Chapter XXI. Ben Weatherstaff

The Secret Garden

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is
only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and
ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender
solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head
far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing
and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East
almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange
unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening
every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One
knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when
one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep
gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be
saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear,
however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark
blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one
sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and
sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and
felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden.
That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being
perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of
pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it
possibly could into that one place. More than once Dickon paused in
what he was doing and stood still with a sort of growing wonder in
his eyes, shaking his head softly.

"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen
an' there's a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but seems to me
like I never seed one as graidely as this 'ere."

"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere
joy. "I'll warrant it's the graidelest one as ever was in this
world."

"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as
happen it was made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for me?"

"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good
Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' first-rate--that tha' art."

And delight reigned. They drew the chair under the plum-tree,
which was snow-white with blossoms and musical with bees. It was like
a king's canopy, a fairy king's. There were flowering cherry-trees
near and apple-trees whose buds were pink and white, and here and
there one had burst open wide. Between the blossoming branches of
the canopy bits of blue sky looked down like wonderful eyes.

Mary and Dickon worked a litle here and there and Colin watched
them. They brought him things to look at--buds which were opening,
buds which were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just
showing green, the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the
grass, the empty shell of some bird early hatched. Dickon pushed the
chair slowly round and round the garden, stopping every other moment
to let him look at wonders springing out of the earth or trailing
down from trees. It was like being taken in state round the country
of a magic king and queen and shown all the mysterious riches it
contained.

"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said Colin.

"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When
th' eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make
his head swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin'
worms nigh as big as himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest
when he gets there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which
big mouth to drop th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks
on every side. Mother says as when she sees th' work a robin has to
keep them gapin' beaks filled, she feels like she was a lady with
nothin' to do. She says she's seen th' little chaps when it seemed
like th' sweat must be droppin' off 'em, though folk can't see
it."

This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to
cover their mouths with their hands, remembering that they must not
be heard. Colin had been instructed as to the law of whispers and
low voices several days before. He liked the mysteriousness of it and
did his best, but in the midst of excited enjoyment it is rather
difficult never to laugh above a whisper.

Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every
hour the sunshine grew more golden. The wheeled chair had been drawn
back under the canopy and Dickon had sat down on the grass and had
just drawn out his pipe when Colin saw something he had not had time
to notice before.

"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said. Dickon
looked across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was a
brief moment of stillness.

"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very
gentle sound.

Mary gazed at the tree and thought.

"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf
anywhere," Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?"

"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as has climbed all over
it will near hide every bit o' th' dead wood when they're full o'
leaves an' flowers. It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest
of all."

Mary still gazed at the tree and thought.

"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin.
"I wonder how it was done."

"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon. "Eh!" with a
sudden relieved start and laying his hand on Colin. "Look at that
robin! There he is! He's been foragin' for his mate."

Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the
flash of red-breasted bird with something in his beak. He darted
through the greenness and into the close-grown corner and was out of
sight. Colin leaned back on his cushion again, laughing a little.
"He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock. I think I'd
like some tea myself."

And so they were safe.

"It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to
Dickon afterward. "I know it was Magic." For both she and Dickon had
been afraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had
broken off ten years ago and they had talked it over together and
Dickon had stood and rubbed his head in a troubled way.

"We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees,"
he had said. "We couldn't never tell him how it broke, poor lad. If
he says anything about it we mun--we mun try to look cheerful."

"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary.

But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at
the tree. She wondered and wondered in those few moments if there
was any reality in that other thing Dickon had said. He had gone on
rubbing his rust-red hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look
had begun to grow in his blue eyes.

"Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady," he had gone on
rather hesitatingly. "An' mother she thinks maybe she's about
Misselthwaite many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all
mothers do when they're took out o' th' world. They have to come
back, tha' sees. Happen she's been in the garden an' happen it was
her set us to work, an' told us to bring him here."

Mary had thought he meant something about Magic. She was a great
believer in Magic. Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked
Magic, of course good Magic, on everything near him and that was why
people liked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend.
She wondered, indeed, if it were not possible that his gift had
brought the robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that
dangerous question. She felt that his Magic was working all the
afternoon and making Colin look like an entirely different boy. It
did not seem possible that he could be the crazy creature who had
screamed and beaten and bitten his pillow. Even his ivory whiteness
seemed to change. The faint glow of color which had shown on his
face and neck and hands when he first got inside the garden really
never quite died away. He looked as if he were made of flesh instead
of ivory or wax.

They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times,
and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must
have some.

"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to
the rhododendron walk," he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring
it here."

It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white
cloth was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and
crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on
domestic errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led
into investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked
up trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a
buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned
it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow
it all joyfully in one gulp.

The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow hour. The sun was
deepening the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the
birds were flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on
the grass, the tea-basket was repacked ready to be taken back to the
house, and Colin was lying against his cushions with his heavy locks
pushed back from his forehead and his face looking quite a natural
color.

"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come
back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day
after."

"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary. "I'm
going to get nothing else," he answered. "I've seen the spring now
and I'm going to see the summer. I'm going to see everything grow
here. I'm going to grow here myself."

"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about
here an' diggin' same as other folk afore long."

Colin flushed tremendously.

"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?"

Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor
Mary had ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs.

"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha--tha's got legs o'
thine own, same as other folks!"

Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer.

"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and
weak. They shake so that I'm afraid to try to stand on them."

Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath.

"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said
with renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit."

"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering
about things.

They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was
dropping lower. It was that hour when everything stills itself, and
they really had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin looked as
if he were resting luxuriously. Even the creatures had ceased moving
about and had drawn together and were resting near them. Soot had
perched on a low branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray
film drowsily over his eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if
he might snore in a minute.

In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when
Colin half lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed
whisper:

"Who is that man?" Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet.

"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices.

Colin pointed to the high wall. "Look!" he whispered excitedly.
"Just look!"

Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben
Weatherstaff's indignant face glaring at them over the wall from the
top of a ladder! He actually shook his fist at Mary.

"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he
cried, "I'd give thee a hidin'!"

He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his
energetic intention to jump down and deal with her; but as she came
toward him he evidently thought better of it and stood on the top
step of his ladder shaking his fist down at her.

"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide
thee th' first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced
young besom, allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it
wasna, wanted. I never knowed how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it
hadna' been for th' robin-- Drat him--"

"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She
stood below him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben
Weatherstaff, it was the robin who showed me the way!"

Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her
side of the wall, he was so outraged.

"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha'
badness on a robin--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him
showin' thee th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"--she could see his
next words burst out because he was overpowered by curiosity--
"however i' this world did tha' get in?"

"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested
obstinately. "He didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't
tell you from here while you're shaking your fist at me."

He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment
and his jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something
he saw coming over the grass toward him.

At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so
surprised that he had only sat up and listened as if he were
spellbound. But in the midst of it he had recovered himself and
beckoned imperiously to Dickon.

"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and
stop right in front of him!"

And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld
and which made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions
and robes which came toward him looking rather like some sort of
State Coach because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal
command in his great black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended
haughtily toward him. And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's
nose. It was really no wonder his mouth dropped open.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah.

How Ben Weatherstaff stared! His red old eyes fixed themselves
on what was before him as if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and
gazed and gulped a lump down his throat and did not say a word. "Do
you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously.
"Answer!"

Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his
eyes and over his forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky
voice.

"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I do--wi' tha' mother's
eyes starin' at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how tha' come here.
But tha'rt th' poor cripple."

Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed
scarlet and he sat bolt upright.

"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!"

"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her
fierce indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked
and there was none there--not one!"

Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and
gazed as if he could never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth
shook and his voice shook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless
old man and he could only remember the things he had heard.

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely.

"No!" shouted Colin.

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely
yet. It was too much. The strength which Colin usually threw into
his tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he
been accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly
simple belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben
Weatherstaff's voice was more than Rajah flesh and blood could
endure. His anger and insulted pride made him forget everything but
this one moment and filled him with a power he had never known
before, an almost unnatural strength.

"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear
the coverings off his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come
here! Come here! This minute!"

Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a
short gasp and felt herself turn pale.

"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled
over to herself under her breath as fast as ever she could.

There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on the
ground, Dickon held Colin's arm, the thin legs were out, the thin
feet were on the grass. Colin was standing upright--upright--as
straight as an arrow and looking strangely tall--his head thrown back
and his strange eyes flashing lightning. "Look at me!" he flung up
at Ben Weatherstaff. "Just look at me--you! Just look at me!"

"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as
any lad i' Yorkshire!"

What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He
choked and gulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled
cheeks as he struck his old hands together.

"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a
lath an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee.
Tha'lt make a mon yet. God bless thee!"

Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to
falter. He stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben
Weatherstaff in the face.

"I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are
to obey me. This is my garden. Don't dare to say a word about it!
You get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss
Mary will meet you and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We
did not want you, but now you will have to be in the secret. Be
quick!"

Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one
queer rush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from
thin straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown
back.

"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then
remembering himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and
said, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he
descended the ladder.