each servant and scullion was doing the
work appointed with steadiness and industry.

There was need for some such careful supervision of the daily
routine, for the large houses in the kingdom were mainly dependent
upon their own efforts for the necessaries of life throughout the
year. In towns there were shops where provisions could be readily
bought, but no such institution as that of country shops had been
dreamed of as yet. The lord of the manor killed his own meat, baked
his own bread, grew his own wheat, and ground his own flour. He had
his own brewery within the precinct of the great courtyard, where
vast quantities of mead and ale were brewed, cider and other
lighter drinks made, and even some sorts of simple home-grown
wines. Chad boasted its own "vineyard," where grapes flourished in
abundance, and ripened in the autumn as they will not do now.

Nothing, perhaps, shows more clearly the change that has passed
upon our climate by slow degrees than a study of the parish records
of ancient days. Vineyards were common enough in England some
hundreds of years ago, and wine was made from the produce as
regularly as the season came round. Then there were the simpler
fruit wines from gooseberries, currants, and elderberries, to say
nothing of cowslip wine and other light beverages which it was the
pride of the mistress to contrive and to excel in the making. Our
forefathers, though they knew nothing of the luxuries of tea and
coffee, were by no means addicted to the drinking of water.
Considering the sanitary conditions in which they lived in those
days, and the fearful contamination of water which frequently
prevailed, and which doubtless had much to do with the spread of
the Black Death and other like visitations, this was no doubt an
advantage. Still there were drawbacks to the habit of constant
quaffing of fermented drinks at all hours of the day, and it was
often a difficult matter to keep in check the sin of drunkenness
that prevailed amongst all classes of the people.

At Chad the gentle influence of the lady of the manor had done much
to make this household an improvement on many of its neighbours.
Although there was always abundance of good things and a liberal
hospitality to strangers of all sorts, it was not often that any
unseemly roistering disturbed the inmates of Chad. The servants and
retainers looked up to their master and mistress with loyalty and
devotion, curbed their animal passions and wilder