Page 221 - A Jacobite Exile

of good flour and the two barrels of spirits. We got a few other
things--cooking pots and horns, and a lot of coarse blankets, and a thick

sheepskin coat for each man. They are all in the car. I see that you have got
the hut pretty nearly roofed in, so, in a day or two, we shall be

comfortable."

They went in a body to the place where the cart had been left, but it

required two journeys before its contents were all transported to the hut.
Another three days and this was completed. It was roughly built of logs, the

interstices being filled in with moss. There was no attempt at a door, an
opening being left four feet high and eighteen inches wide for the purpose
of an entry. The skin of a deer they had shot, since they arrived, was hung

up outside; and a folded rug inside. There was no occasion for windows. A
certain amount of light made its way in by an orifice, a foot square, that had

been left in the roof for the escape of smoke. The hut itself consisted of one
room only, about eighteen feet square.

When this was finished, all hands set to work to pile up a great stack of
firewood, close to the door, so as to save them from the necessity of going

far, until snow had ceased falling, and winter had set in in earnest.

The cart had brought six carcasses of sheep, that had been purchased from a

peasant; these were hung up outside the hut to freeze hard, and the meat
was eaten only once a day, as it would be impossible to obtain a fresh

supply, until the weather became settled enough to admit of their hunting.

The preparations were but just finished when the snow began to fall

heavily. For a week it came down without intermission, the wind howled
among the trees, and even Charlie, half stifled as he was by the smoke, felt

no inclination to stir out, except for half an hour's work to clear away the
snow from the entrance, and to carry in wood from the pile.

The time passed more cheerfully than might have been expected. He had by
this time begun to talk Polish with some facility, and was able to

understand the stories that the men told, as they sat round the fire;
sometimes tales of adventures they themselves had gone through,