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Updated: May 21, 2025
Walks of hardened earth, to which green mould clung in patches, wound through the grounds and threaded the three little groves of oak, chestnut, and locust, in the centres of which, set in circular lawns, were the three axes of interest the stone-edged fish-pond, the spouting fountain, and the ancient ship's figurehead a wind-worn, sea-battered mermaid cuddling a tiny, finny sea-child between breast and lips.
Caius put his hand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side. His heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh experience of his own weakness and incapacity. It was long before he dragged himself home.
She was a sea-child, living inland for the first time, and there came upon her a great yearning for the sight and sound of moving waters. She sniffed the land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her inexpressibly melancholy. Her energy began to ebb.
It seemed useless to rise or speak or smile; he remembered the mirth that his former efforts had caused, and he was dumb and still. Perhaps the sea-child found this treatment more uninteresting than that attention he had lavished on her on the former occasion; perhaps she had not so long to tarry. As he still watched her she turned again, and made her way swift and straight toward the rocky point.
As for Caius, he made all the effort that in him lay, and as she receded past the line of the island right out into the moonlit sea, he swam madly after, reckless of the fact that his swimming power gave him no assurance of being able to return, reckless of everything except the one welcome fact that he was gaining on the sea-child.
The sea-child, gazing in surprise, began to recede quickly. Caius ran into the water; he projected himself toward the mermaid, and swam with all the speed of which he was capable. The salt in his eyes at first obscured his vision. When he could look about, the sea-child had gone out of the track of the moonlight, and, taking advantage of the current, was moving rapidly out to sea.
For some distance she noticed nothing except wide sandy plains dotted with rocks, shells, and waving forests of giant seaweed huge fish darting about in all directions but at last the scenery grew wilder; and close to the road side she came upon a grove of oysters, each half-open shell containing a Sea-child, whose head and arms appeared above the edges of the shell, while its feet and body were invisible.
The hand of Caius stole involuntarily to his lips, and he wafted a kiss across the water. Then suddenly it seemed to him that the cliff had eyes, and that it might be told of him at home and abroad that he was making love to a phantom, and had lost his wits. The sea-child only tossed her head a little higher out of the water, and again he saw, or fancied he saw, mirth dancing in her eyes.
"The next time that Herbert approached the little girl, she waited his coming; and while they talked, Mrs. Netherby joined them with her Effie. Presently the gaze of the sea-child was fixed upon little Effie, to the all but total neglect of the others. The result of this contemplation was visible the next day. Mrs.
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