64 MR HARDY ON BOWLINO. 



This was the gonial time in which masters and servants, then little 

 restricted from intermingling by scruples as to rank or station, gave 

 themselves up to relaxation, — *' when toil remitting lent its turn to 

 play :"— 



" Condita post frumenta, levantes tempore festo 

 Corpus." 



The cattle were turned out to moors and commons, where the horses 

 often sojourned till about New Year tide.* In most instances the farms 

 were so small, that the farmer and his family, after the fashion of the 

 primitive ages,t managed their limited mailings, without extrinsic aid. 

 Being their own masters, — satisfied with " what life required," — and 

 paying but a pittance of rent ; a life partly divided between festivity and 

 half-indolent labour, would to such minds offer more attractive induce- 

 ments, than the self-denying diligence that accumulates a competency. 

 And even the possessor of broader acres and of ampler means, was ac- 

 tuated by no bolder ambition than the partners of his toils ; could de- 

 vise no mode of signalizing himself superior to the sports which were 

 the mutual heritage of high and low. The produce of the fields being se- 

 cured — with mind relaxed from the cares of office — consigning to the men 

 within the house, for hinds were then seldom heard of, the autumnal and 

 winter task of thrashing the corn with the flail, the charge of tending 

 the cattle, or the brief details of the short winter's yoking ; he sought re- 

 creation in the violent agitation of the chase, or the boisterous excite- 

 ment of bowling, curling, skaiting, and football, afforded a ready and 

 grateful employment for a vacant but ardent mind. 



While such was the condition of the agricultural population, that of 

 the rest of the community was scarcely less favourable to an observance 

 and retention of rites and customs, enforced by the sanction of ages. 

 The farmer employed no out-door labourers, excepting in spring and 



teill not whill ye spring of the zeir, and as they teill, so they saw ther aittes ; ther 

 plouche is drawen be foure beastis going syde for syde ; the caller gangis backward 

 with a whipe." (Descriptio insularum Orchadiarum, per me, Jo. Ben., ibidem colen- 

 tem, in anno 1529. MS. Adv. Libr. Dalyell's Fragments, p. 21.) The monks of 

 Kelso were wiser in their day and generation. About 1241, " they laboured their 

 grange of Colpenhopes in winter, with two ploughs." (Morton's Monast. Hist, of 

 Teviotdale, p. 117.) 



• Hence the repeated mention in writings of the periods of Charles II. and James 

 II., of horses being taken out to the commons, or running loose there. For illustra- 

 tion I may refer to Veitch's Memoirs, p. 46 (Nov. 28. IGGG.), and Simpson's Tradi- 

 tions of the Covenanters, 1st Series, p. 173. 



t " Ut prisca gens mortalium 



Paterna rura bobus exercet suis." — Hobat. Epod. Od. ii. 23. 



