Colin stands up for the first time

Colin Craven's first act of standing upright is not a quiet, gradual triumph but a sudden, furious rebellion born of insult and pride. For ten years he had been confined to his room or his wheelchair, convinced by whispered fears and his own obsessive dread that he was a hunchback doomed to die. The moment arrives in the secret garden, when Ben Weatherstaff, peering over the wall, blurts out the very accusation Colin has always dreaded: "tha'rt th' poor cripple." The words strike like a physical blow, and Colin's response is instantaneous and volcanic.

The Confrontation

Ben Weatherstaff's gnarled face appears above the wall, his red old eyes fixed on the boy in the wheelchair. He has just discovered the children in the forbidden garden and is shaking his fist at Mary, but when Colin imperiously demands, "Do you know who I am?" and commands an answer, Ben's gaze shifts. He stares as if seeing a ghost, then speaks 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" detonates something in Colin. His face flushes scarlet and he sits bolt upright, crying out furiously, "I'm not a cripple! I'm not!" Mary, standing below, shouts up in fierce indignation that she has looked and there is no lump on his back—not one. Ben, still staring, presses further: "Tha'—tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" Colin shouts "No!" Then Ben's voice drops, more hoarse and terrible: "Tha'—tha' hasn't got crooked legs?"

The Act of Standing

This final question is too much. The strength Colin usually threw into his hysterical tantrums now rushes through him in a new channel. His anger and insulted pride make him forget everything but this single moment, filling him with a power he has never known. He shouts to Dickon to come, and begins tearing the coverings off his lower limbs, disentangling himself from the rugs. Dickon is by his side in a second. Mary catches her breath, pale, and under her breath she gabbles over and over: "He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" There is a brief fierce scramble, the rugs tossed on the ground, Dickon holding Colin's arm, and then the thin legs are out, the thin feet are on the grass. Colin is standing upright—upright—as straight as an arrow, looking strangely tall, his head thrown back and his strange eyes flashing lightning. He flings up at Ben Weatherstaff: "Look at me! Just look at me—you! Just look at me!" Dickon cries out, "He's as straight as I am! He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!"

The Aftermath

Ben Weatherstaff's reaction is queer beyond measure. He chokes and gulps, and suddenly tears run down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he strikes his old hands together. "Eh!" he bursts 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!" Colin, still standing, declares himself Ben's master and commands him to keep the garden's secret. Then, with Dickon's strong arm still holding him but without faltering, he walks to a tree and stands against it, waiting for Ben to come through the door. When Ben arrives, Colin commands him again: "Look at me! Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?" Ben answers with dry exultation that he is not, and that he has too much pluck to die. Colin then takes up Mary's trowel and, for the first time, digs in the earth, planting a rose as the sun slips over the edge of the garden wall. He stands on his two feet, laughing, as the strange lovely afternoon ends. This single act of standing, born from rage and sustained by will, transforms Colin from a hysterical invalid into a boy who believes he can live, and it becomes the foundation of his entire recovery.