Bessie Jane made straight for the pool of which she had spoken. It was a very deep pool, full of sea-anemones, shrimps, and lovely seaweed, and in the centre of the pool was a rock, in the shape of an arch, covered with mussels.
As the child was about to dip her net into the pool, she saw a streak of silver dancing up and down in the clear water.
She watched it for a minute, and then she thought she would try and catch it, and leaning over the pool, she put her shrimping-net under the whirling brightness and caught it. Looking into the net to see if it were a fish, to her great delight she saw it was like one of the tiny sea-fairies Old Annis had told her about. It was a most beautiful little creature; its eyes were the colour of the Cornish sea at its bluest, and its hair, which was a pale shade of gold, was sprinkled all over with sunbeams. It had no clothes on save a little green shift!
‘Oh, you dear little darling!’ cried Bessie Jane, after gazing at the lovely atom sitting in her shrimping-net. ‘I came down here to this bay to catch shrimps, and I do believe I’ve caught a sea-fairy instead!’
‘You have,’ piped the little creature in the most silvery of voices; ‘and woe is me that I am the first of the sea-fairies to be caught in a net!’
‘I hope you don’t mind very much,’ said Bessie Jane, looking uncomfortable. ‘I have never seen a fairy before of any sort, and I have been longing to see a little sea-fairy like you. The Wise Woman who lives in Tamarisk Lane, near our farm, told me about the sea-fairies. It was she who made me the net, which she meshed her own self out of Piskey-wool spun by the dear Little People.’
‘That explains my being caught in a net!’ cried the little creature, with a sigh of relief. ‘I do not mind so much now—that is, if you will put me back into the pool. You will do me that kindness, won’t you? I and my little companions were playing Buck and Hide Away here in the bay when the tide was in, and as I was hiding under the rock in the pool where you netted me, the tide went out and left me behind. You see that great bar of sand’—pointing at it with her tiny pink finger, which was even a more delicate pink than the beautiful tamarisk blossom that makes Tamarisk Lane and all the other lanes near Harlyn Bay so pretty in the summer and autumn months—‘it is a terrible thing to us little sea-fairies,’ as Bessie Jane nodded. ‘We have not the power to get over sand-bars. My companions are in a wisht[2] way about me, knowing all the dangers that beset us when we are cut off from the sea.’
‘She put her shrimping-net under the whirling brightness and caught it.’
‘You must not be afraid of me,’ Bessie Jane hastened to assure her, thinking the little sea-fairy’s words were meant for her. ‘I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your bright little head. And if I can’t do what you ask me, it is because I love you so much, and want to take you home to our farm. We live in such a dear old house! I would be ever so kind to you, and you should be my own dear little sister. It would be lovely to have you to play with!’