He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They had come upon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange and gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them.
“You never kiss a person in that way,” she said when she lifted her head. “Flowers are so different.”
He looked puzzled but smiled.
“Eh!” he said, “I’ve kissed mother many a time that way when I come in from th’ moor after a day’s roamin’ an’ she stood there at th’ door in th’ sun, lookin’ so glad an’ comfortable.”
They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many wonders that they were obliged to remind themselves that they must whisper or speak low. He showed her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which had seemed dead. He showed her ten thousand new green points pushing through the mould. They put their eager young noses close to the earth and sniffed its warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary’s hair was as tumbled as Dickon’s and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.
There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted through the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak. Dickon stood quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly found themselves laughing in a church.
“We munnot stir,” he whispered in broad Yorkshire. “We munnot scarce breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin’ when I seed him last. It’s Ben Weatherstaff’s robin. He’s buildin’ his nest. He’ll stay here if us don’t flight him.”
They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.
“Us mustn’t seem as if us was watchin’ him too close,” said Dickon. “He’d be out with us for good if he got th’ notion us was interferin’ now. He’ll be a good bit different till all this is over. He’s settin’ up housekeepin’. He’ll be shyer an’ readier to take things ill. He’s got no time for visitin’ an’ gossipin’. Us must keep still a bit an’ try to look as if us was grass an’ trees an’ bushes. Then when he’s got used to seein’ us I’ll chirp a bit an’ he’ll know us’ll not be in his way.”
Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, how to try to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it was possible for him to quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could.