The Cuckoo Clock | Page 8

'good
people' can't stand that. Nothing drives them away like ill-temper or
anger."
Griselda's conscience gave her a sharp prick. Could it be her doing that
trouble was coming upon the old house? What a punishment for a
moment's fit of ill-temper.
"I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Dorcas," she said; "it makes me so
unhappy."
"What a feeling heart the child has!" said the old servant as she went on
her way downstairs. "It's true--she is very like Miss Sybilla."
That day was a very weary and sad one for Griselda. She was
oppressed by a feeling she did not understand. She knew she had done
wrong, but she had sorely repented it, and "I do think the cuckoo might
have come back again," she said to herself, "if he is a fairy; and if he
isn't, it can't be true what Dorcas says."
Her aunts made no allusion to the subject in her presence, and almost
seemed to have forgotten that she had known of their distress. They
were more grave and silent than usual, but otherwise things went on in
their ordinary way. Griselda spent the morning "at her tasks," in the
ante-room, but was thankful to get away from the tick-tick of the clock
in the corner and out into the garden.
But there, alas! it was just as bad. The rooks seemed to know that
something was the matter; they set to work making such a chatter
immediately Griselda appeared that she felt inclined to run back into
the house again.
"I am sure they are talking about me," she said to herself. "Perhaps they
are fairies too. I am beginning to think I don't like fairies."

She was glad when bed-time came. It was a sort of reproach to her to
see her aunts so pale and troubled; and though she tried to persuade
herself that she thought them very silly, she could not throw off the
uncomfortable feeling.
She was so tired when she went to bed--tired in the disagreeable way
that comes from a listless, uneasy day--that she fell asleep at once and
slept heavily. When she woke, which she did suddenly, and with a start,
it was still perfectly dark, like the first morning that she had wakened in
the old house. It seemed to her that she had not wakened of
herself--something had roused her. Yes! there it was again, a very, very
soft distant "cuckoo." Was it distant? She could not tell. Almost she
could have fancied it was close to her.
"If it's that cuckoo come back again, I'll catch him!" exclaimed
Griselda.
She darted out of bed, felt her way to the door, which was closed, and
opening it let in a rush of moonlight from the unshuttered passage
window. In another moment her little bare feet were pattering along the
passage at full speed, in the direction of the great saloon.
For Griselda's childhood among the troop of noisy brothers had taught
her one lesson--she was afraid of nothing. Or rather perhaps I should
say she had never learnt that there was anything to be afraid of! And is
there?
CHAPTER III.
OBEYING ORDERS.
"Little girl, thou must thy part fulfil, If we're to take kindly to ours:
Then pull up the weeds with a will, And fairies will cherish the
flowers."
There was moonlight, though not so much, in the saloon and the
ante-room, too; for though the windows, like those in Griselda's
bed-room, had the shutters closed, there was a round part at the top,

high up, which the shutters did not reach to, and in crept, through these
clear uncovered panes, quite as many moonbeams, you may be sure, as
could find their way.
Griselda, eager though she was, could not help standing still a moment
to admire the effect.
"It looks prettier with the light coming in at those holes at the top than
even if the shutters were open," she said to herself. "How goldy-silvery
the cabinet looks; and, yes, I do declare, the mandarins are nodding! I
wonder if it is out of politeness to me, or does Aunt Grizzel come in
last thing at night and touch them to make them keep nodding till
morning? I suppose they're a sort of policemen to the palace; and I dare
say there are all sorts of beautiful things inside. How I should like to
see all through it!"
But at this moment the faint tick-tick of the cuckoo clock in the next
room, reaching her ear, reminded her of the object of this midnight
expedition of hers. She hurried into the ante-room.
It looked darker than the great saloon, for it had but one window. But
through the uncovered space at the top of this window there penetrated
some brilliant moonbeams, one