lantation,--a sort of rebound from
misery and burdens, which found a vent in noise and practical jokes when
the ordinary restraint was removed. The uproarious joy was a sort of
defiance of the semi-slavery to which workmen were doomed; for when
they could be impressed by the king's architect and paid whatever he
chose to give them, there could not have been much real contentment,
which is generally placid and calm. There is one thing in which all
classes delighted in the fourteenth century, and that was a garden, in
which flowers bloomed,--things of beauty which were as highly valued as
the useful. Moreover, there was a zest in rural sports now seldom seen,
especially among the upper classes who could afford to hunt and fish.
There was no excitement more delightful to gentlemen and ladies than
that of hawking, and it infinitely surpassed in interest any rural sport
whatever in our day, under any circumstances. Hawks trained to do the
work of fowling-pieces were therefore greater pets than any dogs that
now are the company of sportsmen. A lady without a falcon on her wrist,
when mounted on her richly caparisoned steed for a morning's sport, was
very rare indeed.

An instructive feature of the "Canterbury Tales" is the view which
Chaucer gives us of the food and houses and dresses of the people. "In
the Nonne's Prestes' Tale we see the cottage and manner of life of a
poor widow." She has three daughters, three pigs, three oxen, and a
sheep. Her house had only two rooms,--an eating-room, which also served
for a kitchen and sitting-room, and a bower or bedchamber,--both
without a chimney, with holes pierced to let in the light. The table
was a board put upon trestles, to be removed when the meal of black
bread and milk, and perchance an egg with bacon, was over. The three
slept without sheets or blankets on a rude bed, covered only with their
ordinary day-clothes. Their kitchen utensils were a brass pot or two for
boiling, a few wooden platters, an iron candlestick, and a knife or two;
while the furniture was composed of two or three chairs and stools, with
a frame in the wall, with shelves, for clothes and utensils. The
manciple and the cook of the company seem to indicate that living among
the well-to-do classes was a very generous and a very serious part of
life, on which a high estimate was placed, since food in any variety,
though plentiful at times, was not always to be had, and therefore
precarious. "Guests at table