Chapter Eight: Mr. Craven Comes Home
While the secret garden was returning to life, a man with high crooked shoulders was wandering round the most beautiful places in Europe.
For ten years, he had lived this lonely life, his heart full of sadness and his head full of dark dreams.
Everywhere he went, he carried his unhappiness with him like a black cloud.
Other travelers thought he was half mad or a man who could not forget some terrible crime.
His name was Archibald Craven.
But one day, as he sat by a mountain stream, he actually looked at a flower,
and for the first time in ten years, he realized how beautiful something living could be.
The valley seemed very quiet as he sat there, staring at the flower.
He felt strangely calm.
"What is happening to me?" he whispered. "I feel different — I almost feel I'm alive again!"
At that moment, hundreds of miles away in Yorkshire, Colin was seeing the secret garden for the first time, and saying,
"I'm going to live for ever and ever and ever!"
But Mr. Craven did not know this.
That night, in his hotel room, he slept better than usual.
As the weeks passed, he even began to think a little about his home and his son.
One evening in late summer, as he was sitting quietly beside a lake, he felt the strange calmness again.
He fell asleep, and had a dream that seemed very real.
He heard a voice calling him.
It was sweet and clear and happy, the voice of his young wife. "Archie! Archie! Archie!"
"My dear!" He jumped up. "Where are you?"
"In the garden!" called the beautiful voice.
And then the dream ended.
In the morning, when he woke, he remembered the dream.
"She says she's in the garden!" he thought. "But the door's locked and the key's buried."
That morning he received a letter from Susan Sowerby.
In it, she asked him to come home, but she did not give a reason.
Mr. Craven thought of his dream, and decided to return to England immediately.
On the long journey back to Yorkshire, he was thinking about Colin.
"I wonder how he is! I wanted to forget him, because he makes me think of his mother.
He lived, and she died! But perhaps I've been wrong.
Susan Sowerby says I should go home, so perhaps she thinks I can help him."
When he arrived home, he found the housekeeper very confused about Colin's health.
读《秘密花园》有感：痛失爱妻的克雷文先生 把自己和妻子美好的回忆都埋藏在秘密花园里，把自己变得冷漠无情，无论是自己儿子和周围的事物，十年来用回避和远行的方式来度日，终日生活在悲痛和忧伤中。直到有一天他发现身边美好的事物，想起了他的可怜的孩子，妻子也托梦给他告诉他自己还在花园里，同时收到迪肯妈妈让他回家的信，克雷文先生并不知道缘由，更不知道柯林已经可以站起来了，但他还是马上赶回家。亲人间莫名的心灵感应，看得我泪流满面。这是爱与治愈，每个人心中都有一个秘密花园，有的荒废，有的被遗弃，有的被锁起来，钥匙被埋被扔。但有一天不小心闯入，再也无法离开，好好浇灌，开花结果。
