NOTE 18.--A HIGHLAND CHIEF'S DINNER-TABLE
In the number of persons of all ranks who assembled at the same table,
though by no means to discuss the same fare, the Highland Chiefs
only retained a custom which had been formerly universally observed
throughout Scotland. 'I myself,' says the traveller Fynes Morrison,
in the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the scene being the Lowlands of
Scotland, 'was at a knight's house, who had many servants to attend him,
that brought in his meat with their heads covered with blue caps, the
table being more than half furnished with great platters of porridge
each having a little piece of sodden meat. And when the table was
served, the servants did sit down with us; but the upper mess, instead
of porridge, had a pullet, with some prunes in the broth.'--TRAVELS, p.
155.
Till within this last century, the farmers, even of a respectable
condition, dined with their work-people. The difference betwixt those of
high degree was ascertained by the place of the party above or below
the salt, or, sometimes, by a line drawn with chalk on the dining-table.
Lord Lovat, who knew well how to feed the vanity and restrain the
appetites of his clansmen, allowed each sturdy Fraser, who had the
slightest pretension to be a Duinhe-wassel, the full honour of the
sitting, but, at the same time, took care that his young kinsmen did not
acquire at his table any taste for outlandish luxuries.
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