reply, but nodded again--once, then two or three times together, then
once alone, just as before. Griselda did not know what to do, when
suddenly she felt something poking her head. It was the cuckoo--he had
lifted his claw, and was tapping her head to make her nod. So she
nodded--once, twice together, then once--that appeared to be enough. The
king nodded once again; an invisible band suddenly struck up the
loveliest music, and off they set to the places of honour reserved for
them in the centre of the room, where all the mandarins were assembling.
What a dance that was! It began like a minuet and ended something like
the haymakers. Griselda had not the least idea what the figures or steps
were, but it did not matter. If she did not know, her shoes or
something about her did; for she got on famously. The music was
lovely--"so the mandarins can't be deaf, though they are dumb," thought
Griselda, "which is one good thing about them." The king seemed to enjoy
it as much as she did, though he never smiled or laughed; any one could
have seen he liked it by the way he whirled and twirled himself about.
And between the figures, when they stopped to rest for a little,
Griselda got on very well too. There was no conversation, or rather, if
there was, it was all nodding.
So Griselda nodded too, and though she did not know what her nods meant,
the king seemed to understand and be quite pleased; and when they had
nodded enough, the music struck up again, and off they set, harder than
before.
And every now and then tiny little mandariny boys appeared with trays
filled with the most delicious fruits and sweetmeats. Griselda was not
a greedy child, but for once in her life she really _did_ feel rather
so. I cannot possibly describe these delicious things; just think of
whatever in all your life was the most "lovely" thing you ever eat, and
you may be sure they tasted like that. Only the cuckoo would not eat
any, which rather distressed Griselda. He walked about among the
dancers, apparently quite at home; and the mandarins did not seem at all
surprised to see him, though he did look rather odd, being nearly, if
not quite, as big as any of them. Griselda hoped he was enjoying
himself, considering that she had to thank him for all the fun _she_ was
having, but she felt a little conscience-stricken when she saw that he
wouldn't eat anything.
"Cuckoo," she whispered; she dared not talk out loud--it would have
seemed so remarkable, you see. "Cuckoo," she said, very, very softly, "I
wish you would eat something. You'll be so tired and hungry."
"No, thank you," said the cuckoo; and you can't think how pleased
Griselda was at having succeeded in making him speak. "It isn't my way.
I hope you are enjoying yourself?"
"Oh, _very_ much," said Griselda. "I----"
"Hush!" said the cuckoo; and looking up, Griselda saw a number of
mandarins, in a sort of procession, coming their way.
When they got up to the cuckoo they set to work nodding, two or three at
a time, more energetically than usual. When they stopped, the cuckoo
nodded in return, and then hopped off towards the middle of the room.
"They're very fond of good music, you see," he whispered as he passed
Griselda; "and they don't often get it."
V
PICTURES
[Illustration]
"And she is always beautiful
And always is eighteen!"
When 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 flowing through 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 a minute 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 the cuckoo 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. What fun it was! I
believe that cuckoo made me fall asleep on purpose to make me fancy it
was a dream. _Was_ it 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 says being 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' _was_ like?" 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 Miss Tabitha 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. I _am_
so 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 the cuckoo. "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--_everything_ seemed 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 and strange. 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 look _poor_, 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, and a little girl danced into the room. The dearest little girl
you ever saw, and _so_ funnily dressed! Her thick brown hair, rather
lighter than Griselda's, was tied in two long plaits down her 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 your _fete_?" 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 be _so_ happy 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, the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of my life, shall not be sold. It shall be yours,
and you 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, and tenderly
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 was
filled 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. And when 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 ear the 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 to _try_ to 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's
_quite_ gone."
"Come, that is good news," said Miss Grizzel. "Not that I'm exactly
_surprised_," 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 husband _very_ sorry?" 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 sent _you_--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, _how_ pretty 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 held hers 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 the very 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--_that_ we 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."
[Illustration]
VI
RUBBED THE WRONG WAY
[Illustration]
"For now and then there comes a day
When everything goes wrong."