villa meridiana interior design

chapter xx"i shall live forever--and ever--and ever!" but they were obliged to wait more than aweek because first there came some very windy days and then colin was threatenedwith a cold, which two things happening one after the other would no doubt have thrown him into a rage but that there was so muchcareful and mysterious planning to do and almost every day dickon came in, if onlyfor a few minutes, to talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes andhedges and on the borders of streams. the things he had to tell about otters' andbadgers' and water-rats' houses, not to mention birds' nests and field-mice andtheir burrows, were enough to make you

almost tremble with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from ananimal charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the wholebusy underworld was working. "they're same as us," said dickon, "onlythey have to build their homes every year. an' it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffleto get 'em done." the most absorbing thing, however, was thepreparations to be made before colin could be transported with sufficient secrecy tothe garden. no one must see the chair-carriage anddickon and mary after they turned a certain corner of the shrubbery and entered uponthe walk outside the ivied walls.

as each day passed, colin had become moreand more fixed in his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one ofits greatest charms. nothing must spoil that. no one must ever suspect that they had asecret. people must think that he was simply goingout with mary and dickon because he liked them and did not object to their looking athim. they had long and quite delightful talksabout their route. they would go up this path and down thatone and cross the other and go round among the fountain flower-beds as if they werelooking at the "bedding-out plants" the

head gardener, mr. roach, had been havingarranged. that would seem such a rational thing to dothat no one would think it at all mysterious. they would turn into the shrubbery walksand lose themselves until they came to the long walls. it was almost as serious and elaboratelythought out as the plans of march made by great generals in time of war. rumors of the new and curious things whichwere occurring in the invalid's apartments had of course filtered through theservants' hall into the stable yards and

out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding this, mr. roach wasstartled one day when he received orders from master colin's room to the effect thathe must report himself in the apartment no outsider had ever seen, as the invalidhimself desired to speak to him. "well, well," he said to himself as hehurriedly changed his coat, "what's to do now? his royal highness that wasn't to be lookedat calling up a man he's never set eyes on."mr. roach was not without curiosity. he had never caught even a glimpse of theboy and had heard a dozen exaggerated

stories about his uncanny looks and waysand his insane tempers. the thing he had heard oftenest was that hemight die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful descriptions of a humpedback and helpless limbs, given by people who had never seen him. "things are changing in this house, mr.roach," said mrs. medlock, as she led him up the back staircase to the corridor on towhich opened the hitherto mysterious chamber. "let's hope they're changing for thebetter, mrs. medlock," he answered. "they couldn't well change for the worse,"she continued; "and queer as it all is

there's them as finds their duties made alot easier to stand up under. don't you be surprised, mr. roach, if youfind yourself in the middle of a menagerie and martha sowerby's dickon more at homethan you or me could ever be." there really was a sort of magic aboutdickon, as mary always privately believed. when mr. roach heard his name he smiledquite leniently. "he'd be at home in buckingham palace or atthe 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 orhe might have been startled. when the bedroom door was opened a largecrow, which seemed quite at home perched on

the high back of a carven chair, announcedthe 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 younglamb was standing by him shaking its tail in feeding-lamb fashion as dickon kneltgiving it milk from its bottle. a squirrel was perched on dickon's bentback attentively nibbling a nut. the little girl from india was sitting on abig footstool looking on.

"here is mr. roach, master colin," saidmrs. medlock. the young rajah turned and looked hisservitor 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, wonderingif he was to receive instructions to fell all the oaks in the park or to transformthe orchards into water-gardens. "i am going out in my chair thisafternoon," said colin. "if the fresh air agrees with me i may goout every day.

when i go, none of the gardeners are to beanywhere near the long walk by the garden walls.no one is to be there. i shall go out about two o'clock andeveryone must keep away until i send word that they may go back to their work." "very good, sir," replied mr. roach, muchrelieved to hear that the oaks might remain and that the orchards were safe. "mary," said colin, turning to her, "whatis that thing you say in india when you have finished talking and want people togo?" "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 rathergood-natured man, he smiled until he almost laughed. "my word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordlyway with him, hasn't he? you'd think he was a whole royal familyrolled into one--prince consort and all.".

"eh!" protested mrs. medlock, "we've had tolet him trample all over every one of us ever since he had feet and he thinks that'swhat folks was born for." "perhaps he'll grow out of it, if helives," suggested mr. roach. "well, there's one thing pretty sure," saidmrs. medlock. "if he does live and that indian childstays here i'll warrant she teaches him that the whole orange does not belong tohim, as susan sowerby says. and he'll be likely to find out the size ofhis own quarter." inside the room colin was leaning back onhis cushions. "it's all safe now," he said.

"and this afternoon i shall see it--thisafternoon i shall be in it!" dickon went back to the garden with hiscreatures and mary stayed with colin. she did not think he looked tired but hewas 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," shesaid. "when you are thinking they get as big assaucers. what are you thinking about now?" "i can't help thinking about what it willlook like," he answered. "the garden?" asked mary."the springtime," he said.

"i was thinking that i've really never seenit before. i scarcely ever went out and when i did goi never looked at it. i didn't even think about it." "i never saw it in india because therewasn'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 timelooking 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 agreat 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 onthem, everyone laughing and dancing and crowding and playing on pipes. that was why i said, 'perhaps we shall heargolden 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 greenthings 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 becausethe 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 alog while his clothes were put on he sat up and made some efforts to help himself, andhe talked and laughed with mary all the time. "this is one of his good days, sir," shesaid 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 withhim. i wish," in a very low voice, "that hewould 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 slightnervousness. "we'll try the experiment. dickon's a lad i'd trust with a new-bornchild."

the strongest footman in the house carriedcolin down stairs and put him in his wheeled chair near which dickon waitedoutside. after the manservant had arranged his rugsand 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 weresafely inside the house. dickon began to push the wheeled chairslowly and steadily. mistress mary walked beside it and colinleaned back and lifted his face to the sky. the arch of it looked very high and thesmall snowy clouds seemed like white birds

floating on outspread wings below itscrystal blueness. the wind swept in soft big breaths downfrom the moor and was strange with a wild clear scented sweetness. colin kept lifting his thin chest to drawit 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 andhumming and calling out," he said. "what is that scent the puffs of windbring?" "it's gorse on th' moor that's openin'out," answered dickon. "eh! th' bees are at it wonderful today."not a human creature was to be caught sight

of in the paths they took. in fact every gardener or gardener's ladhad been witched away. but they wound in and out among theshrubbery and out and round the fountain beds, following their carefully plannedroute for the mere mysterious pleasure of it. but when at last they turned into the longwalk by the ivied walls the excited sense of an approaching thrill made them, forsome 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 weatherstaffworks," said mary. "is it?" said colin.a few yards more and mary whispered again. "this is where the robin flew over thewall," 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 andshowed me the key." then colin sat up. "where?where? there?" he cried, and his eyes were as bigas the wolf's in red riding-hood, when red riding-hood felt called upon to remark onthem. dickon stood still and the wheeled chairstopped. "and this," said mary, stepping on to thebed close to the ivy, "is where i went to talk to him when he chirped at me from thetop 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 thedoor. dickon push him in--push him in quickly!"and dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push. but colin had actually dropped back againsthis cushions, even though he gasped with delight, and he had covered his eyes withhis hands and held them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the chair stopped as if by magic and the doorwas closed.

not till then did he take them away andlook round and round and round as dickon and mary had done. and over walls and earth and trees andswinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, andin the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of goldand purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head andthere were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents andscents. and the sun fell warm upon his face like ahand with a lovely touch.

and in wonder mary and dickon stood andstared at him. he looked so strange and different becausea pink glow of color had actually crept all over him--ivory face and neck and hands andall. "i shall get well! i shall get well!" he cried out."mary! dickon!i shall get well! and i shall live forever and ever andever!" > chapter xxiben weatherstaff

one of the strange things about living inthe world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to liveforever and ever and ever. one knows it sometimes when one gets up atthe tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head farback and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening untilthe east almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strangeunchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousandsof years.

one knows it then for a moment or so. and one knows it sometimes when one standsby oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slantingthrough and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something onecannot quite hear, however much one tries. then sometimes the immense quiet of thedark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; andsometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one'seyes. and it was like that with colin when hefirst saw and heard and felt the springtime inside the four high walls of a hiddengarden.

that afternoon the whole world seemed todevote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness thespring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place. more than once dickon paused in what he wasdoing and stood still with a sort of growing wonder in his eyes, shaking hishead softly. "eh! it is graidely," he said. "i'm twelve goin' on thirteen an' there's alot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but seems to me like i never seed one asgraidely as this 'ere."

"aye, it is a graidely one," said mary, andshe sighed for mere joy. "i'll warrant it's the graidelest one asever was in this world." "does tha' think," said colin with dreamycarefulness, "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 fairyking's.

there were flowering cherry-trees near andapple-trees whose buds were pink and white, and here and there one had burst open wide. between the blossoming branches of thecanopy 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--budswhich were opening, buds which were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were justshowing green, the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the emptyshell of some bird early hatched. dickon pushed the chair slowly round andround the garden, stopping every other

moment to let him look at wonders springingout of the earth or trailing down from trees. it was like being taken in state round thecountry 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 chaphe'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head swim. tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ardcarryin' worms nigh as big as himsel' an'

that much noise goin' on in th' nest whenhe 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 arobin 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 whenit seemed like th' sweat must be droppin' off 'em, though folk can't see it." this made them giggle so delightedly thatthey were obliged to cover their mouths with their hands, remembering that theymust not be heard.

colin had been instructed as to the law ofwhispers and low voices several days before. he liked the mysteriousness of it and didhis best, but in the midst of excited enjoyment it is rather difficult never tolaugh above a whisper. every moment of the afternoon was full ofnew things and every hour the sunshine grew more golden. the wheeled chair had been drawn back underthe canopy and dickon had sat down on the grass and had just drawn out his pipe whencolin saw something he had not had time to notice before.

"that's a very old tree over there, isn'tit?" he said. dickon looked across the grass at the treeand mary looked and there was a brief moment of stillness. "yes," answered dickon, after it, and hislow 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 itwill 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 justcaught sight of him, the flash of red-

breasted bird with something in his beak. he darted through the greenness and intothe 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," saidmary secretly to dickon afterward. "i know it was magic." for both she and dickon had been afraidcolin might ask something about the tree

whose branch had broken off ten years agoand they had talked it over together and dickon had stood and rubbed his head in atroubled way. "we mun look as if it wasn't no differentfrom 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 muntry to look cheerful." "aye, that we mun," had answered mary. but she had not felt as if she lookedcheerful when she gazed at the tree. she wondered and wondered in those fewmoments if there was any reality in that other thing dickon had said.

he had gone on rubbing his rust-red hair ina 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 aboutmisselthwaite many a time lookin' after mester colin, same as all mothers do whenthey're took out o' th' world. they have to come back, tha' sees. happen she's been in the garden an' happenit was her set us to work, an' told us to bring him here."mary had thought he meant something about magic.

she was a great believer in magic. secretly she quite believed that dickonworked magic, of course good magic, on everything near him and that was why peopleliked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend. she wondered, indeed, if it were notpossible that his gift had brought the robin just at the right moment when colinasked that dangerous question. she felt that his magic was working all theafternoon and making colin look like an entirely different boy. it did not seem possible that he could bethe 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 onhis face and neck and hands when he first got inside the garden really never quitedied away. he looked as if he were made of fleshinstead of ivory or wax. they saw the robin carry food to his matetwo or three times, and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that colin feltthey must have some. "go and make one of the men servants bringsome in a basket to the rhododendron walk," he said."and then you and dickon can bring it here."

it was an agreeable idea, easily carriedout, and when the white cloth was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and butteredtoast and crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic errands paused to inquire what wasgoing on and were led into investigating crumbs with great activity. nut and shell whisked up trees with piecesof cake and soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet into a corner and peckedat and examined and turned it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decided toswallow it all joyfully in one gulp. the afternoon was dragging towards itsmellow hour.

the sun was deepening the gold of itslances, the bees were going home and the birds were flying past less often. dickon and mary were sitting on the grass,the tea-basket was repacked ready to be taken back to the house, and colin waslying against his cushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his forehead and hisface looking quite a natural color. "i don't want this afternoon to go," hesaid; "but i shall come back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and theday after." "you'll get plenty of fresh air, won'tyou?" said mary. "i'm going to get nothing else," heanswered.

"i've seen the spring now and i'm going tosee 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 delicatelycautious. neither he nor mary had ever asked ifanything was the matter with his legs. "for sure tha' will," he said stoutly.

"tha--tha's got legs o' thine own, same asother folks!" mary was rather frightened until she heardcolin's answer. "nothing really ails them," he said, "butthey are so thin and weak. they shake so that i'm afraid to try tostand on them." both mary and dickon drew a relievedbreath. "when tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt standon 'em," dickon said with renewed cheer. "an' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit." "i shall?" said colin, and he lay still asif he were wondering about things. they were really very quiet for a littlewhile.

the sun was dropping lower. it was that hour when everything stillsitself, and they really had had a busy and exciting afternoon.colin looked as if he were resting luxuriously. even the creatures had ceased moving aboutand had drawn together and were resting near them. soot had perched on a low branch and drawnup 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 wasrather startling when colin half lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenlyalarmed 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 topof a ladder! he actually shook his fist at mary.

"if i wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was awench o' mine," he cried, "i'd give thee a hidin'!" he mounted another step threateningly as ifit were his energetic intention to jump down and deal with her; but as she cametoward him he evidently thought better of it and stood on the top step of his laddershaking 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-- drathim--" "ben weatherstaff," called out mary,finding her breath. she stood below him and called up to himwith a sort of gasp. "ben weatherstaff, it was the robin whoshowed me the way!" then it did seem as if ben really wouldscramble 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 butwhat he's impidint enow for anythin'.

him showin' thee th' way! him! eh! tha' young nowt"--she could seehis next words burst out because he was overpowered by curiosity--"however i' thisworld 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 suddenlyat that very moment and his jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head atsomething he saw coming over the grass toward him.

at the first sound of his torrent of wordscolin had been so surprised that he had only sat up and listened as if he werespellbound. but in the midst of it he had recoveredhimself 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 benweatherstaff beheld and which made his jaw drop. a wheeled chair with luxurious cushions androbes which came toward him looking rather like some sort of state coach because ayoung rajah leaned back in it with royal

command in his great black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended haughtily towardhim. and it stopped right under benweatherstaff's nose. it was really no wonder his mouth droppedopen. "do you know who i am?" demanded the rajah.how ben weatherstaff stared! his red old eyes fixed themselves on whatwas 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 colinstill more imperiously.

"answer!" ben weatherstaff put his gnarled hand upand passed it over his eyes and over his forehead and then he did answer in a queershaky voice. "who tha' art?" he said. "aye, that i do--wi' tha' mother's eyesstarin' 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 boltupright. "i'm not a cripple!" he cried outfuriously.

"i'm not!" "he's not!" cried mary, almost shouting upthe 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 hisforehead 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 tactlessold 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 intohis tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. never yet had he been accused of crookedlegs--even in whispers--and the perfectly simple belief in their existence which wasrevealed by ben weatherstaff's voice was more than rajah flesh and blood couldendure. his anger and insulted pride made himforget everything but this one moment and

filled him with a power he had never knownbefore, an almost unnatural strength. "come here!" he shouted to dickon, and heactually 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 andfelt herself turn pale. "he can do it! he can do it!he can do it! he can!" she gabbled over to herself underher breath as fast as ever she could.

there was a brief fierce scramble, the rugswere tossed on the ground, dickon held colin's arm, the thin legs were out, thethin feet were on the grass. colin was standing upright--upright--asstraight as an arrow and looking strangely tall--his head thrown back and his strangeeyes flashing lightning. "look at me!" he flung up at benweatherstaff. "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 randown 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 awraith, but there's not a knob on thee. tha'lt make a mon yet.god bless thee!" dickon held colin's arm strongly but theboy had not begun to falter. he stood straighter and straighter andlooked ben weatherstaff in the face. "i'm your master," he said, "when my fatheris 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 tothe 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 haveto be in the secret. be quick!" ben weatherstaff's crabbed old face wasstill wet with that one queer rush of tears. it seemed as if he could not take his eyesfrom 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 suddenlytouched his hat gardener fashion and said, "yes, sir!yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder. chapter xxiiwhen the sun went down when his head was out of sight colin turnedto mary. "go and meet him," he said; and mary flewacross the grass to the door under the ivy. dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. there were scarlet spots on his cheeks andhe 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 maryhad 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 histhick boot a clump of crocuses in the grass.

colin looked down at them."aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger magic than that there--therecouldna' 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 weatherstaffcomes 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 wasnot too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held himself sostraight that he looked tall. when ben weatherstaff came through the doorin the wall he saw him standing there and he heard mary muttering something under herbreath. "what art sayin'?" he asked rather testilybecause he did not want his attention distracted from the long thin straight boyfigure 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 shewanted to make magic and keep him on his feet looking like that. she could not bear that he should give inbefore ben weatherstaff. he did not give in. she was uplifted by a sudden feeling thathe 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 hisemotion, but he had recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way."not tha'," he said. "nowt o' th' sort. what's tha' been doin' with thysel'--hidin'out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple an' half-witted?""half-witted!" said colin angrily. "who thought that?" "lots o' fools," said ben."th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an'

they never bray nowt but lies.what did tha' shut thysel' up for?" "everyone thought i was going to die," saidcolin shortly. and he said it with such decision benweatherstaff 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' wasall right. sit thee down on th' rug a bit young mesteran' give me thy orders." there was a queer mixture of crabbedtenderness and shrewd understanding in his

manner. mary had poured out speech as rapidly asshe could as they had come down the long walk. the chief thing to be remembered, she hadtold him, was that colin was getting well-- getting well.the garden was doing it. no one must let him remember about havinghumps and dying. the rajah condescended to seat himself on arug under the tree. "what work do you do in the gardens,weatherstaff?" he inquired. "anythin' i'm told to do," answered oldben.

"i'm kep' on by favor--because she likedme." "she?" said colin."tha' mother," answered ben weatherstaff. "my mother?" said colin, and he lookedabout 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 "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--butyou must come when no one can see you." ben weatherstaff's face twisted itself in adry 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 hischin 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 twoyear'." "tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" crieddickon. "i couldn't make out how it had been done." "she was so fond of it--she was!" said benweatherstaff slowly. "an' she was such a pretty young thing. she says to me once, 'ben,' says shelaughin', '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 ayear. she'd gave her order first." "it wouldn't have been as wick as it is iftha' hadn't done it," said dickon. "i did wonder.""i'm glad you did it, weatherstaff," said "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 droppedher trowel. colin stretched out his hand and took itup.

an odd expression came into his face and hebegan to scratch at the earth. his thin hand was weak enough but presentlyas they watched him--mary with quite breathless interest--he drove the end ofthe trowel into the soil and turned some over. "you can do it!you can do it!" said mary to herself. "i tell you, you can!"dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a word. ben weatherstaff looked on with interestedface. colin persevered.

after he had turned a few trowelfuls ofsoil he spoke exultantly to dickon in his best yorkshire. "tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' abouthere 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 againwhen he heard him, but he ended by chuckling. "eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd gotwits 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 holedeeper 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 colinwent on turning the soft earth over and he looked up at the sky, flushed andglowing 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 backa few minutes just on purpose. ben weatherstaff brought the rose in itspot from the greenhouse. he hobbled over the grass as fast as hecould. 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 tocolin. "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 andcolin's flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the mould and held it while old benmade firm the earth. it was filled in and pressed down and madesteady. mary was leaning forward on her hands andknees. soot had flown down and marched forward tosee what was being done. nut and shell chattered about it from acherry-tree. "it's planted!" said colin at last.

"and the sun is only slipping over theedge. 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--orwhatever it was--so gave him strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and endthe strange lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two feet--laughing. chapter xxiiimagic dr. craven had been waiting some time atthe house when they returned to it. he had indeed begun to wonder if it mightnot be wise to send some one out to explore

the garden paths. when colin was brought back to his room thepoor man looked him over seriously. "you should not have stayed so long," hesaid. "you must not overexert yourself." "i am not tired at all," said colin."it has made me well. tomorrow i am going out in the morning aswell 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'schief peculiarities was that he did not know in the least what a rude little brutehe was with his way of ordering people about. he had lived on a sort of desert island allhis life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own manners and had had noone to compare himself with. mary had indeed been rather like himherself and since she had been at misselthwaite had gradually discovered thather own manners had not been of the kind which is usual or popular.

having made this discovery she naturallythought 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 wasdoing 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 notwithout an air of some satisfaction. "he won't get misselthwaite at all now i'mnot going to die." "i'm sorry for him because of that, ofcourse," said mary, "but i was thinking

just then that it must have been veryhorrid 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 hadbeen 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 youdidn't like--because you were going to die

and things like that.you were such a poor thing." "but," announced colin stubbornly, "i amnot 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 hasmade 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 sois ben weatherstaff. but i am not as queer as i was before ibegan 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 frownedagain with determination. he was a very proud boy. he lay thinking for a while and then marysaw 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, youknow, 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 itseemed like it in the months that followed- -the wonderful months--the radiant months--the amazing ones. oh! the things which happened in thatgarden! if you have never had a garden you cannotunderstand, and if you have had a garden you will know that it would take a wholebook to describe all that came to pass there. at first it seemed that green things wouldnever cease pushing their way through the

earth, in the grass, in the beds, even inthe crevices of the walls. then the green things began to show budsand the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every shade ofpurple, every tint and hue of crimson. in its happy days flowers had been tuckedaway into every inch and hole and corner. ben weatherstaff had seen it done and hadhimself scraped out mortar from between the bricks of the wall and made pockets ofearth for lovely clinging things to grow on. iris and white lilies rose out of the grassin sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies of the blueand white flower lances of tall delphiniums

or columbines or campanulas. "she was main fond o' them--she was," benweatherstaff said. "she liked them things as was alluspointin' up to th' blue sky, she used to tell. not as she was one o' them as looked downon th' earth--not her. she just loved it but she said as th' bluesky allus looked so joyful." the seeds dickon and mary had planted grewas if fairies had tended them. satiny poppies of all tints danced in thebreeze by the score, gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years andwhich it might be confessed seemed rather

to wonder how such new people had gotthere. and the roses--the roses! rising out of the grass, tangled round thesun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing upthe walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades--they camealive day by day, hour by hour. fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tinyat first but swelling and working magic until they burst and uncurled into cups ofscent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. colin saw it all, watching each change asit took place.

every morning he was brought out and everyhour 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 ofstrange busy insect things running about on various unknown but evidently seriouserrands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of straw or feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if they were trees fromwhose tops one could look out to explore

the country. a mole throwing up its mound at the end ofits burrow and making its way out at last with the long-nailed paws which looked solike 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 whendickon revealed them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout' and water-rats'and badgers' ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over.and this was not the half of the magic.

the fact that he had really once stood onhis feet had set colin thinking tremendously and when mary told him of thespell she had worked he was excited and approved of it greatly. he talked of it constantly."of course there must be lots of magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "butpeople don't know what it is like or how to make it. perhaps the beginning is just to say nicethings are going to happen until you make them happen.i am going to try and experiment." the next morning when they went to thesecret garden he sent at once for ben

weatherstaff. ben came as quickly as he could and foundthe rajah standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also verybeautifully smiling. "good morning, ben weatherstaff," he said. "i want you and dickon and miss mary tostand in a row and listen to me because i am going to tell you something veryimportant." "aye, aye, sir!" answered ben weatherstaff,touching his forehead. (one of the long concealed charms of benweatherstaff 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 greatscientific discoveries and i am going to begin now with this experiment." "aye, aye, sir!" said ben weatherstaffpromptly, though this was the first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries. it was the first time mary had heard ofthem, 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 convincingsort of boy.

when he held up his head and fixed hisstrange eyes on you it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourselfthough he was only ten years old--going on eleven. at this moment he was especially convincingbecause he suddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sort of speech like agrown-up person. "the great scientific discoveries i amgoing to make," he went on, "will be about magic is a great thing and scarcely any oneknows anything about it except a few people in old books--and mary a little, becauseshe was born in india where there are fakirs.

i believe dickon knows some magic, butperhaps he doesn't know he knows it. he charms animals and people. i would never have let him come to see meif he had not been an animal charmer--which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is ananimal. 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--likeelectricity and horses and steam." this sounded so imposing that benweatherstaff 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 lookedquite dead," the orator proceeded. "then something began pushing things up outof the soil and making things out of nothing. one day things weren't there and anotherthey were. i had never watched things before and itmade me feel very curious. scientific people are always curious and iam 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 anddickon 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 gardeni've looked up through the trees at the sky and i have had a strange feeling of beinghappy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathefast. magic is always pushing and drawing andmaking things out of nothing. everything is made out of magic, leaves andtrees, 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 standup and know i am going to live to be a man. i am going to make the scientificexperiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me andmake me strong. i don't know how to do it but i think thatif you keep thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come.perhaps that is the first baby way to get when i was going to try to stand that firsttime 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, ofcourse, but her magic helped me--and so did

dickon's. every morning and evening and as often inthe 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, asstrong 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 asregularly as soldiers go through drill we shall see what will happen and find out ifthe experiment succeeds.

you learn things by saying them over andover and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever and i think itwill be the same with magic. if you keep calling it to come to you andhelp you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things." "i once heard an officer in india tell mymother 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 weatherstaffdryly. "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 afew minutes. then he cheered up. "well," he said, "you see something didcome of it. she used the wrong magic until she made himbeat her. if she'd used the right magic and had saidsomething nice perhaps he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and perhaps--perhaps hemight have bought her a new bonnet." ben weatherstaff chuckled and there wasshrewd 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 giveher 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 heheld a long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly while itlaid 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 wasthinking when he saw him looking at him or at one of his "creatures" with his happywide smile. he smiled now and his smile was wider thanusual. "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 anddevotees in illustrations colin suggested

that they should all sit cross-legged underthe tree which made a canopy. "it will be like sitting in a sort oftemple," said colin. "i'm rather tired and i want to sit down.""eh!" said dickon, "tha' mustn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. tha' might spoil th' magic."colin turned and looked at him--into his innocent round eyes."that's true," he said slowly. "i must only think of the magic." it all seemed most majestic and mysteriouswhen they sat down in their circle. ben weatherstaff felt as if he had somehowbeen led into appearing at a prayer-

meeting. ordinarily he was very fixed in being whathe called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this being the rajah's affair he did not resentit 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, andperhaps 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 eachinto 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 asort 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 swayuntil it has done it. we will only chant." "i canna' do no chantin'" said benweatherstaff 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 boyspirit. "the sun is shining--the sun is shining.that is the magic. the flowers are growing--the roots arestirring. 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 athousand times but quite a goodly number. mary listened entranced. she felt as if it were at once queer andbeautiful and she wanted him to go on and on.ben weatherstaff began to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. the humming of the bees in the blossomsmingled with the chanting voice and drowsily melted into a doze. dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbitasleep on his arm and a hand resting on the

lamb's back. soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddledclose to him on his shoulder, the gray film dropped over his eyes.at last colin stopped. "now i am going to walk round the garden,"he announced. ben weatherstaff's head had just droppedforward and he lifted it with a jerk. "you have been asleep," said colin. "nowt o' th' sort," mumbled ben."th' sermon was good enow--but i'm bound to get out afore th' collection."he was not quite awake yet. "you're not in church," said colin.

"not me," said ben, straightening himself."who said i were? i heard every bit of it.you said th' magic was in my back. th' doctor calls it rheumatics." the rajah waved his hand."that was the wrong magic," he said. "you will get better.you have my permission to go to your work. but come back tomorrow." "i'd like to see thee walk round thegarden," grunted ben. it was not an unfriendly grunt, but it wasa grunt. in fact, being a stubborn old party and nothaving entire faith in magic he had made up

his mind that if he were sent away he wouldclimb his ladder and look over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back ifthere were any stumbling. the rajah did not object to his staying andso the procession was formed. it really did look like a procession. colin was at its head with dickon on oneside and mary on the other. ben weatherstaff walked behind, and the"creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub 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 incharge.

it was a procession which moved slowly butwith dignity. every few yards it stopped to rest. colin leaned on dickon's arm and privatelyben weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then colin took his hand from itssupport and walked a few steps alone. his head was held up all the time and helooked 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, andonce or twice he sat down on the grass and several times he paused in the path andleaned on dickon, but he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. when he returned to the canopy tree hischeeks 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 ihave 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 askingquestions and i won't let my father hear about it until the experiment has quitesucceeded. then sometime when he comes back tomisselthwaite i shall just walk into his study and say 'here i am; i am like anyother boy. i am quite well and i shall live to be aman. it has been done by a scientificexperiment.'"

"he will think he is in a dream," criedmary. "he won't believe his eyes."colin flushed triumphantly. he had made himself believe that he wasgoing to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had been awareof it. and the thought which stimulated him morethan any other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw that hehad a son who was as straight and strong as other fathers' sons. one of his darkest miseries in theunhealthy morbid past days had been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boywhose father was afraid to look at him.

"he'll be obliged to believe them," hesaid. "one of the things i am going to do, afterthe magic works and before i begin to make scientific discoveries, is to be anathlete." "we shall have thee takin' to boxin' in aweek 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 isdisrespectful. you must not take liberties because you arein the secret. however much the magic works i shall not bea 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 sincethe snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength and spirit. chapter xxiv"let them laugh" the secret garden was not the only onedickon worked in. round the cottage on the moor there was apiece of ground enclosed by a low wall of

rough stones. early in the morning and late in the fadingtwilight and on all the days colin and mary did not see him, dickon worked thereplanting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for hismother. in the company of his "creatures" he didwonders there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. while he dug or weeded he whistled or sangbits of yorkshire moor songs or talked to soot or captain or the brothers and sistershe had taught to help him. "we'd never get on as comfortable as wedo," mrs. sowerby said, "if it wasn't for

dickon's garden.anything'll grow for him. his 'taters and cabbages is twice th' sizeof 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 cleartwilight 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 flowerseeds now and then and sown bright sweet- scented things among gooseberry bushes andeven cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after yearor whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. the low wall was one of the prettiestthings in yorkshire because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cressand hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of thestones were to be seen. "all a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive,mother," he would say, "is to be friends

with 'em for sure. they're just like th' 'creatures.'if they're thirsty give 'em drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o' food.they want to live same as we do. if they died i should feel as if i'd been abad 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 "mestercolin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with miss mary and that it wasdoing him good.

but it was not long before it was agreedbetween 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 toldthe whole story, with all the thrilling details of the buried key and the robin andthe gray haze which had seemed like deadness and the secret mistress mary hadplanned never to reveal. the coming of dickon and how it had beentold to him, the doubt of mester colin and the final drama of his introduction to thehidden domain, combined with the incident of ben weatherstaff's angry face peering

over the wall and mester colin's suddenindignant strength, made mrs. sowerby's nice-looking face quite change colorseveral times. "my word!" she said. "it was a good thing that little lass cameto 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--himbeing 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 looksdifferent. it's fillin' out and doesn't look so sharpan' 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 couldstand on his feet he'd likely write and tell mester craven. mester colin's savin' th' secret to tellhimself. he's goin' to practise his magic on hislegs every day till his father comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his rooman' show him he's as straight as other lads. but him an' miss mary thinks it's best planto do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off th' scent." mrs. sowerby was laughing a low comfortablelaugh long before he had finished his last

sentence."eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' their-selves i'll warrant. they'll get a good bit o' actin' out of itan' 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 hisheels 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, fornot carryin' him careful enough. he makes himself as helpless lookin' as hecan an' never lifts his head until we're

out o' sight o' th' house. an' he grunts an' frets a good bit whenhe's bein' settled into his chair. him an' miss mary's both got to enjoyin' itan' 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 canscarce keep from burstin' out laughin'. when we get safe into the garden they laughtill they've no breath left to laugh with. an' they have to stuff their faces intomester colin's cushions to keep the gardeners from hearin', if any of, 'em'sabout."

"th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!"said mrs. sowerby, still laughing herself. "good healthy child laughin's better thanpills 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' formore food they won't believe he's an invalid at all. miss mary says she'll let him eat hershare, but he says that if she goes hungry she'll get thin an' they mun both get fatat once."

mrs. sowerby laughed so heartily at therevelation of this difficulty that she quite rocked backward and forward in herblue cloak, and dickon laughed with her. "i'll tell thee what, lad," mrs. sowerbysaid 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 bunswi' 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, "whata 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 managewithout orderin' up more food--they felt that empty inside.""they're two young 'uns growin' fast, an' health's comin' back to both of 'em. children like that feels like young wolvesan' food's flesh an' blood to 'em," said mrs. sowerby.then she smiled dickon's own curving smile. "eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves forsure," she said.

she was quite right, the comfortablewonderful 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 mostthrilling sources of entertainment. the idea of protecting themselves fromsuspicion had been unconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse and thenby dr. craven himself. "your appetite. is improving very much, master colin," thenurse had said one day. "you used to eat nothing, and so manythings disagreed with you." "nothing disagrees with me now" repliedcolin, and then seeing the nurse looking at

him curiously he suddenly remembered thatperhaps he ought not to appear too well just yet. "at least things don't so often disagreewith 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," saidcolin.

"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'sgreat annoyance. "you stay out in the garden a great deal,"he suggested. "where do you go?" colin put on his favorite air of dignifiedindifference 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 theway.

i won't be watched and stared at.you know that!" "you seem to be out all day but i do notthink 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 suddeninspiration, "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 yourcolor is better." "perhaps--perhaps i am bloated andfeverish," said colin, assuming a

discouraging air of gloom. "people who are not going to live areoften--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 saidthoughtfully, "and such flesh as you have gained is healthy.if you can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk of dying. your father will be happy to hear of thisremarkable improvement." "i won't have him told!"colin broke forth fiercely.

"it will only disappoint him if i get worseagain--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 thatis bad for me. i feel hot already. i hate being written about and being talkedover 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. cravenand when he saw the nurse he privately warned her that such a possibility must notbe mentioned to the patient. "the boy is extraordinarily better," hesaid. "his advance seems almost abnormal. but of course he is doing now of his ownfree 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 talkedtogether anxiously. from this time dated their plan of "playactin'." "i may be obliged to have a tantrum," saidcolin regretfully. "i don't want to have one and i'm notmiserable 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 ofhorrible ones. but if they talk about writing to my fatheri shall have to do something." he made up his mind to eat less, butunfortunately it was not possible to carry

out this brilliant idea when he wakenedeach morning with an amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of home-made bread and freshbutter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and clotted cream. mary always breakfasted with him and whenthey found themselves at the table-- particularly if there were delicate slicesof sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver cover--they would look into each other's eyes indesperation. "i think we shall have to eat it all thismorning, mary," colin always ended by

saying. "we can send away some of the lunch and agreat deal of the dinner." but they never found they could send awayanything and the highly polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantryawakened much comment. "i do wish," colin would say also, "i dowish 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 todie," answered mary when first she heard this, "but it's not enough for a person whois going to live. i sometimes feel as if i could eat threewhen those nice fresh heather and gorse

smells from the moor come pouring in at theopen window." the morning that dickon--after they hadbeen enjoying themselves in the garden for about two hours--went behind a big rosebushand brought forth two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with cream on the top of it, and that theother held cottage-made currant buns folded in a clean blue and white napkin, buns socarefully tucked in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprisedjoyfulness. what a wonderful thing for mrs. sowerby tothink 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-upphrases at times. he enjoyed them.he liked this so much that he improved upon "tell her she has been most bounteous andour gratitude is extreme." and then forgetting his grandeur he fell toand stuffed himself with buns and drank

milk out of the pail in copious draughts inthe manner of any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing in moorland air and whose breakfast wasmore than two hours behind him. this was the beginning of many agreeableincidents of the same kind. they actually awoke to the fact that asmrs. sowerby had fourteen people to provide food for she might not have enough tosatisfy two extra appetites every day. so they asked her to let them send some oftheir shillings to buy things. dickon made the stimulating discovery thatin the wood in the park outside the garden where mary had first found him piping tothe wild creatures there was a deep little

hollow where you could build a sort of tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes andeggs in it. roasted eggs were a previously unknownluxury and very hot potatoes with salt and fresh butter in them were fit for awoodland king--besides being deliciously satisfying. you could buy both potatoes and eggs andeat as many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the mouthsof fourteen people. every beautiful morning the magic wasworked by the mystic circle under the plum- tree which provided a canopy of thickeninggreen leaves after its brief blossom-time

was ended. after the ceremony colin always took hiswalking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found power atintervals. each day he grew stronger and could walkmore steadily and cover more ground. and each day his belief in the magic grewstronger--as well it might. he tried one experiment after another as hefelt himself gaining strength and it was dickon who showed him the best things ofall. "yesterday," he said one morning after anabsence, "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 jumphigher 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 ithought o' thee, mester colin, and i says, 'how did tha' make tha' muscles stick outthat 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 thwaiteonce showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every muscle in my body. an' i says, 'could a delicate chap makehimself stronger with 'em, bob?' an' he laughed an' says, 'art tha' th' delicatechap?' 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' themtricks to tell him about.' i didn't say no names an' he didn't asknone. he's friendly same as i said an' he stoodup an' showed me good-natured like, an' i imitated what he did till i knowed it byheart."

colin had been listening excitedly. "can you show me?" he cried."will you?" "aye, to be sure," dickon answered, gettingup. "but he says tha' mun do 'em gentle atfirst an' be careful not to tire thysel'. rest in between times an' take deep breathsan' don't overdo." "i'll be careful," said colin. "show me!show me! dickon, you are the most magic boy in theworld!" dickon stood up on the grass and slowlywent through a carefully practical but

simple series of muscle exercises.colin watched them with widening eyes. he could do a few while he was sittingdown. presently he did a few gently while hestood 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 hecould not do them too. from that time the exercises were part ofthe day's duties as much as the magic was. it became possible for both colin and maryto do more of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results thatbut for the basket dickon put down behind

the bush each morning when he arrived theywould 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. cravenbecame mystified again. you can trifle with your breakfast and seemto disdain your dinner if you are full to the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes andrichly frothed new milk and oatcakes and buns and heather honey and clotted cream. "they are eating next to nothing," said thenurse. "they'll die of starvation if they can't bepersuaded 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 nextturning up their noses at the best meals cook can tempt them with. not a mouthful of that lovely young fowland bread sauce did they set a fork into yesterday--and the poor woman fair inventeda pudding for them--and back it's sent. she almost cried. she's afraid she'll be blamed if theystarve themselves into their graves." dr. craven came and looked at colin longand carefully, he wore an extremely worried

expression when the nurse talked with himand showed him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look at- -but it was even more worried when he satdown by colin's sofa and examined him. he had been called to london on businessand had not seen the boy for nearly two weeks. when young things begin to gain health theygain it rapidly. the waxen tinge had left, colins skin and awarm rose showed through it; his beautiful eyes were clear and the hollows under themand in his cheeks and temples had filled out.

his once dark, heavy locks had begun tolook 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 aconfirmed 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 eatanything," 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 andshe suddenly made a very queer sound which she tried so violently to repress that sheended 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 acough," 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 icouldn't help remembering that last big

potato you ate and the way your mouthstretched when you bit through that thick lovely crust with jam and clotted cream onit." "is there any way in which those childrencan get food secretly?" dr. craven inquired of mrs. medlock. "there's no way unless they dig it out ofthe 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 eatfrom what's sent up to them they need only ask for it."

"well," said dr. craven, "so long as goingwithout 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 sinceshe'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 sheused to be and now her and master colin laugh together like a pair of crazy youngones. perhaps they're growing fat on that."

"perhaps they are," said dr. craven."let them laugh." chapter xxvthe curtain and the secret garden bloomed and bloomedand every morning revealed new miracles. in the robin's nest there were eggs and therobin's mate sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast andcareful wings. at first she was very nervous and the robinhimself was indignantly watchful. even dickon did not go near the close-growncorner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some mysterious spellhe seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little pair that in the garden there

was nothing which was not quite likethemselves--nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what washappening to them--the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty andsolemnity of eggs. if there had been one person in that gardenwho had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an egg were takenaway or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end--if there had been even one who didnot feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness even in that goldenspringtime air. but they all knew it and felt it and therobin and his mate knew they knew it.

at first the robin watched mary and colinwith sharp anxiety. for some mysterious reason he knew he neednot watch dickon. the first moment he set his dew-brightblack eye on dickon he knew he was not a stranger but a sort of robin without beakor feathers. he could speak robin (which is a quitedistinct 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 robinhimself, so the queer gibberish he used when he spoke to humans did not matter inthe least.

the robin thought he spoke this gibberishto them because they were not intelligent enough to understand feathered speech.his movements also were robin. they never startled one by being suddenenough to seem dangerous or threatening. any robin could understand dickon, so hispresence was not even disturbing. but at the outset it seemed necessary to beon guard against the other two. in the first place the boy creature did notcome into the garden on his legs. he was pushed in on a thing with wheels andthe skins of wild animals were thrown over him.that in itself was doubtful. then when he began to stand up and moveabout he did it in a queer unaccustomed way

and the others seemed to have to help him. the robin used to secrete himself in a bushand watch this anxiously, his head tilted first on one side and then on the other. he thought that the slow movements mightmean 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 agreat deal for a few days but after that he decided not to speak of the subject becauseher terror was so great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the eggs.

when the boy began to walk by himself andeven to move more quickly it was an immense relief. but for a long time--or it seemed a longtime 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 away of sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcertingmanner to begin again. one day the robin remembered that when hehimself had been made to learn to fly by his parents he had done much the same sortof thing. he had taken short flights of a few yardsand then had been obliged to rest.

so it occurred to him that this boy waslearning to fly--or rather to walk. he mentioned this to his mate and when hetold her that the eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way afterthey were fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly interested and derived great pleasure from watching theboy over the edge of her nest--though she always thought that the eggs would be muchcleverer and learn more quickly. but then she said indulgently that humanswere always more clumsy and slow than eggs and most of them never seemed really tolearn to fly at all. you never met them in the air or on tree-tops.

after a while the boy began to move aboutas the others did, but all three of the children at times did unusual things. they would stand under the trees and movetheir arms and legs and heads about in a way which was neither walking nor runningnor sitting down. they went through these movements atintervals every day and the robin was never able to explain to his mate what they weredoing or tying to do. he could only say that he was sure that theeggs would never flap about in such a manner; but as the boy who could speakrobin so fluently was doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that theactions were not of a dangerous nature.

of course neither the robin nor his matehad ever heard of the champion wrestler, bob haworth, and his exercises for makingthe muscles stand out like lumps. robins are not like human beings; theirmuscles are always exercised from the first and so they develop themselves in a naturalmanner. if you have to fly about to find every mealyou eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied means wasted awaythrough want of use). when the boy was walking and running aboutand digging and weeding like the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over bya great peace and content. fears for the eggs became things of thepast.

knowing that your eggs were as safe as ifthey were locked in a bank vault and the fact that you could watch so many curiousthings going on made setting a most entertaining occupation. on wet days the eggs' mother sometimes felteven 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 downunceasingly and colin was beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged toremain on his sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, mary had aninspiration.

"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 themorning, mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting outside andeverything seems just shouting for joy-- even the trees and things we can't really hear--i feel as if i must jump out of bedand shout myself. if i did it, just think what would happen!"mary giggled inordinately. "the nurse would come running and mrs.medlock would come running and they would

be sure you had gone crazy and they'd sendfor the doctor," she said. colin giggled himself. he could see how they would all look--howhorrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright."i wish my father would come home," he "i want to tell him myself.i'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this much longer.i can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides i look too different. i wish it wasn't raining today."it was then mistress mary had her inspiration.

"colin," she began mysteriously, "do youknow how many rooms there are in this house?""about a thousand, i suppose," he answered. "there's about a hundred no one ever goesinto," said mary. "and one rainy day i went and looked intoever so many of them. no one ever knew, though mrs. medlocknearly found me out. i lost my way when i was coming back and istopped at the end of your corridor. that was the second time i heard youcrying." colin started up on his sofa."a hundred rooms no one goes into," he "it sounds almost like a secret garden.suppose we go and look at them.

wheel me in my chair and nobody would knowwe 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 thepart 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 aloneuntil i send for him again." rainy days lost their terrors that morning. when the footman had wheeled the chair intothe picture-gallery and left the two together in obedience to orders, colin andmary looked at each other delighted. as soon as mary had made sure that john wasreally 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 thegallery to the other," he said, "and then i am going to jump and then we will do bobhaworth's exercises." and they did all these things and manyothers.

they looked at the portraits and found theplain little girl dressed in green brocade and holding the parrot on her finger. "all these," said colin, "must be myrelations. 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 youlook 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 bothlaughed.

they went to the indian room and amusedthemselves with the ivory elephants. they found the rose-colored brocade boudoirand the hole in the cushion the mouse had left, but the mice had grown up and runaway and the hole was empty. they saw more rooms and made morediscoveries than mary had made on her first pilgrimage. they found new corridors and corners andflights of steps and new old pictures they liked and weird old things they did notknow the use of. it was a curiously entertaining morning andthe feeling of wandering about in the same house with other people but at the sametime 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 queercorners and things." that morning they had found among otherthings such good appetites that when they returned to colin's room it was notpossible to send the luncheon away untouched. when the nurse carried the tray down-stairsshe slapped it down on the kitchen dresser

so that mrs. loomis, the cook, could seethe highly polished dishes and plates. "look at that!" she said. "this is a house of mystery, and those twochildren are the greatest mysteries in it." "if they keep that up every day," said thestrong young footman john, "there'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as muchto-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 somethingnew had happened in colin's room. she had noticed it the day before but hadsaid nothing because she thought the change might have been made by chance.

she said nothing today but she sat andlooked 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 drawnback. i am going to keep it like that.""why?" asked mary. "because it doesn't make me angry any moreto see her laughing.

i wakened when it was bright moonlight twonights ago and felt as if the magic was filling the room and making everything sosplendid that i couldn't lie still. i got up and looked out of the window. the room was quite light and there was apatch of moonlight on the curtain and somehow that made me go and pull the cord. she looked right down at me as if she werelaughing because she was glad i was standing there.it made me like to look at her. i want to see her laughing like that allthe time. i think she must have been a sort of magicperson perhaps."

"you are so like her now," said mary, "thatsometimes i think perhaps you are her ghost made into a boy."that idea seemed to impress colin. he thought it over and then answered herslowly. "if i were her ghost--my father would befond of me." "do you want him to be fond of you?"inquired mary. "i used to hate it because he was not fondof me. if he grew fond of me i think i should tellhim about the magic. it might make him more cheerful." chapter xxvi"it's mother!"

their belief in the magic was an abidingthing. after the morning's incantations colinsometimes gave them magic lectures. "i like to do it," he explained, "becausewhen i grow up and make great scientific discoveries i shall be obliged to lectureabout them and so this is practise. i can only give short lectures now becausei am very young, and besides ben weatherstaff would feel as if he were inchurch 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 himback. i wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel'sometimes."

but when colin held forth under his treeold ben fixed devouring eyes on him and kept them there. he looked him over with critical affection. it was not so much the lecture whichinterested him as the legs which looked straighter and stronger each day, theboyish head which held itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks which had filled and rounded out and the eyeswhich had begun to hold the light he remembered in another pair. sometimes when colin felt ben's earnestgaze meant that he was much impressed he

wondered what he was reflecting on and oncewhen he had seemed quite entranced he questioned him. "what are you thinking about, benweatherstaff?" he asked. "i was thinkin'" answered ben, "as i'dwarrant 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 hassucceeded."

that morning dickon was too late to hearthe lecture. when he came he was ruddy with running andhis 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 warmdeep sinking rain. the moisture which was good for the flowerswas also good for the weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaveswhich must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. colin was as good at weeding as any one inthese 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 bookabout 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 upon his feet. he had been silent for several minutes andthey had seen that he was thinking out lectures, as he often did.

when he dropped his trowel and stoodupright it seemed to mary and dickon as if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. he stretched himself out to his tallestheight 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 tothe full. "mary!dickon!" he cried. "just look at me!" they stopped their weeding and looked athim.

"do you remember that first morning youbrought me in here?" he demanded. dickon was looking at him very hard. being an animal charmer he could see morethings than most people could and many of them were things he never 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 atonce i remembered it myself--when i looked at my hand digging with the trowel--and ihad to stand up on my feet to see if it was real.

and it is real!i'm well--i'm well!" "aye, that th' art!" said dickon."i'm well! i'm well!" said colin again, and his facewent quite red all over. he had known it before in a way, he hadhoped it and felt it and thought about it, but just at that minute something hadrushed all through him--a sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been sostrong that he could not help calling out. "i shall live forever and ever and ever!"he cried grandly. "i shall find out thousands and thousandsof things. i shall find out about people and creaturesand 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 outsomething--something thankful, joyful!" ben weatherstaff, who had been working neara rose-bush, glanced round at him. "tha' might sing th' doxology," hesuggested in his dryest grunt. he had no opinion of the doxology and hedid 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 unaffectedabout it. he understood what colin felt better thancolin did himself.

he understood by a sort of instinct sonatural 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 tocolin, "an' so mun tha', ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows." colin took off his cap and the sun shone onand warmed his thick hair as he watched dickon intently. ben weatherstaff scrambled up from hisknees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look on his old faceas 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 boyvoice: "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 wasstanding quite still with his jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look inhis eyes fixed on colin. colin's face was thoughtful andappreciative.

"it is a very nice song," he said."i like it. perhaps it means just what i mean when iwant 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 ofeverything? sing it again, dickon.let us try, mary. i want to sing it, too. it's my song.how does it begin? 'praise god from whom all blessings flow'?"

and they sang it again, and mary and colinlifted their voices as musically as they could and dickon's swelled quite loud andbeautiful--and at the second line ben weatherstaff raspingly cleared his throat and at the third line he joined in withsuch vigor that it seemed almost savage and when the "amen" came to an end maryobserved that the very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he found out that colin was not a cripple--hischin was twitching and he was staring and winking and his leathery old cheeks werewet. "i never seed no sense in th' doxologyafore," 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 atsomething 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 pushedgently open and a woman had entered. she had come in with the last line of theirsong and she had stood still listening and looking at them. with the ivy behind her, the sunlightdrifting through the trees and dappling her

long blue cloak, and her nice fresh facesmiling across the greenery she was rather like a softly colored illustration in oneof colin's books. she had wonderful affectionate eyes whichseemed 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 oneof them felt that she was an intruder at all.dickon's eyes lighted like lamps. "it's mother--that's who it is!" he criedand went across the grass at a run. colin began to move toward her, too, andmary went with him. they both felt their pulses beat faster.

"it's mother!"dickon said again when they met halfway. "i knowed tha' wanted to see her an' i toldher where th' door was hid." colin held out his hand with a sort offlushed 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 broughtabout a sudden change in her own. she flushed and the corners of her mouthshook 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 thesame 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 smiledthe mist out of her eyes. "aye, that i am!" she said; "but tha'rt solike thy mother tha' made my heart jump."

"do you think," said colin a littleawkwardly, "that will make my father like me?" "aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered andshe 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 theywas bandy an' knock-kneed both at th' same look at 'em now!"susan sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh. "they're goin' to be fine strong lad's legsin a bit," she said.

"let him go on playin' an' workin' in thegarden an' eatin' hearty an' drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll notbe a finer pair i' yorkshire, thank god for it." she put both hands on mistress mary'sshoulders and looked her little face over in a motherly fashion."an' thee, too!" she said. "tha'rt grown near as hearty as our'lisabeth ellen. i'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too.our martha told me as mrs. medlock heard she was a pretty woman. tha'lt be like a blush rose when tha' growsup, my little lass, bless thee."

she did not mention that when martha camehome on her "day out" and described the plain sallow child she had said that shehad no confidence whatever in what mrs. medlock had heard. "it doesn't stand to reason that a prettywoman 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 veryfast. but remembering her pleasure in looking atthe mem sahib in the past she was glad to

hear that she might some day look like her. susan sowerby went round their garden withthem and was told the whole story of it and shown every bush and tree which had comealive. colin walked on one side of her and mary onthe other. each of them kept looking up at hercomfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling. it seemed as if she understood them asdickon understood his "creatures." she stooped over the flowers and talkedabout them as if they were children. soot followed her and once or twice cawedat her and flew upon her shoulder as if it

were dickon's. when they told her about the robin and thefirst flight of the young ones she laughed a motherly little mellow laugh in herthroat. "i suppose learnin' 'em to fly is likelearnin' children to walk, but i'm feared i should be all in a worrit if mine had wingsinstead o' legs," she said. it was because she seemed such a wonderfulwoman 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 whatdoes 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 itmatters 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 goodthing an' knowin' th' world's full of it-- an' call it what tha' likes.

tha' wert singin' to it when i come intoth' garden." "i felt so joyful," said colin, opening hisbeautiful strange eyes at her. "suddenly i felt how different i was--howstrong my arms and legs were, you know--and how i could dig and stand--and i jumped upand wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen." "th' magic listened when tha' sung th'doxology. it would ha' listened to anything tha'dsung. it was th' joy that mattered. eh! lad, lad--what's names to th' joymaker," and she gave his shoulders a quick

soft pat again. she had packed a basket which held aregular feast this morning, and when the hungry hour came and dickon brought it outfrom its hiding place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour their food, laughing and quitegloating over their appetites. she was full of fun and made them laugh atall sorts of odd things. she told them stories in broad yorkshireand taught them new words. she laughed as if she could not help itwhen they told her of the increasing difficulty there was in pretending thatcolin was still a fretful invalid.

"you see we can't help laughing nearly allthe time when we are together," explained colin."and it doesn't sound ill at all. we try to choke it back but it will burstout and that sounds worse than ever." "there's one thing that comes into my mindso often," said mary, "and i can scarcely ever hold in when i think of it suddenly. i keep thinking suppose colin's face shouldget to look like a full moon. it isn't like one yet but he gets a tinybit fatter every day--and suppose some morning it should look like one--whatshould we do!" "bless us all, i can see tha' has a goodbit 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 ifhe 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, ithink now i just want to run into his room."

"that'd be a fine start for him," saidsusan 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 thevisit 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 anddickon's garden and would not come back until they were tired.susan sowerby got up at last to return to the house and mrs. medlock.

it was time for colin to be wheeled backalso. but before he got into his chair he stoodquite close to susan and fixed his eyes on her with a kind of bewildered adoration andhe suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held it fast. "you are just what i--what i wanted," hesaid. "i wish you were my mother--as well asdickon's!" all at once susan sowerby bent down anddrew him with her warm arms close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if hehad 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 xxviiin the garden in each century since the beginning of theworld 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 thingsstill more astounding will be brought to light.

at first people refuse to believe that astrange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they seeit can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuriesago. one of the new things people began to findout in the last century was that thoughts-- just mere thoughts--are as powerful aselectric 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 intoyour mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. if you let it stay there after it has gotin you may never get over it as long as you

live. so long as mistress mary's mind was full ofdisagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and herdetermination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child. circumstances, however, were very kind toher, though she was not at all aware of it. they began to push her about for her owngood. when her mind gradually filled itself withrobins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardenersand common little yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens

coming alive day by day, and also with amoor boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughtswhich affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired. so long as colin shut himself up in hisroom and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people wholooked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical half- crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothingof the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and couldstand upon his feet if he tried to do it. when new beautiful thoughts began to pushout the old hideous ones, life began to

come back to him, his blood ran healthilythrough his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. his scientific experiment was quitepractical and simple and there was nothing weird about it at all. much more surprising things can happen toany 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 agreeabledeterminedly 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 aliveand two children were coming alive with it, there was a man wandering about certainfar-away beautiful places in the norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains of switzerland and he was a man who for tenyears had kept his mind filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. he had not been courageous; he had nevertried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark ones. he had wandered by blue lakes and thoughtthem; he had lain on mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming allabout him and flower breaths filling all

the air and he had thought them. a terrible sorrow had fallen upon him whenhe had been happy and he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refusedobstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through. he had forgotten and deserted his home andhis duties. when he traveled about, darkness so broodedover him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because it was as ifhe poisoned the air about him with gloom. most strangers thought he must be eitherhalf mad or a man with some hidden crime on his soul.

he, was a tall man with a drawn face andcrooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotel registers was, "archibaldcraven, misselthwaite manor, yorkshire, england." he had traveled far and wide since the dayhe saw mistress mary in his study and told her she might have her "bit of earth." he had been in the most beautiful places ineurope, 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 whoseheads were in the clouds and had looked

down on other mountains when the sun roseand touched them with such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born. but the light had never seemed to touchhimself until one day when he realized that for the first time in ten years a strangething had happened. he was in a wonderful valley in theaustrian tyrol and he had been walking alone through such beauty as might havelifted, any man's soul out of shadow. he had walked a long way and it had notlifted his. but at last he had felt tired and hadthrown himself down to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream.

it was a clear little stream which ranquite merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious damp greenness. sometimes it made a sound rather like verylow laughter as it bubbled over and round stones. he saw birds come and dip their heads todrink 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 felthis mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet

as the valley itself. he wondered if he were going to sleep, buthe was not. he sat and gazed at the sunlit water andhis 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 foundhimself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago. he was actually thinking tenderly howlovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were.

he did not know that just that simplethought was slowly filling his mind-- filling and filling it until other thingswere softly pushed aside. it was as if a sweet clear spring had begunto rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept the darkwater away. but of course he did not think of thishimself. he only knew that the valley seemed to growquieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate blueness. he did not know how long he sat there orwhat was happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got upslowly and stood on the moss carpet,

drawing a long, deep, soft breath andwondering at himself. something seemed to have been unbound andreleased 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 thewonderfulness of undiscovered things to be able to explain how this had happened tohim. neither does any one else yet. he did not understand at all himself--buthe remembered this strange hour months afterward when he was at misselthwaiteagain and he found out quite by accident

that on this very day colin had cried outas he went into the secret garden: "i am going to live forever and ever andever!" the singular calmness remained with him therest of the evening and he slept a new reposeful sleep; but it was not with himvery long. he did not know that it could be kept. by the next night he had opened the doorswide 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, therewere minutes--sometimes half-hours--when,

without his knowing why, the black burdenseemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knewof--he was "coming alive" with the garden. as the golden summer changed into the deepgolden autumn he went to the lake of como. there he found the loveliness of a dream. he spent his days upon the crystal bluenessof the lake or he walked back into the soft thick verdure of the hills and trampeduntil he was tired so that he might sleep. but by this time he had begun to sleepbetter, 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 therare peaceful hours when his thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growingstronger, too. he began to think of misselthwaite andwonder if he should not go home. now and then he wondered vaguely about hisboy 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 sostartlingly the close-shut eyes. he shrank from it.

one marvel of a day he had walked so farthat when he returned the moon was high and full and all the world was purple shadowand silver. the stillness of lake and shore and woodwas so wonderful that he did not go into the villa he lived in. he walked down to a little bowered terraceat the water's edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the heavenly scents of thenight. he felt the strange calmness stealing overhim and it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep. he did not know when he fell asleep andwhen he began to dream; his dream was so

real that he did not feel as if he weredreaming. he remembered afterward how intensely wideawake and alert he had thought he was. he thought that as he sat and breathed inthe scent of the late roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet heheard a voice calling. it was sweet and clear and happy and faraway. it seemed very far, but he heard it asdistinctly as if it had been at his very side. "archie!archie! archie!" it said, and then again, sweeterand clearer than before, "archie!

archie!" he thought he sprang to his feet not evenstartled. it was such a real voice and it seemed sonatural that he should hear it. "lilias! lilias!" he answered."lilias! where are you?" "in the garden," it came back like a soundfrom a golden flute. "in the garden!" and then the dream ended.but he did not awaken. he slept soundly and sweetly all throughthe lovely night.

when he did awake at last it was brilliantmorning and a servant was standing staring at him. he was an italian servant and wasaccustomed, as all the servants of the villa were, to accepting without questionany strange thing his foreign master might do. no one ever knew when he would go out orcome in or where he would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or liein the boat on the lake all night. the man held a salver with some letters onit and he waited quietly until mr. craven took them.

when he had gone away mr. craven sat a fewmoments holding them in his hand and looking at the lake. his strange calm was still upon him andsomething more--a lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happenedas he thought--as if something had changed. he was remembering the dream--the real--real dream. "in the garden!" he said, wondering athimself. "in the garden! but the door is locked and the key isburied deep." when he glanced at the letters a fewminutes later he saw that the one lying at

the top of the rest was an english letterand came from yorkshire. it was directed in a plain woman's hand butit was not a hand he knew. he opened it, scarcely thinking of thewriter, 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 wasyou. i think you would be glad to come and--ifyou 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 heput 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 villaand 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 neverthought in all the ten years past.

during those years he had only wished toforget him. now, though he did not intend to thinkabout him, memories of him constantly drifted into his mind. he remembered the black days when he hadraved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was dead. he had refused to see it, and when he hadgone to look at it at last it had been, such a weak wretched thing that everyonehad been sure it would die in a few days. but to the surprise of those who took careof it the days passed and it lived and then everyone believed it would be a deformedand crippled creature.

he had not meant to be a bad father, but hehad not felt like a father at all. he had supplied doctors and nurses andluxuries, but he had shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himselfin his own misery. the first time after a year's absence hereturned to misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly andindifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happyeyes he had adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale asdeath. after that he scarcely ever saw him exceptwhen he was asleep, and all he knew of him

was that he was a confirmed invalid, with avicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. he could only be kept from furies dangerousto himself by being given his own way in every detail. all this was not an uplifting thing torecall, but as the train whirled him through mountain passes and golden plainsthe man who was "coming alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long andsteadily and deeply. "perhaps i have been all wrong for tenyears," he said to himself. "ten years is a long time. it may be too late to do anything--quitetoo late.

what have i been thinking of!"of course this was the wrong magic--to begin by saying "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 takencourage and written to him only because the motherly creature had realized that the boywas much worse--was fatally ill. if he had not been under the spell of thecurious calmness which had taken possession of him he would have been more wretchedthan ever. but the calm had brought a sort of courageand hope with it.

instead of giving way to thoughts of theworst he actually found he was trying to believe in better things. "could it be possible that she sees that imay 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 hestopped the carriage at the cottage, seven or eight children who were playing aboutgathered in a group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him that their mother had gone to the otherside of the moor early in the morning to

help a woman who had a new baby. "our dickon," they volunteered, was over atthe manor working in one of the gardens where he went several days each week. mr. craven looked over the collection ofsturdy little bodies and round red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its ownparticular way, and he awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. he smiled at their friendly grins and tooka golden sovereign from his pocket and gave it to "our 'lizabeth ellen" who was theoldest. "if you divide that into eight parts therewill be half a crown for each of, you," he

then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing ofcurtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joybehind. the drive across the wonderfulness of themoor was a soothing thing. why did it seem to give him a sense ofhomecoming which he had been sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beautyof land and sky and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing, nearer to the great old housewhich had held those of his blood for six hundred years? how he had driven away from it the lasttime, shuddering to think of its closed

rooms and the boy lying in the four-postedbed with the brocaded hangings. was it possible that perhaps he might findhim changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his shrinking fromhim? how real that dream had been--how wonderfuland 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 servantswho received him with the usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that hedid 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 andcurious and flustered. "how is master colin, medlock?" heinquired. "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 mecan exactly make him out." "why is that?"

"to tell the truth, sir, master colin mightbe better and he might be changing for the worse.his appetite, sir, is past understanding-- and his ways--" "has he become more--more peculiar?" hermaster, asked, knitting his brows anxiously."that's it, sir. he's growing very peculiar--when youcompare him with what he used to be. he used to eat nothing and then suddenly hebegan to eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and the mealswere sent back just as they used to be. you never knew, sir, perhaps, that out ofdoors he never would let himself be taken.

the things we've gone through to get him togo out in his chair would leave a body trembling like a leaf. he'd throw himself into such a state thatdr. craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. well, sir, just without warning--not longafter one of his worst tantrums he suddenly insisted on being taken out every day bymiss mary and susan sowerby's boy dickon that could push his chair. he took a fancy to both miss mary anddickon, and dickon brought his tame animals, and, if you'll credit it, sir, outof 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'reafraid it may be a sort of bloat. he laughs sometimes in a queer way whenhe'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 ahuman creature is allowed to go near for

fear they'll look at him."mr. craven scarcely heard her last words. "in the garden," he said, and after he hadsent mrs. medlock away he stood and repeated it again and again."in the garden!" he had to make an effort to bring himselfback to the place he was standing in and when he felt he was on earth again heturned and went out of the room. he took his way, as mary had done, throughthe door in the shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds. the fountain was playing now and wasencircled 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, andhis eyes were on the path. he felt as if he were being drawn back tothe place he had so long forsaken, and he did not know why. as he drew near to it his step became stillmore slow. he knew where the door was even though theivy hung thick over it--but he did not know exactly where it lay--that buried key. so he stopped and stood still, lookingabout him, and almost the moment after he had paused he started and listened--askinghimself if he were walking in a dream.

the ivy hung thick over the door, the keywas buried under the shrubs, no human being had passed that portal for ten lonelyyears--and yet inside the garden there were sounds. they were the sounds of running scufflingfeet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they were strange sounds oflowered suppressed voices--exclamations and smothered joyous cries. it seemed actually like the laughter ofyoung things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to be heardbut 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 heheard things which were not for human ears? was it that the far clear voice had meant? and then the moment came, theuncontrollable moment when the sounds forgot to hush themselves. the feet ran faster and faster--they werenearing the garden door--there was quick strong young breathing and a wild outbreakof laughing shows which could not be contained--and the door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swingingback, 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 timeto save him from falling as a result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he heldhim 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 hisface. he threw the thick hair back from hisforehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes--eyes full of boyish laughter andrimmed with black lashes like a fringe. it was the eyes which made mr. craven gaspfor breath.

"who--what?who!" he stammered. this was not what colin had expected--thiswas 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 thathe 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 understandwhat 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 themagic. 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--hisface flushed, his words tumbling over each

other in his eagerness--that mr. craven'ssoul shook with unbelieving joy. colin put out his hand and laid it on hisfather's arm. "aren't you glad, father?" he ended."aren't you glad? i'm going to live forever and ever andever!" mr. craven put his hands on both the boy'sshoulders and held him still. he knew he dared not even try to speak fora moment. "take me into the garden, my boy," he saidat last. "and tell me all about it." and so they led him in.

the place was a wilderness of autumn goldand purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves oflate lilies standing together--lilies which were white or white and ruby. he remembered well when the first of themhad been planted that just at this season of the year their late glories shouldreveal themselves. late roses climbed and hung and clusteredand 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 thechildren 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--allbut colin, who wanted to stand while he told the story. it was the strangest thing he had everheard, archibald craven thought, as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. mystery and magic and wild creatures, theweird midnight meeting--the coming of the spring--the passion of insulted pride whichhad dragged the young rajah to his feet to defy old ben weatherstaff to his face.

the odd companionship, the play acting, thegreat secret so carefully kept. the listener laughed until tears came intohis eyes and sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not laughing. the athlete, the lecturer, the scientificdiscoverer 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 nearlyinto 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 himaway from the gardens, but on this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetablesto 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 hadhoped to be--when the most dramatic event misselthwaite manor had seen during thepresent generation actually took place. one of the windows looking upon thecourtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn. mrs. medlock, knowing ben had come from thegardens, hoped that he might have caught sight of his master and even by chance ofhis meeting with master colin. "did you see either of them, weatherstaff?"she asked.

ben took his beer-mug from his mouth andwiped his lips with the back of his hand. "aye, that i did," he answered with ashrewdly significant air. "both of them?" suggested mrs. medlock."both of 'em," returned ben weatherstaff. "thank ye kindly, ma'am, i could sup upanother mug of it." "together?" said mrs. medlock, hastilyoverfilling his beer-mug in her excitement. "together, ma'am," and ben gulped down halfof his new mug at one gulp. "where was master colin?how did he look? what did they say to each other?" "i didna' hear that," said ben, "along o'only bein' on th' stepladder lookin, over

th' wall.but i'll tell thee this. there's been things goin' on outside as youhouse people knows nowt about. an' what tha'll find out tha'll find outsoon." and it was not two minutes before heswallowed the last of his beer and waved his mug solemnly toward the window whichtook 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 herhands and gave a little shriek and every man and woman servant within hearing boltedacross the servants' hall and stood looking

through the window with their eyes almoststarting out of their heads. across the lawn came the master ofmisselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. and by his, side with his head up in theair and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy inyorkshire--master colin.

Subscribe to receive free email updates: