21
Ben Weatherstaff
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 little 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
and 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,ai 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’. His 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.