The English Countryside
• Br EDMUND BLUNDEN " Wbrother's Cow," 'wrote Gilbert White in his journal, " when there is no extraordinary call for cream, produces three pounds- Of hater- each week: The footman churns the butter over night, and puts it in water. In the morning orie Of iny nieces beats - it and makes it up and prints it." When the excellent Edward Jesse in 1834 printed this fifty-year-old entry, among his "Gleanings," he could _not.. repress.. an- exclamatory Tempara inutantur. Since those days, our walks in our country places, our obserVations on village and farm aspects, are apt to resolve themselves into a sustained elegy, Tempora mutantur. In many districts, we have perhaps ceased altogether to seek for bucolic effects, and the apparition of a milkmaid or a `! smock, frocked boor" flail in hand would be something against - nature. Change has worked with rapidity in ithe. England that used to be so busy with harvests, corn- markets, the last load and the mill-wheel. Instead of going into the country for an adventure in primitive and pretty encounters, and a peep at an abundant round of skilful practical doings, from the waggon-shed to the wood-riding, we more and more assume the character Of connoisseurs in beauty of scenery and of architecture. " A pleasing circumstance" (to quote White's note-book again), "mixed with some degree of regret."
There are those still, such as the author of the Corduroy trilogy, who in their genuine chronicles of the farmer's world during these years assure us that many corners of the country retain their simplicities, their personalities, their earth-secrets, and almost their Sunday congregations. They: nearly persuade us that the country has still its peasantry. From their natural and experienced narrations we rise and take the road rejoicing -that there are -still countrymen, .powerful or.. poverty-stricken, who could show Virgil a thing or two about hogs and horses, and keeping a farm like a. garden. We shall be rewarded from time to time by meeting a shepherd 'and his dog, -where the wethers' bells make the breeze musical ; or by passing. a few hours where the cow-man placidly riding his bicycle to his allotment is followed by his faithful servant the sow ; or by hearing long songs about emigration and,. Victoria, Great and Good from the black benches of the " Crooked Chimney" parlour. Will the little huntsman be induced to attempt "John Peel" this evening, a song which he has yet to learn is known to his countrymen generally ? .
The surfaces of the countryside inevitably display your tempora mutantur in -a conspicuous violence, but beneath there remains, even in the less promising sur- a deal of -country community and-integrity. There is a- Village I know which, through the influences of the War, of education, of the Motor in all its forms, of broadcasting, of social modifications; Of business rribinations arid the fest,--frequently appears - to be—. not the same 'village. Half the hop-oasts. whose conical white-fingered- cowls-Used-to-Shine above -the trees on a blue sky like sailing-ships on summer lagoons are gone or -going.; the streams. whiclI. formerly were, kept, so full and--clear for water supply; with their little -hatches and tumbling-bays, are scarcely . now worth . walking along ; you ' hardly know your neighbours, Who seem to live as much elsewhere as in the parish, for work or -Pay-; the -baker's. Vans. are 'sup. ers-eded. by: hasty Visiting -cars, and So -it is With-the Other- iMindsthen-and -their cheerful word with every_ cottage for miles.. _Such signs, some of many, seem like• an epitaph ; -.but When -I find myself thinking that way,. it is time 'to- pay- a call on Old Sid. He Will be, in -his .kitchen, heated like a bakehouse -(he was .a baker: for about thirty-five years).; he will push his spectacles . hack to take a 'good,: grandfathei-eloek .look at his •ViSitOr, -and then, as his hand-coloured_ pack. of _Cards. begins to circulate, he will speak of all he has done, and. seen, _and heard around the village since We, last met. What with hop-picking„ cow-keeping, .apple-gathering, _faggot- ting and fetching and carrying he has been it,s, busy as a bee ; and as his' talk- thrives, the scene of village community and of rural affairs awakens- in the listener almost as fresh and coliious as • it ever ;:1-te • too laments ; not so much for the fiddle-playing in: the church for which his father was farriout,; not for. this particular tree gone, or that old charaeter eXtinet; but in a broad view, for a relationship of various talents and masteries1 and courteous differences, which composed a. serene, just kind of life. The spirit of our village may be declining and doomed, but in such a man (who tells youth what it should do, and is seldom resented) it fights finely for survival. - In matters of landscape and traditional " piettiresquas," in whatever affects the, common right of natural beauty and spiritual delights bOnceived by one " forth issuing on a summer's morn," the crisis has arrived in'our time, and there is a sort of civil war. To particularize here the characteristics of those who deface the land, and impoverish the sense and sensibility of the race, is unnecessary ; nor maK though tempted, make this an opportunity for describing the enterprise, imagination and generosity which have counter-attackeif iuination. Civil wars in English ...history -haVe not meant universal bewilderment or even disturbance, and it is -no slur upon the protectors of our scenery and countryside to reinark4hat:there is a great area a the-kingdom lying, arid likely to renutirt lying; beyond the battle. Some is of 3 character too great and powerful to be disturbed—dram- atic or epic in mass, extent and shape. It is not that : "We do it wrong, being so majostieal, To offer it the show of violence," we cannot do so much if we would, the total impression being eternal. Of the other sort of English scene, where instead of moor, mountain, and cliff, we have the fine consonances of church spire and poplar and meadow path, the danger is active ; yet it is seen to operate within certain limits. London, and the huge towns of the North and the Midlands, are able to crush with final force- mile ' after - mile of orchard and coppice, and to transform honest village streets into meretricious, avaricious exhibitions ; but there persists a perfect freedom beyond these-bombardments - froth - the Wens (as prophetic Cobbett called them). To sum up most areas, we may still take our way without perturbation in a region where, such afternoons as these, we shall see the scarlet coats of the huntsmen, and the gay pack streaming down the grassy hollows past the church and the hall, the furze, the fern, the gilt-leaved beechwood and the sedge-embattled lake—and the question of tempora mutantur becomes suddenly very uncertain. The fox, if we are concerned about his part in this coloured canvas, knows his - business- as well as his ancestors,.- and apart from such interruptions can still testify (among friends) that the countryside continues to exist.
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