29 A FARMER'S YEAR 



The reader may remember my entries about the swallows 

 that build in the porch. After the adventures of one of them 

 in this house at night they sat, and in due course produced 

 one young bird only, which has now been reared to maturity and 

 flown. Thinking that the coldness of the season had caused the 

 remaining eggs to be unfertile, as chanced with all of them two 

 years ago, I examined the nest in order to remove the rotten 

 eggs, so that, if the birds wished, they could again make use 

 of it. It was quite empty. The eggs had not been thrown out of the 

 nest, for, if so, they would have lodged upon the board underneath 

 it ; so it is clear either that the swallows have carried them 

 right away, or that only one egg was laid. I believe the latter 

 to be the explanation. Perhaps it was the hen bird which passed 

 the night in the house. If so, would it not be possible that the 

 shock given to its system by fright may have prevented it from 

 producing more than one egg? Perhaps some naturalist can 

 answer the question. 



To-day is beautiful, by far the finest which we have yet 

 experienced this summer. In the afternoon I rode over to Denton, 

 a village some six miles away, where there is a small farm belong- 

 ing to this property. The house on it is ancient, probably early 

 Tudor ; indeed, some very beautiful oak panelling that I re- 

 moved from it to this place can scarcely be later than that date. 

 From the shape of the portion that is now standing I imagine it 

 to be the remains of a larger building, of which parts have been 

 pulled down as it fell into disrepair. Such fragments of houses 

 are common about here ; indeed, there is one of them at my own 

 gate which is so old that it had to be strapped up in 1613, 

 as is proved by the 'anchors' let into the wall, whereof the 

 faces fashion that date in wrought iron. I suppose that all 

 these dwellings in the times of the Plantagenets and the Tudors 

 were the homes of yeomen who owned or farmed from one to 

 three hundred acres of land. Or, possibly, they were in many 

 cases the farmhouses let with the holdings. That tenant farmers 

 were common so early as 1560 we learn from Thomas Tusser's 



