nd Soot and Nut and Shell and the
pony whose name was Jump. Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon
to see Jump. He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks
hanging over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet
nose. He was rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough
and wiry as if the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel
springs. He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment he saw
Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his head across his
shoulder and then Dickon had talked into his ear and Jump had talked
back in odd little whinnies and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him
give Mary his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with his
velvet muzzle.

"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?" Colin asked.

"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says anything will
understand if you're friends with it for sure, but you have to be
friends for sure."

Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be
staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking.

"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last, "but I'm not. I
never had anything to be friends with, and I can't bear people."

"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary.

"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's funny but I even like you."

"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary. "He said he'd
warrant we'd both got the same nasty tempers. I think you are like him
too. We are all three alike--you and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said
we were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.
But I don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin and
Dickon."

"Did you feel as if you hated people?"

"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation. "I should have detested
you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon."

Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.

"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about sending Dickon
away. I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at
you but--but perhaps he is."

"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly, "because
his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have
patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but--but if an
angel did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor--if there was a
Yorkshire angel--I believe he'd understand the green things and know
how to make them grow and he would know how to talk