AND ANOTHER THING
August floods and sun, pungent smells and night sounds in a rustic paradise
PAUL JOHNSON
Why do we talk about 'the depths of the country'? Why not the height of the country or, better, the heart of the country? Whatever it is, if the country has a heart, it is here in west Somerset. There is virtually no other occupation except agriculture, no other pursuits save the traditional ones of the countryside, such as hunting, fishing, adultery etc. Most of the locals come from families seated here for generations, often for centuries. The local black-and-white sheepdogs all descend ultimately from the same mediaeval sire, and they bark with a distinctive accent. The vernacular of the houses, even mine, which was built in the 1950s from an old coach-house and stables, is marked. They play a special kind of bucolic cricket here — slow, meditative but skilled and powerful. The greens, at this time of year and in response to the copious rainfall of the spring and recent weeks, are overwhelming in their quasi-tropical splendour and dark ubiquity. The earth pulses with growth, and the entire horizon of fields, hedgerows, woods and hill-forests seems to shake with organic life. A week ago we were in flood, streams turning into torrents, cataracts springing from nowhere and great sheets of shining liquid sliding across roads and fields. Now the stupendous sunshine of the past few days is drying everything out, the ground sweats and steams, and an over- whelming pungency fills the air, as though God had opened an immense bottle of scent, called Paysage, and scattered its con- tents recklessly. This rural perfume is heavy; one is drunk with rustic bliss. There is a huge room in this house which I am turning into a shrine of art and nature. It has a formidable black-oak fireplace, imported from 19th-century Bavaria, with stag-hunting scenes in high relief. Over it I have triumphantly installed the master- piece of F.J. Widgery, the Turner of Dart- moor: 'Saddle Tor', seen under menacing clouds, with a treacherous marsh pool in the foreground, is on a heroic scale, almost five foot by three, and might have been specifically designed for this setting. Around the room, in specially built shelves, are countless books on the history of art, many of great size, so that it is possible to summon up the paintings and drawings of almost any age or country at will. Thus surrounded by these depositories of human art, I can look through the wide pic- ture-window at the majesty of nature. It takes in the whole heaving ascent of the Quantock Hills, from where we lie 500 feet up, to the summit ridges. We still have all our hedgerows here, and high and noble they are, teeming with furtive bird and ani- mal life, and festooned — even now — with wild flowers. This is stock-raising country. In the first field in front of our house, two magnificent mares graze and sometimes, in the early mornings, racehorses perform their gallops on the other side of the hedge and up the hill. The mares have now been joined by five sheep, and live with them in drowsy harmony. Lambs are born nowa- days not only in midwinter but in midsum- mer too, and a fresh contingent now bleat and pirouette in our orchard. In further fields there are dense flocks of sheep, whose periodic choruses fill the silence, and are echoed by distant bleatings higher up and out of sight.
Here in Somerset I have become con- scious of the beauty of cattle. The young black bullocks two fields up the hill are extraordinarily lithe and elegant, springy in step, anxious for fun. The farmer rounds them up in what I can only call a trac- torised golf-buggy, which travels over the rough ground at impressive speed, while he calls out to them in what I assume to be a traditional chant. They respond with alacrity, eagerly bounding over the turf, skipping and frisking in their anxiety to get at whatever it is he offers. More handsome still, indeed delectable, are the young heifers in the field to the right, cream and pale russet in colour, sometimes with what looks like a touch of purple in their hues.
A state registered paedophile, you'd better come in then.' These beauties are more sedentary crea- tures, inclined to linger and slow when they move, but intensely curious. When I appear at the gate of their paddock, they look up and then gently, gracefully, with many a pause and hesitant step, congregate around me, their eyes full of empty soul, freckled nostrils wet, tongues lolling. I like these fine beasts with their love of human compa- ny, and try to shut my mind to their eventu- al fate. After all, we ourselves are doomed to die too, probably in pain and in aged ignominy.
What I miss are the five foxes, two adults and three growing cubs, who used to live in the abandoned little quarry, dense with trees and bush, in front of our house, and less than 100 yards away. On sunny days like these, they came out to bask and play, so that I could enjoy their company from our terrace. Then, two years ago, they were wiped out by mange, a scourge which killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of foxes hereabouts and down into Devon and Cornwall. Of the 400,000 foxes that die each year, the hunts account for only 20,000, far fewer than snares and the terri- ers and lurchers employed by farmers. The biggest man-directed killers are shooting (80,000) and traffic on the roads (100,000). But disease and other forms of natural mortality dispose of even more, 105,000 at least. So our foxes led typical lives, and died typical deaths.
The bird life is abundant. In the morn- ings and early evenings there are often hundreds of small birds in our garden, whizzing in and out of the stable windows, assembling in huge political conventions on the telephone wires. Some are so minute that a few crumbs are a stomach-distending banquet, and they must practise anorexia to survive at all. But there are many birds of prey, varieties of hawks and, above all, buz- zards. A familiar pair of these huge crea- tures visits our skies several times every day, circling and wheeling in the upper air currents, swooping into the thickets and occasionally emerging with a small, strug- gling furry creature in their pitiless claws. Even their cries of triumph, as their wings beat them relentlessly home, are mournful, for these are melancholy birds, like owls and bitterns. We have owls, too, plenty of them. Their suspicious night inquiries are the last things I hear before plunging into the never-failing deep sleep of this rustic paradise.
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