Certainly the outside of each cheese was mere soot to the depth of
an inch, so that we had to throw it away. Even Hylactor would not eat it.
Soon after the first hard freeze we found, one morning, one of the goats
with a leg broken. Agathemer, with me to help him, got her out into one of
the buildings, out of sight or hearing of the other animals; and, there
later, butchered her. We had, by this time, found butchering knives and
kitchen knives, to the number of a score, but each hidden by itself, and
in the oddest places, one under a sill of the cowshed, another under a
wine-jar, several between the rafters and thatch, most buried in the
thatch itself, as if they had been hidden on purpose. They were all rusty,
but we soon had them bright and sharp. With some of these we butchered and
cut up the goat. The offal we fed to Hylactor, not much at a time. Most of
the rest of her we ate, a little at a time, as the frost kept the meat
from spoiling.
The kidneys Agathemer used first. He washed them, soaked them, parboiled
them, cut them into bits, fried the bits in olive oil, and then, when they
were crisp, stirred some of them through one of his crocks of cooked
barley. The result was delicious. The kidneys sufficed for two or three
crocks of barley.
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