Colin walks in the garden

Colin Craven's first walk in the secret garden is the climactic physical and psychological breakthrough of his transformation from a bedridden, hysterical invalid into a boy who stands, walks, and declares he will live forever. The event, which occurs on the same afternoon he first enters the garden, shatters a decade of fear, secrecy, and self-imposed paralysis, and it is triggered not by a doctor's prescription but by the shock of being seen and misjudged by Ben Weatherstaff. The walk is both a literal act of locomotion and a symbolic crossing from death-in-life into vigorous, embodied existence.

The Challenge and the Provocation

Colin had been pushed into the secret garden in his wheelchair, and after a long afternoon of watching the spring growth, he was lying against his cushions when he suddenly saw Ben Weatherstaff's face glaring over the wall from the top of a ladder. Ben, who had discovered the children inside the forbidden garden, shook his fist at Mary and then, turning to Colin, said in a queer shaky voice, "Who tha' art? Aye, that I do—wi' tha' mother's eyes starin' at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how tha' come here. But tha'rt th' poor cripple." The word "cripple" struck Colin like a physical blow. He forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and he sat bolt upright, crying out furiously, "I'm not a cripple! I'm not!" Mary, shouting up the wall in fierce indignation, backed him: "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there was none there—not one!" Ben, passing his hand over his forehead, asked hoarsely, "Tha'—tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" and then, even more shakily, "Tha'—tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" This accusation of crooked legs—something Colin had never been accused of even in whispers—was more than he could endure. His anger and insulted pride made him forget everything but this one moment and filled him with a power he had never known before, an almost unnatural strength.

The Act of Standing

Colin shouted to Dickon, "Come here!" and began tearing the coverings off his lower limbs and disentangling himself. Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short gasp and felt herself turn pale, gabbling under her breath, "He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" There was a brief fierce scramble; the rugs were tossed on the ground, Dickon held Colin's arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet were on the grass. Colin was standing upright—upright—as straight as an arrow and looking strangely tall, his head thrown back and his strange eyes flashing lightning. He flung up at Ben Weatherstaff, "Look at me! Just look at me—you! Just look at me!" Dickon cried, "He's as straight as I am! He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!" Ben Weatherstaff choked and gulped, and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he struck his old hands together. "Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee. Tha'lt make a mon yet. God bless thee!"

The First Walk

After Ben had gone to fetch a rose plant, Colin declared he would walk to a tree a few feet away. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit down, but not before." He walked to the tree, and though Dickon held his arm, he was wonderfully steady. When he stood against the tree trunk, it was not too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight that he looked tall. When Ben Weatherstaff returned through the door in the wall, he saw Colin standing there, and Mary was muttering under her breath, "You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You can do it! You can!" She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him on his feet. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. Colin fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way and commanded, "Look at me! Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?" Ben answered, "Not tha'. Nowt o' th' sort." Colin then sat down on a rug under the tree, but soon after, he took up Mary's trowel and began to dig. He drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some over, persevering until he had turned a few trowelfuls. 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, his mouth falling open, ended by chuckling and said, "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." Colin, digging excitedly, said, "Go and get it! Quick! Quick!" Ben went, forgetting his rheumatics. Dickon deepened the hole with his spade, and Mary brought a watering-can. When Ben returned with the rose in its pot, 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." Colin's thin white hands shook a little and his flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. "It's planted!" Colin said at last. "And the sun is only slipping over the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes. That's part of the Magic." Dickon helped him, and the Magic—or whatever it was—so gave him strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange lovely afternoon, there he actually stood on his two feet—laughing.

Consequences and Significance

Colin's first walk and his planting of the rose constitute the irreversible proof that his recovery is real. The act of standing and walking, which he had believed impossible, is accomplished in a single afternoon, driven by indignation and the support of his new friends. From this moment, Colin's identity shifts: he is no longer the "poor cripple" or the hysterical boy who expects to die, but a boy who can dig, plant, and stand on his own feet. The walk also cements the secret garden as the site of his transformation and binds Ben Weatherstaff into the conspiracy of secrecy. Colin's declaration that he will "live forever and ever and ever," which he makes later that same afternoon, is grounded in this first physical triumph. The event also sets in motion the final act of the story: Colin's determination to keep his recovery secret until he can reveal it to his father, and his daily practice of walking and exercising in the garden, which leads to his full restoration and the climactic reunion with Archibald Craven.