galloped his best, and just as he was coming out at the top of the
tide the ninth wave cut off his horse behind his back, and left
himself and the half of his horse and the covering on the dry land.
Then the mermaid came in after her covering, and the master got
married to her, and she lived with him a long time, and had
children--three or four of them. Well, in the wind-up, the master
built a fine new house, and when he was moving into it, and clearing
the things out, he brought down an old hamper out of the loft and
put it in the yard. The woman was going about, and she looked into
the hamper, and she saw her covering hidden away in the bottom of
it. She took it out then and put it upon her and went back into the
sea, and her children used to be on the shore crying after her. I'm
told from that day there isn't one of the Shees can go out in a boat
on that bay and not be drowned.'

We were now near the sandhills, where a crowd was beginning to come
together, and booths were being put up for the sale of apples and
porter and cakes. A train had come in a little before at a station a
mile or so away, and a number of the usual trick characters, with
their stock-in-trade, were hurrying down to the sea. The roulette
man passed us first, unfolding his table and calling out at the top
of his voice:

Come play me a game of timmun and tup,
The more you puts down the more you takes up.

'Take notice, gentlemen, I come here to spend a fortune, not to make
one. Is there any sportsman in a hat or a cap, or a wig or a
waistcoat, will play a go with me now? Take notice, gentlemen, the
luck is on the green.'