Some have voyaged to the East Indies or the Pacific , and most of them have sailed in Marblehead schooners to Newfoundland ; a few have been no farther than the Middle Banks , and one or two have always fished along the shore ; but , as Uncle Parker used to say , they have all been christened in salt water and know more than men ever learn in the bushes . A curious figure , by way of contrast , is a fish-dealer from far up-country listening with eyes wide open to narratives that might startle Sinbad the Sailor . -- Be it well with you , my brethren ! Ye are all gone -- some to your graves ashore and others to the depths of ocean -- but my faith is strong that ye are happy ; for whenever I behold your forms , whether in dream or vision , each departed friend is puffing his long nine , and a mug of the right blackstrap goes round from lip to lip . But where was the mermaid in those delightful times ? At a certain window near the centre of the village appeared a pretty display of gingerbread men and horses , picture-books and ballads , small fish-hooks , pins , needles , sugarplums and brass thimbles -- articles on which the young fishermen used to expend their money from pure gallantry . What a picture was Susan behind the counter ! A slender maiden , though the child of rugged parents , she had the slimmest of all waists , brown hair curling on her neck , and a complexion rather pale except when the sea-breeze flushed it . A few freckles became beauty-spots beneath her eyelids . -- How was it , Susan , that you talked and acted so carelessly , yet always for the best , doing whatever was right in your own eyes , and never once doing wrong in mine , nor shocked a taste that had been morbidly sensitive till now ? And whence had you that happiest gift of brightening every topic with an unsought gayety , quiet but irresistible , so that even gloomy spirits felt your sunshine and did not shrink from it ? Nature wrought the charm . She made you a frank , simple , kind-hearted , sensible and mirthful girl . Obeying Nature , you did free things without indelicacy , displayed a maiden 's thoughts to every eye , and proved yourself as innocent as naked Eve . -- It was beautiful to observe how her simple and happy nature mingled itself with mine . She kindled a domestic fire within my heart and took up her dwelling there , even in that chill and lonesome cavern hung round with glittering icicles of fancy . She gave me warmth of feeling , while the influence of my mind made her contemplative . I taught her to love the moonlight hour , when the expanse of the encircled bay was smooth as a great mirror and slept in a transparent shadow , while beyond Nahant the wind rippled the dim ocean into a dreamy brightness which grew faint afar off without becoming gloomier . I held her hand and pointed to the long surf-wave as it rolled calmly on the beach in an unbroken line of silver ; we were silent together till its deep and peaceful murmur had swept by us . When the Sabbath sun shone down into the recesses of the cliffs , I led the mermaid thither and told her that those huge gray , shattered rocks , and her native sea that raged for ever like a storm against them , and her own slender beauty in so stern a scene , were all combined into a strain of poetry .
But on the Sabbath-eve , when her mother had gone early to bed and her gentle sister had smiled and left us , as we sat alone by the quiet hearth with household things around , it was her turn to make me feel that here was a deeper poetry , and that this was the dearest hour XXXXX all .
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