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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17396-8.txt b/17396-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7427c56 --- /dev/null +++ b/17396-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9921 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Secret Garden + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: MB Kork + +Release Date: December 26, 2005 [EBook #17396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH +DELIGHTFULNESS"--_Page 231_] + + + + + THE + SECRET GARDEN + + BY + FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + +_Author of_ + +"_The Shuttle_," "_The Making of a Marchioness_," "_The Methods of Lady +Walderhurst_," "_That Lass o' Lowries_," "_Through One Administration_," +"_Little Lord Fauntleroy_" "_A Lady of Quality_," etc. + +[Illustration] + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + _Copyright, 1911, by_ + FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + + _Copyright, 1910, 1911, by_ + THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. + + +_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign +languages, including the Scandinavian._ + +_August, 1911._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I THERE IS NO ONE LEFT 1 + II MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY 10 + III ACROSS THE MOOR 23 + IV MARTHA 30 + V THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR 55 + VI "THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!" 65 + VII THE KEY OF THE GARDEN 75 + VIII THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY 85 + IX THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN 97 + X DICKON 111 + XI THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH 128 + XII "MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" 140 + XIII "I AM COLIN" 153 + XIV A YOUNG RAJAH 172 + XV NEST BUILDING 189 + XVI "I WON'T!" SAID MARY 207 + XVII A TANTRUM 218 + XVIII "THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME" 229 + XIX "IT HAS COME!" 239 + XX "I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!" 255 + XXI BEN WEATHERSTAFF 268 + XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN 284 + XXIII MAGIC 292 + XXIV "LET THEM LAUGH" 310 + XXV THE CURTAIN 328 + XXVI "IT'S MOTHER!" 339 + XXVII IN THE GARDEN 353 + + + + +THE SECRET GARDEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +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 every one. 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. +Every one 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 every one 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 was 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 every one 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 +any one 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 any one'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 very 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 crêpe hat. + +"A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock +thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She +had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at +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 à 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 up-stairs 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 housemaids. +I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let +up-stairs. 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 down-stairs. + +"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 to-day. 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 lonelier 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 to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself. + +"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, 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 was 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 down-stairs +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 to-night." + +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' an' 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. She was getting on. + +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 +that 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 +down-stairs; 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 to-day. + +"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 down-stairs. 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 down-stairs. 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 up-stairs 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 OF 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 rain-storm 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 at 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 to-day 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' good-natured 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' th' 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 vixon, 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 can tell you 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 dough-cake 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 to live in." + +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 practise 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 twopence 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! tha' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our +'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have give 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 really 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 to-day. 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' curosity +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 to-day; 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 rose-bushes +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 tree-top, 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 flower-bed 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 to-day I can come to-morrow." + +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 +narcissusis an' jonquils an' 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 down-stairs 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's 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?" asked Mary. + +"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, she 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 suddenly 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 down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a +question. + +"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again +to-day?" + +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 to-day, 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 reddinin' 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 +an' 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' sees 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 across. Get +thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for to-day." + +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 skip 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 even 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, +an' 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 th' 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 us 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 quiet 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 to-day." + +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 under-gardeners 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, to-morrow." + +"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away to-morrow? 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 absent-mindedly. + +Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage. + +"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered. + +"Yes, I think so," he replied. + +"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. 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 wofully. "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 rain-drops 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. + +[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU?--ARE YOU A GHOST?'"--_Page 157_] + +"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 firelight. "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. + +"Every one 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! + +"Every one 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 into 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 feel 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 every one 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 what'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 of. + +"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 that'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 down-stairs 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 toward 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 leaf-buds 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 flight him." + +They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving. + +"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon. +"He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin' +now. He'll be a good bit different 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 him 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 to-morrow," 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 the same 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 to-day. 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 wakened 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 tantrum 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 to-morrow." + +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 and 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 secret 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 to-morrow 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 very 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 to-morrow 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 down-stairs 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 and 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 +up-stairs. 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 up-stairs 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." + +[Illustration: "DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."--_Page +251_] + +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 every one 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, every one 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 to-day." + +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 crowded 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 th' 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 toward 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 re-packed 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 +to-morrow, 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 to 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 then 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?" + +"Every one 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. To-morrow 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's 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' musn'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 to-morrow." + +"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 a 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' theirselves, I'll warrant. They'll +get a good bit o' play 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 we can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk +of dying. Your father will be very 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 rose-bush 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 oat-cakes +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 Colin's 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 trying 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. And 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 to-day." + +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. You could wheel me in my +chair and nobody would know where 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 +to-day 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," he said. + +"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary. + +"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me +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 was 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 tha' 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'?" + +[Illustration: "'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"--_Page 344_] + +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 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 he 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 half-way. "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 th' 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 'Lizabeth +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 deeper 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 every one 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 every one 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 home-coming 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 shouts 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' step-ladder +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! + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's notes: + +Table of Contents, an exclamation point was added to Chapter VI's title to +match the text. (there was!") + +Page 34, quotation mark added. (India," said) + +Page 62, apostrophe added to "an'". (readin' an') + +Page 101, quotation mark added. (come to-morrow.") + +Page 117, comma changed to period. (she ventured.) + +Page 163, extraneous quotation mark removed. (the gardeners?) + +Page 216, "it" changed to "if". (wondering if he) + +Page 262, Illustration: Closing punctuation added. (WIDE SMILE.") + +Page 272, period added. (he said.) + +Page 284, apostrophe added. (Dickon. "An') + +Page 318, "every" changed to "very". (very easily) + +Page 330, "eggs" changed to "Eggs" to fit rest of text. (injurious to the Eggs) + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 17396-8.txt or 17396-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/9/17396/ + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Secret Garden + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: MB Kork + +Release Date: December 26, 2005 [EBook #17396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/cover.jpg"><img src="./images/cover-tb.jpg" alt="The Secret Garden cover" title="The Secret Garden cover" /></a></div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 272px;"> +<img src="images/plate01.jpg" width="272" height="400" alt=""IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH DELIGHTFULNESS"" title=""IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH DELIGHTFULNESS"" /> +<span class="caption">"IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH DELIGHTFULNESS"—<a href='#Page_231'><i>Page 231</i></a></span> +</div> + + + + +<h1>THE</h1> +<h1>SECRET GARDEN</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT</h2> + +<div class="center"><i>Author of</i></div> + +<div class="center">"<i>The Shuttle</i>," "<i>The Making of a Marchioness</i>," "<i>The Methods of Lady<br /> +Walderhurst</i>," "<i>That Lass o' Lowries</i>," "<i>Through One Administration</i>,"<br /> +"<i>Little Lord Fauntleroy</i>" "<i>A Lady of Quality</i>," etc.<br /><br /></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 52px;"> +<img src="images/emblem.png" width="52" height="80" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" /> +</div> + +<div class="center"><br /><br /><br />NEW YORK<br /> +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br /> +PUBLISHERS<br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +<i>Copyright, 1911, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Frances Hodgson Burnett</span></div> + +<div class="center"><i>Copyright, 1910, 1911, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Phillips Publishing Co.</span></div> + + +<div class="center"><br /><br /><i>All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign +languages, including the Scandinavian.</i></div> + +<div class="center"><br /><br /><i>August, 1911.</i> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'>CHAPTER</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">There is No One Left</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mistress Mary Quite Contrary</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_10'>10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Across the Moor</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Martha</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_30'>30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Cry in the Corridor</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">There Was Some One Crying—There Was!</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Key of the Garden</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Robin Who Showed the Way</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Strangest House Any One Ever Lived in</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Dickon</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Nest of the Missel Thrush</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'>128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Might I Have a Bit of Earth</span>?"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'>140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">I am Colin</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_153'>153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Young Rajah</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_172'>172</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Nest Building</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_189'>189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">I Won't!" Said Mary</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Tantrum</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_218'>218</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Tha' Munnot Waste No Time</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_229'>229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">It Has Come</span>!"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_239'>239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">I Shall Live Forever—and Ever—and Ever</span>!" </td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_255'>255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ben Weatherstaff</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_268'>268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">When the Sun Went Down</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_284'>284</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Magic</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_292'>292</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIV </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Let Them Laugh</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_310'>310</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXV </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Curtain</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_328'>328</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVI </td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">It's Mother!</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_339'>339</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVII </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In the Garden</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_353'>353</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SECRET_GARDEN" id="THE_SECRET_GARDEN"></a>THE SECRET GARDEN</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THERE IS NO ONE LEFT</h3> + + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you +stay. Send my Ayah to me."</p> + +<p>The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could +not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>and kicked +her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not +possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig +is the worst insult of all.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say.</p> + +<p>"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. +Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago."</p> + +<p>The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly +dinner party. What a fool I was!"</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What is it? What is it?" Mrs. Lennox gasped.</p> + +<p>"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You did not say it had +broken out among your servants."</p> + +<p>"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me! Come with me!" and +she turned and ran into the house.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself +in the nursery and was forgotten by every one. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 affec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>tionate 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. +Every one 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 every one had got well again, surely some +one would remember and come to look for her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there was no one +in the bungalow but me and the snake."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child alone! In a +place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!"</p> + +<p>"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 every one had the cholera and I have +only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?"</p> + +<p>"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his +companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"</p> + +<p>"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does nobody +come?"</p> + +<p>The young man whose name was Barney looked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>at her very sadly. Mary even +thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.</p> + +<p>"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Go away!" cried Mary. "I don't want boys. Go away!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Mistress Mary, quite contrary"> +<tr><td align='left'>"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How does your garden grow?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">With silver bells, and cockle shells,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And marigolds all in a row."</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her, "at the end of the +week. And we're glad of it."</p> + +<p>"I am glad of it, too," answered Mary. "Where is home?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about him," snapped Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I believe she scarcely ever looked at her,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +any one 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 any one's little girl. She had had servants, and food and +clothes, but no one had taken any notice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 very angry to think people +imagined she was her little girl.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the chol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>era," 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."</p> + +<p>So she packed her small trunk and made the journey.</p> + +<p>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 crêpe hat.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going +to," she said. "Do you know anything about your uncle?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Never heard your father and mother talk about him?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary frowning. She frowned be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>cause she remembered that her +father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular. +Certainly they had never told her things.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you might as well be told something—to prepare you. You are +going to a queer place."</p> + +<p>Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by +her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>look as if she were interested. That was one of her unhappy, +disagreeable ways. So she sat still.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Medlock. "What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she answered. "I know nothing about such places."</p> + +<p>That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh.</p> + +<p>"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman. Don't you care?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter," said Mary, "whether I care or not."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>He's</i> not going to trouble himself about +you, that's sure and certain. He never troubles himself about no one."</p> + +<p>She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something in time.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>Mary gave a little involuntary jump.</p> + +<p>"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She had just +remembered a French fairy story she had once read called "Riquet à la +Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess and +it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>And she turned her face toward the streaming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>ACROSS THE MOOR</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th' young 'un with +thee."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove +off, the little girl <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's—it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round at her +companion.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>water on it," said +Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it," and she +pinched her thin lips more tightly together.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 up-stairs showed a dull glow.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for +them.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>swered. "So long as I know +what's expected of me, I can manage."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she +had perhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>MARTHA</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window.</p> + +<p>Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and +pointed also.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That there?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Mary. "I hate it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you?" inquired Mary.</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather +haughtily.</p> + +<p>Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and +laughed, without seeming the least out of temper.</p> + +<p>"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at +Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under housemaids. +I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let +up-stairs. 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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her imperious +little Indian way.</p> + +<p>Martha began to rub her grate again.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary.</p> + +<p>Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad +Yorkshire in her amazement.</p> + +<p>"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah +dressed me, of course."</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was +puppies!"</p> + +<p>"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could +scarcely stand this.</p> + +<p>But Martha was not at all crushed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary sat up in bed furious.</p> + +<p>"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You—you daughter +of a pig!"</p> + +<p>Martha stared and looked hot.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black."</p> + +<p>She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool +approval:</p> + +<p>"Those are nicer than mine."</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>"I hate black things," said Mary.</p> + +<p>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 per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>son to do things for +her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.</p> + +<p>"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly +held out her foot.</p> + +<p>"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where did he get it?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>him about an' it +lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't want it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit +o' sugar."</p> + +<p>"I don't want it," repeated Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why?" said Mary coldly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full +in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference +of ignorance.</p> + +<p>Martha looked indignant.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but +everything looked dull and wintry.</p> + +<p>"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' +got to do?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Who will go with me?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>Martha stared.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots +and she showed her her way down-stairs.</p> + +<p>"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door +added to the hundred in the strange house.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>could a garden be shut up? You could +always walk into a garden.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the +door leading from the second garden. He looked startled when he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"What is this place?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," he answered.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" said Mary, pointing through the other green door.</p> + +<p>"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall +an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that."</p> + +<p>"Can I go in them?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. Per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>haps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew +all about it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>watched +him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and +so at last she spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"I have been into the other gardens," she said.</p> + +<p>"There was nothin' to prevent thee," he answered crustily.</p> + +<p>"I went into the orchard."</p> + +<p>"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," he answered.</p> + +<p>"There was no door there into the other garden," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"What garden?" he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a +moment.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if +he were speaking to a child.</p> + +<p>"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not +seen thee before to-day. Has tha' begun tha' courtin' this early in th' +season? Tha'rt too forrad."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Will he always come when you call him?" she asked almost in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"What kind of a bird is he?" Mary asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very +hard.</p> + +<p>"I'm lonely," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her +a minute.</p> + +<p>"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Mary nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonelier before tha's done," he +said.</p> + +<p>He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden +soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.</p> + +<p>"What is your name?" Mary inquired.</p> + +<p>He stood up to answer her.</p> + +<p>"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, +"I'm lonely mysel'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> except when he's with me," and he jerked his thumb +toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."</p> + +<p>"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like +me and I never played with any one."</p> + +<p>It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and +old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a +song. Ben Weatherstaff laughed outright.</p> + +<p>"What did he do that for?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang me +if he hasn't took a fancy to thee."</p> + +<p>"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly and +looked up.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you know Dickon?" Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary would have liked to ask some more ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>tions. 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Rose-trees," said Mary. "Are there rose-trees?"</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig.</p> + +<p>"There was ten year' ago," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door? There +must be a door somewhere."</p> + +<p>Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked +when she first saw him.</p> + +<p>"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," he said.</p> + +<p>"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and +walked off, without even glancing at her or saying good-by.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR</h3> + + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?" said +Martha.</p> + +<p>"It tastes nice to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing to play with."</p> + +<p>"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> "Our children plays with +sticks and stones. They just runs about an' shouts an' looks at things."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward +to look at her with his small head on one side.</p> + +<p>"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 was sure that he would +understand and answer her.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It is the garden," she said. "I am sure it is."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>walked to the other +end, looking again, but there was no door.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said.</p> + +<p>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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> hall down-stairs +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.</p> + +<p>She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted.</p> + +<p>Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable.</p> + +<p>"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said. "You could +bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it to-night."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>she had listened. She +intended to know if Martha did.</p> + +<p>Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.</p> + +<p>"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' an' 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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>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. She was getting on.</p> + +<p>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 +that this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, +but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.</p> + +<p>Martha suddenly looked confused.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house—down one of those long +corridors."</p> + +<p>And at that very moment a door must have been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>opened somewhere +down-stairs; 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.</p> + +<p>"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying—and it isn't a +grown-up person."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING—THERE WAS!"</h3> + + +<p>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 to-day.</p> + +<p>"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked +Martha.</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I +have nothing."</p> + +<p>Martha looked perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Can tha' knit?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Can tha' sew?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Can tha' read?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then why doesn't tha' read somethin', or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>learn a bit o' spellin'? +Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now."</p> + +<p>"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India."</p> + +<p>"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' +library, there's thousands o' books there."</p> + +<p>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 down-stairs. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her +think several entirely new things.</p> + +<p>She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha +had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone down-stairs. 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here."</p> + +<p>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 up-stairs 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.</p> + +<p>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 hang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>ings 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.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she +makes me feel queer."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>she got tired she set the elephants in +order and shut the door of the cabinet.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me," said +Mary.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>though she was some distance from her own room and did not know +exactly where she was.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. +"And it <i>is</i> crying."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and +pulled her away. "What did I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which +way to go and I heard some one crying."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the +next.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There <i>was</i> some one crying—there <i>was</i>—there <i>was</i>!" she said to +herself.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE KEY OF THE GARDEN</h3> + + +<p>Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed +immediately, and called to Martha.</p> + +<p>"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!"</p> + +<p>The rain-storm 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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>meant to come again. +That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way off yet, but +it's comin'."</p> + +<p>"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary +said.</p> + +<p>"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead +brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.</p> + +<p>"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 at sunrise an' live out on it all day like Dickon +does."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see your cottage."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 to-day an' I'm goin' +home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother. Perhaps she +could talk to her."</p> + +<p>"I like your mother," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I should think tha' did," agreed Martha, polishing away.</p> + +<p>"I've never seen her," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"No, tha' hasn't," replied Martha.</p> + +<p>She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>end of her nose with the +back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite +positively.</p> + +<p>"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' good-natured 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' th' moor."</p> + +<p>"I like Dickon," added Mary. "And I've never seen him."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't like me," said Mary in her stiff, cold little way. "No one +does."</p> + +<p>Martha looked reflective again.</p> + +<p>"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired, really quite as if she were +curious to know.</p> + +<p>Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.</p> + +<p>"Not at all—really," she answered. "But I never thought of that +before."</p> + +<p>Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection.</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>an' says: 'Tha' young vixon, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Springtime's comin'," he said. "Cannot tha' smell it?"</p> + +<p>Mary sniffed and thought she could.</p> + +<p>"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What will they be?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Crocuses an' snowdrops an' daffydowndillys. Has tha' never seen them?"</p> + +<p>"No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India," +said Mary. "And I think things grow up in a night."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I am going to," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you think he remembers me?" she said.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he +lives?" Mary inquired.</p> + +<p>"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years +ago.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than +anything else in the world!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like +robin sounds.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>an almost frightened face +as it hung from her finger.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it has been buried for ten years," she said in a whisper. +"Perhaps it is the key to the garden!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Living as it were, all by herself in a house with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>ever should find the hidden door she would be ready.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 can tell you I did enjoy myself."</p> + +<p>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 dough-cake with a bit +of brown sugar in it.</p> + +<p>"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 to live in."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>her life by what Martha called "blacks" until she +didn't know how to put on her own stockings.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary reflected a little.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't want a governess," said Mary sharply.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary gave her a long, steady look.</p> + +<p>"You do cheer me up," she said. "I like to hear you talk."</p> + +<p>Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held +in her hands under her apron.</p> + +<p>"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I've brought +thee a present."</p> + +<p>"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of +fourteen hungry people give any one a present!</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What is it for?" she asked curiously.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped +until she had reached a hundred.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself.</p> + +<p>"It looks nice," she said. "Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think I +could ever skip like that?"</p> + +<p>"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. "You +can't skip a hundred at first, but if you practise 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.'"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>when it rains a bit, so as tha' wrap up warm."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Martha," she said, "they were your wages. It was your twopence 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.</p> + +<p>Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed +to this sort of thing either. Then she laughed.</p> + +<p>"Eh! tha' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our +'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have give me a kiss."</p> + +<p>Mary looked stiffer than ever.</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to kiss you?"</p> + +<p>Martha laughed again.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 really wanted him to see her skip.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I never skipped before," Mary said. "I'm just beginning. I can only go +up to twenty."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>after thee yesterday. He'll be at +it again to-day. 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' curosity +will be th' death of thee sometime if tha' doesn't look sharp."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You showed me where the key was yesterday," she said. "You ought to +show me the door to-day; but I don't believe you know!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>as a robin when +he shows off—and they are nearly always doing it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a hole in?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was standing <i>inside</i> the secret garden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN</h3> + + +<p>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 rose-bushes +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!"</p> + +<p>Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who +had flown to his tree-top, was still as all the rest. He did not even +flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.</p> + +<p>"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person who +has spoken in here for ten years."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wonder if they are all quite dead," she said. "Is it all a quite dead +garden? I wish it wasn't."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But she was <i>inside</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>would +be, and what thousands of roses would grow on every side!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There +had once been a flower-bed 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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they <i>might</i> be crocuses or +snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered.</p> + +<p>She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp +earth. She liked it very much.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places," she said. +"I will go all over the garden and look."</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself. "Even +if the roses are dead, there are other things alive."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 to-day I can come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see +gardening begun on his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said. "Eh! +mother will be pleased <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done +for thee."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that look like onions?"</p> + +<p>"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 +narcissusis an' jonquils an' 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."</p> + +<p>"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking +possession of her.</p> + +<p>"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says he +just whispers things out o' th' ground."</p> + +<p>"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one +helped them?" inquired Mary anxiously.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary. "I want to see all the +things that grow in England."</p> + +<p>She had finished her dinner and gone to her favorite seat on the +hearth-rug.</p> + +<p>"I wish—I wish I had a little spade," she said.</p> + +<p>"Whatever does tha' want a spade for?" asked Martha, laughing. "Art tha' +goin' to take to diggin'? I must tell mother that, too."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>Martha's face quite lighted up.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Were they?" said Mary. "How many things she knows, doesn't she?"</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<p>"How much would a spade cost—a little one?" Mary asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I've got more than that in my purse," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> Mary. "Mrs. Morrison gave +me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr. Craven."</p> + +<p>"Did he remember thee that much?" exclaimed Martha.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What?" said Mary eagerly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I know how to write," Mary answered.</p> + +<p>Martha shook her head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you're a good girl!" Mary cried. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin +little hands together with sheer pleasure.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 down-stairs 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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot">"<i>My Dear Dickon:</i> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="right"> +<span style="margin-right: 9.5em;">"Your loving sister,</span><br /> +"<span class="smcap">Martha Phœbe Sowerby</span>."<br /> +</div></div> + +<p>"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher's boy to +take it in his cart. He's a great friend o' Dickon's," said Martha.</p> + +<p>"How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"He'll bring 'em to you himself. He'll like to walk over this way."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should +see Dickon."</p> + +<p>"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, she had looked so +pleased.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him +very much."</p> + +<p>Martha gave a little start, as if she suddenly remembered something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean—" Mary began.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?" she asked, quite +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and +how clean she keeps the cottage."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>very little. But +just before Martha went down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a +question.</p> + +<p>"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again +to-day?"</p> + +<p>Martha certainly started slightly.</p> + +<p>"What makes thee ask that?" she said.</p> + +<p>"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 to-day, so you see it couldn't have been the wind."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't listening," said Mary. "I was just waiting for you—and I +heard it. That's three times."</p> + +<p>"My word! There's Mrs. Medlock's bell," said Martha, and she almost ran +out of the room.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>DICKON</h3> + + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He's friends with me now," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He very seldom talked much and sometimes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"How long has tha' been here?" he jerked out.</p> + +<p>"I think it's about a month," she answered.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much of her looks she was +not greatly disturbed.</p> + +<p>"I know I'm fatter," she said. "My stockings are getting tighter. They +used to make wrinkles. There's the robin, Ben Weatherstaff."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Aye, there tha' art!" he said. "Tha' can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>put up with me for a bit +sometimes when tha's got no one better. Tha's been reddinin' 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."</p> + +<p>"Oh! look at him!" exclaimed Mary.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>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'."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was not +afraid to talk to him.</p> + +<p>"Have you a garden of your own?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No. I'm bachelder an' lodge with Martin at th' gate."</p> + +<p>"If you had one," said Mary, "what would you plant?"</p> + +<p>"Cabbages an' 'taters an' onions."</p> + +<p>"But if you wanted to make a flower garden," persisted Mary, "what would +you plant?"</p> + +<p>"Bulbs an' sweet-smellin' things—but mostly roses."</p> + +<p>Mary's face lighted up.</p> + +<p>"Do you like roses?" she said.</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it aside before he answered.</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"Where is she now?" asked Mary, much interested.</p> + +<p>"Heaven," he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil, "'cording +to what parson says."</p> + +<p>"What happened to the roses?" Mary asked again, more interested than +ever.</p> + +<p>"They was left to themselves."</p> + +<p>Mary was becoming quite excited.</p> + +<p>"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left to +themselves?" she ventured.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can you +tell whether they are dead or alive?" inquired Mary.</p> + +<p>"Wait till th' spring gets at 'em—wait till th' sun shines on th' rain +an' th' rain falls on th' sunshine an' then tha'll find out."</p> + +<p>"How—how?" cried Mary, forgetting to be careful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look along th' twigs an' branches an' if tha' sees 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.</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary felt her face grow red. She was almost afraid to answer.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her, "that's true. +Tha' hasn't."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Do you go and see those other roses now?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Not been this year. My rheumatics has made me too stiff in th' joints."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 across. Get +thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for to-day."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>she +would skip 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't tha' move," he said. "It'd flight 'em."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'm Dickon," the boy said. "I know tha'rt Miss Mary."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Did you get Martha's letter?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He nodded his curly, rust-colored head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's why I come."</p> + +<p>He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground +beside him when he piped.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Will you show the seeds to me?" Mary said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Let us sit down on this log and look at them," she said.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>neater and smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He stopped and turned his head quickly, his poppy-cheeked face lighting +up.</p> + +<p>"Where's that robin as is callin' us?" he said.</p> + +<p>The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries, and +Mary thought she knew whose it was.</p> + +<p>"Is it really calling us?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows me a little," answered +Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>then answered quite as +if he were replying to a question.</p> + +<p>"Aye, he's a friend o' yours," chuckled Dickon.</p> + +<p>"Do you think he is?" cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know. "Do +you think he really likes me?"</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered +and tilted as he hopped on his bush.</p> + +<p>"Do you understand everything birds say?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>Dickon's grin spread until he seemed all wide, red, curving mouth, and +he rubbed his rough head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>he told her how to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them.</p> + +<p>"See here," he said suddenly, turning round to look at her. "I'll plant +them for thee myself. Where is tha' garden?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha's got a bit o' garden, hasn't tha'?" Dickon said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't they give thee a bit?" he asked. "Hasn't tha' got any yet?"</p> + +<p>She held her hands even tighter and turned her eyes toward him.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his +rough head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve but +she did it.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder.</p> + +<p>"Eh-h-h!" he said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the way he +did it meant both wonder and sympathy.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Where is it?" asked Dickon in a dropped voice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Come with me and I'll show you," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dickon looked round and round about it, and round and round again.</p> + +<p>"Eh!" he almost whispered, "it is a queer, pretty place! It's like as if +a body was in a dream."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Did you know about it?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her.</p> + +<p>"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's +to do in here."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dickon nodded.</p> + +<p>"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered. +"Us used to wonder what it was like."</p> + +<p>He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his +round eyes looked queerly happy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.</p> + +<p>"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps +they were all dead."</p> + +<p>"Eh! No! Not them—not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.</p> + +<p>"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive—quite?"</p> + +<p>Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.</p> + +<p>"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha +had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not +far above the earth.</p> + +<p>"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>so. There's green in that +wood yet. Look at it."</p> + +<p>Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.</p> + +<p>"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, +an' 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They were working industriously round one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>of the biggest standard roses +when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. "Who did that +there?"</p> + +<p>It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points.</p> + +<p>"I did it," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He ran from one clearing to another.</p> + +<p>"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking +her over.</p> + +<p>"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger. I used +always to be tired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell +the earth when it's turned up."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly. She +had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him +and helping him with her fork or the trowel.</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite +exultantly.</p> + +<p>"Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged. "I'm sure I can +help, too. I can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me. +Oh! do come, Dickon!"</p> + +<p>"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered +stoutly. "It's th' best fun I ever had in my life—shut in here an' +wakenin' up a garden."</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and +bushes with a thoughtful expression.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like +a secret garden if it was tidy."</p> + +<p>Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary. "No one +could get in."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But how could it have been done?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th' door locked an' th' key +buried."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, +"an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas."</p> + +<p>"Let us plant some," said Mary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang—</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Mistress Mary, quite contrary"> +<tr><td align='left'>'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How does your garden grow?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">With silver bells, and cockle shells,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And marigolds all in a row.'</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers +like silver bells."</p> + +<p>She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the +earth.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't as contrary as they were."</p> + +<p>But Dickon laughed.</p> + +<p>"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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> about makin' homes for themselves, or +buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?"</p> + +<p>Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped +frowning.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th' other four?"</p> + +<p>"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the +robin and Ben Weatherstaff."</p> + +<p>Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his +arm over his mouth.</p> + +<p>"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art th' +queerest little lass I ever saw."</p> + +<p>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 lan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>guage, and in India a +native was always pleased if you knew his speech.</p> + +<p>"Does tha' like me?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an' so +does th' robin, I do believe!"</p> + +<p>"That's two, then," said Mary. "That's two for me."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And you will have to go too, +won't you?"</p> + +<p>Dickon grinned.</p> + +<p>"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said. "Mother always lets +me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."</p> + +<p>He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy +little bundle tied up in a quiet clean, coarse, blue and white +handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of +something laid between them.</p> + +<p>"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice o' +fat bacon with it to-day."</p> + +<p>Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it.</p> + +<p>"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>be done with mine first. +I'll get some more work done before I start back home."</p> + +<p>He sat down with his back against a tree.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens, you—you never would tell?" she said.</p> + +<p>His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread +and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And she was quite sure she was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>"MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?"</p> + +<p>"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!"</p> + +<p>"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha' like him?"</p> + +<p>"I think—I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice.</p> + +<p>Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I like it to turn up," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>trifle doubtful. "Though +they're a nice color."</p> + +<p>"I like them round," said Mary. "And they are exactly the color of the +sky over the moor."</p> + +<p>Martha beamed with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately. "I wish mine were just +like it."</p> + +<p>Martha chuckled delightedly.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."</p> + +<p>"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen under-gardeners and +Ben Weatherstaff."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one <i>could</i> mind my +having it, could they?" Mary said anxiously.</p> + +<p>"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha. "You wouldn't do no +harm."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary turned quite pale.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I came. I heard +Pitcher say he didn't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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, to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away to-morrow? I am so glad!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm so glad—so glad!" said Mary thankfully.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"When do you think he will want to see—"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>always wore it when she was dressed up. She looked nervous +and excited.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said.</p> + +<p>"You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to +take her away," said Mr. Craven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Come here!" he said.</p> + +<p>Mary went to him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Are you well?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Do they take good care of you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.</p> + +<p>"You are very thin," he said.</p> + +<p>"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest +way.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Please," began Mary. "Please—" and then the lump in her throat choked +her.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to say?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I am—I am too big for a nurse," said Mary. "And please—please don't +make me have a governess yet."</p> + +<p>He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.</p> + +<p>"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absent-mindedly.</p> + +<p>Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.</p> + +<p>"Is she—is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," he replied.</p> + +<p>"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. She knows."</p> + +<p>He seemed to rouse himself.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to do?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He was watching her.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will," he said. "She +thought you had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>better get stronger before you had a governess."</p> + +<p>"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor," +argued Mary.</p> + +<p>"Where do you play?" he asked next.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"May I?" she said tremulously.</p> + +<p>Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.</p> + +<p>"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. Sow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>erby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked +about you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and running +about."</p> + +<p>"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Earth!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive," Mary +faltered.</p> + +<p>He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his +eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you—care about gardens so much," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"May I take it from anywhere—if it's not wanted?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been +waiting in the corridor.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> "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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take Miss Mary away now and send +Pitcher to me."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back +to her room. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact, +hurried back after she had removed the dinner service.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face is +so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's gone," she said wofully. "Oh! was he—was he—was he only a wood +fairy?"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I will cum bak."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>"I AM COLIN"</h3> + + +<p>Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and +she showed it to Martha.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep +looking forward to the morning.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it +knew I did not want it."</p> + +<p>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 rain-drops poured down and beat against the +pane!</p> + +<p>"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on +crying," she said.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a +far-off faint sound of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing +in the room!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep +again and was dreaming without knowing it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her +breath. Then she crept <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 272px;"> +<img src="images/plate02.jpg" width="272" height="400" alt=""'WHO ARE YOU?—ARE YOU A GHOST?'"" title=""'WHO ARE YOU?—ARE YOU A GHOST?'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'WHO ARE YOU?—ARE YOU A GHOST?'"—<i><a href='#Page_157'>Page 157</a></i></span> +</div> + +<p>"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. "Are you a +ghost?"</p> + +<p>"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened. +"Are you one?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so. "I am Colin."</p> + +<p>"Who is Colin?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle."</p> + +<p>"He is my father," said the boy.</p> + +<p>"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why +didn't they?"</p> + +<p>"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with +an anxious expression.</p> + +<p>She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.</p> + +<p>"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very +often. You might be one of them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she +put a piece of it between his fingers.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where did you come from?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your +name again."</p> + +<p>"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"</p> + +<p>He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a +little more as if he believed in her reality.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered. "They daren't."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let people +see me and talk me over."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.</p> + +<p>"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father +won't let people talk me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it. It +tires me too much."</p> + +<p>"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn't want to see me."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.</p> + +<p>A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to +herself.</p> + +<p>"What garden?" the boy asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh! just—just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you +been here always?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking +at me like that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced round the room with its high +ceiling and shadowy corners and dim firelight. "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."</p> + +<p>"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.</p> + +<p>Mary thought of something all at once.</p> + +<p>"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go +away?"</p> + +<p>He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you +are real, sit down on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>that big footstool and talk. I want to hear about +you."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Every one 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How old are you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so +are you."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.</p> + +<p>"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was +buried. And it has been locked for ten years."</p> + +<p>Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.</p> + +<p>"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he +exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.</p> + +<p>"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's +careful answer.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told not +to answer questions."</p> + +<p>"I would make them," said Colin.</p> + +<p>"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could +make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!</p> + +<p>"Every one 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>partly because she was +curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about +that garden. Don't you want to see it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>fresh air. I am going to make them open +the door."</p> + +<p>He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like +stars and looked more immense than ever.</p> + +<p>"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I +will let you go, too."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't—don't—don't—don't do that!" she cried out.</p> + +<p>He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!</p> + +<p>"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He leaned still farther forward.</p> + +<p>"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."</p> + +<p>Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>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—"</p> + +<p>"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will +live but the roses—"</p> + +<p>He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.</p> + +<p>"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.</p> + +<p>"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the +earth now—pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."</p> + +<p>"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in +rooms if you are ill."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on +his face.</p> + +<p>"I never had a secret," he said, "except that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 into it when they chose.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what I <i>think</i> 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."</p> + +<p>He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the +roses which <i>might</i> have clambered from tree to tree and hung +down—about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>the many birds which <i>might</i> 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 feel 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered.</p> + +<p>"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin. "Go and pull it."</p> + +<p>Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the +silk curtain ran back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she died. +Sometimes I hate her for doing it."</p> + +<p>"How queer!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>He moved uncomfortably.</p> + +<p>"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 every one to see her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>There were a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke.</p> + +<p>"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she +inquired.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward."</p> + +<p>He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke +again.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary. "She waits on me."</p> + +<p>He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>when she had asked +questions about the crying.</p> + +<p>"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and +then Martha comes."</p> + +<p>"I have been here a long time," said Mary. "Shall I go away now? Your +eyes look sleepy."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A YOUNG RAJAH</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' +looks as if tha'd somethin' to say."</p> + +<p>"I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Martha's face became red with fright.</p> + +<p>"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> "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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Martha fairly gasped with amazement.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He let me look at him. I looked at him all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>the time and he looked at +me. We stared!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Aye, that's true enough—th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her +forehead with her apron.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Me!" said Martha; " I shall lose my place—I shall for sure!"</p> + +<p>"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is +ordered to obey him," Mary argued.</p> + +<p>"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was +nice to thee!"</p> + +<p>"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.</p> + +<p>"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long +breath.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India, +but I can't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked. "He didn't look like one."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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 what'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give +me some water an' stop talkin'.'"</p> + +<p>"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary sat and looked at the fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said +Mary.</p> + +<p>"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha. "Tha' may as well know +that at th' start."</p> + +<p>Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.</p> + +<p>"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said. "I +hope he's in a good temper."</p> + +<p>She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a +puzzled expression.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Come in," he said. "I've been thinking about you all morning."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He frowned.</p> + +<p>"Go and tell her to come here," he said. "She is in the next room."</p> + +<p>Mary went and brought her back. Poor Mar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>tha was shaking in her shoes. +Colin was still frowning.</p> + +<p>"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red.</p> + +<p>"Has Medlock to do what I please?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody has, sir," said Martha.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock +send you away if she finds it out?"</p> + +<p>"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.</p> + +<p>"I'll send <i>her</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir."</p> + +<p>"What I want is your duty," said Colin more grandly still. "I'll take +care of you. Now go away."</p> + +<p>When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at +him as if he had set her wondering.</p> + +<p>"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her. "What are you thinking +about?"</p> + +<p>"I am thinking about two things."</p> + +<p>"What are they? Sit down and tell me."</p> + +<p>"This is the first one," said Mary, seating her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>self 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."</p> + +<p>"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first +tell me what the second thing was."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon."</p> + +<p>"Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one +suddenly toward him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this," he exclaimed. "Come and +look at it."</p> + +<p>The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he +turned to one of them.</p> + +<p>"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and +the spots on his cheeks burned.</p> + +<p>"Tell me some more about him," he said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a great, +bare, dreary place?"</p> + +<p>"It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary. "Thousands of lovely +things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at +her.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.</p> + +<p>Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.</p> + +<p>"You might—sometime."</p> + +<p>He moved as if he were startled.</p> + +<p>"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together.</p> + +<p>"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately.</p> + +<p>That made Colin turn and look at her again.</p> + +<p>"Don't you?" he said.</p> + +<p>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 of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of," he said. +"We are cousins."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back +because he had accidentally bumped against her.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock, with her eyes almost starting +out of her head. "Good Lord!"</p> + +<p>"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward. "What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," she panted. "I don't know how it's happened. There's not a +servant on the place that'd dare to talk—they all have their orders."</p> + +<p>"Nobody told her anything," said Colin, "she heard me crying and found +me herself. I am glad she came. Don't be silly, Medlock."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not good +for you, my boy," he said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but +there was evidently nothing to be done.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>wanted my breakfast. I want my tea now. +Tell nurse, Medlock."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr. +Craven's face.</p> + +<p>"I <i>want</i> to forget it," he said at last. "She makes me forget it. That +is why I want her."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>NEST BUILDING</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>she had seen when she arrived from India. This +child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen a change in her.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter. I'm sure +there's more of it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one +day.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"She thought you had gone mad like a dog," said Mary, not at all +admiringly.</p> + +<p>"I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your room?" +said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Would you hate it if—if a boy looked at you?" Mary asked uncertainly.</p> + +<p>He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both +laughing a great deal and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in +his hole very funny indeed.</p> + +<p>What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.</p> + +<p>"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!"</p> + +<p>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 down-stairs 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 toward the secret garden.</p> + +<p>"It is all different already," she said. "The grass is greener and +things are sticking up every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>where and things are uncurling and green +buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>watching +the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling on the +grass working hard.</p> + +<p>Mary flew across the grass to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early! +How could you! The sun has only just got up!"</p> + +<p>He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a +bit of the sky.</p> + +<p>"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'!"</p> + +<p>Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running +herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>down from its branch and settled quietly on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an' +these! An' Eh! look at these here!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her +head. "Flowers are so different."</p> + +<p>He looked puzzled but smiled.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 leaf-buds 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 flight him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon. "What +is it tha's got to tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Well—do you know about Colin?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>He turned his head to look at her.</p> + +<p>"What does tha' know about him?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from +his round face.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> 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'?'"</p> + +<p>Mary always wanted to hear about mother.</p> + +<p>"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear.</p> + +<p>Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.</p> + +<p>"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'.'"</p> + +<p>"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> questions an' she didn't know +what to say."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he wants him to die?" whispered Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't sit up," said Mary. "He +says he's always think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>ing that if he should feel a lump coming he +should go crazy and scream himself to death."</p> + +<p>"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon. +"No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary looked and caught her breath a little.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's +all gone. Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?"</p> + +<p>"I know it was something nice," said Mary eagerly. "I believe it was +something about Colin."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>him in th' humor to come out here an' +lie under th' trees in his carriage."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dickon laughed too and went on talking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>"I WON'T!" SAID MARY</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha. "I'm +very busy in the garden."</p> + +<p>Martha looked rather frightened.</p> + +<p>"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell +him that."</p> + +<p>But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a +self-sacrificing person.</p> + +<p>"I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting for me;" and she ran +away.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> Dickon said, looking at her +as she was digging. "Tha's beginning to look different, for sure."</p> + +<p>Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays slanting +under the trees when they parted.</p> + +<p>"It'll be fine to-morrow," said Dickon. "I'll be at work by sunrise."</p> + +<p>"So will I," said Mary.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did Colin say when you told him I +couldn't come?"</p> + +<p>"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you get up?" she said.</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I was working in the garden with Dickon," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.</p> + +<p>"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of +coming to talk to me," he said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!" she +retorted.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin.</p> + +<p>"I won't!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I'll make you," said Colin, "They shall drag you in."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin.</p> + +<p>"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Mary's eyes flashed fire.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously. "He's a common cottage boy +off the moor!"</p> + +<p>"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary. "He's a thousand times +better!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there +is a lump coming on my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>back," he said. "And I am going to die besides."</p> + +<p>"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically.</p> + +<p>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 the same time.</p> + +<p>"I'm not?" he cried. "I am! You know I am! Everybody says so."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy +rage.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!"</p> + +<p>She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned round and +spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said. "Dickon +brought his fox and his rook <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>and I was going to tell you all about +them. Now I won't tell you a single thing!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What are you laughing at?" she asked her.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is he going to die?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse. "Hysterics and temper +are half what ails him."</p> + +<p>"What are hysterics?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this—but at any +rate you've given him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>something to have hysterics about, and I'm glad +of it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha. "It looks as if it had +picture-books in it."</p> + +<p>Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room. +"Do you want anything—dolls—toys—books?" She opened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>the package +wondering <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'it'">if</ins> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she said +to herself. "And he has been cross to-day. Perhaps—perhaps he has been +thinking about it all afternoon."</p> + +<p>She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>A TANTRUM</h3> + + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterward—I +believe—I'll go to see him."</p> + +<p>She thought it was the middle of the night when she was wakened 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.</p> + +<p>"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse +called hysterics. How awful it sounds."</p> + +<p>As she listened to the sobbing screams she did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," she kept saying. "I +can't bear it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody ought +to beat him!" she cried out.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry. "He'll +do himself harm. No <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>one can do anything with him. You come and try, +like a good child. He likes you."</p> + +<p>"He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her +foot with excitement.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>will</i> scream yourself to death in a minute, and +I wish you would!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't—I can't!"</p> + +<p>"You can!" shouted Mary. "Half that ails you is hysterics and +temper—just hysterics—hysterics—hysterics!" and she stamped each time +she said it.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't +scream.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his back this minute!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he—he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs:</p> + +<p>"Sh—show her! She—she'll see then!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin gulped and turned his face a little to look at her.</p> + +<p>"C-could you?" he said pathetically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"There!" said Mary, and she gulped too.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you think—I could—live to grow up?" he said.</p> + +<p>The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some +of the London doctor's words.</p> + +<p>"You probably will if you will do what you are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>told to do and not give +way to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air."</p> + +<p>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 tantrum having passed, she was +softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort +of making up.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?" Mary +whispered to Colin.</p> + +<p>His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her +appealingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft song. I shall go to sleep in a +minute."</p> + +<p>"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse. "You can go +if you like."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. "If he doesn't go +to sleep in half an hour you must call me."</p> + +<p>"Very well," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone +Colin pulled Mary's hand again.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heart +relented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have. And if you will go to sleep I +will tell you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>His hand quite trembled.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she +saw it and went on.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they are coming up through the grass—perhaps there are +clusters of purple crocuses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>And Colin was asleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>"THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room and for a second he +looked disappointed. He was in bed and his face was pitifully white and +there were dark circles round his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache all over because +I'm so tired. Are you going somewhere?"</p> + +<p>Mary went and leaned against his bed.</p> + +<p>"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 secret garden."</p> + +<p>His whole face brightened and a little color came into it.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> an' sniffin' up th' air an' +get him just soaked through wi' sunshine. An' we munnot lose no time +about it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 to-morrow 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin," Dickon +chuckled. "Tha'll make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day," said Mary, chuckling +herself.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She said it as broadly as she could, and you do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>not know how broadly +Yorkshire sounds until you have heard some one speak it. Colin began to +laugh.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk like that before. +How funny it sounds."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?" Colin asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be +staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's very funny but I even like you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did you feel as if you hated people?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation. "I should have detested +you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon."</p> + +<p>Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin; "I want to see +him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because—because—"</p> + +<p>Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell +him. Colin knew something new was coming.</p> + +<p>"Because what?" he cried eagerly.</p> + +<p>Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and +caught hold of both his hands.</p> + +<p>"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I +trust you—for sure—<i>for sure</i>?" she implored.</p> + +<p>Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes!"</p> + +<p>"Well, Dickon will come to see you to-morrow morning, and he'll bring +his creatures with him."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see it? Shall I get +into it? Shall I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> <i>live</i> to get into it?" and he clutched her hands and +dragged her toward him.</p> + +<p>"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly. "Of course you'll +live to get into it! Don't be silly!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>"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—<i>for sure</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>"IT HAS COME!"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Those long spires of blue ones—we'll have a lot of those," Colin was +announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums."</p> + +<p>"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Mistress Mary. +"There are clumps there already."</p> + +<p>Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite still and Colin +looked fretful.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy," Dr. Craven said a +trifle nervously. He was rather a nervous man.</p> + +<p>"I'm better now—much better," Colin an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>swered, 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."</p> + +<p>Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse and looked at him +curiously.</p> + +<p>"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not +to tire yourself."</p> + +<p>"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young Rajah.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I thought you did not like fresh air," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah; "but my cousin is +going out with me."</p> + +<p>"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr. Craven.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when she is +with me. She made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>me better last night. A very strong boy I know will +push my carriage."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you will be safe enough. He's as +strong as a moor pony, is Dickon."</p> + +<p>"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest lad i' Yorkshire." She +had been talking Yorkshire to Colin and she forgot herself.</p> + +<p>"Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven, laughing outright.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't do you any +harm. Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>any disagreeable scenes. When he went down-stairs he +looked very thoughtful and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock in the library +she felt that he was a much puzzled man.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have believed it?"</p> + +<p>"It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor. "And there's +no denying it is better than the old one."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby.</p> + +<p>"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'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> 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.'"</p> + +<p>"She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat.</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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 them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>selves 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.</p> + +<p>"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!" +he cried.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed. "You +never saw anything so beautiful! It has <i>come</i>! 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!"</p> + +<p>"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he +felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and +half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she caught Colin's +fancy.</p> + +<p>"'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.</p> + +<p>Mary was at his bedside again.</p> + +<p>"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-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"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 and my +cousin will have breakfast with me."</p> + +<p>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 +up-stairs. 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 up-stairs 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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," she answered.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin," said the nurse.</p> + +<p>"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely. "Charmers' animals +never bite."</p> + +<p>"There are snake-charmers in India," said Mary; "and they can put their +snakes' heads in their mouths."</p> + +<p>"Goodness!" shuddered the nurse.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin. "Perhaps it was the fresh air. +When do you think Dickon will come?"</p> + +<p>He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary held up her hand.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" she said. "Did you hear a caw?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world to hear +inside a house, a hoarse "caw-caw."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered.</p> + +<p>"That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again! Do you hear a bleat—a tiny +one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing.</p> + +<p>"That's the new-born lamb," said Mary. "He's coming."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you +please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 271px;"> +<img src="images/plate03.jpg" width="271" height="400" alt=""DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."" title=""DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."" /> +<span class="caption">"DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."—<i><a href='#Page_251'>Page 251</a></i></span> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does it want?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with +a gentle brown hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> "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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am going to see them!"</p> + +<p>"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously. "An tha' munnot lose no +time about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>"I SHALL LIVE FOREVER—AND EVER—AND EVER!"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they have to build their homes +every year. An' it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to get 'em +done."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Let's hope they're changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock," he +answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately +believed. When Mr. Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Here is Mr. Roach, Master Colin," said Mrs. Medlock.</p> + +<p>The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor over—at least that was +what the head gardener felt happened.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I sent for you to give you some +very important orders."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 every one must +keep away until I send word that they may go back to their work."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that the oaks +might remain and that the orchards were safe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mary," said Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing you say in India +when you have finished talking and want people to go?"</p> + +<p>"You say, 'You have my permission to go,'" answered Mary.</p> + +<p>The Rajah waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"You have my permission to go, Roach," he said. "But, remember, this is +very important."</p> + +<p>"Caw—Caw!" remarked the crow hoarsely but not impolitely.</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took +him out of the room.</p> + +<p>Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled +until he almost laughed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives," suggested Mr. Roach.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions.</p> + +<p>"It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon I shall see it—this +afternoon I shall be in it!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered.</p> + +<p>"The garden?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I never saw it in India because there wasn't any," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than +she had and at least <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>he had spent a good deal of time looking at +wonderful books and pictures.</p> + +<p>"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, every one 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but +because they both so liked it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"This is one of his good days, sir," she said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>to Dr. Craven, who +dropped in to inspect him. "He's in such good spirits that it makes him +stronger."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay here while +it's suggested," answered the nurse with sudden firmness.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he +said. "What is that scent the puffs of wind bring?"</p> + +<p>"It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon. "Eh! th' +bees are at it wonderful to-day."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where I used to walk up and down +and wonder and wonder."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"That's what I thought," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Then there was a lovely breathless silence and the chair wheeled on.</p> + +<p>"That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff works," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Colin.</p> + +<p>A few yards more and Mary whispered again.</p> + +<p>"This is where the robin flew over the wall," she said.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" cried Colin. "Oh! I wish he'd come again!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Then Colin sat up.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> And this is the ivy the wind blew back," and she took hold of the +hanging green curtain.</p> + +<p>"Oh! is it—is it!" gasped Colin.</p> + +<p>"And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push him in—push +him in quickly!"</p> + +<p>And Dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>glow of color had actually +crept all over him—ivory face and neck and hands and all.</p> + +<p>"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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>BEN WEATHERSTAFF</h3> + + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 crowded 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy. +"I'll warrant it's th' graidelest one as ever was in this world."</p> + +<p>"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it was +made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for me?"</p> + +<p>"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good +Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' first-rate—that tha' art."</p> + +<p>And delight reigned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said Colin.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dickon looked across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was +a brief moment of stillness.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very gentle +sound.</p> + +<p>Mary gazed at the tree and thought.</p> + +<p>"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf anywhere," +Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary still gazed at the tree and thought.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin. "I wonder +how it was done."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock. I think I'd like +some tea myself."</p> + +<p>And so they were safe.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the +rhododendron walk," he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>said. "And then you and Dickon can bring it +here."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The afternoon was dragging toward 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 re-packed 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.</p> + +<p>"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back +to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after."</p> + +<p>"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an' +diggin' same as other folk afore long."</p> + +<p>Colin flushed tremendously.</p> + +<p>"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?"</p> + +<p>Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary had +ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs.</p> + +<p>"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha'—tha's got legs o' thine +own, same as other folks!"</p> + +<p>Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath.</p> + +<p>"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with +renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit."</p> + +<p>"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering about +things.</p> + +<p>They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping +lower. It was that hour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half +lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper:</p> + +<p>"Who is that man?"</p> + +<p>Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet.</p> + +<p>"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices.</p> + +<p>Colin pointed to the high wall.</p> + +<p>"Look!" he whispered excitedly. "Just look!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd +give thee a hidin'!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>top step of his ladder +shaking his fist down at her.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of the +wall, he was so outraged.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>that very moment and his +jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw +coming over the grass toward him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop +right in front of him!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously. "Answer!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and +he sat bolt upright.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha'—tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"No!" shouted Colin.</p> + +<p>"Tha'—tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short +gasp and felt herself turn pale.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on to 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look at me!" he flung up at Ben Weatherstaff. "Just look at me—you! +Just look at me!"</p> + +<p>"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad +i' Yorkshire!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN</h3> + + +<p>When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary.</p> + +<p>"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door +under the ivy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it +quite grandly.</p> + +<p>"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered +Dickon. "An' tha's stopped."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said.</p> + +<p>"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply.</p> + +<p>Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin.</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + +<p>Colin looked down at them.</p> + +<p>"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic then that +there—there couldna' be."</p> + +<p>He drew himself up straighter than ever.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him +standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this:</p> + +<p>"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You +can do it! You <i>can</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have +I got crooked legs?"</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had +recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Every one thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm not!"</p> + +<p>And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up +and down, down and up.</p> + +<p>"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> "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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree.</p> + +<p>"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by +favor—because she liked me."</p> + +<p>"She?" said Colin.</p> + +<p>"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.</p> + +<p>"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was her +garden, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She were +main fond of it."</p> + +<p>"It is my garden now, I am fond of it. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile.</p> + +<p>"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said.</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Colin. "When?"</p> + +<p>"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was +about two year' ago."</p> + +<p>"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin. "There was no +door!"</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make out +how it had been done."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said +Dickon. "I did wonder."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to +keep the secret."</p> + +<p>"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An' it'll be easier for a man wi' +rheumatics to come in at th' door."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you +can!"</p> + +<p>Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a +word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.</p> + +<p>Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke +exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.</p> + +<p>"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>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'."</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended +by chuckling.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I want to do it before the sun goes quite—quite down," he said.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>had begun +to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from the +mould.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>MAGIC</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert +yourself."</p> + +<p>"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. To-morrow I +am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid +it would not be wise."</p> + +<p>"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I +am going."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking at me for?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.</p> + +<p>"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man," +said Mary, "he would have slapped you."</p> + +<p>"But he daren't," said Colin.</p> + +<p>"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went +on, thinking aloud.</p> + +<p>Colin turned his head, frowning.</p> + +<p>"Am I queer?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he +frowned again with determination.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"So am I," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is. +<i>Something</i> is there—<i>something</i>!"</p> + +<p>"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines +or campanulas.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>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's and water-rats' and badgers' +ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.)</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the +first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries.</p> + +<p>It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this +stage she had begun to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and +really could not keep still.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>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?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!"</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered +up.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little +old eyes.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with +curious delight. Nut and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather +tired and I want to sit down."</p> + +<p>"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' musn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might +spoil th' Magic."</p> + +<p>Colin turned and looked at him—into his innocent round eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely. "They want to help us."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, +as if we were dervishes?"</p> + +<p>"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff. +"I've got th' rheumatics."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced.</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a +jerk.</p> + +<p>"You have been asleep," said Colin.</p> + +<p>"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow—but I'm +bound to get out afore th' collection."</p> + +<p>He was not quite awake yet.</p> + +<p>"You're not in church," said Colin.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Rajah waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my +permission to go to your work. But come back to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>his ladder and look +over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any +stumbling.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I +can feel it! I can feel it!"</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked +triumphant.</p> + +<p>"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific +discovery."</p> + +<p>"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary.</p> + +<p>"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.'"</p> + +<p>"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary. "He won't believe his +eyes."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>"LET THEM LAUGH"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. +After supper there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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 a 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep +thinking.</p> + +<p>"What do they make of it at th' Manor—him being so well an' cheerful +an' never complainin'?" she inquired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby.</p> + +<p>Dickon chuckled.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had +finished his last sentence.</p> + +<p>"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' theirselves, I'll warrant. They'll +get a good bit o' play actin' out of it an' there's nothin' children +likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes +were twinkling with fun.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> they're enjoyin' theirselves for sure," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified +expression. "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it."</p> + +<p>"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away. "As if she +thought there must be something to find out."</p> + +<p>"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin. "No one must begin to +find out yet." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled, +also. He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance.</p> + +<p>"You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested. "Where do you +go?"</p> + +<p>Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is +an unnatural appetite."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist and he pushed up +his sleeve and felt his arm.</p> + +<p>"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> "and such flesh as you +have gained is healthy. If we can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk +of dying. Your father will be very happy to hear of this remarkable +improvement."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'every'">very</ins> easily and +nothing must be said to irritate him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously. From +this time dated their plan of "play actin'."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>But they never found they could send away any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>thing and the highly +polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened +much comment.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The morning that Dickon—after they had been enjoying themselves in the +garden for about two hours—went behind a big rose-bush 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!</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed them. +He liked this so much that he improved upon it.</p> + +<p>"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>eat as +many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the +mouths of fourteen people.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>Colin had been listening excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the +most Magic boy in the world!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 oat-cakes +and buns and heather honey and clotted cream.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>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 +<i>invented</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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 Colin's 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.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>thing," 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."</p> + +<p>"I told you it was an unnatural appetite," answered Colin.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her.</p> + +<p>Mary became quite severe in her manner.</p> + +<p>"It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with +reproachful dignity, "and it got into my throat."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr. +Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>anything different to eat +from what's sent up to them they need only ask for it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with them +we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let them laugh."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE CURTAIN</h3> + + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>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 <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'eggs'">Eggs</ins>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 trying 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 ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>ercises +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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>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. And if I did it, just think what would happen!"</p> + +<p>Mary giggled inordinately.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look—how +horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright.</p> + +<p>"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 to-day."</p> + +<p>It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration.</p> + +<p>"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are +in this house?"</p> + +<p>"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>Colin started up on his sofa.</p> + +<p>"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a +secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. You could wheel me in my +chair and nobody would know where we went."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Ring the bell," said Colin.</p> + +<p>When the nurse came in he gave his orders.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed.</p> + +<p>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 pil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>grimage. 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house of mystery, and those two +children are the greatest mysteries in it."</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>place in time, for fear of doing +my muscles an injury."</p> + +<p>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 +to-day 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."</p> + +<p>"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps +you are her ghost made into a boy."</p> + +<p>That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered +her slowly.</p> + +<p>"If I were her ghost—my father would be fond of me," he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>"IT'S MOTHER!"</h3> + + +<p>Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's +incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.</p> + +<p>"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 was in church +and he would go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It's the Magic and—and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said +Colin. "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!"</p> + +<p>They stopped their weeding and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he +demanded.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aye, that we do," he answered.</p> + +<p>Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>is</i> real! I'm +<i>well</i>—I'm <i>well</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Aye, that tha' art!" said Dickon.</p> + +<p>"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all +over.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round +at him.</p> + +<p>"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He had +no opinion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with any +particular reverence.</p> + +<p>But Colin was of an exploring mind and he knew nothing about the +Doxology.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff.</p> + +<p>Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer's smile.</p> + +<p>"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th' +skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha', +Ben—an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows."</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Doxology"> +<tr><td align='left'>"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Praise Him all creatures here below,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">Amen."</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 267px;"> +<img src="images/plate04.jpg" width="267" height="400" alt=""'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"" title=""'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"—<i><a href='#Page_344'>Page 344</a></i></span> +</div> + +<p>And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as +musically as they could and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> Dickon's swelled quite loud and +beautiful—and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his +throat and at the third 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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his +attention and his expression had become a startled one.</p> + +<p>"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?"</p> + +<p>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 +affec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>tionate 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.</p> + +<p>"It's Mother—that's who it is!" he cried and he went across the grass +at a run.</p> + +<p>Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both +felt their pulses beat faster.</p> + +<p>"It's Mother!" Dickon said again when they met half-way. "I knowed tha' +wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid."</p> + +<p>Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his +eyes quite devoured her face.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Aye, that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my +heart jump."</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my father +like me?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a soft +quick pat. "He mun come home—he mun come home."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.</p> + +<p>"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said. "Let +him go on playin' an' workin' in th' 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."</p> + +<p>She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>ders and looked her little +face over in a motherly fashion.</p> + +<p>"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our 'Lizabeth +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland +cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic.</p> + +<p>"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about +Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do."</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>creasing +difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful +invalid.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?"</p> + +<p>Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are just what I—what I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my +mother—as well as Dickon's!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE GARDEN</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about +her dislikes and sour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>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.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Where you tend a rose, my lad"> +<tr><td align='left'>"Where you tend a rose, my lad,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">A thistle cannot grow."</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"</p> + +<p>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>As the golden summer changed into the deeper 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.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger."</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>again, sweeter and clearer +than before, "Archie! Archie!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?"</p> + +<p>"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In the +garden!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>changed. He was remembering the +dream—the real—real dream.</p> + +<p>"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But the +door is locked and the key is buried deep."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="blockquot">"<i>Dear Sir:</i> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<div class='right'> +<span style="margin-right: 5em;">"Your obedient servant,</span><br /> +"<span class="smcap">Susan Sowerby</span>."<br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope. +He kept thinking about the dream.</p> + +<p>"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said. "Yes, I'll go at once."</p> + +<p>And he went through the garden to the villa <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>and ordered Pitcher to +prepare for his return to England.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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 every one 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 every one believed it would +be a deformed and crippled creature.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>to +thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in +better things.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each +of you," he said.</p> + +<p>Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, +leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.</p> + +<p>The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>was a soothing thing. +Why did it seem to give him a sense of home-coming 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!"</p> + +<p>"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I +must—though I don't know why."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's—he's different, in a manner +of speaking."</p> + +<p>"Worse?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the +nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."</p> + +<p>"Why is that?"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Has he become more—more peculiar?" her master asked, knitting his +brows anxiously.</p> + +<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>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."</p> + +<p>"How does he look?" was the next question.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.</p> + +<p>"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he +stood and repeated it again and again. "In the garden!"</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>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?</p> + +<p>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 shouts 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who—What? Who!" he stammered.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can +myself. I'm Colin."</p> + +<p>Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he +said hurriedly:</p> + +<p>"In the garden! In the garden!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last. "And tell me all +about it."</p> + +<p>And so they led him in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I thought it would be dead," he said.</p> + +<p>"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive."</p> + +<p>Then they sat down under their tree—all but Colin, who wanted to stand +while he told the story.</p> + +<p>It was the strangest thing he had ever heard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of +his hand.</p> + +<p>"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air.</p> + +<p>"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock.</p> + +<p>"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I +could sup up another mug of it."</p> + +<p>"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her +excitement.</p> + +<p>"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.</p> + +<p>"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each +other?"</p> + +<p>"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' step-ladder +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."</p> + +<p>And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and +waved his mug solemnly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>toward the window which took in through the +shrubbery a piece of the lawn.</p> + +<p>"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across th' +grass."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + +<h2>THE END</h2> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's notes:</h3> + +<p>Table of Contents, an exclamation point was added to Chapter VI's title to +match the text. (there was!")</p> + +<p>Page 34, quotation mark added. (India," said)</p> + +<p>Page 62, apostrophe added to "an'". (readin' an')</p> + +<p>Page 101, quotation mark added. (come to-morrow.")</p> + +<p>Page 117, comma changed to period. (she ventured.)</p> + +<p>Page 163, extraneous quotation mark removed. (the gardeners?)</p> + +<p>Page 262, Illustration: Closing punctuation added. (WIDE SMILE.")</p> + +<p>Page 272, period added. (he said.)</p> + +<p>Page 284, apostrophe added. (Dickon. "An')</p> + +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. +Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 17396-h.htm or 17396-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/9/17396/ + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Secret Garden + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: MB Kork + +Release Date: December 26, 2005 [EBook #17396] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH +DELIGHTFULNESS"--_Page 231_] + + + + + THE + SECRET GARDEN + + BY + FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + +_Author of_ + +"_The Shuttle_," "_The Making of a Marchioness_," "_The Methods of Lady +Walderhurst_," "_That Lass o' Lowries_," "_Through One Administration_," +"_Little Lord Fauntleroy_" "_A Lady of Quality_," etc. + +[Illustration] + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + _Copyright, 1911, by_ + FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + + _Copyright, 1910, 1911, by_ + THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. + + +_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign +languages, including the Scandinavian._ + +_August, 1911._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I THERE IS NO ONE LEFT 1 + II MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY 10 + III ACROSS THE MOOR 23 + IV MARTHA 30 + V THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR 55 + VI "THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!" 65 + VII THE KEY OF THE GARDEN 75 + VIII THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY 85 + IX THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN 97 + X DICKON 111 + XI THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH 128 + XII "MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" 140 + XIII "I AM COLIN" 153 + XIV A YOUNG RAJAH 172 + XV NEST BUILDING 189 + XVI "I WON'T!" SAID MARY 207 + XVII A TANTRUM 218 + XVIII "THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME" 229 + XIX "IT HAS COME!" 239 + XX "I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!" 255 + XXI BEN WEATHERSTAFF 268 + XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN 284 + XXIII MAGIC 292 + XXIV "LET THEM LAUGH" 310 + XXV THE CURTAIN 328 + XXVI "IT'S MOTHER!" 339 + XXVII IN THE GARDEN 353 + + + + +THE SECRET GARDEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +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 every one. 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. +Every one 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 every one 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 was 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 every one 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 +any one 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 any one'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 very 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 up-stairs 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 housemaids. +I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let +up-stairs. 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 down-stairs. + +"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 to-day. 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 lonelier 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 to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself. + +"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, 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 was 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 down-stairs +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 to-night." + +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' an' 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. She was getting on. + +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 +that 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 +down-stairs; 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 to-day. + +"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 down-stairs. 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 down-stairs. 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 up-stairs 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 OF 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 rain-storm 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 at 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 to-day 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' good-natured 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' th' 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 vixon, 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 can tell you 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 dough-cake 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 to live in." + +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 practise 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 twopence 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! tha' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our +'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have give 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 really 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 to-day. 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' curosity +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 to-day; 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 rose-bushes +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 tree-top, 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 flower-bed 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 to-day I can come to-morrow." + +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 +narcissusis an' jonquils an' 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 down-stairs 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's 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?" asked Mary. + +"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, she 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 suddenly 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 down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a +question. + +"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again +to-day?" + +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 to-day, 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 reddinin' 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 +an' 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' sees 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 across. Get +thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for to-day." + +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 skip 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 even 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, +an' 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 th' 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 us 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 quiet 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 to-day." + +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 under-gardeners 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, to-morrow." + +"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away to-morrow? 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 absent-mindedly. + +Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage. + +"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered. + +"Yes, I think so," he replied. + +"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. 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 wofully. "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 rain-drops 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. + +[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU?--ARE YOU A GHOST?'"--_Page 157_] + +"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 firelight. "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. + +"Every one 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! + +"Every one 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 into 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 feel 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 every one 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 what'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 of. + +"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 that'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 down-stairs 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 toward 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 leaf-buds 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 flight him." + +They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving. + +"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon. +"He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin' +now. He'll be a good bit different 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 him 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 to-morrow," 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 the same 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 to-day. 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 wakened 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 tantrum 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 to-morrow." + +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 and 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 secret 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 to-morrow 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 very 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 to-morrow 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 down-stairs 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 and 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 +up-stairs. 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 up-stairs 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." + +[Illustration: "DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."--_Page +251_] + +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 every one 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, every one 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 to-day." + +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 crowded 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 th' 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 toward 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 re-packed 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 +to-morrow, 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 to 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 then 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?" + +"Every one 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. To-morrow 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's 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' musn'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 to-morrow." + +"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 a 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' theirselves, I'll warrant. They'll +get a good bit o' play 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 we can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk +of dying. Your father will be very 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 rose-bush 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 oat-cakes +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 Colin's 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 trying 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. And 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 to-day." + +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. You could wheel me in my +chair and nobody would know where 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 +to-day 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," he said. + +"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary. + +"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me +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 was 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 tha' 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'?" + +[Illustration: "'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"--_Page 344_] + +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 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 he 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 half-way. "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 th' 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 'Lizabeth +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 deeper 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 every one 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 every one 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 home-coming 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 shouts 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' step-ladder +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! + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's notes: + +Table of Contents, an exclamation point was added to Chapter VI's title to +match the text. (there was!") + +Page 34, quotation mark added. (India," said) + +Page 62, apostrophe added to "an'". (readin' an') + +Page 101, quotation mark added. (come to-morrow.") + +Page 117, comma changed to period. (she ventured.) + +Page 163, extraneous quotation mark removed. (the gardeners?) + +Page 216, "it" changed to "if". (wondering if he) + +Page 262, Illustration: Closing punctuation added. (WIDE SMILE.") + +Page 272, period added. (he said.) + +Page 284, apostrophe added. (Dickon. "An') + +Page 318, "every" changed to "very". (very easily) + +Page 330, "eggs" changed to "Eggs" to fit rest of text. (injurious to the Eggs) + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 17396.txt or 17396.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/9/17396/ + +Produced by Jason Isbell, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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