MY ROBINBYFRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

ILLUSTRATEDBYALFRED BRENNAN

MY ROBIN

There came to me among the letters I received last spring one whichtouched me very closely. It was a letter full of delightful things butthe delightful thing which so reached my soul was a question. The writerhad been reading "The Secret Garden" and her question was this: "Did youown the original of the robin? He could not have been a mere creature offantasy. I feel sure you owned him. " I was thrilled to the centre of mybeing. Here was some one who plainly had been intimate with robins--English robins. I wrote and explained as far as one could in a letterwhat I am now going to relate in detail. 

I did not own the robin--he owned me--or perhaps we owned each other. He was an English robin and he was a PERSON--not a mere bird. An Englishrobin differs greatly from the American one. He is much smaller andquite differently shaped. His body is daintily round and plump, his legsare delicately slender. He is a graceful little patrician with anastonishing allurement of bearing. His eye is large and dark and dewy;he wears a tight little red satin waistcoat on his full round breast andevery tilt of his head, every flirt of his wing is instinct withdramatic significance. He is fascinatingly conceited--he burns withcuriosity--he is determined to engage in social relations at almost anycost and his raging jealousy of attention paid to less worthy objectsthan himself drives him at times to efforts to charm and distract whichare irresistible. An intimacy with a robin--an English robin--is aliberal education. 

This particular one I knew in my rose-garden in Kent. I feel sure he wasborn there and for a summer at least believed it to be the world. It wasa lovesome, mystic place, shut in partly by old red brick walls againstwhich fruit trees were trained and partly by a laurel hedge with a woodbehind it. It was my habit to sit and write there under an aged writhentree, gray with lichen and festooned with roses. The soft silence of it--the remote aloofness--were the most perfect ever dreamed of. But let menot be led astray by the garden. I must be firm and confine myself tothe Robin. The garden shall be another story. There were so many peoplein this garden--people with feathers, or fur--who, because I sat soquietly, did not mind me in the least, that it was not a surprisingthing when I looked up one summer morning to see a small bird hoppingabout the grass a yard or so away from me. The surprise was not that hewas there but that he STAYED there--or rather he continued to hop--withshort reflective-looking hops and that while hopping he looked at me--not in a furtive flighty way but rather as a person might tentativelyregard a very new acquaintance. The absolute truth of the matter I hadreason to believe later was that he did not know I was a person. I mayhave been the first of my species he had seen in this rose-garden worldof his and he thought I was only another kind of robin. I was too--though that was a secret of mine and nobody but myself knew it. Becauseof this fact I had the power of holding myself STILL--quite STILL andfilling myself with softly alluring tenderness of the tenderest when anylittle wild thing came near me. "What do you do to make him come to youlike that?" some one asked me a month or so later. "What do you DO?" "Idon't know what I do exactly, " I said. "Except that I hold myself verystill and feel like a robin. "

You can only do that with a tiny wild thing by being so tender of him--of his little timidities and feelings--so adoringly anxious not tostartle him or suggest by any movement the possibility of your being acreature who COULD HURT--that your very yearning to understand his tinyhopes and fears and desires makes you for the time cease to be quite amere human thing and gives you another and more exquisite sense whichspeaks for you without speech. 

As I sat and watched him I held myself softly still and felt just that. I did not know he was a robin. The truth was that he was too young atthat time to look like one, but I did not know that either. He wasplainly not a thrush, or a linnet or a sparrow or a starling or ablackbird. He was a little indeterminate-colored bird and he had no redon his breast. And as I sat and gazed at him he gazed at me as one quitewithout prejudice unless it might be with the slightest tinge of favor--and hopped--and hopped--and hopped. 

That was the thrill and wonder of it. No bird, however evident hisacknowledgement of my harmlessness, had ever hopped and REMAINED. Manyhad perched for a moment in the grass or on a nearby bough, had trilledor chirped or secured a scurrying gold and green beetle and flown away. But none had stayed to inquire--to reflect--even to seem--if one daredbe so bold as to hope such a thing--to make mysterious, almost occultadvances towards intimacy. Also I had never before heard of such a thinghappening to any one howsoever bird loving. Birds are creatures who mustbe wooed and it must be delicate and careful wooing which allures theminto friendship. 

I held my soft stillness. Would he stay? Could it be that the last hopwas nearer? Yes, it was. The moment was a breathless one. Dare onebelieve that the next was nearer still--and the next--and the next--andthat the two yards of distance had become scarcely one--and that withinthat radius he was soberly hopping round my very feet with his quiteunafraid eye full upon me. This was what was happening. It may not seemexciting but it was. That a little wild thing should come to one unaskedwas of a thrillingness touched with awe. 

Without stirring a muscle I began to make low, soft, little sounds tohim--very low and very caressing indeed--softer than one makes to ababy. I wanted to weave a spell--to establish mental communication--tomake Magic. And as I uttered the tiny sounds he hopped nearer andnearer. 

"Oh! to think that you will come as near as that!" I whispered to him. "You KNOW. You know that nothing in the world would make me put out myhand or startle you in the least tiniest way. You know it because youare a real person as well as a lovely--lovely little bird thing. Youknow it because you are a soul. "

Because of this first morning I knew--years later--that this was whatMistress Mary thought when she bent down in the Long Walk and "tried tomake robin sounds. "

I said it all in a whisper and I think the words must have sounded likerobin sounds because he listened with interest and at last--miracle ofmiracles as it seemed to me--he actually fluttered up on to a smallshrub not two yards away from my knee and sat there as one who waspleased with the topic of conversation. 

I did not move of course, I sat still and waited his pleasure. Not formines of rubies would I have lifted a finger. 

I think he stayed near me altogether about half an hour. Then hedisappeared. Where or even exactly when I did not know. One moment hewas hopping among some of the rose bushes and then he was gone. 

This, in fact, was his little mysterious way from first to last. Throughall the months of our delicious intimacy he never let me know where helived. I knew it was in the rose-garden--but that was all. Hisextraordinary freedom from timorousness was something to think over. After reflecting upon him a good deal I thought I had reached anexplanation. He had been born in the rose-garden and being of a home-loving nature he had declined to follow the rest of his family when theyhad made their first flight over the wall into the rose-walk or over thelaurel hedge into the pheasant cover behind. He had stayed in the roseworld and then had felt lonely. Without father or mother or sisters orbrothers desolateness of spirit fell upon him. He saw a creature--Iinsist on believing that he thought it another order of robin--andapproached to see what it would say. 

Its whole bearing was confidence inspiring. It made softly alluring--ifunexplainable--sounds. He felt its friendliness and affection. It wascurious to look at and far too large for any ordinary nest. It plainlycould not fly. But there was not a shadow of inimical sentiment in it. Instinct told him that. It admired him, it wanted him to remain near, there was a certain comfort in its caressing atmosphere. He liked it andfelt less desolate. He would return to it again. 

The next day summer rains kept me in the house. The next I went to therose-garden in the morning and sat down under my tree to work. I had notbeen there half an hour when I felt I must lift my eyes and look. Alittle indeterminate-colored bird was hopping quietly about in thegrass--quite aware of me as his dew-bright eye manifested. He had comeagain--of intention--because we were mates. 

It was the beginning of an intimacy not to be described unless onefilled a small volume. From that moment we never doubted each other forone second. He knew and I knew. Each morning when I came into the rose-garden he came to call on me and discover things he wanted to knowconcerning robins of my size and unusual physical conformation. He didnot understand but he was attracted by me. Each day I held myself stilland tried to make robin sounds expressive of adoring tenderness and hecame each day a little nearer. At last arrived a day when as I softlyleft my seat and moved about the garden he actually quietly hopped afterme. 

I wish I could remember exactly what length of time elapsed before Iknew he was really a robin. An ornithologist would doubtless know but Ido not. But one morning I was bending over a bed of Laurette Messimyroses and I became aware that he had arrived in his usual mysterious waywithout warning. He was standing in the grass and when I turned my eyesupon him I only just saved myself from starting--which would have meantdisaster. I saw upon his breast the first dawning of a flush of color--more tawny than actual red at that stage--but it hinted at revelations. 

"Further subterfuge is useless, " I said to him. "You are betrayed. Youare a robin. "

And he did not attempt to deny it either then or at any future time. Inless than two weeks he revealed a tight, glossy little bright red satinwaistcoat and with it a certain youthful maturity such as one beholds inthe wearer of a first dress suit. His movements were more brisk andcertain. He began to make little flights and little sounds though forsome time he made no attempt to sing. Instead of appearing suddenly inthe grass at my feet, a heavenly little rush of wings would

[Illustration: A HEAVENLY RUSH OF WINGS]

bring him to a bough over my head or a twig quite near me where he wouldtilt daintily, taking his silent but quite responsive part in theconversations which always took place between us. It was I who talked--telling him how I loved him--how satin red his waistcoat was--how largeand bright his eyes--how delicate and elegant his slender legs. Iflattered him a great deal. He adored flattery and I am sure he loved memost when I told him that it was impossible to say anything which couldflatter him. It gave him confidence in my good taste. 

One morning--a heavenly sunny one--I was conversing with him by theLaurette Messimys again and he was evidently much pleased with thethings I said. Perhaps he liked my hat which was a large white one witha wreath of roses round its crown. I saw him look at it and I gentlyhinted that I had worn it in the hope that he would approve. I hadbroken off a handful of coral pink Laurettes and was arranging them idlywhen--he spread his wings in a sudden upward flight--a tiny swift flightwhich ended--among the roses on my hat--the very hat on my head. 

Did I make myself still then? Did I stir by a single hairbreadth? Whodoes not know? I scarcely let myself breathe. I could not believe thatsuch a thing of pure joy could be true. 

But in a minute I realized that he at least was not afraid to move. Hewas perfectly at home. He hopped about the brim and examined the roseswith delicate pecks. That I was under the hat apparently only gave himconfidence. He knew me as well as that. He stayed until he had learnedall he wished to know about garden hats and then he lightly flew away. 

From that time each day drew us closer to each other. He began to perchon twigs only a few inches from my face and listen while I whispered tohim--yes, he LISTENED and made answer with chirps. Nothing else woulddescribe it. As I wrote he would alight on my manuscript paper and tryto read. Sometimes I thought he was a little offended because he foundmy handwriting so bad that he could not understand it. He would takecrumbs out of my hand, he would alight on my chair or my shoulder. Theinstant I opened the little door in the leaf-covered garden wall I wouldbe greeted by the darling little rush of wings and he was beside me. Andhe always came from nowhere and disappeared into space. 

That, through the whole summer--was his rarest fascination. Perhaps hewas not a real robin. Perhaps he was a fairy. Who knows? Among the manyhouse parties staying with me he was a subject of thrilled interest. People knew of him who had not seen him and it became a custom withcallers to say: "May we go into the rose-garden and see The Robin?" Oneof my American guests said he was uncanny and called him "The GoblinRobin. " No one had ever seen a thing so curiously human--so much morethan mere bird. 

When I took callers to the rose-garden he was exquisitely polite. Healways came when I stood under my tree and called--but he never at suchtimes MET me with his rush to the little door. He would perch near meand talk but there was a difference. Certain exquisite intimate charmshe kept for me alone. 

I wondered when he would begin to sing. One morning the sun being strongenough to pierce through the leaves of my tree I had a large Japanesetent umbrella arranged so that it shaded my table as I wrote. Suddenly Iheard a robin song which sounded as if it were being trilled from sometree at a little distance from where I sat. It was so pretty that Ileaned forward to see exactly where the singer perched. I made adelicious discovery. He was not on a tree at all. He was perched uponthe very end of one of the bamboo ribs of my big flowery umbrella. Hewas my own Robin and there he sat singing to me his first tiny song--showing me that he had found out how to do it. 

The effect of singing at a distance was produced by the curious factthat he was singing WITH HIS BILL CLOSED, his darling scarlet throatpuffed out and tremulous with the captive trills. 

Perhaps a robin's first song is always of this order. I do not know. Ionly know that this was his "earlier manner. " My enraptured delight Iexpressed to him in my most eloquent phrases. I praised him--I flatteredhim. I made him believe that no robin had really ever sung before. Hewas much pleased and flew down on to the table to hear all about it andincite me to further effort. 

In a few days he had learned to sing perfectly, not with the lowdistant-sounding note but with open beak and clear brilliant littleroulades and trills. He grew prouder and prouder. When he saw I was busyhe would tilt on a nearby bough and call me with flirtatious, provocative outbreaking of song. He knew that it was impossible for anyone to resist him--any one in the world. Of course I would get up andstand beneath his tree with my face upturned and tell him that hischarm, his beauty, his fascination and my love were beyond the power ofwords to express. He knew that would happen and revelled in it. His tinyairs and graces, his devices to attract and absorb attention wasunending. He invented new ones every day and each was more enslavingthan the last. 

Could it be that he was guilty--when he met other robins--of boasting ofhis conquest of me and of my utter subjugation? I cannot believe itpossible. Also I never saw other robins accost him or linger in theirpassage through the rose-garden to exchange civilities. And yet a verystrange thing occurred on one occasion. I was sitting at my tableexpecting him and heard a familiar chirp. When I looked up he was atiltupon the branch of an apple tree near by. I greeted him with littlewhistles and twitters thinking of course that he would fly down to mefor our usual conversation. But though he chirped a reply and put hishead on one side engagingly he did not move from his bough. 

"What is the matter with you?" I said. "Come down--come down, littlebrother!"

But he did not come. He only sidled and twittered and stayed where hewas. This was so extraordinary that I got up and went to him. As Ilooked a curious doubt came upon me. He looked like Tweetie--(which hadbecome his baptismal name) he tilted his head and flirted and twitteredafter the manner of Tweetie--but--could it be that he was NOT what hepretended to be? Could he be a stranger bird? That seemed out of thequestion as no stranger bird would have comported himself with suchfamiliarity. No stranger surely would have come so near and addressed mewith such intimate twitterings and well-known airs and graces. I wasmystified beyond measure. I exerted all my powers to lure him from hisbranch but descend from it he would not. He listened and smiled andflirted his tail but he stayed where he was. 

"Listen, " I said at last. "I don't believe in you. There is a mysteryhere. You pretend you know me and yet you act as if you were afraid ofme--just like a common bird who is made of nothing but feathers. I don'tbelieve you are Tweetie at all. You are an Impostor!"

Believable or not, just at that moment when I stood there under thebough arguing, reproaching and beguiling by turns and puzzled beyondmeasure--out of the Nowhere darted a little scarlet flame of frenzy--Tweetie himself--with his feathers ruffled and on fire with fury. Therobin on the branch actually WAS an Impostor and Tweetie had discoveredhim red-breasted if not red-handed with crime. Oh! the sight it was tobehold him in his tiny Berseker rage at his impudent rival. He flew athim, he beat him, he smacked him, he pecked him, he shrieked badlanguage at him, he drove him from the branch--from the tree, from onetree after another as the little traitor tried to take refuge--he drovehim from the rose-garden--over the laurel hedge and into the pheasantcover in the wood. Perhaps he killed him and left him slain in thebracken. I could not see. But having beaten him once and forever he cameback to me, panting--all fluffed up--and with blood thirst only justdying in his eye. He came down on to my table--out of breath as heagitatedly rearranged his untidy feathers--and indignant--almostunreconcilable because I had been such an undiscriminating and feeble-minded imbecile as to be for one moment deceived. 

His righteous wrath was awful to behold. I was so frightened that I feltquite pale. With those wiles of the serpent which every noble womanfinds herself forced to employ at times I endeavored to pacify him. 

"Of course I did not really believe he was You, " I said tremulously. "Hewas your inferior in every respect. His waistcoat was not nearly sobeautiful as yours. His eyes were not so soul compelling. His legs werenot nearly so elegant and slender. And there was an expression about hisbeak which I distrusted from the first. You HEARD me tell him he was anImpostor. "

He began to listen--he became calmer--he relented. He kindly ate acrumb out of my hand. 

We began mutually to understand the infamy of the situation. TheImpostor had been secretly watching us. He had envied us our happiness. Into his degenerate mind had stolen the darkling and criminal thoughtthat he--Audacious Scoundrel--might impose upon me by pretending he wasnot merely "a robin" but "The Robin"--Tweetie himself and that he mightsupplant him in my affections. But he had been confounded and cast intoouter darkness and again we were One. 

I will not attempt to deceive. He was jealous beyond bounds. It wasnecessary for me to be most discreet in my demeanor towards the headgardener with whom I was obliged to consult frequently. When he cameinto the rose-garden for orders Tweetie at once appeared. 

He followed us, hopping in the grass or from rose bush to rose bush. Noword of ours escaped him. If our conversation on the enthrallingsubjects of fertilizers and aphides seemed in its earnest absorption toverge upon the emotional and tender he interfered at once. He commandedmy attention. He perched on nearby boughs and endeavored to distract me. He fluttered about and called me with chirps. His last resource wasalways to fly to the topmost twig of an apple tree and begin to sing hismost brilliant song in his most thrilling tone and with an affectedmanner. Naturally we were obliged to listen and talk about him. Even oldBarton's weather-beaten apple face would wrinkle into smiles. 

"He's doin' that to make us look at him, " he would say. "That's whathe's doin' it for. He can't abide not to be noticed. "

But it was not only his vanity which drew him to me. He loved me. Thelow song trilled in his little pulsating scarlet throat was mine. Hesang it only to me--and he would never sing it when any one else wasthere to hear. When we were quite alone with only roses and bees andsunshine and silence about us, when he swung on some spray quite closeto me and I stood and talked to him in whispers--then he would answerme--each time I paused--with the little "far away" sounding trills--thesweetest, most wonderful little sounds in the world. A clever person whoknew more of the habits of birds than I did told me a most curiousthing. 

"That is his little mating song, " he said. "You have inspired a hopelesspassion in a robin. "

Perhaps so. He thought the rose-garden was the world and it seemed to mehe never went out of it during the summer months. At whatsoever hour Iappeared and called him he came out of bushes but from a different pointeach time. In late autumn however, one afternoon I SAW him fly to mefrom over a wall dividing the enclosed garden from the open ones. Ithought he looked guilty and fluttered when he alighted near me. I thinkhe did not want me to know. 

"You have been making the acquaintance of a young lady robin, " I said tohim. "Perhaps you are already engaged to her for the next season. "

He tried to persuade me that it was not true but I felt he was notentirely frank. 

After that it was plain that he had discovered that the rose-garden wasnot ALL the world. He knew about the other side of the wall. But it didnot absorb him altogether. He was seldom absent when I came and he neverfailed to answer my call. I talked to him often about the young ladyrobin but though he showed a gentlemanly reticence on the subject I knewquite well he loved me best. He loved my robin sounds, he loved mywhispers, his dewy dark eyes looked into mine as if he knew we twounderstood strange tender things others did not. 

I was only a mere tenant of the beautiful place I had had for nine yearsand that winter the owner sold the estate. In December I was to go toMontreux for a couple of months; in March I was to return to Maytham andclose it before leaving it finally. Until I left for Switzerland I sawmy robin every day. Before I went away I called him to me and told himwhere I was going. 

He was such a little thing. Two or three months might seem a lifetime tohim. He might not remember me so long. I was not a real robin. I wasonly a human being. I said a great many things to him--wondering if hewould even be in the garden when I came back. I went away wondering. 

When I returned from the world of winter sports, of mountain snows, oftobogganing and skis I felt as if I had been absent a long time. Therehad been snow even in Kent and the park and gardens were white. Iarrived in the evening. The next morning I threw on my red frieze gardencloak and went down the flagged terrace and the Long Walk through thewalled gardens to the beloved place where the rose bushes stood dark andslender and leafless among the whiteness. I went to my own tree andstood under it and called. 

"Are you gone, " I said in my heart; "are you gone, little Soul? Shall Inever see you again?"

After the call I waited--and I had never waited before. The roses weregone and he was not in the rose-world. I called again. The call wassometimes a soft whistle as near a robin sound as I could make it--sometimes it was a chirp--sometimes it was a quick clear repetition of"Sweet! Sweet! Sweetie"--which I fancied he liked best. I made oneafter the other--and then--something scarlet flashed across the lawn, across the rose-walk--over the wall and he was there. He had notforgotten, it had not been too long, he alighted on the snowy browngrass at my feet. 

Then I knew he was a little Soul and not only a bird and the realparting which must come in a few weeks' time loomed up before me astrange tragic thing. 

* * *

I do not often allow myself to think of it. It was too final. And therewas nothing to be done. I was going thousands of miles across the sea. Alittle warm thing of scarlet and brown feathers and pulsating trillingthroat lives such a brief life. The little soul in its black dew-dropeye--one knows nothing about it. For myself I sometimes believe strangethings. We two were something weirdly near to each other. 

At the end I went down to the bare world of roses one soft damp day andstood under the tree and called him for the last time. He did not keepme waiting and he flew to a twig very near my face. I could not writeall I said to him. I tried with all my heart to explain and he answeredme--between his listenings--with the "far away" love note. I talked tohim as if he knew all I knew. He put his head on one side and listenedso intently that I felt that he understood. I told him that I must goaway and that we should not see each other again and I told him why. 

"But you must not think when I do not come back it is because I haveforgotten you, " I said. "Never since I was born have I loved anything asI have loved you--except my two babies. Never shall I love anything somuch again so long as I am in the world. You are a little Soul and I am alittle Soul and we shall love each other forever and ever. We won't sayGood-bye. We have been too near to each other--nearer than humanbeings are. I love you and love you and love you--little Soul. "

Then I went out of the rose-garden. I shall never go into it again.