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Mrs. Bug’s Overnight Parritch from The Fiery Cross

“Mmmphm!”  said Mrs. Bug’s voice, grimly satisfied at having routed the rioters.  The door closed, and the clang of wood and clang of metal from below announced the commencement of the day’s activities.

When I went down a few moments later, I found that good lady engaged simultaneously in toasting bread, boiling coffee, making parritch, and complaining as she tidied up the men’s leavings.  Not about the untidiness — what else could be expected of men? — but rather that Jamie had not waked her to provide a proper breakfast for them.

“And how’s Himself to manage, then?” she demanded, brandishing the toasting-fork at me in reproach.  “A fine, big man like that , and him out and doing wi’ no more to line his wame that a wee sup of milk and a stale bannock?”

Casting a bleary eye over the assorted crumbs and dirty crockery, it appeared to me that Himself and his companions had probably accounted for at least two dozen corn muffins and an entire loaf of salt-rising bread, accompanied by a pound or so of fresh butter, a jar of honey, a bowl of raisins, and all of the first milking.

“I don’t think he’ll starve,” I murmured, dabbing up a crumb with a moistened forefinger.  “Is the coffee ready?”

Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross (Chapter 22)