"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." Probably in more prosperous times farmers would not dream of letting lodgings, but now here is an opportunity offering for hard-worked paterfamilias (whose purse is limited, and who is in search of pure air, change of scene, and fresh surroundings for his youngsters) to spend his holiday in the real country far from crowds, where the children are free to wander over the fields, romp in the meadows, climb trees, play at haymaking, go a-blackberrying, a-bird-nesting, or whatever rural doing may at the moment take their fancy, when not intent upon watching the constant, interesting, and varied life about a farmstead.
A holiday in a farmhouse, how delightful and restful is the thought of it to the town-tired man; what a refreshing and complete change it spells from the usually dull and dear seaside apartments, with the everlasting pier, the noisy band, or the inevitable nigger minstrels on the beach by way of insistent entertainment! At a farmhouse of the right and good old-fashioned sort you may obtain fresh fruits and vegetables from the garden, milk direct from the cow, real thick country cream, butter that you may see churned, home-cured bacon and perchance hams, to say nothing of newly-laid eggs, such as are unobtainable in cities. This is no fancy statement; I write from actual experience. The thing is, of course, to find the right sort of farmhouse and the farmer willing to take in lodgers, for though existing they naturally require discovering, or recommending by those who know them. For the busy man this detail of discovery does present a difficulty; to me driving haphazard about the country it presented none, as such desirable quarters, situated in pleasant spots, discovered themselves from time to time as the journey progressed.
Once I tried the experiment of spending a month in a farmhouse with my wife and child, and it proved an unqualified success. In the matter of cost it was the cheapest holiday I ever took, and no holiday has given me more real pleasure, or lingers more delightfully in my memory. The farmhouse in question (I came upon it during a driving tour, and there I stayed instead of touring further) was situated in wild Wales and surrounded by beautiful scenery; there were wide and open moors at the back of it to ramble over, and mountains on the other side to climb, and not far away was a playful, tumbling little river that provided me with trout fishing.
Much for my sport I cannot say,
Though, mind, I like the fun;
There have I been the livelong day
Without extracting one.
Still, it was ever an excuse for a delightful ramble alongside the companionable river, for in the plashing and gurgling of its waters it almost seemed a living thing. At any unoccupied moment I could sally forth with my rod by its rocky banks, just as readily as I could start for a stroll with my stick, though sketching from nature was my favourite pastime when in a less lazy mood. So time never hung heavily.
Still, perhaps a word of caution may be given: however otherwise desirable, farmhouse apartments in a purely agricultural country are apt to prove a disillusion to the elders if they have no resources in themselves, owing to the want of something more exciting to do than to watch the slow movements of farming operations. Pleasant surroundings are an essential, so a hilly country is to be desired; then places of interest in the neighbourhood may be made the excuse for occasional excursions, and there are few neighbourhoods where these may not be found.
The farmer whose apartments I took let them every year, he told me; an artist and his family had taken them after my term was over, and from what I gathered the different lodgers practically paid the farmer's rent—a roundabout way of meeting agricultural depression. Though but a detail, the farmer sold us what little produce of his we consumed at full market value or over, yet this was considerably less than the usual tradesmen's charges, and every little helps. Besides fruit, vegetables, milk, butter, bacon, home-made jams, and countless eggs, we purchased fowls in quantities, and occasionally ducks. On fowls, indeed, we chiefly relied for the table, butcher's meat being difficult to obtain, and, truth to tell, tough when obtained. The fowls were not over-plump, not being especially fattened—or crammed, is it? Barn-door fowls, the farmer called them, as they picked up a good deal of their substance from the grain scattered about the outbuildings and ricks; so their food was varied, consequently their flesh, if there was not much of it, was tender and delicate of flavour.
We had to rely upon ourselves for society, though we did get acquainted with one stranger, an artist, who had taken up his abode at a homely little inn some two miles away—an inn that had its uses in that it provided us with the bottled ale of Bass. We led a self-contained life and gloried in it. Our bread was home-baked, and I still pleasantly remember how excellent that bread was, though it had not the white colour one is accustomed to in the town variety. We had only one baking a week, but the bread kept sweet and palatable for the whole of that time; it did not dry hard on the cut surface as bought bread does; it was made from home-grown wheat ground at a water-mill near by, whose wheel was turned by the little, useful river—there was the romance of it. Great long loaves they were, with a generous allowance of crisp, rocky crust to crumb—loaves to be remembered.