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in the heights of blue.

ā€œIā€™d almost lost him but for his song anā€™ I was wonderinā€™ how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if heā€™d get out oā€™ thā€™ world in a minuteā ā€”anā€™ just then I heard somethinā€™ else far off among thā€™ gorse bushes. It was a weak bleatinā€™ anā€™ I knowed it was a new lamb as was hungry anā€™ I knowed it wouldnā€™t be hungry if it hadnā€™t lost its mother somehow, so I set off searchinā€™. Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in anā€™ out among thā€™ gorse bushes anā€™ round anā€™ round anā€™ I always seemed to take thā€™ wrong turninā€™. But at last I seed a bit oā€™ white by a rock on top oā€™ thā€™ moor anā€™ I climbed up anā€™ found thā€™ little ā€™un half dead wiā€™ cold anā€™ clemminā€™.ā€

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 hearthrug 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.

ā€œI couldnaā€™ say that there name,ā€ he said, pointing to one under which was written ā€œAquilegia,ā€ ā€œbut us calls that a columbine, anā€™ that there one itā€™s a snapdragon and they both grow wild in hedges, but these is garden ones anā€™ theyā€™re bigger anā€™ grander. Thereā€™s some big clumps oā€™ columbine in thā€™ garden. Theyā€™ll look like a bed oā€™ blue anā€™ white butterflies flutterinā€™ when theyā€™re out.ā€

ā€œIā€™m going to see them,ā€ cried Colin. ā€œI am going to see them!ā€

ā€œAye, that thaā€™ mun,ā€ said Mary quite seriously. ā€œAn thaā€™ munnot lose no time about it.ā€

XX ā€œI Shall Live Foreverā ā€”and Everā ā€”and Ever!ā€

But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came some very windy days and then Colin was threatened with a cold, which two things happening one after the other would no doubt have thrown him into a rage but that there was so much careful and mysterious planning to do and almost every day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes and hedges and on the borders of streams. The things he had to tell about ottersā€™ and badgersā€™ and water-ratsā€™ houses, not to mention birdsā€™ nests and field-mice and their burrows, were enough to make you almost tremble with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole busy underworld was working.

ā€œTheyā€™re same as us,ā€ said Dickon, ā€œonly they have to build their homes every year. Anā€™ it keeps ā€™em so busy they fair scuffle to get ā€™em done.ā€

The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made before Colin could be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden. No one must see the chair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned a certain corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the ivied walls. As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its greatest charms. Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever suspect that they had a secret. People must think that he was simply going out with Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not object to their looking at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about their route. They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other and go round among the fountain flowerbeds as if they were looking at the ā€œbedding-out plantsā€ the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having arranged. That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would think it at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks and lose themselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as serious and elaborately thought out as the plans of march made by great generals in time of war.

Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the invalidā€™s apartments had of course filtered through the servantsā€™ hall into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding this, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders from Master Colinā€™s room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartment no outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to him.

ā€œWell, well,ā€ he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, ā€œwhatā€™s to do now? His Royal Highness that wasnā€™t to be looked at calling up a man heā€™s never set eyes on.ā€

Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had never caught even a glimpse of the boy and had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about his uncanny looks and ways and his insane tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest was that he might die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful descriptions of a humped back and helpless limbs, given by people who had never seen him.

ā€œThings are changing in this house, Mr. Roach,ā€ said Mrs. Medlock, as she led him up the back staircase to the corridor on to which opened the hitherto mysterious chamber.

ā€œLetā€™s hope theyā€™re changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock,ā€ he answered.

ā€œThey couldnā€™t well change for the worse,ā€ she continued; ā€œand queer as it all is thereā€™s them as finds their duties made a lot easier to stand up under. Donā€™t you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerbyā€™s Dickon more at home than you or me could ever be.ā€

There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately

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