10
Dickon
The sun shone down for nearly a week on the
secret garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she
was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more
the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one
knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the
world in some fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had
been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some
of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a
hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She had
no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming
wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was
beginning to like to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind,
but enjoyed it. She could run faster, and longer, and she could
skip up to a hundred. The bulbs in the secret garden must have been
much astonished. Such nice clear places were made round them that
they had all the breathing space they wanted, and really, if
Mistress Mary had known it, they began to cheer up under the dark
earth and work tremendously. The sun could get at them and warm
them, and when the rain came down it could reach them at once, so
they began to feel very much alive.
Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now
she had something interesting to be determined about, she was very
much absorbed, indeed. She worked and dug and pulled up weeds
steadily, only becoming more pleased with her work every hour
instead of tiring of it. It seemed to her like a fascinating sort
of play. She found many more of the sprouting pale green points
than she had ever hoped to find. They seemed to be starting up
everywhere and each day she was sure she found tiny new ones, some
so tiny that they barely peeped above the earth. There were so many
that she remembered what Martha had said about the “snowdrops by
the thousands,” and about bulbs spreading and making new ones.
These had been left to themselves for ten years and perhaps they
had spread, like the snowdrops, into thousands. She wondered how
long it would be before they showed that they were flowers.
Sometimes she stopped digging to look at the garden and try to
imagine what it would be like when it was covered with thousands of
lovely things in bloom.
During that week of sunshine, she became more
intimate with Ben Weatherstaff. She surprised him several times by
seeming to start up beside him as if she sprang out of the earth.
The truth was that she was afraid that he would pick up his tools
and go away if he saw her coming, so she always walked toward him
as silently as possible. But, in fact, he did not object to her as
strongly as he had at first. Perhaps he was secretly rather
flattered by her evident desire for his elderly company. Then,
also, she was more civil than she had been. He did not know that
when she first saw him she spoke to him as she would have spoken to
a native, and had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire man
was not accustomed to salaam to his masters, and be merely
commanded by them to do things.
“Tha’rt like th’ robin,” he said to her one morning
when he lifted his head and saw her standing by him. “I never knows
when I shall see thee or which side tha’ll come from.”
“He’s friends with me now,” said Mary.
“That’s like him,” snapped Ben Weatherstaff.
“Makin’ up to th’ women folk just for vanity an’ flightiness.
There’s nothin’ he wouldn’t do for th’ sake o’ showin’ off an’
flirtin’ his tail-feathers. He’s as full o’ pride as an egg’s full
o’ meat.”
He very seldom talked much and sometimes did not
even answer Mary’s questions except by a grunt, but this morning he
said more than usual. He stood up and rested one hob-nailed boot on
the top of his spade while he looked her over.
“How long has tha’ been here?” he jerked out.
“I think it’s about a month,” she answered.
“Tha’s beginnin’ to do Misselthwaite credit,” he
said. “Tha’s a bit fatter than tha’ was an’ tha’s not quite so
yeller. Tha’ looked like a young plucked crow when tha’ first came
into this garden. Thinks I to myself I never set eyes on an uglier,
sourer faced young ’un.”
Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much
of her looks she was not greatly disturbed.
“I know I’m fatter,” she said. “My stockings are
getting tighter. They used to make wrinkles. There’s the robin, Ben
Weatherstaff.”
There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he
looked nicer than ever. His red waistcoat was as glossy as satin
and he flirted his wings and tail and tilted his head and hopped
about with all sorts of lively graces. He seemed determined to make
Ben Weatherstaff admire him. But Ben was sarcastic.
“Aye, there tha’ art!” he said. “Tha’ can put up
with me for a bit sometimes when tha’s got no one better. Tha’s
been reddenin’ up thy waistcoat an’ polishin’ thy feathers this two
weeks. I know what tha’s up to. Tha’s courtin’ some bold young
madam somewhere tellin’ thy lies to her about bein’ th’ finest cock
robin on Missel Moor an’ ready to fight all th’ rest of ’em.”
“Oh! look at him!” exclaimed Mary.
The robin was evidently in a fascinating, bold
mood. He hopped closer and closer and looked at Ben Weatherstaff
more and more engagingly. He flew on to the nearest currant bush
and tilted his head and sang a little song right at him.
“Tha’ thinks tha’ll get over me by doin’ that,”
said Ben, wrinkling his face up in such a way that Mary felt sure
he was trying not to look pleased. “Tha’ thinks no one can stand
out against thee—that’s what tha’ thinks.”
The robin spread his wings—Mary could scarcely
believe her eyes. He flew right up to the handle of Ben
Weatherstaff’s spade and alighted on the top of it. Then the old
man’s face wrinkled itself slowly into a new expression. He stood
still as if he were afraid to breathe—as if he would not have
stirred for the world, lest his robin should start away. He spoke
quite in a whisper.
“Well, I’m danged!” he said as softly as if he were
saying something quite different. “Tha’ does know how to get at a
chap—tha’ does! Tha’s fair unearthly, tha’s so knowin’.”
And he stood without stirring—almost without
drawing his breath—until the robin gave another flirt to his wings
and flew away. Then he stood looking at the handle of the spade as
if there might be Magic in it, and then he began to dig again and
said nothing for several minutes.
But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now
and then, Mary was not afraid to talk to him.
“Have you a garden of your own?” she asked.
“No. I’m bachelders an’
lodge with Martin at th’ gate.”
“If you had one,” said Mary, “what would you
plant?”
“Cabbages an’ ’taters an’ onions.”
“But if you wanted to make a flower garden,”
persisted Mary, “what would you plant?”
“Bulbs an’ sweet-smellin’ things—but mostly
roses.”
Mary’s face lighted up.
“Do you like roses?” she said.
Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it
aside before he answered.
“Well, yes, I do. I was learned that by a young
lady I was gardener to. She had a lot in a place she was fond of,
an’ she loved ‘em like they was children—or robins. I’ve seen her
bend over an’ kiss ’em.” He dragged out another weed and scowled at
it. “That were as much as ten year’ ago.”
“Where is she now?” asked Mary, much
interested.
“Heaven,” he answered, and drove his spade deep
into the soil, “’cording to what parson says.”
“What happened to the roses?” Mary asked again,
more interested than ever.
“They was left to themselves.”
Mary was becoming quite excited.
“Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they
are left to themselves?” she ventured.
“Well, I’d got to like ‘em—an’ I liked her—an’ she
liked ’em,” Ben Weatherstaff admitted reluctantly. “Once or twice a
year I’d go an’ work at ‘em a bit—prune ’em an’ dig about th’
roots. They run wild, but they was in rich soil, so some of ’em
lived.”
“When they have no leaves and look gray and brown
and dry, how can you tell whether they are dead or alive?” inquired
Mary.
“Wait till th’ spring gets at ’em—wait till th’ sun
shines on th’ rain and th’ rain falls on th’ sunshine an’ then
tha’ll find out.”
“How—how?” cried Mary, forgetting to be
careful.
“Look along th’ twigs an’ branches an’ if tha’ see
a bit of a brown lump swelling here an’ there, watch it after th’
warm rain an’ see what happens.” He stopped suddenly and looked
curiously at her eager face. ”Why does tha’ care so much about
roses an’ such, all of a sudden?” he demanded.
Mistress Mary felt her face grow red. She was
almost afraid to answer.
“I—I want to play that—that I have a garden of my
own,” she stammered. “I—there is nothing for me to do. I have
nothing—and no one.”
“Well,” said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched
her, “that’s true. Tha’ hasn’t.”
He said it in such an odd way that Mary wondered if
he was actually a little sorry for her. She had never felt sorry
for herself; she had only felt tired and cross, because she
disliked people and things so much. But now the world seemed to be
changing and getting nicer. If no one found out about the secret
garden, she should enjoy herself always.
She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes
longer and asked him as many questions as she dared. He answered
every one of them in his queer grunting way and he did not seem
really cross and did not pick up his spade and leave her. He said
something about roses just as she was going away and it reminded
her of the ones he had said he had been fond of.
“Do you go and see those other roses now?” she
asked.
“Not been this year. My rheumatics has made me too
stiff in th’ joints.”
He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite
suddenly he seemed to get angry with her, though she did not see
why he should.
“Now look here!” he said sharply. “Don’t tha’ ask
so many questions. Tha’rt th’ worst wench for askin’ questions I’ve
ever come across. Get thee gone an’ play thee. I’ve done talkin’
for today”
And he said it so crossly that she knew there was
not the least use in staying another minute. She went skipping
slowly down the outside walk, thinking him over and saying to
herself that, queer as it was, here was another person whom she
liked in spite of his cross-ness. She liked old Ben Weatherstaff.
Yes, she did like him. She always wanted to try to make him talk to
her. Also she began to believe that he knew everything in the world
about flowers.
There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round
the secret garden and ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in
the park. She thought she would skip round this walk and look into
the wood and see if there were any rabbits hopping about. She
enjoyed the skipping very much and when she reached the little gate
she opened it and went through because she heard a low, peculiar
whistling sound and wanted to find out what it was.
It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite
caught her breath as she stopped to look at it. A boy was sitting
under a tree, with his back against it, playing on a rough wooden
pipe. He was a funny looking boy about twelve. He looked very clean
and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppies and
never had Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in any
boy’s face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brown
squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush
nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep
out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing
with tremulous noses—and actually it appeared as if they were all
drawing near to watch him and listen to the strange low little call
his pipe seemed to make.
When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to
her in a voice almost as low as and rather like his piping.
“Don’t tha’ move,” he said. “It’d flight
’em.”
Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his
pipe and began to rise from the ground. He moved so slowly that it
scarcely seemed as though he were moving at all, but at last he
stood on his feet and then the squirrel scampered back up into the
branches of his tree, the pheasant withdrew his head and the
rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop away, though not at
all as if they were frightened.
“I’m Dickon,” the boy said. “I know tha’rt Miss
Mary.”
Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at
first that he was Dickon. Who else could have been charming rabbits
and pheasants as the natives charm snakes in India? He had a wide,
red, curving mouth and his smile spread all over his face.
“I got up slow,” he explained, “because if tha’
makes a quick move it startles ‘em. A body ’as to move gentle an’
speak low when wild things is about.”
He did not speak to her as if they had never seen
each other be-forebut as if he knew her quite well. Mary knew
nothing about boys and she spoke to him a little stiffly because
she felt rather shy.
A boy sitting under a tree, playing on a
rough wooden pipe
![006](/epubstore/B/F-H-Burnett/The-secret-garden/OEBPS/bano_9781411433120_oeb_006_r1.jpg)
“Did you get Martha’s letter?” she asked.
He nodded his curly, rust-colored head. “That’s why
I come.”
He stooped to pick up something which had been
lying on the ground beside him when he piped.
“I’ve got th’ garden tools. There’s a little spade
an’ rake an’ a fork an’ hoe. Eh! they are good ’uns. There’s a
trowel, too. An’ th’ woman in th’ shop threw in a packet o’ white
poppy an’ one o’ blue larkspurt when I
bought th’ other seeds.”
“Will you show the seeds to me?” Mary said.
She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was
so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the
least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common
moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough,
rusty-red head. As she came closer to him she noticed that there
was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him,
almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when
she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue
eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.
“Let us sit down on this log and look at them,” she
said.
They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown
paper package out of his coat pocket. He untied the string and
inside there were ever so many neater and smaller packages with a
picture of a flower on each one.
“There’s a lot o’ mignonetteu
an’ poppies,” he said. “Mignonette’s th’ sweetest smellin’ thing as
grows, an’ it’ll grow wherever you cast it, same as poppies will.
Them as’ll come up an’ bloom if you just whistle to ’em, them’s th’
nicest of all.”
He stopped and turned his head quickly, his
poppy-cheeked face lighting up.
“Where’s that robin as is callin’ us?” he
said.
The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with
scarlet berries, and Mary thought she knew whose it was.
“Is it really calling us?” she asked.
“Aye,” said Dickon, as if it was the most natural
thing in the world, “he’s callin’ some one he’s friends with.
That’s same as sayin’ ‘Here I am. Look at me. I wants a bit of a
chat.’ There he is in the bush. Whose is he?”
“He’s Ben Weatherstaff’s, but I think he knows me a
little,” answered Mary.
“Aye, he knows thee,” said Dickon in his low voice
again. “An’ he likes thee. He’s took thee on. He’ll tell me all
about thee in a minute.”
He moved quite close to the bush with the slow
movement Mary had noticed before, and then he made a sound almost
like the robin’s own twitter. The robin listened a few seconds,
intently, and then answered quite as if he were replying to a
question.
“Aye, he’s a friend o’ yours,” chuckled
Dickon.
“Do you think he is?” cried Mary eagerly. She did
so want to know. “Do you think he really likes me?”
“He wouldn’t come near thee if he didn‘t,” answered
Dickon. “Birds is rare choosers an’ a robin can flout a body worse
than a man. See, he’s making up to thee now. ‘Cannot tha’ see a
chap?’ he’s sayin’.”
And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so
sidled and twittered and tilted as he hopped on his bush.
“Do you understand everything birds say?” said
Mary.
Dickon’s grin spread until he seemed all wide, red,
curving mouth, and he rubbed his rough head.
“I think I do, and they think I do,” he said. “I’ve
lived on th’ moor with ‘em so long. I’ve watched ’em break shell
an’ come out an’ fledge an’ learn to fly an’ begin to sing, till I
think I’m one of ‘em. Sometimes I think p’raps I’m a bird, or a
fox, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, or even a beetle, an’ I don’t know
it.”
He laughed and came back to the log and began to
talk about the flower-seeds again. He told her what they looked
like when they were flowers, he told her how to plant them, and
watch them, and feed and water them.
“See here,” he said suddenly, turning round to look
at her. “I’ll plant them for thee myself. Where is tha’
garden?”
Mary’s thin hands clutched each other as they lay
on her lap. She did not know what to say, so for a whole minute she
said nothing. She had never thought of this. She felt miserable.
And she felt as if she went red and then pale.
“Tha’s got a bit o’ garden, hasn’t tha’?” Dickon
said.
It was true that she had turned red and then pale.
Dickon saw her do it, and as she still said nothing, he began to be
puzzled.
“Wouldn’t they give thee a bit?” he asked. “Hasn’t
tha’ got any yet?” yet?”
She held her hands tighter and turned her eyes
toward him.
“I don’t know anything about boys,” she said
slowly. “Could you keep a secret, if I told you one? It’s a great
secret. I don’t know what I should do if any one found it out. I
believe I should die!” She said the last sentence quite
fiercely.
Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even
rubbed his hand over his rough head again, but he answered quite
good-humoredly.
“I’m keepin’ secrets all th’ time,” he said. “If I
couldn’t keep secrets from th’ other lads, secrets about foxes’
cubs, an’ birds’ nests, an’ wild things’ holes, there’d be naught
safe on th’ moor. Aye, I can keep secrets.”
Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and
clutch his sleeve but she did it.
“I’ve stolen a garden,” she said very fast. “It
isn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for
it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it
already; I don’t know.”
She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had
ever felt in her life.
“I don’t care, I don’t care! Nobody has any right
to take it from me when I care about it and they don’t. They’re
letting it die, all shut in by itself,” she ended passionately, and
she threw her arms over her face and burst out crying—poor little
Mistress Mary.
Dickon’s curious blue eyes grew rounder and
rounder.
“Eh-h-h!” he said, drawing his exclamation out
slowly, and the way he did it meant both wonder and sympathy.
“I’ve nothing to do,” said Mary. “Nothing belongs
to me. I found it myself and I got into it myself I was only just
like the robin, and they wouldn’t take it from the robin.”
“Where is it?” asked Dickon in a dropped
voice.
Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew
she felt contrary again, and obstinate, and she did not care at
all. She was imperious and Indian, and at the same time hot and
sorrowful.
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” she said.
She led him round the laurel path and to the walk
where the ivy grew so thickly. Dickon followed her with a queer,
almost pitying, look on his face. He felt as if he were being led
to look at some strange bird’s nest and must move softly. When she
stepped to the wall and lifted the hanging ivy he started. There
was a door and Mary pushed it slowly open and they passed in
together, and then Mary stood and waved her hand round
defiantly.
“It’s this,” she said. “It’s a secret garden, and
I’m the only one in the world who wants it to be alive.”
Dickon looked round and round about it, and round
and round again.
“Eh!” he almost whispered, “it is a queer, pretty
place! It’s like as if a body was in a dream.”