The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett [learn to read books TXT] 📗

tree⁠—all but Colin, who wanted to stand while he told the story.

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting⁠—the coming of the spring⁠—the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face. The odd companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete, the Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human thing.

“Now,” he said at the end of the story, “it need not be a secret any more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see me⁠—but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back with you, Father⁠—to the house.”

Ben Weatherstaff’s duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen and being invited into the servants’ hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a glass of beer he was on the spot⁠—as he had hoped to be⁠—when the most dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present generation actually took place.

One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he might have caught sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin.

“Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?” she asked.

Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Aye, that I did,” he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

“Both of them?” suggested Mrs. Medlock.

“Both of ’em,” returned Ben Weatherstaff. “Thank ye kindly, ma’am, I could sup up another mug of it.”

“Together?” said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her excitement.

“Together, ma’am,” and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.

“Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each other?”

“I didna’ hear that,” said Ben, “along o’ only bein’ on th’ stepladder lookin’ over th’ wall. But I’ll tell thee this. There’s been things goin’ on outside as you house people knows nowt about. An’ what tha’ll find out tha’ll find out soon.”

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the shrubbery a piece of the lawn.

“Look there,” he said, “if tha’s curious. Look what’s comin’ across th’ grass.”

When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the servants’ hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes almost starting out of their heads.

Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire⁠—Master Colin!

Colophon

The Secret Garden
was published in 1910 by
Frances Hodgson Burnett.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal and Alina Pyzowski,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2005 by
Jason Isbell, Emmy, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Daubigny’s Garden,
a painting completed in 1890 by
Vincent Van Gogh.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 28, 2016, 3:11 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden.

The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.

Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

Copyright pages exist to tell you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you, among other things, that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the U.S. public domain. The U.S. public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the U.S. to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Public domain items are free of copyright restrictions.

Copyright laws are different around the world. If you’re not located in the U.S., check with your local laws before using this ebook.

Non-authorship activities performed on public domain items⁠—so-called “sweat of the brow” work⁠—don’t create a new copyright. That means nobody can claim a new copyright on a public domain item for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, to dispel any possible doubt on the copyright status of this ebook, Standard Ebooks L3C, its contributors, and the contributors to this ebook release this ebook under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work they’ve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesn’t change the copyright status of the underlying works, which, though believed to already be in the U.S. public domain, may not yet be in the public domain of other countries. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give