wash-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 like this
one an' tha' doesn't like that one. How does
tha' like thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it
brought me to my senses in a minute."
She went away in high spirits as soon as she
had given Mary her breakfast. She was going
to walk five miles across the moor to the
cottage, and she was going to help her mother
with the washing and do the week's baking
and enjoy herself thoroughly.
Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew
she was no longer in the house. She went out
into the garden as quickly as possible, and
the first thing she did was to run round and
round the fountain flower garden ten times.
She counted the times carefully and when she
had finished she felt in better spirits. The
sunshine made the whole place look different.
The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite
as well as over the moor, and she kept lifting
her face and looking up into it, trying to
imagine what it would be like to lie down
on one of the little snow-white clouds and
float about. She went into the first kitchen-garden
and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with
two other gardeners. The change in the weather
seemed to have done him good. He spoke to
her of his own accord. "Springtime's comin,'"
he said. "Cannot tha' 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,
digging away. "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
there things will be stirrin' down below in
th' dark. Th' sun's warmin' 'em. You'll see
bits o' green spikes 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 in India," 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 bit higher here, an' push out a spike
more there, an' uncurl a leaf this 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 at once that the
robin had come again. He was very pert and
lively, and hopped about so close to her feet,
and put his head on one side and looked at
her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff
a question.
"Do you think he remembers me?" she said.
"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly.
"He knows every cabbage stump in th' gardens,
let alone th' people. He's never seen a little
wench here before, an' he's bent on findin'
out all about thee. Tha's no need to try to
hide anything from him."
"Are things stirring down below in the dark
in that garden where he lives?" 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 some of them come again in the summer?
Are there ever any roses?"
"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching
his shoulders toward the robin. "He's the
only one as knows. No one else has seen inside
it for 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 she had begun
to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's
mother. She was beginning to like Martha,
too. That seemed a good many people to like—when
you were not used to liking. She thought of
the robin as one of the people. She went to
her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall
over which she could see the tree-tops; and
the second time she walked up and down the
most interesting and exciting thing happened
to her, and it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's
robin.
She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when
she looked at the bare flower-bed at her left
side there he was hopping about and pretending
to peck things out of the earth to persuade
her that he had not followed her. But she
knew he had followed her and the surprise
so filled her with delight that she almost
trembled a little.
"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You
do! You are prettier than anything else in
the world!"
She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he
hopped, and flirted his tail and twittered.
It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat
was like satin and he puffed his tiny breast
out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty
that it was really as if he were showing her
how important and like a human person a robin
could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had
ever been contrary in her life when he allowed
her to draw closer and closer to him, and
bend down and talk and try to make something
like robin sounds.
Oh! to think that he should actually let her
come as near to him as that! He knew nothing
in the world would make her put out her hand
toward him or startle him in the least tiniest
way. He knew it because he was a real person—only
nicer than any other person in the world.
She was so happy that she scarcely dared to
breathe.
The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was
bare of flowers because the perennial plants
had been cut down for their winter rest, but
there were tall shrubs and low ones which
grew together at the back of the bed, and
as the robin hopped about 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 dog
had 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 looked she
saw something almost buried in the newly-turned
soil. It was something like a ring of rusty
iron or brass and when the robin flew up into
a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked
the ring up. It was more than a ring, however;
it was 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 it hung 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, and thought about
it. As I have said before, she was not a child
who had been trained to ask permission or
consult her elders about things. All she thought
about the key was that if it was the key to
the closed garden, and she could find out
where the door was, she could perhaps open
it and see what was inside the walls, and
what had happened to the old rose-trees. It
was because it had been shut up so long that
she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must
be different from other places and that something
strange must have happened to it during ten
years. Besides that, if she liked it she could
go into it every day and shut the door behind
her, and she could make up some play of her
own and play it quite alone, because nobody
would ever know where she was, but would think
the door was still locked and the key buried
in the earth. The thought of that pleased
her very much.
Living as it were, all by herself in a house
with a hundred mysteriously closed rooms and
having nothing whatever to do to amuse herself,
had set her inactive brain to working and
was actually awakening her imagination. There
is no doubt that 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 stirred her
blood, so the same things had stirred her
mind. In India she had always been too hot
and languid and weak to care much about anything,
but in this place she was beginning to care
and to want to do new things. Already she
felt less "contrary," though she did not know
why.
She put the key in her pocket and walked up
and down her walk. No one but herself ever
seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly
and look at the wall, 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 her contrariness came back to
her as she paced the walk and looked over
it at the tree-tops inside. It seemed so silly,
she said to herself, to be near it and not
be able to get in. She took the key in her
pocket when she went back to the house, and
she made up her mind that she would always
carry it with her when she went out, so that
if she ever should find the hidden door she
would be ready.
Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all
night at the cottage, but she was back at
her work in the morning with cheeks redder
than ever and in the best of spirits.
"I got up at four o'clock," she said. "Eh!
it was pretty 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 cart an' I did enjoy
myself."
She was full of stories of the delights of
her day out. Her mother had been glad to see
her and they had got the baking and washing
all out of the way. She had 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
from playin' on th' moor. An' th' cottage
all smelt o' nice, clean hot bakin' an' there
was a good fire, an' they just shouted for
joy. Our Dickon he said our cottage was good
enough for a king."
In the evening they had all sat round the
fire, and Martha and her mother had sewed
patches on torn clothes and mended stockings
and Martha had told them about the little
girl who had come from India and who had been
waited on all her life by what Martha called
"blacks" until she didn't know how to put
on her own stockings.
"Eh! they did like to hear about you," said
Martha. "They wanted to know all about th'
blacks an' about th' ship you came 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 they would
like to hear about riding on elephants and
camels, and about the officers going to hunt
tigers."
"My word!" cried delighted Martha. "It would
set 'em clean off their heads. Would tha'
really do that, Miss? It would be same as
a wild beast show like we heard they had in
York once."
"India is quite different from Yorkshire,"
Mary said slowly, as she thought the matter
over. "I never thought of that. Did Dickon
and your mother like to hear you talk about
me?"
"Why, our Dickon's eyes nearly started out
o' his head, they got that round," answered
Martha. "But mother, she was put out about
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 when
he thinks of it, but she says he mayn't think
of it for two or three years.'"
"I don't want a governess," said Mary sharply.
"But mother says you ought to be learnin'
your book by this time an' 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 big place like that, wanderin' about
all alone, an' no mother. You do your 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 you talk."
Presently Martha went out of the room and
came back with something held in her hands
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 of fourteen hungry people
give any one a present!
"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin',"
Martha explained. "An' he stopped his cart
at our door. He had pots an' pans an' odds
an' ends, but mother had no money to buy anythin'.
Just as he was goin' away our 'Lizabeth Ellen
called out, 'Mother, he's got skippin'-ropes
with red an' 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 pocket
an' she says to me, 'Martha, tha's brought
me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got
four places to put every penny, but I'm just
goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that
child a skippin'-rope,' an' she bought one
an' here it is."
She brought it out from under her apron and
exhibited it quite proudly. It was a strong,
slender rope with a striped red and blue handle
at each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen
a skipping-rope before. She gazed at it with
a mystified expression.
"What is it for?" she asked curiously.
"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that
they've not got skippin'-ropes in India, for
all they've got elephants 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 at her, and the queer faces
in the old portraits seemed to stare at her,
too, and wonder what on earth this common
little cottager had the impudence to be doing
under their very noses. But Martha did not
even see them. The interest and curiosity
in Mistress Mary's face delighted her, and
she went on skipping and 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 I wasn'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. Do you 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 practice you'll mount
up. That's what mother said. She says, 'Nothin'
will do her more good than skippin' rope.
It's th' sensiblest toy a child can have.
Let her play out in th' fresh air skippin'
an' it'll stretch her legs an' arms an' give
her some strength in 'em.'"
It was plain that there was not a great deal
of strength in Mistress Mary's arms and legs
when she first began to skip. She was not
very clever 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 out o' 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. She opened the
door to go out, and then suddenly thought
of something and turned back rather slowly.
"Martha," she said, "they were your wages.
It was your two-pence really. Thank you."
She said it stiffly because she was not used
to thanking people or noticing that they did
things for her. "Thank you," she said, and
held out her hand because she did not know
what else to do.
Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake,
as if she was not accustomed to this 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 me a 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. Run off outside an' play with
thy rope."
Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she
went out of the room. Yorkshire people seemed
strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle
to her. At first she had disliked her very
much, but now she did not. The skipping-rope
was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped,
and skipped and counted, until her cheeks
were quite red, and she was more interested
than she had ever been since she was born.
The sun was shining and a little wind was
blowing—not a rough wind, but one which
came in delightful little gusts and brought
a fresh scent of newly turned earth with it.
She skipped round the fountain garden, and
up one walk and down another. She skipped
at last into the kitchen-garden and saw Ben
Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin,
which was hopping about him. She skipped down
the walk toward him and he lifted his head
and looked at her with a curious expression.
She had wondered if he would notice her. She
wanted 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 got child's blood in thy veins instead
of sour buttermilk. Tha's skipped red into
thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben Weatherstaff.
I wouldn't have believed tha' could do it."
"I never skipped before," Mary said. "I'm
just beginning. I can only go up to twenty."
"Tha' keep on," said Ben. "Tha' shapes well
enough at it for a young 'un that's lived
with heathen. Just see how 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 if tha'
doesn't look sharp."
Mary skipped round all the gardens and round
the orchard, resting every few minutes. At
length she went to her own special walk and
made up her mind to try if she could skip
the whole length of it. It was a good long
skip and she began slowly, but before she
had gone half-way down the path she was so
hot and breathless that she was obliged to
stop. She did not mind much, because she had
already counted up to thirty. She stopped
with a little laugh of pleasure, and there,
lo and behold, was the robin swaying on a
long branch of ivy. He had followed her and
he greeted her with a chirp. As Mary had skipped
toward him she felt something heavy in her
pocket strike against her at each jump, and
when she saw the robin she laughed again.
"You showed me where the key was yesterday,"
she said. "You ought 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 he opened
his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely
to show off. Nothing in the world is quite
as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows
off—and they are nearly always doing it.
Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic
in her Ayah's stories, and she 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 a stronger one than
the rest. It was strong enough to wave the
branches of the trees, and it was more than
strong enough to sway the trailing sprays
of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall. Mary
had stepped close to the robin, and suddenly
the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy
trails, and more suddenly still she jumped
toward it and caught it in her hand. This
she did because she had seen something under
it—a round knob which had been covered by
the leaves 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. Thick as the
ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging
curtain, though some had crept over wood and
iron. Mary's heart began to thump and her
hands to shake a little in her delight and
excitement. The robin kept singing and twittering
away and tilting his head on one side, as
if he were as excited as she was. What was
this under her hands which was square and
made of iron and which her fingers found a
hole in?
It was the lock of the door which had been
closed ten years and she put her hand in her
pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted
the keyhole. She put the 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 see if any
one was coming. No one was coming. No one
ever did come, it seemed, and she took another
long breath, because she could not help it,
and she held back the swinging curtain of
ivy and pushed back the door which opened
slowly—slowly.
Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind
her, and stood with her back against it, looking
about her and breathing quite fast with excitement,
and wonder, and delight.
She was standing inside the secret garden.
CHAPTER IX
THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN
It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking
place any one could imagine. The high walls
which shut it in were covered with the leafless
stems of climbing roses which were so thick
that they were matted together. Mary Lennox
knew they were roses because she had seen
a great many roses in India. All the ground
was covered with grass of a wintry brown and
out of it grew clumps of bushes which were
surely rosebushes if they were alive. There
were numbers of standard roses which had so
spread their branches that they were like
little trees. There were other trees in the
garden, and one of the things which made the
place look strangest and loveliest was that
climbing roses had run all over them and swung
down long tendrils which made light swaying
curtains, and here and there they had caught
at each other or at a far-reaching branch
and had crept from one tree to another and
made lovely bridges of themselves. There were
neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary
did not know whether they were dead or alive,
but their thin gray or brown branches and
sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading
over everything, walls, and trees, and even
brown grass, where they had fallen from their
fastenings and run along the ground. It was
this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made
it all look so mysterious. Mary had thought
it must be different from other gardens which
had not been left all by themselves so long;
and indeed it was different from any other
place she had ever 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 had flown to his
treetop, was still as all the rest. He did
not even flutter his wings; he sat without
stirring, and looked at Mary.
"No wonder it is still," she whispered again.
"I am the first person who has spoken in here
for ten years."
She moved away from the door, stepping as
softly as if she were afraid of awakening
some one. She was glad that there was grass
under her feet and that her steps made no
sounds. She walked under one of the fairy-like
gray arches between 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 a quite dead garden? I wish
it wasn't."
If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could
have told whether the wood was alive by looking
at it, but she could only see that there were
only gray or brown sprays and branches and
none showed any signs of even a tiny leaf-bud
anywhere.
But she was inside the wonderful garden and
she could come through the door under the
ivy any time and she felt as if she had found
a world all her own.
The sun was shining inside the four walls
and the high arch of blue sky over this particular
piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant
and soft than it was over the moor. The robin
flew down from his tree-top and hopped about
or flew after her from one bush to another.
He chirped a good deal and had a very busy
air, as if he were showing her things. Everything
was strange and silent and she seemed to be
hundreds of miles away from any one, but somehow
she did not feel lonely at all. All that troubled
her was her wish that she knew whether all
the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of
them had lived and might put out leaves and
buds as the weather got warmer. She did not
want it to be a quite 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 had walked 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
grass paths here and there, and in one or
two corners there were alcoves of evergreen
with stone seats or tall moss-covered flower
urns in them.
As she came near the second of these alcoves
she stopped skipping. There had once been
a flowerbed in it, and she thought she saw
something sticking out of the black earth—some
sharp little pale green points. She remembered
what Ben Weatherstaff had said and she knelt
down to look at them.
"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they
might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils,"
she whispered.
She bent very close to them and sniffed the
fresh scent of the damp earth. She liked it
very much.
"Perhaps there are some other ones coming
up in other places," she said. "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 gone round, trying to miss
nothing, she had found ever so many more sharp,
pale green points, and she had become quite
excited again.
"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried
out softly to herself. "Even if the roses
are dead, there are other things alive."
She did not know anything about gardening,
but the grass seemed so thick in some of the
places where the green points were pushing
their way through that she thought they did
not seem to have room enough to grow. She
searched about until she found a rather sharp
piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weeded
out 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 had finished 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 come tomorrow."
She went from place to place, and dug and
weeded, and enjoyed herself so immensely that
she was led on from bed to bed and into the
grass under the trees. The exercise made her
so warm that she first threw her coat off,
and then her hat, and without knowing it she
was smiling down on to the grass and the pale
green points all the time.
The robin was tremendously busy. He was very
much pleased to see gardening begun on his
own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff.
Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful
things to eat are turned up with the soil.
Now here was this new kind of creature who
was not half Ben's size and 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 midday dinner. In fact,
she was rather late in remembering, and when
she put on her coat and hat, and picked up
her skipping-rope, she could not believe that
she had 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 cleared places,
looking twice as cheerful as they had looked
before when the grass and weeds had been smothering
them.
"I shall come back this afternoon," she said,
looking all round at her new kingdom, and
speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes
as if they heard her.
Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed
open the slow old door and slipped through
it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks
and such bright eyes and ate such a dinner
that Martha was delighted.
"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice
puddin'!" she said. "Eh! mother will be pleased
when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done
for thee."
In the course of her digging with her pointed
stick Mistress Mary had found herself digging
up a sort of white root rather like an onion.
She had put it back in its place and patted
the earth carefully down on it and just now
she wondered if Martha could tell her what
it was.
"Martha," she said, "what are those white
roots that look like onions?"
"They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o'
spring flowers grow from 'em. Th' very little
ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big
ones are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys.
Th' biggest of all is lilies an' purple flags.
Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot
of 'em planted in our bit o' garden."
"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary,
a new idea taking possession of her.
"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of
a brick walk. Mother says he just whispers
things out o' th' ground."
"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live
years and years if no one helped them?" inquired
Mary anxiously.
"They're things as helps themselves," said
Martha. "That's why poor folk can afford to
have 'em. If you don't trouble 'em, most of
'em'll work away underground for a lifetime
an' spread out an' have little 'uns. There's
a place in th' park woods here where there's
snowdrops by thousands. They're the prettiest
sight in Yorkshire when th' spring comes.
No one knows when they was first planted."
"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary.
"I want to see all 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 must tell mother that,
too."
Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little.
She must be careful if she meant to keep her
secret kingdom. She wasn't doing any harm,
but if Mr. Craven found out about the open
door he would be fearfully angry and get a
new key and lock it up forevermore. She really
could not bear that.
"This is such a big lonely place," she said
slowly, as if she were turning matters over
in her mind. "The house is lonely, and the
park is lonely, and the gardens are lonely.
So many places seem shut up. I never did many
things in India, but there were more people
to look at—natives and soldiers marching
by—and sometimes bands playing, and my Ayah
told me stories. There is no one to talk to
here except you and Ben Weatherstaff. And
you have to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff
won't speak to me often. I thought if I had
a little spade I could dig somewhere as he
does, and I might make 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 of th' things mother said. She says, 'There's
such a lot o' room in that big place, why
don't they give her a bit for herself, even
if she doesn't plant nothin' but parsley an'
radishes? She'd dig an' rake away an' be right
down happy over 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
woman as brings up twelve children learns
something besides her A B C. Children's as
good as 'rithmetic to set you findin' out
things.'"
"How much would a spade cost—a little one?"
Mary asked.
"Well," was Martha's reflective answer, "at
Thwaite village there's a shop or so an' I
saw little garden sets with a spade 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 me one every Saturday.
I didn't know what to spend it on."
"My word! that's riches," said Martha. "Tha'
can buy anything in th' world tha' wants.
Th' rent of our cottage is 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 a penny 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 for th' 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 we could 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'll go and get it."
She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by
the fire and twisted her thin little hands
together with sheer pleasure.
"If I have a spade," she whispered, "I can
make the earth nice and soft and dig up weeds.
If I have seeds and can make flowers grow
the garden won't be dead at all—it will
come alive."
She did not go out again that afternoon because
when Martha returned with her pen and ink
and paper she was obliged to clear the table
and carry the plates and dishes downstairs
and when she got into the kitchen Mrs. Medlock
was there and told her to do something, so
Mary waited for what seemed to her a long
time before 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 too much to stay with her.
She could not spell particularly well but
she found that she could print letters when
she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated
to her: "My Dear Dickon:
This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves
me at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money
and will you go to Thwaite and buy her some
flower seeds and a set of garden tools to
make a flower-bed. Pick the prettiest ones
and easy to grow because she has never done
it before and lived in India which is different.
Give my love to mother and every one of you.
Miss Mary is going to tell me a lot more so
that on my next day out you can hear about
elephants and camels and gentlemen going hunting
lions and tigers.
"Your loving sister,
Martha Phoebe Sowerby."
"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll
get th' butcher boy to take it in his cart.
He's a great friend o' 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 walk over this way."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him!
I never thought I should see Dickon."
"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha
suddenly, for Mary had looked so pleased.
"Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows
loved. I want to see him very much."
Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered
something. "Now to think," she broke out,
"to think o' me forgettin' that there; an'
I thought I was goin' to tell you first thing
this mornin'. I asked mother—and she said
she'd ask Mrs. Medlock her own self."
"Do you mean—" Mary began.
"What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might
be driven over to our cottage some 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 think of going
over the moor in the daylight and when the
sky was blue! To think of going into the cottage
which held twelve children!
"Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me
go?" she asked, quite anxiously.
"Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what
a tidy woman mother is and how clean 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 seem
to be like the mothers in India."
Her work in the garden and the excitement
of the afternoon ended by making her feel
quiet and thoughtful. Martha stayed with her
until tea-time, but they sat in comfortable
quiet and talked very little. But just before
Martha went downstairs for the tea-tray, Mary
asked a question.
"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid
had the toothache again 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 and walked down
the corridor to see if you were coming. And
I heard that far-off crying again, just as
we heard it the other night. There isn't a
wind today, so you see it couldn't have been
the wind."
"Eh!" said Martha restlessly. "Tha' mustn't
go walkin' about in corridors an' listenin'.
Mr. Craven would be that there angry there's
no knowin' what he'd do."
"I wasn't listening," said Mary. "I was just
waiting for 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 any one ever lived
in," said Mary drowsily, as she dropped her
head on the cushioned seat of the armchair
near her. Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope
had made her feel so comfortably tired that
she fell asleep.
CHAPTER X
DICKON
The sun shone down for nearly a week on the
secret garden. The Secret Garden was what
Mary called it when she was thinking of it.
She liked the name, and she liked still more
the feeling that when its beautiful old walls
shut her in no one knew where she was. It
seemed almost like being shut out of the world
in some fairy place. The few books she had
read and liked had been fairy-story books,
and she had read of secret gardens in some
of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep
in them for a hundred years, which she had
thought must be rather stupid. She had no
intention of going to sleep, and, in fact,
she was becoming wider awake every day which
passed at Misselthwaite. She was beginning
to like to be out of doors; she no longer
hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She could
run faster, and longer, and she could skip
up to a hundred. The bulbs in the secret garden
must have been much astonished. Such nice
clear places were made 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 and
work tremendously. The sun could get at them
and warm them, and when the rain came 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 something interesting to be
determined about, she was very much absorbed,
indeed. She worked and dug and pulled up weeds
steadily, only becoming more pleased with
her work every hour instead of tiring of it.
It seemed to her like a fascinating sort of
play. She found many more of the sprouting
pale green points than she had ever hoped
to find. They seemed to be starting up everywhere
and each day she was sure she found tiny new
ones, some so tiny that they barely peeped
above the earth. There were so many that she
remembered what Martha had said about the
"snowdrops by the thousands," and about bulbs
spreading and making new ones. These had been
left to themselves for ten years and perhaps
they had spread, like the snowdrops, into
thousands. She wondered 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 it would 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 she
sprang out of the earth. The truth was that
she was afraid that he would pick up his tools
and go away if he saw her coming, so she always
walked toward him as silently as possible.
But, in fact, he did not object to her as
strongly as he had at first. Perhaps he was
secretly rather flattered by her evident desire
for his elderly company. Then, also, she was
more civil than she had been. He did not know
that when she first saw him she spoke to him
as she would have spoken to a native, and
had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire
man was not accustomed to salaam to his masters,
and be merely commanded by them to do things.
"Tha'rt like th' robin," he said to her one
morning when he lifted his head and saw her
standing by him. "I never knows when I 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's questions except by
a grunt, but this morning he said more than
usual. He stood up and rested one hobnailed
boot on the top of his spade while he looked
her over.
"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 not quite 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 not greatly disturbed.
"I know I'm fatter," she said. "My stockings
are getting tighter. They used to make wrinkles.
There's the robin, Ben Weatherstaff."
There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought
he looked nicer than ever. His red waistcoat
was as glossy as satin and he flirted his
wings and tail and tilted his head and hopped
about with all sorts of lively graces. He
seemed determined to make Ben Weatherstaff
admire him. But Ben was sarcastic.
"Aye, there tha' art!" he said. "Tha' can
put up with me for a bit sometimes when tha's
got no one better. Tha's been reddenin' up
thy waistcoat an' polishin' thy feathers this
two weeks. I know what tha's up to. Tha's
courtin' some bold young madam somewhere tellin'
thy lies to her about bein' th' finest cock
robin on Missel Moor an' ready to fight all
th' rest of 'em."
"Oh! look at him!" exclaimed Mary.
The robin was evidently in a fascinating,
bold mood. He hopped closer and closer and
looked at Ben Weatherstaff more and more engagingly.
He flew on to the nearest currant bush and
tilted his head and sang a little song right
at him.
"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 trying not
to look pleased. "Tha' thinks no one can stand
out against thee—that's what tha' thinks."
The robin spread his wings—Mary could scarcely
believe her eyes. He flew right up to the
handle of Ben Weatherstaff's spade and alighted
on the top of it. Then the old man's face
wrinkled itself slowly into a new expression.
He stood still as if he were afraid to breathe—as
if he would not have stirred for the world,
lest his robin should start away. He spoke
quite in a whisper.
"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if
he were saying something quite different.
"Tha' does know how to get at a chap—tha'
does! Tha's fair unearthly, tha's so knowin'."
And he stood without stirring—almost without
drawing his breath—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 in it, 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 afraid to 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 mostly
roses."
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 like they was children—or robins. I've
seen her bend over an' kiss 'em." He dragged
out another weed and scowled at it. "That
were 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 interested than ever.
"They was left to themselves."
Mary was becoming quite excited.
"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when
they are left to themselves?" she ventured.
"Well, I'd got to like 'em—an' I liked her—an'
she liked 'em," Ben Weatherstaff admitted
reluctantly. "Once or twice a year I'd go
an' work at 'em a bit—prune 'em an' dig
about th' roots. They run 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 you tell 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' sunshine an' 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 after th' warm rain
an' see what happens." He stopped suddenly
and looked curiously at her eager face. "Why
does tha' care so much about 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 have nothing—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 little sorry for her.
She had never felt sorry for herself; she
had only felt tired and cross, because she
disliked people and things so much. But now
the world seemed to be changing and getting
nicer. If no one found out about the secret
garden, she should enjoy herself always.
She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes
longer and asked him as many questions as
she dared. He answered every one of them in
his queer grunting way and 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 of the 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 get angry with
her, though she did not see why he should.
"Now look here!" he said sharply. "Don't tha'
ask so many questions. Tha'rt th' worst wench
for askin' questions I've ever come a cross.
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 staying another minute.
She went skipping slowly down the outside
walk, thinking him over and saying to herself
that, queer as it was, here was another person
whom she liked in spite of his crossness.
She liked old Ben Weatherstaff. Yes, she did
like him. She always wanted to try to make
him talk to her. Also she began to believe
that he knew everything in the world about
flowers.
There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved
round the secret garden and ended at a gate
which opened into a wood, in the park. She
thought she would slip round this walk and
look into the wood and see if there were any
rabbits hopping about. She enjoyed the skipping
very much and when she reached the little
gate she opened it and went through because
she heard a low, peculiar whistling sound
and wanted to find out what it was.
It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite
caught her breath as she stopped to 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.
He looked very clean and his nose turned up
and his cheeks were as red as poppies and
never had Mistress Mary seen such round and
such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the
trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brown
squirrel was clinging and watching him, and
from behind a bush nearby a cock pheasant
was delicately stretching his neck to peep
out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting
up and sniffing with tremulous noses—and
actually it appeared as if they were all drawing
near to watch him and listen to 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 low as 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 from the ground.
He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed
as though he were moving at all, but at last
he stood on his feet and then the squirrel
scampered back up into the branches of his
tree, the pheasant withdrew his head and the
rabbits dropped on all fours and began to
hop away, though not at all as if they were
frightened.
"I'm Dickon," the boy said. "I know tha'rt
Miss Mary."
Then Mary realized that somehow she had known
at first that he was Dickon. Who else could
have been charming rabbits and pheasants as
the natives charm snakes in India? He had
a wide, red, curving mouth and his smile spread
all over his face.
"I got up slow," he explained, "because if
tha' makes a quick 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 if he knew her
quite well. Mary knew nothing about boys and
she spoke to him a little 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 him when he
piped.
"I've got th' garden tools. There's a little
spade an' rake an' a fork an' hoe. Eh! they
are good 'uns. There's a trowel, too. An'
th' woman in th' shop threw in a packet o'
white poppy an' one o' blue larkspur when
I bought 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. It sounded 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
face and a rough, rusty-red head. As she came
closer to him she noticed that there was a
clean fresh scent of heather and grass and
leaves about him, almost as if he were made
of them. She liked it very much and when she
looked into his funny face 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 coat pocket.
He untied the string and inside there were
ever so many neater and smaller packages with
a picture of a flower on each one.
"There's a lot o' mignonette an' poppies,"
he said. "Mignonette's th' sweetest smellin'
thing as grows, 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 Mary thought she
knew whose it was.
"Is it really calling us?" she asked.
"Aye," said Dickon, as if it was the most
natural thing in the world, "he's callin'
some one he's friends with. That's same as
sayin' 'Here I am. Look at me. I wants a bit
of a chat.' There he is in the bush. Whose
is he?"
"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows
me a little," 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 me all about thee in a
minute."
He moved quite close to the bush with the
slow movement Mary had noticed before, and
then he made a sound almost like the robin's
own twitter. The robin listened a few seconds,
intently, and then answered quite as if he
were replying 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,"
answered Dickon. "Birds is rare choosers an'
a robin can flout a body worse than a man.
See, he's making up to thee now. 'Cannot tha'
see a chap?' he's sayin'."
And it really seemed as if it must be true.
He so sidled and twittered and tilted 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 he rubbed his rough
head.
"I think I do, and they think I do," he said.
"I've lived on th' moor with 'em so long.
I've watched 'em break shell an' come out
an' fledge an' learn to fly an' begin to sing,
till I think I'm one of 'em. Sometimes I think
p'raps I'm a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit,
or a squirrel, or even a beetle, an' I don't
know it."
He laughed and came back to the log and began
to talk about the flower seeds again. He told
her what they looked like when they were flowers;
he told her how 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 not know what to say,
so for a whole minute she said nothing. She
had never thought of 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 as she 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. I don't know
what I should do if any one found it out.
I believe I should die!" She said the last
sentence quite fiercely.
Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even
rubbed his hand over his rough head 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,
secrets about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests,
an' wild things' holes, there'd be naught
safe on th' moor. Aye, I can keep secrets."
Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her
hand and clutch his sleeve but she did it.
"I've stolen a garden," she said very fast.
"It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody
wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever
goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in
it already. I don'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 it from me when I care about
it and they don't. They're letting it die,
all shut in by itself," she ended passionately,
and she threw her arms 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 way he did it meant both
wonder and sympathy.
"I've nothing to do," said Mary. "Nothing
belongs to me. 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, and at 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 so thickly. Dickon
followed her with a queer, almost pitying,
look on his face. He felt as if he were being
led to look at some strange bird's nest and
must move softly. When she stepped to the
wall and lifted the hanging ivy he started.
There was a door and Mary pushed it slowly
open and they passed in together, and then
Mary stood and waved her hand round defiantly.
"It's this," she said. "It's a secret garden,
and I'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 walked the first time she had
found herself inside the four walls. His eyes
seemed to be taking in everything—the gray
trees with the gray creepers climbing over
them and hanging from their branches, the
tangle on the walls and among the grass, the
evergreen alcoves with the stone seats and
tall flower urns standing in them.
"I never thought I'd see this place," he said
at last, in a whisper.
"Did you know about it?" asked Mary.
She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to
her.
"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll
hear us an' wonder what's to do in here."
"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened
and putting her hand quickly against her mouth.
"Did you know about the garden?" she asked
again when she had recovered herself. Dickon
nodded.
"Martha told me there was one as no one ever
went inside," he answered. "Us used to wonder
what it was like."
He stopped and looked round at the lovely
gray tangle about him, and his round eyes
looked queerly happy.
"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime,"
he said. "It'd be th' safest nestin' place
in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles
o' trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all
th' birds on th' moor don't build here."
Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again
without knowing it.
"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can
you tell? I thought perhaps they were all
dead."
"Eh! No! Not them—not all of 'em!" he answered.
"Look here!"
He stepped over to the nearest tree—an old,
old one with gray lichen all over its bark,
but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays
and branches. He took a thick knife out of
his Pocket and opened one of its blades.
"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be
cut out," he said. "An' there's a lot o' old
wood, but it made some new last year. This
here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot
which looked brownish green instead of hard,
dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager,
reverent way.
"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive
quite?"
Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.
"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and
Mary remembered that Martha had told her that
"wick" meant "alive" or "lively."
"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her
whisper. "I want them all to be wick. Let
us go round the garden and count how many
wick ones there are."
She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon
was as eager as she was. They went from tree
to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried
his knife in his hand and showed her things
which she thought wonderful.
"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest
ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest
ones has died out, but th' others has growed
an' growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's
a wonder. See here!" and he pulled down a
thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might
think this was dead wood, but I don't believe
it is—down to th' root. I'll cut it low
down an' see."
He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking
branch through, not far above the earth.
"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee
so. There's green in that wood yet. Look at
it."
Mary was down on her knees before he spoke,
gazing with all her might.
"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like
that, it's wick," he explained. "When th'
inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here
piece I've cut off, it's done for. There's
a big root here as all this live wood sprung
out of, an' if th' old wood's cut off an'
it's dug round, and took care of there'll
be—" he stopped and lifted his face to look
up at the climbing and hanging sprays above
him—"there'll be a fountain o' roses here
this summer."
They went from bush to bush and from tree
to tree. He was very strong and clever with
his knife and knew how to cut the dry and
dead wood away, and could tell when an unpromising
bough or twig had still green life in it.
In the course of half an hour Mary thought
she could tell too, and when he cut through
a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out
joyfully under her breath when she caught
sight of the least shade of moist green. The
spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful.
He showed her how to use the fork while he
dug about roots with the spade and stirred
the earth and let the air in.
They were working industriously round one
of the biggest standard roses when he caught
sight of something which made him utter an
exclamation of surprise.
"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few
feet away. "Who did that there?"
It was one of Mary's own little clearings
round the pale green points.
"I did it," said Mary.
"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about
gardenin'," he exclaimed.
"I don't," she answered, "but they were so
little, and the grass was so thick and strong,
and they looked as if they had no room to
breathe. So I made a place for them. I don't
even know what they are."
Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling
his wide smile.
"Tha' was right," he said. "A gardener couldn't
have told thee better. They'll grow now like
Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops,
an' these here is narcissuses," turning to
another patch, "an here's daffydowndillys.
Eh! they will be a sight."
He ran from one clearing to another.
"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little
wench," he said, looking her over.
"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm
growing stronger. I used always to be tired.
When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to
smell the earth when it's turned up."
"It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding
his head wisely. "There's naught as nice as
th' smell o' good clean earth, except th'
smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain
falls on 'em. I get out on th' moor many a
day when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush
an' listen to th' soft swish o' drops on th'
heather an' I just sniff an' sniff. My nose
end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says."
"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary,
gazing at him wonderingly. She had never seen
such a funny boy, or such a nice one.
"Not me," he said, grinning. "I never ketched
cold since I was born. I wasn't brought up
nesh enough. I've chased about th' moor in
all weathers same as th' rabbits does. Mother
says I've sniffed up too much fresh air for
twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with
cold. I'm as tough as a white-thorn knobstick."
He was working all the time he was talking
and Mary was following him and helping him
with her fork or the trowel.
"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said
once, looking about quite exultantly.
"Will you come again and help me to do it?"
Mary begged. "I'm sure I can help, too. I
can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever
you tell me. Oh! do come, Dickon!"
"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain
or shine," he answered stoutly. "It's the
best fun I ever had in my life—shut in here
an' wakenin' up a garden."
"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will
help me to make it alive I'll—I don't know
what I'll do," she ended helplessly. What
could you do for a boy like that?
"I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon,
with his happy grin. "Tha'll get fat an' tha'll
get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll learn
how to talk to th' robin same as I do. Eh!
we'll have a lot o' fun."
He began to walk about, looking up in the
trees and at the walls and bushes with a thoughtful
expression.
"I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's
garden, all clipped an' spick an' span, would
you?" he said. "It's nicer like this with
things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin'
hold of each other."
"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously.
"It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if
it was tidy."
Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with
a rather puzzled look. "It's a secret garden
sure enough," he said, "but seems like some
one besides th' robin must have been in it
since it was shut up ten year' ago."
"But the door was locked and the key was buried,"
said Mary. "No one could get in."
"That's true," he answered. "It's a queer
place. Seems to me as if there'd been a bit
o' prunin' done here an' there, later than
ten year' ago."
"But how could it have been done?" said Mary.
He was examining a branch of a standard rose
and he shook his head.
"Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th'
door locked an' th' key buried."
Mistress Mary always felt that however many
years she lived she should never forget that
first morning when her garden began to grow.
Of course, it did seem to begin to grow for
her that morning. When Dickon began to clear
places to plant seeds, she remembered what
Basil had sung at her when he wanted to tease
her.
"Are there any flowers that look like bells?"
she inquired.
"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered,
digging away with the trowel, "an' there's
Canterbury bells, an' campanulas."
"Let's plant some," said Mary. "There's lilies
o' th, valley here already; I saw 'em. They'll
have growed too close an' we'll have to separate
'em, but there's plenty. Th' other ones takes
two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring
you some bits o' plants from our cottage garden.
Why does tha' want 'em?"
Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers
and sisters in India and of how she had hated
them and of their calling her "Mistress Mary
Quite Contrary."
"They used to dance round and sing at me.
They sang—
'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.'
I just remembered it and it made me wonder
if there were really flowers like silver bells."
She frowned a little and gave her trowel a
rather spiteful dig into the earth.
"I wasn't as contrary as they were."
But Dickon laughed.
"Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich
black soil she saw he was sniffing up the
scent of it. "There doesn't seem to be no
need for no one to be contrary when there's
flowers an' such like, an' such lots o' friendly
wild things runnin' about makin' homes for
themselves, or buildin' nests an' singin'
an' whistlin', does there?"
Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked
at him and stopped frowning.
"Dickon," she said, "you are as nice as Martha
said you were. I like you, and you make the
fifth person. I never thought I should like
five people."
Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when
she was polishing the grate. He did look funny
and delightful, Mary thought, with his round
blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking
turned-up nose.
"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who
is th' other four?"
"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them
off on her fingers, "and the robin and Ben
Weatherstaff."
Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle
the sound by putting his arm over his mouth.
"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said,
"but I think tha' art th' queerest little
lass I ever saw."
Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned
forward and asked him a question she had never
dreamed of asking any one before. And she
tried to ask it in Yorkshire because that
was his language, and in India a native was
always pleased if you knew his speech.
"Does tha' like me?" she said.
"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does.
I likes thee wonderful, an' so does th' robin,
I do believe!"
"That's two, then," said Mary. "That's two
for me."
And then they began to work harder than ever
and more joyfully. Mary was startled and sorry
when she heard the big clock in the courtyard
strike the hour of her midday dinner.
"I shall have to go," she said mournfully.
"And you will have to go too, won't you?"
Dickon grinned.
"My dinner's easy to carry about with me,"
he said. "Mother always lets me put a bit
o' somethin' in my pocket."
He picked up his coat from the grass and brought
out of a pocket a lumpy little bundle tied
up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white
handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of
bread with a slice of something laid between
them.
"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said,
"but I've got a fine slice o' fat bacon with
it today."
Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but
he seemed ready to enjoy it.
"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll
be done with mine first. I'll get some more
work done before I start back home."
He sat down with his back against a tree.
"I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and give
him th' rind o' th' bacon to peck at. They
likes a bit o' fat wonderful."
Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly
it seemed as if he might be a sort of wood
fairy who might be gone when she came into
the garden again. He seemed too good to be
true. She went slowly half-way to the door
in the wall and then she stopped and went
back.
"Whatever happens, you—you never would tell?"
she said.
His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with
his first big bite of bread and bacon, but
he managed to smile encouragingly.
"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me
where thy nest was, does tha' think I'd tell
any one? Not me," he said. "Tha' art as safe
as a missel thrush."
And she was quite sure she was.
CHAPTER XII
"MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?"
Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of
breath when she reached her room. Her hair
was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks
were bright pink. Her dinner was waiting on
the table, and Martha was waiting near it.
"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha'
been?"
"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen
Dickon!"
"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly.
"How does tha' like him?"
"I think—I think he's beautiful!" said Mary
in a determined voice.
Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked
pleased, too.
"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever
was born, but us never thought he was handsome.
His nose turns up too much."
"I like it to turn up," said Mary.
"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a
trifle doubtful. "Though they're a nice color."
"I like them round," said Mary. "And they
are exactly the color of the sky over the
moor."
Martha beamed with satisfaction.
"Mother says he made 'em that color with always
lookin' up at th' birds an' th' clouds. But
he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?"
"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately.
"I wish mine were just like it."
Martha chuckled delightedly.
"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a
face," she said. "But I knowed it would be
that way when tha' saw him. How did tha' like
th' seeds an' th' garden tools?"
"How did you know he brought them?" asked
Mary.
"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em.
He'd be sure to bring 'em if they was in Yorkshire.
He's such a trusty lad."
Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask
difficult questions, but she did not. She
was very much interested in the seeds and
gardening tools, and there was only one moment
when Mary was frightened. This was when she
began to ask where the flowers were to be
planted.
"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired.
"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary,
hesitating. "Well, I wouldn't ask th' head
gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."
"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only
seen undergardeners and Ben Weatherstaff."
"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff,"
advised Martha. "He's not half as bad as he
looks, for all he's so crabbed. Mr. Craven
lets him do what he likes because he was here
when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he used to
make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he'd
find you a corner somewhere out o' the way."
"If it was out of the way and no one wanted
it, no one could mind my having it, could
they?" Mary said anxiously.
"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha.
"You wouldn't do no harm."
Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could
and when she rose from the table she was going
to run to her room to put on her hat again,
but Martha stopped her.
"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said.
"I thought I'd let you eat your dinner first.
Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think
he wants to see you."
Mary turned quite pale.
"Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want
to see me when I came. I heard Pitcher say
he didn't." "Well," explained Martha, "Mrs.
Medlock says it's because o' mother. She was
walkin' to Thwaite village an' she met him.
She'd never spoke to him before, but Mrs.
Craven had been to our cottage two or three
times. He'd forgot, but mother hadn't an'
she made bold to stop him. I don't know what
she said to him about you but she said somethin'
as put him in th' mind to see you before he
goes away again, tomorrow."
"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away tomorrow?
I am so glad!"
"He's goin' for a long time. He mayn't come
back till autumn or winter. He's goin' to
travel in foreign places. He's always doin'
it."
"Oh! I'm so glad—so glad!" said Mary thankfully.
If he did not come back until winter, or even
autumn, there would be time to watch the secret
garden come alive. Even if he found out then
and took it away from her she would have had
that much at least.
"When do you think he will want to see—"
She did not finish the sentence, because the
door opened, and Mrs. Medlock walked in. She
had on her best black dress and cap, and her
collar was fastened with a large brooch with
a picture of a man's face on it. It was a
colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had
died years ago, and she always wore it when
she was dressed up. She looked nervous and
excited.
"Your hair's rough," she said quickly. "Go
and brush it. Martha, help her to slip on
her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring
her to him in his study."
All the pink left Mary's cheeks. Her heart
began to thump and she felt herself changing
into a stiff, plain, silent child again. She
did not even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned
and walked into her bedroom, followed by Martha.
She said nothing while her dress was changed,
and her hair brushed, and after she was quite
tidy she followed Mrs. Medlock down the corridors,
in silence. What was there for her to say?
She was obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and
he would not like her, and she would not like
him. She knew what he would think of her.
She was taken to a part of the house she had
not been into before. At last Mrs. Medlock
knocked at a door, and when some one said,
"Come in," they entered the room together.
A man was sitting in an armchair before the
fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.
"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said.
"You can go and leave her here. I will ring
for you when I want you to take her away,"
said Mr. Craven.
When she went out and closed the door, Mary
could only stand waiting, a plain little thing,
twisting her thin hands together. She could
see that the man in the chair was not so much
a hunchback as a man with high, rather crooked
shoulders, and he had black hair streaked
with white. He turned his head over his high
shoulders and spoke to her.
"Come here!" he said.
Mary went to him.
He was not ugly. His face would have been
handsome if it had not been so miserable.
He looked as if the sight of her worried and
fretted him and as if he did not know what
in the world to do with her.
"Are you well?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Mary.
"Do they take good care of you?"
"Yes."
He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked
her over.
"You are very thin," he said.
"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what
she knew was her stiffest way.
What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes
seemed as if they scarcely saw her, as if
they were seeing something else, and he could
hardly keep his thoughts upon her.
"I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember
you? I intended to send you a governess or
a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot."
"Please," began Mary. "Please—" and then
the lump in her throat choked her.
"What do you want to say?" he inquired.
"I am—I am too big for a nurse," said Mary.
"And please—please don't make me have a
governess yet."
He rubbed his forehead again and stared at
her.
"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he
muttered absentmindedly.
Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.
"Is she—is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.
"Yes, I think so," he replied.
"She knows about children," said Mary. "She
has twelve. She knows."
He seemed to rouse himself.
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered,
hoping that her voice did not tremble. "I
never liked it in India. It makes me hungry
here, and I am getting fatter."
He was watching her.
"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps
it will," he said. "She thought you had better
get stronger before you had a governess."
"It makes me feel strong when I play and the
wind comes over the moor," argued Mary.
"Where do you play?" he asked next.
"Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother
sent me a skipping-rope. I skip and run—and
I look about to see if things are beginning
to stick up out of the earth. I don't do any
harm."
"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried
voice. "You could not do any harm, a child
like you! You may do what you like."
Mary put her hand up to her throat because
she was afraid he might see the excited lump
which she felt jump into it. She came a step
nearer to him.
"May I?" she said tremulously.
Her anxious little face seemed to worry him
more than ever.
"Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed.
"Of course you may. I am your guardian, though
I am a poor one for any child. I cannot give
you time or attention. I am too ill, and wretched
and distracted; but I wish you to be happy
and comfortable. I don't know anything about
children, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that
you have all you need. I sent for you to-day
because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you.
Her daughter had talked about you. She thought
you needed fresh air and freedom and running
about."
"She knows all about children," Mary said
again in spite of herself.
"She ought to," said Mr. Craven. "I thought
her rather bold to stop me on the moor, but
she said—Mrs. Craven had been kind to her."
It seemed hard for him to speak his dead wife's
name. "She is a respectable woman. Now I have
seen you I think she said sensible things.
Play out of doors as much as you like. It's
a big place and you may go where you like
and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything
you want?" as if a sudden thought had struck
him. "Do you want toys, books, dolls?"
"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a
bit of earth?"
In her eagerness she did not realize how queer
the words would sound and that they were not
the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven
looked quite startled.
"Earth!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
"To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to
see them come alive," Mary faltered.
He gazed at her a moment and then passed his
hand quickly over his eyes.
"Do you—care about gardens so much," he
said slowly.
"I didn't know about them in India," said
Mary. "I was always ill and tired and it was
too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the
sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it
is different."
Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly
across the room.
"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and
Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded
him of something. When he stopped and spoke
to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and
kind.
"You can have as much earth as you want,"
he said. "You remind me of some one else who
loved the earth and things that grow. When
you see a bit of earth you want," with something
like a smile, "take it, child, and make it
come alive."
"May I take it from anywhere—if it's not
wanted?"
"Anywhere," he answered. "There! You must
go now, I am tired." He touched the bell to
call Mrs. Medlock. "Good-by. I shall be away
all summer."
Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought
she must have been waiting in the corridor.
"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now
I have seen the child I understand what Mrs.
Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before
she begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy
food. Let her run wild in the garden. Don't
look after her too much. She needs liberty
and fresh air and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby
is to come and see her now and then and she
may sometimes go to the cottage."
Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved
to hear that she need not "look after" Mary
too much. She had felt her a tiresome charge
and had indeed seen as little of her as she
dared. In addition to this she was fond of
Martha's mother.
"Thank you, sir," she said. "Susan Sowerby
and me went to school together and she's as
sensible and good-hearted a woman as you'd
find in a day's walk. I never had any children
myself and she's had twelve, and there never
was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can
get no harm from them. I'd always take Susan
Sowerby's advice about children myself. She's
what you might call healthy-minded—if you
understand me."
"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take
Miss Mary away now and send Pitcher to me."
When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her
own corridor Mary flew back to her room. She
found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in
fact, hurried back after she had removed the
dinner service.
"I can have my garden!" cried Mary. "I may
have it where I like! I am not going to have
a governess for a long time! Your mother is
coming to see me and I may go to your cottage!
He says a little girl like me could not do
any harm and I may do what I like—anywhere!"
"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice
of him wasn't it?"
"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really
a nice man, only his face is so miserable
and his forehead is all drawn together."
She ran as quickly as she could to the garden.
She had been away so much longer than she
had thought she should and she knew Dickon
would have to set out early on his five-mile
walk. When she slipped through the door under
the ivy, she saw he was not working where
she had left him. The gardening tools were
laid together under a tree. She ran to them,
looking all round the place, but there was
no Dickon to be seen. He had gone away and
the secret garden was empty—except for the
robin who had just flown across the wall and
sat on a standard rose-bush watching her.
"He's gone," she said woefully. "Oh! was he—was
he—was he only a wood fairy?"
Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush
caught her eye. It was a piece of paper, in
fact, it was a piece of the letter she had
printed for Martha to send to Dickon. It was
fastened on the bush with a long thorn, and
in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there.
There were some roughly printed letters on
it and a sort of picture. At first she could
not tell what it was. Then she saw it was
meant for a nest with a bird sitting on it.
Underneath were the printed letters and they
said:
"I will cum bak."
CHAPTER XIII
"I AM COLIN"
Mary took the picture back to the house when
she went to her supper and she showed it to
Martha.
"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never
knew our Dickon was as clever as that. That
there's a picture of a missel thrush on her
nest, as large as life an' twice as natural."
Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture
to be a message. He had meant that she might
be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden
was her nest and she was like a missel thrush.
Oh, how she did like that queer, common boy!
She hoped he would come back the very next
day and she fell asleep looking forward to
the morning.
But you never know what the weather will do
in Yorkshire, particularly in the springtime.
She was awakened in the night by the sound
of rain beating with heavy drops against her
window. It was pouring down in torrents and
the wind was "wuthering" round the corners
and in the chimneys of the huge old house.
Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable and
angry.
"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she
said. "It came because it knew I did not want
it."
She threw herself back on her pillow and buried
her face. She did not cry, but she lay and
hated the sound of the heavily beating rain,
she hated the wind and its "wuthering." She
could not go to sleep again. The mournful
sound kept her awake because she felt mournful
herself. If she had felt happy it would probably
have lulled her to sleep. How it "wuthered"
and how the big raindrops poured down and
beat against the pane!
"It sounds just like a person lost on the
moor and wandering on and on crying," she
said.
She had been lying awake turning from side
to side for about an hour, when suddenly something
made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward
the door listening. She listened and she listened.
"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud
whisper. "That isn't the wind. It is different.
It is that crying I heard before."
The door of her room was ajar and the sound
came down the corridor, a far-off faint sound
of fretful crying. She listened for a few
minutes and each minute she became more and
more sure. She felt as if she must find out
what it was. It seemed even stranger than
the secret garden and the buried key. Perhaps
the fact that she was in a rebellious mood
made her bold. She put her foot out of bed
and stood on the floor.
"I am going to find out what it is," she said.
"Everybody is in bed and I don't care about
Mrs. Medlock—I don't care!"
There was a candle by her bedside and she
took it up and went softly out of the room.
The corridor looked very long and dark, but
she was too excited to mind that. She thought
she remembered the corners she must turn to
find the short corridor with the door covered
with tapestry—the one Mrs. Medlock had come
through the day she lost herself. The sound
had come up that passage. So she went on with
her dim light, almost feeling her way, her
heart beating so loud that she fancied she
could hear it. The far-off faint crying went
on and led her. Sometimes it stopped for a
moment or so and then began again. Was this
the right corner to turn? She stopped and
thought. Yes it was. Down this passage and
then to the left, and then up two broad steps,
and then to the right again. Yes, there was
the tapestry door.
She pushed it open very gently and closed
it behind her, and she stood in the corridor
and could hear the crying quite plainly, though
it was not loud. It was on the other side
of the wall at her left and a few yards farther
on there was a door. She could see a glimmer
of light coming from beneath it. The Someone
was crying in that room, and it was quite
a young Someone.
So she walked to the door and pushed it open,
and there she was standing in the room!
It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture
in it. There was a low fire glowing faintly
on the hearth and a night light burning by
the side of a carved four-posted bed hung
with brocade, and on the bed was lying a boy,
crying fretfully.
Mary wondered if she was in a real place or
if she had fallen asleep again and was dreaming
without knowing it.
The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color
of ivory and he seemed to have eyes too big
for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled
over his forehead in heavy locks and made
his thin face seem smaller. He looked like
a boy who had been ill, but he was crying
more as if he were tired and cross than as
if he were in pain.
Mary stood near the door with her candle in
her hand, holding her breath. Then she crept
across the room, and, as she drew nearer,
the light attracted the boy's attention and
he turned his head on his pillow and stared
at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that
they seemed immense.
"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened
whisper. "Are you a ghost?"
"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper
sounding half frightened. "Are you one?"
He stared and stared and stared. Mary could
not help noticing what strange eyes he had.
They were agate gray and they looked too big
for his face because they had black lashes
all round them.
"No," he replied after waiting a moment or
so. "I am Colin."
"Who is Colin?" she faltered.
"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"
"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle."
"He is my father," said the boy.
"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told
me he had a boy! Why didn't they?"
"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange
eyes fixed on her with an anxious expression.
She came close to the bed and he put out his
hand and touched her.
"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have
such real dreams very often. You might be
one of them."
Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before
she left her room and she put a piece of it
between his fingers.
"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is,"
she said. "I will pinch you a little if you
like, to show you how real I am. For a minute
I thought you might be a dream too."
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I
couldn't go to sleep and I heard some one
crying and wanted to find out who it was.
What were you crying for?"
"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and
my head ached. Tell me your name again."
"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had
come to live here?"
He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper,
but he began to look a little more as if he
believed in her reality.
"No," he answered. "They daren't."
"Why?" asked Mary.
"Because I should have been afraid you would
see me. I won't let people see me and talk
me over."
"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified
every moment.
"Because I am like this always, ill and having
to lie down. My father won't let people talk
me over either. The servants are not allowed
to speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback,
but I shan't live. My father hates to think
I may be like him."
"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said.
"What a queer house! Everything is a kind
of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens
are locked up—and you! Have you been locked
up?"
"No. I stay in this room because I don't want
to be moved out of it. It tires me too much."
"Does your father come and see you?" Mary
ventured.
"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He
doesn't want to see me."
"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.
A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's
face.
"My mother died when I was born and it makes
him wretched to look at me. He thinks I don't
know, but I've heard people talking. He almost
hates me."
"He hates the garden, because she died," said
Mary half speaking to herself.
"What garden?" the boy asked.
"Oh! just—just a garden she used to like,"
Mary stammered. "Have you been here always?"
"Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken
to places at the seaside, but I won't stay
because people stare at me. I used to wear
an iron thing to keep my back straight, but
a grand doctor came from London to see me
and said it was stupid. He told them to take
it off and keep me out in the fresh air. I
hate fresh air and I don't want to go out."
"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"
"Because of the dreams that are so real,"
he answered rather fretfully. "Sometimes when
I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake."
"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced
round the room with its high ceiling and shadowy
corners and dim fire-light. "It looks quite
like a dream, and it's the middle of the night,
and everybody in the house is asleep—everybody
but us. We are wide awake."
"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said
restlessly.
Mary thought of something all at once.
"If you don't like people to see you," she
began, "do you want me to go away?"
He still held the fold of her wrapper and
he gave it a little pull.
"No," he said. "I should be sure you were
a dream if you went. If you are real, sit
down on that big footstool and talk. I want
to hear about you."
Mary put down her candle on the table near
the bed and sat down on the cushioned stool.
She did not want to go away at all. She wanted
to stay in the mysterious hidden-away room
and talk to the mysterious boy.
"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.
He wanted to know how long she had been at
Misselthwaite; he wanted to know which corridor
her room was on; he wanted to know what she
had been doing; if she disliked the moor as
he disliked it; where she had lived before
she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these
questions and many more and he lay back on
his pillow and listened. He made her tell
him a great deal about India and about her
voyage across the ocean. She found out that
because he had been an invalid he had not
learned things as other children had. One
of his nurses had taught him to read when
he was quite little and he was always reading
and looking at pictures in splendid books.
Though his father rarely saw him when he was
awake, he was given all sorts of wonderful
things to amuse himself with. He never seemed
to have been amused, however. He could have
anything he asked for and was never made to
do anything he did not like to do. "Everyone
is obliged to do what pleases me," he said
indifferently. "It makes me ill to be angry.
No one believes I shall live to grow up."
He said it as if he was so accustomed to the
idea that it had ceased to matter to him at
all. He seemed to like the sound of Mary's
voice. As she went on talking he listened
in a drowsy, interested way. Once or twice
she wondered if he were not gradually falling
into a doze. But at last he asked a question
which opened up a new subject.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself
for the moment, "and so are you."
"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised
voice.
"Because when you were born the garden door
was locked and the key was buried. And it
has been locked for ten years."
Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning
on his elbows.
"What garden door was locked? Who did it?
Where was the key buried?" he exclaimed as
if he were suddenly very much interested.
"It—it was the garden Mr. Craven hates,"
said Mary nervously. "He locked the door.
No one—no one knew where he buried the key."
"What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted
eagerly.
"No one has been allowed to go into it for
ten years," was Mary's careful answer.
But it was too late to be careful. He was
too much like herself. He too had had nothing
to think about and the idea of a hidden garden
attracted him as it had attracted her. He
asked question after question. Where was it?
Had she never looked for the door? Had she
never asked the gardeners?
"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I
think they have been told not to answer questions."
"I would make them," said Colin.
"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel
frightened. If he could make people answer
questions, who knew what might happen!
"Everyone is obliged to please me. I told
you that," he said. "If I were to live, this
place would sometime belong to me. They all
know that. I would make them tell me."
Mary had not known that she herself had been
spoiled, but she could see quite plainly that
this mysterious boy had been. He thought that
the whole world belonged to him. How peculiar
he was and how coolly he spoke of not living.
"Do you think you won't live?" she asked,
partly because she was curious and partly
in hope of making him forget the garden.
"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as
indifferently as he had spoken before. "Ever
since I remember anything I have heard people
say I shan't. At first they thought I was
too little to understand and now they think
I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's
cousin. He is quite poor and if I die he will
have all Misselthwaite when my father is dead.
I should think he wouldn't want me to live."
"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.
"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion.
"But I don't want to die. When I feel ill
I lie here and think about it until I cry
and cry."
"I have heard you crying three times," Mary
said, "but I did not know who it was. Were
you crying about that?" She did so want him
to forget the garden.
"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about
something else. Talk about that garden. Don't
you want to see it?"
"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.
"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't
think I ever really wanted to see anything
before, but I want to see that garden. I want
the key dug up. I want the door unlocked.
I would let them take me there in my chair.
That would be getting fresh air. I am going
to make them open the door."
He had become quite excited and his strange
eyes began to shine like stars and looked
more immense than ever.
"They have to please me," he said. "I will
make them take me there and I will let you
go, too."
Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything
would be spoiled—everything! Dickon would
never come back. She would never again feel
like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.
"Oh, don't—don't—don't—don't do that!"
she cried out.
He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!
"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted
to see it."
"I do," she answered almost with a sob in
her throat, "but if you make them open the
door and take you in like that it will never
be a secret again."
He leaned still farther forward.
"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell
me."
Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.
"You see—you see," she panted, "if no one
knows but ourselves—if there was a door,
hidden somewhere under the ivy—if there
was—and we could find it; and if we could
slip through it together and shut it behind
us, and no one knew any one was inside and
we called it our garden and pretended that—that
we were missel thrushes and it was our nest,
and if we played there almost every day and
dug and planted seeds and made it all come
alive—"
"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.
"It soon will be if no one cares for it,"
she went on. "The bulbs will live but the
roses—"
He stopped her again as excited as she was
herself.
"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.
"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops.
They are working in the earth now—pushing
up pale green points because the spring is
coming."
"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is
it like? You don't see it in rooms if you
are ill."
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the
rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing
up and working under the earth," said Mary.
"If the garden was a secret and we could get
into it we could watch the things grow bigger
every day, and see how many roses are alive.
Don't you see? Oh, don't you see how much
nicer it would be if it was a secret?"
He dropped back on his pillow and lay there
with an odd expression on his face.
"I never had a secret," he said, "except that
one about not living to grow up. They don't
know I know that, so it is a sort of secret.
But I like this kind better."
"If you won't make them take you to the garden,"
pleaded Mary, "perhaps—I feel almost sure
I can find out how to get in sometime. And
then—if the doctor wants you to go out in
your chair, and if you can always do what
you want to do, perhaps—perhaps we might
find some boy who would push you, and we could
go alone and it would always be a secret garden."
"I should—like—that," he said very slowly,
his eyes looking dreamy. "I should like that.
I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."
Mary began to recover her breath and feel
safer because the idea of keeping the secret
seemed to please him. She felt almost sure
that if she kept on talking and could make
him see the garden in his mind as she had
seen it he would like it so much that he could
not bear to think that everybody might tramp
in to it when they chose.
"I'll tell you what I think it would be like,
if we could go into it," she said. "It has
been shut up so long things have grown into
a tangle perhaps."
He lay quite still and listened while she
went on talking about the roses which might
have clambered from tree to tree and hung
down—about the many birds which might have
built their nests there because it was so
safe. And then she told him about the robin
and Ben Weatherstaff, and there was so much
to tell about the robin and it was so easy
and safe to talk about it that she ceased
to be afraid. The robin pleased him so much
that he smiled until he looked almost beautiful,
and at first Mary had thought that he was
even plainer than herself, with his big eyes
and heavy locks of hair.
"I did not know birds could be like that,"
he said. "But if you stay in a room you never
see things. What a lot of things you know.
I feel as if you had been inside that garden."
She did not know what to say, so she did not
say anything. He evidently did not expect
an answer and the next moment he gave her
a surprise.
"I am going to let you look at something,"
he said. "Do you see that rose-colored silk
curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?"
Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked
up and saw it. It was a curtain of soft silk
hanging over what seemed to be some picture.
"Yes," she answered.
"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin.
"Go and pull it."
Mary got up, much mystified, and found the
cord. When she pulled it the silk curtain
ran back on rings and when it ran back it
uncovered a picture. It was the picture of
a girl with a laughing face. She had bright
hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay,
lovely eyes were exactly like Colin's unhappy
ones, agate gray and looking twice as big
as they really were because of the black lashes
all round them.
"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly.
"I don't see why she died. Sometimes I hate
her for doing it."
"How queer!" said Mary.
"If she had lived I believe I should not have
been ill always," he grumbled. "I dare say
I should have lived, too. And my father would
not have hated to look at me. I dare say I
should have had a strong back. Draw the curtain
again."
Mary did as she was told and returned to her
footstool.
"She is much prettier than you," she said,
"but her eyes are just like yours—at least
they are the same shape and color. Why is
the curtain drawn over her?"
He moved uncomfortably.
"I made them do it," he said. "Sometimes I
don't like to see her looking at me. She smiles
too much when I am ill and miserable. Besides,
she is mine and I don't want everyone to see
her." There were a few moments of silence
and then Mary spoke.
"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out
that I had been here?" she inquired.
"She would do as I told her to do," he answered.
"And I should tell her that I wanted you to
come here and talk to me every day. I am glad
you came."
"So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often
as I can, but"—she hesitated—"I shall
have to look every day for the garden door."
"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can
tell me about it afterward."
He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done
before, and then he spoke again.
"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said.
"I will not tell them until they find out.
I can always send the nurse out of the room
and say that I want to be by myself. Do you
know Martha?"
"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary. "She
waits on me."
He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.
"She is the one who is asleep in the other
room. The nurse went away yesterday to stay
all night with her sister and she always makes
Martha attend to me when she wants to go out.
Martha shall tell you when to come here."
Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look
when she had asked questions about the crying.
"Martha knew about you all the time?" she
said.
"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes
to get away from me and then Martha comes."
"I have been here a long time," said Mary.
"Shall I go away now? Your eyes look sleepy."
"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave
me," he said rather shyly.
"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool
closer, "and I will do what my Ayah used to
do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke
it and sing something quite low."
"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.
Somehow she was sorry for him and did not
want him to lie awake, so she leaned against
the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand
and sing a very low little chanting song in
Hindustani.
"That is nice," he said more drowsily still,
and she went on chanting and stroking, but
when she looked at him again his black lashes
were lying close against his cheeks, for his
eyes were shut and he was fast asleep. So
she got up softly, took her candle and crept
away without making a sound.
CHAPTER XIV
A YOUNG RAJAH
The moor was hidden in mist when the morning
came, and the rain had not stopped pouring
down. There could be no going out of doors.
Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity
of talking to her, but in the afternoon she
asked her to come and sit with her in the
nursery. She came bringing the stocking she
was always knitting when she was doing nothing
else.
"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as
soon as they sat down. "Tha' looks as if tha'd
somethin' to say."
"I have. I have found out what the crying
was," said Mary.
Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and
gazed at her with startled eyes.
"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!"
"I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And
I got up and went to see where it came from.
It was Colin. I found him."
Martha's face became red with fright.
"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha'
shouldn't have done it—tha' shouldn't! Tha'll
get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin'
about him—but tha'll get me in trouble.
I shall lose my place and what'll mother do!"
"You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He
was glad I came. We talked and talked and
he said he was glad I came."
"Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha'
doesn't know what he's like when anything
vexes him. He's a big lad to cry like a baby,
but when he's in a passion he'll fair scream
just to frighten us. He knows us daren't call
our souls our own."
"He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him
if I should go away and he made me stay. He
asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool
and talked to him about India and about the
robin and gardens. He wouldn't let me go.
He let me see his mother's picture. Before
I left him I sang him to sleep."
Martha fairly gasped with amazement.
"I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested.
"It's as if tha'd walked straight into a lion's
den. If he'd been like he is most times he'd
have throwed himself into one of his tantrums
and roused th' house. He won't let strangers
look at him."
"He let me look at him. I looked at him all
the time and he looked at me. We stared!"
said Mary.
"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated
Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock finds out, she'll
think I broke orders and told thee and I shall
be packed back to mother."
"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything
about it yet. It's to be a sort of secret
just at first," said Mary firmly. "And he
says everybody is obliged to do as he pleases."
"Aye, that's true enough—th' bad lad!" sighed
Martha, wiping her forehead with her apron.
"He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me
to come and talk to him every day. And you
are to tell me when he wants me."
"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place—I
shall for sure!"
"You can't if you are doing what he wants
you to do and everybody is ordered to obey
him," Mary argued.
"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with
wide open eyes, "that he was nice to thee!"
"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.
"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided
Martha, drawing a long breath.
"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've
heard about Magic in India, but I can't make
it. I just went into his room and I was so
surprised to see him I stood and stared. And
then he turned round and stared at me. And
he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I
thought perhaps he was. And it was so queer
being there alone together in the middle of
the night and not knowing about each other.
And we began to ask each other questions.
And when I asked him if I must go away he
said I must not."
"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.
"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.
"Nobody knows for sure and certain," said
Martha. "Mr. Craven went off his head like
when he was born. Th' doctors thought he'd
have to be put in a 'sylum. It was because
Mrs. Craven died like I told you. He wouldn't
set eyes on th' baby. He just raved and said
it'd be another hunchback like him and it'd
better die."
"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked. "He didn't
look like one."
"He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began
all wrong. Mother said that there was enough
trouble and raging in th' house to set any
child wrong. They was afraid his back was
weak an' they've always been takin' care of
it—keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin'
him walk. Once they made him wear a brace
but he fretted so he was downright ill. Then
a big doctor came to see him an' made them
take it off. He talked to th' other doctor
quite rough—in a polite way. He said there'd
been too much medicine and too much lettin'
him have his own way."
"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.
"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said
Martha. "I won't say as he hasn't been ill
a good bit. He's had coughs an' colds that's
nearly killed him two or three times. Once
he had rheumatic fever an' once he had typhoid.
Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He'd
been out of his head an' she was talkin' to
th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't know nothin',
an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough,
an' best thing for him an' for everybody.'
An' she looked at him an' there he was with
his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible
as she was herself. She didn't know wha'd
happen but he just stared at her an' says,
'You give me some water an' stop talkin'.'"
"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.
"Mother says there's no reason why any child
should live that gets no fresh air an' doesn't
do nothin' but lie on his back an' read picture-books
an' take medicine. He's weak and hates th'
trouble o' bein' taken out o' doors, an' he
gets cold so easy he says it makes him ill."
Mary sat and looked at the fire. "I wonder,"
she said slowly, "if it would not do him good
to go out into a garden and watch things growing.
It did me good."
"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said
Martha, "was one time they took him out where
the roses is by the fountain. He'd been readin'
in a paper about people gettin' somethin'
he called 'rose cold' an' he began to sneeze
an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener
as didn't know th' rules passed by an' looked
at him curious. He threw himself into a passion
an' he said he'd looked at him because he
was going to be a hunchback. He cried himself
into a fever an' was ill all night."
"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go
and see him again," said Mary.
"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha.
"Tha' may as well know that at th' start."
Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled
up her knitting.
"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with
him a bit," she said. "I hope he's in a good
temper."
She was out of the room about ten minutes
and then she came back with a puzzled expression.
"Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said.
"He's up on his sofa with his picture-books.
He's told the nurse to stay away until six
o'clock. I'm to wait in the next room. Th'
minute she was gone he called me to him an'
says, 'I want Mary Lennox to come and talk
to me, and remember you're not to tell any
one.' You'd better go as quick as you can."
Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She
did not want to see Colin as much as she wanted
to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very
much.
There was a bright fire on the hearth when
she entered his room, and in the daylight
she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed.
There were rich colors in the rugs and hangings
and pictures and books on the walls which
made it look glowing and comfortable even
in spite of the gray sky and falling rain.
Colin looked rather like a picture himself.
He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and
sat against a big brocaded cushion. He had
a red spot on each cheek.
"Come in," he said. "I've been thinking about
you all morning."
"I've been thinking about you, too," answered
Mary. "You don't know how frightened Martha
is. She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told
me about you and then she will be sent away."
He frowned.
"Go and tell her to come here," he said. "She
is in the next room."
Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha
was shaking in her shoes. Colin was still
frowning.
"Have you to do what I please or have you
not?" he demanded.
"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha
faltered, turning quite red.
"Has Medlock to do what I please?"
"Everybody has, sir," said Martha.
"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss
Mary to me, how can Medlock send you away
if she finds it out?"
"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.
"I'll send her away if she dares to say a
word about such a thing," said Master Craven
grandly. "She wouldn't like that, I can tell
you."
"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want
to do my duty, sir."
"What I want is your duty" said Colin more
grandly still. "I'll take care of you. Now
go away."
When the door closed behind Martha, Colin
found Mistress Mary gazing at him as if he
had set her wondering.
"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked
her. "What are you thinking about?"
"I am thinking about two things."
"What are they? Sit down and tell me."
"This is the first one," said Mary, seating
herself on the big stool. "Once in India I
saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and
emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him.
He spoke to his people just as you spoke to
Martha. Everybody had to do everything he
told them—in a minute. I think they would
have been killed if they hadn't."
"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently,"
he said, "but first tell me what the second
thing was."
"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different
you are from Dickon."
"Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!"
She might as well tell him, she thought she
could talk about Dickon without mentioning
the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha
talk about him. Besides, she longed to talk
about him. It would seem to bring him nearer.
"He is Martha's brother. He is twelve years
old," she explained. "He is not like any one
else in the world. He can charm foxes and
squirrels and birds just as the natives in
India charm snakes. He plays a very soft tune
on a pipe and they come and listen."
There were some big books on a table at his
side and he dragged one suddenly toward him.
"There is a picture of a snake-charmer in
this," he exclaimed. "Come and look at it."
The book was a beautiful one with superb colored
illustrations and he turned to one of them.
"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.
"He played on his pipe and they listened,"
Mary explained. "But he doesn't call it Magic.
He says it's because he lives on the moor
so much and he knows their ways. He says he
feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit
himself, he likes them so. I think he asked
the robin questions. It seemed as if they
talked to each other in soft chirps."
Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes
grew larger and larger and the spots on his
cheeks burned.
"Tell me some more about him," he said.
"He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary
went on. "And he knows where foxes and badgers
and otters live. He keeps them secret so that
other boys won't find their holes and frighten
them. He knows about everything that grows
or lives on the moor."
"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How
can he when it's such a great, bare, dreary
place?"
"It's the most beautiful place," protested
Mary. "Thousands of lovely things grow on
it and there are thousands of little creatures
all busy building nests and making holes and
burrows and chippering or singing or squeaking
to each other. They are so busy and having
such fun under the earth or in the trees or
heather. It's their world."
"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning
on his elbow to look at her.
"I have never been there once, really," said
Mary suddenly remembering. "I only drove over
it in the dark. I thought it was hideous.
Martha told me about it first and then Dickon.
When Dickon talks about it you feel as if
you saw things and heard them and as if you
were standing in the heather with the sun
shining and the gorse smelling like honey—and
all full of bees and butterflies."
"You never see anything if you are ill," said
Colin restlessly. He looked like a person
listening to a new sound in the distance and
wondering what it was.
"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.
"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a
resentful tone.
Mary was silent for a minute and then she
said something bold.
"You might—sometime."
He moved as if he were startled.
"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to
die." "How do you know?" said Mary unsympathetically.
She didn't like the way he had of talking
about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic.
She felt rather as if he almost boasted about
it.
"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember,"
he answered crossly. "They are always whispering
about it and thinking I don't notice. They
wish I would, too."
Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched
her lips together.
"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't.
Who wishes you would?"
"The servants—and of course Dr. Craven because
he would get Misselthwaite and be rich instead
of poor. He daren't say so, but he always
looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had
typhoid fever his face got quite fat. I think
my father wishes it, too."
"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite
obstinately.
That made Colin turn and look at her again.
"Don't you?" he said.
And then he lay back on his cushion and was
still, as if he were thinking. And there was
quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both
of them thinking strange things children do
not usually think. "I like the grand doctor
from London, because he made them take the
iron thing off," said Mary at last "Did he
say you were going to die?"
"No.".
"What did he say?"
"He didn't whisper," Colin answered. "Perhaps
he knew I hated whispering. I heard him say
one thing quite aloud. He said, 'The lad might
live if he would make up his mind to it. Put
him in the humor.' It sounded as if he was
in a temper."
"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor,
perhaps," said Mary reflecting. She felt as
if she would like this thing to be settled
one way or the other. "I believe Dickon would.
He's always talking about live things. He
never talks about dead things or things that
are ill. He's always looking up in the sky
to watch birds flying—or looking down at
the earth to see something growing. He has
such round blue eyes and they are so wide
open with looking about. And he laughs such
a big laugh with his wide mouth—and his
cheeks are as red—as red as cherries." She
pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her
expression quite changed at the remembrance
of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes.
"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about
dying; I don't like it. Let us talk about
living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon.
And then we will look at your pictures."
It was the best thing she could have said.
To talk about Dickon meant to talk about the
moor and about the cottage and the fourteen
people who lived in it on sixteen shillings
a week—and the children who got fat on the
moor grass like the wild ponies. And about
Dickon's mother—and the skipping-rope—and
the moor with the sun on it—and about pale
green points sticking up out of the black
sod. And it was all so alive that Mary talked
more than she had ever talked before—and
Colin both talked and listened as he had never
done either before. And they both began to
laugh over nothings as children will when
they are happy together. And they laughed
so that in the end they were making as much
noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy
natural ten-year-old creatures—instead of
a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly
boy who believed that he was going to die.
They enjoyed themselves so much that they
forgot the pictures and they forgot about
the time. They had been laughing quite loudly
over Ben Weatherstaff and his robin, and Colin
was actually sitting up as if he had forgotten
about his weak back, when he suddenly remembered
something. "Do you know there is one thing
we have never once thought of," he said. "We
are cousins."
It seemed so queer that they had talked so
much and never remembered this simple thing
that they laughed more than ever, because
they had got into the humor to laugh at anything.
And in the midst of the fun the door opened
and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock.
Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs.
Medlock almost fell back because he had accidentally
bumped against her.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with
her eyes almost starting out of her head.
"Good Lord!"
"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward.
"What does it mean?"
Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again.
Colin answered as if neither the doctor's
alarm nor Mrs. Medlock's terror were of the
slightest consequence. He was as little disturbed
or frightened as if an elderly cat and dog
had walked into the room.
"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said.
"I asked her to come and talk to me. I like
her. She must come and talk to me whenever
I send for her."
Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock.
"Oh, sir" she panted. "I don't know how it's
happened. There's not a servant on the place
tha'd dare to talk—they all have their orders."
"Nobody told her anything," said Colin. "She
heard me crying and found me herself. I am
glad she came. Don't be silly, Medlock."
Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased,
but it was quite plain that he dare not oppose
his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt
his pulse.
"I am afraid there has been too much excitement.
Excitement is not good for you, my boy," he
said.
"I should be excited if she kept away," answered
Colin, his eyes beginning to look dangerously
sparkling. "I am better. She makes me better.
The nurse must bring up her tea with mine.
We will have tea together."
Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each
other in a troubled way, but there was evidently
nothing to be done.
"He does look rather better, sir," ventured
Mrs. Medlock. "But"—thinking the matter
over—"he looked better this morning before
she came into the room."
"She came into the room last night. She stayed
with me a long time. She sang a Hindustani
song to me and it made me go to sleep," said
Colin. "I was better when I wakened up. I
wanted my breakfast. I want my tea now. Tell
nurse, Medlock."
Dr. Craven did not stay very long. He talked
to the nurse for a few minutes when she came
into the room and said a few words of warning
to Colin. He must not talk too much; he must
not forget that he was ill; he must not forget
that he was very easily tired. Mary thought
that there seemed to be a number of uncomfortable
things he was not to forget.
Colin looked fretful and kept his strange
black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr. Craven's face.
"I want to forget it," he said at last. "She
makes me forget it. That is why I want her."
Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left
the room. He gave a puzzled glance at the
little girl sitting on the large stool. She
had become a stiff, silent child again as
soon as he entered and he could not see what
the attraction was. The boy actually did look
brighter, however—and he sighed rather heavily
as he went down the corridor.
"They are always wanting me to eat things
when I don't want to," said Colin, as the
nurse brought in the tea and put it on the
table by the sofa. "Now, if you'll eat I will.
Those muffins look so nice and hot. Tell me
about Rajahs."
CHAPTER XV
NEST BUILDING
After another week of rain the high arch of
blue sky appeared again and the sun which
poured down was quite hot. Though there had
been no chance to see either the secret garden
or Dickon, Mistress Mary had enjoyed herself
very much. The week had not seemed long. She
had spent hours of every day with Colin in
his room, talking about Rajahs or gardens
or Dickon and the cottage on the moor. They
had looked at the splendid books and pictures
and sometimes Mary had read things to Colin,
and sometimes he had read a little to her.
When he was amused and interested she thought
he scarcely looked like an invalid at all,
except that his face was so colorless and
he was always on the sofa.
"You are a sly young one to listen and get
out of your bed to go following things up
like you did that night," Mrs. Medlock said
once. "But there's no saying it's not been
a sort of blessing to the lot of us. He's
not had a tantrum or a whining fit since you
made friends. The nurse was just going to
give up the case because she was so sick of
him, but she says she doesn't mind staying
now you've gone on duty with her," laughing
a little.
In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to
be very cautious about the secret garden.
There were certain things she wanted to find
out from him, but she felt that she must find
them out without asking him direct questions.
In the first place, as she began to like to
be with him, she wanted to discover whether
he was the kind of boy you could tell a secret
to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but
he was evidently so pleased with the idea
of a garden no one knew anything about that
she thought perhaps he could be trusted. But
she had not known him long enough to be sure.
The second thing she wanted to find out was
this: If he could be trusted—if he really
could—wouldn't it be possible to take him
to the garden without having any one find
it out? The grand doctor had said that he
must have fresh air and Colin had said that
he would not mind fresh air in a secret garden.
Perhaps if he had a great deal of fresh air
and knew Dickon and the robin and saw things
growing he might not think so much about dying.
Mary had seen herself in the glass sometimes
lately when she had realized that she looked
quite a different creature from the child
she had seen when she arrived from India.
This child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen
a change in her.
"Th' air from th' moor has done thee good
already," she had said. "Tha'rt not nigh so
yeller and tha'rt not nigh so scrawny. Even
tha' hair doesn't slamp down on tha' head
so flat. It's got some life in it so as it
sticks out a bit."
"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger
and fatter. I'm sure there's more of it."
"It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling
it up a little round her face. "Tha'rt not
half so ugly when it's that way an' there's
a bit o' red in tha' cheeks."
If gardens and fresh air had been good for
her perhaps they would be good for Colin.
But then, if he hated people to look at him,
perhaps he would not like to see Dickon.
"Why does it make you angry when you are looked
at?" she inquired one day.
"I always hated it," he answered, "even when
I was very little. Then when they took me
to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriage
everybody used to stare and ladies would stop
and talk to my nurse and then they would begin
to whisper and I knew then they were saying
I shouldn't live to grow up. Then sometimes
the ladies would pat my cheeks and say 'Poor
child!' Once when a lady did that I screamed
out loud and bit her hand. She was so frightened
she ran away."
"She thought you had gone mad like a dog,"
said Mary, not at all admiringly.
"I don't care what she thought," said Colin,
frowning.
"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me
when I came into your room?" said Mary. Then
she began to smile slowly.
"I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he
said. "You can't bite a ghost or a dream,
and if you scream they don't care."
"Would you hate it if—if a boy looked at
you?" Mary asked uncertainly.
He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.
"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as
if he were thinking over every word, "there's
one boy I believe I shouldn't mind. It's that
boy who knows where the foxes live—Dickon."
"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary.
"The birds don't and other animals," he said,
still thinking it over, "perhaps that's why
I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer
and I am a boy animal."
Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact
it ended in their both laughing a great deal
and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding
in his hole very funny indeed.
What Mary felt afterward was that she need
not fear about Dickon.
On that first morning when the sky was blue
again Mary wakened very early. The sun was
pouring in slanting rays through the blinds
and there was something so joyous in the sight
of it that she jumped out of bed and ran to
the window. She drew up the blinds and opened
the window itself and a great waft of fresh,
scented air blew in upon her. The moor was
blue and the whole world looked as if something
Magic had happened to it. There were tender
little fluting sounds here and there and everywhere,
as if scores of birds were beginning to tune
up for a concert. Mary put her hand out of
the window and held it in the sun.
"It's warm—warm!" she said. "It will make
the green points push up and up and up, and
it will make the bulbs and roots work and
struggle with all their might under the earth."
She kneeled down and leaned out of the window
as far as she could, breathing big breaths
and sniffing the air until she laughed because
she remembered what Dickon's mother had said
about the end of his nose quivering like a
rabbit's. "It must be very early," she said.
"The little clouds are all pink and I've never
seen the sky look like this. No one is up.
I don't even hear the stable boys."
A sudden thought made her scramble to her
feet.
"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!"
She had learned to dress herself by this time
and she put on her clothes in five minutes.
She knew a small side door which she could
unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in
her stocking feet and put on her shoes in
the hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked
and when the door was open she sprang across
the step with one bound, and there she was
standing on the grass, which seemed to have
turned green, and with the sun pouring down
on her and warm sweet wafts about her and
the fluting and twittering and singing coming
from every bush and tree. She clasped her
hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky
and it was so blue and pink and pearly and
white and flooded with springtime light that
she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud
herself and knew that thrushes and robins
and skylarks could not possibly help it. She
ran around the shrubs and paths towards the
secret garden.
"It is all different already," she said. "The
grass is greener and things are sticking up
everywhere and things are uncurling and green
buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon
I am sure Dickon will come."
The long warm rain had done strange things
to the herbaceous beds which bordered the
walk by the lower wall. There were things
sprouting and pushing out from the roots of
clumps of plants and there were actually here
and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow
unfurling among the stems of crocuses. Six
months before Mistress Mary would not have
seen how the world was waking up, but now
she missed nothing.
When she had reached the place where the door
hid itself under the ivy, she was startled
by a curious loud sound. It was the caw—caw
of a crow and it came from the top of the
wall, and when she looked up, there sat a
big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking
down at her very wisely indeed. She had never
seen a crow so close before and he made her
a little nervous, but the next moment he spread
his wings and flapped away across the garden.
She hoped he was not going to stay inside
and she pushed the door open wondering if
he would. When she got fairly into the garden
she saw that he probably did intend to stay
because he had alighted on a dwarf apple-tree
and under the apple-tree was lying a little
reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both
of them were watching the stooping body and
rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling
on the grass working hard.
Mary flew across the grass to him.
"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How
could you get here so early! How could you!
The sun has only just got up!"
He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and
tousled; his eyes like a bit of the sky.
"Eh!" he said. "I was up long before him.
How could I have stayed abed! Th' world's
all fair begun again this mornin', it has.
An' it's workin' an' hummin' an' scratchin'
an' pipin' an' nest-buildin' an' breathin'
out scents, till you've got to be out on it
'stead o' lyin' on your back. When th' sun
did jump up, th' moor went mad for joy, an'
I was in the midst of th' heather, an' I run
like mad myself, shoutin' an' singin'. An'
I come straight here. I couldn't have stayed
away. Why, th' garden was lyin' here waitin'!"
Mary put her hands on her chest, panting,
as if she had been running herself.
"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy
I can scarcely breathe!"
Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little
bushy-tailed animal rose from its place under
the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing
once, flew down from its branch and settled
quietly on his shoulder.
"This is th' little fox cub," he said, rubbing
the little reddish animal's head. "It's named
Captain. An' this here's Soot. Soot he flew
across th' moor with me an' Captain he run
same as if th' hounds had been after him.
They both felt same as I did."
Neither of the creatures looked as if he were
the least afraid of Mary. When Dickon began
to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder
and Captain trotted quietly close to his side.
"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has
pushed up, an' these an' these! An' Eh! Look
at these here!"
He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went
down beside him. They had come upon a whole
clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange
and gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed
and kissed them.
"You never kiss a person in that way," she
said when she lifted her head. "Flowers are
so different."
He looked puzzled but smiled.
"Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a
time that way when I come in from th' moor
after a day's roamin' an' she stood there
at th' door in th' sun, lookin' so glad an'
comfortable." They ran from one part of the
garden to another and found so many wonders
that they were obliged to remind themselves
that they must whisper or speak low. He showed
her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which
had seemed dead. He showed her ten thousand
new green points pushing through the mould.
They put their eager young noses close to
the earth and sniffed its warmed springtime
breathing; they dug and pulled and laughed
low with rapture until Mistress Mary's hair
was as tumbled as Dickon's and her cheeks
were almost as poppy red as his.
There was every joy on earth in the secret
garden that morning, and in the midst of them
came a delight more delightful than all, because
it was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew
across the wall and darted through the trees
to a close grown corner, a little flare of
red-breasted bird with something hanging from
its beak. Dickon stood quite still and put
his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly
found themselves laughing in a church.
"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire.
"We munnot scarce breathe. I knowed he was
mate-huntin' when I seed him last. It's Ben
Weatherstaff's robin. He's buildin' his nest.
He'll stay here if us don't fight him." They
settled down softly upon the grass and sat
there without moving.
"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him
too close," said Dickon. "He'd be out with
us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin'
now. He'll be a good bit different till all
this is over. He's settin' up housekeepin'.
He'll be shyer an' readier to take things
ill. He's got no time for visitin' an' gossipin'.
Us must keep still a bit an' try to look as
if us was grass an' trees an' bushes. Then
when he's got used to seein' us I'll chirp
a bit an' he'll know us'll not be in his way."
Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she
knew, as Dickon seemed to, how to try to look
like grass and trees and bushes. But he had
said the queer thing as if it were the simplest
and most natural thing in the world, and she
felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed
she watched him for a few minutes carefully,
wondering if it was possible for him to quietly
turn green and put out branches and leaves.
But he only sat wonderfully still, and when
he spoke dropped his voice to such a softness
that it was curious that she could hear him,
but she could.
"It's part o' th' springtime, this nest-buildin'
is," he said. "I warrant it's been goin' on
in th' same way every year since th' world
was begun. They've got their way o' thinkin'
and doin' things an' a body had better not
meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime
easier than any other season if you're too
curious."
"If we talk about him I can't help looking
at him," Mary said as softly as possible.
"We must talk of something else. There is
something I want to tell you."
"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin'
else," said Dickon. "What is it tha's got
to tell me?"
"Well—do you know about Colin?" she whispered.
He turned his head to look at her.
"What does tha' know about him?" he asked.
"I've seen him. I have been to talk to him
every day this week. He wants me to come.
He says I'm making him forget about being
ill and dying," answered Mary.
Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as
the surprise died away from his round face.
"I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right
down glad. It makes me easier. I knowed I
must say nothin' about him an' I don't like
havin' to hide things."
"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary.
"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But
I says to mother, 'Mother,' I says, 'I got
a secret to keep. It's not a bad 'un, tha'
knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where
a bird's nest is. Tha' doesn't mind it, does
tha'?'"
Mary always wanted to hear about mother.
"What did she say?" she asked, not at all
afraid to hear.
Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.
"It was just like her, what she said," he
answered. "She give my head a bit of a rub
an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can
have all th' secrets tha' likes. I've knowed
thee twelve year'.'"
"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary.
"Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed
there was a little lad as was like to be a
cripple, an' they knowed Mester Craven didn't
like him to be talked about. Folks is sorry
for Mester Craven because Mrs. Craven was
such a pretty young lady an' they was so fond
of each other. Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage
whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she doesn't
mind talkin' to mother before us children,
because she knows us has been brought up to
be trusty. How did tha' find out about him?
Martha was in fine trouble th' last time she
came home. She said tha'd heard him frettin'
an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't
know what to say."
Mary told him her story about the midnight
wuthering of the wind which had wakened her
and about the faint far-off sounds of the
complaining voice which had led her down the
dark corridors with her candle and had ended
with her opening of the door of the dimly
lighted room with the carven four-posted bed
in the corner. When she described the small
ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed
eyes Dickon shook his head.
"Them's just like his mother's eyes, only
hers was always laughin', they say," he said.
"They say as Mr. Craven can't bear to see
him when he's awake an' it's because his eyes
is so like his mother's an' yet looks so different
in his miserable bit of a face."
"Do you think he wants to die?" whispered
Mary.
"No, but he wishes he'd never been born. Mother
she says that's th' worst thing on earth for
a child. Them as is not wanted scarce ever
thrives. Mester Craven he'd buy anythin' as
money could buy for th' poor lad but he'd
like to forget as he's on earth. For one thing,
he's afraid he'll look at him some day and
find he's growed hunchback."
"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't
sit up," said Mary. "He says he's always thinking
that if he should feel a lump coming he should
go crazy and scream himself to death."
"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things
like that," said Dickon. "No lad could get
well as thought them sort o' things."
The fox was lying on the grass close by him,
looking up to ask for a pat now and then,
and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly
and thought a few minutes in silence. Presently
he lifted his head and looked round the garden.
"When first we got in here," he said, "it
seemed like everything was gray. Look round
now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference."
Mary looked and caught her breath a little.
"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing.
It is as if a green mist were creeping over
it. It's almost like a green gauze veil."
"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener
and greener till th' gray's all gone. Can
tha' guess what I was thinkin'?"
"I know it was something nice," said Mary
eagerly. "I believe it was something about
Colin."
"I was thinkin' that if he was out here he
wouldn't be watchin' for lumps to grow on
his back; he'd be watchin' for buds to break
on th' rose-bushes, an' he'd likely be healthier,"
explained Dickon. "I was wonderin' if us could
ever get him in th' humor to come out here
an' lie under th' trees in his carriage."
"I've been wondering that myself. I've thought
of it almost every time I've talked to him,"
said Mary. "I've wondered if he could keep
a secret and I've wondered if we could bring
him here without any one seeing us. I thought
perhaps you could push his carriage. The doctor
said he must have fresh air and if he wants
us to take him out no one dare disobey him.
He won't go out for other people and perhaps
they will be glad if he will go out with us.
He could order the gardeners to keep away
so they wouldn't find out."
Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched
Captain's back.
"It'd be good for him, I'll warrant," he said.
"Us'd not be thinkin' he'd better never been
born. Us'd be just two children watchin' a
garden grow, an' he'd be another. Two lads
an' a little lass just lookin' on at th' springtime.
I warrant it'd be better than doctor's stuff."
"He's been lying in his room so long and he's
always been so afraid of his back that it
has made him queer," said Mary. "He knows
a good many things out of books but he doesn't
know anything else. He says he has been too
ill to notice things and he hates going out
of doors and hates gardens and gardeners.
But he likes to hear about this garden because
it is a secret. I daren't tell him much but
he said he wanted to see it."
"Us'll have him out here sometime for sure,"
said Dickon. "I could push his carriage well
enough. Has tha' noticed how th' robin an'
his mate has been workin' while we've been
sittin' here? Look at him perched on that
branch wonderin' where it'd be best to put
that twig he's got in his beak."
He made one of his low whistling calls and
the robin turned his head and looked at him
inquiringly, still holding his twig. Dickon
spoke to him as Ben Weatherstaff did, but
Dickon's tone was one of friendly advice.
"Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll
be all right. Tha' knew how to build tha'
nest before tha' came out o' th' egg. Get
on with thee, lad. Tha'st got no time to lose."
"Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!" Mary
said, laughing delightedly. "Ben Weatherstaff
scolds him and makes fun of him, and he hops
about and looks as if he understood every
word, and I know he likes it. Ben Weatherstaff
says he is so conceited he would rather have
stones thrown at him than not be noticed."
Dickon laughed too and went on talking.
"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said
to the robin. "Us is near bein' wild things
ourselves. Us is nest-buildin' too, bless
thee. Look out tha' doesn't tell on us."
And though the robin did not answer, because
his beak was occupied, Mary knew that when
he flew away with his twig to his own corner
of the garden the darkness of his dew-bright
eye meant that he would not tell their secret
for the world.
CHAPTER XVI
"I WON'T!" SAID MARY
They found a great deal to do that morning
and Mary was late in returning to the house
and was also in such a hurry to get back to
her work that she quite forgot Colin until
the last moment.
"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him
yet," she said to Martha. "I'm very busy in
the garden."
Martha looked rather frightened.
"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him
all out of humor when I tell him that."
But Mary was not as afraid of him as other
people were and she was not a self-sacrificing
person.
"I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting
for me;" and she ran away.
The afternoon was even lovelier and busier
than the morning had been. Already nearly
all the weeds were cleared out of the garden
and most of the roses and trees had been pruned
or dug about. Dickon had brought a spade of
his own and he had taught Mary to use all
her tools, so that by this time it was plain
that though the lovely wild place was not
likely to become a "gardener's garden" it
would be a wilderness of growing things before
the springtime was over.
"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms
overhead," Dickon said, working away with
all his might. "An' there'll be peach an'
plum trees in bloom against th' walls, an'
th' grass'll be a carpet o' flowers."
The little fox and the rook were as happy
and busy as they were, and the robin and his
mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks
of lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his
black wings and soared away over the tree-tops
in the park. Each time he came back and perched
near Dickon and cawed several times as if
he were relating his adventures, and Dickon
talked to him just as he had talked to the
robin. Once when Dickon was so busy that he
did not answer him at first, Soot flew on
to his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear
with his large beak. When Mary wanted to rest
a little Dickon sat down with her under a
tree and once he took his pipe out of his
pocket and played the soft strange little
notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall
and looked and listened.
"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was,"
Dickon said, looking at her as she was digging.
"Tha's beginning to look different, for sure."
Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.
"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day,"
she said quite exultantly. "Mrs. Medlock will
have to get me some bigger dresses. Martha
says my hair is growing thicker. It isn't
so flat and stringy."
The sun was beginning to set and sending deep
gold-colored rays slanting under the trees
when they parted.
"It'll be fine tomorrow," said Dickon. "I'll
be at work by sunrise."
"So will I," said Mary.
She ran back to the house as quickly as her
feet would carry her. She wanted to tell Colin
about Dickon's fox cub and the rook and about
what the springtime had been doing. She felt
sure he would like to hear. So it was not
very pleasant when she opened the door of
her room, to see Martha standing waiting for
her with a doleful face.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did
Colin say when you told him I couldn't come?"
"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He
was nigh goin' into one o' his tantrums. There's
been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him
quiet. He would watch the clock all th' time."
Mary's lips pinched themselves together. She
was no more used to considering other people
than Colin was and she saw no reason why an
ill-tempered boy should interfere with the
thing she liked best. She knew nothing about
the pitifulness of people who had been ill
and nervous and who did not know that they
could control their tempers and need not make
other people ill and nervous, too. When she
had had a headache in India she had done her
best to see that everybody else also had a
headache or something quite as bad. And she
felt she was quite right; but of course now
she felt that Colin was quite wrong.
He was not on his sofa when she went into
his room. He was lying flat on his back in
bed and he did not turn his head toward her
as she came in. This was a bad beginning and
Mary marched up to him with her stiff manner.
"Why didn't you get up?" she said.
"I did get up this morning when I thought
you were coming," he answered, without looking
at her. "I made them put me back in bed this
afternoon. My back ached and my head ached
and I was tired. Why didn't you come?" "I
was working in the garden with Dickon," said
Mary.
Colin frowned and condescended to look at
her.
"I won't let that boy come here if you go
and stay with him instead of coming to talk
to me," he said.
Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly
into a passion without making a noise. She
just grew sour and obstinate and did not care
what happened.
"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come
into this room again!" she retorted.
"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin.
"I won't!" said Mary.
"I'll make you," said Colin. "They shall drag
you in."
"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely.
"They may drag me in but they can't make me
talk when they get me here. I'll sit and clench
my teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't
even look at you. I'll stare at the floor!"
They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared
at each other. If they had been two little
street boys they would have sprung at each
other and had a rough-and-tumble fight. As
it was, they did the next thing to it.
"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin.
"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people
always say that. Any one is selfish who doesn't
do what they want. You're more selfish than
I am. You're the most selfish boy I ever saw."
"I'm not!" snapped Colin. "I'm not as selfish
as your fine Dickon is! He keeps you playing
in the dirt when he knows I am all by myself.
He's selfish, if you like!"
Mary's eyes flashed fire.
"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!"
she said. "He's—he's like an angel!" It
might sound rather silly to say that but she
did not care.
"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously.
"He's a common cottage boy off the moor!"
"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted
Mary. "He's a thousand times better!"
Because she was the stronger of the two she
was beginning to get the better of him. The
truth was that he had never had a fight with
any one like himself in his life and, upon
the whole, it was rather good for him, though
neither he nor Mary knew anything about that.
He turned his head on his pillow and shut
his eyes and a big tear was squeezed out and
ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel
pathetic and sorry for himself—not for any
one else.
"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always
ill, and I'm sure there is a lump coming on
my back," he said. "And I am going to die
besides."
"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically.
He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation.
He had never heard such a thing said before.
He was at once furious and slightly pleased,
if a person could be both at one time.
"I'm not?" he cried. "I am! You know I am!
Everybody says so."
"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly. "You
just say that to make people sorry. I believe
you're proud of it. I don't believe it! If
you were a nice boy it might be true—but
you're too nasty!"
In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up
in bed in quite a healthy rage.
"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught
hold of his pillow and threw it at her. He
was not strong enough to throw it far and
it only fell at her feet, but Mary's face
looked as pinched as a nutcracker.
"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!"
She walked to the door and when she reached
it she turned round and spoke again.
"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice
things," she said. "Dickon brought his fox
and his rook and I was going to tell you all
about them. Now I won't tell you a single
thing!"
She marched out of the door and closed it
behind her, and there to her great astonishment
she found the trained nurse standing as if
she had been listening and, more amazing still—she
was laughing. She was a big handsome young
woman who ought not to have been a trained
nurse at all, as she could not bear invalids
and she was always making excuses to leave
Colin to Martha or any one else who would
take her place. Mary had never liked her,
and she simply stood and gazed up at her as
she stood giggling into her handkerchief..
"What are you laughing at?" she asked her.
"At you two young ones," said the nurse. "It's
the best thing that could happen to the sickly
pampered thing to have some one to stand up
to him that's as spoiled as himself;" and
she laughed into her handkerchief again. "If
he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight
with it would have been the saving of him."
"Is he going to die?"
"I don't know and I don't care," said the
nurse. "Hysterics and temper are half what
ails him."
"What are hysterics?" asked Mary.
"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum
after this—but at any rate you've given
him something to have hysterics about, and
I'm glad of it."
Mary went back to her room not feeling at
all as she had felt when she had come in from
the garden. She was cross and disappointed
but not at all sorry for Colin. She had looked
forward to telling him a great many things
and she had meant to try to make up her mind
whether it would be safe to trust him with
the great secret. She had been beginning to
think it would be, but now she had changed
her mind entirely. She would never tell him
and he could stay in his room and never get
any fresh air and die if he liked! It would
serve him right! She felt so sour and unrelenting
that for a few minutes she almost forgot about
Dickon and the green veil creeping over the
world and the soft wind blowing down from
the moor.
Martha was waiting for her and the trouble
in her face had been temporarily replaced
by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden
box on the table and its cover had been removed
and revealed that it was full of neat packages.
"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha.
"It looks as if it had picture-books in it."
Mary remembered what he had asked her the
day she had gone to his room. "Do you want
anything—dolls—toys—books?" She opened
the package wondering if he had sent a doll,
and also wondering what she should do with
it if he had. But he had not sent one. There
were several beautiful books such as Colin
had, and two of them were about gardens and
were full of pictures. There were two or three
games and there was a beautiful little writing-case
with a gold monogram on it and a gold pen
and inkstand.
Everything was so nice that her pleasure began
to crowd her anger out of her mind. She had
not expected him to remember her at all and
her hard little heart grew quite warm.
"I can write better than I can print," she
said, "and the first thing I shall write with
that pen will be a letter to tell him I am
much obliged."
If she had been friends with Colin she would
have run to show him her presents at once,
and they would have looked at the pictures
and read some of the gardening books and perhaps
tried playing the games, and he would have
enjoyed himself so much he would never once
have thought he was going to die or have put
his hand on his spine to see if there was
a lump coming. He had a way of doing that
which she could not bear. It gave her an uncomfortable
frightened feeling because he always looked
so frightened himself. He said that if he
felt even quite a little lump some day he
should know his hunch had begun to grow. Something
he had heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the
nurse had given him the idea and he had thought
over it in secret until it was quite firmly
fixed in his mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his
father's back had begun to show its crookedness
in that way when he was a child. He had never
told any one but Mary that most of his "tantrums"
as they called them grew out of his hysterical
hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when
he had told her.
"He always began to think about it when he
was cross or tired," she said to herself.
"And he has been cross today. Perhaps—perhaps
he has been thinking about it all afternoon."
She stood still, looking down at the carpet
and thinking.
"I said I would never go back again—" she
hesitated, knitting her brows—"but perhaps,
just perhaps, I will go and see—if he wants
me—in the morning. Perhaps he'll try to
throw his pillow at me again, but—I think—I'll
go."
CHAPTER XVII
A TANTRUM
She had got up very early in the morning and
had worked hard in the garden and she was
tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had
brought her supper and she had eaten it, she
was glad to go to bed. As she laid her head
on the pillow she murmured to herself:
"I'll go out before breakfast and work with
Dickon and then afterward—I believe—I'll
go to see him."
She thought it was the middle of the night
when she was awakened by such dreadful sounds
that she jumped out of bed in an instant.
What was it—what was it? The next minute
she felt quite sure she knew. Doors were opened
and shut and there were hurrying feet in the
corridors and some one was crying and screaming
at the same time, screaming and crying in
a horrible way.
"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of
those tantrums the nurse called hysterics.
How awful it sounds."
As she listened to the sobbing screams she
did not wonder that people were so frightened
that they gave him his own way in everything
rather than hear them. She put her hands over
her ears and felt sick and shivering.
"I don't know what to do. I don't know what
to do," she kept saying. "I can't bear it."
Once she wondered if he would stop if she
dared go to him and then she remembered how
he had driven her out of the room and thought
that perhaps the sight of her might make him
worse. Even when she pressed her hands more
tightly over her ears she could not keep the
awful sounds out. She hated them so and was
so terrified by them that suddenly they began
to make her angry and she felt as if she should
like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten
him as he was frightening her. She was not
used to any one's tempers but her own. She
took her hands from her ears and sprang up
and stamped her foot.
"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to
make him stop! Somebody ought to beat him!"
she cried out.
Just then she heard feet almost running down
the corridor and her door opened and the nurse
came in. She was not laughing now by any means.
She even looked rather pale.
"He's worked himself into hysterics," she
said in a great hurry. "He'll do himself harm.
No one can do anything with him. You come
and try, like a good child. He likes you."
"He turned me out of the room this morning,"
said Mary, stamping her foot with excitement.
The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth
was that she had been afraid she might find
Mary crying and hiding her head under the
bed-clothes.
"That's right," she said. "You're in the right
humor. You go and scold him. Give him something
new to think of. Do go, child, as quick as
ever you can."
It was not until afterward that Mary realized
that the thing had been funny as well as dreadful—that
it was funny that all the grown-up people
were so frightened that they came to a little
girl just because they guessed she was almost
as bad as Colin himself.
She flew along the corridor and the nearer
she got to the screams the higher her temper
mounted. She felt quite wicked by the time
she reached the door. She slapped it open
with her hand and ran across the room to the
four-posted bed.
"You stop!" she almost shouted. "You stop!
I hate you! Everybody hates you! I wish everybody
would run out of the house and let you scream
yourself to death! You will scream yourself
to death in a minute, and I wish you would!"
A nice sympathetic child could neither have
thought nor said such things, but it just
happened that the shock of hearing them was
the best possible thing for this hysterical
boy whom no one had ever dared to restrain
or contradict.
He had been lying on his face beating his
pillow with his hands and he actually almost
jumped around, he turned so quickly at the
sound of the furious little voice. His face
looked dreadful, white and red and swollen,
and he was gasping and choking; but savage
little Mary did not care an atom.
"If you scream another scream," she said,
"I'll scream too—and I can scream louder
than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten
you!"
He actually had stopped screaming because
she had startled him so. The scream which
had been coming almost choked him. The tears
were streaming down his face and he shook
all over.
"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't—I
can't!"
"You can!" shouted Mary. "Half that ails you
is hysterics and temper—just hysterics—hysterics—hysterics!"
and she stamped each time she said it.
"I felt the lump—I felt it," choked out
Colin. "I knew I should. I shall have a hunch
on my back and then I shall die," and he began
to writhe again and turned on his face and
sobbed and wailed but he didn't scream.
"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary
fiercely. "If you did it was only a hysterical
lump. Hysterics makes lumps. There's nothing
the matter with your horrid back—nothing
but hysterics! Turn over and let me look at
it!"
She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow
as if it had an effect on him. He was probably
like herself and had never heard it before.
"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show
me his back this minute!"
The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been
standing huddled together near the door staring
at her, their mouths half open. All three
had gasped with fright more than once. The
nurse came forward as if she were half afraid.
Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs.
"Perhaps he—he won't let me," she hesitated
in a low voice.
Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out
between two sobs:
"Sh-show her! She-she'll see then!"
It was a poor thin back to look at when it
was bared. Every rib could be counted and
every joint of the spine, though Mistress
Mary did not count them as she bent over and
examined them with a solemn savage little
face. She looked so sour and old-fashioned
that the nurse turned her head aside to hide
the twitching of her mouth. There was just
a minute's silence, for even Colin tried to
hold his breath while Mary looked up and down
his spine, and down and up, as intently as
if she had been the great doctor from London.
"There's not a single lump there!" she said
at last. "There's not a lump as big as a pin—except
backbone lumps, and you can only feel them
because you're thin. I've got backbone lumps
myself, and they used to stick out as much
as yours do, until I began to get fatter,
and I am not fat enough yet to hide them.
There's not a lump as big as a pin! If you
ever say there is again, I shall laugh!"
No one but Colin himself knew what effect
those crossly spoken childish words had on
him. If he had ever had any one to talk to
about his secret terrors—if he had ever
dared to let himself ask questions—if he
had had childish companions and had not lain
on his back in the huge closed house, breathing
an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people
who were most of them ignorant and tired of
him, he would have found out that most of
his fright and illness was created by himself.
But he had lain and thought of himself and
his aches and weariness for hours and days
and months and years. And now that an angry
unsympathetic little girl insisted obstinately
that he was not as ill as he thought he was
he actually felt as if she might be speaking
the truth.
"I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that
he thought he had a lump on his spine. His
back is weak because he won't try to sit up.
I could have told him there was no lump there."
Colin gulped and turned his face a little
to look at her.
"C-could you?" he said pathetically.
"Yes, sir."
"There!" said Mary, and she gulped too.
Colin turned on his face again and but for
his long-drawn broken breaths, which were
the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he
lay still for a minute, though great tears
streamed down his face and wet the pillow.
Actually the tears meant that a curious great
relief had come to him. Presently he turned
and looked at the nurse again and strangely
enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he
spoke to her.
"Do you think—I could—live to grow up?"
he said.
The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted
but she could repeat some of the London doctor's
words.
"You probably will if you will do what you
are told to do and not give way to your temper,
and stay out a great deal in the fresh air."
Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak
and worn out with crying and this perhaps
made him feel gentle. He put out his hand
a little toward Mary, and I am glad to say
that, her own tantum having passed, she was
softened too and met him half-way with her
hand, so that it was a sort of making up.
"I'll—I'll go out with you, Mary," he said.
"I shan't hate fresh air if we can find—"
He remembered just in time to stop himself
from saying "if we can find the secret garden"
and he ended, "I shall like to go out with
you if Dickon will come and push my chair.
I do so want to see Dickon and the fox and
the crow."
The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook
and straightened the pillows. Then she made
Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to
Mary, who really was very glad to get it after
her excitement. Mrs. Medlock and Martha gladly
slipped away, and after everything was neat
and calm and in order the nurse looked as
if she would very gladly slip away also. She
was a healthy young woman who resented being
robbed of her sleep and she yawned quite openly
as she looked at Mary, who had pushed her
big footstool close to the four-posted bed
and was holding Colin's hand.
"You must go back and get your sleep out,"
she said. "He'll drop off after a while—if
he's not too upset. Then I'll lie down myself
in the next room."
"Would you like me to sing you that song I
learned from my Ayah?" Mary whispered to Colin.
His hand pulled hers gently and he turned
his tired eyes on her appealingly.
"Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft
song. I shall go to sleep in a minute."
"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the
yawning nurse. "You can go if you like."
"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at
reluctance. "If he doesn't go to sleep in
half an hour you must call me."
"Very well," answered Mary.
The nurse was out of the room in a minute
and as soon as she was gone Colin pulled Mary's
hand again.
"I almost told," he said; "but I stopped myself
in time. I won't talk and I'll go to sleep,
but you said you had a whole lot of nice things
to tell me. Have you—do you think you have
found out anything at all about the way into
the secret garden?"
Mary looked at his poor little tired face
and swollen eyes and her heart relented.
"Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have. And
if you will go to sleep I will tell you tomorrow."
His hand quite trembled.
"Oh, Mary!" he said. "Oh, Mary! If I could
get into it I think I should live to grow
up! Do you suppose that instead of singing
the Ayah song—you could just tell me softly
as you did that first day what you imagine
it looks like inside? I am sure it will make
me go to sleep."
"Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes."
He closed his eyes and lay quite still and
she held his hand and began to speak very
slowly and in a very low voice.
"I think it has been left alone so long—that
it has grown all into a lovely tangle. I think
the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed
until they hang from the branches and walls
and creep over the ground—almost like a
strange gray mist. Some of them have died
but many—are alive and when the summer comes
there will be curtains and fountains of roses.
I think the ground is full of daffodils and
snowdrops and lilies and iris working their
way out of the dark. Now the spring has begun—perhaps—perhaps—"
The soft drone of her voice was making him
stiller and stiller and she saw it and went
on.
"Perhaps they are coming up through the grass—perhaps
there are clusters of purple crocuses and
gold ones—even now. Perhaps the leaves are
beginning to break out and uncurl—and perhaps—the
gray is changing and a green gauze veil is
creeping—and creeping over—everything.
And the birds are coming to look at it—because
it is—so safe and still. And perhaps—perhaps—perhaps—"
very softly and slowly indeed, "the robin
has found a mate—and is building a nest."
And Colin was asleep.
CHAPTER XVIII
"THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME"
Of course Mary did not waken early the next
morning. She slept late because she was tired,
and when Martha brought her breakfast she
told her that though. Colin was quite quiet
he was ill and feverish as he always was after
he had worn himself out with a fit of crying.
Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened.
"He says he wishes tha' would please go and
see him as soon as tha' can," Martha said.
"It's queer what a fancy he's took to thee.
Tha' did give it him last night for sure—didn't
tha? Nobody else would have dared to do it.
Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt
won't save him. Mother says as th' two worst
things as can happen to a child is never to
have his own way—or always to have it. She
doesn't know which is th' worst. Tha' was
in a fine temper tha'self, too. But he says
to me when I went into his room, 'Please ask
Miss Mary if she'll please come an' talk to
me?' Think o' him saying please! Will you
go, Miss?" "I'll run and see Dickon first,"
said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin first
and tell him—I know what I'll tell him,"
with a sudden inspiration.
She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's
room and for a second he looked disappointed.
He was in bed. His face was pitifully white
and there were dark circles round his eyes.
"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches
and I ache all over because I'm so tired.
Are you going somewhere?"
Mary went and leaned against his bed.
"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to
Dickon, but I'll come back. Colin, it's—it's
something about the garden."
His whole face brightened and a little color
came into it.
"Oh! is it?" he cried out. "I dreamed about
it all night I heard you say something about
gray changing into green, and I dreamed I
was standing in a place all filled with trembling
little green leaves—and there were birds
on nests everywhere and they looked so soft
and still. I'll lie and think about it until
you come back."
In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their
garden. The fox and the crow were with him
again and this time he had brought two tame
squirrels. "I came over on the pony this mornin',"
he said. "Eh! he is a good little chap—Jump
is! I brought these two in my pockets. This
here one he's called Nut an' this here other
one's called Shell."
When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on
to his right shoulder and when he said "Shell"
the other one leaped on to his left shoulder.
When they sat down on the grass with Captain
curled at their feet, Soot solemnly listening
on a tree and Nut and Shell nosing about close
to them, it seemed to Mary that it would be
scarcely bearable to leave such delightfulness,
but when she began to tell her story somehow
the look in Dickon's funny face gradually
changed her mind. She could see he felt sorrier
for Colin than she did. He looked up at the
sky and all about him.
"Just listen to them birds—th' world seems
full of 'em—all whistlin' an' pipin'," he
said. "Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken
at 'em callin' to each other. Come springtime
seems like as if all th' world's callin'.
The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see 'em—an',
my word, th' nice smells there is about!"
sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. "An'
that poor lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so
little that he gets to thinkin' o' things
as sets him screamin'. Eh! my! we mun get
him out here—we mun get him watchin' an
listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an' get
him just soaked through wi' sunshine. An'
we munnot lose no time about it."
When he was very much interested he often
spoke quite broad Yorkshire though at other
times he tried to modify his dialect so that
Mary could better understand. But she loved
his broad Yorkshire and had in fact been trying
to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke
a little now.
"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant
"Yes, indeed, we must"). "I'll tell thee what
us'll do first," she proceeded, and Dickon
grinned, because when the little wench tried
to twist her tongue into speaking Yorkshire
it amused him very much. "He's took a graidely
fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he
wants to see Soot an' Captain. When I go back
to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if
tha' canna' come an' see him tomorrow mornin'—an'.
bring tha' creatures wi' thee—an' then—in
a bit, when there's more leaves out, an' happen
a bud or two, we'll get him to come out an'
tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll
bring him here an' show him everything."
When she stopped she was quite proud of herself.
She had never made a long speech in Yorkshire
before and she had remembered very well.
"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that
to Mester Colin," Dickon chuckled. "Tha'll
make him laugh an' there's nowt as good for
ill folk as laughin' is. Mother says she believes
as half a hour's good laugh every mornin'
'ud cure a chap as was makin' ready for typhus
fever."
"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very
day," said Mary, chuckling herself.
The garden had reached the time when every
day and every night it seemed as if Magicians
were passing through it drawing loveliness
out of the earth and the boughs with wands.
It was hard to go away and leave it all, particularly
as Nut had actually crept on to her dress
and Shell had scrambled down the trunk of
the apple-tree they sat under and stayed there
looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she
went back to the house and when she sat down
close to Colin's bed he began to sniff as
Dickon did though not in such an experienced
way.
"You smell like flowers and—and fresh things,"
he cried out quite joyously. "What is it you
smell of? It's cool and warm and sweet all
at the same time."
"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary.
"It comes o' sittin' on th' grass under a
tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an' Soot an'
Nut an' Shell. It's th' springtime an' out
o' doors an' sunshine as smells so graidely."
She said it as broadly as she could, and you
do not know how broadly Yorkshire sounds until
you have heard some one speak it. Colin began
to laugh.
"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard
you talk like that before. How funny it sounds."
"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered
Mary triumphantly. "I canna' talk as graidely
as Dickon an' Martha can but tha' sees I can
shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit
o' Yorkshire when tha' hears it? An' tha'
a Yorkshire lad thysel' bred an' born! Eh!
I wonder tha'rt not ashamed o' thy face."
And then she began to laugh too and they both
laughed until they could not stop themselves
and they laughed until the room echoed and
Mrs. Medlock opening the door to come in drew
back into the corridor and stood listening
amazed.
"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather
broad Yorkshire herself because there was
no one to hear her and she was so astonished.
"Whoever heard th' like! Whoever on earth
would ha' thought it!"
There was so much to talk about. It seemed
as if Colin could never hear enough of Dickon
and Captain and Soot and Nut and Shell and
the pony whose name was Jump. Mary had run
round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump.
He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with
thick locks hanging over his eyes and with
a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose.
He was rather thin with living on moor grass
but he was as tough and wiry as if the muscle
in his little legs had been made of steel
springs. He had lifted his head and whinnied
softly the moment he saw Dickon and he had
trotted up to him and put his head across
his shoulder and then Dickon had talked into
his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little
whinnies and puffs and snorts. Dickon had
made him give Mary his small front hoof and
kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle.
"Does he really understand everything Dickon
says?" Colin asked.
"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon
says anything will understand if you're friends
with it for sure, but you have to be friends
for sure."
Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange
gray eyes seemed to be staring at the wall,
but Mary saw he was thinking.
"I wish I was friends with things," he said
at last, "but I'm not. I never had anything
to be friends with, and I can't bear people."
"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary.
"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's funny but
I even like you."
"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said
Mary. "He said he'd warrant we'd both got
the same nasty tempers. I think you are like
him too. We are all three alike—you and
I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we were neither
of us much to look at and we were as sour
as we looked. But I don't feel as sour as
I used to before I knew the robin and Dickon."
"Did you feel as if you hated people?"
"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation.
"I should have detested you if I had seen
you before I saw the robin and Dickon."
Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.
"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what
I did about sending Dickon away. I hated you
when you said he was like an angel and I laughed
at you but—but perhaps he is."
"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she
admitted frankly, "because his nose does turn
up and he has a big mouth and his clothes
have patches all over them and he talks broad
Yorkshire, but—but if an angel did come
to Yorkshire and live on the moor—if there
was a Yorkshire angel—I believe he'd understand
the green things and know how to make them
grow and he would know how to talk to the
wild creatures as Dickon does and they'd know
he was friends for sure."
"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said
Colin; "I want to see him."
"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because—because—"
Quite suddenly it came into her mind that
this was the minute to tell him. Colin knew
something new was coming.
"Because what?" he cried eagerly.
Mary was so anxious that she got up from her
stool and came to him and caught hold of both
his hands.
"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because
birds trusted him. Can I trust you—for sure—for
sure?" she implored.
Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered
his answer.
"Yes—yes!"
"Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow
morning, and he'll bring his creatures with
him."
"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight.
"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost
pale with solemn excitement. "The rest is
better. There is a door into the garden. I
found it. It is under the ivy on the wall."
If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin
would probably have shouted "Hooray! Hooray!
Hooray!" but he was weak and rather hysterical;
his eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped
for breath.
"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob.
"Shall I see it? Shall I get into it? Shall
I live to get into it?" and he clutched her
hands and dragged her toward him.
"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly.
"Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't
be silly!"
And she was so un-hysterical and natural and
childish that she brought him to his senses
and he began to laugh at himself and a few
minutes afterward she was sitting on her stool
again telling him not what she imagined the
secret garden to be like but what it really
was, and Colin's aches and tiredness were
forgotten and he was listening enraptured.
"It is just what you thought it would be,"
he said at last. "It sounds just as if you
had really seen it. You know I said that when
you told me first."
Mary hesitated about two minutes and then
boldly spoke the truth.
"I had seen it—and I had been in," she said.
"I found the key and got in weeks ago. But
I daren't tell you—I daren't because I was
so afraid I couldn't trust you—for sure!"
CHAPTER XIX
"IT HAS COME!"
Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the
morning after Colin had had his tantrum. He
was always sent for at once when such a thing
occurred and he always found, when he arrived,
a white shaken boy lying on his bed, sulky
and still so hysterical that he was ready
to break into fresh sobbing at the least word.
In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the
difficulties of these visits. On this occasion
he was away from Misselthwaite Manor until
afternoon.
"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather
irritably when he arrived. "He will break
a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day.
The boy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence."
"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll
scarcely believe your eyes when you see him.
That plain sour-faced child that's almost
as bad as himself has just bewitched him.
How she's done it there's no telling. The
Lord knows she's nothing to look at and you
scarcely ever hear her speak, but she did
what none of us dare do. She just flew at
him like a little cat last night, and stamped
her feet and ordered him to stop screaming,
and somehow she startled him so that he actually
did stop, and this afternoon—well just come
up and see, sir. It's past crediting."
The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he
entered his patient's room was indeed rather
astonishing to him. As Mrs. Medlock opened
the door he heard laughing and chattering.
Colin was on his sofa in his dressing-gown
and he was sitting up quite straight looking
at a picture in one of the garden books and
talking to the plain child who at that moment
could scarcely be called plain at all because
her face was so glowing with enjoyment.
"Those long spires of blue ones—we'll have
a lot of those," Colin was announcing. "They're
called Del-phin-iums."
"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and
grand," cried Mistress Mary. "There are clumps
there already."
Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary
became quite still and Colin looked fretful.
"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night,
my boy," Dr. Craven said a trifle nervously.
He was rather a nervous man.
"I'm better now—much better," Colin answered,
rather like a Rajah. "I'm going out in my
chair in a day or two if it is fine. I want
some fresh air."
Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse
and looked at him curiously.
"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and
you must be very careful not to tire yourself."
"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young
Rajah.
As there had been occasions when this same
young gentleman had shrieked aloud with rage
and had insisted that fresh air would give
him cold and kill him, it is not to be wondered
at that his doctor felt somewhat startled.
"I thought you did not like fresh air," he
said.
"I don't when I am by myself," replied the
Rajah; "but my cousin is going out with me."
"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr.
Craven.
"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently
that Mary could not help remembering how the
young native Prince had looked with his diamonds
and emeralds and pearls stuck all over him
and the great rubies on the small dark hand
he had waved to command his servants to approach
with salaams and receive his orders.
"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I
am always better when she is with me. She
made me better last night. A very strong boy
I know will push my carriage."
Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome
hysterical boy should chance to get well he
himself would lose all chance of inheriting
Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous
man, though he was a weak one, and he did
not intend to let him run into actual danger.
"He must be a strong boy and a steady boy,"
he said. "And I must know something about
him. Who is he? What is his name?"
"It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She
felt somehow that everybody who knew the moor
must know Dickon. And she was right, too.
She saw that in a moment Dr. Craven's serious
face relaxed into a relieved smile.
"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you
will be safe enough. He's as strong as a moor
pony, is Dickon."
"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest
lad i' Yorkshire." She had been talking Yorkshire
to Colin and she forgot herself.
"Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven,
laughing outright.
"I'm learning it as if it was French," said
Mary rather coldly. "It's like a native dialect
in India. Very clever people try to learn
them. I like it and so does Colin." "Well,
well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps
it won't do you any harm. Did you take your
bromide last night, Colin?"
"No," Colin answered. "I wouldn't take it
at first and after Mary made me quiet she
talked me to sleep—in a low voice—about
the spring creeping into a garden."
"That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more
perplexed than ever and glancing sideways
at Mistress Mary sitting on her stool and
looking down silently at the carpet. "You
are evidently better, but you must remember—"
"I don't want to remember," interrupted the
Rajah, appearing again. "When I lie by myself
and remember I begin to have pains everywhere
and I think of things that make me begin to
scream because I hate them so. If there was
a doctor anywhere who could make you forget
you were ill instead of remembering it I would
have him brought here." And he waved a thin
hand which ought really to have been covered
with royal signet rings made of rubies. "It
is because my cousin makes me forget that
she makes me better."
Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay
after a "tantrum"; usually he was obliged
to remain a very long time and do a great
many things. This afternoon he did not give
any medicine or leave any new orders and he
was spared any disagreeable scenes. When he
went downstairs he looked very thoughtful
and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock in the
library she felt that he was a much puzzled
man.
"Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have
believed it?"
"It is certainly a new state of affairs,"
said the doctor. "And there's no denying it
is better than the old one."
"I believe Susan Sowerby's right—I do that,"
said Mrs. Medlock. "I stopped in her cottage
on my way to Thwaite yesterday and had a bit
of talk with her. And she says to me, 'Well,
Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a good child, an'
she mayn't be a pretty one, but she's a child,
an' children needs children.' We went to school
together, Susan Sowerby and me."
"She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr.
Craven. "When I find her in a cottage I know
the chances are that I shall save my patient."
Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan
Sowerby.
"She's got a way with her, has Susan," she
went on quite volubly. "I've been thinking
all morning of one thing she said yesterday.
She says, 'Once when I was givin' th' children
a bit of a preach after they'd been fightin'
I ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my
jography told as th' world was shaped like
a orange an' I found out before I was ten
that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody.
No one owns more than his bit of a quarter
an' there's times it seems like there's not
enow quarters to go round. But don't you—none
o' you—think as you own th' whole orange
or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you
won't find it out without hard knocks." 'What
children learns from children,' she says,
'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th'
whole orange—peel an' all. If you do you'll
likely not get even th' pips, an' them's too
bitter to eat.'"
"She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting
on his coat.
"Well, she's got a way of saying things,"
ended Mrs. Medlock, much pleased. "Sometimes
I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan, if you was a
different woman an' didn't talk such broad
Yorkshire I've seen the times when I should
have said you was clever.'"
That night Colin slept without once awakening
and when he opened his eyes in the morning
he lay still and smiled without knowing it—smiled
because he felt so curiously comfortable.
It was actually nice to be awake, and he turned
over and stretched his limbs luxuriously.
He felt as if tight strings which had held
him had loosened themselves and let him go.
He did not know that Dr. Craven would have
said that his nerves had relaxed and rested
themselves. Instead of lying and staring at
the wall and wishing he had not awakened,
his mind was full of the plans he and Mary
had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden
and of Dickon and his wild creatures. It was
so nice to have things to think about. And
he had not been awake more than ten minutes
when he heard feet running along the corridor
and Mary was at the door. The next minute
she was in the room and had run across to
his bed, bringing with her a waft of fresh
air full of the scent of the morning.
"You've been out! You've been out! There's
that nice smell of leaves!" he cried.
She had been running and her hair was loose
and blown and she was bright with the air
and pink-cheeked, though he could not see
it.
"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless
with her speed. "You never saw anything so
beautiful! It has come! I thought it had come
that other morning, but it was only coming.
It is here now! It has come, the Spring! Dickon
says so!"
"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really
knew nothing about it he felt his heart beat.
He actually sat up in bed.
"Open the window!" he added, laughing half
with joyful excitement and half at his own
fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!"
And though he laughed, Mary was at the window
in a moment and in a moment more it was opened
wide and freshness and softness and scents
and birds' songs were pouring through.
"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your
back and draw in long breaths of it. That's
what Dickon does when he's lying on the moor.
He says he feels it in his veins and it makes
him strong and he feels as if he could live
forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it."
She was only repeating what Dickon had told
her, but she caught Colin's fancy.
"'Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel
like that?" he said, and he did as she told
him, drawing in long deep breaths over and
over again until he felt that something quite
new and delightful was happening to him.
Mary was at his bedside again.
"Things are crowding up out of the earth,"
she ran on in a hurry. "And there are flowers
uncurling and buds on everything and the green
veil has covered nearly all the gray and the
birds are in such a hurry about their nests
for fear they may be too late that some of
them are even fighting for places in the secret
garden. And the rose-bushes look as wick as
wick can be, and there are primroses in the
lanes and woods, and the seeds we planted
are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and
the crow and the squirrels and a new-born
lamb."
And then she paused for breath. The new-born
lamb Dickon had found three days before lying
by its dead mother among the gorse bushes
on the moor. It was not the first motherless
lamb he had found and he knew what to do with
it. He had taken it to the cottage wrapped
in his jacket and he had let it lie near the
fire and had fed it with warm milk. It was
a soft thing with a darling silly baby face
and legs rather long for its body. Dickon
had carried it over the moor in his arms and
its feeding bottle was in his pocket with
a squirrel, and when Mary had sat under a
tree with its limp warmness huddled on her
lap she had felt as if she were too full of
strange joy to speak. A lamb—a lamb! A living
lamb who lay on your lap like a baby!
She was describing it with great joy and Colin
was listening and drawing in long breaths
of air when the nurse entered. She started
a little at the sight of the open window.
She had sat stifling in the room many a warm
day because her patient was sure that open
windows gave people cold.
"Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?"
she inquired.
"No," was the answer. "I am breathing long
breaths of fresh air. It makes you strong.
I am going to get up to the sofa for breakfast.
My cousin will have breakfast with me."
The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to
give the order for two breakfasts. She found
the servants' hall a more amusing place than
the invalid's chamber and just now everybody
wanted to hear the news from upstairs. There
was a great deal of joking about the unpopular
young recluse who, as the cook said, "had
found his master, and good for him." The servants'
hall had been very tired of the tantrums,
and the butler, who was a man with a family,
had more than once expressed his opinion that
the invalid would be all the better "for a
good hiding."
When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast
for two was put upon the table he made an
announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like
manner.
"A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels,
and a new-born lamb, are coming to see me
this morning. I want them brought upstairs
as soon as they come," he said. "You are not
to begin playing with the animals in the servants'
hall and keep them there. I want them here."
The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to
conceal it with a cough.
"Yes, sir," she answered.
"I'll tell you what you can do," added Colin,
waving his hand. "You can tell Martha to bring
them here. The boy is Martha's brother. His
name is Dickon and he is an animal charmer."
"I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin,"
said the nurse.
"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin
austerely. "Charmers' animals never bite."
"There are snake-charmers in India," said
Mary. "And they can put their snakes' heads
in their mouths."
"Goodness!" shuddered the nurse.
They ate their breakfast with the morning
air pouring in upon them. Colin's breakfast
was a very good one and Mary watched him with
serious interest.
"You will begin to get fatter just as I did,"
she said. "I never wanted my breakfast when
I was in India and now I always want it."
"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin.
"Perhaps it was the fresh air. When do you
think Dickon will come?"
He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes
Mary held up her hand.
"Listen!" she said. "Did you hear a caw?"
Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound
in the world to hear inside a house, a hoarse
"caw-caw."
"Yes," he answered.
"That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again. Do
you hear a bleat—a tiny one?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing.
"That's the new-born lamb," said Mary. "He's
coming."
Dickon's moorland boots were thick and clumsy
and though he tried to walk quietly they made
a clumping sound as he walked through the
long corridors. Mary and Colin heard him marching—marching,
until he passed through the tapestry door
on to the soft carpet of Colin's own passage.
"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening
the door, "if you please, sir, here's Dickon
an' his creatures."
Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile.
The new-born lamb was in his arms and the
little red fox trotted by his side. Nut sat
on his left shoulder and Soot on his right
and Shell's head and paws peeped out of his
coat pocket.
Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared—as
he had stared when he first saw Mary; but
this was a stare of wonder and delight. The
truth was that in spite of all he had heard
he had not in the least understood what this
boy would be like and that his fox and his
crow and his squirrels and his lamb were so
near to him and his friendliness that they
seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin
had never talked to a boy in his life and
he was so overwhelmed by his own pleasure
and curiosity that he did not even think of
speaking.
But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward.
He had not felt embarrassed because the crow
had not known his language and had only stared
and had not spoken to him the first time they
met. Creatures were always like that until
they found out about you. He walked over to
Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly
on his lap, and immediately the little creature
turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and
began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds
and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience
against his side. Of course no boy could have
helped speaking then.
"What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does
it want?"
"It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling
more and more. "I brought it to thee a bit
hungry because I knowed tha'd like to see
it feed."
He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle
from his pocket.
"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the
small woolly white head with a gentle brown
hand. "This is what tha's after. Tha'll get
more out o' this than tha' will out o' silk
velvet coats. There now," and he pushed the
rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling
mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous
ecstasy.
After that there was no wondering what to
say. By the time the lamb fell asleep questions
poured forth and Dickon answered them all.
He told them how he had found the lamb just
as the sun was rising three mornings ago.
He had been standing on the moor listening
to a skylark and watching him swing higher
and higher into the sky until he was only
a speck in the heights of blue.
"I'd almost lost him but for his song an'
I was wonderin' how a chap could hear it when
it seemed as if he'd get out o' th' world
in a minute—an' just then I heard somethin'
else far off among th' gorse bushes. It was
a weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new
lamb as was hungry an' I knowed it wouldn't
be hungry if it hadn't lost its mother somehow,
so I set off searchin'. Eh! I did have a look
for it. I went in an' out among th' gorse
bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed
to take th' wrong turnin'. But at last I seed
a bit o' white by a rock on top o' th' moor
an' I climbed up an' found th' little 'un
half dead wi' cold an' clemmin'." While he
talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the
open window and cawed remarks about the scenery
while Nut and Shell made excursions into the
big trees outside and ran up and down trunks
and explored branches. Captain curled up near
Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from preference.
They looked at the pictures in the gardening
books and Dickon knew all the flowers by their
country names and knew exactly which ones
were already growing in the secret garden.
"I couldna' say that there name," he said,
pointing to one under which was written "Aquilegia,"
"but us calls that a columbine, an' that there
one it's a snapdragon and they both grow wild
in hedges, but these is garden ones an' they're
bigger an' grander. There's some big clumps
o' columbine in th' garden. They'll look like
a bed o' blue an' white butterflies flutterin'
when they're out."
"I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am
going to see them!"
"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously.
"An' tha' munnot lose no time
about it."
CHAPTER XX
"I SHALL LIVE FOREVER—AND EVER—AND EVER!"
But they were obliged to wait more than a
week because first there came some very windy
days and then Colin was threatened with a
cold, which two things happening one after
the other would no doubt have thrown him into
a rage but that there was so much careful
and mysterious planning to do and almost every
day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes,
to talk about what was happening on the moor
and in the lanes and hedges and on the borders
of streams. The things he had to tell about
otters' and badgers' and water-rats' houses,
not to mention birds' nests and field-mice
and their burrows, were enough to make you
almost tremble with excitement when you heard
all the intimate details from an animal charmer
and realized with what thrilling eagerness
and anxiety the whole busy underworld was
working.
"They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they
have to build their homes every year. An'
it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to
get 'em done."
The most absorbing thing, however, was the
preparations to be made before Colin could
be transported with sufficient secrecy to
the garden. No one must see the chair-carriage
and Dickon and Mary after they turned a certain
corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the
walk outside the ivied walls. As each day
passed, Colin had become more and more fixed
in his feeling that the mystery surrounding
the garden was one of its greatest charms.
Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever
suspect that they had a secret. People must
think that he was simply going out with Mary
and Dickon because he liked them and did not
object to their looking at him. They had long
and quite delightful talks about their route.
They would go up this path and down that one
and cross the other and go round among the
fountain flower-beds as if they were looking
at the "bedding-out plants" the head gardener,
Mr. Roach, had been having arranged. That
would seem such a rational thing to do that
no one would think it at all mysterious. They
would turn into the shrubbery walks and lose
themselves until they came to the long walls.
It was almost as serious and elaborately thought
out as the plans of march made by great generals
in time of war.
Rumors of the new and curious things which
were occurring in the invalid's apartments
had of course filtered through the servants'
hall into the stable yards and out among the
gardeners, but notwithstanding this, Mr. Roach
was startled one day when he received orders
from Master Colin's room to the effect that
he must report himself in the apartment no
outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself
desired to speak to him.
"Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly
changed his coat, "what's to do now? His Royal
Highness that wasn't to be looked at calling
up a man he's never set eyes on."
Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had
never caught even a glimpse of the boy and
had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about
his uncanny looks and ways and his insane
tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest was
that he might die at any moment and there
had been numerous fanciful descriptions of
a humped back and helpless limbs, given by
people who had never seen him.
"Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach,"
said Mrs. Medlock, as she led him up the back
staircase to the corridor on to which opened
the hitherto mysterious chamber.
"Let's hope they're changing for the better,
Mrs. Medlock," he answered.
"They couldn't well change for the worse,"
she continued; "and queer as it all is there's
them as finds their duties made a lot easier
to stand up under. Don't you be surprised,
Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the middle
of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby's Dickon
more at home than you or me could ever be."
There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon,
as Mary always privately believed. When Mr.
Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently.
"He'd be at home in Buckingham Palace or at
the bottom of a coal mine," he said. "And
yet it's not impudence, either. He's just
fine, is that lad."
It was perhaps well he had been prepared or
he might have been startled. When the bedroom
door was opened a large crow, which seemed
quite at home perched on the high back of
a carven chair, announced the entrance of
a visitor by saying "Caw—Caw" quite loudly.
In spite of Mrs. Medlock's warning, Mr. Roach
only just escaped being sufficiently undignified
to jump backward.
The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on
his sofa. He was sitting in an armchair and
a young lamb was standing by him shaking its
tail in feeding-lamb fashion as Dickon knelt
giving it milk from its bottle. A squirrel
was perched on Dickon's bent back attentively
nibbling a nut. The little girl from India
was sitting on a big footstool looking on.
"Here is Mr. Roach, Master Colin," said Mrs.
Medlock.
The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor
over—at least that was what the head gardener
felt happened.
"Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I
sent for you to give you some very important
orders."
"Very good, sir," answered Roach, wondering
if he was to receive instructions to fell
all the oaks in the park or to transform the
orchards into water-gardens.
"I am going out in my chair this afternoon,"
said Colin. "If the fresh air agrees with
me I may go out every day. When I go, none
of the gardeners are to be anywhere near the
Long Walk by the garden walls. No one is to
be there. I shall go out about two o'clock
and everyone must keep away until I send word
that they may go back to their work."
"Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much
relieved to hear that the oaks might remain
and that the orchards were safe. "Mary," said
Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing
you say in India when you have finished talking
and want people to go?"
"You say, 'You have my permission to go,'"
answered Mary.
The Rajah waved his hand.
"You have my permission to go, Roach," he
said. "But, remember, this is very important."
"Caw—Caw!" remarked the crow hoarsely but
not impolitely.
"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Mr.
Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took him out of the
room.
Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured
man, he smiled until he almost laughed.
"My word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordly
way with him, hasn't he? You'd think he was
a whole Royal Family rolled into one—Prince
Consort and all.".
"Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to
let him trample all over every one of us ever
since he had feet and he thinks that's what
folks was born for."
"Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives,"
suggested Mr. Roach.
"Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said
Mrs. Medlock. "If he does live and that Indian
child stays here I'll warrant she teaches
him that the whole orange does not belong
to him, as Susan Sowerby says. And he'll be
likely to find out the size of his own quarter."
Inside the room Colin was leaning back on
his cushions.
"It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon
I shall see it—this afternoon I shall be
in it!"
Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures
and Mary stayed with Colin. She did not think
he looked tired but he was very quiet before
their lunch came and he was quiet while they
were eating it. She wondered why and asked
him about it.
"What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said.
"When you are thinking they get as big as
saucers. What are you thinking about now?"
"I can't help thinking about what it will
look like," he answered.
"The garden?" asked Mary.
"The springtime," he said. "I was thinking
that I've really never seen it before. I scarcely
ever went out and when I did go I never looked
at it. I didn't even think about it."
"I never saw it in India because there wasn't
any," said Mary.
Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin
had more imagination than she had and at least
he had spent a good deal of time looking at
wonderful books and pictures.
"That morning when you ran in and said 'It's
come! It's come!', you made me feel quite
queer. It sounded as if things were coming
with a great procession and big bursts and
wafts of music. I've a picture like it in
one of my books—crowds of lovely people
and children with garlands and branches with
blossoms on them, everyone laughing and dancing
and crowding and playing on pipes. That was
why I said, 'Perhaps we shall hear golden
trumpets' and told you to throw open the window."
"How funny!" said Mary. "That's really just
what it feels like. And if all the flowers
and leaves and green things and birds and
wild creatures danced past at once, what a
crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and
sing and flute and that would be the wafts
of music."
They both laughed but it was not because the
idea was laughable but because they both so
liked it.
A little later the nurse made Colin ready.
She noticed that instead of lying like a log
while his clothes were put on he sat up and
made some efforts to help himself, and he
talked and laughed with Mary all the time.
"This is one of his good days, sir," she said
to Dr. Craven, who dropped in to inspect him.
"He's in such good spirits that it makes him
stronger."
"I'll call in again later in the afternoon,
after he has come in," said Dr. Craven. "I
must see how the going out agrees with him.
I wish," in a very low voice, "that he would
let you go with him."
"I'd rather give up the case this moment,
sir, than even stay here while it's suggested,"
answered the nurse. With sudden firmness.
"I hadn't really decided to suggest it," said
the doctor, with his slight nervousness. "We'll
try the experiment. Dickon's a lad I'd trust
with a new-born child."
The strongest footman in the house carried
Colin down stairs and put him in his wheeled
chair near which Dickon waited outside. After
the manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions
the Rajah waved his hand to him and to the
nurse.
"You have my permission to go," he said, and
they both disappeared quickly and it must
be confessed giggled when they were safely
inside the house.
Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly
and steadily. Mistress Mary walked beside
it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face
to the sky. The arch of it looked very high
and the small snowy clouds seemed like white
birds floating on outspread wings below its
crystal blueness. The wind swept in soft big
breaths down from the moor and was strange
with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin
kept lifting his thin chest to draw it in,
and his big eyes looked as if it were they
which were listening—listening, instead
of his ears.
"There are so many sounds of singing and humming
and calling out," he said. "What is that scent
the puffs of wind bring?"
"It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out,"
answered Dickon. "Eh! th' bees are at it wonderful
today."
Not a human creature was to be caught sight
of in the paths they took. In fact every gardener
or gardener's lad had been witched away. But
they wound in and out among the shrubbery
and out and round the fountain beds, following
their carefully planned route for the mere
mysterious pleasure of it. But when at last
they turned into the Long Walk by the ivied
walls the excited sense of an approaching
thrill made them, for some curious reason
they could not have explained, begin to speak
in whispers.
"This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where
I used to walk up and down and wonder and
wonder." "Is it?" cried Colin, and his eyes
began to search the ivy with eager curiousness.
"But I can see nothing," he whispered. "There
is no door."
"That's what I thought," said Mary.
Then there was a lovely breathless silence
and the chair wheeled on.
"That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff
works," said Mary.
"Is it?" said Colin.
A few yards more and Mary whispered again.
"This is where the robin flew over the wall,"
she said.
"Is it?" cried Colin. "Oh! I wish he'd come
again!"
"And that," said Mary with solemn delight,
pointing under a big lilac bush, "is where
he perched on the little heap of earth and
showed me the key."
Then Colin sat up.
"Where? Where? There?" he cried, and his eyes
were as big as the wolf's in Red Riding-Hood,
when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark
on them. Dickon stood still and the wheeled
chair stopped.
"And this," said Mary, stepping on to the
bed close to the ivy, "is where I went to
talk to him when he chirped at me from the
top of the wall. And this is the ivy the wind
blew back," and she took hold of the hanging
green curtain.
"Oh! is it—is it!" gasped Colin.
"And here is the handle, and here is the door.
Dickon push him in—push him in quickly!"
And Dickon did it with one strong, steady,
splendid push.
But Colin had actually dropped back against
his cushions, even though he gasped with delight,
and he had covered his eyes with his hands
and held them there shutting out everything
until they were inside and the chair stopped
as if by magic and the door was closed. Not
till then did he take them away and look round
and round and round as Dickon and Mary had
done. And over walls and earth and trees and
swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green
veil of tender little leaves had crept, and
in the grass under the trees and the gray
urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere
were touches or splashes of gold and purple
and white and the trees were showing pink
and snow above his head and there were fluttering
of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming
and scents and scents. And the sun fell warm
upon his face like a hand with a lovely touch.
And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared
at him. He looked so strange and different
because a pink glow of color had actually
crept all over him—ivory face and neck and
hands and all.
"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried
out. "Mary! Dickon! I shall get well! And
I shall live forever and ever and ever!"
CHAPTER XXI
BEN WEATHERSTAFF
One of the strange things about living in
the world is that it is only now and then
one is quite sure one is going to live forever
and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes
when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time
and goes out and stands alone and throws one's
head far back and looks up and up and watches
the pale sky slowly changing and flushing
and marvelous unknown things happening until
the East almost makes one cry out and one's
heart stands still at the strange unchanging
majesty of the rising of the sun—which has
been happening every morning for thousands
and thousands and thousands of years. One
knows it then for a moment or so. And one
knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself
in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep
gold stillness slanting through and under
the branches seems to be saying slowly again
and again something one cannot quite hear,
however much one tries. Then sometimes the
immense quiet of the dark blue at night with
millions of stars waiting and watching makes
one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off
music makes it true; and sometimes a look
in some one's eyes.
And it was like that with Colin when he first
saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside
the four high walls of a hidden garden. That
afternoon the whole world seemed to devote
itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful
and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly
goodness the spring came and crowned everything
it possibly could into that one place. More
than once Dickon paused in what he was doing
and stood still with a sort of growing wonder
in his eyes, shaking his head softly.
"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve
goin' on thirteen an' there's a lot o' afternoons
in thirteen years, but seems to me like I
never seed one as graidely as this 'ere."
"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and
she sighed for mere joy. "I'll warrant it's
the graidelest one as ever was in this world."
"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy
carefulness, "as happen it was made loike
this 'ere all o' purpose for me?"
"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there
is a bit o' good Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin'
first-rate—that tha' art."
And delight reigned. They drew the chair under
the plum-tree, which was snow-white with blossoms
and musical with bees. It was like a king's
canopy, a fairy king's. There were flowering
cherry-trees near and apple-trees whose buds
were pink and white, and here and there one
had burst open wide. Between the blossoming
branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked
down like wonderful eyes.
Mary and Dickon worked a little here and there
and Colin watched them. They brought him things
to look at—buds which were opening, buds
which were tight closed, bits of twig whose
leaves were just showing green, the feather
of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass,
the empty shell of some bird early hatched.
Dickon pushed the chair slowly round and round
the garden, stopping every other moment to
let him look at wonders springing out of the
earth or trailing down from trees. It was
like being taken in state round the country
of a magic king and queen and shown all the
mysterious riches it contained.
"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said
Colin.
"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered
Dickon. "When th' eggs hatches out th' little
chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his
head swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward
an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as big as
himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th'
nest when he gets there as fair flusters him
so as he scarce knows which big mouth to drop
th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks
on every side. Mother says as when she sees
th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks
filled, she feels like she was a lady with
nothin' to do. She says she's seen th' little
chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be
droppin' off 'em, though folk can't see it."
This made them giggle so delightedly that
they were obliged to cover their mouths with
their hands, remembering that they must not
be heard. Colin had been instructed as to
the law of whispers and low voices several
days before. He liked the mysteriousness of
it and did his best, but in the midst of excited
enjoyment it is rather difficult never to
laugh above a whisper.
Every moment of the afternoon was full of
new things and every hour the sunshine grew
more golden. The wheeled chair had been drawn
back under the canopy and Dickon had sat down
on the grass and had just drawn out his pipe
when Colin saw something he had not had time
to notice before.
"That's a very old tree over there, isn't
it?" he said. Dickon looked across the grass
at the tree and Mary looked and there was
a brief moment of stillness.
"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his
low voice had a very gentle sound.
Mary gazed at the tree and thought.
"The branches are quite gray and there's not
a single leaf anywhere," Colin went on. "It's
quite dead, isn't it?"
"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as
has climbed all over it will near hide every
bit o' th' dead wood when they're full o'
leaves an' flowers. It won't look dead then.
It'll be th' prettiest of all."
Mary still gazed at the tree and thought.
"It looks as if a big branch had been broken
off," said Colin. "I wonder how it was done."
"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon.
"Eh!" with a sudden relieved start and laying
his hand on Colin. "Look at that robin! There
he is! He's been foragin' for his mate."
Colin was almost too late but he just caught
sight of him, the flash of red-breasted bird
with something in his beak. He darted through
the greenness and into the close-grown corner
and was out of sight. Colin leaned back on
his cushion again, laughing a little. "He's
taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock.
I think I'd like some tea myself."
And so they were safe.
"It was Magic which sent the robin," said
Mary secretly to Dickon afterward. "I know
it was Magic." For both she and Dickon had
been afraid Colin might ask something about
the tree whose branch had broken off ten years
ago and they had talked it over together and
Dickon had stood and rubbed his head in a
troubled way.
"We mun look as if it wasn't no different
from th' other trees," he had said. "We couldn't
never tell him how it broke, poor lad. If
he says anything about it we mun—we mun
try to look cheerful."
"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary.
But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful
when she gazed at the tree. She wondered and
wondered in those few moments if there was
any reality in that other thing Dickon had
said. He had gone on rubbing his rust-red
hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted
look had begun to grow in his blue eyes.
"Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady,"
he had gone on rather hesitatingly. "An' mother
she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite
many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same
as all mothers do when they're took out o'
th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees.
Happen she's been in the garden an' happen
it was her set us to work, an' told us to
bring him here."
Mary had thought he meant something about
Magic. She was a great believer in Magic.
Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked
Magic, of course good Magic, on everything
near him and that was why people liked him
so much and wild creatures knew he was their
friend. She wondered, indeed, if it were not
possible that his gift had brought the robin
just at the right moment when Colin asked
that dangerous question. She felt that his
Magic was working all the afternoon and making
Colin look like an entirely different boy.
It did not seem possible that he could be
the crazy creature who had screamed and beaten
and bitten his pillow. Even his ivory whiteness
seemed to change. The faint glow of color
which had shown on his face and neck and hands
when he first got inside the garden really
never quite died away. He looked as if he
were made of flesh instead of ivory or wax.
They saw the robin carry food to his mate
two or three times, and it was so suggestive
of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must
have some.
"Go and make one of the men servants bring
some in a basket to the rhododendron walk,"
he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring
it here."
It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out,
and when the white cloth was spread upon the
grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and
crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten,
and several birds on domestic errands paused
to inquire what was going on and were led
into investigating crumbs with great activity.
Nut and Shell whisked up trees with pieces
of cake and Soot took the entire half of a
buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked
at and examined and turned it over and made
hoarse remarks about it until he decided to
swallow it all joyfully in one gulp.
The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow
hour. The sun was deepening the gold of its
lances, the bees were going home and the birds
were flying past less often. Dickon and Mary
were sitting on the grass, the tea-basket
was repacked ready to be taken back to the
house, and Colin was lying against his cushions
with his heavy locks pushed back from his
forehead and his face looking quite a natural
color.
"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said;
"but I shall come back tomorrow, and the day
after, and the day after, and the day after."
"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?"
said Mary. "I'm going to get nothing else,"
he answered. "I've seen the spring now and
I'm going to see the summer. I'm going to
see everything grow here. I'm going to grow
here myself."
"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have
thee walkin' about here an' diggin' same as
other folk afore long."
Colin flushed tremendously.
"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?"
Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious.
Neither he nor Mary had ever asked if anything
was the matter with his legs.
"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha—tha's
got legs o' thine own, same as other folks!"
Mary was rather frightened until she heard
Colin's answer.
"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but
they are so thin and weak. They shake so that
I'm afraid to try to stand on them."
Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath.
"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand
on 'em," Dickon said with renewed cheer. "An'
tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit."
"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as
if he were wondering about things.
They were really very quiet for a little while.
The sun was dropping lower. It was that hour
when everything stills itself, and they really
had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin
looked as if he were resting luxuriously.
Even the creatures had ceased moving about
and had drawn together and were resting near
them. Soot had perched on a low branch and
drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film
drowsily over his eyes. Mary privately thought
he looked as if he might snore in a minute.
In the midst of this stillness it was rather
startling when Colin half lifted his head
and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper:
"Who is that man?" Dickon and Mary scrambled
to their feet.
"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices.
Colin pointed to the high wall. "Look!" he
whispered excitedly. "Just look!"
Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked.
There was Ben Weatherstaff's indignant face
glaring at them over the wall from the top
of a ladder! He actually shook his fist at
Mary.
"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench
o' mine," he cried, "I'd give thee a hidin'!"
He mounted another step threateningly as if
it were his energetic intention to jump down
and deal with her; but as she came toward
him he evidently thought better of it and
stood on the top step of his ladder shaking
his fist down at her.
"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued.
"I couldna' abide thee th' first time I set
eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced young
besom, allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha'
nose where it wasna, wanted. I never knowed
how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it hadna'
been for th' robin— Drat him—"
"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding
her breath. She stood below him and called
up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff,
it was the robin who showed me the way!"
Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble
down on her side of the wall, he was so outraged.
"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her.
"Layin' tha' badness on a robin—not but
what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him
showin' thee th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young
nowt"—she could see his next words burst
out because he was overpowered by curiosity—"however
i' this world did tha' get in?"
"It was the robin who showed me the way,"
she protested obstinately. "He didn't know
he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell
you from here while you're shaking your fist
at me."
He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly
at that very moment and his jaw actually dropped
as he stared over her head at something he
saw coming over the grass toward him.
At the first sound of his torrent of words
Colin had been so surprised that he had only
sat up and listened as if he were spellbound.
But in the midst of it he had recovered himself
and beckoned imperiously to Dickon.
"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel
me quite close and stop right in front of
him!"
And this, if you please, this is what Ben
Weatherstaff beheld and which made his jaw
drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions
and robes which came toward him looking rather
like some sort of State Coach because a young
Rajah leaned back in it with royal command
in his great black-rimmed eyes and a thin
white hand extended haughtily toward him.
And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's
nose. It was really no wonder his mouth dropped
open.
"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah.
How Ben Weatherstaff stared! His red old eyes
fixed themselves on what was before him as
if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and gazed
and gulped a lump down his throat and did
not say a word. "Do you know who I am?" demanded
Colin still more imperiously. "Answer!"
Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and
passed it over his eyes and over his forehead
and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice.
"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I do—wi'
tha' mother's eyes starin' at me out o' tha'
face. Lord knows how tha' come here. But tha'rt
th' poor cripple."
Colin forgot that he had ever had a back.
His face flushed scarlet and he sat bolt upright.
"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously.
"I'm not!"
"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up
the wall in her fierce indignation. "He's
not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and
there was none there—not one!"
Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his
forehead again and gazed as if he could never
gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth
shook and his voice shook. He was an ignorant
old man and a tactless old man and he could
only remember the things he had heard.
"Tha'—tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he
said hoarsely.
"No!" shouted Colin.
"Tha'—tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered
Ben more hoarsely yet. It was too much. The
strength which Colin usually threw into his
tantrums rushed through him now in a new way.
Never yet had he been accused of crooked legs—even
in whispers—and the perfectly simple belief
in their existence which was revealed by Ben
Weatherstaff's voice was more than Rajah flesh
and blood could endure. His anger and insulted
pride made him forget everything but this
one moment and filled him with a power he
had never known before, an almost unnatural
strength.
"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he
actually began to tear the coverings off his
lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come
here! Come here! This minute!"
Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught
her breath in a short gasp and felt herself
turn pale.
"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it!
He can!" she gabbled over to herself under
her breath as fast as ever she could.
There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs
were tossed on the ground, Dickon held Colin's
arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet
were on the grass. Colin was standing upright—upright—as
straight as an arrow and looking strangely
tall—his head thrown back and his strange
eyes flashing lightning. "Look at me!" he
flung up at Ben Weatherstaff. "Just look at
me—you! Just look at me!"
"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon.
"He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!"
What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer
beyond measure. He choked and gulped and suddenly
tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks
as he struck his old hands together.
"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells!
Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' as white as a
wraith, but there's not a knob on thee. Tha'lt
make a mon yet. God bless thee!"
Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy
had not begun to falter. He stood straighter
and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff
in the face.
"I'm your master," he said, "when my father
is away. And you are to obey me. This is my
garden. Don't dare to say a word about it!
You get down from that ladder and go out to
the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet you
and bring you here. I want to talk to you.
We did not want you, but now you will have
to be in the secret. Be quick!"
Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still
wet with that one queer rush of tears. It
seemed as if he could not take his eyes from
thin straight Colin standing on his feet with
his head thrown back.
"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!"
And then remembering himself he suddenly touched
his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes, sir!
Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he
descended the ladder.
CHAPTER XXII
WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN
When his head was out of sight Colin turned
to Mary.
"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew
across the grass to the door under the ivy.
Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There
were scarlet spots on his cheeks and he looked
amazing, but he showed no signs of falling.
"I can stand," he said, and his head was still
held up and he said it quite grandly.
"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped
bein' afraid," answered Dickon. "An' tha's
stopped."
"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin.
Then suddenly he remembered something Mary
had said.
"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply.
Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful
grin.
"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's
same Magic as made these 'ere work out o'
th' earth," and he touched with his thick
boot a clump of crocuses in the grass. Colin
looked down at them.
"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be
bigger Magic than that there—there couldna'
be."
He drew himself up straighter than ever.
"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said,
pointing to one a few feet away from him.
"I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff
comes here. I can rest against the tree if
I like. When I want to sit down I will sit
down, but not before. Bring a rug from the
chair."
He walked to the tree and though Dickon held
his arm he was wonderfully steady. When he
stood against the tree trunk it was not too
plain that he supported himself against it,
and he still held himself so straight that
he looked tall.
When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door
in the wall he saw him standing there and
he heard Mary muttering something under her
breath.
"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily
because he did not want his attention distracted
from the long thin straight boy figure and
proud face.
But she did not tell him. What she was saying
was this:
"You can do it! You can do it! I told you
you could! You can do it! You can do it! You
can!" She was saying it to Colin because she
wanted to make Magic and keep him on his feet
looking like that. She could not bear that
he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff.
He did not give in. She was uplifted by a
sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful
in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes
on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious
way.
"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all
over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked
legs?"
Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his
emotion, but he had recovered a little and
answered almost in his usual way.
"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's
tha' been doin' with thysel'—hidin' out
o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple
an' half-witted?"
"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought
that?"
"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full
o' jackasses brayin' an' they never bray nowt
but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?"
"Everyone thought I was going to die," said
Colin shortly. "I'm not!"
And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff
looked him over, up and down, down and up.
"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt
o' th' sort! Tha's got too much pluck in thee.
When I seed thee put tha' legs on th' ground
in such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right.
Sit thee down on th' rug a bit young Mester
an' give me thy orders."
There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness
and shrewd understanding in his manner. Mary
had poured out speech as rapidly as she could
as they had come down the Long Walk. The chief
thing to be remembered, she had told him,
was that Colin was getting well—getting
well. The garden was doing it. No one must
let him remember about having humps and dying.
The Rajah condescended to seat himself on
a rug under the tree.
"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?"
he inquired.
"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben.
"I'm kep' on by favor—because she liked
me."
"She?" said Colin.
"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.
"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about
him quietly. "This was her garden, wasn't
it?"
"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked
about him too. "She were main fond of it."
"It is my garden now. I am fond of it. I shall
come here every day," announced Colin. "But
it is to be a secret. My orders are that no
one is to know that we come here. Dickon and
my cousin have worked and made it come alive.
I shall send for you sometimes to help—but
you must come when no one can see you."
Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in
a dry old smile.
"I've come here before when no one saw me,"
he said.
"What!" exclaimed Colin.
"When?"
"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin
and looking round, "was about two year' ago."
"But no one has been in it for ten years!"
cried Colin.
"There was no door!"
"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't
come through th' door. I come over th' wall.
Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'."
"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried
Dickon. "I couldn't make out how it had been
done."
"She was so fond of it—she was!" said Ben
Weatherstaff slowly. "An' she was such a pretty
young thing. She says to me once, 'Ben,' says
she laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go
away you must take care of my roses.' When
she did go away th' orders was no one was
ever to come nigh. But I come," with grumpy
obstinacy. "Over th' wall I come—until th'
rheumatics stopped me—an' I did a bit o'
work once a year. She'd gave her order first."
"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if
tha' hadn't done it," said Dickon. "I did
wonder."
"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said
Colin. "You'll know how to keep the secret."
"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An'
it'll be easier for a man wi' rheumatics to
come in at th' door."
On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped
her trowel. Colin stretched out his hand and
took it up. An odd expression came into his
face and he began to scratch at the earth.
His thin hand was weak enough but presently
as they watched him—Mary with quite breathless
interest—he drove the end of the trowel
into the soil and turned some over.
"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary
to herself. "I tell you, you can!"
Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness
but he said not a word. Ben Weatherstaff looked
on with interested face.
Colin persevered. After he had turned a few
trowelfuls of soil he spoke exultantly to
Dickon in his best Yorkshire.
"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about
here same as other folk—an' tha' said tha'd
have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein'
to please me. This is only th' first day an'
I've walked—an' here I am diggin'."
Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when
he heard him, but he ended by chuckling.
"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got
wits enow. Tha'rt a Yorkshire lad for sure.
An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to
plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a
rose in a pot."
"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly.
"Quick! Quick!"
It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff
went his way forgetting rheumatics. Dickon
took his spade and dug the hole deeper and
wider than a new digger with thin white hands
could make it. Mary slipped out to run and
bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had
deepened the hole Colin went on turning the
soft earth over and over. He looked up at
the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely
new exercise, slight as it was.
"I want to do it before the sun goes quite—quite
down," he said.
Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back
a few minutes just on purpose. Ben Weatherstaff
brought the rose in its pot from the greenhouse.
He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could.
He had begun to be excited, too. He knelt
down by the hole and broke the pot from the
mould.
"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to
Colin. "Set it in the earth thysel' same as
th' king does when he goes to a new place."
The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's
flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the
mould and held it while old Ben made firm
the earth. It was filled in and pressed down
and made steady. Mary was leaning forward
on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down
and marched forward to see what was being
done. Nut and Shell chattered about it from
a cherry-tree.
"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the
sun is only slipping over the edge. Help me
up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it
goes. That's part of the Magic."
And Dickon helped him, and the Magic—or
whatever it was—so gave him strength that
when the sun did slip over the edge and end
the strange lovely afternoon for them there
he actually stood on his two feet—laughing.
CHAPTER XXIII
MAGIC
Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the
house when they returned to it. He had indeed
begun to wonder if it might not be wise to
send some one out to explore the garden paths.
When Colin was brought back to his room the
poor man looked him over seriously.
"You should not have stayed so long," he said.
"You must not overexert yourself."
"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has
made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the
morning as well as in the afternoon."
"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered
Dr. Craven. "I am afraid it would not be wise."
"It would not be wise to try to stop me,"
said Colin quite seriously. "I am going."
Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's
chief peculiarities was that he did not know
in the least what a rude little brute he was
with his way of ordering people about. He
had lived on a sort of desert island all his
life and as he had been the king of it he
had made his own manners and had had no one
to compare himself with. Mary had indeed been
rather like him herself and since she had
been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered
that her own manners had not been of the kind
which is usual or popular. Having made this
discovery she naturally thought it of enough
interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat
and looked at him curiously for a few minutes
after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to make
him ask her why she was doing it and of course
she did.
"What are you looking at me for?" he said.
"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr.
Craven."
"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without
an air of some satisfaction. "He won't get
Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to
die."
"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course,"
said Mary, "but I was thinking just then that
it must have been very horrid to have had
to be polite for ten years to a boy who was
always rude. I would never have done it."
"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.
"If you had been his own boy and he had been
a slapping sort of man," said Mary, "he would
have slapped you."
"But he daren't," said Colin.
"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary,
thinking the thing out quite without prejudice.
"Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't
like—because you were going to die and things
like that. You were such a poor thing."
"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not
going to be a poor thing. I won't let people
think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon."
"It is always having your own way that has
made you so queer," Mary went on, thinking
aloud.
Colin turned his head, frowning.
"Am I queer?" he demanded.
"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't
be cross," she added impartially, "because
so am I queer—and so is Ben Weatherstaff.
But I am not as queer as I was before I began
to like people and before I found the garden."
"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I
am not going to be," and he frowned again
with determination.
He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for
a while and then Mary saw his beautiful smile
begin and gradually change his whole face.
"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I
go every day to the garden. There is Magic
in there—good Magic, you know, Mary. I am
sure there is." "So am I," said Mary.
"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said,
"we can pretend it is. Something is there—something!"
"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's
as white as snow."
They always called it Magic and indeed it
seemed like it in the months that followed—the
wonderful months—the radiant months—the
amazing ones. Oh! the things which happened
in that garden! If you have never had a garden
you cannot understand, and if you have had
a garden you will know that it would take
a whole book to describe all that came to
pass there. At first it seemed that green
things would never cease pushing their way
through the earth, in the grass, in the beds,
even in the crevices of the walls. Then the
green things began to show buds and the buds
began to unfurl and show color, every shade
of blue, every shade of purple, every tint
and hue of crimson. In its happy days flowers
had been tucked away into every inch and hole
and corner. Ben Weatherstaff had seen it done
and had himself scraped out mortar from between
the bricks of the wall and made pockets of
earth for lovely clinging things to grow on.
Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass
in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves
with amazing armies of the blue and white
flower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines
or campanulas.
"She was main fond o' them—she was," Ben
Weatherstaff said. "She liked them things
as was allus pointin' up to th' blue sky,
she used to tell. Not as she was one o' them
as looked down on th' earth—not her. She
just loved it but she said as th' blue sky
allus looked so joyful."
The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew
as if fairies had tended them. Satiny poppies
of all tints danced in the breeze by the score,
gaily defying flowers which had lived in the
garden for years and which it might be confessed
seemed rather to wonder how such new people
had got there. And the roses—the roses!
Rising out of the grass, tangled round the
sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging
from their branches, climbing up the walls
and spreading over them with long garlands
falling in cascades—they came alive day
by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and
buds—and buds—tiny at first but swelling
and working Magic until they burst and uncurled
into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves
over their brims and filling the garden air.
Colin saw it all, watching each change as
it took place. Every morning he was brought
out and every hour of each day when it didn't
rain he spent in the garden. Even gray days
pleased him. He would lie on the grass "watching
things growing," he said. If you watched long
enough, he declared, you could see buds unsheath
themselves. Also you could make the acquaintance
of strange busy insect things running about
on various unknown but evidently serious errands,
sometimes carrying tiny scraps of straw or
feather or food, or climbing blades of grass
as if they were trees from whose tops one
could look out to explore the country. A mole
throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow
and making its way out at last with the long-nailed
paws which looked so like elfish hands, had
absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways,
beetles' ways, bees' ways, frogs' ways, birds'
ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to
explore and when Dickon revealed them all
and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets'
ways, squirrels' ways, and trout' and water-rats'
and badgers' ways, there was no end to the
things to talk about and think over.
And this was not the half of the Magic. The
fact that he had really once stood on his
feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and
when Mary told him of the spell she had worked
he was excited and approved of it greatly.
He talked of it constantly.
"Of course there must be lots of Magic in
the world," he said wisely one day, "but people
don't know what it is like or how to make
it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice
things are going to happen until you make
them happen. I am going to try and experiment."
The next morning when they went to the secret
garden he sent at once for Ben Weatherstaff.
Ben came as quickly as he could and found
the Rajah standing on his feet under a tree
and looking very grand but also very beautifully
smiling.
"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said.
"I want you and Dickon and Miss Mary to stand
in a row and listen to me because I am going
to tell you something very important."
"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff,
touching his forehead. (One of the long concealed
charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his
boyhood he had once run away to sea and had
made voyages. So he could reply like a sailor.)
"I am going to try a scientific experiment,"
explained the Rajah. "When I grow up I am
going to make great scientific discoveries
and I am going to begin now with this experiment."
"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly,
though this was the first time he had heard
of great scientific discoveries.
It was the first time Mary had heard of them,
either, but even at this stage she had begun
to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had
read about a great many singular things and
was somehow a very convincing sort of boy.
When he held up his head and fixed his strange
eyes on you it seemed as if you believed him
almost in spite of yourself though he was
only ten years old—going on eleven. At this
moment he was especially convincing because
he suddenly felt the fascination of actually
making a sort of speech like a grown-up person.
"The great scientific discoveries I am going
to make," he went on, "will be about Magic.
Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one
knows anything about it except a few people
in old books—and Mary a little, because
she was born in India where there are fakirs.
I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps
he doesn't know he knows it. He charms animals
and people. I would never have let him come
to see me if he had not been an animal charmer—which
is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an
animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything,
only we have not sense enough to get hold
of it and make it do things for us—like
electricity and horses and steam."
This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff
became quite excited and really could not
keep still. "Aye, aye, sir," he said and he
began to stand up quite straight.
"When Mary found this garden it looked quite
dead," the orator proceeded. "Then something
began pushing things up out of the soil and
making things out of nothing. One day things
weren't there and another they were. I had
never watched things before and it made me
feel very curious. Scientific people are always
curious and I am going to be scientific. I
keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is
it?' It's something. It can't be nothing!
I don't know its name so I call it Magic.
I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and
Dickon have and from what they tell me I am
sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it
up and draws it. Sometimes since I've been
in the garden I've looked up through the trees
at the sky and I have had a strange feeling
of being happy as if something were pushing
and drawing in my chest and making me breathe
fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing
and making things out of nothing. Everything
is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers
and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels
and people. So it must be all around us. In
this garden—in all the places. The Magic
in this garden has made me stand up and know
I am going to live to be a man. I am going
to make the scientific experiment of trying
to get some and put it in myself and make
it push and draw me and make me strong. I
don't know how to do it but I think that if
you keep thinking about it and calling it
perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the
first baby way to get it. When I was going
to try to stand that first time Mary kept
saying to herself as fast as she could, 'You
can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had
to try myself at the same time, of course,
but her Magic helped me—and so did Dickon's.
Every morning and evening and as often in
the daytime as I can remember I am going to
say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well!
I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong
as Dickon!' And you must all do it, too. That
is my experiment Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?"
"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye,
aye!"
"If you keep doing it every day as regularly
as soldiers go through drill we shall see
what will happen and find out if the experiment
succeeds. You learn things by saying them
over and over and thinking about them until
they stay in your mind forever and I think
it will be the same with Magic. If you keep
calling it to come to you and help you it
will get to be part of you and it will stay
and do things." "I once heard an officer in
India tell my mother that there were fakirs
who said words over and over thousands of
times," said Mary.
"I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th'
same thing over thousands o' times—callin'
Jem a drunken brute," said Ben Weatherstaff
dryly. "Summat allus come o' that, sure enough.
He gave her a good hidin' an' went to th'
Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord."
Colin drew his brows together and thought
a few minutes. Then he cheered up.
"Well," he said, "you see something did come
of it. She used the wrong Magic until she
made him beat her. If she'd used the right
Magic and had said something nice perhaps
he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and
perhaps—perhaps he might have bought her
a new bonnet."
Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd
admiration in his little old eyes.
"Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged
one, Mester Colin," he said. "Next time I
see Bess Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of
a hint o' what Magic will do for her. She'd
be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik 'speriment
worked—an' so 'ud Jem."
Dickon had stood listening to the lecture,
his round eyes shining with curious delight.
Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he
held a long-eared white rabbit in his arm
and stroked and stroked it softly while it
laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself.
"Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin
asked him, wondering what he was thinking.
He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking
when he saw him looking at him or at one of
his "creatures" with his happy wide smile.
He smiled now and his smile was wider than
usual.
"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work
same as th' seeds do when th' sun shines on
'em. It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it
now?"
Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired
by recollections of fakirs and devotees in
illustrations Colin suggested that they should
all sit cross-legged under the tree which
made a canopy.
"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple,"
said Colin. "I'm rather tired and I want to
sit down."
"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' mustn't begin by
sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might spoil th'
Magic."
Colin turned and looked at him—into his
innocent round eyes.
"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only
think of the Magic." It all seemed most majestic
and mysterious when they sat down in their
circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had
somehow been led into appearing at a prayer-meeting.
Ordinarily he was very fixed in being what
he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this
being the Rajah's affair he did not resent
it and was indeed inclined to be gratified
at being called upon to assist. Mistress Mary
felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon held his
rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some
charmer's signal no one heard, for when he
sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the
crow, the fox, the squirrels and the lamb
slowly drew near and made part of the circle,
settling each into a place of rest as if of
their own desire.
"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely.
"They want to help us."
Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary
thought. He held his head high as if he felt
like a sort of priest and his strange eyes
had a wonderful look in them. The light shone
on him through the tree canopy.
"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway
backward and forward, Mary, as if we were
dervishes?"
"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard,"
said Ben Weatherstaff. "I've got th' rheumatics."
"The Magic will take them away," said Colin
in a High Priest tone, "but we won't sway
until it has done it. We will only chant."
"I canna' do no chantin'" said Ben Weatherstaff
a trifle testily. "They turned me out o' th'
church choir th' only time I ever tried it."
No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest.
Colin's face was not even crossed by a shadow.
He was thinking only of the Magic.
"Then I will chant," he said. And he began,
looking like a strange boy spirit. "The sun
is shining—the sun is shining. That is the
Magic. The flowers are growing—the roots
are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive
is the Magic—being strong is the Magic.
The Magic is in me—the Magic is in me. It
is in me—it is in me. It's in every one
of us. It's in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic!
Magic! Come and help!"
He said it a great many times—not a thousand
times but quite a goodly number. Mary listened
entranced. She felt as if it were at once
queer and beautiful and she wanted him to
go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began to feel
soothed into a sort of dream which was quite
agreeable. The humming of the bees in the
blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and
drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged
with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand
resting on the lamb's back. Soot had pushed
away a squirrel and huddled close to him on
his shoulder, the gray film dropped over his
eyes. At last Colin stopped.
"Now I am going to walk round the garden,"
he announced.
Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward
and he lifted it with a jerk.
"You have been asleep," said Colin.
"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon
was good enow—but I'm bound to get out afore
th' collection."
He was not quite awake yet.
"You're not in church," said Colin.
"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself.
"Who said I were? I heard every bit of it.
You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor
calls it rheumatics."
The Rajah waved his hand.
"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You
will get better. You have my permission to
go to your work. But come back tomorrow."
"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden,"
grunted Ben.
It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was
a grunt. In fact, being a stubborn old party
and not having entire faith in Magic he had
made up his mind that if he were sent away
he would climb his ladder and look over the
wall so that he might be ready to hobble back
if there were any stumbling.
The Rajah did not object to his staying and
so the procession was formed. It really did
look like a procession. Colin was at its head
with Dickon on one side and Mary on the other.
Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and the "creatures"
trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub
keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit
hopping along or stopping to nibble and Soot
following with the solemnity of a person who
felt himself in charge.
It was a procession which moved slowly but
with dignity. Every few yards it stopped to
rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately
Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but
now and then Colin took his hand from its
support and walked a few steps alone. His
head was held up all the time and he looked
very grand.
"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The
Magic is making me strong! I can feel it!
I can feel it!"
It seemed very certain that something was
upholding and uplifting him. He sat on the
seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he
sat down on the grass and several times he
paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but
he would not give up until he had gone all
round the garden. When he returned to the
canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he
looked triumphant.
"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That
is my first scientific discovery.".
"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary.
"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because
he will not be told. This is to be the biggest
secret of all. No one is to know anything
about it until I have grown so strong that
I can walk and run like any other boy. I shall
come here every day in my chair and I shall
be taken back in it. I won't have people whispering
and asking questions and I won't let my father
hear about it until the experiment has quite
succeeded. Then sometime when he comes back
to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his
study and say 'Here I am; I am like any other
boy. I am quite well and I shall live to be
a man. It has been done by a scientific experiment.'"
"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary.
"He won't believe his eyes."
Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself
believe that he was going to get well, which
was really more than half the battle, if he
had been aware of it. And the thought which
stimulated him more than any other was this
imagining what his father would look like
when he saw that he had a son who was as straight
and strong as other fathers' sons. One of
his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid
past days had been his hatred of being a sickly
weak-backed boy whose father was afraid to
look at him.
"He'll be obliged to believe them," he said.
"One of the things I am going to do, after
the Magic works and before I begin to make
scientific discoveries, is to be an athlete."
"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a
week or so," said Ben Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt
end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion
prize-fighter of all England."
Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.
"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful.
You must not take liberties because you are
in the secret. However much the Magic works
I shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be
a Scientific Discoverer."
"Ax pardon—ax pardon, sir" answered Ben,
touching his forehead in salute. "I ought
to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," but
his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely
pleased. He really did not mind being snubbed
since the snubbing meant that the lad was
gaining strength and spirit.
CHAPTER XXIV
"LET THEM LAUGH"
The secret garden was not the only one Dickon
worked in. Round the cottage on the moor there
was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall
of rough stones. Early in the morning and
late in the fading twilight and on all the
days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon
worked there planting or tending potatoes
and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs
for his mother. In the company of his "creatures"
he did wonders there and was never tired of
doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded
he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor
songs or talked to Soot or Captain or the
brothers and sisters he had taught to help
him.
"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do,"
Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it wasn't for Dickon's
garden. Anything'll grow for him. His 'taters
and cabbages is twice th' size of any one
else's an' they've got a flavor with 'em as
nobody's has."
When she found a moment to spare she liked
to go out and talk to him. After supper there
was still a long clear twilight to work in
and that was her quiet time. She could sit
upon the low rough wall and look on and hear
stories of the day. She loved this time. There
were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickon
had bought penny packages of flower seeds
now and then and sown bright sweet-scented
things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages
and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks
and pansies and things whose seeds he could
save year after year or whose roots would
bloom each spring and spread in time into
fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest
things in Yorkshire because he had tucked
moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress
and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until
only here and there glimpses of the stones
were to be seen.
"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive,
mother," he would say, "is to be friends with
'em for sure. They're just like th' 'creatures.'
If they're thirsty give 'em drink and if they're
hungry give 'em a bit o' food. They want to
live same as we do. If they died I should
feel as if I'd been a bad lad and somehow
treated them heartless."
It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby
heard of all that happened at Misselthwaite
Manor. At first she was only told that "Mester
Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into
the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was
doing him good. But it was not long before
it was agreed between the two children that
Dickon's mother might "come into the secret."
Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe
for sure."
So one beautiful still evening Dickon told
the whole story, with all the thrilling details
of the buried key and the robin and the gray
haze which had seemed like deadness and the
secret Mistress Mary had planned never to
reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had
been told to him, the doubt of Mester Colin
and the final drama of his introduction to
the hidden domain, combined with the incident
of Ben Weatherstaff's angry face peering over
the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant
strength, made Mrs. Sowerby's nice-looking
face quite change color several times.
"My word!" she said. "It was a good thing
that little lass came to th' Manor. It's been
th' makin' o' her an' th' savin, o' him. Standin'
on his feet! An' us all thinkin' he was a
poor half-witted lad with not a straight bone
in him."
She asked a great many questions and her blue
eyes were full of deep thinking.
"What do they make of it at th' Manor—him
being so well an' cheerful an' never complainin'?"
she inquired. "They don't know what to make
of it," answered Dickon. "Every day as comes
round his face looks different. It's fillin'
out and doesn't look so sharp an' th' waxy
color is goin'. But he has to do his bit o'
complainin'," with a highly entertained grin.
"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby.
Dickon chuckled.
"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's
happened. If the doctor knew he'd found out
he could stand on his feet he'd likely write
and tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin's savin'
th' secret to tell himself. He's goin' to
practise his Magic on his legs every day till
his father comes back an' then he's goin'
to march into his room an' show him he's as
straight as other lads. But him an' Miss Mary
thinks it's best plan to do a bit o' groanin'
an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off
th' scent."
Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable
laugh long before he had finished his last
sentence.
"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' their-selves
I'll warrant. They'll get a good bit o' actin'
out of it an' there's nothin' children likes
as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they
do, Dickon lad." Dickon stopped weeding and
sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes
were twinkling with fun.
"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair
every time he goes out," he explained. "An'
he flies out at John, th' footman, for not
carryin' him careful enough. He makes himself
as helpless lookin' as he can an' never lifts
his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house.
An' he grunts an' frets a good bit when he's
bein' settled into his chair. Him an' Miss
Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he
groans an' complains she'll say, 'Poor Colin!
Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak
as that, poor Colin?'—but th' trouble is
that sometimes they can scarce keep from burstin'
out laughin'. When we get safe into the garden
they laugh till they've no breath left to
laugh with. An' they have to stuff their faces
into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the gardeners
from hearin', if any of, 'em's about."
"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!"
said Mrs. Sowerby, still laughing herself.
"Good healthy child laughin's better than
pills any day o' th' year. That pair'll plump
up for sure."
"They are plumpin' up," said Dickon. "They're
that hungry they don't know how to get enough
to eat without makin' talk. Mester Colin says
if he keeps sendin' for more food they won't
believe he's an invalid at all. Miss Mary
says she'll let him eat her share, but he
says that if she goes hungry she'll get thin
an' they mun both get fat at once."
Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation
of this difficulty that she quite rocked backward
and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon
laughed with her.
"I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said
when she could speak. "I've thought of a way
to help 'em. When tha' goes to 'em in th'
mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new
milk an' I'll bake 'em a crusty cottage loaf
or some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as
you children like. Nothin's so good as fresh
milk an' bread. Then they could take off th'
edge o' their hunger while they were in their
garden an' th, fine food they get indoors
'ud polish off th' corners."
"Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what
a wonder tha' art! Tha' always sees a way
out o' things. They was quite in a pother
yesterday. They didn't see how they was to
manage without orderin' up more food—they
felt that empty inside."
"They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an'
health's comin' back to both of 'em. Children
like that feels like young wolves an' food's
flesh an' blood to 'em," said Mrs. Sowerby.
Then she smiled Dickon's own curving smile.
"Eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves for
sure," she said.
She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful
mother creature—and she had never been more
so than when she said their "play actin'"
would be their joy. Colin and Mary found it
one of their most thrilling sources of entertainment.
The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion
had been unconsciously suggested to them first
by the puzzled nurse and then by Dr. Craven
himself.
"Your appetite. Is improving very much, Master
Colin," the nurse had said one day. "You used
to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed
with you."
"Nothing disagrees with me now" replied Colin,
and then seeing the nurse looking at him curiously
he suddenly remembered that perhaps he ought
not to appear too well just yet. "At least
things don't so often disagree with me. It's
the fresh air."
"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking
at him with a mystified expression. "But I
must talk to Dr. Craven about it."
"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she
went away. "As if she thought there must be
something to find out."
"I won't have her finding out things," said
Colin. "No one must begin to find out yet."
When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed
puzzled, also. He asked a number of questions,
to Colin's great annoyance.
"You stay out in the garden a great deal,"
he suggested. "Where do you go?"
Colin put on his favorite air of dignified
indifference to opinion.
"I will not let any one know where I go,"
he answered. "I go to a place I like. Every
one has orders to keep out of the way. I won't
be watched and stared at. You know that!"
"You seem to be out all day but I do not think
it has done you harm—I do not think so.
The nurse says that you eat much more than
you have ever done before."
"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden
inspiration, "perhaps it is an unnatural appetite."
"I do not think so, as your food seems to
agree with you," said Dr. Craven. "You are
gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better."
"Perhaps—perhaps I am bloated and feverish,"
said Colin, assuming a discouraging air of
gloom. "People who are not going to live are
often—different." Dr. Craven shook his head.
He was holding Colin's wrist and he pushed
up his sleeve and felt his arm.
"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully,
"and such flesh as you have gained is healthy.
If you can keep this up, my boy, we need not
talk of dying. Your father will be happy to
hear of this remarkable improvement."
"I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth
fiercely. "It will only disappoint him if
I get worse again—and I may get worse this
very night. I might have a raging fever. I
feel as if I might be beginning to have one
now. I won't have letters written to my father—I
won't—I won't! You are making me angry and
you know that is bad for me. I feel hot already.
I hate being written about and being talked
over as much as I hate being stared at!"
"Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him.
"Nothing shall be written without your permission.
You are too sensitive about things. You must
not undo the good which has been done."
He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven
and when he saw the nurse he privately warned
her that such a possibility must not be mentioned
to the patient.
"The boy is extraordinarily better," he said.
"His advance seems almost abnormal. But of
course he is doing now of his own free will
what we could not make him do before. Still,
he excites himself very easily and nothing
must be said to irritate him." Mary and Colin
were much alarmed and talked together anxiously.
From this time dated their plan of "play actin'."
"I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said
Colin regretfully. "I don't want to have one
and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself
into a big one. Perhaps I couldn't have one
at all. That lump doesn't come in my throat
now and I keep thinking of nice things instead
of horrible ones. But if they talk about writing
to my father I shall have to do something."
He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately
it was not possible to carry out this brilliant
idea when he wakened each morning with an
amazing appetite and the table near his sofa
was set with a breakfast of home-made bread
and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry
jam and clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted
with him and when they found themselves at
the table—particularly if there were delicate
slices of sizzling ham sending forth tempting
odors from under a hot silver cover—they
would look into each other's eyes in desperation.
"I think we shall have to eat it all this
morning, Mary," Colin always ended by saying.
"We can send away some of the lunch and a
great deal of the dinner."
But they never found they could send away
anything and the highly polished condition
of the empty plates returned to the pantry
awakened much comment.
"I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish
the slices of ham were thicker, and one muffin
each is not enough for any one."
"It's enough for a person who is going to
die," answered Mary when first she heard this,
"but it's not enough for a person who is going
to live. I sometimes feel as if I could eat
three when those nice fresh heather and gorse
smells from the moor come pouring in at the
open window."
The morning that Dickon—after they had been
enjoying themselves in the garden for about
two hours—went behind a big rosebush and
brought forth two tin pails and revealed that
one was full of rich new milk with cream on
the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made
currant buns folded in a clean blue and white
napkin, buns so carefully tucked in that they
were still hot, there was a riot of surprised
joyfulness. What a wonderful thing for Mrs.
Sowerby to think of! What a kind, clever woman
she must be! How good the buns were! And what
delicious fresh milk!
"Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon,"
said Colin. "It makes her think of ways to
do things—nice things. She is a Magic person.
Tell her we are grateful, Dickon—extremely
grateful." He was given to using rather grown-up
phrases at times. He enjoyed them. He liked
this so much that he improved upon it.
"Tell her she has been most bounteous and
our gratitude is extreme."
And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to
and stuffed himself with buns and drank milk
out of the pail in copious draughts in the
manner of any hungry little boy who had been
taking unusual exercise and breathing in moorland
air and whose breakfast was more than two
hours behind him.
This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents
of the same kind. They actually awoke to the
fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people
to provide food for she might not have enough
to satisfy two extra appetites every day.
So they asked her to let them send some of
their shillings to buy things.
Dickon made the stimulating discovery that
in the wood in the park outside the garden
where Mary had first found him piping to the
wild creatures there was a deep little hollow
where you could build a sort of tiny oven
with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in
it. Roasted eggs were a previously unknown
luxury and very hot potatoes with salt and
fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland
king—besides being deliciously satisfying.
You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat
as many as you liked without feeling as if
you were taking food out of the mouths of
fourteen people.
Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked
by the mystic circle under the plum-tree which
provided a canopy of thickening green leaves
after its brief blossom-time was ended. After
the ceremony Colin always took his walking
exercise and throughout the day he exercised
his newly found power at intervals. Each day
he grew stronger and could walk more steadily
and cover more ground. And each day his belief
in the Magic grew stronger—as well it might.
He tried one experiment after another as he
felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon
who showed him the best things of all.
"Yesterday," he said one morning after an
absence, "I went to Thwaite for mother an'
near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth.
He's the strongest chap on th' moor. He's
the champion wrestler an' he can jump higher
than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther.
He's gone all th' way to Scotland for th'
sports some years. He's knowed me ever since
I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort
an' I axed him some questions. Th' gentry
calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee,
Mester Colin, and I says, 'How did tha' make
tha' muscles stick out that way, Bob? Did
tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so
strong?' An' he says 'Well, yes, lad, I did.
A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite
once showed me how to exercise my arms an'
legs an' every muscle in my body. An' I says,
'Could a delicate chap make himself stronger
with 'em, Bob?' an' he laughed an' says, 'Art
tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, 'No,
but I knows a young gentleman that's gettin'
well of a long illness an' I wish I knowed
some o' them tricks to tell him about.' I
didn't say no names an' he didn't ask none.
He's friendly same as I said an' he stood
up an' showed me good-natured like, an' I
imitated what he did till I knowed it by heart."
Colin had been listening excitedly.
"Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?"
"Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting
up. "But he says tha' mun do 'em gentle at
first an' be careful not to tire thysel'.
Rest in between times an' take deep breaths
an' don't overdo."
"I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show
me! Dickon, you are the most Magic boy in
the world!"
Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went
through a carefully practical but simple series
of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with
widening eyes. He could do a few while he
was sitting down. Presently he did a few gently
while he stood upon his already steadied feet.
Mary began to do them also. Soot, who was
watching the performance, became much disturbed
and left his branch and hopped about restlessly
because he could not do them too.
From that time the exercises were part of
the day's duties as much as the Magic was.
It became possible for both Colin and Mary
to do more of them each time they tried, and
such appetites were the results that but for
the basket Dickon put down behind the bush
each morning when he arrived they would have
been lost. But the little oven in the hollow
and Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying
that Mrs. Medlock and the nurse and Dr. Craven
became mystified again. You can trifle with
your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner
if you are full to the brim with roasted eggs
and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and
oatcakes and buns and heather honey and clotted
cream.
"They are eating next to nothing," said the
nurse. "They'll die of starvation if they
can't be persuaded to take some nourishment.
And yet see how they look."
"Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly.
"Eh! I'm moithered to death with them. They're
a pair of young Satans. Bursting their jackets
one day and the next turning up their noses
at the best meals Cook can tempt them with.
Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and
bread sauce did they set a fork into yesterday—and
the poor woman fair invented a pudding for
them—and back it's sent. She almost cried.
She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve
themselves into their graves."
Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and
carefully, He wore an extremely worried expression
when the nurse talked with him and showed
him the almost untouched tray of breakfast
she had saved for him to look at—but it
was even more worried when he sat down by
Colin's sofa and examined him. He had been
called to London on business and had not seen
the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things
begin to gain health they gain it rapidly.
The waxen tinge had left, Colins skin and
a warm rose showed through it; his beautiful
eyes were clear and the hollows under them
and in his cheeks and temples had filled out.
His once dark, heavy locks had begun to look
as if they sprang healthily from his forehead
and were soft and warm with life. His lips
were fuller and of a normal color. In fact
as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed
invalid he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven
held his chin in his hand and thought him
over.
"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything,"
he said. "That will not do. You will lose
all you have gained—and you have gained
amazingly. You ate so well a short time ago."
"I told you it was an unnatural appetite,"
answered Colin.
Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she
suddenly made a very queer sound which she
tried so violently to repress that she ended
by almost choking.
"What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning
to look at her.
Mary became quite severe in her manner.
"It was something between a sneeze and a cough,"
she replied with reproachful dignity, "and
it got into my throat."
"But," she said afterward to Colin, "I couldn't
stop myself. It just burst out because all
at once I couldn't help remembering that last
big potato you ate and the way your mouth
stretched when you bit through that thick
lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on
it."
"Is there any way in which those children
can get food secretly?" Dr. Craven inquired
of Mrs. Medlock.
"There's no way unless they dig it out of
the earth or pick it off the trees," Mrs.
Medlock answered. "They stay out in the grounds
all day and see no one but each other. And
if they want anything different to eat from
what's sent up to them they need only ask
for it."
"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going
without food agrees with them we need not
disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature."
"So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock. "She's
begun to be downright pretty since she's filled
out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her
hair's grown thick and healthy looking and
she's got a bright color. The glummest, ill-natured
little thing she used to be and now her and
Master Colin laugh together like a pair of
crazy young ones. Perhaps they're growing
fat on that."
"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let
them laugh."
CHAPTER XXV
THE 
CURTAIN
And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed
and every morning revealed new miracles. In
the robin's nest there were Eggs and the robin's
mate sat upon them keeping them warm with
her feathery little breast and careful wings.
At first she was very nervous and the robin
himself was indignantly watchful. Even Dickon
did not go near the close-grown corner in
those days, but waited until by the quiet
working of some mysterious spell he seemed
to have conveyed to the soul of the little
pair that in the garden there was nothing
which was not quite like themselves—nothing
which did not understand the wonderfulness
of what was happening to them—the immense,
tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and
solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person
in that garden who had not known through all
his or her innermost being that if an Egg
were taken away or hurt the whole world would
whirl round and crash through space and come
to an end—if there had been even one who
did not feel it and act accordingly there
could have been no happiness even in that
golden springtime air. But they all knew it
and felt it and the robin and his mate knew
they knew it.
At first the robin watched Mary and Colin
with sharp anxiety. For some mysterious reason
he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first
moment he set his dew-bright black eye on
Dickon he knew he was not a stranger but a
sort of robin without beak or feathers. He
could speak robin (which is a quite distinct
language not to be mistaken for any other).
To speak robin to a robin is like speaking
French to a Frenchman. Dickon always spoke
it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish
he used when he spoke to humans did not matter
in the least. The robin thought he spoke this
gibberish to them because they were not intelligent
enough to understand feathered speech. His
movements also were robin. They never startled
one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous
or threatening. Any robin could understand
Dickon, so his presence was not even disturbing.
But at the outset it seemed necessary to be
on guard against the other two. In the first
place the boy creature did not come into the
garden on his legs. He was pushed in on a
thing with wheels and the skins of wild animals
were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful.
Then when he began to stand up and move about
he did it in a queer unaccustomed way and
the others seemed to have to help him. The
robin used to secrete himself in a bush and
watch this anxiously, his head tilted first
on one side and then on the other. He thought
that the slow movements might mean that he
was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When
cats are preparing to pounce they creep over
the ground very slowly. The robin talked this
over with his mate a great deal for a few
days but after that he decided not to speak
of the subject because her terror was so great
that he was afraid it might be injurious to
the Eggs.
When the boy began to walk by himself and
even to move more quickly it was an immense
relief. But for a long time—or it seemed
a long time to the robin—he was a source
of some anxiety. He did not act as the other
humans did. He seemed very fond of walking
but he had a way of sitting or lying down
for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting
manner to begin again.
One day the robin remembered that when he
himself had been made to learn to fly by his
parents he had done much the same sort of
thing. He had taken short flights of a few
yards and then had been obliged to rest. So
it occurred to him that this boy was learning
to fly—or rather to walk. He mentioned this
to his mate and when he told her that the
Eggs would probably conduct themselves in
the same way after they were fledged she was
quite comforted and even became eagerly interested
and derived great pleasure from watching the
boy over the edge of her nest—though she
always thought that the Eggs would be much
cleverer and learn more quickly. But then
she said indulgently that humans were always
more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of
them never seemed really to learn to fly at
all. You never met them in the air or on tree-tops.
After a while the boy began to move about
as the others did, but all three of the children
at times did unusual things. They would stand
under the trees and move their arms and legs
and heads about in a way which was neither
walking nor running nor sitting down. They
went through these movements at intervals
every day and the robin was never able to
explain to his mate what they were doing or
tying to do. He could only say that he was
sure that the Eggs would never flap about
in such a manner; but as the boy who could
speak robin so fluently was doing the thing
with them, birds could be quite sure that
the actions were not of a dangerous nature.
Of course neither the robin nor his mate had
ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth,
and his exercises for making the muscles stand
out like lumps. Robins are not like human
beings; their muscles are always exercised
from the first and so they develop themselves
in a natural manner. If you have to fly about
to find every meal you eat, your muscles do
not become atrophied (atrophied means wasted
away through want of use).
When the boy was walking and running about
and digging and weeding like the others, the
nest in the corner was brooded over by a great
peace and content. Fears for the Eggs became
things of the past. Knowing that your Eggs
were as safe as if they were locked in a bank
vault and the fact that you could watch so
many curious things going on made setting
a most entertaining occupation. On wet days
the Eggs' mother sometimes felt even a little
dull because the children did not come into
the garden.
But even on wet days it could not be said
that Mary and Colin were dull. One morning
when the rain streamed down unceasingly and
Colin was beginning to feel a little restive,
as he was obliged to remain on his sofa because
it was not safe to get up and walk about,
Mary had an inspiration.
"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said,
"my legs and arms and all my body are so full
of Magic that I can't keep them still. They
want to be doing things all the time. Do you
know that when I waken in the morning, Mary,
when it's quite early and the birds are just
shouting outside and everything seems just
shouting for joy—even the trees and things
we can't really hear—I feel as if I must
jump out of bed and shout myself. If I did
it, just think what would happen!"
Mary giggled inordinately.
"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock
would come running and they would be sure
you had gone crazy and they'd send for the
doctor," she said.
Colin giggled himself. He could see how they
would all look—how horrified by his outbreak
and how amazed to see him standing upright.
"I wish my father would come home," he said.
"I want to tell him myself. I'm always thinking
about it—but we couldn't go on like this
much longer. I can't stand lying still and
pretending, and besides I look too different.
I wish it wasn't raining today."
It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration.
"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know
how many rooms there are in this house?"
"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered.
"There's about a hundred no one ever goes
into," said Mary. "And one rainy day I went
and looked into ever so many of them. No one
ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found
me out. I lost my way when I was coming back
and I stopped at the end of your corridor.
That was the second time I heard you crying."
Colin started up on his sofa.
"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said.
"It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose
we go and look at them. Wheel me in my chair
and nobody would know we went."
"That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No
one would dare to follow us. There are galleries
where you could run. We could do our exercises.
There is a little Indian room where there
is a cabinet full of ivory elephants. There
are all sorts of rooms."
"Ring the bell," said Colin.
When the nurse came in he gave his orders.
"I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and
I are going to look at the part of the house
which is not used. John can push me as far
as the picture-gallery because there are some
stairs. Then he must go away and leave us
alone until I send for him again."
Rainy days lost their terrors that morning.
When the footman had wheeled the chair into
the picture-gallery and left the two together
in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked
at each other delighted. As soon as Mary had
made sure that John was really on his way
back to his own quarters below stairs, Colin
got out of his chair.
"I am going to run from one end of the gallery
to the other," he said, "and then I am going
to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's
exercises."
And they did all these things and many others.
They looked at the portraits and found the
plain little girl dressed in green brocade
and holding the parrot on her finger.
"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations.
They lived a long time ago. That parrot one,
I believe, is one of my great, great, great,
great aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary—not
as you look now but as you looked when you
came here. Now you are a great deal fatter
and better looking."
"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed.
They went to the Indian room and amused themselves
with the ivory elephants. They found the rose-colored
brocade boudoir and the hole in the cushion
the mouse had left, but the mice had grown
up and run away and the hole was empty. They
saw more rooms and made more discoveries than
Mary had made on her first pilgrimage. They
found new corridors and corners and flights
of steps and new old pictures they liked and
weird old things they did not know the use
of. It was a curiously entertaining morning
and the feeling of wandering about in the
same house with other people but at the same
time feeling as if one were miles away from
them was a fascinating thing.
"I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew
I lived in such a big queer old place. I like
it. We will ramble about every rainy day.
We shall always be finding new queer corners
and things."
That morning they had found among other things
such good appetites that when they returned
to Colin's room it was not possible to send
the luncheon away untouched.
When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs
she slapped it down on the kitchen dresser
so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the
highly polished dishes and plates.
"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house
of mystery, and those two children are the
greatest mysteries in it."
"If they keep that up every day," said the
strong young footman John, "there'd be small
wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day
as he did a month ago. I should have to give
up my place in time, for fear of doing my
muscles an injury."
That afternoon Mary noticed that something
new had happened in Colin's room. She had
noticed it the day before but had said nothing
because she thought the change might have
been made by chance. She said nothing today
but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture
over the mantel. She could look at it because
the curtain had been drawn aside. That was
the change she noticed.
"I know what you want me to tell you," said
Colin, after she had stared a few minutes.
"I always know when you want me to tell you
something. You are wondering why the curtain
is drawn back. I am going to keep it like
that."
"Why?" asked Mary.
"Because it doesn't make me angry any more
to see her laughing. I wakened when it was
bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as
if the Magic was filling the room and making
everything so splendid that I couldn't lie
still. I got up and looked out of the window.
The room was quite light and there was a patch
of moonlight on the curtain and somehow that
made me go and pull the cord. She looked right
down at me as if she were laughing because
she was glad I was standing there. It made
me like to look at her. I want to see her
laughing like that all the time. I think she
must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."
"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that
sometimes I think perhaps you are her ghost
made into a boy."
That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought
it over and then answered her slowly.
"If I were her ghost—my father would be
fond of me."
"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired
Mary.
"I used to hate it because he was not fond
of me. If he grew fond of me I think I should
tell him about the Magic. It might make him
more cheerful."
CHAPTER XXVI
"IT'S MOTHER!"
Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing.
After the morning's incantations Colin sometimes
gave them Magic lectures.
"I like to do it," he explained, "because
when I grow up and make great scientific discoveries
I shall be obliged to lecture about them and
so this is practise. I can only give short
lectures now because I am very young, and
besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if
he were in church and he would go to sleep."
"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben,
"is that a chap can get up an' say aught he
pleases an' no other chap can answer him back.
I wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel'
sometimes."
But when Colin held forth under his tree old
Ben fixed devouring eyes on him and kept them
there. He looked him over with critical affection.
It was not so much the lecture which interested
him as the legs which looked straighter and
stronger each day, the boyish head which held
itself up so well, the once sharp chin and
hollow cheeks which had filled and rounded
out and the eyes which had begun to hold the
light he remembered in another pair. Sometimes
when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze meant that
he was much impressed he wondered what he
was reflecting on and once when he had seemed
quite entranced he questioned him.
"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?"
he asked.
"I was thinkin'" answered Ben, "as I'd warrant
tha's, gone up three or four pound this week.
I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders.
I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales."
"It's the Magic and—and Mrs. Sowerby's buns
and milk and things," said Colin. "You see
the scientific experiment has succeeded."
That morning Dickon was too late to hear the
lecture. When he came he was ruddy with running
and his funny face looked more twinkling than
usual. As they had a good deal of weeding
to do after the rains they fell to work. They
always had plenty to do after a warm deep
sinking rain. The moisture which was good
for the flowers was also good for the weeds
which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points
of leaves which must be pulled up before their
roots took too firm hold. Colin was as good
at weeding as any one in these days and he
could lecture while he was doing it. "The
Magic works best when you work, yourself,"
he said this morning. "You can feel it in
your bones and muscles. I am going to read
books about bones and muscles, but I am going
to write a book about Magic. I am making it
up now. I keep finding out things."
It was not very long after he had said this
that he laid down his trowel and stood up
on his feet. He had been silent for several
minutes and they had seen that he was thinking
out lectures, as he often did. When he dropped
his trowel and stood upright it seemed to
Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thought
had made him do it. He stretched himself out
to his tallest height and he threw out his
arms exultantly. Color glowed in his face
and his strange eyes widened with joyfulness.
All at once he had realized something to the
full.
"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!"
They stopped their weeding and looked at him.
"Do you remember that first morning you brought
me in here?" he demanded.
Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being
an animal charmer he could see more things
than most people could and many of them were
things he never talked about. He saw some
of them now in this boy. "Aye, that we do,"
he answered.
Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing.
"Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once
I remembered it myself—when I looked at
my hand digging with the trowel—and I had
to stand up on my feet to see if it was real.
And it is real! I'm well—I'm well!"
"Aye, that th' art!" said Dickon.
"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and
his face went quite red all over.
He had known it before in a way, he had hoped
it and felt it and thought about it, but just
at that minute something had rushed all through
him—a sort of rapturous belief and realization
and it had been so strong that he could not
help calling out.
"I shall live forever and ever and ever!"
he cried grandly. "I shall find out thousands
and thousands of things. I shall find out
about people and creatures and everything
that grows—like Dickon—and I shall never
stop making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feel—I
feel as if I want to shout out something—something
thankful, joyful!"
Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near
a rose-bush, glanced round at him.
"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested
in his dryest grunt. He had no opinion of
the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion
with any particular reverence.
But Colin was of an exploring mind and he
knew nothing about the Doxology.
"What is that?" he inquired.
"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant,"
replied Ben Weatherstaff.
Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal
charmer's smile.
"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother
says she believes th' skylarks sings it when
they gets up i' th' mornin'."
"If she says that, it must be a nice song,"
Colin answered. "I've never been in a church
myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon.
I want to hear it."
Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about
it. He understood what Colin felt better than
Colin did himself. He understood by a sort
of instinct so natural that he did not know
it was understanding. He pulled off his cap
and looked round still smiling.
"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to
Colin, "an' so mun tha', Ben—an' tha' mun
stand up, tha' knows."
Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on
and warmed his thick hair as he watched Dickon
intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from
his knees and bared his head too with a sort
of puzzled half-resentful look on his old
face as if he didn't know exactly why he was
doing this remarkable thing.
Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes
and began to sing in quite a simple matter-of-fact
way and in a nice strong boy voice:
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen."
When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was
standing quite still with his jaws set obstinately
but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed
on Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and
appreciative.
"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like
it. Perhaps it means just what I mean when
I want to shout out that I am thankful to
the Magic." He stopped and thought in a puzzled
way. "Perhaps they are both the same thing.
How can we know the exact names of everything?
Sing it again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I
want to sing it, too. It's my song. How does
it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings
flow'?"
And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin
lifted their voices as musically as they could
and Dickon's swelled quite loud and beautiful—and
at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly
cleared his throat and at the third line he
joined in with such vigor that it seemed almost
savage and when the "Amen" came to an end
Mary observed that the very same thing had
happened to him which had happened when he
found out that Colin was not a cripple—his
chin was twitching and he was staring and
winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet.
"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore,"
he said hoarsely, "but I may change my mind
i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound
this week Mester Colin—five on 'em!"
Colin was looking across the garden at something
attracting his attention and his expression
had become a startled one.
"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly.
"Who is it?"
The door in the ivied wall had been pushed
gently open and a woman had entered. She had
come in with the last line of their song and
she had stood still listening and looking
at them. With the ivy behind her, the sunlight
drifting through the trees and dappling her
long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling
across the greenery she was rather like a
softly colored illustration in one of Colin's
books. She had wonderful affectionate eyes
which seemed to take everything in—all of
them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures"
and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly
as she had appeared, not one of them felt
that she was an intruder at all. Dickon's
eyes lighted like lamps.
"It's mother—that's who it is!" he cried
and went across the grass at a run.
Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary
went with him. They both felt their pulses
beat faster.
"It's mother!" Dickon said again when they
met halfway. "I knowed tha' wanted to see
her an' I told her where th' door was hid."
Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed
royal shyness but his eyes quite devoured
her face.
"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you,"
he said, "you and Dickon and the secret garden.
I'd never wanted to see any one or anything
before."
The sight of his uplifted face brought about
a sudden change in her own. She flushed and
the corners of her mouth shook and a mist
seemed to sweep over her eyes.
"Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously.
"Eh! dear lad!" as if she had not known she
were going to say it. She did not say, "Mester
Colin," but just "dear lad" quite suddenly.
She might have said it to Dickon in the same
way if she had seen something in his face
which touched her. Colin liked it.
"Are you surprised because I am so well?"
he asked. She put her hand on his shoulder
and smiled the mist out of her eyes. "Aye,
that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like
thy mother tha' made my heart jump."
"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly,
"that will make my father like me?"
"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and
she gave his shoulder a soft quick pat. "He
mun come home—he mun come home."
"Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff, getting
close to her. "Look at th' lad's legs, wilt
tha'? They was like drumsticks i' stockin'
two month' ago—an' I heard folk tell as
they was bandy an' knock-kneed both at th'
same time. Look at 'em now!"
Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.
"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs
in a bit," she said. "Let him go on playin'
an' workin' in the garden an' eatin' hearty
an' drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an'
there'll not be a finer pair i' Yorkshire,
thank God for it."
She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders
and looked her little face over in a motherly
fashion.
"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near
as hearty as our 'Lisabeth Ellen. I'll warrant
tha'rt like thy mother too. Our Martha told
me as Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty
woman. Tha'lt be like a blush rose when tha'
grows up, my little lass, bless thee."
She did not mention that when Martha came
home on her "day out" and described the plain
sallow child she had said that she had no
confidence whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had
heard. "It doesn't stand to reason that a
pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a
fou' little lass," she had added obstinately.
Mary had not had time to pay much attention
to her changing face. She had only known that
she looked "different" and seemed to have
a great deal more hair and that it was growing
very fast. But remembering her pleasure in
looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was
glad to hear that she might some day look
like her.
Susan Sowerby went round their garden with
them and was told the whole story of it and
shown every bush and tree which had come alive.
Colin walked on one side of her and Mary on
the other. Each of them kept looking up at
her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious
about the delightful feeling she gave them—a
sort of warm, supported feeling. It seemed
as if she understood them as Dickon understood
his "creatures." She stooped over the flowers
and talked about them as if they were children.
Soot followed her and once or twice cawed
at her and flew upon her shoulder as if it
were Dickon's. When they told her about the
robin and the first flight of the young ones
she laughed a motherly little mellow laugh
in her throat.
"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin'
children to walk, but I'm feared I should
be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead
o' legs," she said.
It was because she seemed such a wonderful
woman in her nice moorland cottage way that
at last she was told about the Magic.
"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after
he had explained about Indian fakirs. "I do
hope you do."
"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed
it by that name but what does th' name matter?
I warrant they call it a different name i'
France an' a different one i' Germany. Th'
same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th'
sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's
th' Good Thing. It isn't like us poor fools
as think it matters if us is called out of
our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop
to worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin' worlds
by th' million—worlds like us. Never thee
stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin'
th' world's full of it—an' call it what
tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I
come into th' garden."
"I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his
beautiful strange eyes at her. "Suddenly I
felt how different I was—how strong my arms
and legs were, you know—and how I could
dig and stand—and I jumped up and wanted
to shout out something to anything that would
listen."
"Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology.
It would ha' listened to anything tha'd sung.
It was th' joy that mattered. Eh! lad, lad—what's
names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his
shoulders a quick soft pat again.
She had packed a basket which held a regular
feast this morning, and when the hungry hour
came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding
place, she sat down with them under their
tree and watched them devour their food, laughing
and quite gloating over their appetites. She
was full of fun and made them laugh at all
sorts of odd things. She told them stories
in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words.
She laughed as if she could not help it when
they told her of the increasing difficulty
there was in pretending that Colin was still
a fretful invalid.
"You see we can't help laughing nearly all
the time when we are together," explained
Colin. "And it doesn't sound ill at all. We
try to choke it back but it will burst out
and that sounds worse than ever."
"There's one thing that comes into my mind
so often," said Mary, "and I can scarcely
ever hold in when I think of it suddenly.
I keep thinking suppose Colin's face should
get to look like a full moon. It isn't like
one yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every
day—and suppose some morning it should look
like one—what should we do!"
"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit
o' play actin' to do," said Susan Sowerby.
"But tha' won't have to keep it up much longer.
Mester Craven'll come home."
"Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?"
Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.
"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if
he found out before tha' told him in tha'
own way," she said. "Tha's laid awake nights
plannin' it."
"I couldn't bear any one else to tell him,"
said Colin. "I think about different ways
every day, I think now I just want to run
into his room." "That'd be a fine start for
him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to see
his face, lad. I would that! He mun come back—that
he mun."
One of the things they talked of was the visit
they were to make to her cottage. They planned
it all. They were to drive over the moor and
lunch out of doors among the heather. They
would see all the twelve children and Dickon's
garden and would not come back until they
were tired.
Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to
the house and Mrs. Medlock. It was time for
Colin to be wheeled back also. But before
he got into his chair he stood quite close
to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a
kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly
caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak
and held it fast.
"You are just what I—what I wanted," he
said. "I wish you were my mother—as well
as Dickon's!"
All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew
him with her warm arms close against the bosom
under the blue cloak—as if he had been Dickon's
brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes.
"Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's
in this 'ere very garden, I do believe. She
couldna' keep out of it. Thy father mun come
back to thee—he mun!"
CHAPTER XXVII
IN THE GARDEN
In each century since the beginning of the
world wonderful things have been discovered.
In the last century more amazing things were
found out than in any century before. In this
new century hundreds of things still more
astounding will be brought to light. At first
people refuse to believe that a strange new
thing can be done, then they begin to hope
it can be done, then they see it can be done—then
it is done and all the world wonders why it
was not done centuries ago. One of the new
things people began to find out in the last
century was that thoughts—just mere thoughts—are
as powerful as electric batteries—as good
for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one
as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one
get into your mind is as dangerous as letting
a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If
you let it stay there after it has got in
you may never get over it as long as you live.
So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of
disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and
sour opinions of people and her determination
not to be pleased by or interested in anything,
she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and
wretched child. Circumstances, however, were
very kind to her, though she was not at all
aware of it. They began to push her about
for her own good. When her mind gradually
filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages
crowded with children, with queer crabbed
old gardeners and common little Yorkshire
housemaids, with springtime and with secret
gardens coming alive day by day, and also
with a moor boy and his "creatures," there
was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts
which affected her liver and her digestion
and made her yellow and tired.
So long as Colin shut himself up in his room
and thought only of his fears and weakness
and his detestation of people who looked at
him and reflected hourly on humps and early
death, he was a hysterical half-crazy little
hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine
and the spring and also did not know that
he could get well and could stand upon his
feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful
thoughts began to push out the old hideous
ones, life began to come back to him, his
blood ran healthily through his veins and
strength poured into him like a flood. His
scientific experiment was quite practical
and simple and there was nothing weird about
it at all. Much more surprising things can
happen to any one who, when a disagreeable
or discouraged thought comes into his mind,
just has the sense to remember in time and
push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly
courageous one. Two things cannot be in one
place.
"Where, you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow."
While the secret garden was coming alive and
two children were coming alive with it, there
was a man wandering about certain far-away
beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and
the valleys and mountains of Switzerland and
he was a man who for ten years had kept his
mind filled with dark and heart-broken thinking.
He had not been courageous; he had never tried
to put any other thoughts in the place of
the dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes
and thought them; he had lain on mountain-sides
with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming
all about him and flower breaths filling all
the air and he had thought them. A terrible
sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been
happy and he had let his soul fill itself
with blackness and had refused obstinately
to allow any rift of light to pierce through.
He had forgotten and deserted his home and
his duties. When he traveled about, darkness
so brooded over him that the sight of him
was a wrong done to other people because it
was as if he poisoned the air about him with
gloom. Most strangers thought he must be either
half mad or a man with some hidden crime on
his soul. He, was a tall man with a drawn
face and crooked shoulders and the name he
always entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald
Craven, Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England."
He had traveled far and wide since the day
he saw Mistress Mary in his study and told
her she might have her "bit of earth." He
had been in the most beautiful places in Europe,
though he had remained nowhere more than a
few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest
spots. He had been on the tops of mountains
whose heads were in the clouds and had looked
down on other mountains when the sun rose
and touched them with such light as made it
seem as if the world were just being born.
But the light had never seemed to touch himself
until one day when he realized that for the
first time in ten years a strange thing had
happened. He was in a wonderful valley in
the Austrian Tyrol and he had been walking
alone through such beauty as might have lifted,
any man's soul out of shadow. He had walked
a long way and it had not lifted his. But
at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself
down to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream.
It was a clear little stream which ran quite
merrily along on its narrow way through the
luscious damp greenness. Sometimes it made
a sound rather like very low laughter as it
bubbled over and round stones. He saw birds
come and dip their heads to drink in it and
then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed
like a thing alive and yet its tiny voice
made the stillness seem deeper. The valley
was very, very still.
As he sat gazing into the clear running of
the water, Archibald Craven gradually felt
his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet
as the valley itself. He wondered if he were
going to sleep, but he was not. He sat and
gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began
to see things growing at its edge. There was
one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing
so close to the stream that its leaves were
wet and at these he found himself looking
as he remembered he had looked at such things
years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly
how lovely it was and what wonders of blue
its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did
not know that just that simple thought was
slowly filling his mind—filling and filling
it until other things were softly pushed aside.
It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun
to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and
risen until at last it swept the dark water
away. But of course he did not think of this
himself. He only knew that the valley seemed
to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and
stared at the bright delicate blueness. He
did not know how long he sat there or what
was happening to him, but at last he moved
as if he were awakening and he got up slowly
and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long,
deep, soft breath and wondering at himself.
Something seemed to have been unbound and
released in him, very quietly.
"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper,
and he passed his hand over his forehead.
"I almost feel as if—I were alive!"
I do not know enough about the wonderfulness
of undiscovered things to be able to explain
how this had happened to him. Neither does
any one else yet. He did not understand at
all himself—but he remembered this strange
hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite
again and he found out quite by accident that
on this very day Colin had cried out as he
went into the secret garden:
"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"
The singular calmness remained with him the
rest of the evening and he slept a new reposeful
sleep; but it was not with him very long.
He did not know that it could be kept. By
the next night he had opened the doors wide
to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping
and rushing back. He left the valley and went
on his wandering way again. But, strange as
it seemed to him, there were minutes—sometimes
half-hours—when, without his knowing why,
the black burden seemed to lift itself again
and he knew he was a living man and not a
dead one. Slowly—slowly—for no reason
that he knew of—he was "coming alive" with
the garden.
As the golden summer changed into the deep
golden autumn he went to the Lake of Como.
There he found the loveliness of a dream.
He spent his days upon the crystal blueness
of the lake or he walked back into the soft
thick verdure of the hills and tramped until
he was tired so that he might sleep. But by
this time he had begun to sleep better, he
knew, and his dreams had ceased to be a terror
to him.
"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing
stronger."
It was growing stronger but—because of the
rare peaceful hours when his thoughts were
changed—his soul was slowly growing stronger,
too. He began to think of Misselthwaite and
wonder if he should not go home. Now and then
he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked
himself what he should feel when he went and
stood by the carved four-posted bed again
and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white
face while it slept and, the black lashes
rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.
He shrank from it.
One marvel of a day he had walked so far that
when he returned the moon was high and full
and all the world was purple shadow and silver.
The stillness of lake and shore and wood was
so wonderful that he did not go into the villa
he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered
terrace at the water's edge and sat upon a
seat and breathed in all the heavenly scents
of the night. He felt the strange calmness
stealing over him and it grew deeper and deeper
until he fell asleep.
He did not know when he fell asleep and when
he began to dream; his dream was so real that
he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He
remembered afterward how intensely wide awake
and alert he had thought he was. He thought
that as he sat and breathed in the scent of
the late roses and listened to the lapping
of the water at his feet he heard a voice
calling. It was sweet and clear and happy
and far away. It seemed very far, but he heard
it as distinctly as if it had been at his
very side.
"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then
again, sweeter and clearer than before, "Archie!
Archie!"
He thought he sprang to his feet not even
startled. It was such a real voice and it
seemed so natural that he should hear it.
"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where
are you?"
"In the garden," it came back like a sound
from a golden flute. "In the garden!"
And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken.
He slept soundly and sweetly all through the
lovely night. When he did awake at last it
was brilliant morning and a servant was standing
staring at him. He was an Italian servant
and was accustomed, as all the servants of
the villa were, to accepting without question
any strange thing his foreign master might
do. No one ever knew when he would go out
or come in or where he would choose to sleep
or if he would roam about the garden or lie
in the boat on the lake all night. The man
held a salver with some letters on it and
he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them.
When he had gone away Mr. Craven sat a few
moments holding them in his hand and looking
at the lake. His strange calm was still upon
him and something more—a lightness as if
the cruel thing which had been done had not
happened as he thought—as if something had
changed. He was remembering the dream—the
real—real dream.
"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself.
"In the garden! But the door is locked and
the key is buried deep."
When he glanced at the letters a few minutes
later he saw that the one lying at the top
of the rest was an English letter and came
from Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain
woman's hand but it was not a hand he knew.
He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer,
but the first words attracted his attention
at once.
"Dear Sir:
I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak
to you once on the moor. It was about Miss
Mary I spoke. I will make bold to speak again.
Please, sir, I would come home if I was you.
I think you would be glad to come and—if
you will excuse me, sir—I think your lady
would ask you to come if she was here.
Your obedient servant,
Susan Sowerby."
Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he
put it back in its envelope. He kept thinking
about the dream.
"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said.
"Yes, I'll go at once."
And he went through the garden to the villa
and ordered Pitcher to prepare for his return
to England.
In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and
on his long railroad journey he found himself
thinking of his boy as he had never thought
in all the ten years past. During those years
he had only wished to forget him. Now, though
he did not intend to think about him, memories
of him constantly drifted into his mind. He
remembered the black days when he had raved
like a madman because the child was alive
and the mother was dead. He had refused to
see it, and when he had gone to look at it
at last it had been, such a weak wretched
thing that everyone had been sure it would
die in a few days. But to the surprise of
those who took care of it the days passed
and it lived and then everyone believed it
would be a deformed and crippled creature.
He had not meant to be a bad father, but he
had not felt like a father at all. He had
supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries,
but he had shrunk from the mere thought of
the boy and had buried himself in his own
misery. The first time after a year's absence
he returned to Misselthwaite and the small
miserable looking thing languidly and indifferently
lifted to his face the great gray eyes with
black lashes round them, so like and yet so
horribly unlike the happy eyes he had adored,
he could not bear the sight of them and turned
away pale as death. After that he scarcely
ever saw him except when he was asleep, and
all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed
invalid, with a vicious, hysterical, half-insane
temper. He could only be kept from furies
dangerous to himself by being given his own
way in every detail.
All this was not an uplifting thing to recall,
but as the train whirled him through mountain
passes and golden plains the man who was "coming
alive" began to think in a new way and he
thought long and steadily and deeply.
"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years,"
he said to himself. "Ten years is a long time.
It may be too late to do anything—quite
too late. What have I been thinking of!"
Of course this was the wrong Magic—to begin
by saying "too late." Even Colin could have
told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic—either
black or white. This he had yet to learn.
He wondered if Susan Sowerby had taken courage
and written to him only because the motherly
creature had realized that the boy was much
worse—was fatally ill. If he had not been
under the spell of the curious calmness which
had taken possession of him he would have
been more wretched than ever. But the calm
had brought a sort of courage and hope with
it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the
worst he actually found he was trying to believe
in better things.
"Could it be possible that she sees that I
may be able to do him good and control him?"
he thought. "I will go and see her on my way
to Misselthwaite."
But when on his way across the moor he stopped
the carriage at the cottage, seven or eight
children who were playing about gathered in
a group and bobbing seven or eight friendly
and polite curtsies told him that their mother
had gone to the other side of the moor early
in the morning to help a woman who had a new
baby. "Our Dickon," they volunteered, was
over at the Manor working in one of the gardens
where he went several days each week.
Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy
little bodies and round red-cheeked faces,
each one grinning in its own particular way,
and he awoke to the fact that they were a
healthy likable lot. He smiled at their friendly
grins and took a golden sovereign from his
pocket and gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen"
who was the oldest.
"If you divide that into eight parts there
will be half a crown for each of, you," he
said.
Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of
curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and
nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.
The drive across the wonderfulness of the
moor was a soothing thing. Why did it seem
to give him a sense of homecoming which he
had been sure he could never feel again—that
sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple
bloom of distance and a warming of the heart
at drawing, nearer to the great old house
which had held those of his blood for six
hundred years? How he had driven away from
it the last time, shuddering to think of its
closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted
bed with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible
that perhaps he might find him changed a little
for the better and that he might overcome
his shrinking from him? How real that dream
had been—how wonderful and clear the voice
which called back to him, "In the garden—In
the garden!"
"I will try to find the key," he said. "I
will try to open the door. I must—though
I don't know why."
When he arrived at the Manor the servants
who received him with the usual ceremony noticed
that he looked better and that he did not
go to the remote rooms where he usually lived
attended by Pitcher. He went into the library
and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him
somewhat excited and curious and flustered.
"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.
"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's—he's
different, in a manner of speaking."
"Worse?" he suggested.
Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.
"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain,
"neither Dr. Craven, nor the nurse, nor me
can exactly make him out."
"Why is that?"
"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might
be better and he might be changing for the
worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding—and
his ways—"
"Has he become more—more peculiar?" her
master, asked, knitting his brows anxiously.
"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar—when
you compare him with what he used to be. He
used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began
to eat something enormous—and then he stopped
again all at once and the meals were sent
back just as they used to be. You never knew,
sir, perhaps, that out of doors he never would
let himself be taken. The things we've gone
through to get him to go out in his chair
would leave a body trembling like a leaf.
He'd throw himself into such a state that
Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible
for forcing him. Well, sir, just without warning—not
long after one of his worst tantrums he suddenly
insisted on being taken out every day by Miss
Mary and Susan Sowerby's boy Dickon that could
push his chair. He took a fancy to both Miss
Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame
animals, and, if you'll credit it, sir, out
of doors he will stay from morning until night."
"How does he look?" was the next question.
"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think
he was putting on flesh—but we're afraid
it may be a sort of bloat. He laughs sometimes
in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary.
He never used to laugh at all. Dr. Craven
is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow
him. He never was as puzzled in his life."
"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked.
"In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden—though
not a human creature is allowed to go near
for fear they'll look at him."
Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.
"In the garden," he said, and after he had
sent Mrs. Medlock away he stood and repeated
it again and again. "In the garden!"
He had to make an effort to bring himself
back to the place he was standing in and when
he felt he was on earth again he turned and
went out of the room. He took his way, as
Mary had done, through the door in the shrubbery
and among the laurels and the fountain beds.
The fountain was playing now and was encircled
by beds of brilliant autumn flowers. He crossed
the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by
the ivied walls. He did not walk quickly,
but slowly, and his eyes were on the path.
He felt as if he were being drawn back to
the place he had so long forsaken, and he
did not know why. As he drew near to it his
step became still more slow. He knew where
the door was even though the ivy hung thick
over it—but he did not know exactly where
it lay—that buried key.
So he stopped and stood still, looking about
him, and almost the moment after he had paused
he started and listened—asking himself if
he were walking in a dream.
The ivy hung thick over the door, the key
was buried under the shrubs, no human being
had passed that portal for ten lonely years—and
yet inside the garden there were sounds. They
were the sounds of running scuffling feet
seeming to chase round and round under the
trees, they were strange sounds of lowered
suppressed voices—exclamations and smothered
joyous cries. It seemed actually like the
laughter of young things, the uncontrollable
laughter of children who were trying not to
be heard but who in a moment or so—as their
excitement mounted—would burst forth. What
in heaven's name was he dreaming of—what
in heaven's name did he hear? Was he losing
his reason and thinking he heard things which
were not for human ears? Was it that the far
clear voice had meant?
And then the moment came, the uncontrollable
moment when the sounds forgot to hush themselves.
The feet ran faster and faster—they were
nearing the garden door—there was quick
strong young breathing and a wild outbreak
of laughing shows which could not be contained—and
the door in the wall was flung wide open,
the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy
burst through it at full speed and, without
seeing the outsider, dashed almost into his
arms.
Mr. Craven had extended them just in time
to save him from falling as a result of his
unseeing dash against him, and when he held
him away to look at him in amazement at his
being there he truly gasped for breath.
He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was
glowing with life and his running had sent
splendid color leaping to his face. He threw
the thick hair back from his forehead and
lifted a pair of strange gray eyes—eyes
full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black
lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes which
made Mr. Craven gasp for breath. "Who—What?
Who!" he stammered.
This was not what Colin had expected—this
was not what he had planned. He had never
thought of such a meeting. And yet to come
dashing out—winning a race—perhaps it
was even better. He drew himself up to his
very tallest. Mary, who had been running with
him and had dashed through the door too, believed
that he managed to make himself look taller
than he had ever looked before—inches taller.
"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe
it. I scarcely can myself. I'm Colin."
Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what
his father meant when he said hurriedly:
"In the garden! In the garden!"
"Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden
that did it—and Mary and Dickon and the
creatures—and the Magic. No one knows. We
kept it to tell you when you came. I'm well,
I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going to be
an athlete."
He said it all so like a healthy boy—his
face flushed, his words tumbling over each
other in his eagerness—that Mr. Craven's
soul shook with unbelieving joy.
Colin put out his hand and laid it on his
father's arm.
"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. "Aren't
you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever
and ever!"
Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's
shoulders and held him still. He knew he dared
not even try to speak for a moment.
"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said
at last. "And tell me all about it."
And so they led him in.
The place was a wilderness of autumn gold
and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet
and on every side were sheaves of late lilies
standing together—lilies which were white
or white and ruby. He remembered well when
the first of them had been planted that just
at this season of the year their late glories
should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed
and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening
the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel
that one, stood in an embowered temple of
gold. The newcomer stood silent just as the
children had done when they came into its
grayness. He looked round and round.
"I thought it would be dead," he said.
"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But
it came alive."
Then they sat down under their tree—all
but Colin, who wanted to stand while he told
the story.
It was the strangest thing he had ever heard,
Archibald Craven thought, as it was poured
forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and
Magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight
meeting—the coming of the spring—the passion
of insulted pride which had dragged the young
Rajah to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff
to his face. The odd companionship, the play
acting, the great secret so carefully kept.
The listener laughed until tears came into
his eyes and sometimes tears came into his
eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete,
the Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was
a laughable, lovable, healthy young human
thing.
"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it
need not be a secret any more. I dare say
it will frighten them nearly into fits when
they see me—but I am never going to get
into the chair again. I shall walk back with
you, Father—to the house."
Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him
away from the gardens, but on this occasion
he made an excuse to carry some vegetables
to the kitchen and being invited into the
servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a
glass of beer he was on the spot—as he had
hoped to be—when the most dramatic event
Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present
generation actually took place. One of the
windows looking upon the courtyard gave also
a glimpse of the lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing
Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that
he might have caught sight of his master and
even by chance of his meeting with Master
Colin.
"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?"
she asked.
Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped
his lips with the back of his hand.
"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly
significant air.
"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock.
"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff.
"Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I could sup up another
mug of it."
"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling
his beer-mug in her excitement.
"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half
of his new mug at one gulp.
"Where was Master Colin? How did he look?
What did they say to each other?"
"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o'
only bein' on th' stepladder lookin, over
th' wall. But I'll tell thee this. There's
been things goin' on outside as you house
people knows nowt about. An' what tha'll find
out tha'll find out soon."
And it was not two minutes before he swallowed
the last of his beer and waved his mug solemnly
toward the window which took in through the
shrubbery a piece of the lawn.
"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious.
Look what's comin' across th' grass."
When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her
hands and gave a little shriek and every man
and woman servant within hearing bolted across
the servants' hall and stood looking through
the window with their eyes almost starting
out of their heads.
Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite
and he looked as many of them had never seen
him. And by his, side with his head up in
the air and his eyes full of laughter walked
as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire—Master
Colin.
