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Updated: May 2, 2025
Finch swallowed another sob, and said, "Yes." The child made a last effort. "Jicks will go with you," said the indomitable little Arab faintly. I ran out of the room, and left the three babies big, little, and least together. After knocking at the study door without getting any reply, I opened it and went in. The rector of Dimchurch instantly recovered his dignity.
I went down the stairs to try my luck on the ground floor. The window on the landing had a view over the front garden. I looked out, and saw the irrepressible Arab of the family, our small chubby Jicks, wandering in the garden, all by herself; evidently on the watch for her next opportunity of escaping from the house.
He pointed to the child. Jicks shook her fist at him, and ordered him off more fiercely than ever. "There's an inn in the village," said Oscar. "Rest there, if you please my house is not an inn." The elder man made a second effort to speak, beginning with an oath. The younger checked him again. "Shut up, Jim!" said the superior blackguard of the two. "The gentleman recommends the tap at the inn.
"Nugent will feel for me, and understand me, when he comes to Browndown. In the meantime, this shall not happen again." He stooped over Jicks. The child, while we were talking, had laid herself down luxuriously on the grass, and was singing to herself little snatches of a nursery song. Oscar pulled her up on her legs rather roughly. He was out of temper with her, as well as with himself.
This curious little creature cared nothing for the society of the other children. Out of doors, she roamed till she could walk no longer, and then lay down anywhere, like a little animal, to sleep. She happened to look up as I stood at the window. Seeing me, she waved her hand indicatively in the direction of the rectory gate. "What is it?" I asked. The Arab answered, "Jicks wants to get out."
What was she going to do next? We were not kept long in suspense. She suddenly put her little hot fat hand into mine, and tried to pull me after her out of the room. "What do you want?" I asked. Jicks answered in one untranslatable compound word: "Man-Gee-gee."
I determined not to interfere. It was bad enough to remain passive, and to let her be kept in the dark. Actively, I was resolved to take no part in deceiving her. Her color rose; she put Jicks down on the ground. "Are you both dumb?" she asked. "Oscar!
Finch's parlor, full of ideas, with my scissors and my pattern-paper ready in my hand. We had only begun our operations, when one of the elder children arrived with a message from the nursery. It was tea-time; and, as usual, Jicks was missing. She was searched for, first in the lower regions of the house; secondly in the garden. Not a trace of her was to be discovered in either quarter.
The child's object was plain enough. Nobody who knew her could doubt that she had stolen into Lucilla's bed-chamber, under cover of Herr Grosse's ample coat-tails. We had just accounted in this way for the mysterious absence of Jicks, when we heard the bed-chamber door opened, and the surgeon's voice calling for Zillah.
She had been nicknamed "Gipsy" from her wandering habits, and had shortened the name in her own dialect, into "Jicks." There was no keeping her in at the rectory, try how you might: they had long since abandoned the effort in despair. Sooner or later, she turned up again or somebody brought her back or one of the sheep-dogs found her asleep under a bush, and gave the alarm.
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