LITMIR.BIZ

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A bird with a red breast was sitting on one of them and he sang.”

      To her surprise the face of the gardener actually changed its expression. And he looked quite different. He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to whistle. 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. Then he spoke to the bird as if he were speaking to a child.

      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 [52]. 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 [53], 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 [54]. 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.”

      The gardener told about the bird with such a love. He looked at the plump little robin as if he were proud of him. The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped and looked at Mary a little. It really seemed as if he were finding out all about her. Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very hard. She said that she was very lonely. The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her a minute. Then 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 [55], “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 [56], 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 little sound broke out near her and she turned round. It was the robin. He had flown on to one of the branches and had burst out into a song. Mary asked why he did it. The man answered that just to make friends with her. Mary was very surprised to hear that and she began to talk to the bird. The man said that she talk to him like Dickon talked to his wild things on the moor. Mary was amazed to hear that the old man knew Dickon.

      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 [57]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 [58] 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.

      Chapter V

      The Cry In The Corridor

      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. 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 after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one morning knowing what it was to be hungry. She took up her spoon and began to eat the porridge until her bowl was empty. Martha was glad to see that. Then she said Mary to go out and play. But Mary answered that she had nothing to play with. Martha exclaimed that she could just run about and shout and look at things. Mary 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.

      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 [59], and there, on the top of the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting [60]forward to look at her with his small head on one side.

      She spoke to him as if she were sure that he would understand and answer her. He did answer. He 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. Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the wall she ran after him. At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the top of a tree, where he sang loudly.

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