The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ themselves. The feet ran faster and faster—they were nearing the garden door—there was quick strong young breathing and a wild outbreak of laughing shows which could not be contained—and the door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the outsider, dashed almost into his arms.

      Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath.

      He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his running had sent splendid color leaping to his face. He threw the thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes—eyes full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath. “Who—What? Who!” he stammered.

      This was not what Colin had expected—this was not what he had planned. He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing out—winning a race—perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look taller than he had ever looked before—inches taller.

      “Father,” he said, “I’m Colin. You can’t believe it. I scarcely can myself. I’m Colin.”

      Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he said hurriedly:

      “In the garden! In the garden!”

      “Yes,” hurried on Colin. “It was the garden that did it—and Mary and Dickon and the creatures—and the Magic. No one knows. We kept it to tell you when you came. I’m well, I can beat Mary in a race. I’m going to be an athlete.”

      He said it all so like a healthy boy—his face flushed, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness—that Mr. Craven’s soul shook with unbelieving joy.

      Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father’s arm.

      “Aren’t you glad, Father?” he ended. “Aren’t you glad? I’m going to live forever and ever and ever!”

      Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy’s shoulders and held him still. He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.

      “Take me into the garden, my boy,” he said at last. “And tell me all about it.”

      And so they led him in.

      The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing together—lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered well when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing trees made one feel that one, stood in an embowered temple of gold. The newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into its grayness. He looked round and round.

      “I thought it would be dead,” he said.

      “Mary thought so at first,” said Colin. “But it came alive.”

      Then they sat down under their 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.

      A LITTLE PRINCESS

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