Mary nodded.

"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonelier before tha's done," he
said.

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden
soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

"What is your name?" Mary inquired.

He stood up to answer her.

"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle,
"I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked his thumb
toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like
me and I never played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and
old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.

"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said. "We was wove out of th'
same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as
sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll
warrant."

This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about
herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to