The Cuckoo Clock Part 14

"I am so tired of the feast," she said. "Do let us do something else, cuckoo."

"It is getting rather late," said the cuckoo. "But see, Griselda, they are going to have an air-dance now."

"What's that?" said Griselda.

"Look, and you'll see," he replied.

Flocks and flocks of b.u.t.terflies were rising a short way into the air, and there arranging themselves in bands according to their colours.

"Come up to the bank," said the cuckoo to Griselda; "you'll see them better."

Griselda climbed up the bank, and as from there she could look down on the b.u.t.terfly show, she saw it beautifully. The long strings of b.u.t.terflies twisted in and out of each other in the most wonderful way, like ribbons of every hue plaiting themselves and then in an instant unplaiting themselves again. Then the king and queen placed themselves in the centre, and round and round in moving circles twisted and untwisted the brilliant bands of b.u.t.terflies.

"It's like a kaleidoscope," said Griselda; "and now it's like those twisty-twirly dissolving views that papa took me to see once. It's _just_ like them. Oh, how pretty! Cuckoo, are they doing it all on purpose to please me?"

"A good deal," said the cuckoo. "Stand up and clap your hands loud three times, to show them you're pleased."

Griselda obeyed. "Clap" number one--all the b.u.t.terflies rose up into the air in a cloud; clap number two--they all fluttered and twirled and buzzed about, as if in the greatest excitement; clap number three--they all turned in Griselda's direction with a rush.

"They're going to kiss you, Griselda," cried the cuckoo.

Griselda felt her breath going. Up above her was the vast feathery cloud of b.u.t.terflies, fluttering, _rus.h.i.+ng_ down upon her.

"Cuckoo, cuckoo," she screamed, "they'll suffocate me. Oh, cuckoo!"

"Shut your eyes, and clap your hands loud, very loud," called out the cuckoo.

And just as Griselda clapped her hands, holding her precious handkerchief between her teeth, she heard him give his usual cry, "Cuckoo, cuckoo."

_Clap_--where were they all?

Griselda opened her eyes--garden, b.u.t.terflies, cuckoo, all had disappeared. She was in bed, and Dorcas was knocking at the door with the hot water.

"Miss Grizzel said I was to wake you at your usual time this morning, missie," she said. "I hope you don't feel too tired to get up."

"Tired! I should think not," replied Griselda. "I was awake this morning ages before you, I can tell you, my dear Dorcas. Come here for a minute, Dorcas, please," she went on. "There now, sniff my handkerchief. What do you think of that?"

"It's beautiful," said Dorcas. "It's out of the big blue chinay bottle on your auntie's table, isn't it, missie?"

"Stuff and nonsense," replied Griselda; "it's scent of my own, Dorcas.

Aunt Grizzel never had any like it in her life. There now! Please give me my slippers, I want to get up and look over my lessons for Mr.

Kneebreeches before he comes. Dear me," she added to herself, as she was putting on her slippers, "how pretty my feet did look with the blue b.u.t.terfly shoes! It was very good of the cuckoo to take me there, but I don't think I shall ever wish to be a b.u.t.terfly again, now I know how hard they work! But I'd like to do my lessons well to-day. I fancy it'll please the dear old cuckoo."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

VIII

MASTER PHIL

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Who comes from the world of flowers?

Daisy and crocus, and sea-blue bell, And violet shrinking in dewy cell-- Sly cells that know the secrets of night, When earth is bathed in fairy light-- Scarlet, and blue, and golden flowers."

And so Mr. Kneebreeches had no reason to complain of his pupil that day.

And Miss Grizzel congratulated herself more heartily than ever on her wise management of children.

And Miss Tabitha repeated that Sister Grizzel might indeed congratulate herself.

And Griselda became gradually more and more convinced that the only way as yet discovered of getting through hard tasks is to set to work and do them; also, that grumbling, as things are at present arranged in this world, does not _always_, nor I may say _often_, do good; furthermore, that an ill-tempered child is not, on the whole, likely to be as much loved as a good-tempered one; lastly, that if you wait long enough, winter will go and spring will come.

For this was the case this year, after all! Spring had only been sleepy and lazy, and in such a case what could poor old winter do but fill the vacant post till she came? Why he should be so scolded and reviled for faithfully doing his best, as he often is, I really don't know. Not that all the ill words he gets have much effect on him--he comes again just as usual, whatever we say of or to him. I suppose his feelings have long ago been frozen up, or surely before this he would have taken offence--well for us that he has not done so!

But when the spring did come at last this year, it would be impossible for me to tell you how Griselda enjoyed it. It was like new life to her as well as to the plants, and flowers, and birds, and insects. Hitherto, you see, she had been able to see very little of the outside of her aunt's house; and charming as the inside was, the outside, I must say, was still "charminger." There seemed no end to the little up-and-down paths and alleys, leading to rustic seats and quaint arbours; no limits to the little pine-wood, down into which led the dearest little zig-zaggy path you ever saw, all bordered with snow-drops and primroses and violets, and later on with periwinkles, and wood anemones, and those bright, starry, white flowers, whose name no two people agree about.

This wood-path was the place, I think, which Griselda loved the best.

The bowling-green was certainly very delightful, and so was the terrace where the famous roses grew; but lovely as the roses were (I am speaking just now, of course, of later on in the summer, when they were all in bloom), Griselda could not enjoy them as much as the wild-flowers, for she was forbidden to gather or touch them, except with her funny round nose!

"You may _scent_ them, my dear," said Miss Grizzel, who was of opinion that smell was not a pretty word; "but I cannot allow anything more."

And Griselda did "scent" them, I a.s.sure you. She burrowed her whole rosy face in the big ones; but gently, for she did not want to spoil them, both for her aunt's sake, and because, too, she had a greater regard for flowers now that she knew the secret of how they were painted, and what a great deal of trouble the b.u.t.terflies take about them.

But after a while one grows tired of "scenting" roses; and even the trying to walk straight across the bowling-green with her eyes shut, from the arbour at one side to the arbour exactly like it at the other, grew stupid, though no doubt it would have been capital fun with a companion to applaud or criticize.

So the wood-path became Griselda's favourite haunt. As the summer grew on, she began to long more than ever for a companion--not so much for play, as for some one to play with. She had lessons, of course, just as many as in the winter; but with the long days, there seemed to come a quite unaccountable increase of play-time, and Griselda sometimes found it hang heavy on her hands. She had not seen or heard anything of the cuckoo either, save, of course, in his "official capacity" of time-teller, for a very long time.

"I suppose," she thought, "he thinks I don't need amusing, now that the fine days are come and I can play in the garden; and certainly, if I had _any one_ to play with, the garden would be perfectly lovely."

But, failing companions, she did the best she could for herself, and this was why she loved the path down into the wood so much. There was a sort of mystery about it; it might have been the path leading to the cottage of Red-Ridinghood's grandmother, or a path leading to fairyland itself. There were all kinds of queer, nice, funny noises to be heard there--in one part of it especially, where Griselda made herself a seat of some moss-grown stones, and where she came so often that she got to know all the little flowers growing close round about, and even the particular birds whose nests were hard by.

She used to sit there and _fancy_--fancy that she heard the wood-elves chattering under their breath, or the little underground gnomes and kobolds hammering at their fairy forges. And the tinkling of the brook in the distance sounded like the enchanted bells round the necks of the fairy kine, who are sent out to pasture sometimes on the upper world hillsides. For Griselda's head was crammed full, perfectly full, of fairy lore; and the mandarins' country, and b.u.t.terfly-land, were quite as real to her as the every-day world about her.

But all this time she was not forgotten by the cuckoo, as you will see.

One day she was sitting in her favourite nest, feeling, notwithstanding the suns.h.i.+ne, and the flowers, and the soft sweet air, and the pleasant sounds all about, rather dull and lonely. For though it was only May, it was really quite a hot day, and Griselda had been all the morning at her lessons, and had tried very hard, and done them very well, and now she felt as if she deserved some reward. Suddenly in the distance, she heard a well-known sound, "Cuckoo, cuckoo."

"Can that be the cuckoo?" she said to herself; and in a moment she felt sure that it must be. For, for some reason that I do not know enough about the habits of real "flesh and blood" cuckoos to explain, that bird was not known in the neighbourhood where Griselda's aunts lived. Some twenty miles or so further south it was heard regularly, but all this spring Griselda had never caught the sound of its familiar note, and she now remembered hearing it never came to these parts.

So, "it must be my cuckoo," she said to herself. "He must be coming out to speak to me. How funny! I have never seen him by daylight."

She listened. Yes, again there it was, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," as plain as possible, and nearer than before.

"Cuckoo," cried Griselda, "do come and talk to me. It's such a long time since I have seen you, and I have n.o.body to play with."