"A pleasant morning to ye, my pretty damsels!" quoth he, offering his hand to the first who came up, expecting to assist her to land; for, as they were dressed in sea-green garments, and had wreaths of red and white coral on their heads, he thought that they would have no objection to come out of the water. Instead, however, of coming out themselves, the first held him tight, and others arriving caught hold of him likewise, and began to pull and pull away till the faithful Terence discovered, without a doubt, that it was their purpose to pull him in. "But I can't swim, Ladies!" he exclaimed. "I shall spoil my armour and wet my clothes--let me go, if you please, now." He wished to speak them fair, though doubts as to what they were began to rise up in his mind. "Och, now, let me go, I say! A joke's a joke all the world over; but if you souse me head over ears in that pool, and drown me entirely, it will be a very bad one to my taste now." The more, however, he shouted and struggled the harder the damsels pulled. Though Terence was a stout fellow, and had been in many a hot fight in foreign lands, and not a few scrimmages in Old Ireland, he never had had such a struggle in his life. At last his cries brought Saint Patrick to his aid, (for who would the Champion of Ireland have helped more willingly than Terence O'Grady?) and seizing the other arm, he hauled away lustily against the twelve sea-nymphs, whom he at once discovered to be mermaids, who had set their hearts on carrying off his faithful Squire to their coral homes beneath the waves. Between the mermaids on one side, and his master on the other, hauling away with all their might, poor Terence was very nearly torn in pieces. Still he struggled and strove, entreating his master not to let him go. Shouts of merry laughter issued from the throats of the mermaids; but though they diverted themselves with the terror of the faithful Terence, they did not cease to pull at him the less hard, till he began to fear that, if they could not have the whole, they would have a bit of him to a certainty. Saint Patrick himself saw full well that the matter was no joke; but how to rescue his Squire without using his sword, and against that all his knightly feelings revolted, even he was sorely puzzled to discover. As it happened, there dwelt not far off, in a lofty castle of iron walls and golden battlements, a monstrous giant, who had long sought one of these mermaids in marriage; but she fearing his temper, and not wishing to leave her watery home had ever disdainfully refused to listen to his proposals. He now was wandering along the shore in search of her to prosecute his suit.