By now we had some skill in our mason-work. Terry picked out stones for me with an eye to their use and place and we were not hindered by the heaps of rejected flags which had gathered round us when we started to make our gable. Hobs and the grate were all we required to build. We raised two cheeks of stone, each a foot wide and as deep as the cavity in the gable, at the sides of the cavity. When these cheeks were six inches high we searched along the shores of Loch Coulter until we found a bank of clay. I spread a good deep layer of the clay over the cheeks and laid six pieces of iron from the car lengthways from cheek to cheek, embedding their ends in the clay so that they would make a stable bottom for our grate. As soon as these rods were in place we added another row of flat stones to the cheeks. It was easy now to form the front of the grate by wedging two other lengths of iron above each other under successive layers of flat stones. We packed every cranny with clay. To finish the job we wedged one of the car’s number plates flat beneath the top stones of the cheeks so that it formed a tray on which a kettle could sit. These hobs were almost a foot high, I twisted a piece of brake-rod to the shape of the letter S and slipped one bend over a stay which supported the chimney. While I was making this crook for our kettle Terry put dead heather and wood into the grate. I set a match to the heather. She fetched in a kettle of water and hung it from the crook. We stood with bated breath while the smoke began to thicken above the grate; it gathered in the roof of the fireplace; we felt sick for a moment; if the chimney would not draw our labour and our zeal were wasted. We could not live in the cave if we had no fire. The wind was from the east, and we had left the east entrance to our cave open for the wind to rush through and aid the chimney. Suddenly the chimney warmed, the smoke which swirled round our heads was sucked back into the fireplace, the fire went up in a blaze. We danced, we gazed at our handiwork, we ran outside to tell each other to come and see the smoke rising from our chimney. We made tea and sat in front of the fire, fancying that it was winter, and the wind howled snow-laden against our gable, and pans hottered in peace by the side of our own peat fire.