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Updated: June 23, 2025
"I never knows when I shall see thee or which side tha'll come from." "He's friends with me now," said Mary. "That's like him," snapped Ben Weatherstaff. "Makin' up to th' women folk just for vanity an' flightiness. There's nothin' he wouldn't do for th' sake o' showin' off an' flirtin' his tail-feathers. He's as full o' pride as an egg's full o' meat."
Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon! And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?" "Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!" "If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment succeeds.
He was very pert and lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question. "Do you think he remembers me?" she said. "Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every cabbage stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people.
Every few yards it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all the time and he looked very grand. "The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I can feel it! I can feel it!"
He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose. "Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th' other four?" "Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff." Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his arm over his mouth.
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.
They used to make wrinkles. There's the robin, Ben Weatherstaff." There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever. His red waistcoat was as glossy as satin and he flirted his wings and tail and tilted his head and hopped about with all sorts of lively graces. He seemed determined to make Ben Weatherstaff admire him. But Ben was sarcastic. "Aye, there tha' art!" he said.
The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat, but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all. A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff, Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why it was so.
This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked before the robin came.
She could not bear that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way. "Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?"
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