the top of a ladder!
He actually shook his fist at Mary.

"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd
give thee a hidin'!"

He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his energetic
intention to jump down and deal with her; but as she came toward him he
evidently thought better of it and stood on the top step of his ladder
shaking his fist down at her.

"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th'
first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced young besom,
allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it wasna, wanted. I
never knowed how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it hadna' been for th'
robin-- Drat him--"

"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood
below him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff,
it was the robin who showed me the way!"

Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of
the wall, he was so outraged.

"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha' badness on a
robin--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him showin' thee
th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"--she could see his next words burst
out because he was overpowered by curiosity--"however i' this world did
tha' get in?"

"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately.
"He didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell you from
here while you're shaking your fist at me."

He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his
jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw
coming over the grass toward him.

At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised
that he had only sat up and listened as if he were spellbound. But in
the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to
Dickon.

"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop
right in front of him!"

And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which
made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes
which came toward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach
because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal command in his great
black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended haughtily toward him.
And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose. It was really no
wonder his mouth dropped open.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Ra