"It do go in a terrible long way, to be sure," Jan admitted; "for I made a trial of it myself, one time, at low water. First of all you come to a pool, and, then, about fifty yards further, to another pool, and into that I went plump, coming upon it sudden, in the darkness. I swallowed a bellyful of it, too, and the water--if you'll believe me--was quite fresh. I didn't try no further, because, in the first place, the tide was rising, and because, when I pulled myself out, I heard a sound on t'other side of the pool like as if some creature was breathin' hard there in the darkness. It properly raised my hair, and I turned tail." "Fie, Jan! Ran away from a mermaid!" said Vashti, laughing. "You should have brought her home and married her." "I don't want to marry no woman with a tail like a fish, nor no woman that makes thikky noise with her breathin'," maintained Jan. "That's to say, if merrymaid it were, which I doubts. But you're wrong about my father, Miss Vazzy. He see'd a merrymaid sure 'nough; but he never took her home. No, he was too much of a gentleman, besides bein' afeard o' my mother. If you want the story, he was down in Piper's Hole one day warping ashore some few kegs of brandy that had been sunk thereabouts by a Rosco trader. Mr. Pope's father, that was agent to th' old Duke, used to employ my father regular on this business, knowing him for a silent man, and one to be trusted; and my father had made a very pretty catchet some way back-along in the cave, big enough to hold two score of kegs, and well above reach of the sea-water. But, o' course, while he was at this kind of work, Mr. Pope had to wink an eye now and then if one o' the kegs leaked a bit. Well, my father had finished his job that day in a sweatin' hurry, the tide bein' nearabouts on the top of the flood, and at the end, all the kegs bein' stowed, he spiled one 'for the good of the house,' as he put it, and drew off a tot in a tin panikin he kept handy. With this and his pipe he settled himself down 'pon a dry ledge and waited for the tide to run back. "Out beyond the mouth of the hole he could see a patch of blue sky, and the little waves under it glancin' in the sunshine; and belike the dazzle of it, or else the tot of brandy, made him feel drowsy-like. Anyhow, he woke up to see that the tide had run out a bravish lot, leavin' the sands high and dry. But, as you know, there's a pool o' water close inside the entrance, and what should my father see in the pool but a woman's head and shoulders!