Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning.
She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha
brought her breakfast she told her that though.
Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always
was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying.
Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened.
"He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon
as tha' can," Martha said. "It's queer what a fancy
he's took to thee. Tha' did give it him last night for
sure--didn't tha? Nobody else would have dared to do it.
Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save him.
Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a
child is never to have his own way--or always to have it.
She doesn't know which is th' worst. Tha' was in a fine temper
tha'self, too. But he says to me when I went into his room,
‘Please ask Miss Mary if she'll please come an, talk to me?'
Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" "I'll run
and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see
Colin first and tell him--I know what I'll tell him,"
with a sudden inspiration.
She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room
and for a second he looked disappointed. He was in bed.
His face was pitifully white and there were dark circles
round his eyes.
"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache
all over because I'm so tired. Are you going somewhere?"
Mary went and leaned against his bed.
"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon,
but I'll come back. Colin, it's--it's something about
the garden."
His whole face brightened and a little color came into it.
"Oh! is it?" he cried out. "I dreamed about it all night
I heard you say something about gray changing into green,
and I dreamed I was standing in a place all filled
with trembling little green leaves--and there were birds
on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still.
I'll lie and think about it until you come back."
In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden.
The fox and the crow were with him again and this time
he had brought two tame squirrels. "I came over on the
pony this mornin', " he said. "Eh! he is a good little
chap--Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets.
This here one he's called Nut an' this here other one's
called Shell."
When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right
shoulder and when he said "Shell" the other one leaped
on to his left shoulder.
When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at
their feet, Soot solemnly listening on a tree and Nut and
Shell nosing about close to them, it seemed to Mary that it
would be scarcely bearable to leave such delightfulness,
but when she began to tell her story somehow the look
in Dickon's funny face gradually changed her mind.
She could see he felt sorrier for Colin than she did.
He looked up at the sky and all about him.
"Just listen to them birds--th' world seems full
of 'em--all whistlin' an' pipin'," he said.
"Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken at 'em callin'
to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th'
world's callin'. The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see
'em--an', my word, th' nice smells there is about!"
sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. "An' that poor
lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets
to thinkin' o' things as sets him screamin'. Eh! my!
we mun get him out here--we mun get him watchin'
an listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an' get him just soaked
through wi' sunshine. An' we munnot lose no time about it."
When he was very much interested he often spoke quite
broad Yorkshire though at other times he tried to modify
his dialect so that Mary could better understand.
But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact been
trying to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke
a little now.
"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed,
we must"). "I'll tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded,
and Dickon grinned, because when the little wench tried
to twist her tongue into speaking Yorkshire it amused
him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee.
He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain.
When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him
if tha' canna' come an' see him tomorrow mornin'--an'.
bring tha' creatures wi' thee--an' then--in a bit,
when there's more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two,
we'll get him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his
chair an' we'll bring him here an' show him everything."
When she stopped she was quite proud of herself.
She had never made a long speech in Yorkshire before
and she had remembered very well.
"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin,"
Dickon chuckled. "Tha'll make him laugh an' there's nowt
as good for ill folk as laughin' is. Mother says she
believes as half a hour's good laugh every mornin'
'ud cure a chap as was makin' ready for typhus fever."
"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day,"
said Mary, chuckling herself.
The garden had reached the time when every day and every night
it seemed as if Magicians were passing through it drawing
loveliness out of the earth and the boughs with wands.
It was hard to go away and leave it all, particularly as Nut
had actually crept on to her dress and Shell had scrambled
down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under and stayed
there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back
to the house and when she sat down close to Colin's bed
he began to sniff as Dickon did though not in such an experienced
way.
"You smell like flowers and--and fresh things," he cried
out quite joyously. "What is it you smell of? It's cool
and warm and sweet all at the same time."
"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin'
on th' grass under a tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an'
Soot an' Nut an' Shell. It's th' springtime an' out o'
doors an' sunshine as smells so graidely."
She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know
how broadly Yorkshire sounds until you have heard some
one speak it. Colin began to laugh.
"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk
like that before. How funny it sounds."
"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered Mary triumphantly.
‘I canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an' Martha can but tha'
sees I can shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit o'
Yorkshire when tha' hears it? An' tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel'
bred an' born! Eh! I wonder tha'rt not ashamed o'
thy face."
And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until
they could not stop themselves and they laughed until
the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening the door to come
in drew back into the corridor and stood listening amazed.
"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad
Yorkshire herself because there was no one to hear
her and she was so astonished. "Whoever heard th'
like! Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!"
There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin
could never hear enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot
and Nut and Shell and the pony whose name was Jump.
Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump.
He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks
hanging over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling
velvet nose. He was rather thin with living on moor
grass but he was as tough and wiry as if the muscle
in his little legs had been made of steel springs.
He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment
he saw Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his
head across his shoulder and then Dickon had talked into
his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies
and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him give Mary
his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with his
velvet muzzle.
"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?"
Colin asked.
"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says
anything will understand if you're friends with it for sure,
but you have to be friends for sure."
Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray
eyes seemed to be staring at the wall, but Mary saw
he was thinking.
"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last,
"but I'm not. I never had anything to be friends with,
and I can't bear people."
"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary.
"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's funny but I even like you."
"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary.
"He said he'd warrant we'd both got the same nasty tempers.
I think you are like him too. We are all three alike--you
and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we were neither
of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.
But I don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin
and Dickon."
"Did you feel as if you hated people?"
"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation.
"I should have detested you if I had seen you before
I saw the robin and Dickon."
Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.
"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about
sending Dickon away. I hated you when you said he was
like an angel and I laughed at you but--but perhaps he is."
"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly,
"because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth
and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks
broad Yorkshire, but--but if an angel did come to Yorkshire
and live on the moor--if there was a Yorkshire angel--I
believe he'd understand the green things and know how to
make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild
creatures as Dickon does and they'd know he was friends for
sure."
"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin;
"I want to see him."
"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because--because--"
Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the
minute to tell him. Colin knew something new was coming.
"Because what?" he cried eagerly.
Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool
and came to him and caught hold of both his hands.
"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him.
Can I trust you--for sure--for sure?" she implored.
Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer.
"Yes--yes!"
"Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow morning,
and he'll bring his creatures with him."
"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight.
"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with
solemn excitement. "The rest is better. There is a door
into the garden. I found it. It is under the ivy on the wall."
If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably
have shouted "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he was weak
and rather hysterical; his eyes grew bigger and bigger
and he gasped for breath.
"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see
it? Shall I get into it? Shall I live to get into it?"
and he clutched her hands and dragged her toward him.
"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly.
"Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't be silly!"
And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish
that she brought him to his senses and he began to laugh
at himself and a few minutes afterward she was sitting
on her stool again telling him not what she imagined
the secret garden to be like but what it really was,
and Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten and he
was listening enraptured.
"It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last.
"It sounds just as if you had really seen it. You know I
said that when you told me first."
Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke
the truth.
"I had seen it--and I had been in," she said. "I found
the key and got in weeks ago. But I daren't tell you--I
daren't because I was so afraid I couldn't trust you--for sure!"
CHAPTER XIX
"IT HAS COME!"
Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after
Colin had had his tantrum. He was always sent for at
once when such a thing occurred and he always found,
when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his bed,
sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break
into fresh sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven
dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits.
On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor
until afternoon.
"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he
arrived.
"He will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day.
The boy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence."
"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe
your eyes when you see him. That plain sour-faced child
that's almost as bad as himself has just bewitched him.
How she's done it there's no telling. The Lord knows
she's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear
her speak, but she did what none of us dare do.
She just flew at him like a little cat last night,
and stamped her feet and ordered him to stop screaming,
and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop,
and this afternoon--well just come up and see, sir.
It's past crediting."
The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his
patient's room was indeed rather astonishing to him.
As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he heard laughing
and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his dressing-gown
and he was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture
in one of the garden books and talking to the plain
child who at that moment could scarcely be called plain
at all because her face was so glowing with enjoyment.
"Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those,"
Colin was announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums."
"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand,"
cried Mistress Mary. "There are clumps there already."
Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite
still and Colin looked fretful.
"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy,"
Dr. Craven said a trifle nervously. He was rather a
nervous man.
"I'm better now--much better," Colin answered,
rather like a Rajah. "I'm going out in my chair
in a day or two if it is fine. I want some fresh air."
Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse and looked
at him curiously.
"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must
be very careful not to tire yourself."
"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young Rajah.
As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman
had shrieked aloud with rage and had insisted that fresh
air would give him cold and kill him, it is not to be
wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat startled.
"I thought you did not like fresh air," he said.
"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah;
"but my cousin is going out with me."
"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr. Craven.
"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Mary
could not help remembering how the young native Prince
had looked with his diamonds and emeralds and pearls
stuck all over him and the great rubies on the small dark
hand he had waved to command his servants to approach
with salaams and receive his orders.
"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better
when she is with me. She made me better last night.
A very strong boy I know will push my carriage."
Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome
hysterical boy should chance to get well he himself would
lose all chance of inheriting Misselthwaite; but he
was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak one,
and he did not intend to let him run into actual danger.
"He must be a strong boy and a steady boy," he said.
"And I must know something about him. Who is he? What is
his name?"
"It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow
that everybody who knew the moor must know Dickon.
And she was right, too. She saw that in a moment
Dr. Craven's serious face relaxed into a relieved smile.
"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you will be
safe enough. He's as strong as a moor pony, is Dickon."
"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest lad i'
Yorkshire." She had been talking Yorkshire to Colin
and she forgot herself.
"Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven,
laughing outright.
"I'm learning it as if it was French," said Mary rather coldly.
"It's like a native dialect in India. Very clever
people try to learn them. I like it and so does Colin."
"Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't
do you any harm. Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?"
"No," Colin answered. "I wouldn't take it at first
and after Mary made me quiet she talked me to sleep--in
a low voice--about the spring creeping into a garden."
"That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more perplexed
than ever and glancing sideways at Mistress Mary sitting
on her stool and looking down silently at the carpet.
"You are evidently better, but you must remember--"
"I don't want to remember," interrupted the Rajah,
appearing again. "When I lie by myself and remember I
begin to have pains everywhere and I think of things
that make me begin to scream because I hate them so.
If there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget
you were ill instead of remembering it I would have him
brought here." And he waved a thin hand which ought really
to have been covered with royal signet rings made of rubies.
"It is because my cousin makes me forget that she makes
me better."
Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a
"tantrum"; usually he was obliged to remain a very long
time and do a great many things. This afternoon he did
not give any medicine or leave any new orders and he was
spared any disagreeable scenes. When he went downstairs he
looked very thoughtful and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock
in the library she felt that he was a much puzzled man.
"Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have believed it?"
"It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor.
"And there's no denying it is better than the old one."
"I believe Susan Sowerby's right--I do that," said Mrs. Medlock.
"I stopped in her cottage on my way to Thwaite yesterday
and had a bit of talk with her. And she says to me,
'Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a good child, an' she mayn't
be a pretty one, but she's a child, an' children needs
children.' We went to school together, Susan Sowerby and me."
"She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr. Craven.
"When I find her in a cottage I know the chances are that I
shall save my patient."
Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby.
"She's got a way with her, has Susan," she went on
quite volubly. "I've been thinking all morning of one
thing she said yesterday. She says, ‘Once when I
was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd
been fightin' I ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my
jography told as th' world was shaped like a orange an'
I found out before I was ten that th' whole orange
doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit
of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's
not enow quarters to go round. But don't you--none o'
you--think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find
out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without
hard knocks." ‘What children learns from children,'
she says, 'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th'
whole orange--peel an' all. If you do you'll likely
not get even th' pips, an' them's too bitter to eat.'"
"She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat.
"Well, she's got a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock,
much pleased. "Sometimes I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan,
if you was a different woman an' didn't talk such broad
Yorkshire I've seen the times when I should have said you
was clever.'"
That night Colin slept without once awakening and
when he opened his eyes in the morning he lay still
and smiled without knowing it--smiled because he felt so
curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be awake,
and he turned over and stretched his limbs luxuriously.
He felt as if tight strings which had held him had
loosened themselves and let him go. He did not know that
Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves had relaxed
and rested themselves. Instead of lying and staring at
the wall and wishing he had not awakened, his mind was full
of the plans he and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures
of the garden and of Dickon and his wild creatures.
It was so nice to have things to think about. And he
had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard
feet running along the corridor and Mary was at the door.
The next minute she was in the room and had run across
to his bed, bringing with her a waft of fresh air full
of the scent of the morning.
"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice
smell of leaves!" he cried.
She had been running and her hair was loose and blown
and she was bright with the air and pink-cheeked, though
he could not see it.
"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless
with her speed. "You never saw anything so beautiful!
It has come! I thought it had come that other morning,
but it was only coming. It is here now! It has come,
the Spring! Dickon says so!"
"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing
about it he felt his heart beat. He actually sat up
in bed.
"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful
excitement and half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we may
hear golden trumpets!"
And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment
and in a moment more it was opened wide and freshness and
softness and scents and birds' songs were pouring through.
"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw
in long breaths of it. That's what Dickon does when he's
lying on the moor. He says he feels it in his veins
and it makes him strong and he feels as if he could
live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it."
She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she
caught Colin's fancy.
"‘Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel like that?"
he said, and he did as she told him, drawing in long deep
breaths over and over again until he felt that something
quite new and delightful was happening to him.
Mary was at his bedside again.
"Things are crowding up out of the earth," she ran on
in a hurry. "And there are flowers uncurling and buds
on everything and the green veil has covered nearly all
the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about their
nests for fear they may be too late that some of them
are even fighting for places in the secret garden.
And the rose-bushes look as wick as wick can be,
and there are primroses in the lanes and woods,
and the seeds we planted are up, and Dickon has brought
the fox and the crow and the squirrels and a new-born lamb."
And then she paused for breath. The new-born lamb Dickon
had found three days before lying by its dead mother
among the gorse bushes on the moor. It was not the first
motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do with it.
He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he
had let it lie near the fire and had fed it with warm milk.
It was a soft thing with a darling silly baby face
and legs rather long for its body. Dickon had carried
it over the moor in his arms and its feeding bottle
was in his pocket with a squirrel, and when Mary had sat
under a tree with its limp warmness huddled on her lap she
had felt as if she were too full of strange joy to speak.
A lamb--a lamb! A living lamb who lay on your lap like a baby!
She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening
and drawing in long breaths of air when the nurse entered.
She started a little at the sight of the open window.
She had sat stifling in the room many a warm day because her
patient was sure that open windows gave people cold.
"Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?"
she inquired.
"No," was the answer. "I am breathing long breaths
of fresh air. It makes you strong. I am going to get up
to the sofa for breakfast. My cousin will have breakfast
with me."
The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give
the order for two breakfasts. She found the servants'
hall a more amusing place than the invalid's chamber and
just now everybody wanted to hear the news from upstairs.
There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young
recluse who, as the cook said, "had found his master,
and good for him." The servants' hall had been very tired
of the tantrums, and the butler, who was a man with a family,
had more than once expressed his opinion that the invalid
would be all the better "for a good hiding."
When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was
put upon the table he made an announcement to the nurse
in his most Rajah-like manner.
"A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels,
and a new-born lamb, are coming to see me this morning.
I want them brought upstairs as soon as they come,"
he said. "You are not to begin playing with the animals
in the servants' hall and keep them there. I want them here."
The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with
a cough.
"Yes, sir," she answered.
"I'll tell you what you can do," added Colin, waving
his hand. "You can tell Martha to bring them here.
The boy is Martha's brother. His name is Dickon and he
is an animal charmer."
"I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin," said the nurse.
"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely.
"Charmers' animals never bite."
"There are snake-charmers in India," said Mary.
"and they can put their snakes' heads in their mouths."
"Goodness!" shuddered the nurse.
They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring
in upon them. Colin's breakfast was a very good one
and Mary watched him with serious interest.
"You will begin to get fatter just as I did," she said.
"I never wanted my breakfast when I was in India and now I
always want it."
"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin. "Perhaps it
was the fresh air. When do you think Dickon will come?"
He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary
held up her hand.
"Listen!" she said. "Did you hear a caw?"
Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world
to hear inside a house, a hoarse "caw-caw."
"Yes," he answered.
"That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again. Do you hear
a bleat--a tiny one?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing.
"That's the new-born lamb," said Mary. "He's coming."
Dickon's moorland boots were thick and clumsy and though
he tried to walk quietly they made a clumping sound as he
walked through the long corridors. Mary and Colin heard him
marching--marching, until he passed through the tapestry
door on to the soft carpet of Colin's own passage.
"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door,
"if you please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures."
Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile.
The new- born lamb was in his arms and the little red
fox trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left shoulder
and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped
out of his coat pocket.
Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared--as he had stared
when he first saw Mary; but this was a stare of wonder
and delight. The truth was that in spite of all he had
heard he had not in the least understood what this boy would
be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels
and his lamb were so near to him and his friendliness
that they seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin had
never talked to a boy in his life and he was so overwhelmed
by his own pleasure and curiosity that he did not even think of
speaking.
But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward.
He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not
known his language and had only stared and had not
spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were
always like that until they found out about you.
He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born
lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little
creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and
began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its
tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side.
Of course no boy could have helped speaking then.
"What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does it want?"
"It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling more and more.
"I brought it to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha'd
like to see it feed."
He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle
from his pocket.
"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small
woolly white head with a gentle brown hand. "This is
what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' this than tha'
will out o' silk velvet coats. There now," and he pushed
the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth
and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.
After that there was no wondering what to say.
By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth
and Dickon answered them all. He told them how he had found
the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago.
He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark
and watching him swing higher and higher into the sky
until he was only a speck in the heights of blue.
"I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin'
how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if he'd
get out o' th' world in a minute--an' just then I
heard somethin' else far off among th' gorse bushes.
It was a weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new lamb
as was hungry an' I knowed it wouldn't be hungry if it
hadn't lost its mother somehow, so I set off searchin'.
Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in an' out among th'
gorse bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed
to take th' wrong turnin'. But at last I seed a bit o'
white by a rock on top o' th' moor an' I climbed up an'
found th' little 'un half dead wi' cold an' clemmin'."
While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open
window and cawed remarks about the scenery while Nut
and Shell made excursions into the big trees outside
and ran up and down trunks and explored branches.
Captain curled up near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug
from preference.
They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and
Dickon knew all the flowers by their country names and knew
exactly which ones were already growing in the secret garden.
"I couldna' say that there name," he said, pointing to one
under which was written "Aquilegia," "but us calls that
a columbine, an' that there one it's a snapdragon and they
both grow wild in hedges, but these is garden ones an'
they're bigger an' grander. There's some big clumps o'
columbine in th' garden. They'll look like a bed o' blue an'
white butterflies flutterin' when they're out."
"I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am going
to see them!"
"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously. "An' tha'
munnot lose no time about it."
CHAPTER XX