gh what she was
crying for, determined to keep the _cohuleen driuth_, let her cry
never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not
help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, with
her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel,
let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen,
a mighty tender heart of his own.

'Don't cry, my darling,' said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like
any bold child, only cried the more for that.

Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of
comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a
small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas
as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.

'What's your name, my darling?' says Dick, thinking to make her
conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure
now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he
therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking
to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the
world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.

The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;
and making an end of her whining all at once, 'Man,' says she, looking
up in Dick Fitzgerald's face; 'man, will you eat me?'

'By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and
Tralee,' cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, 'I'd as soon eat myself,
my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet? Now, 'twas some ugly ill-looking
thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the
nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this
morning!'

'Man,' said the Merrow, 'what will you do with me if you won't eat
me?'

Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,
that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any
real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she
called him man that settled the matter entirely.

'Fish,' says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;
'fish,' says he, 'here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this
blessed morning, that I'll make you Mistress Fitzgerald before all the
world, and that's what I'll do.'

'Never say the word twice,' says she; 'I'm ready and willing to be
yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, till I twist up my
hair.' It was some time befo