Like most country workers, shepherds and gamekeepers may go through a
long life of labour without ever taking a holiday, possibly without
thinking of one. We hear of eight-hour days for factory workers and
discussions of an ideal work-day of six or even of four hours; but
seldom a word is spoken for those country labourers, the length of
whose toil is limited only by daylight--when it is not carried on
as a matter of course into the night. Farm hands may work through
all the days of the year; for where there is stock to be fed work is
never-ceasing. Yet it is reasonable to suppose that holidays are as
needful to the countryman as to the townsman, and that if the farm
labourer or the shepherd were sent away to the sea every year for a
fortnight's rest and change, he would work with a new energy that would
more than compensate for the work lost. It would be something at least
to break the deadly monotony of the daily round, even if the labourer
had no ideas for profitably spending a holiday.
* * * * *