Ch VII The Key of The Garden

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed
immediately, and called to Martha.

"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!"

The rain-storm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept
away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a
brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never had
Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and blazing; this
was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters
of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the
arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The
far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of
gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin. "Th' storm's over for a bit. It
does like this at this time o' th' year. It goes off in a night like it
was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come again.
That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way off yet, but
it's comin'."

"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary
said.

"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead
brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!"

"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously. In India the natives spoke
different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was not
surprised when Martha used words she did not know.

Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.

"There now," she said. "I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock
said I mustn't. 'Nowt o' th' soart' means 'nothin'-of-the-sort,'" slowly
and carefully, "but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshire's th' sunniest
place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a
bit. Just you wait till you see th' gold-colored gorse blossoms an' th'
blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather flowerin', all purple bells, an'
hundreds o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin'
up an' singin'. You'll want to get out on it at sunrise an' live out on
it all day like Dickon does."

"Could I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully, looking through her
window at the far-off blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such
a heavenly color.

"I don't know," answered Martha. "Tha's never used tha' legs since tha'
was born, it seems to me. Tha' couldn't walk five mile. It's five mile
to our cottage."

"I should like to see your cottage."

Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing
brush and began to rub the grate again. She was thinking that the small
plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the
first morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan
Ann's when she wanted something very much.

"I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "She's one o' them that nearly
always sees a way to do things. It's my day out to-day an' I'm goin'
home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother. Perhaps she
could talk to her."

"I like your mother," said Mary.

"I should think tha' did," agreed Martha, polishing away.

"I've never seen her," said Mary.

"No, tha' hasn't," replied Martha.

She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the
back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite
positively.

"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' good-natured an' clean
that no one could help likin' her whether they'd seen her or not. When
I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm
crossin' th' moor."

"I like Dickon," added Mary. "And I've never seen him."

"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee that th' very birds likes
him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an' ponies, an' th' foxes themselves.
I wonder," staring at her reflectively, "what Dickon would think of
thee?"

"He wouldn't like me," said Mary in her stiff, cold little way. "No one
does."

Martha looked reflective again.

"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired, really quite as if she were
curious to know.

Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.

"Not at all--really," she answered. "But I never thought of that
before."

Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection.

"Mother said that to me once," she said. "She was at her wash-tub an' I
was in a bad temper an' talkin' ill of folk, an' she turns round on me
an' says: 'Tha' young vixon, tha'! There tha' stands sayin' tha'
doesn't like this one an' tha' doesn't like that one. How does tha' like
thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it brought me to my senses in a minute."

She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her
breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the
cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do
the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly.

Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the
house. She went out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the
first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower
garden ten times. She counted the times carefully and when she had
finished she felt in better spirits. The sunshine made the whole place
look different. The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as
well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up into
it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of the
little snow-white clouds and float about. She went into the first
kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other
gardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him good. He
spoke to her of his own accord.

"Springtime's comin'," he said. "Cannot tha' smell it?"

Mary sniffed and thought she could.

"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said.

"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away. "It's in a good
humor makin' ready to grow things. It's glad when plantin' time comes.
It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens
out there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's
warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin' out o' th' black
earth after a bit."

"What will they be?" asked Mary.

"Crocuses an' snowdrops an' daffydowndillys. Has tha' never seen them?"

"No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India,"
said Mary. "And I think things grow up in a night."

"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff. "Tha'll have to
wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher here, an' push out a spike
more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that. You watch 'em."

"I am going to," answered Mary.

Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew
at once that the robin had come again. He was very pert and lively, and
hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and
looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question.

"Do you think he remembers me?" she said.

"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every cabbage
stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people. He's never seen a little
wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee. Tha's no
need to try to hide anything from _him_."

"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he
lives?" Mary inquired.

"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.

"The one where the old rose-trees are." She could not help asking,
because she wanted so much to know. "Are all the flowers dead, or do
some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?"

"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the
robin. "He's the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside it for
ten year'."

Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years
ago.

She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just
as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother. She
was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to
like--when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one
of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall
over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked
up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and
it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare
flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to
peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed
her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her
with delight that she almost trembled a little.

"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than
anything else in the world!"

She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail
and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like
satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and
so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and
like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had
ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and
closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like
robin sounds.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as
that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand
toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because
he was a real person--only nicer than any other person in the world. She
was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the
perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were
tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and
as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile
of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The
earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole
and he had scratched quite a deep hole.

Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she
looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was
something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up
into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was
more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had
been buried a long time.

Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face
as it hung from her finger.

"Perhaps it has been buried for ten years," she said in a whisper.
"Perhaps it is the key to the garden!"

Book of the month- Jan

the Book of my year is

Interlude

Ch VI "There Was Some One Crying--There Was!"

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary
looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and
cloud. There could be no going out to-day.

"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked
Martha.

"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh!
there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she
gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed and plays
there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if
th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't
show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned
in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it
warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole was swum out an'
th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home now. He found a
half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it home, too, an'
tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it hops an' flies
about with him everywhere."

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar
talk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when she
stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when she
lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the
moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little
rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble
about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured collie
puppies. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon. When Martha
told stories of what "mother" said or did they always sounded
comfortable.

"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I
have nothing."

Martha looked perplexed.

"Can tha' knit?" she asked.

"No," answered Mary.

"Can tha' sew?"

"No."

"Can tha' read?"

"Yes."

"Then why doesn't tha' read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'?
Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now."

"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India."

"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th'
library, there's thousands o' books there."

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly
inspired by a new idea. She made up her mind to go and find it herself.
She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to
be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room down-stairs. In this
queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no
one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a
luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about
with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there
were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal
of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out of the way.

Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one
troubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked
at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her
what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of
treating children. In India she had always been attended by her Ayah,
who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had
often been tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody and was
learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she thought
she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her
and put on.

"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood waiting
for her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp
as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks fair soft in
th' head."

Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her
think several entirely new things.

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha
had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone down-stairs. She was
thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the
library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because
she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind
the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all
really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them.
Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors
she could count? It would be something to do on this morning when she
could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission to do
things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not
have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk about
the house, even if she had seen her.

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she
began her wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into other
corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to
others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the
walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but
oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes
made of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose
walls were covered with these portraits. She had never thought there
could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and
stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if
they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their
house. Some were pictures of children--little girls in thick satin
frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys
with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs
around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and
wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore
such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like
herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her
finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here."

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed
as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small
self, wandering about up-stairs and down, through narrow passages and
wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever
walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in
them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it
true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of
turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock
had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of
them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt
that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door
itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened
into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and
inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room. A
broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the
mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed
to stare at her more curiously than ever.

"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she
makes me feel queer."

After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that
she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred,
though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures
or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious
pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.

In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were
all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little
elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had
their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than
the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had
seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened
the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these
for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants in
order and shut the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms,
she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just
after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound.
It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from
which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion,
and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole
peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a
little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and
made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near
her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were
seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me," said
Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any
farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by
turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down
until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor
again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know
exactly where she was.

"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing still
at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall. "I
don't know which way to go. How still everything is!"

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that
the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite
like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a
fretful, childish whine muffled by passing through walls.

"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster.
"And it _is_ crying."

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then
sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a
door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the
corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of
keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and
pulled her away. "What did I tell you?"

"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which
way to go and I heard some one crying."

She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the
next.

"You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You come
along back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears."

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one
passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own
room.

"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find
yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as
he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after
you. I've got enough to do."

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went
and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground
her teeth.

"There _was_ some one crying--there _was_--there _was_!" she said to
herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had
found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a
long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the
time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray
mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

Hello

sorry i have not posted in awhile but I'm back on now.

The Cry in the Corridor Chapter V

At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the
others. Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha
kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her
breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each
breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor which
seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after she
had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would
have to stay in and do nothing--and so she went out. She did not know
that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know
that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and
down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself
stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor. She
ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at
her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could
not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather
filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body
and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes
when she did not know anything about it.

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one
morning knowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her
breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it
away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it
until her bowl was empty.

"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?" said
Martha.

"It tastes nice to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself.

"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals,"
answered Martha. "It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals as well as
appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an'
nothin' to put in it. You go on playin' you out o' doors every day an'
you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't be so yeller."

"I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing to play with."

"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha. "Our children plays with
sticks and stones. They just runs about an' shouts an' looks at things."

Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There was nothing else to
do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths
in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but though
several times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was
too surly. Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade
and turned away as if he did it on purpose.

One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk
outside the gardens with the walls round them. There were bare
flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly.
There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were
more bushy than elsewhere. It seemed as if for a long time that part had
been neglected. The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat,
but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all.

A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff Mary stopped to
notice this and wondered why it was so. She had just paused and was
looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a
gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of
the wall, perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward
to look at her with his small head on one side.

"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you?" And it did not seem at all
queer to her that she spoke to him as if she was sure that he would
understand and answer her.

He did answer. He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as if
he were telling her all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress Mary as
if she understood him, too, though he was not speaking in words. It was
as if he said:

"Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice? Isn't everything
nice? Let us both chirp and hop and twitter. Come on! Come on!"

Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the
wall she ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary--she
actually looked almost pretty for a moment.

"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk; and
she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do
in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and
whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting
flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly.

That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him. He had been
swinging on a tree-top then and she had been standing in the orchard.
Now she was on the other side of the orchard and standing in the path
outside a wall--much lower down--and there was the same tree inside.

"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself. "It's the
garden without a door. He lives in there. How I wish I could see what it
is like!"

She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning.
Then she ran down the path through the other door and then into the
orchard, and when she stood and looked up there was the tree on the
other side of the wall, and there was the robin just finishing his song
and beginning to preen his feathers with his beak.

"It is the garden," she said. "I am sure it is."

She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall,
but she only found what she had found before--that there was no door in
it. Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walk
outside the long ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end of it and
looked at it, but there was no door; and then she walked to the other
end, looking again, but there was no door.

"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door
and there is no door. But there must have been one ten years ago,
because Mr. Craven buried the key."

This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested
and feel that she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite
Manor. In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much
about anything. The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun
to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a little.

She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her
supper at night she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable. She did not
feel cross when Martha chattered away. She felt as if she rather liked
to hear her, and at last she thought she would ask her a question. She
asked it after she had finished her supper and had sat down on the
hearth-rug before the fire.

"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said.

She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all.
She was very young, and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and
sisters, and she found it dull in the great servants' hall down-stairs
where the footman and upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech
and looked upon her as a common little thing, and sat and whispered
among themselves. Martha liked to talk, and the strange child who had
lived in India, and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enough to
attract her.

She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked.

"Art tha' thinkin' about that garden yet?" she said. "I knew tha' would.
That was just the way with me when I first heard about it."

"Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted.

Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable.

"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said. "You could
bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it to-night."

Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened, and then
she understood. It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which
rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were
buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in.
But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe
and warm inside a room with a red coal fire.

"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after she had listened. She
intended to know if Martha did.

Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to be talked about.
There's lots o' things in this place that's not to be talked over.
That's Mr. Craven's orders. His troubles are none servants' business, he
says. But for th' garden he wouldn't be like he is. It was Mrs. Craven's
garden that she had made when first they were married an' she just loved
it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves. An' none o' th'
gardeners was ever let to go in. Him an' her used to go in an' shut th'
door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin' an' talkin'. An' she was
just a bit of a girl an' there was an old tree with a branch bent like a
seat on it. An' she made roses grow over it an' she used to sit there.
But one day when she was sittin' there th' branch broke an' she fell on
th' ground an' was hurt so bad that next day she died. Th' doctors
thought he'd go out o' his mind an' die, too. That's why he hates it. No
one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one talk about it."

Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and
listened to the wind "wutherin'." It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder
than ever.

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things
had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She
had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood
her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had
been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found
out what it was to be sorry for some one. She was getting on.

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something
else. She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely
distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed
almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded
rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure
that this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away,
but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha.

"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some
one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds."

"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down one of those long
corridors."

And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere
down-stairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the
door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they
both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound
was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly
than ever.

"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it isn't a
grown-up person."

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it
they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a
bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased
"wutherin'" for a few moments.

"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was
little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all
day."

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary
stare very hard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth.

Interlude

Ch IV Martha

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid
had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on the
hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for
a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never seen
a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls were
covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were
fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there
was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses
and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them.
Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land
which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless,
dull, purplish sea.

"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window.

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and
pointed also.

"That there?" she said.

"Yes."

"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?"

"No," answered Mary. "I hate it."

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her
hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will like it."

"Do you?" inquired Mary.

"Aye, that I do," answered Martha, cheerfully polishing away at the
grate. "I just love it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin' things
as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse
an' broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a
lot o' fresh air--an' th' sky looks so high an' th' bees an' skylarks
makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away
from th' moor for anythin'."

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native
servants she had been used to in India were not in the least like this.
They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their
masters as if they were their equals. They made salaams and called them
"protector of the poor" and names of that sort. Indian servants were
commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say
"please" and "thank you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the
face when she was angry. She wondered a little what this girl would do
if one slapped her in the face. She was a round, rosy, good-natured
looking creature, but she had a sturdy way which made Mistress Mary
wonder if she might not even slap back--if the person who slapped her
was only a little girl.

"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather
haughtily.

Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and
laughed, without seeming the least out of temper.

"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at
Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under housemaids.
I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let
up-stairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a
funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor
Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, he won't be
troubled about anythin' when he's here, an' he's nearly always away.
Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. She told me she could
never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses."

"Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her imperious
little Indian way.

Martha began to rub her grate again.

"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr.
Craven's--but I'm to do the housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a
bit. But you won't need much waitin' on."

"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad
Yorkshire in her amazement.

"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said.

"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary.

"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be
careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put on
your own clothes?"

"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah
dressed me, of course."

"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she was
impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll
do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't
see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair fools--what with
nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was
puppies!"

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could
scarcely stand this.

But Martha was not at all crushed.

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I
dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o'
respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I
thought you was a black too."

Mary sat up in bed furious.

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You--you daughter
of a pig!"

Martha stared and looked hot.

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's
not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks.
When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You
always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black
an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I
come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an'
pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was,"
disappointedly, "no more black than me--for all you're so yeller."

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation.

"You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about
natives! They are not people--they're servants who must salaam to you.
You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!"

She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl's simple
stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away
from everything she understood and which understood her, that she threw
herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing.
She sobbed so unrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a
little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent
over her.

"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for
sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about
anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer
Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She
gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

"It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was
to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this.
It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy
clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha'
cannot button them up tha'self."

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the
wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night
before with Mrs. Medlock.

"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black."

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool
approval:

"Those are nicer than mine."

"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven
ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London. He said 'I won't have a child
dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. 'It'd make
the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew
what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn't hold
with black hersel'."

"I hate black things," said Mary.

The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha
had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen
a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for
her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly
held out her foot.

"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom."

She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native servants were
always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not
done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not
the custom" and one knew that was the end of the matter.

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but
stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was
ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite
Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to
her--things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking
up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young
lady's maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and
would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button
boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an
untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage
with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of
doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who
were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about and tumble
over things.

If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused she would
perhaps have laughed at Martha's readiness to talk, but Mary only
listened to her coldly and wondered at her freedom of manner. At first
she was not at all interested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in
her good-tempered, homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying.

"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve of us an' my
father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's put
to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an'
play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She
says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do. Our
Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls his
own."

"Where did he get it?" asked Mary.

"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he
began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young
grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it
lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him."

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought
she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon,
and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it
was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room
which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it was rather
like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up
person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak
chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast.
But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with
something more than indifference at the first plate Martha set before
her.

"I don't want it," she said.

"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.

"No."

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit
o' sugar."

"I don't want it," repeated Mary.

"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If
our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes."

"Why?" said Mary coldly.

"Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full
in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes."

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference
of ignorance.

Martha looked indignant.

"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough,"
she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just
stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an'
Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores."

"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary.

"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I
get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean
up for mother an' give her a day's rest."

Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you
good and give you some stomach for your meat."

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but
everything looked dull and wintry.

"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?"

"Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha'
got to do?"

Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had
prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would
be better to go and see what the gardens were like.

"Who will go with me?" she inquired.

Martha stared.

"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to learn to play
like other children does when they haven't got sisters and brothers. Our
Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how
he made friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that knows
him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand. However little there
is to eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to coax his pets."

It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out,
though she was not aware of it. There would be birds outside though
there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the
birds in India and it might amuse her to look at them.

Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots
and she showed her her way down-stairs.

"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," she said,
pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. "There's lots o' flowers in
summer-time, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a
second before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has
been in it for ten years."

"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door
added to the hundred in the strange house.

"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no
one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th' door an' dug a hole and
buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run."

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in
the shrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no one
had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like and
whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed
through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide
lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were trees, and
flower-beds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and a large
pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were
bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not the
garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You could
always walk into a garden.

She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end of the path she
was following, there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing over it.
She was not familiar enough with England to know that she was coming
upon the kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing.
She went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the
ivy, and that it stood open. This was not the closed garden, evidently,
and she could go into it.

She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all
round it and that it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed
to open into one another. She saw another open green door, revealing
bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables.
Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall, and over some of the
beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary
thought, as she stood and stared about her. It might be nicer in summer
when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about it now.

Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the
door leading from the second garden. He looked startled when he saw
Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not
seem at all pleased to see her--but then she was displeased with his
garden and wore her "quite contrary" expression, and certainly did not
seem at all pleased to see him.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," he answered.

"What is that?" said Mary, pointing through the other green door.

"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall
an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that."

"Can I go in them?" asked Mary.

"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see."

Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second
green door. There she found more walls and winter vegetables and glass
frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was
not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for ten
years. As she was not at all a timid child and always did what she
wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. She
hoped the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had
found the mysterious garden--but it did open quite easily and she walked
through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls all round
it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-trees
growing in the winter-browned grass--but there was no green door to be
seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the
upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to
end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place
at the other side. She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and
when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on
the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter
song--almost as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to her.

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly
little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little
girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big
bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the
world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been
used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though
she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the
bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face
which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was
not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should
ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew
all about it.

Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought
so much of the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to
see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If he
had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered if
she should ever see him, but she knew that if she did she should not
like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and
stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully to
ask him why he had done such a queer thing.

"People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I
never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking
and laughing and making noises."

She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at
her, and as she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped rather
suddenly on the path.

"I believe that tree was in the secret garden--I feel sure it was," she
said. "There was a wall round the place and there was no door."

She walked back into the first kitchen-garden she had entered and found
the old man digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched
him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and
so at last she spoke to him.

"I have been into the other gardens," she said.

"There was nothin' to prevent thee," he answered crustily.

"I went into the orchard."

"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," he answered.

"There was no door there into the other garden," said Mary.

"What garden?" he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a
moment.

"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Mistress Mary. "There
are trees there--I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red breast was
sitting on one of them and he sang."

To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed its
expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite
different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person
looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.

He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to
whistle--a low soft whistle. She could not understand how such a surly
man could make such a coaxing sound.

Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. She heard a soft
little rushing flight through the air--and it was the bird with the red
breast flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth
quite near to the gardener's foot.

"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if
he were speaking to a child.

"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not
seen thee before to-day. Has tha' begun tha' courtin' this early in th'
season? Tha'rt too forrad."

The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his
soft bright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar
and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly,
looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Mary a queer feeling in
her heart, because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a
person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and slender
delicate legs.

"Will he always come when you call him?" she asked almost in a whisper.

"Aye, that he will. I've knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He
come out of th' nest in th' other garden an' when first he flew over
th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got
friendly. When he went over th' wall again th' rest of th' brood was
gone an' he was lonely an' he come back to me."

"What kind of a bird is he?" Mary asked.

"Doesn't tha' know? He's a robin redbreast an' they're th' friendliest,
curiousest birds alive. They're almost as friendly as dogs--if you know
how to get on with 'em. Watch him peckin' about there an' lookin' round
at us now an' again. He knows we're talkin' about him."

It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked
at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both proud
and fond of him.

"He's a conceited one," he chuckled. "He likes to hear folk talk about
him. An' curious--bless me, there never was his like for curiosity an'
meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what I'm plantin'. He knows all th'
things Mester Craven never troubles hissel' to find out. He's th' head
gardener, he is."

The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped
and looked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed
at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out
all about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased.

"Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" she asked.

"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make
'em fly an' they're scattered before you know it. This one was a knowin'
one an' he knew he was lonely."

Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very
hard.

"I'm lonely," she said.

She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her
feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at
her and she looked at the robin.

The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her
a minute.

"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he asked.

Mary nodded.

"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonelier before tha's done," he
said.

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden
soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

"What is your name?" Mary inquired.

He stood up to answer her.

"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle,
"I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked his thumb
toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like
me and I never played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and
old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.

"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said. "We was wove out of th'
same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as
sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll
warrant."

This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about
herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to
you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but
she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also
wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked before the robin came.
She actually began to wonder also if she was "nasty tempered." She felt
uncomfortable.

Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near her and she turned
round. She was standing a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin
had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a
song. Ben Weatherstaff laughed outright.

"What did he do that for?" asked Mary.

"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang me
if he hasn't took a fancy to thee."

"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly and
looked up.

"Would you make friends with me?" she said to the robin just as if she
was speaking to a person. "Would you?" And she did not say it either in
her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so
soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she
had been when she heard him whistle.

"Why," he cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a
real child instead of a sharp old woman. Tha' said it almost like Dickon
talks to his wild things on th' moor."

"Do you know Dickon?" Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry.

"Everybody knows him. Dickon's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very
blackberries an' heather-bells knows him. I warrant th' foxes shows him
where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from
him."

Mary would have liked to ask some more questions. She was almost as
curious about Dickon as she was about the deserted garden. But just that
moment the robin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his
wings, spread them and flew away. He had made his visit and had other
things to do.

"He has flown over the wall!" Mary cried out, watching him. "He has
flown into the orchard--he has flown across the other wall--into the
garden where there is no door!"

"He lives there," said old Ben. "He came out o' th' egg there. If he's
courtin', he's makin' up to some young madam of a robin that lives among
th' old rose-trees there."

"Rose-trees," said Mary. "Are there rose-trees?"

Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig.

"There was ten year' ago," he mumbled.

"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door? There
must be a door somewhere."

Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked
when she first saw him.

"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," he said.

"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be."

"None as any one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't you
be a meddlesome wench an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go.
Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an' play you. I've no more
time."

And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and
walked off, without even glancing at her or saying good-by.