She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked.

“Art tha’ thinkin’ about that garden yet?” she said.  “I knew tha’ would.  That was just the way with me when I first heard about it.”

“Why did he hate it?” Mary persisted.

Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable.

“Listen to th’ wind wutherin’ round the house,” she said.  “You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it to-night.”

Mary did not know what “wutherin’” meant until she listened, and then she understood.  It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in.  But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe and warm inside a room with a red coal fire.

“But why did he hate it so?” she asked, after she had listened.  She intended to know if Martha did.

Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

“Mind,” she said, “Mrs. Medlock said it’s not to be talked about.  There’s lots o’ things in this place that’s not to be talked over.  That’s Mr. Craven’s orders.  His troubles are none servants’ business, he says.  But for th’ garden he wouldn’t be like he is.  It was Mrs. Craven’s garden that she had made when first they were married an’ she just loved it, an’ they used to ‘tend the flowers themselves.  An’ none o’ th’ gardeners was ever let to go in.  Him an’ her used to go in an’ shut th’ door an’ stay there hours an’ hours, readin’ an’ talkin’.  An’ she was just a bit of a girl an’ there was an old tree with a branch bent like a seat on it.  An’ she made roses grow over it an’ she used to sit there.  But one day when she was sittin’ there th’ branch broke an’ she fell on th’ ground an’ was hurt so bad that next day she died.  Th’ doctors thought he’d go out o’ his mind an’ die, too.  That’s why he hates it.  No one’s never gone in since, an’ he won’t let any one talk about it.”

Mary did not ask any more questions.  She looked at the red fire and listened to the wind “wutherin’.”  It seemed to be “wutherin’” louder than ever.

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her.  Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor.  She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some one.  She was getting on.

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something else.  She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely distinguish it from the wind itself.  It was a curious sound—­it seemed almost as if a child were crying somewhere.  Sometimes the wind sounded rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure that this sound was inside the house, not outside it.  It was far away, but it was inside.  She turned round and looked at Martha.