So very much, indeed, was my grandfather taken up with his new acquisition, that my grandmother began to grow jealous of his attentions to the fair sea nymph; and, more out of spite, perhaps, than from any real wickedness, she began to encourage the visits of a young man who had been formerly attached to her. Now, strange as it may seem, it is no less true, that, great as were my grandfather’s powers in the art magic, he was yet unable thereby to discover the fact, that his wife received the visits of this lover, on certain occasions, when his trifling affairs required his absence from home. Now, it happened one day that my grandfather returned so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, that his wife was compelled to conceal the youth hastily behind a bed. The lady was in a terrible taking, you may believe; but she so far subdued her agitation as to receive her husband with every possible appearance of kindness and affection.
“I dreamed a strange dream last night,” said she, after fully recovering her presence of mind, and smiling gaily. “I dreamed that I put both my hands over your eyes, and yet you saw as well as if they had not been there.”
“Come try, then!” replied her husband sportively, taking what she said as the mere prelude to some little innocent matrimonial frolic; “come try then, my dear. I believe I can see as far into a millstone as most people.”
“No doubt you can,” said his spouse, laughing outright, and approaching him with a merry air, she clapped her hands so firmly over his eyes that he was completely blindfolded, “now can you see?” exclaimed she.
“No!” replied the husband, “not one whit.”
“Stay a little,” cried his wife, laughing heartily again, “depend upon it this miraculous light will come to you at last!”
“Aye, aye!” cried he, struggling till he escaped from her hands, and then kissing her heartily, “I see now well enough.” But, alas! my grandfather’s vision had come too late, for the lover had availed himself of this brief opportunity, so cunningly afforded him, to make his escape.
The mermaid, who was seated on the rafters above, laughed aloud with an unearthly laughter, as she witnessed the trick that had been played to my grandfather. To divert her husband’s attention from a mirth that at first appalled her, the lady, with great presence of mind, threw down the girdle-stone, a flat stone, which in those primitive times was used for firing the oaten cakes, instead of the iron plate of that name, which now forms so important an article of furniture in the kitchen of every Scottish cottage. The stone was broken to pieces, and the lady’s loud lamentation for this apparently accidental misfortune, quickly diverted her husband’s attention from the mysterious merriment of the mermaid, and having thus effected her purpose, she threw the fragments of the stone out on the dunghill.
The poor mermaid pined and sighed for her native element, until she wrung the heart of her captor to pity.
“Take me but down to the sea,” said she with her sweet voice, “take me but down to the sea, and put me but into the waves—but three yards from the shore—and it shall be better for thee than all the good thou can’st gain by keeping me here.”