The Cuckoo Clock

The Cuckoo Clock

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Illustrated by Walter Crane
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Title: The Cuckoo Clock
Author: Mrs. Molesworth
Release Date: April 6, 2005 [eBook #15569]
Language: English
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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,