Our household comprised seven children and two adults in a stone cabin, which was lime-washed white and slowly streaked red again on the north-facing gable wall. At night, Old Brock chirruped in the yard, the fox fought and screamed and the green, lacy creatures that lived in thatch turned eyes, in fiery pinpoints, on your sleeping. Dawn was preceded by the run and rustle of hunting birds, and it was not a house to me so much as a creaking ship, a groaning night creature, ploughing the dark waves.
