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390 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
the peasantry lived in rude huts and retained many of their old
modes of working, and continued to supply themselves with homemade
stufts, both of food and clothing to an extent, and in a manner
which it would perhaps be well if our modern natives could
still to some extent imitate and adhere to. The farm house of
the last century, and also the cottage of the crofter, was supplied
with a rude plenty, and a variety both of food and clothing,
•which, if not so elegant as that of the present day, was in many
respects more healthy and serviceable for family wants, while the
mode by which everything was turned to account and rendered
available for food and clothing, forms an entertaining and useful
line of study.
The old farm house kitchen on a winter night of itself gives
a very perfect picture of what I would like to bring before you,
and let us for a moment describe it, as T myself can remember one
nearly half-a-centuiy ago in Forfai-shii-e. The kitchen w-as a stone
floored apartment, with a large tiieplace, sufficiently capacious
for a fire of wooden logs, which bui-nt on the heai-th, and to permit
of one or two sitting alongside it in the recess. Possibly,
when the farm servants gathered in at night, light would be desirable,
but there were no candles allowed, except for the ben end
(that was the portion occupied by the family of a farmer when he
was of sufficient standing to live apart from the farm servants),
and how to produce light became the question. In the poorer
districts the old bog fir was made to do duty, and the Peer man
had to hold it. Those of ynu who had the pleasure of hearing
Mr James Linn, of Keith, lecture on Peer men, will recollect his
very interesting pa^)er and beautiful specimens of stands of iron
which were made to supersede the Peer man or boy who used to
hold and replenish the bog fir, or " white candle," when it came
into use, for it was the good old practice in Aberdeenshire to
make the beggar, or gaberlunzie man ])ay for his night's quarters
by keeping the bog fir or candle alight, while others worked or
amused themselves, and hence the saying of an unsociable person,
" He'll neither dance nor hand the candle."
To return to house building, as you no doubt are aware, the crofter
to this day builds all his own house— it varies in diflerent localities.
In the Lowlands, the farm labourer's cottage was generally
built of boulders, or round water-worn stones, and held together
with clay and straw and plastered inside and out with a smooth
coating of clay, or in some districts with lime mortar. It was
roofed with wood rafters more or less manufactured, and the rafters
again covered with slabs fi-om the nearest saw mill, these in their