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back, my daughter!’ for the mournful lady knew it was her lost daughter, Faith Feignless, whom the fisherman had brought back, and all the neighbours assembled to hear their story. When it was told, everybody praised Civil for the prudence he had shown in his difficulties, except Sour and his mother: they did nothing but rail upon him for losing such great chances of making himself and the whole country rich. At last, when they heard over and over again of the merman’s treasures, neither mother nor son would consent to stay any longer in the west country, and as nobody persuaded them, and they would not take Civil’s direction, Sour got out his boat and steered away with his mother toward the Merman’s Rock. From that voyage they never came back to the hamlet. Some say they went down and lived among the sea-people; others say—I know not how they learned it—that Sour and his mother grumbled and growled so much that even the sea-people grew weary of them, and turned them and their boat out on the open sea. What part of the world they chose to land on nobody is certain: by all accounts they have been seen everywhere, and I should not be surprised if they were in this good company. As for Civil, he married Faith Feignless, and became a great lord.”