CHAPTER FIFTH.
O weel may the boatie row And better may she speed, And weel may the boatie row That earns the bairnies' bread! The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu' weel, And lightsome be their life that bear The merlin and the creel! Old Ballad.
We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher's cottage mentioned in CHAPTER eleventh of this edifying history.

I wish I could say that its inside was well arranged, decently furnished, or tolerably clean.

On the contrary, I am compelled to admit, there was confusion,-- there was dilapidation,--there was dirt good store.

Yet, with all this, there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebackit and her family, an appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their old sluttish proverb, "The clartier the cosier." A huge fire, though the season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording light, heat, and the means of preparing food.

The fishing had been successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since unlading the cargo, continued an unremitting operation of broiling and frying that part of the produce reserved for home consumption, and the bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer.