116 MUTTON BIRDS 



mantelpiece were odd bits of candle and dry 

 matches left by the good nature and providence 

 of former visitors. Bits of bag, sacking, and 

 ancient underclothes, blocked the spaces along 

 the rafter plates, for there was ventilation from 

 the floor boards, pock-marked with nails, from 

 the ingle-nook, where a couple of boards had 

 rotted away, from the window, from the chimney, 

 and from the uneasy door. 



Cobwebs black with soot festooned the roof, 

 and indeed there was a general atmosphere of 

 smoke about our camp. On lines and cross lines, 

 wet and dirty garments drying, gave the place 

 a homely look, I say dirty, but oh how dif- 

 ferent from the filth of streets. Our dirt was 

 clean peat perpetually soaked in heaven's rain, 

 clean sand bolted a thousand times by gales, and 

 clean leaf mould from virgin woods. 



On the shelf below the little window, stood, 

 not 'broken tea-cups wisely kept for show,' 

 but tins of pepper, sugar, tea, coffee, etc.; and 

 from projecting nails were hung our mugs and 

 pannikins. From the rafters loaves and 

 bacon were slung in separate flour bags, and, 

 as relics of some by-gone feminine invasion, 

 there yet remained in the whare a broken 

 pocket mirror, and speared into the wall, 

 a lady's hat pin, upon which after meals, 

 my companion, full fed, used to gaze 

 with a species of rapture of idolatry. Of 

 the tiny oval looking-glass, only a corner 

 remained, and from this fragment most of the 

 silvering had been worn away leaving as back- 

 ground the printed merits of a patent medicine 

 exposed. I had never realised the full depravity 

 of my countenance, until, with a week's growth 



