But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward.  He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had only stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met.  Creatures were always like that until they found out about you.  He walked over to Colin’s sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side.  Of course no boy could have helped speaking then.

“What is it doing?” cried Colin.  “What does it want?”

“It wants its mother,” said Dickon, smiling more and more.  “I brought it to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha’d like to see it feed.”

He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket.

“Come on, little ’un,” he said, turning the small woolly white head with a gentle brown hand.  “This is what tha’s after.  Tha’ll get more out o’ this than tha’ will out o’ silk velvet coats.  There now,” and he pushed the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.

After that there was no wondering what to say.  By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all.  He told them how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago.  He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him swing higher and higher into the sky until he was only a speck in the heights of blue.

“I’d almost lost him but for his song an’ I was wonderin’ how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if he’d get out o’ th’ world in a minute—­an’ just then I heard somethin’ else far off among th’ gorse bushes.  It was a weak bleatin’ an’ I knowed it was a new lamb as was hungry an’ I knowed it wouldn’t be hungry if it hadn’t lost its mother somehow, so I set off searchin’.  Eh!  I did have a look for it.  I went in an’ out among th’ gorse bushes an’ round an’ round an’ I always seemed to take th’ wrong turnin’.  But at last I seed a bit o’ white by a rock on top o’ th’ moor an’ I climbed up an’ found th’ little ’un half dead wi’ cold an’ clemmin’.”

While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and cawed remarks about the scenery while Nut and Shell made excursions into the big trees outside and ran up and down trunks and explored branches.  Captain curled up near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from preference.

They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all the flowers by their country names and knew exactly which ones were already growing in the secret garden.

“I couldna’ say that there name,” he said, pointing to one under which was written “Aquilegia,” “but us calls that a columbine, an’ that there one it’s a snapdragon and they both grow wild in hedges, but these is garden ones an’ they’re bigger an’ grander.  There’s some big clumps o’ columbine in th’ garden.  They’ll look like a bed o’ blue an’ white butterflies flutterin’ when they’re out.”