The book Arran; - Cook Clan

THE FIRST OF THE IMPROVERS 199
with straw sometimes, with heather more often, over which
hung the heather ropes weighted with stone as a protection
of the roofing against the wind ; such a wind as on one
occasion, the old folks say on the west side, blew the ripe
grains out of the heads of barley, so that women now old
had then, as little girls, to help in gathering them off the
fields. In every case the dweUing-house held two apartments,
a ' but ' and a ' ben.' Within the doorway of the larger
apartment was a porch formed by a screen of clay-plastered
straw, in which also there was a door. The fireplace, at
the opposite end, was of flat stones sunk in the floor, and had
a free space all round it,^ while the smoke escaped through
a hole in the roof, above which rose a conical chimney-head
lined with clay, supplying a draught. From a cross-beam
hung the crook for the cooking-pots, and a ' swey ' or small
crane made it possible to use large boilers.
Often the byre was entered from a door off the hallan,
but not by the cattle, which had their own entry : Bums
in this way refers to the milk cow ' that, yont the hallan
snugly chews her cood.'
Wooden beds or bunks filled up the partition between
the outer and inner apartment, or a clay whitewashed screen,
and there was a passage and door through. This was the
superior room. It was floored with flag-stones or deal
boards and might have also a ceiling of deal, while the walls
were whitewashed or even plastered. A fireplace within
jambs and a chimney in the wall were a further distinction
from the kitchen. Glass windows were not yet universal,
and the outer room had often to do with a shuttered casement,
but they were likely to be found in the inner apartment,
since on the window alone, as the only opening to the
outside, it depended for its light.
' 'In my father's father's time there was no girdle in use in Shisken. At that
time the fires were in the middle of the floor, and the bannocks were baked so thick
that they stood up against stones
(Communicated),
placed round the fire, and were cooked in that way
'