before him as if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and gazed and
gulped a lump down his throat and did not say a word.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously. "Answer!"

Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes and
over his forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice.

"Who tha' art?" he said. "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."

Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and
he sat bolt upright.

"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!"

"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce
indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there
was none there--not one!"

Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if
he could never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth shook and his
voice shook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and he
could only remember the things he had heard.

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely.

"No!" shouted Colin.

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet.

It was too much. The strength which Colin usually threw into his
tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been
accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly simple
belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff's voice
was more than Rajah flesh and blood 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.

"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the
coverings off his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come here! Come
here! This minute!"

Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short
gasp and felt herself turn pale.

"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled over to
herself under her breath as fast as ever she could.

There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on to 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.

"Look at me!" he flung up at Ben Weathersta