‘If we even had round tins, like oil-drums for example,’ Terry sighed, ‘we could knock the ends out and set them one above the other. We’ll be compelled to use our biscuit tins and make a square chimney, Hugh.’

‘That will be the very last resort,’ I assured her. ‘We must keep our stores dry. Surely we aren’t going to be beaten at this early date—there must be something—Terry! I have it, drain-pipes!’

I caught her hands and began to dance her round the cave, singing ‘Tra la la la la.’

‘Let me go, Hugh,’ she scolded. ‘Drain-pipes would be very nice—if we had drain-pipes.’

‘But we have,’ I cried, ‘they’re as good as here. Isn’t there a forest at our back-door? Aren’t there deer paths in a forest and culverts in deer paths and drain-pipes in culverts?’

We made two night expeditions into Ardverikie Forest with our spade and came back with a couple of drain-pipes each four feet long. Now the masonry went ahead. We selected only those slabs which lay on the surface and were lichen-grown. When we put them in place we kept their weathered edges to the outside, for nothing attracts the eye like a fresh face of rock in country where all else is weathered and moss-grown. The fireplace was a simple thing. We left a vacancy two feet deep and four feet wide in the centre of the inner side of the wall. When we had lined the back and the sides of this space with sheets of metal, once the bodywork of our car, to protect the stone from the heat of our future fire, we brought the wall to a height of three feet. Now we took the most solid slab of rock we could carry and laid it across from side to side above the fireplace to be its lintel. It took us two days to manœuvre a sufficiently large slab into place. Having made it secure we placed one drain-pipe upright at the back of the slab, resting on a cradle of iron rods from the car. We continued our wall round the chimney, upwards to the roof.

The wall was by no means weathertight. A multitude of chinks let in wind from the south and west, especially near the base where our masonry was most inexpert; we had learned as we worked to lay stone upon stone so that each fitted to the other. There were many crannies too under the roof where the wall sloped in and became narrow. Notwithstanding its flaws the wall was solid and its foundations were sure. We were jubilant to have a gable and a chimney. We decided to leave it as it was for a while until we had redded up the interior of the cave. A little draught was pleasant rather than objectionable so long as summer lasted, and we could proof the wall long before winter came.