HERRING AND POTATOES. 363 



get home, she very good-naturedly invited us to wait a little and 

 take a share with herself and her husband of the dinner about to 

 "be served, a bit of hospitality as frankly accepted as it was kindly 

 offered. Looking now and again into the boiling potato pot, and 

 listening with inclined ear to the sound, actually musical in such a 

 case, of its boil and bubbling, she was ready at the proper instant 

 to snatch it off the fire, and, carrying it to a corner of the kitchen, 

 she poured off the water, and immediately re-hung it over the fire 

 again, shortening the chain by which it was suspended by a link 

 or two, that the fire might not, now that it was waterless, have 

 too much effect upon it. She then got some half-dozen fresh 

 herrings, caught early that morning herrings large, and beautiful, 

 and silvery scaled as a salmon and drying them nicely with a 

 cloth, she placed them flat-wise side by side on the top of the 

 potatoes in the pot, the lid of which she was careful to make fit 

 tightly by means of a coarse kitchen towel, which served at once 

 to cover the contents, and to cause the lid to fit so tightly that all 

 the steam was effectually retained. For the time being, in short, 

 the pot by this ready expedient may be said to have been her- 

 metically sealed. During a quarter of an hour, perhaps, and while 

 the gentleman and ourselves carried on a lively conversation, the 

 wife kept an attentive eye on the pot, never once lifting the lid, 

 however, but from time to time raising or lowering a link of the 

 chain as in her judgment was necessary. All being ready at last, 

 she took the pot off the fire, and set it on a low stool in the middle 

 of the floor. She then lifted the lid and the cloth, and the room 

 was instantly filled with a savoury steam that made one's mouth 

 water merely to inhale it. Occupying each a low chair, we were 

 invited to fall to, to eat without knife, or fork, or trencher, just 

 with our fingers out of the pot as it stood. It was a little startling, 

 but only for a moment. After a word of grace we dipped our 

 hand into the pot, and took out a potato hot and mealy, and with 



