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!"

Though a week of windy chill delays Colin's first outing, Dickon visits the manor house daily to bring Colin and Mary news of the garden and of the advancing spring. Colin is adamant that the garden's secrecy be preserved, and the three children plan a means of bringing him there without making the location of the garden known to all. Colin summons the head gardener, Mr. Roach, to his chamber and commands him to keep everyone away from the garden paths and walls, as he intends to go out that afternoon. Roach, speaking to Mrs. Medlock outside Colin's room, remarks upon Colin's regal bearing and casual tone of command. Medlock replies that Mary's influence will temper that tendency in Colin--she will show him that the whole of the world does not belong to him. During lunch, Colin tells Mary how eager he is to see the spring, as he has never seen it before. Mary replies that, as there is no springtime in India, she too had never seen it before coming to Misselthwaite. Colin's nurse then dresses him, and a footman carries him out in his wheeled chair. He is delighted by the greenness of the landscape and the smell of new flowers in the air. As they walk toward the secret garden, Mary points out for Colin all of the places she mentioned in her stories of the moor. Colin is enraptured, and his eyes grow larger and larger--"as if it were they which were listening--listening, instead of his ears. In the garden itself, Colin's ivory skin begins to grow rosy, as though he were being brought to life. He exclaims that he will get well, and "live forever and ever and ever


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.

In the garden, Mary and Dickon begin speaking Yorkshire dialect, and, for the first time, Colin joins them. He wonders aloud if the beauty of the landscape is not, perhaps, somehow intended for him. Mary and Dickon set about showing him all the treasures of the garden, but hesitate when Colin asks about the great gray tree from which his mother fell to her death. Dickon remarks that roses will soon grow over its bark, hiding the dead wood and making it the loveliest thing in the garden. By a stroke of magical good fortune, the robin briefly appears and distracts Colin from his contemplation of the tree. Mrs. Sowerby, Dickon's mother, suspects that Colin's mother is somehow still in the secret garden, still watching over her son, and that it is her influence that has brought the three children to the garden. Privately, Mary believes this to be a part of what she calls "Magic," of the kind that Dickon works on everything that comes near to him. Colin tells Mary and Dickon that he intends to come out with them every day, and that soon he shall walk on his own and be strong enough to work in the garden. Suddenly, the furious face of Ben Weatherstaff appears over the garden wall; he is astonished to see the children in the formerly locked garden. In his shock at seeing Colin, Ben Weatherstaff calls him "the poor cripple" and asks if he has crooked legs and a crooked back. Colin is incensed, and, with surprising strength, suddenly rises from his wheeled chair and commands the old man to look at him, so that Ben might attest to his unquestionable soundness. He then instructs Ben Weatherstaff to join them in the garden, so that he might speak with him


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.

Mary runs out to meet Ben Weatherstaff, leaving Dickon and Colin in the garden. Colin asks Dickon if it is his Magic that makes it possible for Colin to stand; Dickon replies that it is not his, but the same Magic that makes the flowers grow. Mary, during her walk back to the garden, chants encouragement to Colin under her breath, thinking that this, too, is a form of Magic. Ben Weatherstaff enters the garden and finds Colin standing quite straight. Ben Weatherstaff tells Colin that he is only able to keep his position at Misselthwaite because Mistress Craven was fond of him. Ben also informs the children that he has secretly come to the garden once a year for ten years, as Mistress Craven had asked him to care for it if anything were ever to happen to her. Ben, despite the locked door, stubbornly obeyed her orders. Colin announces that it is now his garden, though he will permit the old man to come there as well--provided that Ben keeps the secret. Before the sun sets, Colin ceremoniously plants a single rose to mark the garden as his own.

Both Colin and Mary have suffered from what might be called "want of spring": Colin has never seen the springtime because he has always been bedridden, and Mary "never saw it in India because there wasn't any. Since springtime is associated with beauty, joy, and life in The Secret Garden, this rather extraordinary statement suggests that India possesses none of these things. Once again, India is aligned with unhappiness and death. This association cannot help but smack of implicit racism--the people of Indian are aligned with these things as well. When Colin is finally taken out into the garden, his eyes ravenously devour the landscape; the narrator remarks that it is "as though  were listening- listening, instead of his ears. It is Colin's eyes that listen to the sounds of spring because, of course, they are somehow his mother's eyes - it is that part of him that is her that answers the call of the spring. The changes that Colin undergoes upon entering the garden imply that the landscape has a power comparable to that of resurrection  or animation. Colin begins to look as if he is made of flesh rather than "ivory"--it is as though he were formerly a statue, or a corpse, who is only just now coming to life. Similarly, the garden brought color to Mary's "waxy features"; the words "waxy" and "ivory" can imply dead or inanimate  objects. The tree from which Colin's mother fell to her death can also be said to undergo a kind of resurrection: though it is the only thing in the garden which is wholly dead, it will soon "be covered with new roses," so that the dead wood is no longer visible. The new roses symbolize both the children and the spirit of Colin's mother herself, which has never really left the garden. It is the magic of her spirit  that causes the robin redbreast to appear just when Colin asks his "dangerous question. Colin attempts to appropriate his mother's garden by planting a single rose; this is, as Ben Weatherstaff notes, the way kings take possession of a new place. Although it appears that the natural landscape colludes  with this desire , it in fact only supports his desire to be well. That is, it is not wholly Colin's garden--it is Mary and Dickon's as well. Though the trees are "like a king's canopy, a fairy king's," the reader is given to understand that the fairy king is not Colin, but Dickon. This is borne out by the passage in which Mary and Dickon present the garden to Colin: the narrator describes it as " being taken in state round the country of a magic king and queen and shown all the mysterious riches it contained. The phrase "being taken in state" implies that Colin is a kind of visiting king, whose powers are earthly; the Magical  king and queen, however, are unquestionably Dickon and Mary, and the garden is their country. The garden is repeatedly described as having a fairy-tale quality in this chapter. Colin is terribly excited to see what he had only heard about through narration and story; for both he and Mary, story lent life to things that they could not otherwise have seen. Examples of this include Mary's reading of fairy stories in India, Colin's reading of books, Martha's tales to Mary, and Mary's tales to Colin. Stories, the novel suggests, provide when life does not - but life is absolutely the more valuable in Hodgson Burnett's economy). There is even an explicit reference to fairy tales: Colin's eyes "were as big as the wolf's in Red Riding-Hood, when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark upon them. The fact that Colin's fury at Ben Weatherstaff provides him with sufficient strength to stand reinforces the notion that Colin's inability to do so was entirely a product of his negative thoughts. It also underlines the idea that if one only wishes to overcome one's illness, one can. Both of these ideas are taken, with very little alteration from the tenets of Christian Science. The mad chanting that Mary does to aid Colin recalls the prayers recited by Christian Science medical practitioners. These "medical" practitioners attempt to cure their patients through prayer, rather than through any medical or holistic treatment. Dickon remarks that the same magic that makes Colin stand is the one that makes the flowers work out of the earth. This suggests that one of the forms magic takes is that of what might be called the life principle. This section is full of Christian and Christian Scientist undertones: the sky looks down upon the children "like wonderful eyes" - the eyes of the Christian God, we may presume. Colin's exclamation that he "shall live forever and ever and ever" necessarily recalls the Christian promise of eternal life in paradise. The narrator's extended meditation on this feeling reveals that Hodgson Burnett is drawing heavily upon the work of Immanuel Kant  in establishing the feeling's source. The narrator says that one may have this sense that one will live forever when one looks at a sunset; when one stands in a deep wood; when looks up at the immense night sky. Tellingly, all of these examples are drawn from nature. Kant, in his book Critique of Judgment, said that one will often, when confronted with a truly immense natural landscape  have a feeling he called "sublime. This sublime feeling occurs because the hugeness of the landscape implies the hand of God; that is, in regarding it, we realize that there is a force and an intelligence infinitely larger than our own behind the composition of the world. Thus, the experience of nature provides Burnett's children with a realization that they are going to live forever because it assures them of the presence of god: if the Christian god exists, then eternal life exists. Hodgson Burnett hopelessly confuses the work of Kant, however, when she says that this feeling also makes Colin belief that the world was made for the purpose of him; it as though "the whole world  itself to being. radiantly beautiful  one boy. This is clearly drawn from Kant's notion of the beautiful, which he rigorously distinguished from the sublime: for Kant, beautiful things impress the viewer with a sense of what he called "purposiveness. Purposiveness means that one has the sense that the beautiful thing is made especially for the visual pleasure of the person who contemplates it. Hodgson Burnett thoroughly mixes the beautiful and the sublime in her feeling that one will live forever; it will recur in later chapters


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.

Dr. Craven is waiting for Colin and Mary to return to Misselthwaite. Mary is taken aback by Colin's exceeding rudeness in his conversation with the doctor, and determines to bring the rudeness to Colin's attention. She tells him that everyone has always given him his own way, as they regarded him as a pitiable creature; it is to this that he owes his peculiarities. Colin is surprised by Mary's frankness, as Mary was by Ben Weatherstaff's. He tells her that he intends to cease being so peculiar, and that the "white Magic" of the secret garden will help him to do so. Mary, Dickon, Colin, and Ben Weatherstaff spend all their days in the secret garden, observing the progress of the spring. Colin and Dickon engage themselves in passionate study of the growth of the plants and the habits of the animals that live upon the moor. Colin resolves to become a great scientist, and begins with a quasi-scientific inquiry into the making of Magic. Colin summons his three companions to hear him lecture on the subject of Magic. He tells them that there is a great deal of Magic at play in the world; one need only harness it. One may see it in the work of the springtime on the garden, since "Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing." Colin believes that he can call upon that same Magic to make him well by fervently repeating what he wishes to happen. At Colin's word, all four sit cross-legged beneath a tree, as though at a prayer-meeting, while Colin chants his desires over and over again. Colin then walks about the garden to test his newfound strength, with Mary, Dickon, Ben, and Dickon's many creatures following along behind in a kind of processional. Colin determines to keep his improving health a secret from everyone in the manor, so that his new potency will come as a complete surprise to his father upon Master Craven's return.

The garden's transformative properties take on further supernatural implications in this chapter: it is described as being a source of "white Magic," and the seeds there grow "as if fairies have tended them." This white magic, which bestows infinite goodness upon the children, is presumably to be distinguished from the "black" magic worked by the snake charmers in India. The racist implications of this distinction between white/black, good/evil, are clear. Colin's absolute engrossment in the garden and its creatures connects him absolutely into the stuff of life, and of living--he is now certain that he is going to live to be a man, and proposes that he will be the sort of "scientist" who studies Magic. Of course, the only kind of scientist who might study what Hodgson Burnett calls Magic is a Christian Scientist. Mary's chant, so similar to that of a Christian Science medical practitioner, was "a magical spell"--an instance of the simplest kind of magic. The idea that one need only "say things over and over and think about them until they stay in your mind forever" is also taken from the Christian Scientist emphasis upon the necessity of positive thinking. This religious echo is reinforced by the fact that the children's Magic circle is compared to both "a prayer-meeting" and "a sort of temple"; Colin is described as being "a sort of priest." "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." In this passage, Magic is again aligned with the life principle - that which is present in nature and in the springtime, in the birth of new animals  and in the rebirth of the landscape. It is therefore not unlike the Christian God, from whom everything is imagined to issue, and who is, at the same time, described as being "everywhere." Ben Weatherstaff remarks that Mistress Craven especially loved those flowers that pointed up to the heavens: a garden, by implication, is always celestial as well as earthly. looked down on the earth.") The garden begins once again to swarm with roses, her favorite flower; it is as though her spirit itself is being reawakened in the garden Colin says that Mary only knows magic because she is from India, where there are fakirs, and that Dickon may know Magic but "he doesn't know he knows it." This implies that only Colin's "great scientific discoveries" will truly explain the nature of Magic; for him, it is a kind of force "like electricity and horses and steam." He thus compares Magic to three of the agents of the British Industrial Revolution; like them it may only be harnessed by the human--that is, upper-class white British male--will. Therefore, neither Mary, who is "only a girl," nor Dickon, who is "common," can truly understand Magic. Colin's improvement is maintained as the latest secret in a book that is entirely animated by secrets. He is getting well for his father's sake, in some sense: we learn that he hopes to dispel his father's hatred and fear of him with his newfound health.