CHAPTER VI, 



A FARM IN THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. 



The Peak Country. Low Fields Farm. A Pastoral Drama. A Valuable 

 Discovery in Cheesemaking. Acid Curd. A True Farmer's Wife. 

 " Come, Lads," not " Go, Lads." 



THE soil of "the Peak country" lies mainly on the carboni- 

 ferous limestone, and consists of valleys wide and valleys 

 narrow, lofty tablelands, and great rolling hills. Commonly, 

 though not generally, the valleys are well timbered and pic- 

 turesque, but the hills and tablelands are for the most part bare 

 and bleak, and fenced with stone walls. Some of the valleys 

 are steep and narrow, whilst others are spacious and picturesque. 

 It is in one of the latter, in the southern end of the Peak 

 country, and some half-dozen miles south-west from the pleasant 

 little market town of Bake well, which is famous on account of 

 the puddings that bear its name, that the homestead of Low 

 Fields Farm is situated. The farm consists of some 330 acres, 

 and stretches away two miles up to " the Moor," where more 

 than half of it lies. It is in a sense two farms in one, the lower 

 half a dairy farm, pure and simple, and the upper half a sheep 

 or a mixed farm. Around the homestead in the valley the land 

 is naturally fertile, but the moorland is "thin-skinned" and 

 not very fertile by nature, though withal it is sound and health- 

 ful. Somewhere about a century ago it was fenced in and 

 cultivated, and a big set of buildings was put up to accommo- 

 date live stock in winter time. A house for a labourer adjoins 

 the buildings ; but the loneliness of the spot in the dead time 

 of the year, with only one solitary house in sight of it, was 

 more than any labourer could stand very long. 



