Chapter XXII. When the Sun Went Down

The Secret Garden

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary.

"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to
the door under the ivy.

Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet
spots on his cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of
falling.

"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he
said it quite grandly.

"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid,"
answered Dickon. "An' tha's stopped."

"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin.

Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said.

"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply.

Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin.

"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made
these 'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot
a clump of crocuses in the grass. Colin looked down at them.

"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic than that
there--there couldna' be."

He drew himself up straighter than ever.

"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few
feet away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff
comes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to
sit down I will sit down, but not before. Bring a rug from the
chair."

He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was
wonderfully steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not
too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held
himself so straight that he looked tall.

When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw
him standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her
breath.

"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not
want his attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure
and proud face.

But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this:

"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do
it! You can do it! You can!" She was saying it to Colin because she
wanted to make Magic and keep him on his feet looking like that. She
could not bear that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff. He did
not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked
quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben
Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way.

"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a
hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?"

Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had
recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way.

"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin'
with thysel'--hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was
cripple an' half-witted?"

"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?"

"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses
brayin' an' they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel'
up for?"

"Everyone thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm
not!"

And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him
over, up and down, down and up.

"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort!
Tha's got too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on
th' ground in such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee
down on th' rug a bit young Mester an' give me thy orders."

There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd
understanding in his manner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly
as she could as they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to
be remembered, she had told him, was that Colin was getting
well--getting well. The garden was doing it. No one must let him
remember about having humps and dying.

The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the
tree.

"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he
inquired.

"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by
favor--because she liked me."

"She?" said Colin.

"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.

"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This
was her garden, wasn't it?"

"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too.
"She were main fond of it."

"It is my garden now. I am fond of it. I shall come here every
day," announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that
no one is to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked
and made it come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help--but
you must come when no one can see you."

Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile.

"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said.

"What!" exclaimed Colin.

"When?"

"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round,
"was about two year' ago."

"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin.

"There was no door!"

"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through
th' door. I come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics held me back th'
last two year'."

"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't
make out how it had been done."

"She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly.
"An' she was such a pretty young thing. She says to me once, `Ben,'
says she laughin', `if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take
care of my roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one was
ever to come nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th'
wall I come--until th' rheumatics stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work
once a year. She'd gave her order first."

"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it,"
said Dickon. "I did wonder."

"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know
how to keep the secret."

"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An, it'll be easier for a
man wi' rheumatics to come in at th' door."

On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin
stretched out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into
his face and he began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak
enough but presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless
interest--he drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned
some over.

"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell
you, you can!"

Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said
not a word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.

Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil
he spoke exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.

"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other
folk--an' tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just
leein' to please me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an'
here I am diggin'."

Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but
he ended by chuckling.

"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a
Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to
plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot."

"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick!
Quick!"

It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his
way forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole
deeper and wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make
it. Mary slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When
Dickon had deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth
over and over. He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the
strangely new exercise, slight as it was.

"I want to do it before the sun goes quite--quite down," he
said.

Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just
on purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the
greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had
begun to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot
from the mould.

"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the
earth thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place."

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew
deeper as he set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made
firm the earth. It was filled in and pressed down and made steady.
Mary was leaning forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down
and marched forward to see what was being done. Nut and Shell
chattered about it from a cherry-tree.

"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only
slipping over the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing
when it goes. That's part of the Magic."

And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so
gave him strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end
the strange lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his
two feet--laughing.