en in a church myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon.
I want to hear it."

Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it. He understood what
Colin felt better than Colin did himself. He understood by a sort of
instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding. He
pulled off his cap and looked round still smiling.

"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha',
Ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows."

Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair
as he watched Dickon intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his
knees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look
on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this
remarkable thing.

Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes and began to sing in
quite a simple matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice:

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen."

When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with
his jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on
Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative.

"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it. Perhaps it means just
what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic."
He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. "Perhaps they are both the
same thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it
again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It's my
song. How does it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?"

And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as
musically as they could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and
beautiful--and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared
his throat and at the third line he joined in with such vigor that it
seemed almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed
that the very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he
found out that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he
was staring and winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet.

"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I
may change my mind i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound this
week Mester Colin--five on 'em!"

Colin was looki