Transactions. 101 
arrival of letters, by depositing them in a water-tight chamber of 
a cairn or mass of boulders on an eminence a mile perhaps from 
the shepherd’s house, and then erecting a huge pole or semaphore, 
which soon attracted a messenger. The limbs and backs of boys 
were stronger, and carried for you heavy carpet bags at Id per 
mile. Watches were worn in trouser pockets. The school 
children were fitted out with stronger leather bags, like soldiers’ 
haversacks, containing their dinner as well as their books. Their 
books were much more carefully covered with cloth, and in some 
instances with white leather. Their food was more thriftily 
cared for, and there was no débris of leaves of books and crumbs 
of scone left on the roadside near the schoolhouse as is at present. 
The plaid was a much more common article of dress. It is now 
giving way to the great-coat or waterproof, which is more 
convenient to a shepherd, affording him pockets to hold tea for 
the weak lambs, and covering his body better. 
When I found myself in the interior of shepherds’ and 
dairymen’s houses, the old eight-day clock, with wooden door and 
painted dial, was common. It kept company with the meal-ark, 
a huge chest divided into two compartments—one for oatmeal, 
one for wheaten flour. Bacon, hams, and flitches, then as now, 
wrapped in newspapers, hung from kitchen rafters. Puddings 
were wreathed round suspended poles. Fireplaces are gradually 
contracting—the older ones are the widest. The fire in winter, 
eked out by peats and cleft-wood, is often very violent in its 
hospitality. Seated in the cushioned arm-chair, I have for a 
while maintained conversation by holding up my extended palm 
for a fire-screen, but was generally obliged to push back my 
chair at the risk of overturning a cradle or turning the charmed 
circle into an ellipse. An inner ladder was stationed in the 
porch or between the but-and-ben, up which the children or 
serving men mounted to their obscure attic hammocks. On 
great nails, here and there in the walls, hung, and still hang, 
crooks, shears for clipping sheep, lanterns for moonless nights, 
mice traps with holes, rat traps with strong iron teeth and 
springs. There were no carpets on the rooms, but the floor was 
mottled with sheep skins in their wool, and the mat before the 
room fire was home-made, with all sorts of dark rags stitched 
together, having a fluffy, cosy look. On the chest of high 
drawers might be observed a Family Bible, a field glass, a stuffed 
blackeock and pair of large ram’s horns, or a basket with curious 
