Rustic Manners and Customs. JJ 



basement of the smaller manor houses were seldom more than 

 three separate apartments ; viz., the hall, ladies' bower, and 

 kitchen. The most frequented of these was the first men- 

 tioned : it was not only a dining and sitting-room, but a pas- 

 sage way, along which the milk-pans were conveyed to the 

 well-room, and in which the dairying process of scalding was 

 performed. For this last purpose, from one of the walls jutted 

 out a hollowed stone which served as a crucible, and in which, 

 by means of red-hot charcoal, the milk could be converted 

 into clouted cream. The rest of the dairying went on in the 

 cool well-house or cellars. If cheeses were made, their store- 

 house would, in the majority of cases, have been the chapel 

 — discarded for purposes of worship since Reformation times. 



The low roof of their living-room was unceiled oaken 

 rafters, blackened with the smoke of wood fires ; its walls 

 being whitewashed, and if panelled at all, only where the 

 master and his family sat at table. 



The tenant farmers lived only a degree less comfortably than 

 their betters of the squire class. In fact, the houses of the two 

 grades were, save in size, very little different. The most 

 comfortable part of these old farm residences was the kitchen; 

 and as was only proper, the most attractive feature of the 

 kitchen was its great fireplace, complete with ingle nook and 

 earthenware oven. Next in importance was the big oak 

 settle, which was an apartment within an apartment. Who 

 has not, some time or another, viewed with curiosity one of 

 these relics of an age when draughts had to be combated 

 within walls, and when the best roof over one's head was that, 

 not of the house, but of the piece of furniture in which one 

 chanced to find oneself reposing? A settle, however, was a 

 great deal more than a seat, for it was also a receptacle for all 

 sorts of odds and ends which hung above the sitter's head, or 

 lay hid in the locker under him. Against the wall opposite to 

 the fireplace rested a huge oaken dresser, along the shelves of 

 which would be ranged, when not in use, the pewter plates 

 and dishes of the dinner service. Cleanliness reigned within 

 doors. Kalm was struck with the carefid arrangements for 

 leaving the dirt of the fields and roads outside, and noted the 



