back
round the head again, and I got up, and I was that stiff all day I could
hardly do my work. I was too old to do much at that game, but I went
again next morning, and once again I saw her; but she was far out, and
then I never saw her again. Now, what do you think of that?"

"I think"--after a moment's reflection--"that it's a very remarkable
story."

"But you don't believe it," said the old man, with an air of excited
certainty.

"I am certain of one thing; you couldn't have made it up."

"It's true, sir," said the old man. "As sure as I am standing here, as
sure as the tide goes in and out, as sure as I'll be a-dying before
long, what I tell you is true; but if I was you, I'd have more sense
than to believe it." He laughed again, and pressed Caius' arm with the
back of his hard, knotted hand. "That's how it is about sense and truth,
young sir--it's often like that."

This one gleam of philosophy came from the poor, commonplace mind as a
beautiful flash may come from a rough flint struck upon the roadside.
Caius pondered upon it afterwards, for he never saw Neddy Morrison
again. He did not happen to pass that place again that summer, and
during the winter the old man died.

Caius thought at one time and another about this tale of the girl who
was half a fish. He thought many things; the one thing he never happened
to think was that it was true. It was clear to him that the old man
supposed he had seen the object he described, but it puzzled him to
understand how eyes, even though so dim with age, could have mistaken
any sea-creature for the mermaid he described; for the man had lived his
life by the sea, and even the unusual sight of a lonely white porpoise
hugging the shore, or of seal or small whale, or even a much rarer
sea-animal, would not have been at all likely to deceive him. It would
certainly have been very easy for any person in mischief or malice to
have played the hoax, but no locality in the wide world would have
seemed more unlikely to be the scene of such a game; for who performs
theatricals to amuse the lonely shore, or the ebbing tide, or the
sea-birds that poise in the air or pounce upon the fish when the sea is
gray at dawn? And certainly the deception of the old man could not have
been the object of the play, for it was but by chance that he saw it,
and it could matter to no one what he saw or thought or felt, for he was
one of the most insignificant of earth's sons. Then Caius would thi