re she had settled it entirely to her
liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among
strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the
Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and
whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the
rock.

Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out
towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along,
and, says he, in the greatest wonder, 'Is it speaking you are, my
darling, to the salt water?'

'It's nothing else,' says she, quite carelessly; 'I'm just sending
word home to my father not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to
keep him from being uneasy in his mind.'

'And who's your father, my duck?' said Dick.

'What!' said the Merrow, 'did you never hear of my father? he's the
king of the waves to be sure!'

'And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?' said Dick, opening
his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to
be. 'Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your
father; to be sure he has all the money that's down at the bottom of
the sea!'

'Money,' repeated the Merrow, 'what's money?'

''Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it,' replied Dick; 'and may
be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid
them?'

'Oh yes,' said the Merrow, 'they bring me what I want.'

'To speak the truth then,' said Dick, ''tis a straw bed I have at home
before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a king's
daughter; so if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to mention a
nice feather bed, with a pair of new blankets--but what am I talking
about? may be you have not such things as beds down under the water?'

'By all means,' said she, 'Mr. Fitzgerald--plenty of beds at your
service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just
planting for the rearing of young ones.'

'You have?' says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little
puzzled. ''Tis a feather bed I was speaking of; but, clearly, yours is
the very cut of a decent plan to have bed and supper so handy to each
other, that a person when they'd have the one need never ask for the
other.'

However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined
to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they
went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,
where Father Fitzgibbon happened to b