“Cuckoo! cuckoo!”

“O grandmamma, there’s the cuckoo!” cried all the children at once.

“Yes; there are a great many cuckoos about here.  They say it is only the male bird that calls ‘Cuckoo,’ that the female simply makes a chattering sound.”

“Did you ever see a cuckoo, grandma?”

“No, never a live bird, only one stuffed.  I will tell you a story of how I heard one once.  It was about five-and-twenty years ago.  I wanted some primroses for a nosegay.  I used to pick the long feathery moss that grows in these woods and put the primroses among it.  I ran across the road outside of our gates—­for I could run in those days—­and soon filled my basket with as many primroses as I wanted.  As I was standing under a large tree, I heard all at once, exactly over my head, a loud, gruff cry of ‘Cuckoo.’  I was so startled, the cry was so near, that I thought it must be a rude man, and I dropped all my primroses and ran back to the gates.

“Then I thought, ’How foolish of me to be frightened; it is the 18th of April, the right time for the cuckoo to come back to England from the warm country where he has been all the winter,—­of course it is a real cuckoo.’  So I went back and picked up my primroses, but I heard no more of that cuckoo.

“I told my children when I came indoors about my adventure; and how they did laugh at their mother for being frightened at a bird.

“I shall always think, though, that that particular cuckoo must have caught a bad cold on his long journey to England, or soon after his arrival, for his voice sounded as if he had a sore throat.”

“Now children,” said grandmamma, rising from her seat, “it is time we walked homewards.”

As they came near to the house they saw Smut sitting on the door-step, waiting patiently to be let in at the front door.

Within a short distance of the house was a brook, almost hidden in places by overhanging bushes and long reedy grass.  Then it flowed into more open ground; but it was very quiet in its flow, for the bed was soft and not stony.

Of course the next day the children set off for this brook, to listen to its “murmuring sound.”  Jack lay down upon the ground and leaned his head over the brook, thinking he could hear better in that fashion.  Mary said she should sit down by a bend in the stream and be comfortable, for she was sure she could not listen well if she were afraid of rolling into the water; while little Annie sat by her sister’s side, holding her hand and shutting her eyes.

If you had seen those children then, you would have wondered what they were doing, they were so serious and intent; but by the quiet look upon their faces they seemed to enjoy the music of the softly-flowing stream.  So low was the sound, that you would hardly have noticed it if you had not been thinking about it.