which was kept at other
times in a cage. The churn was the breeding place of innumerable
blue-bottles, who in spite of its savoury attractions annoyed us very
much by alighting on our food and on our faces. I used to say to my
friend, the chaplain, when at night we had retired to our straw beds
and were reading by the light of candles stuck on bully beef tins,
that the lion and the lamb were lying down together. We could never
agree as to which of the animals each of us represented. At the head
of my heap of straw there was an entrance to the cellar. The ladies of
the family, who were shod in wooden shoes, used to clatter round our
slumbers in the early morning getting provisions from below. Life
under such conditions was peculiarly unpleasant. It was quite impossible
too to have a bath. I announced to the family one day that I was going
to take one. Murdoch MacDonald provided some kind of large tub which
he filled with dishes of steaming water. Instead however of the fact
that I was about to have a bath acting as a deterrent to the visits of
the ladies, the announcement seemed to have the opposite effect. So
great were the activities of the family in the cellar and round the
churn that I had to abandon the idea of bathing altogether. I determined
therefore to get a tent of my own and plant it in the field. I wrote
to England and got a most wonderful little house. It was a small
portable tent. When it was set up it covered a piece of ground six
feet four inches square. The pole, made in two parts like a fishing
rod, was four feet six inches high. The tent itself was brown, and
made like a pyramid. One side had to be buttoned up when I had
retired. It looked very small as a place for human habitation. On one
side of the pole was my Wolseley sleeping bag, on the other a box in
which to put my clothes, and on which stood a lantern. When Philo and
I retired for the night we were really very comfortable, but we were
much annoyed by earwigs and the inquisitiveness of the cows, who (p. 095)
never could quite satisfy themselves as to what we were. Many is the
time we have been awakened out of sleep in the morning by the sniffings
and sighings of a cow, who poked round my tent until I thought she had
the intention of swallowing us up after the manner in which the cow
disposed of Tom Thumb. At such times I would turn Philo loose upon the
intruder. Philo used to suffer at night from the cold, and would wake
me up by insisting upo