But indeed the walls, the ceiling, and all else about us was beyond everything for blackness, and this was easily to be understood, for a wench coming in with a cauldron lights a faggot of wood in a corner, where was no chimney to carry off the smoke, but only a hole in the wall with a kind of eaves over it, so that presently the place was so filled with the fumes 'twas difficult to see across it.

Taters in the cauldron sink, Peeled by hands as black as ink; Portions of a slaughtered cat, Piece of breakfast-bacon fat, Bits of boot and bits of stick Make the gruel slab and thick.