Three years passed during which the old dame had done her utmost to persuade her daughter to become the wife of some rich farmer—for true it was, as she said, Nancy might have had her choice of the best—yet coaxing and reproaches were powerless to shake the maid's constancy. When three years and many months were gone without any tidings of William, she became very melancholy—perhaps crazy—from hope deferred, and took to wandering about the cleves in all weathers, by day and by night.
On the headland, called Hella Point, which stretches far out west of the cove, there is a high over-hanging rock almost on the verge of the cliff, which shelters, on its southern side, a patch of green sward, mostly composed of cliff-pinks; this spot used to be known as Fair Nancy's bed. There she would pass hours by day and often whole nights watching vessels that came within her ken, hoping to see her lover land from every one that hove in sight, and to be the first to hail him with joyful greetings in the cove. Her father and the old fisherman—anxious for William's return—treated her as tenderly as a shorn lamb, and often passed long nights with her there; at length the poor maiden had to be watched and followed for fear that in her night wanderings she might fall over the cliff or drown herself in a fit of despair.
One moonlight winter's night, when in her chamber indulging her grief, she heard William's voice just under her window, saying, "Sleepest thou, sweetheart, awaken and come hither, love; my boat awaits us at the cove, thou must come this night or never be my bride."
"My sweet William come at last, I'll be with thee in an instant," she replied.
Nancy's aunt Prudence, who lodged in the same room, heard Willy's request and his sweetheart's answer; looking out of the window she saw the sailor, just under, dripping wet and deathly pale. An instant after—glancing round into the chamber, and seeing Nancy leave it—she dressed, in all haste, and followed her. Aunt Prudence, running down the cliff lane at her utmost speed, kept the lovers in sight some time, but couldn't overtake them, for they seemed to glide down the rocky pathway leading to Pargwarra as if borne on the wind, till they disappeared in the glen.
At the fisherman's door, however, she again caught a glimpse of them passing over the rocks towards a boat which floated off in the cove. She then ran out upon the How—as the high ground projecting into the cove is called—just in time to see them on a large flat rock beside the boat, when a fog rolling in over sea, shrouded them from her view. She hailed them but heard no reply.
In a few minutes the mist cleared away, bright moonlight again shone on the water, but the boat and lovers had disappeared.
Then she heard mermaids singing a low sweet melody, and saw many of them sporting on the water under Hella; that was nothing new, however, for the rocks and sawns (caverns) bordering this headland were always noted as favourite resorts of these death-boding syrens, whose wild unearthly strains were wont, before tempests, to be heard resounding along Pedn-Penwith shores.
By daybreak the old fisherman came to Roskestal and told the farmer that he hoped to find his son there, for, about midnight, he saw him at his bedside, looking ghastly pale; he stayed but a moment, and merely said, "Farewell father and mother, I am come for my bride and must hasten away," when he vanished like a spirit. It all seemed to the old man uncertain as a dream; he didn't know if it were his own son in the body or a token of his death.