'I have,' he said. 'And the little house is full of handsome things--a chestful of linen which my own mother wove for me on her loom against the time I should be wed to a pretty maid like you, an oaken dresser with every shelf full of cloam, [9] and a cosy settle where we can sit hand in hand talking of our love. You will marry me soon, won't you, sweet? The little house, and all that's in it, is waiting for my charmer.' 'Is it?' cried the beautiful maid, taking up another tress of her golden hair, and slowly combing its silken length with her sea-green comb. 'But let me tell you once and for ever, I would not marry you if you were decked in diamonds and your house a golden house, and everything in it made of jewels and set in gold.' 'Wouldn't you?' cried Tristram Bird, in great amazement. 'I wouldn't,' said she. 'You are a strange young maid to refuse an upstanding young man like me,' he said, 'who has a house of his own, to say nothing of what is inside it. Why, dozens of fair young maidens up to Padstow would have me to-morrow if I was only to ax them.' 'Then ax them,' cried the beautiful maid, turning her proud young head, and looking out towards Pentire, gorgeous in its spring colouring. 'But I can't ask any of them to marry me when I love you,' cried the infatuated youth. 'You have bewitched me, sweet, and no other man shall have you. If I can't have you living, I'll have you dead. I came down to Hawker's Cove to shoot something to startle the natives of Padstow Town, and they will be startled, shure 'nough, if I shoot a beautiful little vixen like you and take home to them.' 'Shoot me if you will, but marry you I will not,' said the beautiful maiden, with a scornful laugh. 'But I give you fair warning that if you shoot me, as you say you will, you will rue the day you did your wicked deed. I will curse you and this beautiful haven, which has ever been a refuge for ships from the time that ships sailed upon the seas;' and her sea-blue eyes looked up and down the estuary from the headlands that guarded its mouth to the farthest point of the blue, winding river. 'I will shoot you in spite of the curse if you won't consent to be mine,' cried the bewitched young man. 'I will never consent,' said she. 'Then I will shoot you now,' he said, and Tristram Bird lifted his gun and fired, and the ball entered the poor young maiden's soft pink side. She put her hand to her side to cover the gaping wound the shot had made, and as she did so she pulled herself out of the water, and where the feet should have been was the glittering tail of a fish! 'I have shot a poor young Mermaid,' Tristram cried, 'and woe is me!' and he shivered like one when somebody is passing over his grave.