Croker's account of his first appearance to Jack: afterwards "Old Coo"
becomes more like a tipsy old fisherman than the man-fish that he was.
The first appearance was on the coast to the northward, when "just as
Jack was turning a point, he saw something, like to nothing he had ever
seen before, perched upon a rock at a little distance out to sea; it
looked green in the body, as well as he could discern at that distance,
and he would have sworn, only the thing was impossible, that it had a
cocked-hat in its hand. Jack stood for a good half-hour, straining his
eyes and wondering at it, and all the time the thing did not stir hand
or foot. At last Jack's patience was quite worn out, and he gave a loud
whistle and a hail, when the Merrow (for such it was) started up, put
the cocked-hat on its head, and dived down, head foremost, from the
rocks."
For a long time Jack could get no nearer view of "the sea-gentleman
with the cocked-hat," but at last, one stormy day, when he had taken
refuge in one of the caves along the coast, "he saw, sitting before him,
a thing with green hair, long green teeth, a red nose, and pig's eyes.
It had a fish's tail, legs with scales on them, and short arms like
fins.
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