Everyman's England by Victor Canning Page A

ash still lay wrapped tightly in their close buds. In the hedge at the bottom of the garden were stippled the tiny white faces of whitlow grass and faintly on the breeze came the scent of violets, which I knew were hiding under their dark leaves in the ditch by the roadside… spring had come.
    The chestnuts flaunted a thousand tiny green cloaks, the arum pushed its fleshy finger towards the light, and in the straw and fur-lined burrows young rabbits were moving in sightless struggles. The chaffinches sang while the busier hedge-sparrow already had found its nesting site and was building. The moorhens by the river clucked about the reeds on the same errand, the fantails on the roof rumbled in their crops about the spring and the good lady by my side sat eyeing her garden, looking at the purple glory of her violas, and in her eyes was a light which seemed not to have been there a moment before…
    I shall always remember Rutland for that moment. It is a county of hidden villages and cottages, full of drowsiness and peace, of fields so vast that it has been said that the smallest county has the largest fields, and everywhere there is an atmosphere that is English, solid and sincere. Nowhere was there any bustle or hurry. I saw no theatres, no cinemas, and only one train puffing quietly up an incline. Even the Great North Road, which cuts across a corner of the county, alters its character for a while and plays at being a country road, and the cars which whizz up and down it slacken speed as though the drivers sensed the peace and were anxious not to disturb it with their haste.
    The most noise I heard in Rutland came from a group of schoolchildren outside a hall in Oakham, the capital of the county. They were excited and dancing with impatience, and I learnt that they had come in from the surrounding villages for a musical festival.
    At the inn, where I lunched in Oakham, the talk in the bar was not of government and politics, but of racecourses, of crops and the ways of hounds and horses. It was the day of the Grand National, and there were few people in the bar.
    â€˜This is always a quiet day for us,’ said the landlord. ‘I wish I could have gone, but a man must look after his business these days.’
    â€˜You mean you would have gone if you could have left your wife at home,’ said a horsey-looking man who was drinking his beer by the window. ‘She wouldn’t trust you alone on a racecourse.’
    The landlord laughed good-humouredly. ‘It’s the train fare – not the wife.’
    â€˜You should do the same as Billy, then,’ came the reply.
    â€˜Who is Billy?’ I asked and was told.
    Billy is a groom and for years he has never missed a Grand National. Never having enough money to pay for his railway fare, or perhaps not wishing to waste on railway fare what he can put on a horse, Billy leaves Rutland on his bicycle every year on the day before the Grand National and cycles towards Liverpool. Whether he spends his night under a hedge or in a cheap lodging depends upon his finances. He leaves his bicycle at a cottage a few miles from the course, and then finishes his journey on foot. He sees the races, loses or wins money, and cycles back home. His homeward journey is cheerfully erratic, or monotonously virtuous according to his luck at the races. Yet, no matter what his fortune, he always arrives back at Oakham with empty pockets. I should like to have met Billy – he seems to have a philosophy which is not too common these days.
    Yes, the modern world has passed Rutland by. At any moment packs of tail-waving hounds crowd the roadway and the thud of hunters is heard across the pastures, while along the crests of the fields there is always the eternal silhouette of men behind ploughs. The quality, which Rutland possesses more than any other county, of peace and contentment is enduring and unassailable. Rutland will be Rutland whatever happens, and there will always