THE LONELY HUT
Some time before noon we were threading a barely visible track not far
below the crest of the spur, a track bordered and overshadowed by
chestnuts and beeches, but chestnuts and beeches intermingled with not a
few pines and firs, when, out of the bushes on our left hand, from the up
slope above us, appeared a large mouse-colored Molossian dog, very lean
and starved looking. I first saw his big, square-jowled, short-muzzled
head peering out between some low cornel bushes, his brown eyes regarding
me questioningly.
He fawned on me, of course, and I made friends with him, fondled him,
pulled his ears and played with him a while.
Agathemer tartly enquired whether we really had time to waste on
skylarking with strange dogs. I laughed, picked up my wallet, and started
to follow him as he swung round and strode on, ordering the dog to go back
home, a command which, from me, almost always won instant compliance and
disembarrassed me of any casual roadside friends.
But the dog did not obey. He pawed at me, whined, and caught my cloak in
his teeth, tugging at it and whining. I could not induce him to let go,
could not shake him off, and was much puzzled. Agathemer, impatient and
irritated, halted again and urged our need of haste.
After exhausting every wile by which I had been accustomed to rid myself
of too fond animals, I began to realize that the dog did not want to
follow us, did not want us to remain where we were and go on playing with
him, but, as plainly as if he spoke Latin, he was begging us to accompany
him somewhere.
I said to Agathemer:
"I'm going with this dog; come along."
He remonstrated.
I declared that I had an intuition that to follow the dog was the right
thing to do. Agathemer, contemptuous and reluctant, yielded. The dog led
us along an all but undistinguishable track through densely growing trees,
up steep slopes and out into a flattish glade or clearing at the brow of
the slope, overhung by merely a few hundred feet of wooded mountain side
and bare cliffs to the crest. The clearing was clothed in soft, late,
second-growth grass, and had plainly been mown at haying time and pastured
on since. In it we found some well-built, well-thatched farm-buildings: a
sheepfold, a goatpen, a cowshed, a strongly built structure like a granary
or store-house, another like a repository for wine-jars and oil-jars;
hovels such as all mountain farms have for slave-quarters and a house or
cabin little better than a hut, mud-walled, like the other buildings, but
new thatched. It was nearly square and had no ridge-pole, the four slopes
of the roof running together, at the top, yet not into a point, but as if
there were a smoke-vent: in fact I thought I saw a suggestion of smoke
rising from the peak of the roof.
To this hut the dog led us. The heavy door of weathered, rough-hewn oak
was shut, but, when I pushed it, proved to be unfastened. I found myself
looking into a largish room, roofed with rough rafters from which hung
what might have been hams, flitches and cheeses. It was mud-walled and had
a floor of beaten earth, in which was a sand-pit, nearly full of ashes and
with a small fire smouldering in the middle of it. Opposite me was a rough
plank partition with two doors in it, both open. Against the partition,
between the doors, hung bronze lamps, iron pots and pottery jars. The room
was dim, lighted only from the door, in which I stood, and from the narrow
smoke-vent overhead.
By the fire, on their hands and knees, and apparently poking at it, each
with a bit of wood, or about to lay the bits of wood on it, were two
little girls, shock-headed, barefoot and bare-legged, clad only in coarse
tunics of rusty dark wool. I am not accurate as to children's ages: I took
these girls for seven and five; but they may have been six and four or
eight and six. At sight of us they scrambled to their feet and fled
through one of the doors, one shrieking, the other screaming:
"Mamma! Mamma! Strange men! Strange men!"
In her panic she did not attempt to shut the door behind her and bolt it,
both of which, as I afterwards discovered, she might have done.
No other voices came to our ears and I followed the children into the rear
room in which they had taken refuge. It was totally dark, except for what
light found its way through its door, and was cramped and small and half
filled by a Gallic bed. I had never seen a Gallic bed before. Such a bed
is made like the body of a travelling-carriage or travelling litter,
entirely encased in panelling, topped off with a sort of flat roof of
panelling, and with sliding panels above the level of the cording, so that
the occupants can shut themselves in completely; a structure which looks
to a novice like a device for smothering its occupants, but which is a
welcome retreat and shelter on cold, windy, winter nights, as I have
learned by later experience. As this was my first sight of one I was
amazed at it.
Usually, as I learned later, such a bedstead is piled up with feather-
beds, so that the occupant is much above the level of the top edge of the
lower front on which the panels slide. But this bed was poorly provided
with mattresses and I had to stare down into it to descry the children's
mother, who lay like a corpse in a coffin, but half buried in bedding and
quilts, only her face visible. She was certainly alive, for her breathing
was loud and stertorous; but she was, quite certainly, unconscious.
Between the shrieking children, who clung to the frame of the bed, I spoke
to her and assured her that we were friends. She gave no sign of
understanding me, of hearing me, of knowing of my presence; but my
repeated assurances quieted the elder girl, who not only ceased screaming
but endeavored to calm her little sister.
Seeing her so sensible, I questioned the child. All I could learn from her
was that her father had been away nearly ten days, her mother ill for five
and insensible for three and their four slaves had run away the day
before, taking everything they chose to carry off. I then examined the
other room which had a similar bed in it, and in which, the child told me,
she and her sister slept. She declared that she did not know her mother's
name, that her father never called her anything but "mother"; she also
declared that she did not know her father's name, her mother, always
calling him "father," as she and her sister did. Her name was Prima and
her sister's Secunda.
As I could not rouse the woman and learned that the slaves had been gone
more than a full day, Agathemer and I went to save the bellowing and
bleating stock. We found in the shed two fine young cows with udders
appallingly distended. But our attention was momentarily distracted from
them by the sight of eight full-sized bronze pails, finer than those at
any public well in Reate or Consentia, which hung on pegs by the door,
four on each side of it. They were flat-bottomed, bulged, but narrowed at
the rim so that no water would splash out in carrying. The rims were
ornamented with chased or cast patterns, scallops, leaves, egg and dart
and wall of Troy: four patterns, showing that they were pairs. All had
heavy double handles. We looked for carrying-yokes, but could see none.
Such pails, which would be the treasures of any village and the pride of
most towns, amazed us in this fastness. Glancing at the pails took us less
time than it does to tell of it. The cows needed us sorely and we each
picked up one of the suitable earthenware jars which stood inverted just
inside the shed door and milked them at once. Agathemer said he thought we
were in time to forestall any serious and permanent harm to them. But
their udders were frightfully swelled and blood came with the milk from
one teat of the cow I attended to.
The sheep were in a worse state than the cows. Not a lamb was visible;
besides the ewes there was only a two-year-old ram penned by himself in a
corner of the fold. There were eight fine young ewes, in full milk. As
with one cow, so among these ewes, four gave bloody milk from one teat
each, and we milked that onto the earth. We found plenty of empty
earthenware crocks, clean, and turned upside down, in which to save the
good milk.
The he-goat, a noble young specimen, was penned by himself, like the ram.
There were nineteen she-goats, with not a kid anywhere, yet all in full
milk and far worse off than the ewes. All but two gave bloody milk and
three gave no clean milk. These three I judged might die, but Agathemer
vowed he could save them.
When we had finished milking we searched about for water. Towards the
northeast the clearing narrowed and here we came upon a tiny rill
trickling through a fringe of sedge. It came from a clear and abundant
spring in a cleft of rock against the sharp up slope which rose there
under the pines. At the lower edge of that part of the clearing, near the
margin of the more nearly level ground, just before it plunged over the
rim of the flat, it was dammed into a drinking pool for the stock. We did
not dare let them out to drink and so laboriously carried water, I from
the spring and Agathemer from the pond, using each a pair of the bronze
pails, pouring the water into the troughs made of hollow logs, which were
set, one to each, in the shed, pen and fold. We kept this up till every
goat and ewe had had her fill, and then watered the he-goat and ram. The
cows, of course, we had watered first. After the watering we gave each cow
a feed of mixed barley and millet and then filled with hay all the mangers
and racks.
When we had concluded this exhausting toil we filled the water-jar which
stood in one corner of the cabin and then carried some milk into the
house, and offered Prima and Secunda whichever they preferred. They chose
ewe's milk and drank their fill. Prima was much impressed by the dog's
confidence in me and seemed to give me hers. She said the dog's name was
Hylactor. I tried to make the mother drink some cow's milk, but she
swallowed only a few drops which I forced through her teeth by the help of
a small horn spoon which I found on the floor of the outer room.
Agathemer roused the fire and piled more wood on it. There were no less
than seven tripods lying about the floor of the cabin, but all roughly
made and of the squat, short-legged pattern which holds a pot barely clear
of a low bed of coals; not one was fit to hold a cauldron over a newly
made deep fire of half-caught wood.
On the tallest of them, or rather on that least squatty, Agathemer set a
small pot, which he filled with fresh water. When he had this where it
seemed likely to boil and certain to heat, he ferretted about for
supplies. He found a brick oven with about half a baking of bread in it;
medium-sized loaves of coarse wheat bread. Two forked sticks stood in one
corner of the cabin and with one he lifted from its peg in the rafters a
partly used flitch of good coarse bacon. There was a jar more than half
full of olive oil by the sticks in the same corner of the cabin. In a
small pot set in the ashes Agathemer stewed some of the onions he lifted
down from the rafters. In the other corner of the cabin was an amphora
nearly full of harsh, sour wine. We made a full meal of bread, onions,
bacon, olives and some raisins, drinking our fill of the wine. The little
girls ate heartily with us, now convinced that we were friends and
accepting us as such. They seemed to some extent habituated to their
mother's condition of helplessness and insensibility.
As soon as we had fed we inspected the place. The glade or clearing was
enclosed all around by the tall trees of a thick primitive forest. Towards
the up slope and the cliffs below the crest of the mountain the trees were
all pines, firs or such-like dark and somber evergreens. There were a few
of these also on the lower slopes, but there, as along all that rim of the
clearing, the forest was mostly of oak, beech, chestnut and other cheerful
trees. Their tops towered far above the verge of the slope and screened
the clearing all round. Nowhere could we catch sight of any sign of a
town, village or farmstead, though there were three several rifts in the
forest through which we could see far into the valleys to the eastward.
The cliff above the clearing ran nearly from southwest to northeast, so
that the place was well situated towards the sun.
The cow-shed was divided by a partition and half of it had been used for
stabling mules. Agathemer judged that no mule had been in it for about ten
days. We inferred that the children's father had taken the mules with him
when he departed. Over the cow-shed was a loft, well stored with good hay,
as were the smaller lofts over the sheds which formed one side of the
sheepfold and goat-pen. The hay was not mountain hay, but distinctly
meadow hay, such as is mown in valleys along streams. It was all in
bundles, such bundles as are carried on mule-back, two to a mule. This was
queer; even queerer the absence of any fowls or pigeons, or of any sign
that any had ever been about the place. An Umbrian mountain farm without
pigeons was unthinkable.
In the granary we found an amazingly large store of excellent barley, but
only two jars of wheat, and that not very good, and neither jar entirely
full. On the floor were loose piles of turnips, beets and of dried pods of
coarse beans. There were jars of chick-peas, cow-peas, lentils, beans and
millet, more millet than wheat. From the rafters hung dried bean-bushes,
with the pods on; long strings of onions, dried herbs, marjoram, thyme,
sage, bay-leaves and other such seasonings, dried peppers, strung like the
onions, and bunches of big sweet raisins. Also many rush-mats of dried
figs, the biggest and best of figs, some of them indubitably Caunean figs.
On the floor, in heaps, were some hard-headed cabbages, only one or two
spoiled. It was a very ample store and we marvelled at it and wondered
whence it all came and how it came where it was.
The other store-house amazed us. It was, as we had conjectured, full of
great jars; jars of wine, of olive oil, of pickled olives, of pickled
fish, of pickled pork, of vinegar, of plums in vinegar, and smaller jars
of honey, sauces and prepared relishes. The rafters were set full of
cornel-wood pegs till they looked like weavers-combs. From the pegs hung
hams, flitches, strings of smoked sausage, cheeses of all sizes, smoked so
heavily that they appeared mere lumps of soot, and bags of a shape
unfamiliar to both of us. Agathemer knocked one down and opened it. It was
full of tight packed fish, salted, dried and smoked, a fish of a kind
unknown to us.
There was, along the upper edge of the clearing, under the boughs of the
pine trees, a huge pile of trimmed logs of oak, chestnut, pine and fir,
with a scarcely smaller heap of cut lengths of boughs and branches. Under
a lean-to shed was a small store of cut fire-wood. In a corner of the same
shed were four big cornel-wood mauls and eleven good iron wedges, not one
of them bearing any sign of ever having been used, but appearing as if
fresh from the maker's hands. By the woodpile were four even heavier
mauls, showing plenty of marks of hard usage and near them or about the
woodpile we found eight rusty wedges.
We could find no axe, hatchet or any other such tool anywhere about the
place. The logs and six-foot lengths of boughs afforded a lavish supply of
fuel for two long winters; the cut fire-wood could not be made to keep the
fire going ten days.
The slave-quarters, as I said, were mere hovels, but they were provided
with bedding, quilts, and stores of clothing by no means such as are
generally used for slaves. Slaves' quilts are mostly old and worn, made of
patches of woollen or linen cloth all but worn out by previous use; and
then, when torn, patched with a patch on a patch and a patch on that.
These quilts were the best of their kind, such as ladies of leisure make
for their own amusement, of squares and triangles of woolen stuff unworn
and unsoiled. The mattresses were stuffed with dried grass or sedge,
craftily packed to make a soft bed for any sleeper. The pillows were of
lambs' wool, as good as the best pillows. And, in a big chest in each
hovel, were good, new, clean tunics, cloaks, rain-cloaks, and with them
sandals, shoes, hats, rain-hats and all sorts of clothing, not as if for
slaves, but as if for middle-class farmers, prosperous and self-indulgent.
We were dumbfounded at such abundance in such a place.
By each bed in the hut was a chest. These we opened and found in both
women's clothing; tunics, robes, cloaks and rolls of linen and fine woolen
stuffs.
The woman, although moaning and stirring in her bed, gave no more signs of
life than when we first saw her. Agathemer said, speaking Greek so the
children would not understand:
"We must try to save this woman's life. You manage to get the children to
follow you outside and I'll lift her out of the bed, and wash her, put a
clean tunic on her, put clean bedding in the bed and put her back in it; I
can do all that handily. She is so ill she will never know."
We went out in the slave-hovels and chose what bedding seemed suitable and
carried it into the hut. Agathemer had put more fuel on the fire and set a
big pot of water on the tripod. We put the bedding in a corner of the hut
and selected from the contents of the chests a tunic and some rough
towels, of which there were some in each chest.
I was not hopeful of being able to wheedle the children; but my first
attempt was a complete success. I suggested to Prima that she tell me the
names of the sheep and goats and she at once became absorbed in
instructing me. Each had a name, she was certain; but, I found, very
uncertain as to which name belonged to which and not very sure of some of
the names. Her hesitations and efforts to remember took up so much time
that we were still at the goat-pen, Secunda with one hand clinging
confidingly to mine, when Agathemer called to me from the door of the hut.
He told me in Greek that he had done all he could for the woman, had
effaced all traces of his activities and had put the soiled bedding out in
the late sunshine to dry and air. We strolled about the clearing,
remarking again that it seemed out of sight from any possible inhabited or
travelled viewpoint. Agathemer fetched a rough ladder he had seen in the
cow-shed, set it against the hut, which was highest on the slope, and
climbed to the top of its roof. From there, he said, he could descry
nothing in any direction which looked like a town, village, farmstead or
bit of highway. The place was well hidden, by careful calculation, for
this could not have come about by accident.
We peered into each of the buildings and poked about in them, hoping to
find an axe or hatchet, and marvelling that a place so liberally, so
lavishly, so amazingly oversupplied with hams, flitches, sausages and
other such food should show nowhere any trace of the presence of hogs.
There was no hog-pen nor any place where one might have been, nor did any
part of the clearing show any signs indicating a former wallow, nor had
any portion of it been rooted up. It was very puzzling.
As we returned to the house, about an hour before sunset, we
simultaneously uttered, in Greek:
"Here we stay--"
"Go on," said I checking.
"Here we stay," he began again, "until the husband comes home, or, if he
does not return, until spring."
"That is my idea, also," I said, "and there is but one drawback."
"Pooh," said Agathemer, "if we do not find an axe somewhere hereabouts
I'll steal one from a farm if I have to spend two days and a night on the
quest."
We agreed that there was no question but that we must spend the night
where we were. The stock, after their long neglect and late milking, would
be best left unmilked and unwatered till morning. As we must not leave the
woman unwatched, we must sleep in the hut. We could bring in sedge
mattresses and quilts from the hovels and sleep on the earth floor by the
fire. When we had agreed on these points we forced some more milk on the
semi-unconscious woman, gave the stock more hay, ate an abundant meal of
bread, oil, sausages broiled over the fire on a spit, olives and raisins;
and, soon after sunset, composed ourselves to sleep by the well-covered
fire, leaving open the door into the woman's bedroom, but shutting the two
children into theirs after telling them by no means to stir until we
called them in the morning.
Hylactor curled up outside the cabin door, almost against it, after
Agathemer had convinced him that we would not let him sleep in the hut. We
slept unbrokenly till dawn woke us.
It was cold before sunrise so high up the mountains. My face felt cold
even inside the hut and by the smouldering fire. I was reluctant to roll
out of my quilts. But, what with Agathemer's urgings and my own
realization of what was required, I did my share of the milking, watering
and feeding of the stock and ate a hearty breakfast. For, as when hiding
in Furfur's woods, as when anywhere on our escape, since it was not
possible to eat as if at home and at ease, we ate our fill soon after dawn
and again before dark, but during the day we ate nothing. We had from
necessity already formed the habit of two meals a day, at sunrise and
sunset.
The woman seemed less violently ill than the day before. When we first saw
her she had been in the throes of a violent fever and it had lasted until
after Agathemer bathed her. From then on it seemed to abate, but, when I
last felt her forehead and hands before we lay down to sleep, she was
still feverish. When we first went to her in the morning she was
unconscious and as if in a stupor, but showed no signs of fever. She did
not struggle against feeding as on the previous day, but swallowed, a
spoonful at a time, as much milk as Agathemer thought good for her.
When we had done what seemed necessary Agathemer suggested that I remain
by the cabin while he investigated the woods round the clearing to make
sure how many roads or paths led out of it. He proposed to carry his
sheath-knife and the stout and tried staff which had helped him along the
mountain trails, as a similar one had helped me, and to take Hylactor with
him: to make a circuit about the clearing some ten yards or so inside the
forest and, if necessary a second circuit, further away from our glade.
These two circuits should make him sure how many tracks led from or to our
clearing. Then he would follow each track and acquaint himself with it,
and, if possible, learn where it led. I approved.
Before noon he reported that only three tracks approached our location;
that by which we had reached it up the slope of the mountain, and one
along the slope in each direction. About mid-afternoon he returned up the
track by which we had come, stating that the trail southwards, about a
league south of us, joined the road along which we had travelled till
Hylactor diverted us: he had made the circuit along the length of the
league or more of trail, back along the road by which we had travelled and
up the track by which Hylactor had led us; he had met no living thing,
save a hare or two, too fleet for Hylactor to catch; he had caught sight
of no town, village or farmstead, even afar. He had made sure that the
mules had left the clearing by the track he had followed out of it, so
that, probably, the children's father had gone south. Exploring the other
trail he had put off till the next day.
Next day he found that the other track joined the lower road only about
half a league to northeastwards. He turned back along the lower road and
returned by the uphill track, as he had done the day before to the south.
He met no one and saw no town, village or farmstead anywhere in sight, and
at some places he could see far to the eastward.
We discussed his proposal to go off alone, with a wallet of food and try
to steal an axe. Plainly he would have to go far. It would be easy enough
to sneak back to the farm where we had spent our last night before meeting
Hylactor, but we both felt bound by the obligation of our hospitable
entertainment there: though nameless fugitives we were still under the
spell of the standards of our former lives. We admitted to each other that
he might steal an axe from that farm and I condone the knavery and avail
myself of its proceeds; but we agreed that such baseness must be stooped
to only as a desperate last resort. He was to set off northwards next day.
That night the woman, who had been inert and manageable, in a half-stupor,
became violently delirious and for a time it took all the strength
Agathemer and I jointly possessed to hold her in bed. Prima and Secunda,
waked by her shrieks, were in a pitiable panic, Secunda merely dazed and
aghast, Prima begging us not to kill her mother, fancying we were
attacking her. We managed to convince the child that we were doing our
best and what was best for her mother and that her mother's ravings would
quiet and that she might regain her reason and health. I induced both
children to return to their bed and shut and bolted their door. Agathemer
and I, by turns, and twice again each helping the other, kept the poor
woman in her bed all night. At dawn she quieted and fell into a profound
stupor. But the vigil left me and Agathemer worn out. We attended to the
milking, feeding and watering of the stock and then I went to sleep in one
of the slave hovels, which were free from vermin, not the least amazing of
the many amazing features of our place of sojourn.
This outbreak of our insensible hostess made impossible the immediate
execution of Agathemer's project. He had to have adequate rest before he
could set off. After I had slept all the morning, he slept most of the
afternoon. During his nap I found, behind the water-jar in the hut, a
hatchet-head, with the handle broken off and what was left of it jammed in
the hole. It was small, but not very rusty or dull. Before Agathemer
wakened I had it well sharpened. We had found a mallet in the storehouse,
and, with this and a cornel-wood peg he whittled with his sheath-knife,
Agathemer drove out the broken bit of hatchet handle. He then fashioned
with his sheath-knife a good handle of tough, seasoned ash from a piece he
had found in one of the buildings. With this hatchet we could cut up small
boughs selected from the big woodpile, but it was too small to enable us
to cut logs into lengths or split lengths of logs.
Again, when Agathemer was planning for the next day his axe-stealing
expedition, the woman had a fit of raving. This lasted a night, a day and
a night and left both of us to the last degree weary and drowsy. Before we
had recuperated our firewood was almost used up. The situation looked
hopeless. It was well along into the Autumn, though we were now unsure of
what month we were in, so completely had we lost count of the days. Again
Agathemer projected an expedition for the next day, in the faint hope of
obtaining us an axe, and I feared he now aimed for our last harborage. At
dusk, as he hunted for small wood under the margin of the woodpile, he
found a good, big, double-edged axe-head. It was dull and very rusty, and
he had a vast deal of trouble getting out the fragment of broken handle
and shaping a new handle, in which he was greatly helped by a fairly good
draw-knife, which I had that very morning found hanging on a peg behind
the hay in the loft over the cow-shed. He had quite as much trouble in
fitting the handle into the axe-head and in sharpening both edges. But he
did all that before we composed ourselves to sleep. Besides those on the
partition we had found a score of fine bronze lamps and we had olive oil
enough for all uses for two winters.
Next morning we woke to find all our world buried under a foot of snow,
the pines laden with it, the boughs of the beeches, oaks and chestnuts
furred with it along their tops. It was a magic outlook, the like of which
neither of us had ever seen.
After that, all through the winter, our life was an unvarying routine of
milking, feeding and watering the stock, preparing and eating meals
limited only by our appetites, nursing the sick woman, and chopping
firewood. From the first streak of dawn till the last gleam of twilight
one or the other of us chopped the firewood. Neither of us was an adept at
handling an axe. But Agathemer, with his half Greek ancestry and his
wholly Greek versatility and adaptability, taught himself to be a good
axeman in ten days. I bungled and blundered away at it all winter.
Agathemer could cut a two-foot oak log into suitable lengths with a
minimum of effort, with clean, effective strokes of the ringing axe, the
cuts sharp and even; I could cut any log into lengths and enjoyed the
effort, but I sweated over it and laid half my strokes awry, so that the
ends of my lengths were notched and unsightly.
Also I broke five several axe-helves in the course of the winter. The
first time I broke a helve Agathemer had no substitute ready, and, what
was more, the fragment of the old helve was in so tight that he had to
burn it out in the fire and then retemper and resharpen our one precious
axe-head. His retempering and resharpening turned out all right, but he
said his success was accidental and he might ruin the axe if he tried
again. So he made two extra helves and had a dozen cornel-wood pegs ready
to drive out the bit of broken handle next time I broke it; as I did,
according to his laughing forecast.
The incessant labor of our days hardened both of us. Our muscles were like
steel rods. We slept on our mattresses by that ash-covered fire as I had
never slept at Villa Andivia or at my mansion in Rome. We ate enormously
and relished every mouthful.
Riving lengths of logs with wedges and maul was a kind of work calling for
no special skill; Agathemer taught me all he knew in a day or two. All
winter we alternated this work with woodchopping, afterwards chopping the
riven lengths into firewood lengths and then splitting these into
firewood. Although we worked at riving and chopping and splitting every
moment of daylight when we were not busy at something else, we never
accumulated any comfortable store of firewood, so as to be able to rest
even one day. We drank new milk by the quart, with both our meals; wine,
abundantly as we were supplied with it and good as it proved to be, we
drank sparingly, merely a draught at waking, one after each meal, and one
at bedtime. What we took we took strong, mixing wine and water in equal
proportions.
Both Agathemer and I preferred cows' milk and drank that only, as we gave
cows' milk only to the sick woman. Both children preferred ewes' milk. As
we had no hogs to feed we were put to it what to do with our surplus milk.
Agathemer made a sort of soft cheese, by putting sour curds in a bag and
hanging it up to drain. We both liked this and so did the little girls.
But we could not use much this way. Agathemer, always resourceful, fed the
dog all the goat's milk he would lap up, and, after he had set to curdle
what seemed enough, mixed the rest, while fresh and sweet, with water and
gave this mixture to the cows to drink, saying it increased their yield of
milk. As the winter wore on he fed similarly the best milkers among the
ewes and goats.