The Robin Who Showed the Way (The Secret Garden (Full Cast))

01Chapter 8 The Robin Who Showed the Way She looked at the key quite a long time.

02She turned it over and over, and thought about it.

03As I have said before, she was not a child who had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things.

04All she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the old rose-trees.

05It was because it had been shut up so long that she wanted to see it.

06It seemed as if it must be different from other places, and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years.

07Besides that, if she liked it, she could go into it every day and shut the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own and play it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would think the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth.

08The thought of that pleased her very much.

09Living, as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred mysteriously closed doors, and having nothing whatever to do to amuse herself, had set her inactive brain to working, and was actually awakening her imagination.

10There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.

11Just as it had given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood, so the same things had stirred her mind.

12In India she had always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but in this place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things.

13Already she felt less contrary, though she did not know why.

14She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk.

15No one but herself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and look at the wall, or rather at the ivy growing on it.

16The ivy was the baffling thing.

17Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but thickly growing, glossy, dark green leaves.

18She was very much disappointed.

19Something of her contrariness came back to her as she paced the walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside.

20It seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be able to get in.

21She took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house, and she made up her mind that she would always carry it with her when she went out, so that if she should ever find the hidden door she would be ready.

22Mrs.

23Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but she was back at her work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever and in the best of spirits.

24"'I got up at four o'clock,' she said.

25"'Eh, it was pretty on the moor, with the birds getting up and the rabbits scampering about and the sun rising.

26I didn't walk all the way.

27A man gave me a ride in his cart, and I did enjoy myself.' She was full of stories of the delights of her day out.

28Her mother had been glad to see her, and they had got the baking and washing all out of the way.

29She had even made each of the children a dough-cake with a bit of brown sugar in it.

30"'I had them all piping hot when they came in from playing on the moor, and the cottage all smelt a nice clean hot baking, and there was a good fire, and they just shouted for joy.

31"'Ah, Dickon,' he said, "'our cottage was good enough for a king!' In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her mother had sewed patches on torn clothes and mended stockings, and Martha had told them about the little girl who had come from India, and who had been waited on all her life by what Martha called blacks, until she didn't know how to put on her own stockings.

32"'Ech, they did like to hear about you,' said Martha.

33"'They wanted to know all about the blacks, and about the ship you came in.

34I couldn't tell them enough.' Mary reflected a little.

35"'I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out,' she said, "'so that you will have more to talk about.

36I dare say they would like to hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officers going to hunt tigers.' "'My word!' cried delighted Martha.

37"'It would set em clean off their heads.

38Would they really do that, miss?

39It would be the same as a wild-beast show like we heard they had in York once.' "'India is quite different from Yorkshire,' Mary said slowly, as she thought the matter over.

40"'I never thought of that.

41Did Dickon and your mother like to hear you talk about me?' "'Why, had Dickon's eyes nearly started out of his head.

42They got that round,' answered Martha.

43"'But, mother, she was put out about your semen to be all about by yourself.

44She said, "'Hasn't Mr.

45Craven got no governess for her, nor no nurse?' And I said, "'No, he hasn't, though Mrs.

46Medlock says he will when he thinks of it.

47But she says he mayn't think of it for two or three years.' "'I don't want a governess,' said Mary sharply.

48"'But, mother, says you ought to be learning your book by this time, and you ought to have a woman to look after you.

49And she says, "'Now, Martha, you just think how you'd feel yourself in a big place like that, wandering about all alone and no mother.

50You do your best to cheer her up,' she says.

51And I said I would.' Mary gave her a long, steady look.

52"'You do cheer me up,' she said.

53"'I like to hear you talk.' Presently, Martha went out of the room, and came back with something held in her hands under her apron.

54"'What does the think?' she said with a cheerful grin.

55"'I've brought thee a present.' "'A present?' exclaimed mistress Mary.

56"'How could a cottage full of fourteen hungry people give anyone a present?' "'A man was driving across the moor peddling,' Martha explained.

57"'And he stopped his cart at our door.

58He had pots and pans and odds and ends, but mother had no money to buy anything.

59Just as he was going away, our Liz Bethellen called out, "'Mother, he's got skipping ropes with red and blue handles.' "'And mother,' she calls out quite sudden, "'Here, stop, mister.

60How much are they?' "'And he says, Tuppence.

61And mother,' she began fumbling in her pocket, and she says to me, "'Martha, there's brought me the wages like a good lass, and I've got four places to put every penny, but I'm just going to take Tuppence out of it to buy that child a skipping rope.

62And she bought one, and here it is.' She brought it out from under her apron, and exhibited it quite proudly.

63It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping rope before.

64She gazed at it with a mystified expression.

65"'What is it for?' she asked curiously.

66"'For?' cried out Martha.

67"'Does the mean they've not got skipping ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and camels?

68No wonder most of them's black.

69This is what it's for.

70Just watch me.' And she ran into the middle of the room, and taking a handle in each hand, began to skip and skip and skip, while Mary turned in her chair to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portrait seemed to stare at her too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager had the impudence to be doing under their very noses.

71But Martha did not even see them.

72The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face delighted her, and she went on skipping, and counted as she skipped until she had reached a hundred.

73But if you practice you'll mount up.

74That's what mother said.

75She says, nothing will do her more good than skipping rope.

76It's the sensiblest toy a child can have.

77Let her play out in the fresh air skipping, and it'll stretch her legs and arms, and give her some strength in them.

78It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress Mary's arms and legs when she first began to skip.

79She was not very clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.

80Put on the things and run and skip out of doors, said Martha.

81Mother said I must tell you to keep out of doors as much as you could, even when it rains a bit.

82So is the wrap-up warm.

83Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping rope over her arm.

84She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something, and turned back rather slowly.

85Martha, she said, they were your wages.

86It was your tuppence, really.

87Thank you, she said it stiffly, because she was not used to thanking people or noticing that they did things for her.

88Thank you, she said, and held out her hand because she did not know what else to do.

89Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed to this sort of thing either.

90Then she laughed.

91That a queer old womanish thing, she said.

92If that had been our Lisbeth Ellen, that had given me a kiss.

93Mary looked stiffer than ever.

94Do you want me to kiss you?

95Martha laughed again.

96Nay, not me, she answered.

97If that was different, perhaps they'd want to, the cell.

98But there isn't.

99Run off outside and play with the rope.

100Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.

101Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle to her.

102At first she had disliked her very much, but now she did not.

103The skipping rope was a wonderful thing.

104She counted and skipped and skipped and counted until her cheeks were quite red, and she was more interested than she had ever been since she was born.

105The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing, not a rough wind, but one which came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly turned earth with it.

106She skipped round the fountain garden and up one walk and down another.

107She skipped at last into the kitchen garden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping about him.

108She skipped down the walk toward him, and he lifted his head and looked at her with a curious expression.

109She had wondered if he would notice her.

110She wanted him to see her skip.

111Well, he exclaimed, upon my word, perhaps thou art a young'un after all, and perhaps thou's got child's blood in thy veins instead of sour buttermilk.

112Thou's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben Weatherstaff.

113I wouldn't have believed I could do it.

114I never skipped before, Mary said.

115I'm just beginning.

116I can only go up to twenty.

117Keep on, said Ben.

118That ship's well enough at it for a young'un that's lived with Ethan.

119Just see how he's watching thee, jerking his head toward the robin.

120He followed after thee yesterday.

121He'll be at it again today.

122He'll be bound to find out what the skipping rope is.

123He's never seen one, eh?

124shaking his head at the bird.

125Yeah.

126Thy curiosity'll be the death of thee sometime, if thou doesn't look sharp.

127Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every few minutes.

128At length she went to her own special walk and made up her mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it.

129It was a good long skip, and she began slowly, but before she had gone halfway down the path she was so hot and breathless that she was obliged to stop.

130She did not mind much because she had already counted up to thirty.

131She stopped with a little laugh of pleasure, and there, lo and behold, was the robin swaying on a long branch of ivy.

132He had followed her, and he greeted her with a chirp.

133As Mary had skipped toward him, she felt something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump, and when she saw the robin, she laughed again.

134You showed me where the key was yesterday, she said.

135You ought to show me the door today, but I don't believe you know.

136The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy onto the top of the wall, and he opened his beak and sang a loud lovely trill, merely to show off.

137Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off, and they are nearly always doing it.

138Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about magic in her Aya's stories, and she always said that what happened almost at that moment was magic.

139One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was a stronger one than the rest.

140It was strong enough to wave the branches of the trees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall.

141Mary had stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails, and more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in her hand.

142This she did because she had seen something under it, a round knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it.

143It was the knob of a door.

144She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside.

145Thick as the ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging curtain, though some had crept over wood and iron.

146Mary's heart began to thump, and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement.

147The robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one side as if he were as excited as she was.

148What was this under her hands which was quite square and made of iron, and which her fingers found a hole in?

149It was the lock of the door, which had been closed ten years, and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key, and found it fitted the keyhole.

150She put the key in and turned it.

151It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

152And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if anyone was coming.

153No one was coming.

154No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly, slowly.

155Then she slipped through it and shut it behind her and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement and wonder and delight.

156She was standing inside the secret garden.

157End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8 End of chapter 8