Sleep Story: The Secret Garden Chapters 7 And 8

Enjoy this sleep story to help you drift off into a peaceful slumber. Tonight we read Chapters 7 and 8 of the timeless classic, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. These chapters focus on Mary exploring the gardens of the large English country house after the rainstorm in the Yorkshire Moors. This audio is perfect for children or adults who want to relax or find adventure into a great night's sleep.

Transcript

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett Chapter 7 The Key to the Garden Two days after this,

When Mary opened her eyes,

She sat upright in bed immediately and called to Martha.

Look at the moor,

Look at the moor.

The rainstorm had ended and the grey mist and clouds had been swept away in the night by the wind.

The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant,

Deep blue sky,

Arced high over the moorland.

Never,

Never had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue.

In India,

Skies were hot and blazing.

This was of a deep,

Cool blue,

Which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake.

And here and there,

High,

High in the arced blueness,

Floated small clouds of snow-white fleece.

The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary grey.

Aye,

Said Martha with a cheerful grin.

The storm's over for a bit.

It does like this at this time of year.

It goes off in a night like it was pretending it had never been here and never meant to come again.

That's because the springtime's on its way.

It's a long way off yet,

But it's coming.

I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England,

Mary said.

Aye,

No,

Said Martha,

Sitting up on her heels among her black lead brushes.

Nowt of the Sartre.

What does that mean?

Asked Mary seriously.

In India,

The natives spoke different dialects,

Which only a few people understood,

So she was not surprised when Martha used words she did not know.

Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.

There now,

She said.

I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Miss Medlock said I mustn't.

Nowt of the Sartre means nothing of the sort.

Slowly and carefully.

But it takes so long to say.

Yorkshire's the sunniest place on earth when it's sunny.

I told thee that the like the more after a bit,

Just you wait till you see the gold-colored gorse blossoms and the blossoms of the broom and the heather flowering,

All purple bells and hundreds of butterflies fluttering and bees humming and skylarks soaring up and singing.

You'll want to get out as sunrise and live that all day like Dickon does.

Could I ever get there?

Asked Mary wistfully,

Looking through the window at the far-off blue.

It was so new and big and wonderful and such a heavenly color.

I don't know,

Answered Martha,

That has never used the leg since there was born,

It seems to me,

That could have walked five mile.

It's five mile to our cottage.

I should like to see your cottage.

Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing brush and began to rub the grate again.

She was thinking about this small,

Plain face.

It did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the first morning she saw it.

It looked just a trifle like little Susan Ann's when she wanted something very much.

I'll ask my mother about it,

She said,

She's one of them that nearly always sees a way to do things.

It's my day out today and I'm going home.

Eh,

I am glad.

Miss Medlock thinks a lot of mother,

Perhaps she could talk to her.

I like your mother,

Said Mary.

I should think the did,

Agreed Martha,

Polishing away.

I've never even seen her,

Said Mary.

No,

The hasn't,

Replied Martha.

She sat on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the back of her hand as it puzzled for a moment.

Then she ended quite positively.

Well,

She's that sensible and hard working and good natured and clean that no one could help liken her whether they'd seen her or not.

When I'm going home to her on my way out,

I just jump for joy when I'm crossing the border.

I like Dickon,

Added Mary,

And I've never seen him.

Well,

Said Martha stoutly,

I've told thee that the birds likes him and the rabbits and wild sheep and ponies and the foxes themselves.

I wonder,

Staring at her reflectively,

What Dickon would think of thee.

He wouldn't like me,

Said Mary in her stiff,

Cold little way.

No one does.

Martha looked reflective again.

How does the like thyself,

She inquired,

Really quiet as if she were curious to know.

Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.

Not at all,

Really,

She answered,

But I never thought of that before.

Martha grinned a little as if as some homely recollection.

Mother said that to me once,

She said.

She was at her wash tub and I was in a bad temper and talking ill of folk,

And she turns around on me and says,

The young vixen,

The,

There the stand saying that doesn't like this one and that one.

How does the like thyself?

It made me laugh and it brought me to my senses in a minute.

She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her breakfast.

She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly.

Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the house.

She went out to the garden as quickly as possible and the first thing she did was run around and around the fountain flower garden 10 times.

She counted the times carefully and when she had finished,

She felt in better spirits.

The sunshine made the whole place look different.

The high deep blue sky,

Arched over missile weight as well as over the moor.

And she kept lifting her face and looking up into it,

Trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of the little snow white clouds and float about.

She went into the first kitchen garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other gardeners.

The change of the weather seemed to have done him good.

He spoke to her of his own accord.

Springtime's coming,

He said.

Can not the smell it?

Mary sniffed and thought she could.

I smell something nice and fresh and damp,

She said.

That's the good rich earth,

He answered,

Digging away.

It's in a good humor making ready to grow things.

It's glad when planting time comes.

It's dull in the winter when it's got no what to do.

In the flower gardens out there,

Things will be stirring down below in the dark.

The sun's warming them.

You'll see bits of green spikes sticking out of the black earth after a bit.

What will they be,

Asked Mary.

Crocuses and snowdrops and daffodilies.

Has that ever seen them?

No.

Everything is hot and wet and green after it rains in India,

Said Mary.

And I think things grow up in a night.

Well these won't grow up in a night,

Said Weatherstaff.

They'll have to wait for them.

They'll poke up a bit higher here and push out a spike,

More there,

And uncurl a leaf this day and another that.

You watch them.

I'm going to,

Answered Mary.

Very soon she heard the soft,

Rustling flight of wings again and she knew at once that the robin had come again.

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 said,

Ben Weatherstaff,

A question.

Do you think he remembers me,

She said?

He remembers these,

Said Weatherstaff,

Indignantly.

He knows every cabbage dump in the gardens,

Let alone the people.

He's never seen a little wench here before and he's bent on finding out all about thee.

That's no need to try to hide anything from him.

Are things stirring down below in the dark in the garden where he lives,

Mary inquired?

What garden?

Grunted Weatherstaff,

Becoming surly again.

The one where the old rose trees are.

She could not help asking because she wanted so much to know.

Are all the flowers dead or do some of them come again in the summer?

Are there ever any roses?

Look him,

Said Ben Weatherstaff,

Hunching his shoulders toward the robin.

He's the only one who knows.

No one else has seen inside it for ten years.

Ten years was a long time,

Mary thought.

She'd been born ten years ago.

She walked away slowly thinking.

She'd begun to like the garden just as she'd begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother.

She was beginning to like Martha too.

That seemed a good many people to like when you're not used to liking.

She thought of the robin as one of the people.

She went to her walk outside the long ivy covered wall over which she could see the treetops and the second time she walked up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her and it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter and when she looked at the bare flower bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her.

But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.

Do you remember me?

She cried out.

You do.

You are prettier than anything else in the world.

She chirped and talked and coaxed and he hopped and flirted his tail and twittered.

It was as if he were talking.

His red waist coast was like satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person a robin could be.

Mistress Mary forgot that she had ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and closer to him and bend down and talk and try to make something like robin sounds.

Oh,

To think that he should actually let her come as near to him as that.

He knew nothing in the world to make her put out her hand toward him or startled him in the least tiniest way.

He knew it because he was a real person,

Only nicer than any other person in the world.

She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flower bed was not quite bare.

It was bare of flowers because the perennial plants had been cut down for the winter rest.

But there were tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed.

And as the robin hopped about under them,

She saw him hop over a small pile of freshly turned up earth.

He stopped on it to look for a worm.

The earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole and he had scratched quite a deep hole.

Mary looked at it,

Not really knowing why the hole was there.

And as she looked,

She saw something almost buried in the newly turned soil.

It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass.

And when the robin flew up into a tree nearby,

She put out her hand and picked the ring up.

It was more than a ring,

However.

It was an old key which looked as if it had been buried a long time.

Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face as it hung from her finger.

Perhaps it has been buried ten years,

She said in a whisper.

Perhaps it is the key to the garden.

Chapter 8 The Robin Who Showed the Way She looked at the key quite a long time.

She turned it over and over and thought about it.

As I have said before,

She was not a child who had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things.

All she thought about the key was that if there was the key to the closed garden and she could find out where the door was,

She could perhaps open it and see what was inside the walls and what had happened to the old rose trees.

It was because it had been shut up so long that she wanted to see it.

It seemed as if it must be different from other places and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years.

Besides that,

If she liked it,

She could go into it every day and shut the door behind her.

And she could make up some play of her own and play it quite alone because no one would ever know where she was but would think that the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth.

The thought of it pleased her very much.

Living as it were,

All by herself in a house with a hundred mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse herself had set her inactive brain to working and was actually awakening her imagination.

There is no doubt that the fresh,

Strong,

Pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.

Just as it had given her an appetite and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood,

So the same things had stirred her mind.

In India she had always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything,

But in this place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things.

Already she felt less contrary,

Though she did not know why.

She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk.

No one but herself ever seemed to come there so she could walk slowly,

Look at the wall,

Or rather at the ivy growing on it.

The ivy was the baffling thing.

How so ever carefully she looked she could see nothing but thickly growing glossy dark green leaves.

She was very much disappointed.

Something of her contrariness came back to her as she paced the wall and looked over at the treetops inside.

It seemed so silly,

She said to herself,

To be near it and to not be able to get in.

She took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house.

And she made up her mind that she would always carry it with her when she went out so that if she ever should find the hidden door she would be ready.

Miss Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage,

But she was back at work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever and in the best of spirits.

I got up at four o'clock,

She said.

Ay,

It was pretty on the moor,

With the birds getting up and the rabbits scampering.

This way and that.

I didn't walk all the way.

A man gave me a ride in his cart and I did enjoy myself.

She was full of stories of the delights of her day out.

Her mother had been glad to see her and they had got the baking and washing all out of the way.

She had even made each of the children a dough cake with a bit of brown sugar in it.

I had them all piping hot when they came in from playing on the moor and the cottage all smelt of nice,

Clean,

Hot bacon.

And there was a good fire and they just shouted for joy.

Our Dickon,

He said,

Our cottage was good enough for a king.

In the evening they had all sat around the fire and Martha and her mother had sewed patches on torn cloths and mended stockings and Martha had told them about the little girl who had come from India and who had been waited on all her life by what Martha called blacks until she didn't know how to put on her own stockings.

Hey,

They did like to hear about you,

Said Martha.

They wanted to know all about where you came from.

I couldn't tell them enough.

Mary reflected a little.

I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out,

She said,

So that you'll have more to talk about.

I dare say that they would like to hear about riding on elephants and camels and about the officers going to tiger hunts.

My word,

Cried Delighted Martha.

It would set them clean off their heads.

Would they really do that,

Miss?

It would be same as a wild bee show like we heard they once had in York once.

India's quite different from Yorkshire,

Mary said slowly as she thought the matter over.

I never thought of that.

Did Dickon and your mother like to hear you talk about me?

Why,

Our Dickon's eyes nearly started out of his head.

They got that round,

Answered Martha.

But Mother,

She was put out about you seeming to be all by yourself.

She said,

Hasn't Miss Craven got no governess for her,

Nor no nurse?

And I said,

No,

He hasn't.

Though Miss Medlock says he will when he thinks of it.

This says he may never think of it for two to three years.

I don't want a governess,

Said Mary sharply.

So Mother says you ought to be learning your book by this time,

And you ought to have a woman to look after you,

She says.

Now Martha,

You just think how you'd fill yourself in a big old place like that,

Wandering about all alone and no Mother.

You'd do your best to cheer her up,

She says.

And I said I would.

Mary gave her a long,

Steady look.

You do cheer me up,

She said.

I like to hear you talk.

Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held in her hands under her apron.

What does the thing she said with a cheerful grin?

I've brought you a present.

A present,

Exclaimed Mistress Mary?

How could a cottage full of fourteen hungry people give one a present?

A man was driving across the moor peddling,

Martha explained.

And he stopped his cart at our door.

He had pots and pans and odds and ends,

But Mother had no money to buy anything.

Just as he was going away,

Our Elizabeth Ellen called out,

Mother,

He's got skipping ropes with red and blue handles.

And Mother,

She calls out quite sudden,

Here,

Stop,

Mister,

How much are they?

And he says,

Two pence.

And Mother,

She began fumbling in her pocket,

And she says to me,

Martha,

This brought me the wages like a good laugh,

And I've got four places to put every penny,

But I'm just going to take one tuppence out to buy that child a skipping rope.

And she bowed,

One,

And here it is.

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly.

It was a long,

Strong,

Slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end.

But Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping rope before.

She gazed at it with a mystified expression.

What is it for,

She asked curiously.

For,

Cried out Mary,

Does that mean that thou not been skipping ropes in India for all they've got elephants and tigers and camels?

This is what it's for,

Just watch me.

And she ran into the middle of the room,

And taking a handle in each hand,

Began to skip and skip and skip,

While Mary turned in her chair to stare at her,

And the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to stare too,

And wonder what on earth this common little cottager had the impudence to be doing under the very noses.

But Martha did not even see them.

The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face delighted her,

And she went on skipping and counting as she skipped until she reached a hundred.

I could skip longer than that,

She said when she stopped.

I've skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve,

But I wasn't as fat then as I am now,

And I was in practice.

Mary got up from her chair,

Beginning to feel excited again.

It looks nice,

She said.

Your mother is a kind woman.

Do you think I could ever skip like that?

You just try it,

Urged Martha,

Handing her the skipping rope.

You can't skip a hundred at first,

But if you practice,

You'll mount up.

That's what Mother said,

She said.

Nothing will do her more good than skipping rope.

It's the sensibillitest toy a child can have.

Let her play out in the fresh air,

Skipping,

And it'll stretch her legs and arms and give her some strength in them.

She was playing that there was not a great deal of strength in Miss Mary's arms and legs when she first began to skip.

She was not very clever at it,

But she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.

Put on the things and run and skip out of doors,

Said Martha.

Mother said,

I must tell you to keep out of doors as much as you can,

Even when it rains a bit,

So as the wrap up warm.

Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping rope over her arm.

She opened the door to go out and then suddenly thought of something and turned back rather slowly.

Martha,

She said,

They were your wages.

It was your two pence,

Really.

Thank you.

She said it stiffly because she was not used to thanking people or noticing that they had done things for her.

Thank you,

She said,

And held out her hand because she did not know what else to do.

Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake as if she was not accustomed to this sort of thing either.

Then she laughed.

Hey,

That art a queer old woman-ish thing,

She said.

If that had been our Elizabeth Ellen,

She'd given me a kiss.

Mary looked stiffer than ever.

Do you want me to kiss you?

Martha laughed again.

Nay,

Not me,

She answered.

If thou was different,

Perhaps thou would want to thyself,

But that isn't.

Come off outside and play with the rope.

Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.

Yorkshire people seemed strange,

And Martha was always rather a puzzle to her.

At first she had disliked her very much,

But now she did not.

The skipping rope was a wonderful thing.

She counted and skipped and skipped and counted until her cheeks were quite red,

And she was more interested than she'd ever been since she was born.

The sun was shining and the little wind was blowing,

Not a rough wind,

But one which came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly turned earth with it.

She skipped round the fountain garden and up one walk and down the other.

She skipped at last into the kitchen garden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin,

Which was hopping about him.

She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and looked at her with a curious expression.

She had wondered if he would notice her.

She wanted him to see her skip.

Well,

He exclaimed upon my word,

Perhaps thou art a youngin after all.

Perhaps that's got child's blood in thy veins instead of sour buttermilk.

It skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben Weatherstaff.

I wouldn't have believed it.

That could do it.

I never skipped before,

Mary said.

I'm just beginning.

I can only go up to twenty.

The keep on,

Said Ben,

The shape's well enough,

And it for a youngin that's lived with heaven.

Let's just see how he's watching thee,

Jerking his head toward the robin.

He followed after thee yesterday.

He'll be at it again today.

He'll be bound to find out what the skipping rope is.

He's never seen one,

Eh?

Shaking his head at the bird.

The curiosity will be the death of thee sometime if that doesn't look sharp.

Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard,

Resting every few minutes.

At length she went to her own special walk and made up her mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it.

It was a good long skip,

And she began slowly.

Before she had gone halfway down the path,

She was so hot and breathless that she was obliged to stop.

She did not mind much,

Because she had already counted up to thirty.

She stopped with a little laugh of pleasure,

And there,

Lo and behold,

Was the robin,

Swaying on a long branch of ivy.

He had followed her,

And he greeted her with a chirp.

As Mary had skipped toward him,

She felt something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump,

And when she saw the robin,

She laughed again.

You showed me where the key was yesterday,

She said.

You ought to show me the door today,

But I don't believe you know.

The robin flew from a swinging spray of ivy on the top of the wall,

And he opened his beak and sang a loud,

Lovely trill,

Merely to show off.

Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off,

And they are always doing it.

Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about magic in her eye of stories,

And she always said that what happened almost as the moment was magic.

One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk,

And it was a stronger one than the rest.

It was strong enough to wave the branches of the trees,

And it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging against the wall.

Mary had stepped close to the robin,

And suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails,

And more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in her hand.

As she did because she had seen something under it,

A round knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it,

It was the knob of a door.

She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside,

Thick as the ivy hung.

It nearly all was a loose and swinging curtain,

Though some had crept over wood and iron.

Mary's heart began to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement.

The robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one side as if he were as excited as she was.

What was this in her hand that was square and made of iron,

And which her fingers found a hole in?

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years,

And she put her hand in her pocket,

Drew out the key,

And found it fitted the keyhole.

She put the key in and turned it.

It took two hands to do it,

But it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if anyone was coming.

No one was coming.

No one ever did come,

It seemed,

And she took another long breath because she could not help it.

And she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly,

Slowly.

Then she slipped through it and shut it behind her and stood with her back against it,

Looking around her and breathing quite fast with excitement and wonder and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden.

And that is the end of our story this evening.

Until next time,

Sweet dreams.

Reviews

Dear Hilary, I receive great benefit from your offerings, thank you. Sending good wishes. 🌻

I never get to hear the whole chapter because I fall asleep before the end

Perfect!

Thank you so much Hilary loving you readings. X🙏🏼❤️