" The old man giggled again at his own
logical way of putting things. "Well, no more could I see her; and home
I went, and I said nothink to nobody, for I wasn't going to have them
say I was doting."
"Yet it would be classical to dote upon a mermaid," Caius murmured. The
sight of the dim-eyed, decrepit old man before him gave exquisite humour
to the idea.
Morrison had already launched forth upon the story of the second day.
"Well, as I was telling you, I was that curious that next morning at
daybreak I comes here and squats behind those bushes, and a dreadful
fright I was in for fear my old woman would come and look for me and see
me squatting there." His old frame shook for a moment with the laugh he
gave to emphasize the situation, and he poked Caius with his finger.
"And I looked and I looked out on the gray water till I had the cramps."
Here he poked Caius again. "But I tell you, young sir, when I saw her
a-coming round from behind the bank, where I couldn't see jist where
she had come from, like as if she had come across the bay round this
point here, I thought no more of the cramps, but I jist sat on my heels,
looking with one eye to see that my old woman didn't come, and I watched
that 'ere thing, and it came as near as I could throw a stone, and I
tell you it was a girl with long hair, and it had scales, and an ugly
brown body, and swum about like a fish, jist moving, without making a
motion, from place to place for near an hour; and then it went back
round the head again, and I got up, and I was that stiff all day I could
hardly do my work.
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