The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Social Life oj the Borders. 183
£a, yearly.^ Ten years before that female servants were
had for lOs and a pair of shoes for the half-year, and a
ploughman for ;^i 5s. Still earlier, however, than even
the last quotation, vva.G:es seem to have presented still
stranger anomalies, and were scarcely in relation to the
work. Thus, from 1739 to 1745, a man servant was to be
had for _^i, a barnman in 1745 for ^^"3,- In the same year,
for 13 days' threshing, 4s 6d was paid ; in 1761, haymakers
had 6d per day; in 1764, a labourer for 5 days' work had
3s, and a gradsman (for ploughing was done by oxen until
towards the end of century) £\ lOs.-^ All yearly servants
had, along with their wages, one or two pairs of shoes
costing IS 2d to is 3d each, and Hogg has told us that
when he first went as a herd, he had a ewe lamb and a pair
of shoes as a year's wages. These shoes were made of
leather tanned from horse hides, and had only single soles,
so that the servants and labourers, who were always able,
and possessed the tools to do so, often doubled and trebled
the soles with their own hands.-*
The fare of the peasantry was of the simplest kind.
Animal food was seen on rare and festive occasions on their
table, and only generally used by servants in the house of
large stock farmers. Their principal support was porridge
and milk, oatcake, bannocks made of barleymeal and pease
flour, though the extent to which these were
in different districts— peasemeal bannocks
used varied
being the
commonest kind of bread in Roxburghshire and the Valley
of the Annan, whilst in Yarrow "oatcakes and bannocks of
barleymeal, with an admixture of pease, were the ordinary
table fare, wheaten bread being scarcely known." It may
also be noted that the pot herbs were few, those in more
general use being open kail, cabbages, turnips, and carrots.
The hours of labour of the working men were long,
extending from morn to dewy eve ; and weary and difficult
roads had to be toiled over before their work was reached-
^ Somerville, 340, and Ogilvie's Day-Book.
^ Russell's Yarrow.
* Somerville, 341.
^ Ogilvie's Day-Book,