mises. One strange thing I saw that night. The men who were
cooking their newly stolen beef at the camp-fires kept crying out for
camp-kettles in which to boil the joints. We had no camp-kettles; but an
old man came forward to the Duke's quarters to ask if he might show the
men how to cook their meat without kettles. The Duke at once commanded
him to show us how this might be done. Like most useful inventions, it
was very simple. It was one of those things which are forgotten as life
becomes civilised, but for want of which one may perish when one returns
to barbarity, as in war. The old man began by placing stout poles
in tripods over the camp-fires, lashing them firmly at the top with
faggot-binders. Then he took the hide of one of the slaughtered cattle,
gathering it up at the corners, so as to form a sort of bag. He cut some
long narrow strips from the hide of the legs, with which to tie the four
corners together. Then he lashed the four corners to the tripod, so that
the bag hung over the fire.

"There," he said. "There is your kettle. Now put water into en. Boil
thy victuals in er. That be a soldier's camp-kettle. You can carry your
kettle on your beef till you be ready for en."

Indeed, it proved to be a very good kind of a kettle after one got
used to the nastiness of it, though the smell of burning hair from the
kettles was disgusting. To this day, I have only to singe a few hairs
in a candle to bring back to my mind's eye that first day in camp at
Axminster, the hill, the valley ringed in by combes, the noise of the
horses, the sputtering of the fires of green wood, the many men passing
about aimlessly, wondering at the ease of a soldier's life after the
labour of spring ploughing. It was a wonderful sight, that first camp
of ours; but the men for the most part grumbled at not fighting; they
wanted to be pushing on, to seize the city of Bristol, instead of
camping there. How did they know, they said, that the weather would
keep fine? How were we to march with all our ten baggage waggons if the
weather turned wet, so that the roads became muddy? The roads in those
parts became deep quagmires in rainy weather. A light farmer's market
cart might go in up to the axles after a day's steady rain. To march
through such roads would break the men's hearts quicker than any
quantity of fighting, however disastrous. Thus they grumbled about the
camp-fires, while I bustled over the Duke's dinner, in the intervals of
runni