Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

“Weatherstaff,” he said, “that is disrespectful.  You must not take liberties because you are in the secret.  However much the Magic works I shall not be a prize-fighter.  I shall be a Scientific Discoverer.”

“Ax pardon—­ax pardon, sir,” answered Ben, touching his forehead in salute.  “I ought to have seed it wasn’t a jokin’ matter,” but his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased.  He really did not mind being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength and spirit.

CHAPTER XXIV

“LET THEM LAUGH”

The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in.  Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall of rough stones.  Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother.  In the company of his “creatures” he did wonders there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed.  While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

“We’d never get on as comfortable as we do,” Mrs. Sowerby said, “if it wasn’t for Dickon’s garden.  Anything’ll grow for him.  His ’taters and cabbages is twice th’ size of any one else’s an’ they’ve got a flavor with ’em as nobody’s has.”

When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him.  After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet time.  She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on and hear stories of the day.  She loved this time.  There were not only vegetables in this garden.  Dickon had bought penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps.  The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen.

“All a chap’s got to do to make ’em thrive, mother,” he would say, “is to be friends with ’em for sure.  They’re just like th’ ‘creatures.’  If they’re thirsty give ’em a drink and if they’re hungry give ’em a bit o’ food.  They want to live same as we do.  If they died I should feel as if I’d been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless.”

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened at Misselthwaite Manor.  At first she was only told that “Mester Colin” had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was doing him good.  But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickon’s mother might “come into the secret.”  Somehow it was not doubted that she was “safe for sure.”