rowel. Colin
stretched out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his
face and he began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak
enough but presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless
interest--he drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some
over.

"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you
can!"

Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a
word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.

Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he
spoke exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.

"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an'
tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please
me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an' here I am diggin'."

Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he
ended by chuckling.

"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a
Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to
plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot."

"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!"

It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way
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 ch