286 Scottish Life in the 17TH Century. 



even then in an unripe condition. Ploughing was a laborious 

 operation, performed with a ponderous wooden plough, drawn 

 either by four horses or eight oxen, or by a mixed team. A 

 district so circumstanced could have no surplus sustenance even 

 in a good year, and a failure of the harvest meant literal famine. 

 Foreign countries could not as now supply the deficiency, and 

 in the absence of proper roads communication even with other 

 parts of Scotland was beset with some of the difficulties of 

 modern African exploration. It was not until 1664 that even 

 a weekly postal service between Dumfries and Edinburgh was 

 established. Pestilence often followed in the steps of famine. 

 We have frequent references to "the pest " in Council minutes. 

 One year, when it raged in Dumfries, the civic rulers of Kirk- 

 cudbright prohibited all communication with the town or even 

 with the district east of the Urr, and required the householders 

 — "all that raise reik " they are expressively termed — to take 

 turns as an armed guard to see that the cordon was not broken. 

 In 1623 the whole of Scotland suffered grievously from famine 

 and plague, and it is computed that the town and parish of 

 Dumfries lost a ninth part of their inhabitants. In 1665 the 

 "pest " was raging in London, and to guard against contagion 

 by the visits of the southerners or the introduction of English 

 merchandise, the Town Council of Dumfries gave orders that 

 twenty-four burgesses should keep watch and ward day and 

 night. 



So much for the food of the period. Let us now glance at 

 the dress. In England the costume of both sexes, among the 

 higher classes, underwent changes of fashion as frequent as 

 they do in our own days, and even more striking. That of 

 gentlemen in the time of Charles I. is considered the most 

 picturesque in English history, its chief characteristic features 

 being the high-crowned beaver hat with a plume of feathers, 

 a close-fitting doublet with pointed lace collar, which gave 

 to the costume the name of Vandyke, breeches reaching to the 

 knee, tight-fi*'<'ing stockings, and a cloak after the pattern of the 

 Spanish mantua hung from one shoulder. The ladies during 

 Charles's reign gave up the unsightly farthingale, a sixteenth 

 century exaggeration of the crinoline of a more recent day, 

 and adopted a simpler and much more elegant style of dress ; 

 but they gratified their love of display by enormous trains, 

 which required in the case of ladies of fashion the attendance of 

 several pages in order to bear them. But Scotland, exempt 

 from the temptations to imitate a luxurious court, and with less of 

 wealth at its command, seems to have escaped in large measure 

 the fantastic changes of the time. Certainly they little affected 

 the common people, with whose condition we are chiefly con- 

 cerned. They, free from "luxury's contagion," preserved in 

 the article of dress, as in more weighty matters, the rustic 



