Chapter 8

But notwithstanding her distress, when Dorcas had left her she did feel her heart a little lighter, and somehow or other before long she fell asleep.

When she awoke it seemed to be suddenly, and she had the feeling that something had disturbed her. She lay for a minute or two perfectly still--listening. Yes; there it was--the soft, faint rustle in the air that she knew so well. It seemed as if something was moving away from her.

"Cuckoo," she said gently, "is that you?"

A moment's pause, then came the answer--the pretty greeting she expected.

"Cuckoo, cuckoo," soft and musical. Then the cuckoo spoke.

"Well, Griselda" he said, "and how are you? It's a good while since we have had any fun together."

"That's not _my_ fault," said Griselda sharply. She was not yet feeling quite as amiable as might have been desired, you see. "That's _certainly_ not my fault," she repeated.

"I never said it was," replied the cuckoo. "Why will you jump at conclusions so? It's a very bad habit, for very often you jump _over_ them, you see, and go too far. One should always _walk_ up to conclusions, very slowly and evenly, right foot first, then left, one with another--that's the way to get where you want to go, and feel sure of your ground. Do you see?"

"I don't know whether I do or not, and I'm not going to speak to you if you go on at me like that. You might see I don't want to be lectured when I am so unhappy."

"What are you unhappy about?"

"About Phil, of course. I won't tell you, for I believe you know," said Griselda. "Wasn't it you that sent him to play with me? I was so pleased, and I thought it was very kind of you; but it's all spoilt now."

"But I heard Dorcas saying that your aunt is going over to consult my Lady Lavander about it," said the cuckoo. "It'll be all right; you needn't be in such low spirits about nothing."

"Were you in the room _then_?" said Griselda. "How funny you are, cuckoo. But it isn't all right. Don't you see, poor little Phil will be coming up the wood-path to-morrow afternoon to meet me, and I won't be there! I can't bear to think of it."

"Is that all?" said the cuckoo. "It really is extraordinary how some people make troubles out of nothing! We can easily tell Phil not to come till the day after. Come along."

"Come along," repeated Griselda; "what do you mean?"

"Oh, I forgot," said the cuckoo. "You don't understand. Put out your hand. There, do you feel me?"

"Yes," said Griselda, stroking gently the soft feathers which seemed to be close under her hand. "Yes, I feel you."

"Well, then," said the cuckoo, "put your arms round my neck, and hold me firm. I'll lift you up."

"How _can_ you talk such nonsense, cuckoo?" said Griselda. "Why, one of my little fingers would clasp your neck. How can I put my arms round it?"

"Try," said the cuckoo.

Somehow Griselda had to try.

She held out her arms in the cuckoo's direction, as if she expected his neck to be about the size of a Shetland pony's, or a large Newfoundland dog's; and, to her astonishment, so it was! A nice, comfortable, feathery neck it felt--so soft that she could not help laying her head down upon it, and nestling in the downy cushion.

"That's right," said the cuckoo.

Then he seemed to give a little spring, and Griselda felt herself altogether lifted on to his back. She lay there as comfortably as possible--it felt so firm as well as soft. Up he flew a little way--then stopped short.

"Are you all right?" he inquired. "You're not afraid of falling off?"

"Oh no," said Griselda; "not a bit."

"You needn't be," said the cuckoo, "for you couldn't if you tried. I'm going on, then."

"Where to?" said Griselda.

"Up the chimney first," said the cuckoo.

"But there'll never be room," said Griselda. "I might _perhaps_ crawl up like a sweep, hands and knees, you know, like going up a ladder. But stretched out like this--it's just as if I were lying on a sofa--I _couldn't_ go up the chimney."

"Couldn't you?" said the cuckoo. "We'll see. _I_ intend to go, any way, and to take you with me. Shut your eyes--one, two, three--here goes--we'll be up the chimney before you know."

It was quite true. Griselda shut her eyes tight. She felt nothing but a pleasant sort of rush. Then she heard the cuckoo's voice, saying--

"Well, wasn't that well done? Open your eyes and look about you."

Griselda did so. Where were they?

They were floating about above the top of the house, which Griselda saw down below them, looking dark and vast. She felt confused and bewildered.

"Cuckoo," she said, "I don't understand. Is it I that have grown little, or you that have grown big?"

"Whichever you please," said the cuckoo. "You have forgotten. I told you long ago it is all a matter of fancy."

"Yes, if everything grew little _together_," persisted Griselda; "but it isn't everything. It's just you or me, or both of us. No, it can't be both of us. And I don't think it can be me, for if any of me had grown little all would, and my eyes haven't grown little, for everything looks as big as usual, only _you_ a great deal bigger. My eyes can't have grown bigger without the rest of me, surely, for the moon looks just the same. And I must have grown little, or else we couldn't have got up the chimney. Oh, cuckoo, you have put all my thinking into such a muddle!"

"Never mind," said the cuckoo. "It'll show you how little consequence big and little are of. Make yourself comfortable all the same. Are you all right? Shut your eyes if you like. I'm going pretty fast."

"Where to?" said Griselda.

"To Phil, of course," said the cuckoo. "What a bad memory you have! Are you comfortable?"

"_Very_, thank you," replied Griselda, giving the cuckoo's neck an affectionate hug as she spoke.

"That'll do, thank you. Don't throttle me, if it's quite the same to you," said the cuckoo. "Here goes--one, two, three," and off he flew again.

Griselda shut her eyes and lay still. It was delicious--the gliding, yet darting motion, like nothing she had ever felt before. It did not make her the least giddy, either; but a slightly sleepy feeling came over her. She felt no inclination to open her eyes; and, indeed, at the rate they were going, she could have distinguished very little had she done so.

Suddenly the feeling in the air about her changed. For an instant it felt more _rushy_ than before, and there was a queer, dull sound in her ears. Then she felt that the cuckoo had stopped.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"We've just come _down_ a chimney again," said the cuckoo. "Open your eyes and clamber down off my back, but don't speak loud, or you'll waken him, and that wouldn't do. There you are--the moonlight's coming in nicely at the window--you can see your way."

Griselda found herself in a little bed-room, quite a tiny one, and by the look of the simple furniture and the latticed window, she saw that she was not in a grand house. But everything looked very neat and nice, and on a little bed in one corner lay a lovely sleeping child. It was Phil! He looked so pretty asleep--his shaggy curls all tumbling about, his rosy mouth half open as if smiling, one little hand tossed over his head, the other tight clasping a little basket which he had insisted on taking to bed with him, meaning as soon as he was dressed the next morning to run out and fill it with flowers for the little girl he had made friends with.

Griselda stepped up to the side of the bed on tiptoe. The cuckoo had disappeared, but Griselda heard his voice. It seemed to come from a little way up the chimney.

"Don't wake him," said the cuckoo, "but whisper what you want to say into his ear, as soon as I have called him. He'll understand; he's accustomed to my ways."

Then came the old note, soft and musical as ever--

"Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo. Listen, Phil," said the cuckoo, and without opening his eyes a change passed over the little boy's face. Griselda could see that he was listening to hear her message.

"He thinks he's dreaming, I suppose," she said to herself with a smile. Then she whispered softly--

"Phil, dear, don't come to play with me to-morrow, for I can't come. But come the day after. I'll be at the wood-path then."

"Welly well," murmured Phil. Then he put out his two arms towards Griselda, all without opening his eyes, and she, bending down, kissed him softly.

"Phil's so sleepy," he whispered, like a baby almost. Then he turned over and went to sleep more soundly than before.

"That'll do," said the cuckoo. "Come along, Griselda."

Griselda obediently made her way to the place whence the cuckoo's voice seemed to come.

"Shut your eyes and put your arms round my neck again," said the cuckoo.

She did not hesitate this time. It all happened just as before. There came the same sort of rushy sound; then the cuckoo stopped, and Griselda opened her eyes.

They were up in the air again--a good way up, too, for some grand old elms that stood beside the farmhouse were gently waving their topmost branches a yard or two from where the cuckoo was poising himself and Griselda.

"Where shall we go to now?" he said. "Or would you rather go home? Are you tired?"

"Tired!" exclaimed Griselda. "I should rather think not. How could I be tired, cuckoo?"

"Very well, don't excite yourself about nothing, whatever you do," said the cuckoo. "Say where you'd like to go."

"How can I?" said Griselda. "You know far more nice places than I do."

"You don't care to go back to the mandarins, or the butterflies, I suppose?" asked the cuckoo.

"No, thank you," said Griselda; "I'd like something new. And I'm not sure that I care for seeing any more countries of that kind, unless you could take me to the _real_ fairyland."

"_I_ can't do that, you know," said the cuckoo.

Just then a faint "soughing" sound among the branches suggested another idea to Griselda.

"Cuckoo," she exclaimed, "take me to the sea. It's _such_ a time since I saw the sea. I can fancy I hear it; do take me to see it."

X

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON

"That after supper time has come, And silver dews the meadow steep, And all is silent in the home, And even nurses are asleep, That be it late, or be it soon, Upon this lovely night in June They both will step into the moon."

"Very well," said the cuckoo. "You would like to look about you a little on the way, perhaps, Griselda, as we shall not be going down chimneys, or anything of that kind just at present."

"Yes," said Griselda. "I think I should. I'm rather tired of shutting my eyes, and I'm getting quite accustomed to flying about with you, cuckoo."

"Turn on your side, then," said the cuckoo, "and you won't have to twist your neck to see over my shoulder. Are you comfortable now? And, by-the-by, as you may be cold, just feel under my left wing. You'll find the feather mantle there, that you had on once before. Wrap it round you. I tucked it in at the last moment, thinking you might want it."

"Oh, you dear, kind cuckoo!" cried Griselda. "Yes, I've found it. I'll tuck it all round me like a rug--that's it. I _am_ so warm now, cuckoo."

"Here goes, then," said the cuckoo, and off they set. Had ever a little girl such a flight before? Floating, darting, gliding, sailing--no words can describe it. Griselda lay still in delight, gazing all about her.

"How lovely the stars are, cuckoo!" she said. "Is it true they're all great, big _suns_? I'd rather they weren't. I like to think of them as nice, funny little things."

"They're not all suns," said the cuckoo. "Not all those you're looking at now."

"I like the twinkling ones best," said Griselda. "They look so good-natured. Are they _all_ twirling about always, cuckoo? Mr. Kneebreeches has just begun to teach me astronomy, and _he_ says they are; but I'm not at all sure that he knows much about it."

"He's quite right all the same," replied the cuckoo.

"Oh dear me! How tired they must be, then!" said Griselda. "Do they never rest just for a minute?"

"Never."

"Why not?"

"Obeying orders," replied the cuckoo.

Griselda gave a little wriggle.

"What's the use of it?" she said. "It would be just as nice if they stood still now and then."

"Would it?" said the cuckoo. "I know somebody who would soon find fault if they did. What would you say to no summer; no day, or no night, whichever it happened not to be, you see; nothing growing, and nothing to eat before long? That's what it would be if they stood still, you see, because----"

"Thank you, cuckoo," interrupted Griselda. "It's very nice to hear you--I mean, very dreadful to think of, but I don't want you to explain. I'll ask Mr. Kneebreeches when I'm at my lessons. You might tell me one thing, however. What's at the other side of the moon?"

"There's a variety of opinions," said the cuckoo.

"What are they? Tell me the funniest."

"Some say all the unfinished work of the world is kept there," said the cuckoo.

"_That's_ not funny," said Griselda. "What a messy place it must be! Why, even _my_ unfinished work makes quite a heap. I don't like that opinion at all, cuckoo. Tell me another."

"I _have_ heard," said the cuckoo, "that among the places there you would find the country of the little black dogs. You know what sort of creatures those are?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Griselda, rather reluctantly.

"There are a good many of them in this world, as of course you know," continued the cuckoo. "But up there, they are much worse than here. When a child has made a great pet of one down here, I've heard tell the fairies take him up there when his parents and nurses think he's sleeping quietly in his bed, and make him work hard all night, with his own particular little black dog on his back. And it's so dreadfully heavy--for every time he takes it on his back down here it grows a pound heavier up there--that by morning the child is quite worn out. I dare say you've noticed how haggered and miserable some ill-tempered children get to look--now you'll know the reason."

"Thank you, cuckoo," said Griselda again; "but I can't say I like this opinion about the other side of the moon any better than the first. If you please, I would rather not talk about it any more."

"Oh, but it's not so bad an idea after all," said the cuckoo. "Lots of children, they say, get quite cured in the country of the little black dogs. It's this way--for every time a child refuses to take the dog on his back down here it grows a pound lighter up there, so at last any sensible child learns how much better it is to have nothing to say to it at all, and gets out of the way of it, you see. Of course, there _are_ children whom nothing would cure, I suppose. What becomes of them I really can't say. Very likely they get crushed into pancakes by the weight of the dogs at last, and then nothing more is ever heard of them."

"Horrid!" said Griselda, with a shudder. "Don't let's talk about it any more, cuckoo; tell me your _own_ opinion about what there really is on the other side of the moon."

The cuckoo was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he stopped short in the middle of his flight.

"Would you like to see for yourself, Griselda?" he said. "There would be about time to do it," he added to himself, "and it would fulfil her other wish, too."

"See the moon for myself, do you mean?" cried Griselda, clasping her hands. "I should rather think I would. Will you really take me there, cuckoo?"

"To the other side," said the cuckoo. "I couldn't take you to this side."

"Why not? Not that I'd care to go to this side as much as to the other; for, of course, we can _see_ this side from here. But I'd like to know why you couldn't take me there."

"For _reasons_," said the cuckoo drily. "I'll give you one if you like. If I took you to this side of the moon you wouldn't be yourself when you got there."

"Who would I be, then?"

"Griselda," said the cuckoo, "I told you once that there are a great many things you don't know. Now, I'll tell you something more. There are a great many things you're not _intended_ to know."

"Very well," said Griselda. "But do tell me when you're going on again, and where you are going to take me to. There's no harm my asking that?"

"No," said the cuckoo. "I'm going on immediately, and I'm going to take you where you wanted to go to, only you must shut your eyes again, and lie perfectly still without talking, for I must put on steam--a good deal of steam--and I can't talk to you. Are you all right?"

"All right," said Griselda.

She had hardly said the words when she seemed to fall asleep. The rushing sound in the air all round her increased so greatly that she was conscious of nothing else. For a moment or two she tried to remember where she was, and where she was going, but it was useless. She forgot everything, and knew nothing more of what was passing till--till she heard the cuckoo again.

"Cuckoo, cuckoo; wake up, Griselda," he said.

Griselda sat up.

Where was she?

Not certainly where she had been when she went to sleep. Not on the cuckoo's back, for there he was standing beside her, as tiny as usual. Either he had grown little again, or she had grown big--which, she supposed, it did not much matter. Only it was very queer!

"Where am I, cuckoo?" she said.

"Where you wished to be," he replied. "Look about you and see."

Griselda looked about her. What did she see? Something that I can only give you a faint idea of, children; something so strange and unlike what she had ever seen before, that only in a dream could you see it as Griselda saw it. And yet _why_ it seemed to her so strange and unnatural I cannot well explain; if I could, my words would be as good as pictures, which I know they are not.

After all, it was only the sea she saw; but such a great, strange, silent sea, for there were no waves. Griselda was seated on the shore, close beside the water's edge, but it did not come lapping up to her feet in the pretty, coaxing way that _our_ sea does when it is in a good humour. There were here and there faint ripples on the surface, caused by the slight breezes which now and then came softly round Griselda's face, but that was all. King Canute might have sat "from then till now" by this still, lifeless ocean without the chance of reading his silly attendants a lesson--if, indeed, there ever were such silly people, which I very much doubt.

Griselda gazed with all her eyes. Then she suddenly gave a little shiver.

"What's the matter?" said the cuckoo. "You have the mantle on--you're not cold?"

"No," said Griselda, "I'm not cold; but somehow, cuckoo, I feel a little frightened. The sea is so strange, and so dreadfully big; and the light is so queer, too. What is the light, cuckoo? It isn't moonlight, is it?"

"Not exactly," said the cuckoo. "You can't both have your cake and eat it, Griselda. Look up at the sky. There's no moon there, is there?"

"No," said Griselda; "but what lots of stars, cuckoo. The light comes from them, I suppose? And where's the sun, cuckoo? Will it be rising soon? It isn't always like this up here, is it?"

"Bless you, no," said the cuckoo. "There's sun enough, and rather too much, sometimes. How would you like a day a fortnight long, and nights to match? If it had been daytime here just now, I couldn't have brought you. It's just about the very middle of the night now, and in about a week of _your_ days the sun will begin to rise, because, you see----"

"Oh, _dear_ cuckoo, please don't explain!" cried Griselda. "I'll promise to ask Mr. Kneebreeches, I will indeed. In fact, he was telling me something just like it to-day or yesterday--which should I say?--at my astronomy lesson. And that makes it so strange that you should have brought me up here to-night to see for myself, doesn't it, cuckoo?"

"An odd coincidence," said the cuckoo.

"What _would_ Mr. Kneebreeches think if I told him where I had been?" continued Griselda. "Only, you see, cuckoo, I never tell anybody about what I see when I am with you."

"No," replied the cuckoo; "better not. ('Not that you could if you tried,' he added to himself.) You're not frightened now, Griselda, are you?"

"No, I don't think I am," she replied. "But, cuckoo, isn't this sea _awfully_ big?"

"Pretty well," said the cuckoo. "Just half, or nearly half, the size of the moon; and, no doubt, Mr. Kneebreeches has told you that the moon's diameter and circumference are respec----"

"Oh _don't_, cuckoo!" interrupted Griselda, beseechingly. "I want to enjoy myself, and not to have lessons. Tell me something funny, cuckoo. Are there any mermaids in the moon-sea?"

"Not exactly," said the cuckoo.

"What a stupid way to answer," said Griselda. "There's no sense in that; there either must be or must not be. There couldn't be half mermaids."

"I don't know about that," replied the cuckoo. "They might have been here once and have left their tails behind them, like Bopeep's sheep, you know; and some day they might be coming to find them again, you know. That would do for 'not exactly,' wouldn't it?"

"Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," said Griselda. "Tell me, are there any mermaids, or fairies, or water-sprites, or any of those sort of creatures here?"

"I must still say 'not exactly,'" said the cuckoo. "There are beings here, or rather there have been, and there may be again; but you, Griselda, can know no more than this."

His tone was rather solemn, and again Griselda felt a little "eerie."

"It's a dreadfully long way from home, any way," she said. "I feel as if, when I go back, I shall perhaps find I have been away fifty years or so, like the little boy in the fairy story. Cuckoo, I think I would like to go home. Mayn't I get on your back again?"

"Presently," said the cuckoo. "Don't be uneasy, Griselda. Perhaps I'll take you home by a short cut."

"Was ever any child here before?" asked Griselda, after a little pause.

"Yes," said the cuckoo.

"And did they get safe home again?"

"Quite," said the cuckoo. "It's so silly of you, Griselda, to have all these ideas still about far and near, and big and little, and long and short, after all I've taught you and all you've seen."

"I'm very sorry," said Griselda humbly; "but you see, cuckoo, I can't help it. I suppose I'm made so."

"Perhaps," said the cuckoo, meditatively.

He was silent for a minute. Then he spoke again. "Look over there, Griselda," he said. "There's the short cut."

Griselda looked. Far, far over the sea, in the silent distance, she saw a tiny speck of light. It was very tiny; but yet the strange thing was that, far away as it appeared, and minute as it was, it seemed to throw off a thread of light to Griselda's very feet--right across the great sheet of faintly gleaming water. And as Griselda looked, the thread seemed to widen and grow, becoming at the same time brighter and clearer, till at last it lay before her like a path of glowing light.

"Am I to walk along there?" she said softly to the cuckoo.

"No," he replied; "wait."

Griselda waited, looking still, and presently in the middle of the shining streak she saw something slowly moving--something from which the light came, for the nearer it got to her the shorter grew the glowing path, and behind the moving object the sea looked no brighter than before it had appeared.

At last--at last, it came quite near--near enough for Griselda to distinguish clearly what it was.

It was a little boat--the prettiest, the loveliest little boat that ever was seen; and it was rowed by a little figure that at first sight Griselda felt certain was a fairy. For it was a child with bright hair and silvery wings, which with every movement sparkled and shone like a thousand diamonds.

Griselda sprang up and clapped her hands with delight. At the sound, the child in the boat turned and looked at her. For one instant she could not remember where she had seen him before; then she exclaimed, joyfully--

"It is Phil! Oh, cuckoo, it is Phil. Have you turned into a fairy, Phil?"