Ancient Manners. 45 



be quoted which illustrate the description above 

 given of life on a lowland farm. Scott does not 

 mention the " swee," but he says, " Tibb watched the 

 progress of scalding the whey, which hung in a large 

 pot upon the crook, a chain terminated by a hook, 

 which was suspended in the chimney to serve the 

 purpose of the modern vane. The children," he 

 tells us, " rushed into the spence (a sort of interior 

 apartment in which the family ate their victuals in 

 the summer season)." The spens, or spence, indeed, 

 is variously explained as a dispensary, parlour, or 

 pantry, a spare room, or a guest-chamber, and was 

 probably made to serve many purposes. As to social 

 intercourse, Scott says, " The idea of the master or 

 mistress of the mansion feeding or living apart from 

 their domestics, was, at this period, never entertained. 

 The highest end of the board, the most commodious 

 settle by the fire these were the only marks of dis- 

 tinction ; and the servants mingled, with deference, 

 indeed, but unreproved and with freedom, in what- 

 ever conversation was going forward." Scott, it 

 should be observed, was writing of the sixteenth, not 

 of the nineteenth, century. 



