The Cuckoo Clock | Page 7

room again. Just as she got to the door it seemed to her that something softly brushed her cheek, and a very, very faint "cuckoo" sounded as it were in the air close to her.
Startled, but not frightened, Griselda stood perfectly still.
"Cuckoo," she said, softly. But there was no answer.
Again the tones of Miss Grizzel's voice coming upstairs reached her ear.
"I must go," said Griselda; and finding her way across the saloon without, by great good luck, tumbling against any of the many breakable treasures with which it was filled, she flew down the long passage again, reaching her own room just before Dorcas appeared with her supper.
Griselda slept badly that night. She was constantly dreaming of the cuckoo, fancying she heard his voice, and then waking with a start to find it was only fancy. She looked pale and heavy-eyed when she came down to breakfast the next morning; and her Aunt Tabitha, who was alone in the room when she entered, began immediately asking her what was the matter.
"I am sure you are going to be ill, child," she said, nervously. "Sister Grizzel must give you some medicine. I wonder what would be the best. Tansy tea is an excellent thing when one has taken cold, or----"
But the rest of Miss Tabitha's sentence was never heard, for at this moment Miss Grizzel came hurriedly into the room--her cap awry, her shawl disarranged, her face very pale. I hardly think any one had ever seen her so discomposed before.
"Sister Tabitha!" she exclaimed, "what can be going to happen? The cuckoo clock has stopped."
"The cuckoo clock has stopped!" repeated Miss Tabitha, holding up her hands; "_im_possible!"
"But it has, or rather I should say--dear me, I am so upset I cannot explain myself--the cuckoo has stopped. The clock is going on, but the cuckoo has not told the hours, and Dorcas is of opinion that he left off doing so yesterday. What can be going to happen? What shall we do?"
"What can we do?" said Miss Tabitha. "Should we send for the watch-maker?"
Miss Grizzel shook her head.
"'Twould be worse than useless. Were we to search the world over, we could find no one to put it right. Fifty years and more, Tabitha, fifty years and more, it has never missed an hour! We are getting old, Tabitha, our day is nearly over; perhaps 'tis to remind us of this."
Miss Tabitha did not reply. She was weeping silently. The old ladies seemed to have forgotten the presence of their niece, but Griselda could not bear to see their distress. She finished her breakfast as quickly as she could, and left the room.
On her way upstairs she met Dorcas.
"Have you heard what has happened, little missie?" said the old servant.
"Yes," replied Griselda.
"My ladies are in great trouble," continued Dorcas, who seemed inclined to be more communicative than usual, "and no wonder. For fifty years that clock has never gone wrong."
"Can't it be put right?" asked the child.
Dorcas shook her head.
"No good would come of interfering," she said. "What must be, must be. The luck of the house hangs on that clock. Its maker spent a good part of his life over it, and his last words were that it would bring good luck to the house that owned it, but that trouble would follow its silence. It's my belief," she added solemnly, "that it's a fairy clock, neither more nor less, for good luck it has brought there's no denying. There are no cows like ours, missie--their milk is a proverb hereabouts; there are no hens like ours for laying all the year round; there are no roses like ours. And there's always a friendly feeling in this house, and always has been. 'Tis not a house for wrangling and jangling, and sharp words. The '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