That was his excuse. He wanted to be nearer to me. There is
something in stories like this, told in dim twilight, with dark waters
sighing near at hand, which makes men feel the need of close human
companionship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and I
felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.

"Well," he went on, "according to the old hag--and what she said was
true enough, however she learnt it--them ones doesn't go naked all the
time, but only when they're playing themselves on the rocks at low tide,
the way Anthony seen them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they
wear, and they take the same cloaks off of them when they're up above
the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that a man could
pat his hand on e'er a cloak, the one that owned it would have to follow
him whether she wanted to or not. If it was to the end of the world
she'd have to follow him, or to Spain, or to America, or wherever he
might go. And what's more, she'd have to do what he bid her, be the same
good or bad, and be with him if he wanted her, so long as he kept the
cloak from her. That's what the old woman told Anthony, and she was a
skilful woman, well knowing the nature of beasts and men, and of them
that's neither beasts nor men. You'll believe me now that Anthony wasn't
altogether the same as other men when I tell you that he laid his mind
down to get his hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer,
so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and he knew that
he'd be able to fetch out to the rock where them ones played
themselves."

I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was inspired by a passion
far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill
embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds
which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to
clamber on low rocks, half awash for an hoar or two at midnight, these
are things which I would not willingly do.

"The first time he went for to try it," said Peter, "he felt a bit queer
in himself and he thought it would do him no harm if he was to bless
himself. So he did, just as he was stepping off the shore into the
water. Well, it might as well have been a shot he fired, for the minute
he did it they were off and their cloaks along with them; and Anthony
was left there. It was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for
that same is what they can't