as the
cupboard, or "dresser," for the plate and furniture of the table. In
the halls of the greater nobles, on important occasions, tapestry or
curtains were hung on the walls, or at least on that portion of the wall
next the dais, and still more rarely a carpet was used for that part of
the floor,--rushes or bare tiles being more general. A perch for hawks,
and the grate of burning wood, sending its smoke up to the blackened
open roof, completed the picture of the hall of a large establishment in
the fourteenth century.

The "parlour," or talking-room, as its name imports, was used chiefly
for conferences, and for such business as required more privacy than was
attainable in the hall, but was unsuited to the domestic character of
the chamber.

After the hall, the most important feature of the building was the
principal chamber. Here the domestic life of the family was carried on.
Here the ladies of the household spent their time when not at meals or
engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was
more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was
still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of
massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A
truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the
principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch,"
or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and
valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, with a perch or bar on
which to hang garments, completed the usual furniture of the chamber.

In this room was one important feature not found in the others, and
which accounted for the increasing attachment manifested towards it. The
fire, instead of being placed in an iron grate or brazier in the middle
of the room, burned merrily on the hearth; and the smoke, instead of
seeking its exit by the window, was carried up a chimney of generous
proportions.

The household day commenced early. The members of the family arose from
the beds where they had slept in the garments worn by our first parents
before the fall; for the effeminacy of sleeping in night-dresses had not
yet been introduced, and it was only the excessively poor that made the
clothes worn during the day serve in lieu of blankets and coverlets.

"'I have but one whole hater,'[1] quoth Haukyn;
'I am the less to blame,
Though it be soiled and seldom clean:
I sleep therein of n