CHAPTER II

Trying to Find

"LITTLE girl, would you like to come and have some singing with us?"

It was a young lady who spoke to Gypsy the next afternoon, as she was walking disconsolately along the beach, wishing it was not Sunday, that she might have a good romp with her brothers. They were lying down under a bathing machine, busy with some books with which Miss Gubbins had provided them. Gypsy could not read well, and she had looked at pictures till she was tired, so she glanced up brightly when spoken to.

"Yes, I'll come. I like to sing."

She followed her guide to a quiet little corner under the cliffs, where about a dozen boys and girls were assembled. And in a few minutes some bright hymns were started, and then the young lady began to talk to them.

A great deal was unintelligible to Gypsy, but the subject was the "Pearl of greatest price," and Miss Pringle, who was talking, gave them the story of a pearl from the time it was first formed in an oyster-shell to the time it was sold to merchants, and cleaned and set in rings and jewelry of all sorts. Then she told them of the one pearl that was really worth finding, and she concluded by making them each repeat after her the little verse,—

"I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall find Me."

When it was all over, and Gypsy was moving away, she put her hand on her shoulder.

"Are you going to seek for the pearl of greatest price, little one?"

Gypsy knit her brows in thought.

"What is it?" she asked. "Is it the Holy G'ail?"

"It is Jesus Christ Himself. He loves you, and asks you to come to Him. Make up your mind to seek Him, dear, and you will find Him!"

She turned to some others, and Gypsy crept away, her little mind strangely confused between a pearl, a cup in the midst of golden light, and the Lord Himself; but one thing she was determined on, and that was that she would search until she found.

"I've been to a kind of Sunday-school," she announced to her brothers, a short time after.

"Where?"

"Round the corner over there. A nice lady told us a story of a man who was looking about everywhere for pearls. At last he found a lovely big one, only it cost a dreadful lot of money. Then he thought he must have it, so he went home and sold all his things, and came back with the money and bought it."

"And what did he do with it?"

"He never let it go. He kept it. He was like Galahad looking for the Holy Thing. He found it after a long, long time, but it cost a lot of money."

"Galahad found the Holy Grail without paying for it."

"Yes, I'd rather see that than a pearl," said Gypsy wistfully. "I'm going to be very, very good when we go away from here, and perhaps I shall find it in the old house we're going to."

"I think," said Donald, regarding his sister curiously, "that you can't be good more than two days. That's the longest I can. But what I mean to try is to be good all the week till the last day, and then I'll just be as wicked as ever I can, to keep me from bursting."

This resolve rather staggered Claud and Gypsy.

"And what will be your wicked day?" asked Claud.

Donald considered.

"Saturday, I think, because I can begin quite fresh on Sunday."

"But I expect Sunday will be quite a busy day with punishing you," said Claud gravely; "and if the Ogre is with us, he'll punish you worse than Gubby!"

"It's very wicked to mean to be wicked," said Gypsy, with serious, solemn eyes.

"Don't be a little prig, and you needn't preach, because you're always in mischief, and you'll never find the Holy Thing, if you live to be a thousand years old!"

"I shall," said Gypsy tearfully. "You're a horrid boy, and I shan't tell you nothing about it when I do find it."

She left the boys, and went to find Miss Gubbins, who read aloud to her for a little; but though Gypsy told her about the Sunday class, her own resolve was kept locked up in her little heart, and Miss Gubbins had no idea of the effect of the poem upon the impressionable child.

Irene Gordon was the recipient of Gypsy's confidences. She followed her about the beach like a little shadow, and the two became great friends. The boys liked the little stranger because "she didn't give herself airs." In other words, she would fetch and carry for them without a murmur, and when Gypsy urged her to rebel against their autocratic rule, she looked quite astonished.

"Boys always must be waited on, mustn't they? Girls are nobodies!"

When the last day came, and the little Thurstons ran here and there on the beach saying good-bye to all their little friends and acquaintances, Irene came up to Gypsy and sobbed aloud:

"I wish you weren't going away; I shall never see you again. Couldn't you take me with you? I'm so dull at home!"

"I'm 'fraid we might be took up by the police if we stole you," said Gypsy, putting her little arms round Irene's neck and giving her an affectionate hug. "But I think you had really better run away, if no one wants you at home, and perhaps I may meet you on a high hill one day, and we'll both be looking for—for what I told you about!"

"I should be so frightened," murmured Irene.

"Oh no, you wouldn't! I'm never frightened when I'm taking a walk. And if you get into a storm, ask God to take care of you. I always do."

They parted, and Irene was only half comforted; but she went back to her nurse and baby brother, and Gypsy and her brothers took their last farewell of their beloved beach, and were soon in the train with Miss Gubbins, having closed the first chapter in their life.

Poor Miss Gubbins was thankful when the journey was ended. The children's high spirits at first were difficult to contend with; then they grew tired and cross, and quarrelling commenced, so she had to assert her authority to preserve peace. They reached a quiet little country station at last about six o'clock in the evening; and when they got out on the platform they found they were the only passengers that alighted there.

The station-master came bustling up to them, and informed them that the carriage was waiting outside. And they found a comfortable, though rather shabby brougham, with two very fat, sleek horses, and an old coachman, who looked quite aghast at the luggage.

He got off the box, and shook his head remonstratingly. "Now, now, this is too much to expec' my horses to drag eight miles! Should say, if my 'pinion was axed, that a box each, size according to size, would a been all that was desired, and here's three monsters, and a hamper, and three little 'uns, not to speak of a few band-boxes, and such like as females have a likin' to! I never would have in the missus's time more than I thought fit to carry, and 'tisn't to be expected—"

"My good man," said Miss Gubbins a little shortly, "take what luggage you can, and leave the rest. It must either be sent up from the station, or you must come down again for it. Don't let us waste time talking about it!"

The old man looked at her in astonishment, but something in Miss Gubbins' manner made him alter his behaviour. Grumblingly he turned to the luggage, and with the help of the porters got some of it stowed away on the carriage, the station-master promising to send the rest up in a cart that could be lent for that purpose. And then the children bundled in, and with a tired sigh Miss Gubbins resigned herself to the long drive.

"Where's the sea?" asked Claud, after he had got tired of looking out at the narrow green lanes through which they were passing.

"I don't think there will be any sea here," said Miss Gubbins. "I told you I thought there would be none."

"But there's some kind of water somewhere," said Donald.

"I don't know; sit still, and wait to see."

The drive was over at last. They came to a lodge gate, which was opened by a pleasant-looking woman—the old coachman's wife—and as he drove in, he called out: "Oh yes, they've come safe and sound, and a deal more of them than is wanted in this part!"

"What a rude old man!" said Donald. "I'll fight him, if he talks like that to me!"

"Hush, Donald. I think I had better tell you that your brother wrote to me saying there were some very old servants here, who had quite managed the house when your uncle got very old. We must all be polite to them, and not take any notice of their remarks till your brother comes. And I wish," Miss Gubbins added, with a little sigh, "that he were here now."

When the house was reached, the children looked at it with delight and awe. It was an old Elizabethan building in red brick, with projecting gables and casement windows. When they got inside, they found themselves in a large entrance hall wainscoted in old oak, a broad wooden staircase leading up to a gallery above from the centre of the hall.

"I am sure," whispered Claud, in awe to his brother, "that this was where King Arthur and his knights lived."

"Yes," responded Donald delightedly. "Look at their armour and swords hanging up on the walls!"

A very important-looking old lady in a black silk dress received them, and the children thought the house belonged to her until Miss Gubbins told them she was the housekeeper, and her name was Mrs. Peck. She had a nice tea prepared for them in the large dining-room.

"I'm sure I don't know what rooms to give you," she said to Miss Gubbins, "but I've done my best. There's a set of rooms upstairs which will suit you, I think. One is the old nursery—at least it was fifty year ago—and it's a nice sunny room, and there's a bedroom leading into it that I thought would do for you and the little girl, and another room on the same landing for the two little boys. We haven't had children in this house for forty years, and most of the rooms are shut up. When Mr. Thurston comes back, he will say what he wishes. But these three rooms will be quite enough for you till he comes, I should think."

"Certainly," said Miss Gubbins brightly. "We will go and look at them after tea."

"But we shall use all the rooms in the house if we like," said Donald, looking at Mrs. Peck defiantly. "We had three rooms where we came from, and we aren't babies, to be put in a nursery!"

"Hush, Donald! That is not the way to speak. Go on with your tea."

Mrs. Peck said nothing, but her gaze encountered Donald's, and from that time it was war to the knife between them.

After tea they all went up the old staircase, along the gallery, until they came to a side wing of the house, and here were the rooms prepared for them. The nursery was a large room, with a deep window-seat, and two cupboards in the recesses on each side of the fireplace. A table in the middle of the room, a horsehair sofa, one arm-chair, and six old-fashioned wooden ones with rush seats, formed the furniture of it. There were no pictures on the walls, and the carpet was threadbare and shabby, as were also some faded crimson curtains to the window.

"Quite suitable for children," said Mrs. Peck, as she noticed Miss Gubbins' downcast face.

"We will soon make it bright and comfortable," said Miss Gubbins.

"It smells nasty," said Gypsy critically, "but it will be a lovely room to play in."

"The table isn't round," said Donald, inspecting it.

"That's dreadful," said Claud. "We can't be Arthur's knights here."

Then they went into the bedrooms, but the children did not take much interest in them, and soon came back to the old nursery.

"I love the window," said Gypsy, climbing upon the window-seat, and trying to open the casement. "Look how high up we are! We can see for miles and miles, and there's no sea anywhere."

"What are these horrid bars outside the window?" said Claud, with a disgusted face, as he tried to lean out of it.

"I tell you what it is," said Donald, in an eager excited whisper, "the Ogre has told Mrs. Peck to put us in here, and then he's going to lock us in, and we shall be in prison. Castles always have prisons upstairs as well as dungeons."

"How shall we get anything to eat?" enquired Gypsy, looking as if she rather liked the prospect.

"Oh, the food will come up in baskets outside the window, and we shall pull it up by a rope."

"What fun!"

"And," continued Claud, who would never be outdone in imagination by his brother, "every day there 'll be a little less to eat, until at last one slice of bread and butter will come up, and we shall have to divide it between us, and it will have to last the whole day!"

"And then what?"

"And then there will be none," said Donald, in a tragic voice.

Their conversation was interrupted here by Miss Gubbins coming in and taking them off to bed; and by this time they were so tired and sleepy, that they were only too glad to obey.

The next morning Gypsy woke up very early. The sun was streaming into the bedroom, and she looked round the room curiously, for Miss Gubbins was still asleep, and she knew she must keep quiet. She noticed the quaint, old-fashioned furniture, and thought it much nicer than the modern kind they were accustomed to in their seaside lodgings, and then she started, as she saw on the wall opposite her, a dingy, faded-looking text in a frame with these words upon it—

"Those that seek Me early shall find Me."

"Why, that's the text that lady gave me to learn," she said to herself; and then her thoughts rambled in this fashion:

"She said it was Jesus I must look for. I wonder if I shall find Him here. It's much more likely in a great old house like this, than in those old lodgings.

"'Seek Me early.' Then it's early in the morning, like this, when I ought to look for Him. I 'spect it's only to very, very good people He shows Himself. And He'll be in a beautiful golden light. Oh, I should like to see Him for a little tiny minute, and then I would know He was pleased with me. I wish I could find Him, and wouldn't the boys be 'stonished when I told them! I wonder if I've been good enough.

"I've been trying hard to be like Galahad. I didn't hit Claud when he pinched me in the train, and I only called him a 'silly' once, I didn't call him a 'beast,' and I'm sure he was one! And then I kissed that horrid cook when we came away, and I didn't say 'No' like the boys when she asked me to. I s'pose it will be very hard and difficult to find Jesus, but Galahad saw the Holy Thing in front of him all the way. If I could only once see a little bit of it, I should be so glad—I will try! I will get up now, because it's early, and it's very quiet like Sunday, and I'll creep along these big old passages, and peep into all the rooms.

"'Those that seek Me early shall find Me.' Jesus said that, so it must be true, and p'r'aps I shall find Him this very morning!"

She lay still pondering over the text with big eyes, and at last stole quietly out of the bedroom in her dressing gown and little slippers.

Along the gallery she crept, trying the handle of every door as she did so; but most of them were locked. A few rooms were open, and from the threshold she regarded the large fourpost bedsteads, with heavy hangings, the shrouded furniture, and the darkened windows with a doubtful awe. There seemed a great many passages, and at last disappointment crept into her little heart.

"I'd better go back, I don't like these dark rooms. I shall never find Jesus here!"

She was just turning back, when she saw at the end of the narrow passage in which she was, a door just ajar, and light streaming out. This looked more promising, but when she crept up, and pushed the heavy door open, she caught her breath in delight and astonishment. Had she come after all to the right place?