Liza, a very young farm worker (or ‘bondager’), facing her first ‘hiring’ away from home
Maggie, a woman with numerous children, married to one of the farm workers.
Sara, Maggie’s age or a good bit older. Works on the farm with her daftie daughter
Tottie, Sarah’s daughter, about fifteen. A daftie
Ellen, the farmer’s wife. Formerly a farm worker like the others, now risen to the status of a lady
Jenny, another young farm worker, slightly older than Liza
Two Warders (non speaking).
Bondagers were the women workers of the great Border farms in the last century. Each farm worker was hired on condition he brought a female worker to work alongside him — if not his wife or daughter, then some other girl that he himself had to hire at the Hiring Fair, and lodge and feed alongside his own family in his tiny cottage.
The play is set on a Border farm of 1860. Act One, with the exception of the opening scene (the ‘Hiring’), takes place in the summer; and Act Two in winter.
The bondagers ‘dress was distinctive, almost a uniform: boots or clogs; full skirts with two or three petticoats;’ headhankies’ — i.e. kerchiefs that covered their heads, and could, when work required, be tied over the chin, or even over the whole lower part of the face when the dust and dirt was really flying; and black straw bonnets with red ruching (trimming). Muddy and sometimes shabby, maybe, but beguiling.