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.