“Hark to the mermaids off the shore,
As they sing so bonnilie
Through the rocks and caves to the sounding waves
In the grey lands out at sea,
In the caves across the sea.”
She had never heard such words or such a tune in her life, and she rose, head and shoulders, out of the water, crying to the pedlar to sing it again. But when he saw the yellow hearts of the water-lilies round her head, he took them for gold, and he leaned over the little wall and made a snatch at them. The Nix dived under again and went back like a flash to the darkness by the wheel.
But all day long she sat there, singing to herself all she could remember of the song of the pedlar; she was like one possessed:
“By the grey banks near the sea,”
she sang, rocking herself about,
“In the caves across the sea.”