"And she is always beautifulAnd always is eighteen!"
"And she is always beautifulAnd always is eighteen!"
"And she is always beautifulAnd always is eighteen!"
W
hen he got to the middle of the room the cuckoo cleared his throat, flapped his wings, and began to sing. Griselda was quite astonished. She had had no idea that her friend was so accomplished. It wasn't "cuckooing" at all; it was real singing, like that of the nightingale or the thrush, or like something prettier than either. It made Griselda think of woods in summer, and of tinkling brooks flowingthrough them, with the pretty brown pebbles sparkling up through the water; and then it made her think of something sad—she didn't know what; perhaps it was of the babes in the wood and the robins covering them up with leaves—and then again, in a moment, it sounded as if all the merry elves and sprites that ever were heard of had escaped from fairyland, and were rolling over and over with peals of rollicking laughter. And at last, all of a sudden, the song came to an end.
"Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" rang out three times, clear and shrill. The cuckoo flapped his wings, made a bow to the mandarins, and retired to his old corner.
There was no buzz of talk, as is usual after a performance has come to a close, but there was a great buzz of nodding, and Griselda, wishing to give the cuckoo as much praise as she could, nodded as hard as any of them. The cuckoo really looked quite shy at receiving so much applause. But in aminute or two the music struck up and the dancing began again—one, two, three: it seemed a sort of mazurka this time, which suited the mandarins very well, as it gave them a chance of nodding to mark the time.
Griselda had once learnt the mazurka, so she got on even better than before—only she would have liked it more if her shoes had had sharper toes; they looked so stumpy when she tried to point them. All the same, it was very good fun, and she was not too well pleased when she suddenly felt the little sharp tap of the cuckoo on her head, and heard him whisper—
"Griselda, it's time to go."
"Oh dear, why?" she asked. "I'm not a bit tired. Why need we go yet?"
"Obeying orders," said the cuckoo; and after that, Griselda dared not say another word. It was very nearly as bad as being told she had a great deal to learn.
"Must I say good-bye to the king and all the people?" she inquired; but before thecuckoo had time to answer, she gave a little squeal. "Oh, cuckoo," she cried, "you've trod on my foot."
"I beg your pardon," said the cuckoo.
"I must take off my shoe; it does so hurt," she went on.
"Take it off, then," said the cuckoo.
Griselda stooped to take off her shoe. "Are we going home in the pal——?" she began to say; but she never finished the sentence, for just as she had got her shoe off she felt the cuckoo throw something round her. It was the feather mantle.
And Griselda knew nothing more till she opened her eyes the next morning, and saw the first early rays of sunshine peeping in through the chinks of the closed shutters of her little bed-room.
She rubbed her eyes, and sat up in bed. Could it have been a dream?
"What could have made me fall asleep so all of a sudden?" she thought. "I wasn't the least sleepy at the mandarins' ball. Whatfun it was! I believe that cuckoo made me fall asleep on purpose to make me fancy it was a dream.Wasit a dream?"
She began to feel confused and doubtful, when suddenly she felt something hurting her arm, like a little lump in the bed. She felt with her hand to see if she could smooth it away, and drew out—one of the shoes belonging to her court dress! The very one she had held in her hand at the moment the cuckoo spirited her home again to bed.
"Ah, Mr. Cuckoo!" she exclaimed, "you meant to play me a trick, but you haven't succeeded, you see."
She jumped out of bed and unfastened one of the window-shutters, then jumped in again to admire the little shoe in comfort. It was even prettier than she had thought it at the ball. She held it up and looked at it. It was about the size of the first joint of her little finger. "To think that I should have been dancing with you on last night!" she said to the shoe. "And yet the cuckoo saysbeing big or little is all a matter of fancy. I wonder what he'll think of to amuse me next?"
She was still holding up the shoe and admiring it when Dorcas came with the hot water.
"Look, Dorcas," she said.
"Bless me, it's one of the shoes off the Chinese dolls in the saloon," exclaimed the old servant. "How ever did you get that, missie? Your aunts wouldn't be pleased."
"It just isn't one of the Chinese dolls' shoes, and if you don't believe me, you can go and look for yourself," said Griselda. "It's my very own shoe, and it was given me to my own self."
Dorcas looked at her curiously, but said no more, only as she was going out of the room Griselda heard her saying something about "so very like Miss Sybilla."
"I wonder what 'Miss Sybilla'waslike?" thought Griselda. "I have a good mind to ask the cuckoo. He seems to have known her very well."
It was not for some days that Griselda had a chance of asking the cuckoo anything. She saw and heard nothing of him—nothing, that is to say, but his regular appearance to tell the hours as usual.
"I suppose," thought Griselda, "he thinks the mandarins' ball was fun enough to last me a good while. It really was very good-natured of him to take me to it, so I mustn't grumble."
A few days after this poor Griselda caught cold. It was not a very bad cold, I must confess, but her aunts made rather a fuss about it. They wanted her to stay in bed, but to this Griselda so much objected that they did not insist upon it.
"It would be so dull," she said piteously. "Please let me stay in the ante-room, for all my things are there; and, then, there's the cuckoo."
Aunt Grizzel smiled at this, and Griselda got her way. But even in the ante-room it was rather dull. Miss Grizzel and MissTabitha were obliged to go out, to drive all the way to Merrybrow Hall, as Lady Lavander sent a messenger to say that she had an attack of influenza, and wished to see her friends at once.
Miss Tabitha began to cry—she was so tender-hearted.
"Troubles never come singly," said Miss Grizzel, by way of consolation.
"No, indeed, they never come singly," said Miss Tabitha, shaking her head and wiping her eyes.
So off they set; and Griselda, in her arm-chair by the ante-room fire, with some queer little old-fashioned books of her aunts', which she had already read more than a dozen times, beside her by way of amusement, felt that there was one comfort in her troubles—she had escaped the long weary drive to her godmother's.
But it was very dull. It got duller and duller. Griselda curled herself up in her chair, and wished she could go to sleep,though feeling quite sure she couldn't, for she had stayed in bed much later than usual this morning, and had been obliged to spend the time in sleeping, for want of anything better to do.
She looked up at the clock.
"I don't know even what to wish for," she said to herself. "I don't feel the least inclined to play at anything, and I shouldn't care to go to the mandarins again. Oh, cuckoo, cuckoo, I am so dull; couldn't you think of anything to amuse me?"
It was not near "any o'clock." But after waiting a minute or two, it seemed to Griselda that she heard the soft sound of "coming" that always preceded the cuckoo's appearance. She was right. In another moment she heard his usual greeting, "Cuckoo, cuckoo!"
"Oh, cuckoo!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you have come at last. Iamso dull, and it has nothing to do with lessons this time. It's that I've got such a bad cold,and my head's aching, and I'm so tired of reading, all by myself."
"What would you like to do?" said the cuckoo. "You don't want to go to see the mandarins again?"
"Oh no; I couldn't dance."
"Or the mermaids down under the sea?"
"Oh, dear, no," said Griselda, with a little shiver, "it would be far too cold. I would just like to stay where I am, if some one would tell me stories. I'm not even sure that I could listen to stories. What could you do to amuse me, cuckoo?"
"Would you like to see some pictures?" said the cuckoo. "I could show you pictures without your taking any trouble."
"Oh yes, that would be beautiful," cried Griselda. "What pictures will you show me? Oh, I know. I would like to see the place where you were born—where that very, very clever man made you and the clock, I mean."
"Your great-great-grandfather," said thecuckoo. "Very well. Now, Griselda, shut your eyes. First of all, I am going to sing."
Griselda shut her eyes, and the cuckoo began his song. It was something like what he had sung at the mandarins' palace, only even more beautiful. It was so soft and dreamy, Griselda felt as if she could have sat there for ever, listening to it.
The first notes were low and murmuring. Again they made Griselda think of little rippling brooks in summer, and now and then there came a sort of hum as of insects buzzing in the warm sunshine near. This humming gradually increased, till at last Griselda was conscious of nothing more—everythingseemed to be humming, herself too, till at last she fell asleep.
When she opened her eyes, the ante-room and everything in it, except the arm-chair on which she was still curled up, had disappeared—melted away into a misty cloud all round her, which in turn gradually faded, till before her she saw a scene quite new andstrange. It was the first of the cuckoo's "pictures."
An old, quaint room, with a high, carved mantelpiece, and a bright fire sparkling in the grate. It was not a pretty room—it had more the look of a workshop of some kind; but it was curious and interesting. All round, the walls were hung with clocks and strange mechanical toys. There was a fiddler slowly fiddling, a gentleman and lady gravely dancing a minuet, a little man drawing up water in a bucket out of a glass vase in which gold fish were swimming about—all sorts of queer figures; and the clocks were even queerer. There was one intended to represent the sun, moon, and planets, with one face for the sun and another for the moon, and gold and silver stars slowly circling round them; there was another clock with a tiny trumpeter perched on a ledge above the face, who blew a horn for the hours. I cannot tell you half the strange and wonderful things there were.
Griselda was so interested in looking at all these queer machines, that she did not for some time observe the occupant of the room. And no wonder; he was sitting in front of a little table, so perfectly still, much more still than the un-living figures around him. He was examining, with a magnifying glass, some small object he held in his hand, so closely and intently that Griselda, forgetting she was only looking at a "picture," almost held her breath for fear she should disturb him. He was a very old man, his coat was worn and threadbare in several places, looking as if he spent a great part of his life in one position. Yet he did not lookpoor, and his face, when at last he lifted it, was mild and intelligent and very earnest.
While Griselda was watching him closely there came a soft tap at the door, anda little girl danced into the room. The dearest little girl you ever saw, andsofunnily dressed! Her thick brown hair, rather lighter than Griselda's, was tied in two long plaits downher back. She had a short red skirt with silver braid round the bottom, and a white chemisette with beautiful lace at the throat and wrists, and over that again a black velvet bodice, also trimmed with silver. And she had a great many trinkets, necklaces, and bracelets, and ear-rings, and a sort of little silver coronet; no, it was not like a coronet, it was a band with a square piece of silver fastened so as to stand up at each side of her head something like a horse's blinkers, only they were not placed over her eyes.
She made quite a jingle as she came into the room, and the old man looked up with a smile of pleasure.
"Well, my darling, and are you all ready for yourfête?" he said; and though the language in which he spoke was quite strange to Griselda, she understood his meaning perfectly well.
"Yes, dear grandfather; and isn't my dress lovely?" said the child. "I should besohappy if only you were coming too, and would get yourself a beautiful velvet coat like Mynheer van Huyten."
The old man shook his head.
"I have no time for such things, my darling," he replied; "and besides, I am too old. I must work—work hard to make money for my pet when I am gone, that she may not be dependent on the bounty of those English sisters."
"But I won't care for money when you are gone, grandfather," said the child, her eyes filling with tears. "I would rather just go on living in this little house, and I am sure the neighbours would give me something to eat, and then I could hear all your clocks ticking, and think of you. I don't want you to sell all your wonderful things for money for me, grandfather. They would remind me of you, and money wouldn't."
"Not all, Sybilla, not all," said the old man. "The best of all, thechef-d'œuvreof my life, shall not be sold. It shall be yours, andyou will have in your possession a clock that crowned heads might seek in vain to purchase."
His dim old eyes brightened, and for a moment he sat erect and strong.
"Do you mean the cuckoo clock?" said Sybilla, in a low voice.
"Yes, my darling, the cuckoo clock, the crowning work of my life—a clock that shall last long after I, and perhaps thou, my pretty child, are crumbling into dust; a clock that shall last to tell my great-grandchildren to many generations that the old Dutch mechanic was not altogether to be despised."
Sybilla sprang into his arms.
"You are not to talk like that, little grandfather," she said. "I shall teach my children and my grandchildren to be so proud of you—oh, so proud!—as proud as I am of you, little grandfather."
"Gently, my darling," said the old man, as he placed carefully on the table the delicate piece of mechanism he held in his hand, andtenderly embraced the child. "Kiss me once again, my pet, and then thou must go; thy little friends will be waiting."
As he said these words the mist slowly gathered again before Griselda's eyes—the first of the cuckoo's pictures faded from her sight.
When she looked again the scene was changed, but this time it was not a strange one, though Griselda had gazed at it for some moments before she recognized it. It was the great saloon, but it looked very different from what she had ever seen it. Forty years or so make a difference in rooms as well as in people!
The faded yellow damask hangings were rich and brilliant. There were bouquets of lovely flowers arranged about the tables; wax lights were sending out their brightness in every direction, and the room wasfilled with ladies and gentlemen in gay attire.
Among them, after a time, Griselda remarked two ladies, no longer very young, but still handsome and stately, and something whispered to her that they were her two aunts, Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha.
"Poor aunts!" she said softly to herself; "how old they have grown since then."
But she did not long look at them; her attention was attracted by a much younger lady—a mere girl she seemed, but oh, so sweet and pretty! She was dancing with a gentleman whose eyes looked as if they saw no one else, and she herself seemed brimming over with youth and happiness. Her very steps had joy in them.
"Well, Griselda," whispered a voice, which she knew was the cuckoo's; "so you don't like to be told you are like your grandmother, eh?"
Griselda turned round sharply to look for the speaker, but he was not to be seen. Andwhen she turned again, the picture of the great saloon had faded away.
One more picture.
Griselda looked again. She saw before her a country road in full summer time; the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the trees covered with their bright green leaves—everything appeared happy and joyful. But at last in the distance she saw, slowly approaching, a group of a few people, all walking together, carrying in their centre something long and narrow, which, though the black cloth covering it was almost hidden by the white flowers with which it was thickly strewn, Griselda knew to be a coffin.
It was a funeral procession, and in the place of chief mourner, with pale, set face, walked the same young man whom Griselda had last seen dancing with the girl Sybilla in the great saloon.
The sad group passed slowly out of sight; but as it disappeared there fell upon the earthe sounds of sweet music, lovelier far than she had heard before—lovelier than the magic cuckoo's most lovely songs—and somehow, in the music, it seemed to the child's fancy there were mingled the soft strains of a woman's voice.
"It is Sybilla singing," thought Griselda dreamily, and with that she fell asleep again.
When she woke she was in the arm-chair by the ante-room fire, everything around her looking just as usual, the cuckoo clock ticking away calmly and regularly. Had it been a dream only? Griselda could not make up her mind.
"But I don't see that it matters if it was," she said to herself. "If it was a dream, the cuckoo sent it to me all the same, and I thank you very much indeed, cuckoo," she went on, looking up at the clock. "The last picture was rather sad, but still it was very nice to see it, and I thank you very much,and I'll never say again that I don't like to be told I'm like my dear pretty grandmother."
The cuckoo took no notice of what she said, but Griselda did not mind. She was getting used to his "ways."
"I expect he hears me quite well," she thought; "and even if he doesn't, it's only civil totryto thank him."
She sat still contentedly enough, thinking over what she had seen, and trying to make more "pictures" for herself in the fire. Then there came faintly to her ears the sound of carriage wheels, opening and shutting of doors, a little bustle of arrival.
"My aunts must have come back," thought Griselda; and so it was. In a few minutes Miss Grizzel, closely followed by Miss Tabitha, appeared at the ante-room door.
"Well, my love," said Miss Grizzel anxiously, "and how are you? Has the time seemed very long while we were away?"
"Oh no, thank you, Aunt Grizzel," replied Griselda, "not at all. I've been quite happy, and my cold's ever so much better, and my headache'squitegone."
"Come, that is good news," said Miss Grizzel. "Not that I'm exactlysurprised," she continued, turning to Miss Tabitha, "for there really is nothing like tansy tea for a feverish cold."
"Nothing," agreed Miss Tabitha; "there really is nothing like it."
"Aunt Grizzel," said Griselda, after a few moments' silence, "was my grandmother quite young when she died?"
"Yes, my love, very young," replied Miss Grizzel with a change in her voice.
"And was her husbandverysorry?" pursued Griselda.
"Heart-broken," said Miss Grizzel. "He did not live long after, and then you know, my dear, your father was sent to us to take care of. And now he has sentyou—the third generation of young creatures confided to our care."
"Yes," said Griselda. "My grandmother died in the summer, when all the flowers were out; and she was buried in a pretty country place, wasn't she?"
"Yes," said Miss Grizzel, looking rather bewildered.
"And when she was a little girl she lived with her grandfather, the old Dutch mechanic," continued Griselda, unconsciously using the very words she had heard in her vision. "He was a nice old man; and how clever of him to have made the cuckoo clock, and such lots of other pretty, wonderful things. I don't wonder little Sybilla loved him; he was so good to her. But, oh, Aunt Grizzel,howpretty she was when she was a young lady! That time that she danced with my grandfather in the great saloon. And how very nice you and Aunt Tabitha looked then, too."
Miss Grizzel held her very breath in astonishment; and no doubt if Miss Tabitha had known she was doing so, she would have heldhers too. But Griselda lay still, gazing at the fire, quite unconscious of her aunt's surprise.
"Your papa told you all these old stories, I suppose, my dear," said Miss Grizzel at last.
"Oh no," said Griselda dreamily. "Papa never told me anything like that. Dorcas told me a very little, I think; at least, she made me want to know, and I asked the cuckoo, and then, you see, he showed me it all. It was so pretty."
Miss Grizzel glanced at her sister.
"Tabitha, my dear," she said in a low voice, "do you hear?"
And Miss Tabitha, who really was not very deaf when she set herself to hear, nodded in awe-struck silence.
"Tabitha," continued Miss Grizzel in the same tone, "it is wonderful! Ah, yes, how true it is, Tabitha, that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy'" (for Miss Grizzel was a well-read old lady, you see); "and from thevery first, Tabitha, we always had a feeling that the child was strangely like Sybilla."
"Strangely like Sybilla," echoed Miss Tabitha.
"May she grow up as good, if not quite as beautiful—thatwe could scarcely expect; and may she be longer spared to those that love her," added Miss Grizzel, bending over Griselda, while two or three tears slowly trickled down her aged cheeks. "See, Tabitha, the dear child is fast asleep. How sweet she looks! I trust by to-morrow morning she will be quite herself again; her cold is so much better.
"For now and then there comes a dayWhen everything goes wrong."
"For now and then there comes a dayWhen everything goes wrong."
"For now and then there comes a dayWhen everything goes wrong."
G
riselda's coldwasmuch better by "to-morrow morning." In fact, I might almost say it was quite well.
But Griselda herself did not feel quite well, and saying this reminds me that it is hardly sense to speak of acoldbeing better or well—for a cold's being "well" means that it is not there at all, out of existence, in short, and if a thing is out of existence how can we say anything about it?Children, I feel quite in a hobble—I cannot get my mind straight about it—please think it over and give me your opinion. In the meantime, I will go on about Griselda.
She felt just a little ill—a sort of feeling that sometimes is rather nice, sometimes "very extremely" much the reverse! She felt in the humour for being petted, and having beef-tea, and jelly, and sponge cake with her tea, and for a day or two this was all very well. Shewaspetted, and she had lots of beef-tea, and jelly, and grapes, and sponge cakes, and everything nice, for her aunts, as you must have seen by this time, were really very, very kind to her in every way in which they understood how to be so.
But after a few days of the continued petting, and the beef-tea and the jelly and all the rest of it, it occurred to Miss Grizzel, who had a good large bump of "common sense," that it might be possible to overdo this sort of thing.
"Tabitha," she said to her sister, when they were sitting together in the evening afterGriselda had gone to bed, "Tabitha, my dear, I think the child is quite well again now. It seems to me it would be well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow."
"The day after to-morrow," repeated Miss Tabitha. "The day after to-morrow—to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow—oh yes, certainly. It would be very well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, my dear Grizzel."
"I thought you would agree with me," said Miss Grizzel, with a sigh of relief (as if poor Miss Tabitha during all the last half-century had ever ventured to do anything else), getting up to fetch her writing materials as she spoke. "It is such a satisfaction to consult together about what we do. I was only a little afraid of being hard upon the child, but as you agree with me, I have no longer any misgiving."
"Any misgiving, oh dear, no!" said MissTabitha. "You have no reason for any misgiving, I am sure, my dear Grizzel."
So the note was written and despatched, and the next morning when, about twelve o'clock, Griselda made her appearance in the little drawing-room where her aunts usually sat, looking, it must be confessed, very plump and rosy for an invalid, Miss Grizzel broached the subject.
"I have written to request Mr. Kneebreeches to resume his instructions to-morrow," she said quietly. "I think you are quite well again now, so Dorcas must wake you at your usual hour."
Griselda had been settling herself comfortably on a corner of the sofa. She had got a nice book to read, which her father, hearing of her illness, had sent her by post, and she was looking forward to the tempting plateful of jelly which Dorcas had brought her for luncheon every day since she had been ill. Altogether, she was feeling very "lazy-easy" and contented. Her aunt's announcementfelt like a sudden downpour of cold water, or rush of east wind. She sat straight up in her sofa, and exclaimed in a tone of great annoyance—
"Oh, Aunt Grizzel!"
"Well, my dear?" said Miss Grizzel, placidly.
"Iwishyou wouldn't make me begin lessons again just yet. Iknowthey'll make my head ache again, and Mr. Kneebreeches will besocross. I know he will, and he is so horrid when he is cross."
"Hush!" said Miss Grizzel, holding up her hand in a way that reminded Griselda of the cuckoo's favourite "obeying orders." Just then, too, in the distance the ante-room clock struck twelve. "Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" on it went. Griselda could have stamped with irritation, butsomehow, in spite of herself, she felt compelled to say nothing. She muttered some not very pretty words, coiled herself round on the sofa, opened her book, and began to read.
But it was not as interesting as she had expected. She had not read many pages before she began to yawn, and she was delighted to be interrupted by Dorcas and the jelly.
But the jelly was not as nice as she had expected, either. She tasted it, and thought it was too sweet; and when she tasted it again, it seemed too strong of cinnamon; and the third taste seemed too strong of everything. She laid down her spoon, and looked about her discontentedly.
"What is the matter, my dear?" said Miss Grizzel. "Is the jelly not to your liking?"
"I don't know," said Griselda shortly. She ate a few spoonfuls, and then took up her book again. Miss Grizzel said nothing more, but to herself she thought that Mr. Kneebreeches had not been recalled any too soon.
All day long it was much the same. Nothing seemed to come right to Griselda. It was a dull, cold day, what is called "a black frost"; not a bright, clear,pretty, cold day, but the sort of frost that really makes the world seemdead—makes it almost impossible to believe that there will ever be warmth and sound and "growing-ness" again.
Late in the afternoon Griselda crept up to the ante-room, and sat down by the window. Outside it was nearly dark, and inside it was not much more cheerful—for the fire was nearly out, and no lamps were lighted; only the cuckoo clock went on tick-ticking briskly as usual.
"I hate winter," said Griselda, pressing her cold little face against the colder window-pane, "I hate winter, and I hate lessons. I would give up being apersonin a minute if I might be a—a—what would I best like to be? Oh yes, I know—a butterfly. Butterflies never see winter, and theycertainlynever have any lessons or any kind of work to do. I hatemust-ing to do anything."
"Cuckoo," rang out suddenly above her head. It was only four o'clock striking, and as soon as he had told it the cuckoo was back behind his doors again in an instant, just asusual. There was nothing for Griselda to feel offended at, but somehow she got quite angry.
"I don't care what you think, cuckoo!" she exclaimed defiantly. "I know you came out on purpose just now, but I don't care. Idohate winter, and Idohate lessons, and Idothink it would be nicer to be a butterfly than a little girl."
In her secret heart I fancy she was half in hopes that the cuckoo would come out again, and talk things over with her. Even if he were to scold her, she felt that it would be better than sitting there alone with nobody to speak to, which was very dull work indeed. At the bottom of her conscience there lurked the knowledge that what sheshouldbe doing was to be looking over her last lessons with Mr. Kneebreeches, and refreshing her memory for the next day; but, alas! knowing one's duty is by no means the same thing as doing it, and Griselda sat on by the window doing nothing but grumble and work herself up intoa belief that she was one of the most-to-be-pitied little girls in all the world. So that by the time Dorcas came to call her to tea, I doubt if she had a single pleasant thought or feeling left in her heart.
Things grew no better after tea, and before long Griselda asked if she might go to bed. She was "so tired," she said; and she certainly looked so, for ill-humour and idleness are excellent "tirers," and will soon take the roses out of a child's cheeks, and the brightness out of her eyes. She held up her face to be kissed by her aunts in a meekly reproachful way, which made the old ladies feel quite uncomfortable.
"I am by no means sure that I have done right in recalling Mr. Kneebreeches so soon, Sister Tabitha," remarked Miss Grizzel, uneasily, when Griselda had left the room. But Miss Tabitha was busy counting her stitches, and did not give full attention to Miss Grizzel's observation, so she just repeated placidly, "Oh yes, Sister Grizzel, youmay be sure you have done right in recalling Mr. Kneebreeches."
"I am glad you think so," said Miss Grizzel, with again a little sigh of relief. "I was only distressed to see the child looking so white and tired,"
Upstairs Griselda was hurry-scurrying into bed. There was a lovely fire in her room—fancy that! Was she not a poor neglected little creature? But even this did not please her. She was too cross to be pleased with anything; too cross to wash her face and hands, or let Dorcas brush her hair out nicely as usual; too cross, alas, to say her prayers! She just huddled into bed, huddling up her mind in an untidy hurry and confusion, just as she left her clothes in an untidy heap on the floor. She would not look into herself, was the truth of it; she shrank from doing so because sheknewthings had been going on in that silly little heart of hers in a most unsatisfactory way all day, and she wanted to go to sleep and forget all about it.
She did go to sleep, very quickly too. No doubt she really was tired; tired with crossness and doing nothing, and she slept very soundly. When she woke up she felt so refreshed and rested that she fancied it must be morning. It was dark, of course, but that was to be expected in mid-winter, especially as the shutters were closed.
"I wonder," thought Griselda, "I wonder if it reallyismorning. I should like to get up early—I went so early to bed. I think I'll just jump out of bed and open a chink of the shutters. I'll see at once if it's nearly morning, by the look of the sky."
She was up in a minute, feeling her way across the room to the window, and without much difficulty she found the hook of the shutters, unfastened it, and threw one side open. Ah no, there was no sign of morning to be seen. There was moonlight, but nothing else, and not so very much of that, for the clouds were hurrying across the "orbêd maiden's" face at such a rate, one after theother, that the light was more like a number of pale flashes than the steady, cold shining of most frosty moonlight nights. There was going to be a change of weather, and the cloud armies were collecting together from all quarters; that was the real explanation of the hurrying and skurrying Griselda saw overhead, but this, of course, she did not understand. She only saw that it looked wild and stormy, and she shivered a little, partly with cold, partly with a half-frightened feeling that she could not have explained.
"I had better go back to bed," she said to herself; "but I am not a bit sleepy."
She was just drawing-to the shutter again, when something caught her eye, and she stopped short in surprise. A little bird was outside on the window-sill—a tiny bird crouching in close to the cold glass. Griselda's kind heart was touched in an instant. Cold as she was, she pushed back the shutter again, and drawing a chair forward to the window, managed to unfasten it—it was not a veryheavy one—and to open it wide enough to slip her hand gently along to the bird. It did not start or move.
"Can it be dead?" thought Griselda anxiously.
But no, it was not dead. It let her put her hand round it and draw it in, and to her delight she felt that it was soft and warm, and it even gave a gentle peck on her thumb.
"Poor little bird, how cold you must be," she said kindly. But, to her amazement, no sooner was the bird safely inside the room, than it managed cleverly to escape from her hand. It fluttered quietly up on to her shoulder, and sang out in a soft but cheery tone, "Cuckoo, cuckoo—cold, did you say, Griselda? Not so very, thank you."
Griselda stept back from the window.
"It'syou, is it?" she said rather surlily, her tone seeming to infer that she had taken a great deal of trouble for nothing.
"Of course it is, and why shouldn't it be?You're not generally so sorry to see me. What's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter," replied Griselda, feeling a little ashamed of her want of civility; "only, you see, if I had known it wasyou——" She hesitated.
"You wouldn't have clambered up and hurt your poor fingers in opening the window if you had known it was me—is that it, eh?" said the cuckoo.
Somehow, when the cuckoo said "eh?" like that, Griselda was obliged to tell just what she was thinking.
"No, I wouldn't haveneededto open the window," she said. "Youcan get in or out whenever you like; you're not like a real bird. Of course, you were just tricking me, sitting out there and pretending to be a starved robin."
There was a little indignation in her voice, and she gave her head a toss, which nearly upset the cuckoo.
"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed the cuckoo."You have a great deal to complain of, Griselda. Your time and strength must be very valuable for you to regret so much having wasted a little of them on me."
Griselda felt her face grow red. What did he mean? Did he know how yesterday had been spent? She said nothing, but she drooped her head, and one or two tears came slowly creeping up to her eyes.
"Child!" said the cuckoo, suddenly changing his tone, "you are very foolish. Is a kind thought or actioneverwasted? Can your eyes see what such good seeds grow into? They have wings, Griselda—kindnesses have wings and roots, remember that—wings that never droop, and roots that never die. What do you think I came and sat outside your window for?"
"Cuckoo," said Griselda humbly, "I am very sorry."
"Very well," said the cuckoo, "we'll leave it for the present. I have something else to see about. Are you cold, Griselda?"
"Very," she replied. "I would very much like to go back to bed, cuckoo, if you please; and there's plenty of room for you too, if you'd like to come in and get warm."
"There are other ways of getting warm besides going to bed," said the cuckoo. "A nice brisk walk, for instance. I was going to ask you to come out into the garden with me."
Griselda almost screamed.
"Out into the garden!Oh, cuckoo!" she exclaimed, "how can you think of such a thing? Such a freezing cold night. Oh no, indeed, cuckoo, I couldn't possibly."
"Very well, Griselda," said the cuckoo; "if you haven't yet learnt to trust me, there's no more to be said. Good-night."
He flapped his wings, cried out "Cuckoo" once only, flew across the room, and almost before Griselda understood what he was doing, had disappeared.
She hurried after him, stumbling against the furniture in her haste, and by the uncertainlight. The door was not open, but the cuckoo had got through it—"by the keyhole, I dare say," thought Griselda; "he can 'scrooge' himself up any way"—for a faint "Cuckoo" was to be heard on its other side. In a moment Griselda had opened it, and was speeding down the long passage in the dark, guided only by the voice from time to time heard before her, "Cuckoo, cuckoo."
She forgot all about the cold, or rather, she did not feel it, though the floor was of uncarpeted old oak, whose hard, polished surface would have usually felt like ice to a child's soft, bare feet. It was a very long passage, and to-night, somehow, it seemed longer than ever. In fact, Griselda could have fancied she had been running along it for half a mile or more, when at last she was brought to a standstill by finding she could go no further. Where was she? She could not imagine! It must be a part of the house she had never explored in the daytime, she decided. In front of her was a little stair running downwards,and ending in a doorway. All this Griselda could see by a bright light that streamed in by the keyhole and through the chinks round the door—a light so brilliant that the little girl blinked her eyes, and for a moment felt quite dazzled and confused.
"It came so suddenly," she said to herself; "some one must have lighted a lamp in there all at once. But it can't be a lamp, it's too bright for a lamp. It's more like the sun; but how ever could the sun be shining in a room in the middle of the night? What shall I do? Shall I open the door and peep in?"
"Cuckoo, cuckoo," came the answer, soft but clear, from the other side.
"Can it be a trick of the cuckoo's to get me out into the garden?" thought Griselda; and for the first time since she had run out of her room a shiver of cold made her teeth chatter and her skin feel creepy.
"Cuckoo, cuckoo," sounded again, nearer this time, it seemed to Griselda.
"He's waiting for me. Iwilltrust him," she said resolutely. "He has always been good and kind, and it's horrid of me to think he's going to trick me."
She ran down the little stair, she seized the handle of the door. It turned easily; the door opened—opened, and closed again noiselessly behind her, and what do you think she saw?
"Shut your eyes for a minute, Griselda," said the cuckoo's voice beside her; "the light will dazzle you at first. Shut them, and I will brush them with a little daisy dew, to strengthen them."
Griselda did as she was told. She felt the tip of the cuckoo's softest feather pass gently two or three times over her eyelids, and a delicious scent seemed immediately to float before her.
"I didn't knowdaisieshad any scent," she remarked.
"Perhaps you didn't. You forget, Griselda, that you have a great——"
"Oh, please don't, cuckoo. Please, please don't,dearcuckoo," she exclaimed, dancing about with her hands clasped in entreaty, but her eyes still firmly closed. "Don't say that, and I'll promise to believe whatever you tell me. And how soon may I open my eyes, please, cuckoo?"
"Turn round slowly, three times. That will give the dew time to take effect," said the cuckoo. "Here goes—one—two—three. There, now."
Griselda opened her eyes.