h I doubts. But you're wrong about my
father, Miss Vazzy. He see'd a merrymaid sure 'nough; but he never took
her home. No, he was too much of a gentleman, besides bein' afeard o'
my mother. If you want the story, he was down in Piper's Hole one day
warping ashore some few kegs of brandy that had been sunk thereabouts
by a Rosco trader. Mr. Pope's father, that was agent to th' old Duke,
used to employ my father regular on this business, knowing him for a
silent man, and one to be trusted; and my father had made a very pretty
catchet some way back-along in the cave, big enough to hold two score
of kegs, and well above reach of the sea-water. But, o' course, while
he was at this kind of work, Mr. Pope had to wink an eye now and then
if one o' the kegs leaked a bit. Well, my father had finished his job
that day in a sweatin' hurry, the tide bein' nearabouts on the top of
the flood, and at the end, all the kegs bein' stowed, he spiled one
'for the good of the house,' as he put it, and drew off a tot in a tin
panikin he kept handy. With this and his pipe he settled himself down
'pon a dry ledge and waited for the tide to run back.

"Out beyond the mouth of the hole he could see a patch of blue sky, and
the little waves under it glancin' in the sunshine; and belike the
dazzle of it, or else the tot of brandy, made him feel drowsy-like.
Anyhow, he woke up to see that the tide had run out a bravish lot,
leavin' the sands high and dry. But, as you know, there's a pool o'
water close inside the entrance, and what should my father see in the
pool but a woman's head and shoulders!

"She had raised herself out of the water with her hands restin' on a
slab of rock, and over the rock she stared at my father, like as if she
wanted help, and again like as if she felt too timid to ask. And when I
called her a woman I said wrong; for she was more like a child, and a
frightened one, with terrible pretty eyes, and her long hair shed down
over her shoulders, drippin' wet, and in colour between gold and
sea-green. 'Hullo!' said my father, 'and who might you be, makin' so
bold?' At the sound of his speech she gave a little scritch at first,
and bobbed down face-under, so that her hair lay afloat and spread
itself all over the water like sea-weed. My father walked up closer.
'Nonsense, my dear,' says he, in his coaxin' voice, 'there's nothin' to
be afeard of. I'm a respectable married man, and old enough to be your
father. So put up your face-