CHAPTER 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 littleon 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 myeyes, 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 twistyour 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 findthe feather mantle there, that you had on once before. Wrap it roundyou. 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'lltuck 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 littlegirl such a flight before? Floating, darting, gliding, sailing--no wordscan describe it. Griselda lay still in delight, gazing all about her.
"How lovely the stars are, cuckoo!" she said. "Is it true they're allgreat, big _suns_? I'd rather they weren't. I like to think of them asnice, funny little things."
"They're not all suns," said the cuckoo. "Not all those you're lookingat now."
"I like the twinkling ones best," said Griselda. "They look sogood-natured. Are they _all_ twirling about always, cuckoo? Mr.Kneebreeches has just begun to teach me astronomy, and _he_ says theyare; 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 theynever 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 theystood still now and then."
"Would it?" said the cuckoo. "I know some body who would soon findfault 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 nothingto eat before long? That's what it would be if they stood still, yousee, because----"
"Thank you, cuckoo," interrupted Griselda. "It's very nice to hearyou--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 onething, 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 thecuckoo.
"_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 thatopinion at all, cuckoo. Tell me another."
"I _have_ heard," said the cuckoo, "that among the places there youwould find the country of the little black dogs. You know what sort ofcreatures 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. Whena child has made a great pet of one down here, I've heard tell thefairies take him up there when his parents and nurses think he'ssleeping quietly in his bed, and make him work hard all night, with hisown particular little black dog on his back. And it's so dreadfullyheavy--for every time he takes it on his back down here it grows a poundheavier up there--that by morning the child is quite worn out. I daresay you've noticed how haggard and miserable some ill-tempered childrenget to look--now you'll know the reason."
"Thank you, cuckoo," said Griselda again; "but I can't say I like thisopinion about the other side of the moon any better than the first. Ifyou 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 ofchildren, they say, get quite cured in the country of the little blackdogs. It's this way--for every time a child refuses to take the dog onhis back down here it grows a pound lighter up there, so at last anysensible child learns how much better it is to have nothing to say to itat 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 Ireally can't say. Very likely they get crushed into pancakes by theweight of the dogs at last, and then nothing more is ever heard ofthem."
"Horrid!" said Griselda, with a shudder. "Don't let's talk about it anymore, cuckoo; tell me your _own_ opinion about what there really is onthe other side of the moon."
The cuckoo was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he stopped short inthe middle of his flight.
"Would you like to see for yourself, Griselda?" he said. "There would beabout time to do it," he added to himself, "and it would fulfil herother wish, too."
"See the moon for myself, do you mean?" cried Griselda, clasping herhands. "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 thisside."
"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 knowwhy 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 yougot there."
"Who would I be, then?"
"Griselda," said the cuckoo, "I told you once that there are a greatmany things you don't know. Now, I'll tell you something more. There area 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 takeyou where you wanted to go to, only you must shut your eyes again, andlie perfectly still without talking, for I must put on steam--a gooddeal 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. Therushing sound in the air all round her increased so greatly that she wasconscious of nothing else. For a moment or two she tried to rememberwhere she was, and where she was going, but it was useless. She forgoteverything, and knew nothing more of what was passing till--till sheheard 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 thecuckoo'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, shesupposed, 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 onlygive you a faint idea of, children; something so strange and unlike whatshe had ever seen before, that only in a dream could you see it asGriselda saw it. And yet _why_ it seemed to her so strange and unnaturalI cannot well explain; if I could, my words would be as good aspictures, 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 herfeet in the pretty, coaxing way that _our_ sea does when it is in a goodhumour. There were here and there faint ripples on the surface, causedby the slight breezes which now and then came softly round Griselda'sface, but that was all. King Canute might have sat "from then til
l now"by this still, lifeless ocean without the chance of reading his sillyattendants 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 littleshiver.
"What's the matter?" said the cuckoo. "You have the mantle on--you'renot cold?"
"No," said Griselda, "I'm not cold; but somehow, cuckoo, I feel a littlefrightened. The sea is so strange, and so dreadfully big; and the lightis 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 eatit, Griselda. Look up at the sky. There's no moon there, is there?"
"No," said Griselda; "but what lots of stars, cuckoo. The light comesfrom them, I suppose? And where's the sun, cuckoo? Will it be risingsoon? It isn't always like this up here, is it?"
"Bless you, no," said the cuckoo. "There's sun enough, and rather toomuch, sometimes. How would you like a day a fortnight long, and nightsto match? If it had been daytime here just now, I couldn't have broughtyou. It's just about the very middle of the night now, and in about aweek of _your_ days the sun will begin to rise, because, you see----"
"Oh, _dear_ cuckoo, please don't explain!" cried Griselda. "I'll promiseto ask Mr. Kneebreeches, I will indeed. In fact, he was telling mesomething just like it to-day or yesterday--which should I say?--at myastronomy lesson. And that makes it so strange that you should havebrought 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 aboutwhat I see when I am with you."
"No," replied the cuckoo; "better not. ('Not that you could if youtried,' he added to himself.) You're not frightened now, Griselda, areyou?"
"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 ofthe moon; and, no doubt, Mr. Kneebreeches has told you that the moon'sdiameter and circumference are respec----"
"Oh _don't_, cuckoo!" interrupted Griselda, beseechingly. "I want toenjoy 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 beenhere 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, youknow. That would do for 'not exactly,' wouldn't it?"
"Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," said Griselda. "Tell me, are there anymermaids, or fairies, or water-sprites, or any of those sort ofcreatures here?"
"I must still say 'not exactly,'" said the cuckoo. "There are beingshere, 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 asif, when I go back, I shall perhaps find I have been away fifty years orso, like the little boy in the fairy story. Cuckoo, I think I would liketo go home. Mayn't I get on your back again?"
"Presently," said the cuckoo. "Don't be uneasy, Griselda. Perhaps I'lltake 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 allthese ideas still about far and near, and big and little, and long andshort, after all I've taught you and all you've seen."
"I'm very sorry," said Griselda humbly; "but you see, cuckoo, I can'thelp 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 sawa tiny speck of light. It was very tiny; but yet the strange thing wasthat, far away as it appeared, and minute as it was, it seemed to throwoff a thread of light to Griselda's very feet--right across the greatsheet of faintly gleaming water. And as Griselda looked, the threadseemed to widen and grow, becoming at the same time brighter andclearer, 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 theshining streak she saw something slowly moving--something from which thelight came, for the nearer it got to her the shorter grew the glowingpath, and behind the moving object the sea looked no brighter thanbefore it had appeared.
At last--at last, it came quite near--near enough for Griselda todistinguish clearly what it was.
It was a little boat--the prettiest, the loveliest little boat that everwas seen; and it was rowed by a little figure that at first sightGriselda felt certain was a fairy. For it was a child with bright hairand silvery wings, which with every movement sparkled and shone like athousand diamonds.
Griselda sprang up and clapped her hands with delight. At the sound, thechild in the boat turned and looked at her. For one instant she couldnot 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?"
But, alas, as she spoke the light faded away, the boy's figuredisappeared, the sea and the shore and the sky were all as they had beenbefore, lighted only by the faint, strange gleaming of the stars. Onlythe boat remained. Griselda saw it close to her, in the shallow water, afew feet from where she stood.
"Cuckoo," she exclaimed in a tone of reproach and disappointment, "whereis Phil gone? Why did you send him away?"
"I didn't send him away," said the cuckoo. "You don't understand. Nevermind, but get into the boat. It'll be all right, you'll see."
"But are we to go away and leave Phil here, all alone at the other sideof the moon?" said Griselda, feeling ready to cry.
"Oh, you silly girl!" said the cuckoo. "Phil's all right, and in someways he has a great deal more sense than you, I can tell you. Get intothe boat and make yourself comfortable; lie down at the bottom and coveryourself up with the mantle. You needn't be afraid of wetting your feeta little, moon water never gives cold. There, now."
Griselda did as she was told. She was beginning to feel rather tired,and it certainly was very comfortable at the bottom of the boat, withthe nice warm feather-mantle well tucked round her.
"Who will row?" she said sleepily. "_You_ can't, cuckoo, with your tinylittle claws, you could never hold the oars, I'm----"
"Hush!" said the cuckoo; and whether he rowed or not Griselda neverknew.
Off they glided somehow, but it seemed to Griselda that _somebody_rowed, for she heard the soft dip, dip of the oars as they went along,so regularly that she couldn't help beginning to count in time--one,two, three, four--on, on--she thought she had got nearly to a hundred,when----