Which hunger, yet dare not to crave at thy door;"
the bandog is then ordered to have the bones and the scraps; the huswife looks carefully to the fire, the candle, and the keys; the whole family retire to rest, at nine in winter, and at ten in summer, and the farmer's day closes with four lines which ought to be written in letters of gold, and which, if duly observed, would ensure a great portion of the happiness obtainable by man:
"Be lowly, not sullen, if aught go amiss,
What wresting may lose thee, that win with a kiss.
Both bear and forbear, now and then as ye may,
Then wench, God a mercy! thy husband will say."[115:A]
Frugality and domestic economy were not, however, the constant attributes of the farmer's wife in the age of which we are treating;
the luxury of dress, both in England and Scotland, had already corrupted the simplicity of country-habits. Stephen Perlet, who
visited Scotland in 1553, and Fines Moryson, who made a similar tour in 1598[118:A], agree in describing the dress of the common people of both countries as nearly if not altogether the same; the picture, therefore, which Dunbar has given us of the dress of a rich farmer's wife, in Scotland, during the middle of the sixteenth century, will apply, with little fear of exaggeration, to the still wealthier dames of England. He has drawn her in a robe of fine scarlet with a white hood; a gay purse and gingling keys pendant at her side from a silken belt of silver tissue; on each finger she wore two rings, and round her waste was bound a sash of grass-green silk, richly embroidered with silver.[118:B] To this rural extravagancy in dress, Warner will bear an equal testimony; for, describing two old gossips cowering over their cottage-fire, and chatting how the world was changed in their time,