Ten days after, Mr. Hawker got a heart-broken letter from the wife, an Irish lady, in which she said: “Oh, why did we neglect your prophecy! why did we give no heed to your word! When we returned to Bridgerule, our little Mary sickened; and now we have just laid her in her grave.” He was staying with a friend. Suddenly the table gave a crack. Mr. Hawker started, and, laying his hand on the table, said: “Mark my words, there has been a death in my family.” By next post came news of the death of one of the Miss I’ans. At Wellcombe was an old man, Antony Cleverdon, from whom Mr. Hawker learned many charms, some of which he has given in his _Footprints of Former Men_. This old man, commonly called Uncle Tony, was a source of great amusement to the vicar, who delighted to visit and converse with him. “Sir,” said Uncle Tony to him one day, “there is one thing I want to ask you, if I may be so free, and it is this: Why should a merrymaid (the local name for mermaid), that will ride upon the waters in such terrible storms, never lose her looking-glass and comb?” “Well, I suppose,” answered the vicar, “that, if there are such creatures, Tony, they must wear their looking-glasses and combs fastened on somehow—like fins to a fish.” “See!” said Tony, chuckling with delight, “what a thing it is to know the Scriptures like your reverence: I never should have found it out. But there’s another point, sir, I should like to know, if you please: I’ve been bothered about it in my mind hundreds of times. Here be I, that have gone up and down Wellcombe cliffs and streams fifty years come next Candlemas, and I’ve gone and watched the water by moonlight and sunlight, days and nights, on purpose, in rough weather and smooth (even Sundays too, saving your presence)—and my sight as good as most men’s—and yet I never could come to see a merrymaid in all my life! How’s that, sir?” “Are you sure, Tony,” the vicar rejoined, “that there are such things in existence at all?”