第 二十七 章 · IN THE GARDEN

. IN THE GARDEN

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have

been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out

than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still

more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to

believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it

can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the

world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things

people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just

mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as

sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad

one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ

get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may

never get over it as long as you live.

So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about

her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to

be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly,

bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her,

though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for

her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and

moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old

gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and

with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy

and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable

thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow

and tired.

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his

fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and

reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical

half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the

spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon

his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push

out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran

healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood.

His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was

nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to

any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his

mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting

in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one

place.

"Where you tend a rose, my lad,

A thistle cannot grow."

While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming

alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away

beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains

of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind

filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous;

he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark

ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on

mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming all about him

and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought them. A

terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had

let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to

allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted

his home and his duties. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded

over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because

it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers

thought he must be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on

his soul. He was a tall man with a drawn face and crooked shoulders and

the name he always entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald Craven,

Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England."

He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his

study and told her she might have her "bit of earth." He had been in the

most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more

than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had

been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and had

looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with

such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born.

But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he

realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had

happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had

been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted any man's

soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his.

But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a

carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran quite

merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious damp greenness.

Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled

over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in

it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed like a thing alive

and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valley was

very, very still.

As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven

gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the valley

itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat

and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing

at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing so

close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he found

himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago.

He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of

blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just

that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--filling and filling it

until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet clear

spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen

until at last it swept the dark water away. But of course he did not

think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to grow

quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate

blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to

him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly

and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and

wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released

in him, very quietly.

"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over

his forehead. "I almost feel as if--I were alive!"

I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to

be able to explain how this had happened to him. Neither does any one

else yet. He did not understand at all himself--but he remembered this

strange hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he

found out quite by accident that on this very day Colin had cried out as

he went into the secret garden:

"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"

The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he

slept a new reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did

not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the

doors wide to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping and rushing

back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But,

strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes--sometimes

half-hours--when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to

lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.

Slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knew of--he was "coming alive"

with the garden.

As the golden summer changed into the deeper golden autumn he went to

the Lake of Como. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his

days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the

soft thick verdure of the hills and tramped until he was tired so that

he might sleep. But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he knew,

and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him.

"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger."

It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when his

thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too. He

began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home. Now

and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he

should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed again

and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it slept

and the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes. He

shrank from it.

One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon

was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The

stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go

into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace

at the water's edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the heavenly

scents of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and

it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep.

He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his

dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He

remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought

he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late

roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he heard a

voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed

very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very

side.

"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer

than before, "Archie! Archie!"

He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real

voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it.

"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?"

"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In the

garden!"

And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and

sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was

brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an

Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa

were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign master

might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or where he

would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the

boat on the lake all night. The man held a salver with some letters on

it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he had gone

away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and looking

at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him and something more--a

lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happened as

he thought--as if something had changed. He was remembering the

dream--the real--real dream.

"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But the

door is locked and the key is buried deep."

When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one

lying at the top of the rest was an English letter and came from

Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a hand

he knew. He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first

words attracted his attention at once.

"_Dear Sir:_

"I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you

once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary I spoke.

I will make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I

would come home if I was you. I think you would be

glad to come and--if you will excuse me, sir--I

think your lady would ask you to come if she was

here.

"Your obedient servant,

"SUSAN SOWERBY."

Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope.

He kept thinking about the dream.

"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said. "Yes, I'll go at once."

And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to

prepare for his return to England.

* * * * *

In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad

journey he found himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in

all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to forget

him. Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him

constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days when he

had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was

dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at

last it had been such a weak wretched thing that every one had been sure

it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took care

of it the days passed and it lived and then every one believed it would

be a deformed and crippled creature.

He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father

at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had

shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his

own misery. The first time after a year's absence he returned to

Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly and

indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes

round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had

adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as

death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep,

and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a

vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from

furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail.

All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled

him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming

alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and

deeply.

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself. "Ten

years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything--quite too late.

What have I been thinking of!"

Of course this was the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even

Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either

black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby

had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature

had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill. If he had not

been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession

of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had

brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to

thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in

better things.

"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good

and control him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to

Misselthwaite."

But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the

cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a

group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him

that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the

morning to help a woman who had a new baby. "Our Dickon," they

volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where

he went several days each week.

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round

red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he

awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at

their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and

gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest.

"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each

of you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away,

leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing.

Why did it seem to give him a sense of home-coming which he had been

sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky

and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing

nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six

hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering

to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed

with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find

him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his

shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and

clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the

garden!"

"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I

must--though I don't know why."

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the

usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to

the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went

into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat

excited and curious and flustered.

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired.

"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner

of speaking."

"Worse?" he suggested.

Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the

nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

"Why is that?"

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be

changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and

his ways--"

"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master asked, knitting his

brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with

what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began to

eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and the

meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir,

perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The

things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave

a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that

Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. Well, sir,

just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he

suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan

Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to both

Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if

you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until

night."

"How does he look?" was the next question.

"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on

flesh--but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat. He laughs sometimes

in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary. He never used to laugh at

all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him. He

never was as puzzled in his life."

"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked.

"In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden--though not a human

creature is allowed to go near for fear they'll look at him."

Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.

"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he

stood and repeated it again and again. "In the garden!"

He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was

standing in and when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went

out of the room. He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door in

the shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds. The fountain

was playing now and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn flowers.

He crossed the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls. He

did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path. He felt

as if he were being drawn back to the place he had so long forsaken, and

he did not know why. As he drew near to it his step became still more

slow. He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick over

it--but he did not know exactly where it lay--that buried key.

So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment

after he had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were

walking in a dream.

The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs,

no human being had passed that portal for ten lonely years--and yet

inside the garden there were sounds. They were the sounds of running

scuffling feet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they

were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices--exclamations and

smothered joyous cries. It seemed actually like the laughter of young

things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to

be heard but who in a moment or so--as their excitement mounted--would

burst forth. What in heaven's name was he dreaming of--what in heaven's

name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things

which were not for human ears? Was it that the far clear voice had

meant?

And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds

forgot to hush themselves. The feet ran faster and faster--they were

nearing the garden door--there was quick strong young breathing and a

wild outbreak of laughing shouts which could not be contained--and the

door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back,

and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the

outsider, dashed almost into his arms.

Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a

result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to

look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath.

He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his

running had sent splendid color leaping to his face. He threw the thick

hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes--eyes

full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It

was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath.

"Who--What? Who!" he stammered.

This was not what Colin had expected--this was not what he had planned.

He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing

out--winning a race--perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to

his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed

through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look

taller than he had ever looked before--inches taller.

"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can

myself. I'm Colin."

Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he

said hurriedly:

"In the garden! In the garden!"

"Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden that did it--and Mary and

Dickon and the creatures--and the Magic. No one knows. We kept it to

tell you when you came. I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going

to be an athlete."

He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words

tumbling over each other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook

with unbelieving joy.

Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm.

"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended.

"Aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!"

Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still.

He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.

"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last. "And tell me all

about it."

And so they led him in.

The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and

flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing

together--lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered well

when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the

year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and

hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing

trees made one feel that one stood in an embowered temple of gold. The

newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into

its grayness. He looked round and round.

"I thought it would be dead," he said.

"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive."

Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand

while he told the story.

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought,

as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and

wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting--the coming of the

spring--the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah

to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face. The odd

companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The

listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came

into his eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete, the Lecturer, the

Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human

thing.

"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it need not be a secret any

more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see

me--but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back

with you, Father--to the house."

* * * * *

Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on

this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen

and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a

glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most

dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present

generation actually took place.

One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the

lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he

might have caught sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting

with Master Colin.

"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked.

Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of

his hand.

"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock.

"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I

could sup up another mug of it."

"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her

excitement.

"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.

"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each

other?"

"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' step-ladder

lookin' over th' wall. But I'll tell thee this. There's been things

goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about. An' what tha'll

find out tha'll find out soon."

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and

waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the

shrubbery a piece of the lawn.

"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across th'

grass."

When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek

and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the

servants' hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes

almost starting out of their heads.

Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many

of them had never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air

and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy

in Yorkshire--Master Colin!

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber's notes:

Table of Contents, an exclamation point was added to Chapter VI's title to

match the text. (there was!")

Page 34, quotation mark added. (India," said)

Page 62, apostrophe added to "an'". (readin' an')

Page 101, quotation mark added. (come to-morrow.")

Page 117, comma changed to period. (she ventured.)

Page 163, extraneous quotation mark removed. (the gardeners?)

Page 216, "it" changed to "if". (wondering if he)

Page 262, Illustration: Closing punctuation added. (WIDE SMILE.")

Page 272, period added. (he said.)

Page 284, apostrophe added. (Dickon. "An')

Page 318, "every" changed to "very". (very easily)

Page 330, "eggs" changed to "Eggs" to fit rest of text. (injurious to the Eggs)

End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett