ttle degree, the dignity of danger. It was not likely that
they would succeed in eating us all up, as they had done wicked Bishop
Hatto of old; but it was at least something that they had begun to try.

The dwellers in the hay-loft had not been admitted in the previous
season to the full privileges of the barrack, nor had they been required
to share in all its toils and duties. They had to provide their quota of
wood for the fire, and of water for general household purposes: but they
had not to take their turn of cooking and baking for the entire mess,
but were permitted, as convenience served, to cook and bake for
themselves. And so, till now, I had made cakes and porridge, with at
times an occasional mess of brose or _brochan_, for only my master and
myself--a happy arrangement, which, I daresay, saved me a few
_rammings_; seeing that, in at least my earlier efforts, I had been
rather unlucky as a cook, and not very fortunate as a baker. My
experience in the Cromarty caves had rendered me skilful in both boiling
and roasting potatoes, and in preparing shell-fish for the table,
whether molluscous or crustacean, according to the most approved
methods; but the exigencies of our wild life had never brought me fairly
in contact with the cerealia; and I had now to spoil a meal or two, in
each instance, ere my porridge became palatable, or my cakes crisp, or
my brose free and knotty, or my _brochan_ sufficiently smooth and void
of knots. My master, poor man, did grumble a little at first; but there
was a general disposition in the barrack to take part rather with his
apprentice than with himself; and after finding that the cases were to
be given against him, he ceased making complaints. My porridge was at
times, I must confess, very like leaven; but then, it was a standing
recipe in the barrack, that the cook should continue stirring the mess
and adding meal, until, from its first wild ebullitions in full boil, it
became silent over the fire; and so I could show that I had made my
porridge like leaven, quite according to rule. And as for my _brochan_,
I succeeded in proving that I had actually failed to satisfy, though I
had made two kinds of it at once in the same pot. I preferred this viand
when of a thicker consistency than usual, whereas my master liked it
thin enough to be drunk out of the bowl; but as it was I who had the
making of it, I used more instead of less meal than ordinary, and
unluckily, in my first experiment