with a new-born child.
The strongest footman in the house carried Colin downstairs and put him
in his wheeled chair near which Dickon waited outside. After the
manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand
to him and to the nurse.
You have my permission to go, he said, and they both disappeared
quickly and it must be confessed giggled when they were safely inside
the house.
Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily. Mistress
Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the
sky. The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed
like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal
blueness. The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was
strange with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin kept lifting his
thin chest to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they
which were listening listening, instead of his ears.
There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out, he
said. What is that scent the puffs of wind bring?
It s gorse on th moor that s openin out, answered Dickon. Eh! th
bees are at it wonderful today.
Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took.
In fact every gardener or gardener s lad had been witched away. But
they wound in and out among the shrubbery and out and round the
fountain beds, following their carefully planned route for the mere
mysterious pleasure of it. But when at last they turned into the Long
Walk by the ivied walls the excited sense of an approaching thrill made
them, for some curious reason they could not have explained, begin to
speak in whispers.
This is it, breathed Mary. This is where I used to walk up and down
and wonder and wonder.
Is it? cried Colin, and his eyes began to search the ivy with eager
curiousness. But I can see nothing, he whispered. There is no door.
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