"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered.
"Us used to wonder what it was like."

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and
his round eyes looked queerly happy.

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th'
safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles
o' trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor
don't build here."

Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps
they were all dead."

"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!"

He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen
all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and
branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of
its blades.

"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An'
there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's
a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead
of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive quite?"

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha
had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."

"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all
to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones
there are."

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was.
They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his
knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived
on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an'
growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he
pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might think this
was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut
it low down an' see."

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through,
not far above the earth.

"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee so. There's green in that
wood yet. Look at it."

Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.

"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that