ocean immune to weather, cloaked in a floor (or, from an-
other perspective, a ceiling) of seaweed, and containing the
watery graves of so many adventurers.
129
The boat had touched this silver strand
Just as the Hunter left his stand,
And stood concealed amid the brake,
To view this Lady of the Lake.
—SIR WALTER SCOTT, “THE LADY OF THE LAKE”
When I was a child there was a period of time when my
family lived like gypsies. My parents had sold their city
house and were looking for a piece of property, far off the
beaten path in the foothills of Northern California. Before
they settled on an exact piece of land, we set up camp at a
riverside campground. The four of us (my parents and my
sister and I) lived in an old, beat-up trailer. My sister and
I spent most days playing in the creek that flowed into the
CHAPTER
7
M
ERMAID
J
OY
R
IDE
Among the Mermaids
130
river, swimming in the river, and reading on the sandy shores.
It was around this time that my mom obtained a copy of
Andersen’s Fairy Tales
and I was first subjected to the dark
tales within. Among the stand-outs was
The Little Mermaid,
complete with painful stabbing feet. (At the risk of outing
my age, this was prior to Ariel of Disney fame!) Needless to
say, with every dive under the clear blue waters, I imagined
myself to be a mermaid. And so began my love affair with
these fabled beauties and beasts.
Mermaids have long been popular in the world of fic-
tion and lore. In Charles Weathers Bump’s
The Mermaid of
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131
Druid Lake,
we are introduced to a mermaid of somewhat
urban origins—she lives in a lake in a city park. Of course
this story was written in 1906 so “urban” was perhaps a bit
of a different thing. Still, what would it be like to encounter a
mermaid in Central Park? What I love, and instinctively un-
derstood those hours spent under-
water as a child, is the reminder
that mermaids need not dwell
only in the sea. There are
dryads and nymphs of lakes,
lagoons, rivers, and let’s not
forget swimming pools. The
classic 1948 film
Mr. Peabody
and the Mermaid
stars William Powell as a newly married
vacationer who discovers a mermaid while out sailing and
brings her home to his mansion, where he stashes her in his
swimming pool. It seems unlikely that he would get away
with this, but true to Powell’s nature, he and his new wife are
drunk throughout most of the movie, so maybe nobody no-
ticed. (If this plot sounds familiar, the eighties blockbuster
Splash!
starring Darryl Hannah was a remake of sorts, or at
least loosely based on,
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid
. ) In the
vein of these movies—and perhaps an influence on them—
The Mermaid of Druid Lake
is a bit of a humorous tale. I
don’t want to spoil the story by saying too much, but there
Among the Mermaids
132
is a somewhat ridiculous scene that involves taking the mer-
maid for a car ride.
So before you dive into this sweet little story, you may
want to grab a towel. Once you’ve read it, you will crave that
feeling yourself—you’ll want to swim down to the bottom
of the river, imagining you are a watery woman (or man)
who only comes up to the surface, not for air, but to see who
you can enchant back to your mermaid cave below.
The Mermaid of Druid Lake
by Charles Weathers Bump
If Edwin Horton had not had a sleepless time that hot June
night it probably would never have happened. As it was, af-
ter tossing and pitching on an uncomfortably warm mattress
for several hours, he had dressed himself and left his Bolton-
avenue home for a stroll in Druid Hill Park just as the dawn
made itself evident. That was the beginning of the adventure.
Not a soul was in sight when he reached the driveway
around the big lake, and he let out to take a little vigorous
exercise, breathing in the fresh air with more enjoyment than
had been his for some hours.
About half way around he stopped suddenly and rubbed
his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. For a curve in
Mermaid Joy Ride
133
the road had brought him the knowledge that he was not
alone in his appreciation of the early morning hour. Seated
beside the water, on the rocks that line the lake shore, was
a damsel—a rather good-looking one, as well as he could
judge at the distance of a hundred yards. She was leaning on
her left elbow and looking out over the lake in rather a pen-
sive, dreamy attitude. Of course, young ladies don’t ordinar-
ily get up before dawn to go out to Druid Hill Park for the
purpose of sitting alone beside
the broad sweep of city water,
and Edwin naturally felt some
surprise at the novelty of the
sight. Besides, she was inside
the high iron railing, and he
wondered how she had got
there.
In the intensity of his in-
terest he slowed down his
pace as he drew nearer along
the roadway. Should he watch
her unobserved for a while to ascertain her purpose? Should
he frankly hail her and ask whether she objected to com-
pany? Should he—well, the damsel settled his doubts for
him just then by discovering him. She appeared startled, and
he fancied she half meant to plunge into the lake. Then she
Seated beside the water,
on the rocks that line
the lake shore, was
a damsel—a rather
good-looking one, as
well as he could judge
at the distance of a
hundred yards.
Among the Mermaids
134
changed her mind, gave him a bewitching little smile and
raised her free hand to beckon him. Edwin needed no sec-
ond invitation. The novelty of the situation was too alluring
to resist.
In another moment he had scaled the fence and was
clambering awkwardly down the rocks. And as he came
close he found her a very pretty damsel indeed, with youth-
ful, rosy cheeks, fetching blue eyes and long, light tresses
that hung unconfined from her head down upon the sloping
rocks behind her. She was smiling, and yet he thought he
Mermaid Joy Ride
135
detected a renewed disposition to slip away from him before
he had drawn too close.
Then he had a shock.
She was only half a woman!
The other half of her was fish—scaly fish—partly sub-
merged in the waters of the lake!
&nbs
p; He paused irresolutely. It was all right, you know, to read
about mermaids in old mythologies and fairy tales. But to
encounter one in this year of Our Lord, so near home as
Druid Lake! Oh, fudge! The boys at the Ariel Club would
never get through “joshing” him should he ever
say he had seen such a thing. It could not be
true; it was too amazing! He was a fool to let
his nerves get the better of him. He had bet-
ter cut out those visits to the river resorts, or
next he would be seeing pink elephants climbing
trees. First thing he knew he would wake up in that
stuffy room at home. No, he couldn’t be dreaming! There
was the railing, and the lake, and the white tower, and Gen-
eral Booth’s home, and the Madison-avenue entrance, and
the Wallace statue and a dozen other familiar spots in a most
familiar perspective.
And there, too, was the damsel in flesh and blood, or,
rather, flesh and fish!
Among the Mermaids
136
She was the first to speak.
“Good morning to you, stranger.”
She spoke English—good, clear mother-tongue. Her
lips were parted in that alluring smile, and her manner was
as saucy as that of any fair flirt he had ever known of wom-
ankind.
“In the name of Heaven, who are you?” he stammered as
he sat down, awkwardly, beside her.
She laughed outright—mischievously, mockingly.
“I? I am the nymph of the lake. Long years ago I was
the naiad of the woodland spring that is now deep down
yonder,” indicating a spot out in the lake. “But they dammed
me in and turned great foods of water in here, and mighty
Jupiter gave me my new title.”
“And are you really half fish?”
She laughed again.
“I am what you see.”
As she spoke she gracefully swayed the lower half of
her in the water. A million glistening scales prismatically re-
flected the increasing morning light. She was half fish, all
right. There was no doubt about that.
“By gosh! here’s a rum go!” muttered Edwin to himself.
“What did you say?” queried the mermaid.
“I said, if you must know, ‘By Jove! you are a beauty,’” he
replied, gallantly and impetuously.
Mermaid Joy Ride
137
The mermaid smiled again. The feminine half of her was
pleased with the compliment to her good looks.
“I’m afraid you’re a sad flatterer,” she said, coquet-
tishly. She lowered her blue eyes, then uplifted the lashes
and looked full into his face in a manner that made his heart
bound. One little finger was shaken playfully at him. Ed-
win seized the hand. It was warm; human blood pulsated
through it! And as he held it his companion gave just a bit of
a squeeze. A score of girls had done
the same in bygone sentimental
hours. But none so deftly.
“This is certainly an odd adven-
ture,” he remarked. “Tell me, lady
of the lake, do you often sit here in
this unconventional fashion with
gentlemen callers?”
“What would you give to
know?” she asked, teasingly.
“You are the first for a long, long
time,” she went on. “Last summer there was a man in a gray
uniform who saw me, but he looked so uninteresting I swam
away.”
“When are you here?” he asked earnestly.
“I love to sit on the bank when fair Aurora makes the
dawning day grow rosy,” she acknowledged, “but I have to
“Tell me, lady
of the lake, do
you often sit
here in this
unconventional
fashion with
gentlemen callers?”
Among the Mermaids
138
flee to the depths when the full sun comes.” She looked to
the east. “It is growing late,” she added, hurriedly; “I must be
going.”
“Not yet, not yet,” he pleaded.
“Do not detain me,” she cried; “I must go. It means life
to me.”
Gracefully she glided into the water at his feet.
“You will come tomorrow?” he asked.
The coquettish mood returned to her.
“Perhaps,” she said, as with long strokes she headed for
the centre of the lake. Edwin watched intently until she had
gone a hundred yards and more. Then she ceased swimming,
kissed her hand to him and dived under the surface as the
single word “Farewell” floated over the water.
It seems superfuous to remark that he was in a trance
that day. His father, at the breakfast table, jovially prodded
him about being late, until he barely caught himself on the
verge of telling his queer secret. And so absent-minded was
he at the office that he found he had entered the account of a
prosaic old firm as “Mermaid & Nymph.”
Long before 4
a.m.
the next day he was at the lake. The
waning moon was still in the west and there were few signs
of the coming day. For half an hour he kept his vigil alone,
and had almost begun to think his piscatorial charmer was
not coming. Then suddenly he espied her out in the lake,
Mermaid Joy Ride
139
swimming toward him. When about 50 yards off shore she
hailed him jovially and bade him go around to the white
tower. As he moved along the driveway she kept him com-
pany, maintaining the pace with graceful, tireless strokes and
occasionally coming nearer to exchange a remark.
“What made you change the trysting place?” he asked.
“Love of change, I suppose,” she replied. “A water nymph
does not get much chance at novelty.”
The half hour they spent upon the
water’s edge was largely one of sen-
timental banter between merry
maid and enamored man, in which
Edwin reached the conclusion that
his charmer could give cards
to the jolliest little “jollier” in
Baltimore. She asked him
about his past and pres-
ent girl friends, and pouted
deliciously when he frankly
acknowledged them. Finally they
parted, she promising to appear
the next morning.
The third meeting started
a chain of events. They were
comfortably chatting on the
Among the Mermaids
140
rocks when Edwin heard the chug-chug of an automobile.
The mermaid clutched his arm in alarm. “What are those
horrid things?” she naively remarked. “They often make such
an awful fuss I can hear them down in my cozy corner.”
Edwin’s reply was suspended while the machine passed
them. The two men who were in it craned their necks most
industriously at the sight of a pair of lovers out so early and
seated in such an unusual spot for sentimental couples.
When he turned to make the explanations she had
asked, he found it a harder task than he had imagined. Her
knowledge of human inventions, of worldly means of lo-
comotion, was not extensive, and he had to begin with the
A B C of it and go through a course in elementary mechan-
ics. After the forty-second paragraph of instructions the
damsel clapped her hands gleefully and cried:
“It would be great fun to take a trip in one!”
“It is great fun,” declared Edwin, for a moment forgetting
to whom he was talking.
“But then I couldn’t do it!” she exclaimed in
disappointment. “I couldn’t leave the lake.”
The unshed tears in her eyes made him
ardent.
“You could do it if you are willing,” he
avowed, earnestly. “You can take the water
Mermaid Joy Ride
141
with you.” Visions of a tank lady in the “Greatest Circus on
Earth” came to him.
“You are fooling me,” murmured the mermaid. And she
pouted.
Edwin rose to the occasion. “I am not fooling,” he pro-
tested. “It would not be difficult to put a tank of water in the
machine for you to put your”—He was going to say feet, but
he ended his sentence, stumblingly,
“your other half in.”
In her joy the Lady of the Lake
took his cheeks in her hands and
gave him an impulsive kiss. “You
are the loveliest being on earth,” she
said, enthusiastically.
That settled it. The rest of the
conversation that morning was
about automobiles, and when they parted it was with a def-
nite assurance on his part that Edwin would be on hand the
next morning with a motor car suitably equipped for her use.
It was only when he had gotten away that he realized the
ridiculous side of the job he had undertaken. He could get
an automobile all right. Tom Reese was a good friend, and
a willing one, and his car had a tonneau capacious enough
to accommodate the ex-naiad and her movable pool. But he
Visions of a
tank lady in the
“Greatest Circus
on Earth” came
to him.
Among the Mermaids
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