I m keepin secrets all th time, he said. If I couldn t keep
secrets from th other lads, secrets about foxes cubs, an birds
nests, an wild things holes, there d be naught safe on th moor. Aye,
I can keep secrets.
Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve
but she did it.
I ve stolen a garden, she said very fast. It isn t mine. It isn t
anybody s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into
it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already. I don t know.
She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life.
I don t care, I don t care! Nobody has any right to take it from me
when I care about it and they don t. They re letting it die, all shut
in by itself, she ended passionately, and she threw her arms over her
face and burst out crying poor little Mistress Mary.
Dickon s curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder.
Eh-h-h! he said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the way he
did it meant both wonder and sympathy.
I ve nothing to do, said Mary. Nothing belongs to me. I found it
myself and I got into it myself. I was only just like the robin, and
they wouldn t take it from the robin.
Where is it? asked Dickon in a dropped voice.
Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew she felt contrary
again, and obstinate, and she did not care at all. She was imperious
and Indian, and at the same time hot and sorrowful.
Come with me and I ll show you, she said.
She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew so
thickly. Dickon followed her with a queer, almost pitying, look on his
face. He felt as if he were being led to look at some strange bird s
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