This desire to find the Mermaid must have been wonderfully strong in Francis, for it completely swallowed the longing of years—the longing to see the sea. It had been too dark the night before to see anything but the winking faces of the houses as the fly went past them. But now as he and Mavis ran noiselessly down the sandy path in their rubber shoes and turned the corner of the road, he saw a great pale-gray something spread out in front of him, lit with points of red and gold fire where the sun touched it. He stopped. “Mavis,” he said, in quite an odd voice, “that’s the sea.” “Yes,” she said and stopped too. “It isn’t a bit what I expected,” he said, and went on running. “Don’t you like it?” asked Mavis, running after him. “Oh—like,” said Francis, “it isn’t the sort of thing you _like_.” When they got down to the shore the sands and the pebbles were all wet because the tide had just gone down, and there were the rocks and the little rock pools, and the limpets, and whelks, and the little yellow periwinkles looking like particularly fine Indian corn all scattered among the red and the brown and the green seaweed. “Now, this _is_ jolly,” said Francis. “This is jolly if you like. I almost wish we’d wakened the others. It doesn’t seem quite fair.” “Oh, they’ve seen it before,” Mavis said, quite truly, “and I don’t think it’s any good going by fours to look for Mermaids, do you?” “Besides,” said Francis, saying what had been in their thoughts since yesterday in the train, “Kathleen wanted to shoot Mermaids, and Bernard thought it was seals, anyhow.” They had sat down and were hastily pulling off their shoes and stockings. “Of course,” said he, “we shan’t find anything. It isn’t likely.” “Well,” she said, “for anything we jolly well know, they may have found her already. Take care how you go over these rocks, they’re awfully slippy.” “As if I didn’t know that,” said he, and ran across the narrow strip of sand that divided rocks from shingle and set his foot for the first time in The Sea. It was only a shallow little green and white rock pool, but it was the sea all the same. “I say, isn’t it cold,” said Mavis, withdrawing pink and dripping toes; “do mind how you go—” “As if I—” said Francis, again, and sat down suddenly and splashingly in a large, clear sparkling pool. “Now, I suppose we’ve got to go home at once and you change,” said Mavis, not without bitterness. “Nonsense,” said Francis, getting up with some difficulty and clinging wetly to Mavis to steady himself. “I’m quite dry, almost.” “You know what colds are like,” said Mavis, “and staying indoors all day, or perhaps bed, and mustard plasters and gruel with butter in it. Oh, come along home, we should never have found the Mermaid. It’s much too bright and light and everyday-ish for anything like magic to happen. Come on home, do.”