Four-Mark

When he opened his eyes in the morning it was because a young manservant had come into his room to light the fire and was kneeling on the hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Toby lay and watched him for a few moments and then began to look about the room. He had never seen a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies. Toby felt as if he were in the forest with them. Out of a deep window he could see a great climbing stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea.

"What is that?" he said, pointing out of the window.

Mark, the young manservant, who had just risen to his feet, looked and pointed also. "That there?" he said.

"Yes."

"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?"

"No," answered Toby. "I hate it."

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Mark said, going back to his hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will like it."

"Do you?" inquired Toby.

 "Aye, that I do," answered Mark, cheerfully polishing away at the grate. "I just love it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin' things as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse an' broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a lot o' fresh air--an' th' sky looks so high an' th' bees an' skylarks makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away from th' moor for anythin'."

Toby listened to him with a grave, puzzled expression. The servants he had been used to in Antarctica were not in the least like this. They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were their equals. They made bows and called them "protector of the poor" and names of that sort. The servants were commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the way to say "please" and "thank you" and Toby had always slapped his nurse in the face when he was angry. He wondered a little what this boy would do if one slapped him in the face. He was a round, rosy, good-natured-looking creature, but he had a sturdy way which made Master Toby wonder if he might not even slap back--if the person who slapped him was only a little boy.

"You are a strange servant," he said from his pillows, rather haughtily.

Toby sat up on his heels, with his blackingbrush in his hand, and laughed, without seeming the least out of temper.

"Eh! I know that," he said. "If there was a grand Master at Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under servants. I might have been let to be stable boy but I'd never have been let upstairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor Mistress except Miss. Pitcher an' Mr. Medlock. Mrs. Craven, she won't be troubled about anythin' when she's here, an' she's nearly always away. Mr. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. He told me he could never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses."

"Are you going to be my servant?" Toby asked, still in his imperious little Prince way.

 Mark began to rub his grate again.

"I'm Mr. Medlock's servant," he said stoutly. "An' he's Mrs. Craven's--but I'm to do the servant's work up here an' wait on you a bit. But you won't need much waitin' on."

"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Toby.

Mark sat up on his heels again and stared. He spoke in broad Yorkshire in his amazement.

"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" he said.

"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Toby.

"Eh! I forgot," Mark said. "Mr. Medlock told me I'd have to be careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put on your own clothes?"

"No," answered Toby, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My nurse dressed me, of course."

"Well," said Mark, evidently not in the least aware that he was impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My father always said he couldn't see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair fools--what with nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was puppies!"

"It is different in Antarctica," said Master Toby disdainfully. He could scarcely stand this.

But Mark was not at all crushed.

"Eh! I can see it's different," he answered almost sympathetically.  When I heard you was comin' from Antarctica I thought you was a black too."

Toby sat up in bed furious.

"What!" he said. "What! You thought I was one of the black servants. You--you jerk!"

Mark stared and looked hot.

 "Who are you callin' names?" he said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young man to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointingly, "no more black than me--for all you're so pale."

Toby did not even try to control his rage and humiliation. "You thought I was a servant! You dared! You don't know anything!  They are not people--they're servants who must bow to you. You know nothing about Antarctica. You know nothing about anything!"

He was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the boy's simple stare, and somehow he suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away from everything he understood and which understood him, that he threw himself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. He sobbed so unrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Mark was a little frightened and quite sorry for him. He went to the bed and bent over him.

 "Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" he begged. "You mustn't for sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Sir. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in his queer Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Toby. He gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Toby looked relieved.

"It's time for thee to get up now," he said. "Mr. Medlock said I was to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' cannot button them up tha'self."

When Toby at last decided to get up, the clothes Mark took from the wardrobe were not the ones he had worn when he arrived the night before with Mr. Medlock.

"Those are not mine," he said. "Mine are black."

He looked the thick white wool coat and pants over, and added with cool approval:

"Those are nicer than mine."

"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Mark answered. "Mrs. Craven ordered Mr. Medlock to get 'em in London. She said 'I won't have a child dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' she said. 'It'd make the place sadder than it is. Put color on him.' Father he said he knew what she meant. Father always knows what a body means. He doesn't hold with black himsel'."

"I hate black things," said Toby.

 The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Mark had "buttoned up" his little sisters and brothers but he had never seen a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for him as if he had neither hands nor feet of his own.

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" he said when Toby quietly held out his foot.

"My nurse did it," answered Toby, staring. "It was the way."

He said that very often--"It was the way." The  servants were always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not the way" and one knew that was the end of the matter.

It had not been the way that Master Toby should do anything but stand and allow himself to be dressed like a doll, but before he was ready for breakfast he began to suspect that his life at Misselthwaite Manor would end by teaching him a number of things quite new to him--things such as putting on his own shoes and stockings, and picking up things he let fall. If Mark had been a well-trained fine young man's servant he would have been more subservient and respectful and would have known that it was his business to button boots, and pick things up and lay them away. He was, however, only an untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about and tumble over things.

 If Toby Drake had been a child who was ready to be amused he would perhaps have laughed at Mark's readiness to talk, but Toby only listened to him coldly and wondered at his freedom of manner. At first he was not at all interested, but gradually, as the boy rattled on in his good-tempered, homely way, Toby began to notice what he was saying.

"Eh! you should see 'em all," he said. "There's twelve of us an' my mother only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my father's put to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an' play there all day an' father says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. He says he believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do. Our Destiny , she's twelve years old and she's got a young pony she calls her own."

"Where did she get it?" asked Toby.

"She found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' she began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it. And it got to like her so it follows her about an' it lets her get on its back. Destiny's a kind lassie an' animals likes her."

 Toby had never possessed an animal pet of his own and had always thought he should like one. So he began to feel a slight interest in Destiny, and as he had never before been interested in any one but himself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When he went into the room which had been made into a nursery for him, he found that it was rather like the one he had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast. But he had always had a very small appetite, and he looked with something more than indifference at the first plate Mark set before him.

"I don't want it," he said.

"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Mark exclaimed incredulously.

"No."

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit o' sugar."

"I don't want it," repeated Toby.

"Eh!" said Mark. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes."

"Why?" said Toby coldly.

"Why!" echoed Mark. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes."

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Toby, with the indifference of ignorance.

Mark looked indignant.

"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," he said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Destiny and Phil an' Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores."

 "Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Toby.

"It's not mine," answered Mark stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean up for father an' give him a day's rest."

Toby drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Mark. "It'll do you good and give you some stomach for your meat."

Toby went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry.

"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?"

"Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' got to do?"

Toby glanced about him. There was nothing to do. When Mr. Medlock had prepared the nursery he had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be better to go and see what the gardens were like.

"Who will go with me?" he inquired.

Mark stared.

"You'll go by yourself," he answered. "You'll have to learn to play like other children does when they haven't got sisters and brothers. Our Destiny goes off on th' moor by herself an' plays for hours. That's how she made friends with th' pony. She's got sheep on th' moor that knows her, an' birds as comes an' eats out of her hand. However little there is to eat, she always saves a bit o' her bread to coax her pets."

 It was really this mention of Destiny which made Toby decide to go out, though he was not aware of it. There would be, birds outside though there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the birds in Antarctica and it might amuse him to look at them.

Mark found his coat and hat for him and a pair of stout little boots and he showed him his way downstairs.

"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," he said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. "There's lots o' flowers in summer-time, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." He seemed to hesitate a second before he added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years."

"Why?" asked Toby in spite of himself. Here was another locked door added to the hundred in the strange house.

"Mrs. Craven had it shut when her husband died so sudden. She won't let no one go inside. It was his garden. She locked th' door an' dug a hole and buried th' key. There's Mr. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run."

After he was gone Toby turned down the walk which led to the door in the shrubbery. He could not help thinking about the garden which no one had been into for ten years. He wondered what it would look like and whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When he had passed through the shrubbery gate he found himself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and a large pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not the garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You could always walk into a garden.

 He was just thinking this when he saw that, at the end of the path he was following, there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing over it. He was not familiar enough with England to know that he was coming upon the kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing. He went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the ivy, and that it stood open. This was not the closed garden, evidently, and he could go into it.

He went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all round it and that it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed to open into one another. He saw another open green door, revealing bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables. Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall, and over some of the beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly enough, Toby thought, as he stood and stared about him. It might be nicer in summer when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about it now.

Presently an old woman with a spade over her shoulder walked through the door leading from the second garden. She looked startled when she saw Toby, and then touched her cap. She had a surly old face, and did not seem at all pleased to see him--but then he was displeased with her garden and wore his "quite contrary" expression, and certainly did not seem at all pleased to see her.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," she answered.

"What is that?" said Toby, pointing through the other green door.

 "Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that."

"Can I go in them?" asked Toby.

"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see."

Toby made no response. He went down the path and through the second green door. There, he found more walls and winter vegetables and glass frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for ten years. As he was not at all a timid child and always did what he wanted to do, Toby went to the green door and turned the handle. He hoped the door would not open because he wanted to be sure he had found the mysterious garden--but it did open quite easily and he walked through it and found himself in an orchard. There were walls all round it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-trees growing in the winter-browned grass--but there was no green door to be seen anywhere. Toby looked for it, and yet when he had entered the upper end of the garden he had noticed that the wall did not seem to end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place at the other side. He could see the tops of trees above the wall, and when he stood still he saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter song--almost as if he had caught sight of him and was calling to him.

 He stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave him a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little boy may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but himself. If he had been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, he would have broken his heart, but even though he was "Master Toby Quite Contrary" he was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought a look into his sour little face which was almost a smile. He listened to him until he flew away. He was not like an Antarctica bird and he liked him and wondered if he should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew all about it.

Perhaps it was because he had nothing whatever to do that he thought so much of the deserted garden. He was curious about it and wanted to see what it was like. Why had Mrs. Amelia Craven buried the key? If she had liked her husband so much why did she hate his garden? He wondered if he should ever see her, but he knew that if he did he should not like her, and she would not like him, and that he should only stand and stare at her and say nothing, though he should be wanting dreadfully to ask her why she had done such a queer thing.

"People never like me and I never like people," he thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises."

 He thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at him, and as he remembered the tree-top he perched on he stopped rather suddenly on the path.

"I believe that tree was in the secret garden--I feel sure it was," he said. "There was a wall round the place and there was no door."

He walked back into the first kitchen-garden he had entered and found the old woman digging there. He went and stood beside her and watched her a few moments in his cold little way. She took no notice of him and so at last he spoke to her.

"I have been into the other gardens," he said.

"There was nothin' to prevent thee," she answered crustily.

"I went into the orchard."

"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," she answered.

"There was no door there into the other garden," said Toby.

"What garden?" she said in a rough voice, stopping her digging for a moment.

"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Master Toby. "There are trees there--I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red breast was sitting on one of them and he sang."

To his surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed its expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite different. It made him think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when she smiled. He had not thought of it before.

 She turned about to the orchard side of her garden and began to whistle--a low soft whistle. He could not understand how such a surly woman could make such a coaxing sound. Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. He heard a soft little rushing flight through the air--and it was the bird with the red breast flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth quite near to the gardener's foot.

"Here he is," chuckled the old woman, and then she spoke to the bird as if she were speaking to a child.

"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" she said. "I've not seen thee before today. Has tha, begun tha' courtin' this early in th' season? Tha'rt too forrad."

The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at her with his soft bright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly, looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Toby a queer feeling in his heart, because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and slender delicate legs.

"Will he always come when you call him?" he asked almost in a whisper.

"Aye, that he will. I've knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He come out of th' nest in th' other garden an' when first he flew over th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got friendly. When he went over th' wall again th' rest of th' brood was gone an' he was lonely an' he come back to me."

"What kind of a bird is he?" Toby asked.

 "Doesn't tha' know? He's a robin redbreast an' they're th' friendliest, curiousest birds alive. They're almost as friendly as dogs--if you know how to get on with 'em. Watch him peckin' about there an' lookin' round at us now an' again. He knows we're talkin' about him."

It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old woman. She looked at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if she were both proud and fond of him.

"He's a conceited one," she chuckled. "He likes to hear folk talk about him. An' curious--bless me, there never was his like for curiosity an' meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what I'm plantin'. He knows all th' things Mistress Craven never troubles hersel' to find out. She's th' head gardener, she is."

The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped and looked at them a little. Toby thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed at him with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out all about him. The queer feeling in his heart increased. "Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" he asked.

"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make 'em fly an' they're scattered before you know it. This one was a knowin' one an, he knew he was lonely."

 Master Toby went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very hard.

"I'm lonely," he said.

He had not known before that this was one of the things which made him feel sour and cross. He seemed to find it out when the robin looked at him and he looked at the robin.

The old gardener pushed her cap back on her head and stared at him a minute.

"Art tha' th' little lad from Antarctica?" she asked.

Toby nodded.

"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonlier before tha's done," she said.

She began to dig again, driving her spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

"What is your name?" Toby inquired.

She stood up to answer him.

"Beth Weatherstaff," she answered, and then she added with a surly chuckle, "I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and she jerked her thumb toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Toby. "I never had. My nurse didn't like me and I never played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and old Beth Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor woman.

"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," she said. "We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant."

 This was plain speaking, and Toby Drake had never heard the truth about himself in his life. The servants always bow and submitted to you, whatever you did. He had never thought much about his looks, but he wondered if he was as unattractive as Beth Weatherstaff and he also wondered if he looked as sour as she had looked before the robin came. He actually began to wonder also if he was "nasty tempered." He felt uncomfortable.

Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near him and he turned round. He was standing a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a song. Beth Weatherstaff laughed outright.

"What did he do that for?" asked Toby.

"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Beth. "Dang me if he hasn't took a fancy to thee."

"To me?" said Toby, and he moved toward the little tree softly and looked up.

"Would you make friends with me?" he said to the robin just as if he was speaking to a person. "Would you?" And he did not say it either in his hard little voice or in her imperious Prince voice, but in a tone so soft and eager and coaxing that Beth Weatherstaff was as surprised as he had been when he heard her whistle.

 "Why," she cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a real child instead of a sharp old man. Tha' said it almost like Destiny talks to her wild things on th' moor."

"Do you know Destiny?" Toby asked, turning round rather in a hurry.

"Everybody knows her. Destiny's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very blackberries an' heather-bells knows her. I warrant th' foxes shows her where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from her."

Toby would have liked to ask some more questions. He was almost as curious about Destiny as he was about the deserted garden. But just that moment the robin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his wings, spread them and flew away. He had made his visit and had other things to do.

"He has flown over the wall!" Toby cried out, watching him. "He has flown into the orchard--he has flown across the other wall--into the garden where there is no door!"

"He lives there," said old Beth. "He came out o' th' egg there. If he's courtin', he's makin' up to some young madam of a robin that lives among th' old rose-trees there."

"Rose-trees," said Toby. "Are there rose-trees?"

Beth Weatherstaff took up her spade again and began to dig.

"There was ten year' ago," she mumbled.

 "I should like to see them," said Toby. "Where is the green door? There must be a door somewhere."

Beth drove her spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as she had looked when he first saw her.

"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," she said.

 "No door!" cried Toby. "There must be."

"None as any one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't you be a meddlesome lad an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go. Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an' play you. I've no more time."

And she actually stopped digging, threw her spade over her shoulder and walked off, without even glancing at him or saying good-by.