Had any one gone into a cottage some few years back and inquired about the family, most probably the head of the house could have pointed out all his sons and daughters engaged in or near the parish.  Most likely his own father was at work almost within hail.  Uncles, cousins, various relations, were all near by.  He could tell where everybody was.  To-day if a similar inquiry wore made, the answer would often be very different.  The old people might be about still, but the younger would be found scattered over the earth.  One, perhaps, went to the United States or Canada in the height of the labourers’ agitation some years ago, when agents were busy enlisting recruits for the Far West.  Since then another has departed for Australia, taking with him his wife.  Others have migrated northwards, or to some other point of the compass—­they are still in the old country, but the exact whereabouts is not known.  The girls are in service a hundred miles away—­some married in the manufacturing districts.  To the middle-aged, steady, stay-at-home labourer, the place does not seem a bit like it used to.  Even the young boys are restless, and talking of going somewhere.  This may not be the case with every single individual cottage family, but it is so with a great number.  The stolid phalanx of agricultural labour is slowly disintegrating.

If there yet remains anything idyllic in the surroundings of rural cottage life, it may be found where the unmarried but grown-up sons—­supposing these, of course, to be steady—­remain at home with their parents.  The father and head of the house, having been employed upon one farm for the last thirty years or more, though nominally carter, is really a kind of bailiff.  The two young men work on at the same place, and lodge at home, paying a small weekly sum for board and lodging.  Their sister is probably away in service; their mother manages the cottage.  She occasionally bears a hand in indoor work at the farmhouse, and in the harvest time aids a little in the field, but otherwise does not labour.  What is the result?  Plenty to eat, good beds, fairly good furniture, sufficient fuel, and some provision for contingencies, through the benefit club.  As the wages are not consumed in drink, they have always a little ready money, and, in short, are as independent as it is possible for working men to be, especially if, as is often the case, the cottage and garden is their own, or is held on a small quit-rent.  If either of the sons in time desires to marry, he does not start utterly unprovided.  His father’s influence with the farmer is pretty sure to procure him a cottage; he has some small savings himself, and his parents in the course of years have accumulated some extra furniture, which is given to him.