Colin and Mr. Craven reunion

The reunion of Archibald Craven and his son Colin Craven in the secret garden is the climactic resolution of the novel's long arc of grief, isolation, and restoration. After ten years of avoiding his son and wandering the continent in a state of emotional paralysis, Mr. Craven returns to Misselthwaite Manor following a mysterious dream and a letter from Susan Sowerby. The meeting, which takes place not in the gloomy house but in the garden that had been sealed since his wife's death, transforms both father and son and fulfills the promise of the Magic that Colin, Mary Lennox, and Dickon Sowerby have cultivated.

Mr. Craven's Return and the Dream

Mr. Craven had been traveling through the Norwegian fiords and the mountains of Switzerland, filling his mind with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had wandered by blue lakes and lain on mountain-sides covered with deep blue gentians, yet the beauty never touched him. A change began one day in a valley in the Austrian Tyrol, where he sat by a clear stream and found himself looking tenderly at a mass of blue forget-me-nots. He felt something unbound and released in him, and whispered, "I almost feel as if—I were alive!" That same day, unknown to him, Colin had cried out in the secret garden, "I am going to live forever and ever and ever!" The singular calmness did not last, but it returned in fragments. Later, at the Lake of Como, he fell asleep on a terrace and dreamed he heard a voice calling, "Archie! Archie!" He answered, "Lilias! Lilias!" and the voice replied, "In the garden! In the garden!" When he awoke, he found a letter from Susan Sowerby urging him to come home. He read it twice and decided, "I will go back to Misselthwaite."

The Moment of Meeting

Mr. Craven arrived at the Manor and, after a confused report from Mrs. Medlock about Colin's strange improvement, walked alone through the shrubbery and the Long Walk toward the ivied wall. He knew where the door was, though the ivy hung thick over it. As he stood still, he heard sounds from inside the garden: running scuffling feet, lowered voices, exclamations, and smothered joyous cries. Then the door was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through at full speed, dashing almost into his arms. Mr. Craven extended his hands just in time to save him from falling. When he held the boy away to look at him, he gasped for breath. The boy was tall and handsome, glowing with life, with splendid color leaping to his face from running. He threw thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes full of boyish laughter, rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes that made Mr. Craven gasp. "Who—What? Who!" he stammered.

Colin's Declaration and the Walk into the House

Colin drew himself up to his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him, believed he managed to look inches taller than ever before. "Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can myself. I'm Colin." Mr. Craven, still stunned, said hurriedly, "In the garden! In the garden!" Colin explained that the garden had done it, along with Mary and Dickon and the creatures and the Magic. He declared, "I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going to be an athlete." Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still, unable to speak for a moment. Then he said, "Take me into the garden, my boy. And tell me all about it." They led him in. The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet, with sheaves of late lilies and late roses climbing and hanging and clustering. Mr. Craven stood silent, looking round and round. "I thought it would be dead," he said. "Mary thought so at first," said Colin, "but it came alive." They sat down under their tree, and Colin told the whole story—the mystery, the Magic, the wild creatures, the midnight meeting, the coming of the spring, the passion of insulted pride that had dragged him to his feet to defy Ben Weatherstaff. Mr. Craven laughed until tears came into his eyes, and sometimes tears came when he was not laughing. At the end, Colin announced, "Now it need not be a secret any more. I shall walk back with you, Father—to the house." And so they walked across the lawn together, the Master of Misselthwaite and his son, walking as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire.