2 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
who told the writer that Sir Walter had intended at one time 
to write a story of fisher life and adventure, and that he had 
even gone so far as to mention his project to Constable, his 
publisher. 
It is our loss that the author of the ‘ Waverley Novels’ did 
not include in that grand series of books, a narrative of the 
toils and troubles of those who try to find their daily bread 
in the treacherous waters of the ravening deep—other than 
The Antiquary. No pen can be thought of that would have 
touched the subject with greater felicity. During the brief 
residence of Sir Walter at the fishing village of Auchmithie, 
on the Forfarshire coast, he had many opportunities of study- 
ing the daily round of fisher life. Twenty years ago there 
were persons in Auchmithie who remembered the illustrious 
visitor, and who took note of his anxiety to make himself 
acquainted with the eccentric people who formed the little 
community, in which for a short time he had taken up his 
abode, and some of whom were reproduced in the pages of 
The Antiquary. In the rude fishing village of Auchmithie 
in the time of Sir Walter, the fisher folk were unchanged 
from the days of a far back period, and even at this day 
they are still much as they were then—a peculiar people. 
The superstitions and curious manners and customs that had 
been handed down from generation to generation still pre- 
vailed—the observances connected with the births, deaths, 
and marriages of the people were insisted upon, and in all 
respects the fisher life of Auchmithie was typical, and repre- 
sented in a broad sense the daily life of the hereditary 
fishermen and fisherwomen of Scotland. It is certainly in 
Scotland (and in Cornwall as well) that the life and labour 
of this hardy and industrious class of persons can be 
studied to the greatest advantage, and in some places even 
yet their daily round of existence rolls on much as it did a 
ee ee 
