 24 Let them laugh. The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall of rough stones. Early in the morning, and late in the fading twilight, and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there, planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother. In the company of his creatures he did wonders there, and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded, he whistled, or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs, or talked to Soot, or Captain, or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him. "'We'd never get on as comfortable as we do,' Mrs. Sourby said, if it wasn't for Dickon's garden. Anything will grow for him. His taters and cabbages is twice the size of any one else's, and they've got a flavour with them as nobody's has." When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. After supper there was still a long, clear twilight to work in, and that was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low, rough wall and look on and hear stories of a day. She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower-seeds now and then, and had sown bright, sweet-scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages, and he grew borders of mignanette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year, or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire, because he had tucked moorland fox-glove and ferns and rock-crests and hedgerow flowers into every crevice, until only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen. All a chap's got to do to make him thrive, mother, he would say, is to be friends with him for sure. They're just like the creatures. If they're thirsty, give them drink, and if they're hungry, give them a bit of food. They want to live same as we do. If they died, I should feel as if I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them artless. It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sauer be heard of all that happened at Misslethwait Manor. At first she was only told that Mr. Collin had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with Miss Mary, and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickon's mother might come into the secret. Somehow it was not doubted that she was safe for sure. So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the thrilling details of the buried key and the robin, and the gray haze which it seemed like deadness, and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, the doubt of Mr. Collin, and the final drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff's angry face peering over the wall and Mr. Collin's sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sauer be's nice-looking face quite change colour several times. "'My word,' she said. It was a good thing that little lass come to the Manor. It's been the makin' of her and the savin' of him, standin' on his feet, and nor soul 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 the Manor, him bein' so well and cheerful and never complainin', she inquired. "'They don't know what to make of it,' answered Dickon. Every day as comes round his face looks different. It's fillin' out, and doesn't look so sharp, and the waxy colour is goin'—but he has to do his bitter complainin'—with a highly entertained grin. "'What for a mercy's name?' asked Mrs. Sauer be.' Dickon chuckled. He does yet to keep them from guessin' what's happened. If the doctor knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and tell Mr. Craven. Mr. Collin savin' the secret to tell himself. He's goin' to practice his magic on his legs every day till his father comes back, and then he's goin' to march into his room and show him he's as straight as other lads. But him and Miss Mary think it's the best plan to do a bitter groanin' and fretten' now and then to throw folk off the scent. Mrs. Sauer be was laughing a low, comfortable laugh, long before he had finished his last sentence. "'Ey,' she said, "'that pears enjoyin' their selves, I'll warrant. They'll get a good bit actin' out of it, and there's nothin' children likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad.' Collin stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes were twinkling with fun. "'Mr. Collin is carried down in his chair every time he goes out,' he explained, and he flies out at John the Footman for not carryin' him careful enough. He makes himself as helpless-lookin' as he can, and never lifts his head till we are out of sight of the house. And he grunts and frets a good bit when he's been settled into his chair. Him and Miss Mary's both got to enjoyin' it, and when he groans and complains, she'll say, "'Poor Collin, does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that poor Collin?' But the trouble is that sometimes they can scarce keep from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the garden, they laugh till they've got no breath left to laugh with, and they have to stuff their faces into Mr. Collin's cushions to keep the gardeners from here, if any of them's about. "'The more they laugh, the better for'em,' said Mrs. Sower, be still laughing herself. Good healthy child laughins better than pills any day of the year. That peril 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. Mr. Collin says if he keeps sendin' for more food, they won't believe he's an invalid at all. Miss Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if she goes hungry, she'll get thin, and they won't both get fat at once.' Mrs. Sower be laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty that she quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon laughed with her. "'I'll tell thee what, lad,' Mrs. Sower be said when she could speak. "'I've thought of a way to help him. When that goes to him in the mornings, that shall take a pail of good new milk, and I'll bake him a crusty cottage-low for some buns with currants in him, same as you children like. Nothing so good as fresh milk and bread. Then they could take off-edge of their hunger while they were in the garden, and the fine food they get indoors would polish off the corners. "'Hey, mother,' said Dickon admiringly, "'what a wonder that! They always sees a way out of things. They was quite in a pothery yesterday. They didn't see how they was to manage it without ordering up more food. They felt that empty inside.' "'They're two youngens, growing fast, and elfs coming back to both of them. Children like that feels like young wolves, and foods flesh and blood to them,' said Mrs. Sower be. Then she smiled, Dickon's own curving smile. "'Hey, but they're enjoying themselves for sure,' she said. She was quite right, the comfortable, wonderful mother-creature, and she had never been more so than when she said their play-actin would be their joy. Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources of entertainment. The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had been unconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse, and then by Dr. Craven himself. "'Your appetite is improving very much, Master Colin,' the nurse had said one day. You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed with you.' "'Nothing disagrees with me now,' replied Colin, and then, seeing the nurse looking at him curiously, he suddenly remembered that perhaps he ought not to appear too well just yet. At least, things don't so often disagree with me. It's the fresh air.' "'Perhaps it is,' said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified expression. But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it.' "'How she stared at you,' said Mary, when she went away, as if she thought there must be something to find out.' "'I won't have her finding out things,' said Colin. No one must begin to find out yet.' When Dr. Craven came that morning, he seemed puzzled also. He asked a number of questions to Colin's great annoyance. "'You stay out in the garden a great deal,' he suggested. "'Where do you go?' Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion. "'I will not let anyone know where I go,' he answered. "'I go to a place I like. Everyone has orders to keep out of the way. I won't be watched and stared at. You know that.' "'You seem to be out all day. But I do not think it has done you harm. I do not think so. The nurse says that you eat much more than you have ever done before.' "'Perhaps,' said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration. "'Perhaps it is an unnatural appetite.' "'I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you,' said Dr. Craven. "'You are gaining flesh rapidly, and your color is better.' "'Perhaps—perhaps I am bloated and feverish,' said Colin, assuming a discouraging air of gloom. "'People who are not going to live are often different.'" Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist, and he pushed up his sleeve and felt his arm. "'You are not feverish,' he said thoughtfully. "'And such flesh as you have gained is healthy. If you can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk of dying. Your father will be happy to hear of this remarkable improvement.' "'I won't have him told,' Colin broke forth fiercely. "'It will only disappoint him if I get worse again. And I may get worse this very night. I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might be beginning to have one now. I won't have letters written to my father. I won't, I won't. You are making me angry, and you know that is bad for me. I feel hot already. I hate being written about and being talked over, as much as I hate being stared at.'" "'Hush, my boy,' Dr. Craven soothed him. "'Nothing shall be written without your permission. You are too sensitive about things. You must not undo the good which has been done.'" He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven, and when he saw the nurse, he privately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned to the patient. "'The boy is extraordinarily better,' he said. His advance seems almost abnormal. But, of course, he is doing now of his own free will, what we could not make him do before. Still, he excites himself very easily, and nothing must be said to irritate him." Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously. From this time dated their plan of play-acting. "'I may be obliged to have a tantrum,' said Colin regretfully. "'I don't want to have one, and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself into a big one. Perhaps I couldn't have one at all. That lump doesn't come in my throat now, and I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible ones. But if they talk about writing to my father, I shall have to do something.' He made up his mind to eat less. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to carry out this brilliant idea, when he wakened each morning with an amazing appetite, and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of homemade bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam, and clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted with him, and when they found themselves at the table, particularly if there were delicate slices of sizzling ham sending forth tempting odours from under a hot silver cover, they would look into each other's eyes in desperation. "'I think we shall have to eat at all this morning, Mary,' Colin always ended by saying, "'we can send away some of the lunch and a great deal of the dinner.' But they never found they could send away anything, and the highly polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened much comment. "'I do wish,' Colin would say also, "'I do wish the slices of ham were thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for any one. "'It's enough for a person who is going to die,' answered Mary, when first she heard this, "'but it's not enough for a person who is going to live. I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh heathering gore smells from the moor come pouring in at the open window.' The morning that Dickon, after they had been enjoying themselves in the garden for about two hours, went behind a big rose-bush and brought forth two tin pales, and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made current buns folded in a clean blue-and-white napkin. Buns so carefully tucked in that they were still hot. There was a riot of surprised joyfulness. What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Saaby to think of! What a kind, clever woman she must be! How good the buns were! And what delicious fresh milk! "'Magic is in her, just as it is in Dickon,' said Colin. "'It makes her think of ways to do things. Nice things! She is a magic person. Tell her we are grateful, Dickon—extremely grateful. He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed them. He liked this so much that he improved upon it. Tell her she has been most bountious, and our gratitude is extreme. And then, forgetting his grandeur, he fell to and stuffed himself with buns and drank milk out of the pale and copious draughts, in the manner of any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours behind him. This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind. They actually awoke to the fact that, as Mrs. Saaby had fourteen people to provide food for, she might not have enough to satisfy two extra appetites every day. So they asked her to let them send some of their shillings to buy things. Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park outside the garden, where Mary had first found him piping to the wild creatures, there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort of tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs were a previously unknown luxury, and very hot potatoes with salt and fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king, besides being deliciously satisfying. You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as many as you liked, without feeling as if you were taking food out of the mouths of fourteen people. Every beautiful morning the magic was worked by the mystic circle under the plum tree, which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after its brief blossom time was ended. After the ceremony Colin always took his walking exercise, and throughout the day he exercised his newly found power at intervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more steadily and cover more ground, and each day his belief in the magic grew stronger, as well it might. He tried one experiment after another as he felt himself gaining strength, and it was Dickon who showed him the best things of all. Yesterday, he said one morning after an absence, I went to thwait for mother, and near the blue cow inn I see Bob Haworth. He's the strongest chap on the moor. He's the champion wrestler, and he can jump higher than any other chap and throw the hammer farther. He's gone all the way to Scotland for the sport some years. He's known me ever since I was a little one, and he's a friendly sort, and I asked him some questions. The gentry calls him athlete, and I thought to the semester Colin, and I says, how did I make that muscle stick out that way, Bob? Did that do anything extra to make thyself so strong? And he says, well, yes lad, I did. A strong man in a show that came to thwait once showed me how to exercise my arms and legs in every muscle in my body. And I says, could a delicate chap make himself stronger with him, Bob? And he laughed, and he says, art thou the delicate chap? And I says, no, but I know as a young gentleman that's getting well of a long illness, and I wish I'd known some of them tricks to tell him about. I didn't say no names, and he didn't ask none. He's friendly, same as I said, and he stood up and showed me good natured like, and I imitated what he did till I knowed it by art. Colin had been listening excitedly. Can you show me, he cried, will you? I, to be sure, Dickon answered getting up, but he says tha mandum gentle at first, and be careful not to tire thyself. Rest in between times, and take deep breaths, and don't overdo. I'll be careful, said Colin. Show me, show me. Dickon, you are the most magic boy in the world. Dickon stood on the grass, and slowly went through a carefully practical but simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down. Presently he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary began to do them also. Soot, who was watching the performance, became much disturbed, and left his branch and hopped about restlessly because he could not do them too. From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as the magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he arrived they would have been lost. But the little oven in the hollow, and Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and the nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again. You can trifle with your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oat-cakes and buns and heather-honey and clotted cream. They are eating next to nothing, said the nurse. They'll die of starvation if they can't be persuaded to take some nourishment, and yet see how they look. Look! exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. Hey, I'm moitered to death with them. They're a pair of young satans. Burst in their jackets one day, and the next turning up their noses at the best meals the cook can tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young foul and bread-sourced did they set a fork into yesterday, and the poor woman fair invented a pudding for them, and back it sent. She almost cried. She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve themselves into their graves. Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully. He wore an extremely worried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look at. But it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa and examined him. He had been called to London on business, and had not seen the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things begin to gain health, they gain it rapidly. The wax and tinge had left Colin's skin, and a warm rose showed through it. His beautiful eyes were clear, and the hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out. His once dark, heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthfully from his forehead, and were soft and warm with life. His lips were fuller and of a normal colour. In fact, as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed invalid, he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in his hand and thought him over. I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything," he said. That will not do. You will lose all you have gained, and you have gained amazingly. You ate so well a short time ago. I told you it was an unnatural appetite," answered Colin. Mary was sitting on her stool nearby, and she suddenly made a very queer sound, which she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost choking. What is the matter? said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her. Mary became quite severe in her manner. It was something between a sneeze and a cough, she replied, with reproachful dignity, and it got into my throat. But, she said afterward to Colin, I couldn't stop myself. It just burst out, because all at once I couldn't help remembering that last big potato you ate, and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through that thick, lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it. Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly? Dr. Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock. There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the trees, Mrs. Medlock answered. They stay out in the gardens all day, and see no one but each other. And if they want anything different to eat from what's sent up to them, they need only ask for it. Well, said Dr. Craven. So long as going without food agrees with them, we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature. So is the girl, said Mrs. Medlock. She's begun to be downright pretty since she's filled out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her hair's grown thick and healthy looking, and she's got a bright color. The glumest, ill-natured little thing she used to be, and now her and Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhaps they're growing fat on that. Perhaps they are, said Dr. Craven. Let them laugh. End of Chapter 24 And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed, and every morning revealed new miracles. In the robin's nest there were eggs, and the robin's mate sat upon them, keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and careful wings. At first she was very nervous, and the robin himself was indignantly watchful. Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the little soul of the pair that in the garden there was nothing which was not quite like themselves— nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them— the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of eggs. If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end, if there had been even one who did not feel it and act accordingly, there could have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air. But they all knew it, and felt it, and the robin and his mate knew they knew it. At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For some mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first moment he set his due bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger, but a sort of robin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin, which is a quite distinct language and not to be mistaken for any other. To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman. Dickon always spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he used when he spoke to humans did not matter in the least. The robin thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were not intelligent enough to understand feathered speech. His movements were also robin. They never startled one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous or threatening. Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not even disturbing. But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other two. In the first place the boy-creature did not come into the garden on his legs. He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild animals were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful. Then when he began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer, unaccustomed way, and the others seemed to have to help him. The robin used to secrete himself in a bush and watched this anxiously. His head tilted first on one side and then on the other. He thought that the slow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When cats are preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very slowly. The robin talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days, but after that he decided not to speak of the subject, because her terror was so great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the eggs. When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense relief. But for a long time, or it seemed a long time to the robin, he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking, but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner to begin again. One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn to fly by his parents, he had done much the same sort of thing. He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly, or rather to walk. He mentioned this to his mate, and when he told her that the eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way after they were fledged, she was quite comforted, and even became eagerly interested and arrived great pleasure from watching the boy over the edge of her nest, though she always thought that the eggs would be much cleverer and learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans were always more clumsy and slow than eggs, and most of them never seemed really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the air or on treetops. After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all three of the children at times did unusual things. They would stand under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went through these movements at intervals every day, and the robin was never able to explain to his mate what they were doing or trying to do. He could only say that he was sure that the eggs would never flap about in such a manner. But as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions were not of a dangerous nature. Of course, neither the robin nor his mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler Bob Howarth and his exercises for making muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not like human beings. Their muscles are always exercised from the first, and so they develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied. Atrophied means wasted away through want of use. When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace and content. Fears for the eggs became things of the past. Knowing that your eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault, and the fact that you could watch so many curious things going on, made setting a most entertaining occupation. On wet days, the egg's mother sometimes felt even a little dull because the children did not come into the garden. But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an inspiration. Now that I am a real boy, Colin had said, my legs and arms and all my body are so full of magic that I can't keep them still. They want to be doing things all the time. Do you know that when I wake in the morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting outside and everything seems just shouting for joy, even the trees and things we can't really hear, I feel as if I must jump out of bed and shout myself. If I did it, just think what would happen." Mary giggled inordinately. The nurse would come running, and Mrs. Medlock would come running, and they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd sent for the doctor, she said. Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look, how horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright. I wish my father would come home, he said. I want to tell him myself. I'm always thinking about it. But we couldn't go on like this much longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too different. I wish it wasn't raining today. It was then Mr. Mary had her inspiration. Colin—she began mysteriously—do you know how many rooms there are in this house? About a thousand, I suppose, he answered. There's about a hundred no one ever goes into, said Mary, and one rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them. No one ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was coming back and stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the second time I heard you crying. Colin started up on his sofa. A hundred rooms no one goes into, he said. It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. Weal me in my chair and nobody would know we went. That's what I was thinking, said Mary. No one would dare to follow us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do our exercises. There's 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. Ms. Mary and I are going to look at the part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as the picture gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and leave us alone until I send for him again. Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footmen had wheeled the chair into the picture gallery and left the two together in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair. I'm going to run from one end of the gallery to the other, he said, and then I'm going to jump, and then we will do Bob Hallworth's exercises. And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and holding the parrot on her finger. All these, said Colin, must be my relations. They lived a long time ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary. Not as you look now, but as you looked when you came here. Now you're a great deal fatter and better looking. So are you, said Mary, and they both laughed. They went to the Indian Room and amused themselves with the ivory elephants. They found the rose-coloured brocade boudoir and the hole in the cushion the mouse had left, but the mice had grown up and run away and the hole was empty. They saw more rooms and made more discoveries than Mary had made in her first pilgrimage. They found new corridors and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and weird old things they did not know the use of. It was a curiously entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same house with other people, but at the same time feeling as if one were miles away from them was a fascinating thing. I'm glad we came, Colin said. I never knew I lived in such a big, queer old place. I like it. We will ramble about every rainy day. We shall always be finding new, queer corners and things. That morning they had found, among other things, such good appetites that when they returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the lunch in a way untouched. When the nurse carried the tray downstairs she slapped it down on the kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly polished dishes and plates. Look at that, she said. This is a house of mystery and those two children are the greatest mysteries in it. If they keep that up every day, said the strong young footman John, they'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as much today as he did a month ago. I should have to give up my place in time for fear of doing my muscles in injury. That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's room. She had noticed it the day before, but had said nothing because she thought the change might have been made by chance. She said nothing to-day, but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantle. She could look at it because the curtain had been drawn aside. That was the change she noticed. I know what you want me to tell you, said Colin, after she had stared a few minutes. I always know when you want me to tell you something. You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keep it like that. Why? asked Mary. Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing. I wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I couldn't lie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was quite light, and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain, and somehow that made me go and pull the cord. She looked right down at me as if she were laughing because she was glad I was standing there. It made me like to look at her. I want to see her laughing like that all the time. I think she must have been a sort of magic person, perhaps. You're so like her now, said Mary, that sometimes I think perhaps you're her ghost made into a boy. That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered her slowly. If I were her ghost, my father would be fond of me. Do you want him to be fond of you? inquired Mary. I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me, I think I should tell him about the magic. It might make him more cheerful. CHAPTER XXVI Its mother. Their belief in the magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's incantations, Colin sometimes gave the magic lectures. I like to do it, he explained, because when I grow up and make great scientific discoveries, I shall be obliged to lecture about them, and so this is practice. I can only give short lectures now because I am very young, and besides, Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he were in church and he would go to sleep. The best thing about lecturing, said Ben, is that a chap can get up and say naughty pleases, and no other chap can answer him back. I wouldn't be again lecturing a bit myself sometimes. But when Colin held forth under his tree, old Ben fixed devouring eyes on him and kept them there. He looked him over with critical affection. It was not so much the lecture which interested him, as the legs which looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head which held itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks which had filled and rounded out, and the eyes which had begun to hold the light he remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze meant that he was much impressed, he wondered what he was reflecting on, and once, when he had seemed quite entranced, he questioned him. What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff? he asked. I was thinking, answered Ben, as I had warranted that I was going up three or four pounds this week. I was looking at the calves and the shoulders. I'd like to get the on a pair of scales. It's the magic and—and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things, said Colin. You see the scientific experiment has succeeded. That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he was ruddy with running, and his funny face looked more twinkling than usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains, they fell to work. They always had plenty to do after a warm, deep, sinking rain. The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for the weeds, which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves which must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. Colin was as good at weeding as any one in these days, and he could lecture while he was doing it. The magic works best when you work yourself, he said this morning. You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I'm going to read books about bones and muscles, but I'm going to write a book about magic. I'm making it up now. I keep finding out things. It was not very long after he had said this, that he laid down his trowel and stood up on his feet. He had been silent for several minutes, and they had seen that he was thinking out lectures as he often did. When he dropped his trowel and stood upright, it seemed to Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. He stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threw out his arms exultantly. Color glowed in his face and his strange eyes widened with joyfulness. All at once he had realized something to the full. Mary! Dickon! he cried. Just look at me! They stopped their weeding and looked at him. Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here? he demanded. Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could see more things than most people could, and many of them were things he never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy. I, that we do, he answered. Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing. Just this minute, said Colin, all at once I remembered it myself. When I looked at my hand digging with the trowel, and I had to stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it is real. I'm well, I'm well. I, that that, said Dickon. I'm well, I'm well, said Colin again, and his face went quite red all over. He had known it before in a way. He had hoped it and felt it and thought about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all through him, a sort of rapturous belief and realization, and it had been so strong that he could not help calling out. I shall live forever and ever and ever, he cried grandly. I shall find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows, like Dickon, and I shall never stop making magic. I'm well, I'm well. I feel, I feel as if I want to shout out something, something thankful, joyful. Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round at him. They might sing the doxology, he suggested in his driest grunt. He had no opinion of the doxology, and he did not make the suggestion with any particular reverence. But Colin was of an exploring mind, and he knew nothing about the doxology. What is that? he inquired. Dickon, concing it for the alwarant, replied Ben Weatherstaff. Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmous smile. They sing it in church, he said. Mother says she believes the skylark sings it when they get up in the morning. If she says that, it must be a nice song, Colin answered. I've never been in a church myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon. I want to hear it. Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it. He understood what Colin felt better than Colin did himself. He understood by a sort of instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding. He pulled off his cap, and looked round, still smiling. Thou must take off thy cap, he said to Colin, and so man thar, Ben, and the man stand up thanos. Colin took off his cap, and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as he watched Dickon intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his knees and bared his head, too, with a sort of puzzled, half-resentful look on his old face, as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this remarkable thing. Dickon stood out among the trees and rose bushes, and began to sing in quite a simple, matter-of-fact way, and in a nice, strong boy voice. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still, with his jaws set obstinately, but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative. It is a very nice song, he said. I like it. Perhaps it means just what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the magic. He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. Perhaps they're both the same thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It's my song. How does it begin? Praise God from whom all blessings flow? And they sang it again. And Mary and Colin lifted their voices as musically as they could, and Dickon swelled quite loud and beautiful. And at the second line, Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his throat, and at the third line he joined him with such vigor that it seemed almost savage. And when the our men came to an end, Mary observed that the very same thing had happened to him, which had happened when he found out that Colin was not a cripple. His chin was twitching, and he was staring and winking, and his leathery old cheeks were wet. I never seen no sense in the doxology of four, he said hoarsely, but I may change my mind in time. I should say that gone up five pounds this week, Mr. Colin, five on him. Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his attention, and his expression had become a startled one. Who's coming in here? he said quickly. Who is it? The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open, and a woman had entered. She had come in with the last line of their song, and she had stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery, she was rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in, all of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the creatures, and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly a sheard appeared, not one of them felt that she was an intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps. It's mother, that's who it is! he cried, and went across the grass at a run. Colin began to move toward her too, and Mary went with him. They both felt their pulses beat faster. It's mother, Dickon said again when they met halfway, I knowed thou wanted to see her, and I told her where the door was hid. Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness, but his eyes quite devoured her face. Even when I was ill I wanted to see you, he said, you and Dickon and the secret garden. I'd never wanted to see any one or anything before. The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own. She flushed, and the corners of her mouth shook, and a mist seemed to sweep over her eyes. Hey, dear lad! she broke out tremulously. Hey, dear lad! As if she had not known she were going to say it. She did not say, Mester Colin, but just, dear lad, quite suddenly. She might have said it to Dickon in the same way if she had seen something in his face which touched her. Colin liked it. Are you surprised because I am so well? he asked. She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes. Aye, that I am, she said, but that sore like thy mother that made my heart jump. Do you think, said Colin a little awkwardly, that will make my father like me? Aye, for sure, dear lad, she answered, and she gave his shoulder a soft, quick pat, and he mung come home, he mung come home. Susan Sowerby, said Ben Weatherstaff, getting close to her. Look at the lads' legs, will't they? They was like drumsticks in stocking two months ago, and I heard folk tellers they was bandy and knockneyed both at the same time. Look at them now! Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh. They are going to be fine, strong lads' legs in a bit, she said. Let him go on playing and working in the garden, and eating hearty and drinking plenty of good sweet milk, and they'll not be a finer pair of Yorkshire. Thank God for it. She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders, and looked her little face over in a motherly fashion. And thee too, she said, that grow near as hearty as Elizabeth Ellen. I'll warrant that like thy mother, too. Our Martha told me, as Mrs. Medlock heard, she was a pretty woman. Thou to be like a blush rose when thou grows up, my little lass, bless thee. She did not mention that when Martha came home on her day out, and described the plain, sallow child, she had said that she had no confidence whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. It doesn't stand to reason that a pretty woman could be the mother of such a foul little lass, she had added obstinately. Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face. She had only known that she looked different, and seemed to have a great deal more hair, and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her pleasure in looking at the memsaib in the past, she was glad to hear that she might some day look like her. Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them, and was told the whole story of it, and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin walked on one side of her, and Mary on the other. Each of them kept looking up at her comfortable, rosy face, secretly curious about the delightful feeling she gave them. A sort of warm, supported feeling. It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his creatures. She stooped over the flowers, and talked about them as if they were children. Soot followed her, and once or twice corded her, and flew upon her shoulders if it were Dickon's. When they told her about the robin and the first flight of the young ones, she laughed a motherly little mellow laugh in her throat. I suppose learning him to fly is like learning children to walk, but I am afraid I would be all in a worry if mine had wings instead of legs, she said. It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice, small and cottage way that at last she was told about the magic. Do you believe in magic? asked Colin, after he had explained about Indian fakirs. I do hope you do. That I do, lad, she answered. I never knowed it by that name. But what does the name matter? I'll warrant they call it a different name in France, and a different one in Germany. The same thing as said the seed-swellen and the sun-shining, may they are well lad, and it is the good thing. It isn't like us poor fools, as think it matters if us is called out of our names. The big good thing doesn't stop to worry, to bless thee. It goes on making worlds by the million, worlds like us. Never these stop believing in the big good thing, and knowing the worlds full of it, and call it what thou likes. Thou wert sing unto it when I come into the garden. I felt so joyful, said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at her. Suddenly I felt how different I was, how strong my arms and legs were, you know, and how I could dig and stand, and I jumped up and wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen. The magic listened when thou sung the doxology. It would have listened to anything that song. It was the joy that mattered. Hey lad, lad, what's names to the joy-maker? And she gave his shoulders a quick soft pat again. She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and when the hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding place, she sat down with them under their tree, and watched them devour their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She was full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things. She told them stories in broad Yorkshire, and taught them new words. She laughed as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful invalid. You see, we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are together, explained Colin, and it doesn't sound ill at all. We try to choke it back, but it will burst out, and that sounds worse than ever. There's one thing that comes into my mind so often, said Mary, and I can scarcely ever hold in when I think of it suddenly. I keep thinking, suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon. It isn't like one yet, but it gets a tiny bit fatter every day. And suppose one morning it should look like one? What should we do? Bless us all, I can see there's a good bit of play acting to do, said Susan Sourby, but thou won't have to keep it up much longer. Best of Craven will come home. Do you think he will? asked Colin. Why? Susan Sourby chuckled softly. I suppose it had nighbored thy art if he found out before thou told him in thine own way, she said. Thou hast laid awake night's plan in it. I couldn't bear any one else to tell him, said Colin. I think about different ways every day. I think now I just want to run into his room. That'd be a fine start for him, said Susan Sourby. I'd like to see his face lad. I would that. He moan come back. That he moan. One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her cottage. They planned it all. They were to drive over the moor and lunge out of doors among the heather. They would see all the twelve children and Dickens' garden, and would not come back until they were tired. Susan Sourby got up at last to return to the house and Mrs. Medlock. It was time for Colin to be wheeled back also. But before he got into his chair he stood quite close to Susan, and fixed his eyes on her with a kind of bewildered adoration, and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held it fast. You're just what I—what I wanted, he said. I wish you were my mother as well as Dickens. All at once Susan Sourby bent down and drew him with her warm arms close against the bosom under her blue cloak, as if he had been Dickens' brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes. Hey, dear lad, she said. Thy own mother's in this year very garden, I do believe. She couldn't keep out of it. Thy father moan come back to thee. He moan. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Part 1 of The Secret Garden This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Karen Savage. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chapter 27 In The Garden In each sentry since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last sentry more amazing things were found out than in any sentry before. In this new sentry hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done, then it is done, and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last sentry was that thoughts, just mere thoughts, are as powerful as electric batteries, as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live. So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable things about her dislikes and sour opinions of people, and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer, crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemates, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his creatures, there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired. So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical, half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him. His blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple, and there was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinately courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend to rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow. While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain, far away beautiful places in the Norwegian fjords and the valleys and mountains of Switzerland, and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark and heartbroken thinking. He had not been courageous. He had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them. He had lain on mountain sides with sheets of deep blue gensions blooming all about him and flower-breaths filling all the air and he had felt them. A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted his home and his duties. When he travelled about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers thought he must be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on his soul. He was a tall man with a drawn face and crooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotel registers was Archibald Craven, Missalthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England. He had travelled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his study and told her that she might have her bit of earth. He had been in the most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and had looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born. But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted any man's soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his. But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious stamp-greenness. Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed a thing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valley was very, very still. As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, archibald Craven gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the valley itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing so close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he found himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind, filling and filling it, until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet, clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away. But, of course, he did not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright, delicate blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening, and he got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released in him very quietly. What is it? he said almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over his forehead. I almost feel as if I were alive. I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to be able to explain how this had happened to him, neither does anyone else yet. He did not understand at all himself, but he remembered this strange hour months afterward when he was at Missalthwaite again, and he found out quite by accident that on this very day Colin had cried out as he went into the secret garden, I am going to live forever and ever and ever. The singular calmness remained with him for the rest of the evening, and he slept a new, reposeful sleep. But it was not with him very long. He did not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts, and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But strange as it seemed to him there were minutes, sometimes half hours, when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again, and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. Slowly, slowly, for no reason that he knew of, he was coming alive with the garden. As the golden summer changed into the deep golden autumn, he went to the lake of Como. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his days upon the crystal blueness of the lake, or he walked into the soft, thick verdure of the hills, and tramped until he was tired so that he might sleep. But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he knew, and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him. Perhaps, he thought, my body is growing stronger. It was growing stronger, but because of the rare peaceful hours when his thoughts were changed his soul was slowly growing stronger too. He began to think of misalthweight, and wonder if he should not go home. Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy, and asked himself what he should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed again, and looked down at the sharply chiseled, ivory-white face while it slept, and the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the closed shut eyes. He shrank from it. One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and full, and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace at the water's edge, and sat upon a seat, and breathed in all the heavenly sense of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing over him, and it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep. He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream. His dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet, he heard a voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very side. Archie! Archie! Archie! It said, and then again, sweeter and clearer than before. Archie! Archie! He thought he sprang to his feet, not even startled. It was such a real voice, and it seemed so natural that he should hear it. Lilias! Lilias! he answered. Lilias, where are you? In the garden. It came back like a sound from a golden flute. In the garden. And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last, it was brilliant morning, and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an Italian servant, and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign master might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in, or where he would choose to sleep, or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the boat on the lake all night. The man held a salvo with some letters on it, and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he had gone away, Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and looking at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him, and something more, a likeness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happened as he thought, as if something had changed. He was remembering the dream, the real, real dream. In the garden, he said, wondering at himself, in the garden, but the door is locked, and the key is buried deep. When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later, he saw that the one lying at the top of the rest was an English letter, and came from Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain woman's hand, but it was not a hand he knew. He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first words attracted his attention at once. Dear sir, I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary, I spoke. I will make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I would come home if I was you. I think you will be glad to come, and if you will excuse me, sir, I think your lady would ask you to come if she was here. Your obedient servant, Susan Sowerby. Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope. He kept thinking about the dream. I will go back to Miss Ulthwaite, he said. Yes, I'll go at once. And he went through the garden to the villa, and ordered picture to prepare for his return to England. In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad journey he found himself thinking of his boy, as he had never thought in all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to forget him. Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days when he had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at last, it had been such a weak wretched thing that everyone had been sure it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took care of it, the days passed and it lived, and then everyone believed it would be a deformed and crippled creature. He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had shrunk from the mere thought of the boy, and had buried himself in his own misery. The first time after a year's absence he returned to Missalthwaite, and the small, miserable-looking thing languidly and indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes round them, so like—and yet so horribly unlike—the happy eyes he had adored—he could not bear the sight of them, and turned away pale as death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from fury's dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail. All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled him through mountain passes and golden plains, the man who was coming alive began to think in a new way, and he thought long and steadily and deeply. Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years, he said to himself. Ten years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything quite too late. What have I been thinking of? Of course this was the wrong magic, to begin by saying too late, even Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of magic, either black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sourby had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature had realized that the boy was much worse, was fatally ill. If he had not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession of him, he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst, he actually found he was trying to believe in better things. Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good and control him, he thought? I will go and see her on my way to Misslethwait. But when, on his way across the moor, he stopped the carriage at the cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about, gathered in a group, and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies, told him that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor, early in the morning, to help a woman who had a new baby. Our dicken, they volunteered, was over at the manor, working in one of the gardens where he went several days each week. Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round, red cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he awoke to the fact that they were a healthy, likeable lot. He smiled at their friendly grins, and took a golden sovereign from his pocket, and gave it to our Elizabeth Ellen, who was the oldest. "'If you divide that into eight parts, there will be half a crown for each of you,' he said. Then, amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies, he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind. The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been sure he could never feel again, that sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple bloom of distance, and a warming of the heart at drawing nearer to the great old house, which had held those of his blood for six hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering to think of its closed rooms, and the boy lying in the four-posted bed with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find him changed a little for the better, and that he might overcome his shrinking from him? How real that dream had been! How wonderful and clear the voice which called back to him, in the garden, in the garden! "'I will try to find the key,' he said. "'I will try to open the door. I must, though I don't know why.' When he arrived at the manor, the servants who received him with the usual ceremony noticed that he looked better, and that he did not go to the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat excited and curious and flustered. "'How is Master Colin, Medlock?' he inquired. "'Well, sir,' Mrs. Medlock answered. "'He's—he's different, in a manner of speaking.' "'Worse,' he suggested. "'Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.' "'Well, you see, sir,' she tried to explain, and either Dr. Craven nor the nurse nor me can exactly make him out. Why is that?' "'To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better, and he might be changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding, and his ways—' "'Has he become more—more peculiar?' her master asked, knitting his brows anxiously. "'That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar, when you compare him with what he used to be. He used to eat nothing, and then suddenly he began to eat something enormous, and then he stopped again all at once, and the meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir, perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. "'Well, sir, just without warning, not long after one of his worst tantrums, he suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to both Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and if you're credited, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until night.'" "'How does he look?' was the next question. "'If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on flesh, but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat. He laughs sometimes in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary. He never used to laugh at all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him. He never was as puzzled in his life. There is Master Colin now,' Mr. Craven asked. "'In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden, though not a human creature is allowed to go near, for fear they'll look at him.'" Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words. "'In the garden,' he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away, he stood and repeated it again and again. In the garden." He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was standing in, and when he felt he was on earth again, he turned and went out of the room. He took his way as Mary had done, through the door in the shrubbery, and among the laurels in the fountain beds. The fountain was playing now, and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn flowers. He crossed the lawn and turned into the long walk by the ivied walls. He did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path. He felt as if he were being drawn back to the place he had so long forsaken, and he did not know why. As he drew near to it, his step became still more slow. He knew where the door was, even though the ivy hung thick over it, but he did not know exactly where it lay, that buried key. So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment after he had paused, he started, and listened, asking himself if he were walking in a dream. The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, no human being had passed that portal for ten lonely years, and yet, inside the garden, there were sounds. They were the sounds of running scuffling feet, seeming to chase round and round under the trees. They were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices, exclamations, and smothered joyous cries. It seemed actually like the laughter of young things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to be heard, but who in a moment or so, as their excitement mounted, would burst forth. What in Heaven's name was he dreaming of? What in Heaven's name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things which were not for human ears? Was it that the far clear voice had meant? And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds forgot to hush themselves. The feet ran faster and faster. They were nearing the garden door. There was quick, strong, young breathing, and a wild outbreak of laughing shouts which could not be contained, and the door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through it at full speed, and without seeing the outsider, dashed almost into his arms. Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to look at him in amazement at his being there, he truly gasped for breath. He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life, and his running had sent splendid colour leaping to his face. He threw the thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange grey eyes, eyes full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath. Who—what—ooh! he stammered. This was not what Colin had expected. This was not what he had planned. He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet, to come dashing out, winning a race, perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him, and had dashed through the door, too, believed that he managed to make himself look taller than he had ever looked before—inches taller. Father! he said, I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can myself. I'm Colin. Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he said hurriedly, In the garden. In the garden. Yes, hurried on, Colin. It was the garden that did it, and Mary and Dickon and the creatures, and the magic. No one knows. We kept it to tell you when you came. I'm well. I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going to be an athlete." He said it all so like a healthy boy, his face flushed, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness, that Mr. Craven's soul shook with unbelieving joy. Colin put out his hand and knaded on his father's arm. Aren't you glad, father? He ended, aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever. Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still. He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment. Take me into the garden, my boy, he said at last, and tell me all about it. And so they led him in. The place was a wilderness of autumn, gold, and purple, and violet, blue, and flaming scarlet, and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing together, lilies which were white, or white and ruby. He remembered well when the first of them had been planted, that just at this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and hung and clustered, and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel that one stood in an emboured temple of gold. The newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into its greyness. He looked round and round. I thought it would be dead, he said. Mary thought so at first, said Colin, but it came alive. Then they sat down under their tree, all but Colin, who wanted to stand while he told the story. It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, as it was poured forth in headlong boy-fashion, mystery and magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting, the coming of the spring, the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Raja to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face, the odd companionship, the play-acting, the great secret so carefully kept, the listener laughed until tears came into his eyes, and sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not laughing. The athlete, the lecturer, the scientific discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human thing. Now, he said at the end of the story, it need not be a secret any more. I daresay it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see me, but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back with you, father, to the house. Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen, and being invited into the servants-hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a glass of beer, he was on the spot, as he had hoped to be, when the most dramatic event Missal Thwaite Manor had seen during the present generation actually took place. One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he might have caught sight of his master, and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin. Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff? she asked. Ben took his beer mug from his mouth, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. I—that I did—he answered with a shrewdly significant air. Both of them—suggested Mrs. Medlock. Both of them—returned Ben, Weatherstaff. Thank you kindly, ma'am. I could soop up another mug of it. Together—said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer mug in her excitement—together, ma'am, and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp. Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each other? I did not hear that, said Ben, along only being on the stepladder looking over the wall, but I'll tell thee this. There's been things going on outside, as you oust people knows not about. And what thou'll find out? Thou'll find out soon." And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer, and waved his mug solemnly toward the window, which took in through the shrubbery a piece of the lawn. Look there, he said, if thou'st curious. Look what's coming across the grass. When Mrs. Medlock looked, she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek, and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the servants-hall and stood looking through the window, with their eyes almost starting out of their heads. Across the lawn came the Master of Missalthwaite, and he looked as many of them had never seen him, and by his side, with his head up in the air, and his eyes full of laughter, walked as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire, Master Colin. CHAPTER XXVII END OF THE SECRET GARDEN BY FRANCES HOCHSEN-BANET