In a few minutes more, Smeaton and his servant were introduced into the fisherman's cottage, the lower story of which, consisting of a room on either side and a good wide passage between them, was encumbered with a variety of articles belonging to the man's craft or mystery, some of which were not of the most pleasant odour. Salted fish, sails, nets, fishing-lines, spars, oars, boat-hooks, barrels of tar, tallow candles, and a number of things which I cannot describe, were huddled together in the rooms and in the passage, exhaling a smell, as I have said, more powerful than fragrant, which was considerably assisted by a quantity of smoke issuing forth from the room on the left-hand side. There, at the cheek of the fire; as they termed it, sat the old man's old wife, with two or three young dolphins; her grand-children, playing about as merrily as if it had been noon. To her the fisherman introduced his guest, and whispered a word in her ear which instantly made her clamber up a steep little staircase which came down without guard or balustrade, not into the passage, but into the middle of the very room where she had been sitting. The floor above, I may mention, contained four rooms, and was nearly double the size of the floor below, which is only to be accounted for by the fact of the house being built against the steep side of the hill, which left not more than eight-and-twenty feet of flat ground between its base and the river. The good lady not returning immediately, the fisherman himself went up after her, and found her, like all ladies when visited by an unexpected guest, in a great and setting-to-rights bustle. "Pooh, pooh!" said the old man; "don't make such a piece of work, mother. He is quite a plain gentleman, and has been a soldier. He must have the back room too; for there he'll be snuggest." "But suppose you want to get the tea out, Jack?" said the old lady. "Why, the bed is just over the hiding-hole." "All the better," replied the man. "He may have to hide there before we have done with him. It is not the first time, I think, mother, that we have hid a man there; and so we must do now, if it is needful. Here, we'll put the chest for a seat at the foot of the bed. You bring the table out of 'tother room. Then it will all look mighty comfortable. But we must get him some supper before he goes to bed; and I'll broach that little keg I brought in last time." "I hope he'll pay for what he has," said the old lady; "for we cannot afford to be giving away the things for nothing." "There, there, don't be a fool," rejoined her husband. "Madam Culpepper will take care we are none the worse for it; and we all of us owe her much more than that comes to." When they descended the stairs they found Smeaton playing with the children, who were in high glee; but his servant was no longer with him.