The Mermaid

was to go round by the road and avoid the Day farm; then he thought it might be his duty to go that way, because it might chance that the woman needed protection as he passed

the road ran, and watching the bats that often circled in the dark-blue dusk overhead. Thus going on, he gradually recognised a little group walking in front of him. It was the woman, Mrs. Day, and he

them with a word of

hough her words were ordinary, her voice seemed to Caius to

, I suppose, Mrs. Day?" s

're going to see a frie

some long distance between her

d, with solicitude. "She always has a p

but they excited no h

to-night," she said. "There'll

upon the road. He slackened speed, but she still shrank back, wa

ed back to see her climbing the log fence

. He cast himself over the low log fence just where he was, and hast

rt; young fir-trees stood here and there. All this Caius saw. The woman he could not see at first. Then, in a minute, he did see her-standing on the edge of the bank, her form outlined agai

umped he heard the elder girl groaning as if in desperate fear, and saw that mother and daughter were grappled together, their figures swaying backwards and forwards in convulsive struggle. He did not doubt that the mother was trying to drown this child

or help!" gasped Caius to the ch

ength, and holding the desperate woman u

where he thought he saw a little heap of li

frantic gesture to frighten them into getting out of the mother's reach. He continued to shout for aid

ius saw someone climbing the fence. He

direction in which he had thought he saw the little body floating. Then he knew that he came up empty-handed and was swimming on the dark surface, hearing confused cries and imprecations from the shore. He wanted to dive and seek agai

be surprised that she had drifted so far until he realized that he was out of hearing of the sounds from the shore. His own swimming, he well knew, could never have taken him so far and fast. There was a little sandy island lying about three hundred yards out. At first he hoped to strike the shallows near it quickly, but found that the current of the now

outer point of the island, and a good way from it. The water was bitterly cold; it chilled him. He was far too much occupied in fighting the current to think properly, but certain flashes of intelligence came across his mind co

fence, and he shook himself as he spoke. His words were an interrogation relating to all

ed Caius hoarsely. "She

ead as he spoke. "There's a sort of a set the water's got round this here place--" He shook his head again

ibly bad and common in that they two sat there taking breath, and did not plunge again into the water to try, at lea

asked this in a hasty whisper. They both

rd. If yo'd have done that, yo' might ha

ompanion for whom he had any respect; he looked upon him as a person of

fter them," said Jim. He waded in

owly took off some of his wet clothes and tied them round his

bottom and climbed the bank once more to the place where he had seen the child cast away, he forgot all his fight with the sea, and thought only with horror of

und hand and foot

ngly, "I'd a quietened her by a knock on the hea

d wandered away. They

oman, who seemed now to be as much stunned by circum

out the mother or the elder children, or about his own half-dressed condition. The one thought that excit

and across his father's fields, he leaped out of the dar

reathless, wet, half naked. The picture of his father looking up from the newspaper, of his mother standing before him in alarmed surprise, seemed pho

ted should turn out to seek for the child-he was astonished at finding sobs in the tones of his words. He became oblivious for the moment

mself to get a cart and lanterns and men, the mother soothed her son, or, rather, she addressed to him such kindly attentions as

dark shores. He went again, with a party of neighbours, to the same place, in the first faint pink flush of