The tears came into her eyes, and she was beginning to think herself very badly used, when suddenly a rustling in the bushes beside her made her turn round, more than half expecting to see the cuckoo himself.  But it was not he.  The rustling went on for a minute or two without anything making its appearance, for the bushes were pretty thick just there, and any one scrambling up from the pinewood below would have had rather hard work to get through, and indeed for a very big person such a feat would have been altogether impossible.

It was not a very big person, however, who was causing all the rustling, and crunching of branches, and general commotion, which now absorbed Griselda’s attention.  She sat watching for another minute in perfect stillness, afraid of startling by the slightest movement the squirrel or rabbit or creature of some kind which she expected to see.  At last—­was that a squirrel or rabbit—­that rosy, round face, with shaggy, fair hair falling over the eager blue eyes, and a general look of breathlessness and over-heatedness and determination?

A squirrel or a rabbit!  No, indeed, but a very sturdy, very merry, very ragged little boy.

“Where are that cuckoo?  Does you know?” were the first words he uttered, as soon as he had fairly shaken himself, though not by any means all his clothes, free of the bushes (for ever so many pieces of jacket and knickerbockers, not to speak of one boot and half his hat, had been left behind on the way), and found breath to say something.

[Illustration:  “WHERE ARE THAT CUCKOO?”]

Griselda stared at him for a moment without speaking.  She was so astonished.  It was months since she had spoken to a child, almost since she had seen one, and about children younger than herself she knew very little at any time, being the baby of the family at home, you see, and having only big brothers older than herself for play-fellows.

“Who are you?” she said at last.  “What’s your name, and what do you want?”

“My name’s Master Phil, and I want that cuckoo,” answered the little boy.  “He camed up this way.  I’m sure he did, for he called me all the way.”

“He’s not here,” said Griselda, shaking her head; “and this is my aunts’ garden.  No one is allowed to come here but friends of theirs.  You had better go home; and you have torn your clothes so.”

“This aren’t a garden,” replied the little fellow undauntedly, looking round him; “this are a wood.  There are blue-bells and primroses here, and that shows it aren’t a garden—­not anybody’s garden, I mean, with walls round, for nobody to come in.”

“But it is,” said Griselda, getting rather vexed.

“If it isn’t a garden it’s grounds, private grounds, and nobody should come without leave.  This path leads down to the wood, and there’s a door in the wall at the bottom to get into the lane.  You may go down that way, little boy.  No one comes scrambling up the way you did.”