We smoked our pipes out, and said nothing to each other, good or bad. Then father makes a start, and we follows him; took a goodish while, but we got down all right, and headed for the cave. When we got there our troubles were over for a while. Jim struck a match and had a fire going in no time; there was plenty of dry wood, of course. Then father rolls a keg out of a hole in the wall; first-rate dark brandy it was, and we felt a sight better for a good stiff nip all round. When a man’s cold and tired, and hungry, and down on his luck as well, a good caulker of grog don’t do him no harm to speak of. It strings him up and puts him straight. If he’s anything of a man he can stand it, and feel all the better for it; but it’s a precious sight too easy a lesson to learn, and there’s them that can’t stop, once they begin, till they’ve smothered what brains God Almighty put inside their skulls, just as if they was to bore a hole and put gunpowder in. No! They wouldn’t stop if they were sure of going to heaven straight, or to hell next minute if they put the last glass to their lips. I’ve heard men say it, and knew they meant it. Not the worst sort of men, either.

We were none of us like that. Not then, anyhow. We could take or leave it, and though dad could do with his share when it was going, he always knew what he was about, and could put the peg in any time. So we had one strongish tot while the tea was boiling. There was a bag of ship biscuit; we fried some hung beef, and made a jolly good supper. We were that tired we didn’t care to talk much, so we made up the fire last thing and rolled ourselves in our blankets; I didn’t wake till the sun had been up an hour or more.

I woke first; Jim was fast asleep, but dad had been up a goodish while and got things ready for breakfast. It was a fine, clear morning; everything looked beautiful, ‘specially to me that had been locked up away from this sort of thing so long. The grass was thick and green round the cave, and right up to the big sandstone slabs of the floor, looking as if it had never been eat down very close. No more it had. It would never have paid to have overstocked the Hollow. What cattle and horses they kept there had a fine time of it, and were always in grand condition.