e the Merman's
rock.

The sea was calm and the evening fair. Civil did not remember that it
was the very day on which his troubles began by the great fish talking
to him twelve months before. As he neared the rock the sun was setting,
and much surprised was the fisherman to see upon it three fair ladies,
with sea-green gowns and strings of great pearls wound round their long
fair hair.

Two of them were waving their hands to him. They were the tallest and
most stately ladies he had ever seen. But Civil could perceive as he
came nearer that there was no colour in their cheeks, that their hair
had a strange bluish shade, like that of deep sea-water, and there was a
fiery look in their eyes that frightened him.

The third, who was not so tall, did not notice him at all, but kept her
eyes fixed on the setting sun. Though her look was full of sadness,
Civil could see that there was a faint rosy bloom on her cheek, that her
hair was a golden yellow, and her eyes were mild and clear like those of
his mother.

"Welcome! welcome! noble fisherman!" cried the two ladies. "Our father
has sent us for you to visit him."

With one bound they leaped into his boat, bringing with them the smaller
lady, who said: "Oh! bright sun and brave sky that I see so seldom!"

But Civil heard no more, for his boat went down miles deep in the sea,
and he thought himself drowning. But one lady had caught him by the
right arm, and the other by the left, and pulled him into the mouth of a
rocky cave, still down and down, as if on a steep hillside. The cave was
very long, but it grew wider as they came to the bottom.

Then Civil saw a faint light, and walked out with his fair company into
the country of the sea-people. In that land there grew neither grass nor
flowers, bushes nor trees, but the ground was covered with
bright-coloured shells and pebbles. There were hills of marble, and
rocks of spar. Over all was a cold blue sky with no sun, but a light
clear and silvery as that of the harvest moon. The fisherman could see
no smoking chimneys, but there were caves in the rocks of spar, and
halls in the marble hills, where lived the sea-people--with whom, as
old stories say, fishermen and sailors used to meet on lonely capes and
headlands in the simple times of the world.

Forth they came from all parts to see the stranger. Mermen with long
white beards, and mermaids such as walk with the fishermen, all clad in
sea-green and decked with strings o