THE MERMAID. 35 



to a fish.' ' See ! ' said Tony, chuckling with dehght, 'what 

 a thing it is to know the Scriptures, hke your reverence ; I 

 should never have found it out. But there's another point, 

 sir, I should like to know, if you please ; I've been bothered 

 about it in my mind hundreds of times. Here be I, that 

 have gone up and down Holacombe clifts and streams fifty 

 years come next Candlemas, and I've gone and watched 

 the water by moonlight and sunlight, days and nights, on 

 purpose, in rough weather and smooth (even Sundays, too, 

 saving your presence), and my sight as good as most men's, 

 and yet I never could come to see a merrymaid in all my 

 life: how's that, sir.''' 'Are you sure, Tony,' I rejoined, 

 ' that there are such things in existence at all ? ' ' Oh, sir, 

 my old father seen her twice ! He was out one night for 

 wreck (my father watched the coast, like most of the old 

 people formerly), and it came to pass that he was down at 

 the duck-pool on the sand at low-water tide, and all to 

 once he heard music in the sea. Well, he croped on 

 behind a rock, like a coastguardsman watching a boat, and 

 got very near the music .... and there was the merry- 

 maid, ver\- plain to be seen, swimming about upon the 

 waves like a woman bathing — and singing away. But 

 my father said it was very sad and solemn to hear — more 

 like the tune of a funeral hymn than a Christmas carol, by 

 far — but it was so sweet that it was as much as he could do 

 to hold back from plunging into the tide after her. And 

 he an old man of sixty-seven, with a wife and a houseful of 

 children at home. The second time was down here b\' 

 Holacombe Pits. He had been looking out for spars — 

 there was a ship breaking up in the Channel — and he saw 

 some one move just at half-tide mark, so he went on very 

 softly, step by step, till he got nigh the place, and there 

 was the merrymaid sitting on a rock, the bootyfullest 



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