46 OLD WEST SURREY 



carry the heavy top of all but the longest. These have a 

 third pair of legs in the middle of the length. The top 

 rail of the frame is of solid oak, two inches thick and five 

 inches deep. Often it is carved or bears a date; 1599 is 

 the date carved on the one in the picture. The top is 

 made of two stout planks, each a foot wide, with a narrower 

 one in the middle, the whole width being only two and a 

 half feet. The surface, though now polished, is rugged ; 

 the tougher grain of the wood standing up with an iron- 

 like hardness. All that could possibly be abraded by con- 



Oak Form 



stant friction has been worn away by three centuries of 

 scrubbing. For in the older days the unmarried farm men 

 lodged and boarded with the master, all eating together 

 at the long table. 



One falls athinking what tons of simple food these old 

 tables must have carried — bread and salt pork, cheese and 

 peas-pudding for the most part ; and what thousands of 

 gallons of beer and cider, drawn from the cask into capacious 

 black-jacks, and drunk out of horn mugs. There were no 

 plates in the old days, only wooden trenchers, followed by 

 pewter in the best houses. There was a time, even before 

 the wooden platters, when a thick slice of bread served as 



