The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson Burnett

in the secret garden that morning, and in the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted through the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak. Dickon stood quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly found themselves laughing in a church.

      “We munnot stir,” he whispered in broad Yorkshire. “We munnot scarce breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin’ when I seed him last. It’s Ben Weatherstaff’s robin. He’s buildin’ his nest. He’ll stay here if us don’t fight him.” They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.

      “Us mustn’t seem as if us was watchin’ him too close,” said Dickon. “He’d be out with us for good if he got th’ notion us was interferin’ now. He’ll be a good bit different till all this is over. He’s settin’ up housekeepin’. He’ll be shyer an’ readier to take things ill. He’s got no time for visitin’ an’ gossipin’. Us must keep still a bit an’ try to look as if us was grass an’ trees an’ bushes. Then when he’s got used to seein’ us I’ll chirp a bit an’ he’ll know us’ll not be in his way.”

      Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, how to try to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it was possible for him to quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could.

      “It’s part o’ th’ springtime, this nest-buildin’ is,” he said. “I warrant it’s been goin’ on in th’ same way every year since th’ world was begun. They’ve got their way o’ thinkin’ and doin’ things an’ a body had better not meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you’re too curious.”

      “If we talk about him I can’t help looking at him,” Mary said as softly as possible. “We must talk of something else. There is something I want to tell you.”

      “He’ll like it better if us talks o’ somethin’ else,” said Dickon. “What is it tha’s got to tell me?”

      “Well—do you know about Colin?” she whispered.

      He turned his head to look at her.

      “What does tha’ know about him?” he asked.

      “I’ve seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. He wants me to come. He says I’m making him forget about being ill and dying,” answered Mary.

      Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from his round face.

      “I am glad o’ that,” he exclaimed. “I’m right down glad. It makes me easier. I knowed I must say nothin’ about him an’ I don’t like havin’ to hide things.”

      “Don’t you like hiding the garden?” said Mary.

      “I’ll never tell about it,” he answered. “But I says to mother, ‘Mother,’ I says, ‘I got a secret to keep. It’s not a bad ’un, tha’ knows that. It’s no worse than hidin’ where a bird’s nest is. Tha’ doesn’t mind it, does tha’?’”

      Mary always wanted to hear about mother.

      “What did she say?” she asked, not at all afraid to hear.

      Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.

      “It was just like her, what she said,” he answered. “She give my head a bit of a rub an’ laughed an’ she says, ‘Eh, lad, tha’ can have all th’ secrets tha’ likes. I’ve knowed thee twelve year’.’”

      “How did you know about Colin?” asked Mary.

      “Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad as was like to be a cripple, an’ they knowed Mester Craven didn’t like him to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs. Craven was such a pretty young lady an’ they was so fond of each other. Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an’ she doesn’t mind talkin’ to mother before us children, because she knows us has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha’ find out about him? Martha was in fine trouble th’ last time she came home. She said tha’d heard him frettin’ an’ tha’ was askin’ questions an’ she didn’t know what to say.”

      Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which had wakened her and about the faint far-off sounds of the complaining voice which had led her down the dark corridors with her candle and had ended with her opening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the carven four-posted bed in the corner. When she described the small ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed eyes Dickon shook his head.

      “Them’s just like his mother’s eyes, only hers was always laughin’, they say,” he said. “They say as Mr. Craven can’t bear to see him when he’s awake an’ it’s because his eyes is so like his mother’s an’ yet looks so different in his miserable bit of a face.”

      “Do you think he wants to die?” whispered Mary.

      “No, but he wishes he’d never been born. Mother she says that’s th’ worst thing on earth for a child. Them as is not wanted scarce ever thrives. Mester Craven he’d buy anythin’ as money could buy for th’ poor lad but he’d like to forget as he’s on earth. For one thing, he’s afraid he’ll look at him some day and find he’s growed hunchback.”

      “Colin’s so afraid of it himself that he won’t sit up,” said Mary. “He says he’s always thinking that if he should feel a lump coming he should go crazy and scream himself to death.”

      “Eh! he oughtn’t to lie there thinkin’ things like that,” said Dickon. “No lad could get well as thought them sort o’ things.”

      The fox was lying on the grass close by him, looking up to ask for a pat now and then, and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly and thought a few minutes in silence. Presently he lifted his head and looked round the garden.

      “When first we got in here,” he said, “it seemed like everything was gray. Look round now and tell me if tha’ doesn’t see a difference.”

      Mary looked and caught her breath a little.

      “Why!” she cried, “the gray wall is changing. It is as if a green mist were creeping over it. It’s almost like a green gauze veil.”

      “Aye,” said Dickon. “An’ it’ll be greener and greener till th’ gray’s all gone. Can tha’ guess what I was thinkin’?”

      “I know it was something nice,” said Mary eagerly. “I believe it was something about Colin.”

      “I was thinkin’ that if he was out here he wouldn’t be watchin’ for lumps to grow on his back; he’d be watchin’ for buds to break on th’ rose-bushes, an’ he’d likely be healthier,” explained Dickon. “I was wonderin’ if us could ever get him in th’ humor to come out here an’ lie under th’ trees in his carriage.”

      “I’ve been wondering that myself. I’ve thought of it almost every time I’ve talked to him,” said Mary. “I’ve wondered if he could keep a secret and I’ve wondered if we could bring him here without any one seeing us. I thought perhaps you could push his carriage. The doctor said he must have fresh air and if he wants us to take him out no one dare disobey him. He won’t go out for other people and perhaps they will be glad if he will go out with us. He could order the gardeners to keep away so they wouldn’t find out.”

      Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain’s back.

      “It’d be good for him, I’ll warrant,” he said. “Us’d not be thinkin’ he’d better never been born. Us’d