The Cuckoo Clock | Page 2

it looked cheerful enough.
"I am glad there's a fire," said the child. "Will it keep alight till the
morning, do you think?"
The old servant shook her head.
"'Twould not be safe to leave it so that it would burn till morning," she
said. "When you are in bed and asleep, little missie, you won't want the
fire. Bed's the warmest place."
"It isn't for that I want it," said Griselda; "it's for the light I like it. This
house all looks so dark to me, and yet there seem to be lights hidden in
the walls too, they shine so."
The old servant smiled.

"It will all seem strange to you, no doubt," she said; "but you'll get to
like it, missie. 'Tis a good old house, and those that know best love it
well."
"Whom do you mean?" said Griselda. "Do you mean my great-aunts?"
"Ah, yes, and others beside," replied the old woman. "The rooks love it
well, and others beside. Did you ever hear tell of the 'good people,'
missie, over the sea where you come from?"
"Fairies, do you mean?" cried Griselda, her eyes sparkling. "Of course
I've heard of them, but I never saw any. Did you ever?"
"I couldn't say," answered the old woman.
"My mind is not young like yours, missie, and there are times when
strange memories come back to me as of sights and sounds in a dream.
I am too old to see and hear as I once could. We are all old here, missie.
'Twas time something young came to the old house again."
"How strange and queer everything seems!" thought Griselda, as she
got into bed. "I don't feel as if I belonged to it a bit. And they are all so
old; perhaps they won't like having a child among them?"
The very same thought that had occurred to the rooks! They could not
decide as to the fors and againsts at all, so they settled to put it to the
vote the next morning, and in the meantime they and Griselda all went
to sleep.
I never heard if they slept well that night; after such unusual excitement
it was hardly to be expected they would. But Griselda, being a little girl
and not a rook, was so tired that two minutes after she had tucked
herself up in bed she was quite sound asleep, and did not wake for
several hours.
"I wonder what it will all look like in the morning," was her last waking
thought. "If it was summer now, or spring, I shouldn't mind--there
would always be something nice to do then."

As sometimes happens, when she woke again, very early in the
morning, long before it was light, her thoughts went straight on with
the same subject.
"If it was summer now, or spring," she repeated to herself, just as if she
had not been asleep at all--like the man who fell into a trance for a
hundred years just as he was saying "it is bitt--" and when he woke up
again finished the sentence as if nothing had happened--"erly cold." "If
only it was spring," thought Griselda.
Just as she had got so far in her thoughts, she gave a great start. What
was it she heard? Could her wish have come true? Was this fairyland
indeed that she had got to, where one only needs to wish, for it to _be_?
She rubbed her eyes, but it was too dark to see; that was not very
fairyland-like, but her ears she felt certain had not deceived her: she
was quite, quite sure that she had heard the cuckoo!
She listened with all her might, but she did not hear it again. Could it,
after all, have been fancy? She grew sleepy at last, and was just
dropping off when--yes, there it was again, as clear and distinct as
possible--"Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!" three, four, five times, then
perfect silence as before.
"What a funny cuckoo," said Griselda to herself. "I could almost fancy
it was in the house. I wonder if my great-aunts have a tame cuckoo in a
cage? I don't think I ever heard of such a thing, but this is such a queer
house; everything seems different in it--perhaps they have a tame
cuckoo. I'll ask them in the morning. It's very nice to hear, whatever it
is."
And, with a pleasant feeling of companionship, a sense that she was not
the only living creature awake in this dark world, Griselda lay listening,
contentedly enough, for the sweet, fresh notes of the cuckoo's friendly
greeting. But before it sounded again through the silent house she was
once more fast asleep. And this time she slept till daylight had found its
way into all but the very