SPRING AND WINTER PASTIMES 197 



rightly considered of such paramount impor- 

 tance. 



In days before " Thermos flasks " and 

 " Etnas " had robbed picnicking of half its 

 pristine glamour, the boiling of a recalcitrant 

 kettle over a fire composed of damp wood was 

 the task to which the picnicker looked forward 

 with anticipations of the profoundest joy. While 

 members of the fairer sex opened the hampers 

 and spread their contents upon the mossy 

 sward, the men were despatched to scour the 

 woods for dead branches and fill the kettle at 

 some wayside stream. 



As a result of their labours a bonfire of such 

 ferocity was eventually kindled that it required 

 no little skill and courage to balance the caldron 

 above this blazing pyre. The act always in- 

 volved the spilling of much valuable water, and 

 the scorching of many a masculine cheek, and 

 generally ended in the lid of the kettle being 

 accidentally dropped within that vessel, whence 

 it could not possibly be retrieved by human 

 hands unwilling to experience the old-fashioned 

 Ordeal by Boiling Water. Meanwhile some 

 pessimist had discovered that the milk had 

 turned sour, or been left behind at home, and 

 the party was reduced to drinking a decoction 

 of tea-leaves and w^ood-smoke, which it was a 

 comparatively easy matter to distinguish from 



