The trip to the secret garden had to be postponed for a week.
First the weather was windy.
Then Colin seemed to be coming down with a cold.
In the old days, these two events would have thrown him into a rage.
But Mary visited him every day, and Dickon also came in a few times.
Dickon described what was happening on the moor and in the hedges and on the riverbanks.
Colin almost trembled with excitement when Dickon told him about otter houses and bird nests and rabbit burrows.
"The animals are really just like us," Dickon said, "except they have to build their houses every year."
As each day passed, Colin seemed to grow more excited about the mystery surrounding the secret garden.
The children did not want anyone to see them when they finally took him there.
They had long talks, planning which paths they would take.
They wanted everyone to think that they were just looking at the new flowers.
One day Colin summoned the head gardener to his room.
Mr. Roach was startled when he opened the door.
A crow announced his arrival with a loud caw!
Colin was sitting up in a chair, watching Dickon feed a lamb with a bottle.
"I sent for you," said Colin, "to give you some very important orders."
"Very good, sir." Mr. Roach smiled to himself at Colin's royal manners.
"I am going out in my wheelchair this afternoon," Colin went on.
"If the fresh air agrees with me, I may go out every day.
When I do, none of the gardeners is to be anywhere near the long path by the walled gardens.
I will go out about two o'clock, and everyone must keep away until I send word that they may go back to work."
"Very good, sir," Mr. Roach said again.
Colin turned to Mary.
"What is that thing you say in India when you have finished talking?"
"You say, 'You have my permission to go.'"
Colin, the rajah, waved his hand.
"You have my permission to go," he said to Mr. Roach.
That afternoon the strongest footman carried Colin downstairs.
The servant put Colin in his wheelchair and fixed his cushions and blankets around him.
Dickon began to push the wheelchair slowly and steadily.
Mary walked beside it. Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the sky.
"There are so many sounds of singing and humming," he said.
"What is that sweet scent I smell on every puff of air?"
"It's the flowers on the moor," said Dickon.
It turned out that the children didn't have to worry about seeing anyone.
Not a single human creature was to be found anywhere near the gardens.
But they followed their carefully planned route anyway, just for the fun of it.
They wound in and out among the shrubbery and around the flower beds.
When they finally reached the long path by the walled gardens, they began to speak in whispers.
"This is where I used to walk up and down and wonder about the secret garden," said Mary.
"Is it?" Colin began to search the ivy for signs of the door.
"But I don't see anything. There is no door."
"That's what I thought," said Mary.
They walked on in silence.
"This is where the robin flew over the wall," Mary whispered.
"Oh, I wish he'd come again!"
"And that," said Mary, pointing under a bush, "is where he perched on the heap of dirt and showed me the key."
Colin suddenly sat up. "Where? There?" He pointed.
Dickon stopped the wheelchair.
"And this," said Mary, "is where I went to talk to him, and where the wind blew aside the curtain of ivy.
And here is the door. Dickon, push him in quickly!"
Dickon did just that with one strong push.
Colin leaned back against his cushions.
He covered his eyes with his hands until they were inside and the door shut behind them.
Then he dropped his hands.
He looked around the garden just as Mary and Dickon had done the first time they were inside.
A green veil of little leaves had crept over the walls and trees.
Everywhere on the ground there were touches of gold and purple and white.
The trees were showing their pink and white blossoms above Colin's head.
He could hear the fluttering of wings and the singing of birds and the humming of bees.
The sun felt warm on his face.
Mary and Dickon stood and stared at Colin.
He looked so different because a pink glow of color had crept all over his pale face and hands.
"I will get well!" Colin cried.
"Mary! Dickon! I will get well! And I will live forever and ever and ever!"