In the mean time, a most beautiful thing had grown out of the oak block in Job Chippit’s shop.

Day by day Job worked at the figure-head of the Sea-nymph, Master Torrey’s beautiful new brig that was lying on the stocks all but ready for the launch. Job spared no pains on his work, and his wonderful success really astonished himself.
53

Every one wanted to see the new figure-head, but Job kept it locked up in an inner room, and would admit no one but Master Torrey and Lucy Peabody. Lucy had been willing to put on a white dress and stand for a model, but the figure did not look at all like Lucy. It was taller, more slender, and the features were nothing like hers. Once or twice Lucy had persuaded Anna Jane Shuttleworth with her into Job’s shop. The old man had studied her face, and worked every moment of the young lady’s stay. He stared at Anna in meeting-time in a way that almost disturbed that young woman’s composure, but she looked straight before her and took no notice. It was impossible to tell how she felt. Anna was always “very reserved,” people said. They had an idea that treasures of wisdom, good sense and virtue were at once indicated and concealed by that statue-like air and silence.

Master Torrey was delighted with the nymph, which was, indeed, most beautiful. She stood on a point of rock, leaning lightly forward. Her rounded arms upheld a silvered vase of antique fashion; her head was thrown back; her hair, crowned with seaweed and coral, streamed over her shoulders as though blown by the same breeze that wafted back the thin robe from her dainty feet and ankles; the face was of the regular classic type, yet not quite human in its cold purity; the eyes looked out over the sea toward the far horizon. It was really quite extraordinary how the old Yankee wood-carver could have accomplished such a work of art. It looked, also, as if it might, if it chose, open its lips and speak, but you were quite certain it never would choose, it was so life-like and yet so still.
54

Job had sent to Boston and procured finer colors than he had ever used before, and laid them on with a cunning hand. He had painted the sea lady’s robe a pale sea-green; over it fell her hair—not yellow with golden lights, but soft flaxen; the eyes were blue, and the faintest sea-shell pink tinged the lips and cheeks. It was altogether the most beautiful figure-head that any one had ever seen.

“There! I reckon she’s about done,” said Job as he laid down his last brush and stood contemplating his work. There was an odd look on the old man’s face, half satisfaction, half dislike.

“She’s a pretty cretur, ain’t she?” he said to Lucy Peabody.

“Beautiful,” said Lucy, but speaking with a slight effort.

“Don’t you like her?” said Job in a doubtful tone.

“‘Don’t you like her?’ said Job, in a doubtful tone.”
55

“She’s very beautiful, Uncle Job, but—but”—and Lucy hesitated—“I shouldn’t want any one I cared for to love a woman like that.”

“Waal, I can’t say’s I would myself,” said Job. “But this ain’t a woman, you see; it’s one of them nimps. They wa’n’t like real human girls, you know.”

“But she is not kind,” said Lucy, with a little shiver. “She would see men drowning before her eyes, and would not put out her hand to help them. I think she took those pearl bracelets and her necklace from some poor dead girl she found floating in the sea. She wouldn’t mind; she would only care to dress herself with them.”

“I won’t say but that’s my notion of her too,” said Job. “Do you know, Lucy,” he continued, in a lower voice, “I can’t help feeling as if there was something more than common in this bit of wood all the while I’ve been doing it? It seemed as if ’twa’n’t me that was making of it up, but I was jest like some kind of a machine going along on some one else’s notion. Sometimes I am half skeered at the critter myself.”
56

“You meant to make her like Anna Jane Shuttleworth, didn’t you?” asked Lucy, suddenly.

“Waal, yis, I did kind o’ mean to give her a look of Anna Jane, ’cause Torrey, he’s so set on her, but I’ve got it more like her than I meant. Somehow, it seems as if it was more like her than she is herself.”

Lucy gave one more long look at the figure “I must go,” she said, with a little start. “Good-bye, Uncle Job;” and she flitted away by a side door.

Just then Master Torrey came into the shop, and with him came old Colonel Shuttleworth and his daughter. Colonel Shuttleworth was a pompous, portly man, in an embroidered waistcoat, plum-colored coat and lace ruffles.

“A pretty thing! a pretty thing!” he said, condescendingly. “How many guineas has she cost Master Torrey?”

“You didn’t expect I was going to make her for nothing, did you, cunnel?” said Job, who stood in no awe of the old man’s wealth, clothes or title.
57

“No, no, of course not,” said the colonel, trying to be dignified. “Um! ah! it seems to me this figure has something the look of my daughter. Anna, isn’t the new figure-head like you?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Anna, who had dropped into a seat and sat looking at nothing in particular.

“She’s so delicate, so modest, she won’t notice,” thought her lover. “She is lovely, Job,” he cried aloud. “You have outdone yourself. Our sea lady is no mortal, but a goddess. She has everything noble in humanity, but none of its faults or weaknesses.”

“Umph!” said Job; “I don’t know about that. I’ve heard some of them goddesses was rather queer-acted people. Anyhow, I think I’d like the women folks best, not being a heathen god myself.”

“Why, Job, you don’t understand your own work,” said Master Torrey, half angrily. “She is too pure to be moved by our passions, too much exalted above humanity to be agitated by its troubles.”
58

“Waal now, that ain’t my notion of exaltation,” said Job. “‘Seems to me that’s more like havin’ no feelin’s at all, kind of too dull and stupid and full of herself to keer very much about anything. This wooden girl of ourn is uncommon handsome, though I say it, but bless you, Master Torrey! she hain’t got no more brains in her skull than a minnow. She’d be a kind of dead-and-alive sort of a critter always. If she had a husband, she’d never bother herself if he was in trouble. If she had a baby, she wouldn’t care much for it, only maybe to dress it up.”

The old man seemed strangely excited in this absurd discussion. Master Torrey, too, seemed much disturbed and not a little provoked. Anna Jane sat calm and still, and wondered whether that light green color in the nymph’s robe would become her. The colonel, who had not the faintest idea what the two men were talking about, looked from one to the other uncomprehending, and consequently slightly offended.

“Are you talking about this wooden image?” he said, wondering.

“Yes, to be sure, cunnel,” said Job, with an odd sound between a laugh and a groan.
59

“Come, child, it is time to go home,” said the colonel, loftily.

Anna Jane rose and took her father’s arm. Master Torrey followed them out of the shop without looking back or saying good-bye to his old friend. In a strange passion, Job caught up the axe and looked at the wooden nymph as if about to dash it in pieces. “What an old fool I am!” he said. “She ain’t only wood, and I’ll get my pay for her. Creation! it does beat all how contrary things turn out in this world!”

The figure-head of the Sea-nymph was carried through the streets in the midst of an admiring throng and fixed securely in its place on the beautiful new brig. A few days more, and the ship was launched and slid swiftly and safely into the sea. That night it was bright moonlight. Silver-gilt ripples were rising and falling along the coast and all over the bay. Now and then a fish would jump, scattering a shower of shining drops. Everything was very still around the Sea-nymph. She lay quite by herself at some distance from any other craft. There was no one on board but an old watchman, who was fast asleep. If he had been awake, he would have seen a long, bright ripple on the water coming nearer as some sea creature cut its way swiftly toward the new craft. It was our merman, who found himself drawn toward the land by a longing curiosity too strong for him to resist.
60

“It is all so quiet and still,” he thought. “There can be no possible danger, and I do so want to see what sort of houses these human creatures live in. There’s a new ship. I’m a great mind to go and look at it. What is that standing there on the end of it?”

The merman swam on slowly, debating whether he should really go and look. Something seemed at once to warn him away and to call him forward. He could not tell what was the matter with him. Once he turned to swim away. Then he made up his mind once for all, and dashed straight on toward the ship. He said over to himself a charm his grandfather had taught him: “Aski, kataski, lix tetrax, damnamenous,” words of power once written on the fish-bodied statue of the great goddess of Ephesus; but, dear me! it did him no good at all. All the while he was coming the wooden nymph stood up in her place, holding out her silver vase in both hands and looking over the sea with her painted eyes.
61

“What a lovely creature!” thought the merman. “She is looking at me; she holds her vase toward me.”

She was doing no such thing, of course—the wooden image—but he thought she was. He did not know that she would have looked just the same way if he had been an old porpoise instead of a young merman. He swam closer and closer. The moon shone on the painted face. The ship moved gently on the water. The merman thought the lady had inclined her head. In one moment he fell desperately, helplessly, in love with the oaken nymph. It certainly must have been the doing of the old Witch of the Sea. Some influence of the kind must have been at work, or else a merman who had been to college would surely have had more sense than to become enamored of an oak block. But whether it was the witch’s work, or whether it was the drop of human blood in his veins, or whether it was fate, that is just what he did—he fell in love with a wooden image. He forgot his home, his old grandfather, his sisters, his best friend, who loved him like a brother and who had saved his life in the war. As for the mermaid who had given him the ring, he never gave her a thought. He didn’t care for anything in the world but that painted image smiling up there and holding its vase. He saw nothing but that, and, in fact, he didn’t see that either, for he saw it as if it were alive.
62

“Oh I wish I knew her name or what she is!” said the merman to himself. “She can’t be human. She is too beautiful.” He swam round and round and read the words “The Sea-nymph” painted under the figure. He gave a jump almost out of the water. “It is a nymph,” he said—“one of the Nereides or Oceanides. I thought they had left this world long ago. What can she be doing on that ship?”

He gazed at the wooden creature with all his heart in his eyes. He wished he were human that he might at least be a............