The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs. Molesworth

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THE CUCKOO CLOCK

by

MRS. MOLESWORTH

Author of "Herr Baby," "Carrots," "Grandmother Dear," etc.

Illustrated by Walter Crane

London:
MacMillan and Co.,
and New York.

1895

[Illustration: IT WAS A LITTLE BOAT.]

[Illustration]

TO

MARY JOSEPHINE,

AND TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF HER BROTHER,

THOMAS GRINDAL,

BOTH FRIENDLY LITTLE CRITICS OF
MY CHILDREN'S STORIES.

Edinburgh, 1877.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE OLD HOUSE

II. _IM_PATIENT GRISELDA

III. OBEYING ORDERS

IV. THE COUNTRY OF THE NODDING MANDARINS

V. PICTURES

VI. RUBBED THE WRONG WAY

VII. BUTTERFLY-LAND

VIII. MASTER PHIL

IX. UP AND DOWN THE CHIMNEY

X. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON

XI. "CUCKOO, CUCKOO, GOOD-BYE!"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

"WHY WON'T YOU SPEAK TO ME?"

MANDARINS NODDING

"MY AUNTS MUST HAVE COME BACK!"

SHE LOOKED LIKE A FAIRY QUEEN

"WHERE ARE THAT CUCKOO?"

"TIRED! HOW COULD I BE TIRED, CUCKOO?"

IT WAS A LITTLE BOAT

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD HOUSE.

"Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country seat."

Once upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very
old house. Such a house as you could hardly find nowadays, however you
searched, for it belonged to a gone-by time--a time now quite passed
away.

It stood in a street, but yet it was not like a town house, for though
the front opened right on to the pavement, the back windows looked out
upon a beautiful, quaintly terraced garden, with old trees growing so
thick and close together that in summer it was like living on the edge
of a forest to be near them; and even in winter the web of their
interlaced branches hid all clear view behind.

There was a colony of rooks in this old garden. Year after year they
held their parliaments and cawed and chattered and fussed; year after
year they built their nests and hatched their eggs; year after year, I
_suppose_, the old ones gradually died off and the young ones took their
place, though, but for knowing this _must_ be so, no one would have
suspected it, for to all appearance the rooks were always the same--ever
and always the same.

Time indeed seemed to stand still in and all about the old house, as if
it and the people who inhabited it had got _so_ old that they could not
get any older, and had outlived the possibility of change.

But one day at last there did come a change. Late in the dusk of an
autumn afternoon a carriage drove up to the door of the old house, came
rattling over the stones with a sudden noisy clatter that sounded quite
impertinent, startling the rooks just as they were composing themselves
to rest, and setting them all wondering what could be the matter.

A little girl was the matter! A little girl in a grey merino frock and
grey beaver bonnet, grey tippet and grey gloves--all grey together, even
to her eyes, all except her round rosy face and bright brown hair. Her
name even was rather grey, for it was Griselda.

A gentleman lifted her out of the carriage and disappeared with her into
the house, and later that same evening the gentleman came out of the
house and got into the carriage which had come back for him again, and
drove away. That was all that the rooks saw of the change that had come
to the old house. Shall we go inside to see more?

Up the shallow, wide, old-fashioned staircase, past the wainscoted
walls, dark and shining like a mirror, down a long narrow passage with
many doors, which but for their gleaming brass handles one would not
have known were there, the oldest of the three old servants led little
Griselda, so tired and sleepy that her supper had been left almost
untasted, to the room prepared for her. It was a queer room, for
everything in the house was queer; but in the dancing light of the fire
burning brightly in the tiled grate, 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_ darkest nooks and
crannies of the ancient dwelling.

She dressed herself carefully, for she had been warned that her aunts
loved neatness and precision; she fastened each button of her grey
frock, and tied down her hair as smooth as such a brown tangle _could_
be tied down; and, absorbed with these weighty cares, she forgot all
about the cuckoo for the time. It was not till she was sitting at
breakfast with her aunts that she remembered it, or rather was reminded
of it, by some little remark that was made about the friendly robins on
the terrace walk outside.

"Oh, aunt," she exclaimed, stopping short half-way the journey to her
mouth of a spoonful of bread and milk, "have you got a cuckoo in a
cage?"

"A cuckoo in a cage," repeated her elder aunt, Miss Grizzel; "what is
the child talking about?"

"In a cage!" echoed Miss Tabitha, "a cuckoo in a cage!"

"There is a cuckoo somewhere in the house," said Griselda; "I heard it
in the night. It couldn't have been out-of-doors, could it? It would be
too cold."

The aunts looked at each other with a little smile. "So like her
grandmother," they whispered. Then said Miss Grizzel--

"We have a cuckoo, my dear, though it isn't in a cage, and it isn't
exactly the sort of cuckoo you are thinking of. It lives in a clock."

"In a clock," repeated Miss Tabitha, as if to confirm her sister's
statement.

"In a clock!" exclaimed Griselda, opening her grey eyes very wide.

It sounded something like the three bears, all speaking one after the
other, only Griselda's voice was not like Tiny's; it was the loudest of
the three.

"In a clock!" she exclaimed; "but it can't be alive, then?"

"Why not?" said Miss Grizzel.

"I don't know," replied Griselda, looking puzzled.

"I knew a little girl once," pursued Miss Grizzel, "who was quite of
opinion the cuckoo _was_ alive, and nothing would have persuaded her it
was not. Finish your breakfast, my dear, and then if you like you shall
come with me and see the cuckoo for yourself."

"Thank you, Aunt Grizzel," said Griselda, going on with her bread and
milk.

"Yes," said Miss Tabitha, "you shall see the cuckoo for yourself."

"Thank you, Aunt Tabitha," said Griselda. It was rather a bother to have
always to say "thank you," or "no, thank you," twice, but Griselda
thought it was polite to do so, as Aunt Tabitha always repeated
everything that Aunt Grizzel said. It wouldn't have mattered so much if
Aunt Tabitha had said it _at once_ after Miss Grizzel, but as she
generally made a little pause between, it was sometimes rather awkward.
But of course it was better to say "thank you" or "no, thank you" twice
over than to hurt Aunt Tabitha's feelings.

After breakfast Aunt Grizzel was as good as her word. She took Griselda
through several of the rooms in the house, pointing out all the
curiosities, and telling all the histories of the rooms and their
contents; and Griselda liked to listen, only in every room they came
to, she wondered _when_ they would get to the room where lived the
cuckoo.

Aunt Tabitha did not come with them, for she was rather rheumatic. On
the whole, Griselda was not sorry. It would have taken such a _very_
long time, you see, to have had all the histories twice over, and
possibly, if Griselda had got tired, she might have forgotten about the
"thank you's" or "no, thank you's" twice over.

The old house looked quite as queer and quaint by daylight as it had
seemed the evening before; almost more so indeed, for the view from the
windows added to the sweet, odd "old-fashionedness" of everything.

"We have beautiful roses in summer," observed Miss Grizzel, catching
sight of the direction in which the child's eyes were wandering.

"I wish it was summer. I do love summer," said Griselda. "But there is a
very rosy scent in the rooms even now, Aunt Grizzel, though it is
winter, or nearly winter."

Miss Grizzel looked pleased.

"My pot-pourri," she explained.

They were just then standing in what she called the "great saloon," a
handsome old room, furnished with gold-and-white chairs, that must once
have been brilliant, and faded yellow damask hangings. A feeling of awe
had crept over Griselda as they entered this ancient drawing-room. What
grand parties there must have been in it long ago! But as for dancing in
it _now_--dancing, or laughing, or chattering--such a thing was quite
impossible to imagine!

Miss Grizzel crossed the room to where stood in one corner a marvellous
Chinese cabinet, all black and gold and carving. It was made in the
shape of a temple, or a palace--Griselda was not sure which. Any way, it
was very delicious and wonderful. At the door stood, one on each side,
two solemn mandarins; or, to speak more correctly, perhaps I should
say, a mandarin and his wife, for the right-hand figure was evidently
intended to be a lady.

Miss Grizzel gently touched their heads. Forthwith, to Griselda's
astonishment, they began solemnly to nod.

"Oh, how do you make them do that, Aunt Grizzel?" she exclaimed.

"Never you mind, my dear; it wouldn't do for _you_ to try to make them
nod. They wouldn't like it," replied Miss Grizzel mysteriously. "Respect
to your elders, my dear, always remember that. The mandarins are _many_
years older than you--older than I myself, in fact."

Griselda wondered, if this were so, how it was that Miss Grizzel took
such liberties with them herself, but she said nothing.

"Here is my last summer's pot-pourri," continued Miss Grizzel, touching
a great china jar on a little stand, close beside the cabinet. "You may
smell it, my dear."

Nothing loth, Griselda buried her round little nose in the fragrant
leaves.

"It's lovely," she said. "May I smell it whenever I like, Aunt Grizzel?"

"We shall see," replied her aunt. "It isn't _every_ little girl, you
know, that we could trust to come into the great saloon alone."

"No," said Griselda meekly.

Miss Grizzel led the way to a door opposite to that by which they had
entered. She opened it and passed through, Griselda following, into a
small ante-room.

"It is on the stroke of ten," said Miss Grizzel, consulting her watch;
"now, my dear, you shall make acquaintance with our cuckoo."

The cuckoo "that lived in a clock!" Griselda gazed round her eagerly.
Where was the clock? She could see nothing in the least like one, only
up on the wall in one corner was what looked like a miniature house, of
dark brown carved wood. It was not so _very_ like a house, but it
certainly had a roof--a roof with deep projecting eaves; and, looking
closer, yes, it _was_ a clock, after all, only the figures, which had
once been gilt, had grown dim with age, like everything else, and the
hands at a little distance were hardly to be distinguished from the
face.

Miss Grizzel stood perfectly still, looking up at the clock; Griselda
beside her, in breathless expectation. Presently there came a sort of
distant rumbling. _Something_ was going to happen. Suddenly two little
doors above the clock face, which Griselda had not known were there,
sprang open with a burst and out flew a cuckoo, flapped his wings, and
uttered his pretty cry, "Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" Miss Grizzel counted
aloud, "Seven, eight, nine, ten." "Yes, he never makes a mistake," she
added triumphantly. "All these long years I have never known him wrong.
There are no such clocks made nowadays, I can assure you, my dear."

"But _is_ it a clock? Isn't he alive?" exclaimed Griselda. "He looked at
me and nodded his head, before he flapped his wings and went in to his
house again--he did indeed, aunt," she said earnestly; "just like
saying, 'How do you do?' to me."

Again Miss Grizzel smiled, the same odd yet pleased smile that Griselda
had seen on her face at breakfast. "Just what Sybilla used to say," she
murmured. "Well, my dear," she added aloud, "it is quite right he
_should_ say, 'How do you do?' to you. It is the first time he has seen
_you_, though many a year ago he knew your dear grandmother, and your
father, too, when he was a little boy. You will find him a good friend,
and one that can teach you many lessons."

"What, Aunt Grizzel?" inquired Griselda, looking puzzled.

"Punctuality, for one thing, and faithful discharge of duty," replied
Miss Grizzel.

"May I come to see the cuckoo--to watch for him coming out, sometimes?"
asked Griselda, who felt as if she could spend all day looking up at the
clock, watching for her little friend's appearance.

"You will see him several times a day," said her aunt, "for it is in
this little room I intend you to prepare your tasks. It is nice and
quiet, and nothing to disturb you, and close to the room where your Aunt
Tabitha and I usually sit."

So saying, Miss Grizzel opened a second door in the little ante-room,
and, to Griselda's surprise, at the foot of a short flight of stairs
through another door, half open, she caught sight of her Aunt Tabitha,
knitting quietly by the fire, in the room in which they had breakfasted.

"What a _very_ funny house it is, Aunt Grizzel," she said, as she
followed her aunt down the steps. "Every room has so many doors, and you
come back to where you were just when you think you are ever so far
off. I shall never be able to find my way about."

"Oh yes, you will, my dear, very soon," said her aunt encouragingly.

"She is very kind," thought Griselda; "but I wish she wouldn't call my
lessons tasks. It makes them sound so dreadfully hard. But, any way, I'm
glad I'm to do them in the room where that dear cuckoo lives."

CHAPTER II.

_IM_PATIENT GRISELDA.

"... fairies but seldom appear;
If we do wrong we must expect
That it will cost us dear!"

It was all very well for a few days. Griselda found plenty to amuse
herself with while the novelty lasted, enough to prevent her missing
_very_ badly the home she had left "over the sea," and the troop of
noisy merry brothers who teased and petted her. Of course she _missed_
them, but not "dreadfully." She was neither homesick nor "dull."

It was not quite such smooth sailing when lessons began. She did not
dislike lessons; in fact, she had always thought she was rather fond of
them. But the having to do them alone was not lively, and her teachers
were very strict. The worst of all was the writing and arithmetic
master, a funny little old man who wore knee-breeches and took snuff,
and called her aunt "Madame," bowing formally whenever he addressed her.
He screwed Griselda up into such an unnatural attitude to write her
copies, that she really felt as if she would never come straight and
loose again; and the arithmetic part of his instructions was even worse.
Oh! what sums in addition he gave her! Griselda had never been partial
to sums, and her rather easy-going governess at home had not, to tell
the truth, been partial to them either. And Mr.--I can't remember the
little old gentleman's name. Suppose we call him Mr. Kneebreeches--Mr.
Kneebreeches, when he found this out, conscientiously put her back to
the very beginning.

It was dreadful, really. He came twice a week, and the days he didn't
come were as bad as those he did, for he left her a whole _row_ I was
going to say, but you couldn't call Mr. Kneebreeches' addition sums
"rows," they were far too fat and wide across to be so spoken of!--whole
slatefuls of these terrible mountains of figures to climb wearily to the
top of. And not to climb _once_ up merely. _The_ terrible thing was Mr.
Kneebreeches' favourite method of what he called "proving." I can't
explain it--it is far beyond my poor powers--but it had something to do
with cutting off the top line, after you had added it all up and had
actually done the sum, you understand--cutting off the top line and
adding the long rows up again without it, and then joining it on again
somewhere else.

"I wouldn't mind so much," said poor Griselda, one day, "if it was any
good. But you see, Aunt Grizzel, it isn't. For I'm just as likely to do
the _proving_ wrong as the sum itself--more likely, for I'm always so
tired when I get to the proving--and so all that's proved is that
_something's_ wrong, and I'm sure that isn't any good, except to make me
cross."

"Hush!" said her aunt gravely. "That is not the way for a little girl to
speak. Improve these golden hours of youth, Griselda; they will never
return."

"I hope not," muttered Griselda, "if it means doing sums."

Miss Grizzel fortunately was a little deaf; she did not hear this
remark. Just then the cuckoo clock struck eleven.

"Good little cuckoo," said Miss Grizzel. "What an example he sets you.
His life is spent in the faithful discharge of duty;" and so saying she
left the room.

The cuckoo was still telling the hour--eleven took a good while. It
seemed to Griselda that the bird repeated her aunt's last words.
"Faith--ful, dis--charge, of--your, du--ty," he said, "faith--ful."

"You horrid little creature!" exclaimed Griselda in a passion; "what
business have you to mock me?"

She seized a book, the first that came to hand, and flung it at the bird
who was just beginning his eleventh cuckoo. He disappeared with a snap,
disappeared without flapping his wings, or, as Griselda always fancied
he did, giving her a friendly nod, and in an instant all was silent.

Griselda felt a little frightened. What had she done? She looked up at
the clock. It seemed just the same as usual, the cuckoo's doors closely
shut, no sign of any disturbance. Could it have been her fancy only that
he had sprung back more hastily than he would have done but for her
throwing the book at him? She began to hope so, and tried to go on with
her lessons. But it was no use. Though she really gave her best
attention to the long addition sums, and found that by so doing she
managed them much better than before, she could not feel happy or at
ease. Every few minutes she glanced up at the clock, as if expecting the
cuckoo to come out, though she knew quite well there was no chance of
his doing so till twelve o'clock, as it was only the hours, not the half
hours and quarters, that he told.

"I wish it was twelve o'clock," she said to herself anxiously more than
once.

If only the clock had not been so very high up on the wall, she would
have been tempted to climb up and open the little doors, and peep in to
satisfy herself as to the cuckoo's condition. But there was no
possibility of this. The clock was far, very far above her reach, and
there was no high piece of furniture standing near, upon which she could
have climbed to get to it. There was nothing to be done but to wait for
twelve o'clock.

And, after all, she did not wait for twelve o'clock, for just about
half-past eleven, Miss Grizzel's voice was heard calling to her to put
on her hat and cloak quickly, and come out to walk up and down the
terrace with her.

"It is fine just now," said Miss Grizzel, "but there is a prospect of
rain before long. You must leave your lessons for the present, and
finish them in the afternoon."

"I have finished them," said Griselda, meekly.

"_All_?" inquired her aunt.

"Yes, all," replied Griselda.

"Ah, well, then, this afternoon, if the rain holds off, we shall drive
to Merrybrow Hall, and inquire for the health of your dear godmother,
Lady Lavander," said Miss Grizzel.

Poor Griselda! There were few things she disliked more than a drive with
her aunts. They went in the old yellow chariot, with all the windows up,
and of course Griselda had to sit with her back to the horses, which
made her very uncomfortable when she had no air, and had to sit still
for so long.

Merrybrow Hall was a large house, quite as old and much grander, but not
nearly so wonderful as the home of Griselda's aunts. It was six miles
off, and it took a very long time indeed to drive there in the rumbling
old chariot, for the old horses were fat and wheezy, and the old
coachman fat and wheezy too. Lady Lavander was, of course, old too--very
old indeed, and rather grumpy and very deaf. Miss Grizzel and Miss
Tabitha had the greatest respect for her; she always called them "My
dear," as if they were quite girls, and they listened to all she said as
if her words were of gold. For some mysterious reason she had been
invited to be Griselda's godmother; but, as she had never shown her any
proof of affection beyond giving her a prayer-book, and hoping, whenever
she saw her, that she was "a good little miss," Griselda did not feel
any particular cause for gratitude to her.

The drive seemed longer and duller than ever this afternoon, but
Griselda bore it meekly; and when Lady Lavander, as usual, expressed her
hopes about her, the little girl looked down modestly, feeling her
cheeks grow scarlet. "I am not a good little girl at all," she felt
inclined to call out. "I'm very bad and cruel. I believe I've killed the
dear little cuckoo."

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