forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper
and wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary
slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had
deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and over.
He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new
exercise, slight as it was.
I want to do it before the sun goes quite quite down, he said.
Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on
purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the
greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun
to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from
the mould.
Here, lad, he said, handing the plant to Colin. Set it in the earth
thysel same as th king does when he goes to a new place.
The thin white hands shook a little and Colin s flush grew deeper as he
set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the
earth. It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was
leaning forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched
forward to see what was being done. Nut and Shell chattered about it
from a cherry-tree.
It s planted! said Colin at last. And the sun is only slipping over
the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes.
That s part of the Magic.
And Dickon helped him, and the Magic or whatever it was so gave him
strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange
lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two
feet laughing.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MAGIC
186