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diff --git a/42092-0.txt b/42092-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..748b658 --- /dev/null +++ b/42092-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7837 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42092 *** + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal + signs=. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER + + + + + MEMOIRS OF A SURREY + LABOURER + + A RECORD OF THE LAST YEARS OF + FREDERICK BETTESWORTH + + BY + GEORGE BOURNE + AUTHOR OF "THE BETTESWORTH BOOK" + + + LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO. + HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN + 1907 + + + + + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +TO MY FRIEND + +CHARLES YOUNG + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Bettesworth, the old labouring man, who in the decline of his strength +found employment in my garden and entertained me with his talk, never +knew that he had been made the subject of a book. To know it would +have pleased him vastly, and there is something tragical in the +reflection that he had to wear through his last weary months without +the consolation of the little fame he had justly earned; and yet it +would have been a mistake to tell him of it. His up-bringing had not +fitted him for publicity. On the contrary, there was so much danger +that self-consciousness would send him boastfully drinking about the +parish, and make him intolerable to his familiars and useless to any +employer, that, instead of confessing to him what I had done, I took +every precaution to keep him in ignorance of it, and sought by leaving +him in obscurity to preserve him from ruin. + +Obscure and unsuspicious he continued his work, and his pleasant +garrulity went on in its accustomed way. Queer anecdotes came from him +as plentifully as ever, and shrewd observations. Now it would be of +his harvesting in Sussex that he told; now, of an adventure with a +troublesome horse, or an experience on the scaffolding of a building; +and again he would gossip of his garden, or of his neighbours, or of +the old village life, or would discuss some scrap of news picked up at +the public-house. And as this went on month after month, although I +had no intention of adding to the first book or writing a second on +the same lines, still it happened frequently that some fragment or +other of Bettesworth's conversation took my fancy and was jotted down +in my note-book. But almost until the end no definite purpose informed +me what to preserve and what to leave. The notes were made, for the +most part, under the influence of whim only. + +Towards the end, however, a sort of progression seemed to reveal +itself in these haphazard jottings. His age was telling heavily upon +Bettesworth, and symptoms of the inevitable change appeared to have +been creeping unawares into my careless memoranda of his talk. I do +not know when I first noticed this: it probably dawned upon me very +slowly; but that it did dawn is certain, and in that perception I had +the first crude vision of the present volume. I might not aim to make +another book after the pattern of the first, grouping the materials as +it pleased me for an artistic end; but by reproducing the notes in +their proper order, and leaving them to tell their own tale, it should +be possible to engage as it were the co-operation of Nature herself, +my own part being merely that of a scribe, recording at the dictation +of events the process of Bettesworth's decay. + +To this idea, formed a year or so before Bettesworth's death, I have +now tried to give shape. Unfortunately, the scribe's work was not well +done. Things that should have been written down prove to have been +overlooked; and although in the first few chapters I have gone back to +a much earlier period than was originally intended, and have preserved +the chronological order all through, the hoped-for sense of +progression is too often wanting. It existed in my mind, in the +memories which the notes called up for me, rather than in +Bettesworth's recorded conversations. Much explanatory comment, +therefore, which I should have preferred to omit, has been introduced +in order to give continuity to the narrative. + +Bettesworth is spoken of throughout the book as an old man; and that +is what he appeared to be. But in fact he was aged more by wear and +tear than by years. When he died, a nephew who arranged the funeral +caused the age of seventy-three to be marked on his coffin, but I +think this was an exaggeration. The nephew's mother assured me at the +time that Bettesworth could have been no more than sixty-six. She was +his sister-in-law, having married his elder brother, and so had some +right to an opinion; and yet probably he was a little older than she +supposed. It is true that sixty-six is also the age one gets for him, +computing it from evidence given in one chapter of this book; but then +there is another chapter which, if it is correct, would make him +sixty-seven. Against these estimates a definite statement is to be +placed. On the second of October, 1901, Bettesworth told me that it +was his birthday, and that he was sixty-four; according to which, at +his death, nearly four years later, he must have been close upon +sixty-eight. And this, I am inclined to think, was his true age; at +any rate I cannot believe that he was younger. + +At the same time, it must be allowed that his own evidence was not +quite to be trusted. A man in his position, with the workhouse waiting +for him, will not make the most of his years to an employer, and I +sometimes fancied that Bettesworth wished me to think him younger than +he was. But it is quite possible that he was not himself certain of +his own age. I have it from his sister-in-law that both his parents +died while he was still a child, and that he, with his brothers and +sisters, was taken, destitute, to the workhouse. Thence, I suppose, he +was rescued by that uncle, who kept a travelling van; and the man who +carried the boy to fairs and racecourses, and thrashed him so savagely +that at last he ran away to become Farmer Barnes's plough-boy, was not +a person likely to instruct him very carefully about his age. + +The point, however, is of no real importance. A labourer who has at +least the look of being old: thin, grey-eyed, quiet, with bent +shoulders and patient though determined expression of face--such is +the Bettesworth whose last years are recorded in these chapters; and +it does not much matter that we should know exactly how many years it +took to reduce him to this state. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER + + + + +I + + +_December 7, 1892._--The ground in the upper part of the garden being +too hard frozen for Bettesworth to continue this morning the work he +was doing there yesterday, I found him some digging to do in a more +sheltered corner, where the fork would enter the soil. With snow +threatening to come and stop all outdoor work, it was not well that he +should stand idle too soon. + +"Oh dear!" he said one day, "we don't want no snow! We had enough o' +that two winters ago. That was a fair scorcher, that was.--There! I +couldn't tell anybody how we _did_ git through. Still, we _got_ +through, somehow. But there was some about here as was purty near +starved. That poor woman as died over here t'other day...." + +Here he broke off, to tell of a labourer's wife who had died in giving +birth to twins, one of whom was also dead. Including the other twin, +there were seven children living. Bettesworth talked of the husband, +too; but presently working round again to the bad winter of 1889-1890, +he proceeded: + +"I _knows_ they" (this woman and her family) "was purty near starvin'. +_I_ give her two or three half-bushels o' taters. I can't bear to see +'em like that, 'specially if there's little childern about. I give +away bushels o' taters that winter, 'cause them as _had_ got any had +got 'em buried away--couldn't git at 'em (in the frozen ground). Mine +was stowed away where I could git 'em." + +Accordingly, anticipating hard times, I set Bettesworth to work in the +sheltered spot where digging was still possible, and left him. The day +proved sunny on the whole, with a soft winter sunshine, dimmed now and +then by grey fog close down to the earth, and now and then by large +drifts of foggy cloud passing over from the north. By mid-day the +roads were sticky, where the sunshine had thawed the surface, but in +shady places the ground was still hard. Here and there was ice, and +odd corners remained white with the sprinkling of snow which had +fallen two nights previously. + +Towards sunset I went to see what Bettesworth had done. He had done +very little, and, moreover, he had disappeared. The air glowed with +the yellow sunset; the soft dim blue of the upper sky was changing to +hazy grey in the south-east; in the west, veiling the sunset, lay a +bank of clouds, crimson shaded to lilac. I turned to enjoy this as I +climbed the garden to find Bettesworth, where he was busy at his +yesterday's task. + +"Well, Bettesworth, how are you getting on?" + +"Oh, _cold_, sir." + +Overhead, one or two wisps of smoky-looking cloud were floating +southwards. In the sunlight they showed amber against the soft blue, +but from their movement and their indistinct and changing form it was +plain that they belonged to the system of those larger clouds which +had all day been crossing ominously out of the north. I glanced up at +them, and remarked that I feared the snow was not far off now. + +Bettesworth straightened up from his work. + +"Ah, that's what everybody bin sayin'." + +"Well, it looks uncommonly like coming." + +"Ah, it do. Didn't it look black there, along about nine or ten +o'clock this mornin'? I thought then we was goin' to have some snow, +an' no mistake." He chuckled grimly and continued, "I dunno how we +shall git on if it comes to that. But there, we've had it before an' +got through somehow, and I dessay we shall git through again." + +"It's to be hoped so. Anyhow, there seems to be no way of altering +it." + +"No, sir; there don't. I 'xpect we shall have to put up with it. Bear +it an' grumble--that's what we shall have to do. We've had to do that +before now." + +It was a blessing, I laughed, that we had the right to grumble; but we +hardly learnt to like the winter the better for being used to it. + +"No; that don't make it none the sweeter, do it? Still, we can't help +that. As my old neighbour, Jack Tower, used to say, 'Puverty en't no +_crime_, but 'tis a great ill-convenience.'" The touch of epigram in +Tower's saying seemed to please Bettesworth, and his speech flowed out +with a smooth undulating balance as he repeated slowly, tasting the +syllables: "No, cert'nly, puverty en't no crime; but it is a very +ill-convenient thing, an' no mistake." + + +To the same period as the foregoing piece belongs an undated fragment, +which tells how news came to Bettesworth of a certain boy's being +bitten by a dog. "Have he bit'n _much_?" was the first eager +exclamation, followed by, "These here messin' dawgs! There's too many +of 'em, snappin' and yappin' about. I don't _like_ 'em!" + +Then he went on, "I don't see what anybody wants to keep dogs for, +interferin' with anybody. Why, there's Kesty's dog up there--look at +that dog of he's! Why, that dog of he's, he've bit three or four of +'em. He bit the postman two or three times, till they sent to 'n from +the Post Office to tell 'n 'less he mind to keep his dog tied up he'd +have to send an' fetch his letters hisself.... Nasty sly sort o' dog +he is, no mistake. He goes slinkin' an' prowlin' about up there; he's +never tied up. And he don't make no sound, ye know. No, you'll never +hear 'n make no noise; but he'll have ye. And he en't partic'lar, +neither, about lettin' of ye go by, even if it's on the highroad, +onless he've a mind to. He'll come slinkin' round, an goo for ye, 's +likely as not." + +"Odd," I suggested, "that a man should care to keep a dog like that." + +Bettesworth shook his head. + +"There's too _many_ of 'em about, by half. And I en't partic'lar fond +o' dogs, nowhen." He looked up, and a knowing look came into his grey +eyes as he continued, "I was workin' one time for Malcolms up here, +and they had a dog, and one day he stole a shoulder o' mutton, +indoors. Sort of collie, _he_ was. And he took this 'ere shoulder o' +mutton and run upstairs into one o' the rooms, and he wouldn't come +out for nobody. I was at work out in the garden, and the servant she +come runnin' out to me, to ast me if I'd come an' get 'n out. 'I dunno +s'much about that,' I says; ''ten't a job as I cares about.' I can +tell ye, I wa'n't partic'lar about _doin'_ of it. 'Oh,' she says, 'do +come an' get 'n out. We be all afraid. And you can have a stick,' she +says. 'No,' I says, 'I won't have no stick'--'cause, what good's a +stick, ye know? He'd ha' come for me all the one for that. So I +_catches_ up a 'and-saw...." + +"A _hand-saw_?" + +"I did. I took this 'ere 'and-saw, and I went upstairs to 'n, and he +come for me sure enough. But I give 'n two or three 'cross the nose +with this saw, and he didn't like that. He went off downstairs quick +sticks." + +"H'm! I shouldn't have relished the job." + +"No, sir; I didn't _like_ it. I was afraid of 'n. I drove 'n out, but +I was afraid of 'n all the one for that." + + +_January 7, 1896._--A task reserved for this winter's leisure was the +making of an arched way of larch-poles and wire to cover a short +flight of steps in the garden. Two briars at the top of the steps, one +on each side, had overgrown them, and these were now to be trained to +the new framework, which was to slant down at the same slope as the +steps. + +Until we began the work, it seemed simple enough; but almost +immediately we plunged into bewilderment, owing to the various slopes +and slants to be considered. The steps go askew between two parts of a +zigzag path, and our archway, therefore, needed to be several feet +longer on one side than on the other. The consequence was that the +horizontal ties at the top not only clashed with all the gradients of +the garden, but converged towards one another, so that, seen from +above, they were horrid to behold. And then the slanting side-rails! +They agreed with nothing else in all the landscape save the steps +below them. Of course, when the briars covered these discrepancies, +all would be well; but just while Bettesworth and myself were at work +upon this thing, the farther we progressed with it the more distracted +it looked, as though we had gathered into one spot all the conflicting +angles of this most uneven of gardens, and were tying them up into one +hideous knot. The work became a nightmare, and for an hour or two we +lost our good spirits, and found it all we could do to keep our +temper. + +However, we got the framework together somehow, after which the +straining of wires over it, being, as we fondly imagined, an easier +task, released our thoughts a little. Bettesworth paid out and held +the wire while I fastened it. + +"Is that tight enough?" said he. + +"That'll do," said I. + +"Because," said he, "I can easy tighten it more yet." + +"No," said I, "that'll do." + +"Well, of course, if that'll _do_," he conceded; and then, not +finishing his sentence, he chattered on. "Only, I don't want to be +like ol' Sam Cook. He was 'long o' we chaps at work for Putticks when +they was a-buildin' Coswell Church. I was there scaffoldin', an' this +here Cook was s'posed to be helpin' of us. But we see as he never +pulled, an' so one day we got two ropes and fastened the ends of 'em +with jest black cotton. We made it look all like a knot, and he never +see what we was up to. An' when it come to pullin', there was he +makin' out to be pullin', leanin' back with his arms stretched out +a-gruntin' 'Ugh!... Ugh!' and all the time never pullin' a pound. Why, +if he'd on'y pulled half a dozen pounds, he'd ha' broke that cotton; +but it never broke. Mr. John Puttick hisself was there, and he says, +'Well, I never see the like o' that in all my time! Why,' he says, +'you wouldn't pull enough to pull a sausage asunder,' he says. Ye +see, he (Cook) always went by the name o' _Sausage_, 'cause his wife +used to make sausages, so Mr. Puttick says to 'n, 'Why, you wouldn't +pull a sausage asunder!' he says." + +Too soon, unlooked-for difficulties presented themselves in our +wire-straining. We began to agree that we hardly felt as if we had +been apprenticed to the work, and Bettesworth muttered, + +"I dunno as I should care much about goin' out to take a job puttin' +up wire." + +To get the first wire tightly fixed between two posts was easy enough, +but, to our dismay, the tightening of a second wire invariably +slackened the first. Bettesworth was jubilating over his second wire. + +"There, he's tight, an' _no_ mistake!" + +"Ah, but look at the first one!" + +"What! He _en't_ got loose, is he, sir? Oh dear, oh dear! That _do_ +look bad! Never can let 'n go like that, can us, sir?" Gradually his +memory began harking back to earlier instances of our difficulty. +"'Tis like when I helped Mr. Franks puttin' wires up for he's +ras'berries. We had just such a bother as this. Fast 's we got one +tight we loosened another. We did git in a pucker over 'm, an' no +mistake. I remember I told Bill Harris down 'ere what a bother we'd +bin 'avin', and he says, 'Ah, I knows you must 've had a job.' He'd +had just such a bother hisself, on'y he had all the proper tools an' +everything. He borried Mr. Mills's wire-strainers, and when he got the +fust wire up--oh, he thought he was gettin' on capital. He seemed like +makin' a reg'lar good job of it. But when he come to put up t'other +wire--oh dear, oh dear!--he got in such a hobble. 'There,' he says, 'I +was ashamed for anybody to see it, and I come away an' left it.'" + +I was in the humour to be glad of other people's perplexities, and I +laughed. + +"Oh, he came away and left it, did he?" + +"Yes. Don't ye see, 'twas a reg'lar fence, 'tween his garden an' the +next. An' he thought for to have it all jest right an' proper. But +everybody as come by could see, and he was that put out about it that +he come away an' left it." + +"Bother the stuff! I hope we shan't have to go and leave this." + +"I dunno how we be to do it. There, _'tis_ to be done, we knows that, +'cause I've seen it.... No, I en't never see 'em a puttin' of it up; +but I've seen the fences after it bin put up, an' very nice they looks +wi' the wire all as straight.... But how they doos it, I'm sure I +don't know." + +We finished at last, after a fashion, and Bettesworth went on to train +and tie the briars. If work had not been scarce, it would have been +cruel to let him undertake such a job. To make up for his defective +sight, it was his way to grope out blindly for a thing just before +him, and find it by touch; and in dealing so with this briar, with +its terrible thorns, his hands got into a pitiable state. He showed me +them on resuming his work the next morning, saying, + +"I shan't be sorry when I done wi' this customer. His nails is too +sharp for my likin'. When I went 'ome yesterday and washed my hands, +goo! didn't they smart wherever the cold water touched one o' they +scratches! My ol' gal says to me, 'What be ye hushin' about?' 'So 'd +you _hush_,' I says, 'if you'd bin handlin' they roses all the +aft'noon, same as me.' I tried with gloves, but they wa'n't no good. +You can't git to tie, with gloves on." + + +_March 26, 1896, 10.30 a.m._--There are deep cloud-shadows, and rapid +sun-glints lighting up the shadows like daffodils shining against +grass. And there is the roar of a big wind in the air, and majestic +clouds are sailing across, and beyond these the sky is a dazzling +blue. + +All growing things seem busy. Everywhere on the land men are at work; +the swift sunshine glistens on the white of their shirts, and shows +them up against the darkness of the new plough-furrows or the freshly +dug garden-ground. + +Bettesworth was sowing peas. Blustered by the wind, I went to him and +complained of the coldness of it. "A good touch of north in it," was a +phrase I used. + +"Yes, sir; she (the wind) have shifted there since the mornin'. She +was due west when I got up--when that little rain come. She've gone +round since then, but she'll git back again to the south, you'll see. +I've noticed it many's a time. Right south she was at twelve o'clock +when the sun crossed the line o' Saturday (March 21), and that's where +she'll keep tackin' back to all through the quarter--till midsummer, +that is." + +"Well, I don't know that she could do much better." + +"No, sir. Strikes me we be goin' to have a very nice, kind spring. I +don't say she'll bide there all the time; but if she gits away, that's +where she'll come back to." + +Again I expressed my dislike of this strong north wind. It would soon +make me sleepy, I said. + +"_Would_ it, sir? Oh, I do like to hear the wind! To lay and listen to +it when I be in bed--it makes me feel so comfortable. No matter what +'tis like outside, I feels that _I_ be in the warm aw-right." + + +_March 31, 1897._--At six minutes to five this morning Bettesworth was +lacing up his boots. The day is the last of March, which, for +gardeners in this village, is the middle of the busiest time of the +year. The early seeds have been in the ground long ago; the beans are +up two inches; the first sowing of peas shows well in the rows; others +were put in last week. Shallots are sending up their green spikes; +there are a few potatoes already planted; and now every effort must be +made, and advantage be taken of every opportunity, to get the +remainder of the ground ready and the main crops planted at the +earliest possible time; for in this soil, as Bettesworth says, "you +can't be much too for'ard." + +Late last night he and his old wife planted their potatoes in a few +rods of ground he has at the end of my garden. It was seven o'clock, +and dark, by the time they had finished; then they went home and had +supper--or, at least, the wife had, whose work had not been arduous +until the evening. She scolded her husband. + +"There you goes slavin' about, and gets so tired you can't eat." + +"It's true," Bettesworth confesses. "The more I works the less I +eats.... No, nor I don't sleep, neither. If I got anythink on my mind, +I can't sleep. I seems to want to be up and at it." + +Supper over, he lit his pipe, had one smoke, then kicked off his boots +and said, + +"Well, I be off to bed. 'Ten't no good settin' here, lookin' at the +fireplace." + +The wife grumbled again in the morning, urging him to rest. + +"But what's the use?" he said. "It got to be done, and I can't rest +ontil _'tis_ done." + +So he got up at the time already mentioned, and came to rake over the +potato-ground. + +It slopes down to the lane, this ground. Presently the man from the +cottage just across the lane came out for his day's work. + +"Why, you be for'arder than ever this year, ben't ye, Fred?" + +"No, I dunno as I be. I wants to git it done, though, anyhow." + +Then the Vicar's gardener passed. He laughed. "Be you determined on +gettin' all your ground planted in March, then, Fred?" + +Bettesworth laughed back. "I don't care whether 'tis March or April. +When I be ready it got to go in." + +Others, going by, chaffed him. "You bin there all night, then?" + +About a quarter past six he went back home, and met his neighbour +Noah. + +"Hullo!" says Noah. "What? You bin at work?" + +"Ah, and so you ought to ha' bin." + +But Noah, who has lived in London, "sits up till eleven or twelve at +night readin' the paper. He can't git into the habit of gettin' up +early." + +Gardening talk is now the staple conversation in the village, and the +public-house is the club-room where the discussions take place, the +times being Saturday night and Sunday. + +"You don't find many there any other time," says Bettesworth. +"Cert'nly, after a man bin to work all day, when he gits home he's +tired, and wants to go to bed. But Saturday night and Sunday--well, +you can't bide indoors solitary, lookin' at the fire. If you do, you +never learns nothin'. But to go and have a glass and a pipe where +there's others--that sims to enlighten your mind." + +The men compare notes, and give and take sage advice. "Where I had +that crop o' dwarf peas last year I be goin' to have carrots this," +says one. Another answers, "Well, then, if I was you, I should dig +that ground up now--rake off the stones" (carrots being "a very tender +herbage"). "Then, if it comes rain, that'll settle it a bit. After +that, let it bide an' settle for about another fortnight, and then as +soon as you gets a shower shove 'em in as fast as you mind." + +"Or else," Bettesworth explains in telling me this, "if you don't let +it settle the drill sows 'em too deep; it sinks in. Carrots is a thing +you wants to sow as shallow as ever you can." + +Somebody informs the company that he had "quarter of a acre o' carrots +last year, and he made five pound of 'em." Or was it that he had five +tons, and sold them for thirty shillings a ton? This was it, as +Bettesworth at last remembers. + +"I 'spose you'll soon be puttin' in some taters, Fred?" + +"I got most o' mine in a'ready." + +"_Have_ ye? I en't sowed none yet, but...." + +So says Tom Durrant, the landlord. + +"But cert'nly," as Bettesworth observes, "down there where he is it do +take the frost so--right over there in Moorway's Bottom. Up here, +though, we no call to wait. I likes to git taters in. You see, where +they lays about they spears so, and then the spears gits knocked +off--you _can't_ help it; or, if not, still, where you sees a tater +speared so, that must weaken that tater? About two foot two one way +and fifteen inches t'other--that's the distance I gen'ly plants +taters. Ten't no good leavin' 'em wider 'tween the rows. But old Steve +Blackman, up there by the Forest, I knowed he once plant some three +foot both ways. And law, what a crop he did git! 'Twas a piece o' +ground his landlord let 'n have for the breakin' of it up. And he +trenched in a lot o' fuzz--old fuzz-bushes as high as you be--and so +on. Everything went in. And such a crop o' taters as he had--no, no +dressin'. Only this old fuzz-stuff. _Regents_, they was. Oh, that was +a splendid tater, too! But you never hears of 'em now. They sims to be +reg'lar gone out. I got some o' these here _Dunbars_, down here. I +should like to see half a bushel o' they in this bit o' ground o' +yourn. Splendid croppin' tater they be. I ast Tom Durrant if he could +spare you half a bushel. He said he didn't hardly know. There's so +many bin after 'em--purty near half the parish. They be a splendid +croppin' tater, no mistake. He got 'em of some gentleman's gardener to +begin with, I reckon. Reg'lar one he is, you know, for gettin' taters +an' things, and markin' 'em and keepin' the sorts separate. He had +four to start with, an' they produced a peck. Then he got three bushel +out o' that peck. And last year he sowed 'em again--three bushel--and +he got thirty-nine bushel." + + + + +II + + +_May 13, 1896._--The Tom Durrant just mentioned was frequently spoken +of by Bettesworth, and always in a tone of warm approval. "A wonderful +quiet sort o' man," steadily "putting together the pieces," but not +assuming any airs, he managed his public-house well, and with especial +attention to the comfort of his older neighbours. "If any of the young +uns come in hollerin' about, 'twas very soon 'Outside!' with Tom. +'There is the door!' he'd say. 'I don't keep my 'ouse open for such as +you.'" + +So Bettesworth has told me, more than once--perhaps not exactly in +those words. + +But sometimes Bettesworth's talk was too thick with detail to be +remembered and written down as he said it in the time at my disposal; +whence it happens that I am able only to summarize an anecdote about +Durrant, which Bettesworth told with considerable relish. The publican +was the owner of two cottages which were supplied with water from a +good well--a precious thing in this village. These cottages had lately +been overhauled and enlarged--Bettesworth detailed to me all the +improvements, praising the new sculleries and sheds that had been +added--and then the tenants, as if stricken with madness, found fault +with the water-supply, and lodged a complaint with the sanitary +inspector. The inspector insisted that the well should be cleaned out. +Durrant thereupon examined the water, found it "clear as crystal," +cleaned out the well as he was ordered to do, and--gave the tenants +notice to pay sixpence a week more for their cottages, or to quit. "So +they didn't get much by _that_," said Bettesworth approvingly. + +After all, this was but a kind of parenthesis in a talk which, not +hurried, but quietly oozing out as we worked side by side in the +garden, fairly overwhelmed my memory with variety of subject and +vividness of expression. At one time it dealt with a certain road +which was to be widened--"all they beautiful trees to be cut down, +right from so-and-so to so-and-so"; at another, it discussed three +parcels of building land for sale in the vicinity, estimated their +acreage, and related the offers which had been already made for them. +From that, working all the while, Bettesworth would wander off to the +drought, and I would hear how long this or that neighbour had been +without water; how a third (whose new horse, by the way, "was turnin' +out well--but there, so do all they that comes from" a certain source, +where, however, "they works 'em too hard")--how a third neighbour was +obliged to keep his old horse almost constantly at work fetching +water, since he had twenty-two little pigs, besides other live +animals whose numbers goodness knows, and so did Bettesworth. At the +new schools, again, the water was failing; and how, and why, and what +the caretaker thought, and all about it, Bettesworth was able to +explain. + +The receptivity of the man's brain was what struck me. One pictured it +pinked and patterned over with thousands of unsorted facts--legions of +them jostling one another without apparent arrangement. Yet all were +available to him; at will he could summon any one of them into his +consciousness. A modern man would have had to stop and sift and +compare them, and build theories and systems out of all that wealth of +material. Not being modern, Bettesworth did not theorize; his thoughts +were like the dust-atoms seen in a sunbeam. But though he did not +"think," still a vast common-sense somehow or other flourished in him, +and these manifold facts were its food. + + +_September 26, 1896._--Nor was it only of current topics that he could +talk with such fullness of detail. Getting shortly afterwards into the +reminiscent vein, he succeeded in paralyzing my memory with the tale +of things he had observed many years before in just the same +unsystematic yet thorough fashion. My hasty jottings, made afterwards, +preserve only a few points, and do not tell how any of them were +suggested. The talk was at one time of Basingstoke Fair, "where they +goes to hire theirselves for the year." Of "shepherds with a bit o' +wool in their hats, carters with a bit o' whipcord, and servant gals," +and so on. "I went once," said Bettesworth, "when I was a nipper--went +away from Penstead; but I never got hired.... There's the place for +games, though! They carters, when they've jest took their year's +money, and be changin' 'racks,' as they calls it. 'You bin an' changed +your rack, Bill?' 'What rack be you got on to?' 'You got on for old +Farmer So-and-so?'... There they be, hollerin' about. And then they +all got their shillin', what bin hired...." + +I did not stop then to consider whether this hiring shilling, and the +token in the hat, might have any relationship, in the world of old +customs, to the "King's shilling" and the bunch of ribbons of the +recruit for the army. Bettesworth was talking; and presently it was +about a certain Jack Worthington, of a neighbouring village, who was +known as "Cunnin' Jack," and played the concertina at fairs, clubs, +and so on: "Newbury Fair, Reading Fair, Basingstoke Fair"--Bettesworth +essayed to catalogue them. Cunnin' Jack "learnt it all by hisself, but +I've heared a good many--travellin' folk and the like--say as they +never heared anybody play the concertina like him. He's the on'y one +'s ever I heared play the church bells--chimes, an' fire 'em, and +all--wonderful! _Blue Bells of Scotland_, too--to hear him play that, +an' the chimes, jest exact! No trouble to make out what 'tis. Oh, he's +a reg'lar musician! He've trained all his sons to same thing. One of +'em plays the fiddle; another of 'em got a thing what he scratches +along wi' wires, sounds purty near like a fiddle.... 'Ten't no good +for 'n in a town, 'less 'tis a fair or summat o' that; but in any +out-o'-the-way place. 'Relse, if he gets to a fair, there'll be three +or four landlords about tryin' to get hold of 'n; and they'll give 'n +five shillin's and supper, and his drink an' a bed, an' what he can +pick up besides. Very often he'll make as much as five-an'-twenty +shillin's in a night(?). And when he comes 'ome, he bring p'r'aps a +gallon o' ha'pence along with 'n. Never no silver, o' course. Often, +when his wife thought he hadn't got nothing but a pound or so, he'd +chuck her five or six pound. Then in the winter he'd go +gravel-diggin', onless there come a fair, or anything o' the likes o' +that. At these pubs where they dances, too, he'd put round the hat +after every dance, an' if there was a good many stood up, p'r'aps he'd +pull in half-a-crown or so." + +Cunnin' Jack had a contrivance of musical dancing-dolls, about which I +did not clearly understand. And I have quite forgotten how Bettesworth +spoke of the man's brother, a deaf-mute, who refused to work, and +"lived about at Aldershot, along o' the soldiers." + +Afterwards another "dummy" was mentioned: "terrible big strong +feller.... Spiteful.... Goes gravel-cartin' with his father." At a +difficult place in the gravel-pit the father reached out and struck +his son's horse. The "dummy" springs on him, throws him on his back, +making a noise "'bu-bu,' like a calf.... Sure way to upset 'n--if you +was in the gravel pit, touch his hoss...." + +Bettesworth had once seen "a dummy, talkin' with a friend of his," in +the finger alphabet. "Can't you understand it?" said the friend to +Bettesworth. "'No,' I says; 'how should I?' But, law! to see him! And +then write, too! Purty near as fast as you can talk. And all the time +his eye 'd be on ye, watchin' ye. But to see him write on his +slate--wonderful fast! and then" (here Bettesworth breaks into +dramatic action, licking his hand and smudging out slate-writing)--"and +then, when he'd rubbed it out, to see him write _again_! Spiteful, +though, _he_ was. So they all be, I s'pose." There was another dumb +man, for instance, who had been apprenticed to a shoemaker.... + +Unfortunately, I cannot reconstruct this instance. I only remember +that the man had become "a wonderful good shoemaker, but didn't sim to +care about follerin' it," and had "took to gardenin' now," instead. + + +_May 5, 1898._--On a morning early in May it was raining, quietly, +luxuriously, with a continuous soothing shattering-down of warm drops. +In the doorway of the little tool-shed I stood listening--listening to +the gentle murmur on the roof, on the long fresh grass of a small +orchard plot, and on the young leaves of the plum and the blossoming +apple which made the daylight greener by half veiling the sky. + +Beside and beyond these trees were lilacs, purpling for bloom, small +hazels, young elms in a hedgerow--all fair with new greenness; and +farther on, glimpses of cottage roof against the newly dug +garden-ground of the steep hillside. Above the half-diaphanous green +tracery of the trees, cool delicious cloud, "dropping fatness," +darkened where it sagged nearer to the earth. The light was nowhere +strong, but all tempered moistly, tenderly, to the tenderness of the +young greenery. + +I ought to have been busy, yet I stood and listened; for the earth +seemed busy too, but in a softened way, managing its many businesses +beautifully. The air seemed melting into numberless liquid sounds. +Quite near--not three trees off--there was a nightingale nonchalantly +babbling; from the neighbourhood of the cottage came, penetrating, the +bleating of a newly-born goat; while in the orchard just before me +Bettesworth stooped over a zinc pail, which, as he scrubbed it, gave +out a low metallic note. Then there were three undertones or +backgrounds of sound, that of the soft-falling rain being one of them. +Another, which diapered the rain-noise just as the young leaves showed +their diaper-work against the clouds, was the all but unnoticed +singing of larks, high up in the wet. Lastly, to give the final note +of mellowness, of flavoured richness to the morning, I could hear +through the distance which globed and softened it a frequent "Cuckoo, +cuckoo." The sound came and died away, as if the rain had dissolved +it, and came again, and again was lost. + +Framed by all this, Bettesworth stooped over his pail, careless of +getting wet. His old earth-brown clothes seemed to belong to the +moistened nook of orchard where he was working; so, too, did his +occasional quiet chatter harmonize well with the pattering of the warm +rain. And for a time the drift of what he said was so much a part of +our quiet country life that I took it as a matter of course, and let +it pass by unnoticed. + +But presently he raised his head. + +"Have ye heared 'bout young Crosby over here? He's gone clean off his +head. They took 'n off to the asylum at Brookwood this mornin'. Got +this 'ere religion. I s'pose by all accounts he went right into 't; +and that's what 've come of it." + +I suggested that religious mania was often curable. + +"Yes. I've knowed a many have it; and then they gets over it after a +time. Get 'em away--that's what it wants. If they can get 'em where +they can dummer somethin' else into 'em, then they be all right. Wants +to give 'em a change, so 's to get a little more enlightenment into +their minds." + +He came to join me in the shed doorway, for shelter from a temporary +thickening of the rain, and standing there he continued, + +"I was up to my sister's at Middlesham o' Sunday. She'd bin to +Brookwood to see her sister-in-law. If they hadn't let her" (the +sister-in-law) "'ome too soon that first time, she'd ha' bin all +right. Wherefore now she's there again, and jest like a post. If they +puts her anywhere, there she bides, and don't try for to do nothing. +'Relse, when she was there afore, they told my sister she'd work as +well as e'er a woman in the place. She see several there what she +knowed. Fred Baker's wife, what used to be signalman, for one. But +what most amused her was a old woman, when they was goin' out two by +two for their walk in the grounds, flingin' her arms about and liftin' +up her skirts an' dancin'.... She was havin' her reels and her capers +in highly deglee." The old man pondered a few moments, then concluded +pensively, as he stepped out to his work again, "What a shockin' +thing, this mind!" His accent on the last word sounded almost +resentful. + + +_May 6, 1898._--The next day he reported that the man Crosby was said +to have got "religious ammonium, is it? Some such name as that." + +The talk of religion reminded him of a former employer, of the Baptist +persuasion, who, when annoyed with him, was wont to say impatiently, +"Bother your picture!" So, of a dead pigeon, from whose crop +seventy-two peas were taken, "Bother he's picture!" said the Baptist. +Another imprecation of this man's was, "Drabbit it!" at which, +however, Bettesworth used to expostulate, telling his master, "Look +'ere, you Baptists may lie, but you mawn't swear! And so he could lie, +too," he added--"no mistake. And once he said anything, he'd stick to +it." + +A month or more passed, and I forgot all about poor Crosby, until one +delicious morning, when Bettesworth thought fit to tell me that he was +no better. A neighbour had cycled to Brookwood on Sunday to see him +and report about his family, Crosby's wife being in child-bed. But the +information quickened no interest. + +"All he kep' on about was the devil. The devil kep' comin' and +botherin' of 'n. 'Tis a bad job. I s'pose he went right into +it--studyin' about these here places nobody ever bin to an' come back +again to tell we. Nobody don't know nothin' about it. 'Ten't as if +they come back to tell ye. There's my father, what bin dead this forty +year. What a crool man he must be not to 've come back in all that +time, if he was able, an' tell me about it. That's what I said to +Colonel Sadler. 'Oh,' he says, 'you better talk to the Vicar.' +'Vicar?' I says. 'He won't talk to me.' Besides, what do he know about +it more 'n anybody else?" + + +Early in the summer of 1896 Bettesworth had been immensely proud of +his peas, which were ready for picking quite a week before other +people had any. The fame of these peas had got abroad in the parish; +it had reached a youth--a new curate fresh from a theological +college--and had appealed to his fancy so strongly that he sent a +servant to buy threepennyworth of the precious crop. And Bettesworth +had chuckled. + +"I bin a-laughin' to myself all the mornin'.... _Three penn-'oth o' +peas!_ I never heared talk o' such a thing! I told the gal to go back +and tell 'n to save his money till they was cheaper." + + +_June 13, 1899._--But three years later Bettesworth seems to have +changed his policy. On June 13 once more he had peas to boast of, and +already for some days his wife was itching to be at them. + +"Look, there's a nice pea, and there," she would say, handling the +dangling pods. + +But Bettesworth would answer, "Yes, they be; and you let 'em bide." + +"For the sake of a shillin' now," he explained to me, "I en't a-goin' +to have that haulm spoilt, and lose two or three shillin's later on." + +His brother-in-law agreed that he was right. It was all reported to me +in Bettesworth's own words. + +"'I thinks you be right, Fred,' he says. 'You better get along without +that shillin' now, and have two or three later on.'" + +Old Mrs. Skinner, too, commended him. She told of a neighbour who had +picked a few peas very early, and ruined his crop; for in the hot +weather the juicy haulm was sure to wither soon if bruised by +handling. + +The weather was glorious just then, yet ill for our sandy gardens. + +"As blue as a whetstone," said Bettesworth, in forecast of what the +cabbage crop would be, should rain not soon come. "And en't the grass +slippery and dry! _'Twas_ a hot day yest'day, no mistake! I was up in +my garden when Mrs. Skinner come up lookin' at my peas. She reg'lar +laughed at me. 'Well, Fred, you _be_ a purty picture!' There was the +sweat all trinklin' down my arms, an' the dust caked on.... But she +did admire they peas. Still, she reckoned I was right leavin' 'em. So +I says to my old gal, 'You let 'em bide.' So she'll have to, too. 'Tis +for me to give the word." + + + + +III + + +_October 7, 1899._--I have mentioned Bettesworth's neighbour Noah, the +young man who used to sit up too late at night reading the paper. +Notwithstanding this bad habit, he and Bettesworth had been on +excellent terms of friendship. It was to Noah that Bettesworth had +turned, for example, when I lent him those copies of the _Daily +Chronicle_ in which the first particulars of Nansen's voyage in the +_Fram_ were published. Unable to read himself ("I can't see well +enough," he said, "or else I be scholard enough"), he invited Noah and +Noah's wife to come on the Sunday and read to him the explorer's +narrative. + +"We started," said he, "about two o'clock, and there they was, turn +and turn about, as hard as ever they could read up to half-past five." +The evening was spent in raising the envy of other neighbours. "They +wanted to borry the papers, but I says, 'No, they ben't mine to +lend.'" + +The readers themselves seem to have conceived an intense admiration +for Nansen, whose bed of stones especially excited Bettesworth's +imagination. + +"_I_'ve had some hard lay-downs in my time," he exclaimed, "but +_that!_ Gawd! what they poor fellers must ha' suffered!" + +Not long afterwards, Noah was called in again to help enjoy a +seedsman's catalogue. It was read through from cover to cover. + +Yet Noah proved to be a treacherous friend, after all. I have no +record of the occurrence, but I think it must have been in the summer +of 1897 that he began to covet Bettesworth's pleasant cottage, and by +offering the owner a higher rent succeeded in getting possession of +it. Bettesworth was obliged to quit. He took a cottage in a little row +at three-and-sixpence a week, where he was comfortable enough for +about a couple of years. At the end of that period, however, certain +difficulties over the water-supply became acute--a laundress next door +was pumping the well dry--and other discomforts arising, he began in +the autumn of 1899 to look out for another home. + +It is a singular place, this parish. The narrow valley it occupies is +that of a small water-course commonly known as "The Lake," which in +summer is a dry bed of sand, but in winter becomes a respectable brook +of yellow waters which grow quite turbulent at times of flood. In +their turbulence through long ages they have cut deep into the +northern side of the valley, and now for some two miles that northern +side, all warm and sunny, slopes down towards the stream, and there +breaks off in precipitous sand-banks which in most places overhang +the stream and make it inaccessible. But not in all places. There are +various gaps in the sand-banks, where the rains and storms of +centuries have scooped out the upper slope into tiny gorges and warm +secluded hollows, down which footpaths wind steeply, or narrow bumpy +lanes, to some plank bridge or other thrown across the stream. In +these hollows the cottages cluster thickest; there they form little +hamlets whose inhabitants sometimes hardly know the other villagers. +Such, indeed, is my own case: hundreds of my fellow-parishioners half +a mile away are practically strangers to me. Hundreds, for it is a +large parish. The bluffs which separate the hollows are not unpeopled; +they have their cottages and gardens dotted over them without order at +the caprice of former peasant owners. All sorts of footpaths and +tracks connect these habitations, but there are few roads, and those +are deep in sand. For the labouring people do not interchange visits +and pay calls; they just go to work and come home again, each to his +own place. At home, they look out upon their own particular hollow, +and upon little besides; or, living high up on a bluff, they get +outlook upon the other side of the main valley, which is lower, tamer, +smoother than this. It begins--that other side--in narrow meadow or +plough land at the bottom, and so rises gently to a ridge fringed with +cottages. In addition to these dwellings, there are a few hovels down +by the stream itself, with their backs stuck into the sand-cliffs, +and with gardens between cliff and stream so narrow that a man might +almost jump across them. A second jump would take him over the stream +into the meadow-land just mentioned. + +With a rapidly increasing population empty cottages are scarce, as +Bettesworth now found. Moreover, his choice was restricted. There were +reasons against his going to the upper end of the valley. It was more +newly peopled by labourers from the town, who had never known, or else +had lost, the older peasant traditions which Bettesworth could still +cherish--in memory, at least--here in the more ancient part of the +village. Of course, that was not how he explained his distaste; he +only expressed a dislike for the society of the upper valley. "They be +a roughish lot up there," he would say. The fact was, he did not know +many of them intimately, from which it may be seen how curiously our +parish society is disintegrated. + +Besides, he wanted a cottage not a mile away, but near to his work, so +that he might go home to dinner and see how his wife was getting on. +If he was growing old, she was older; and what was worse, she was +subject to epileptic fits. There were days when he worried about her +all the time while he was at work, and went home uneasily, dreading to +find her fallen down in a fit. It was necessary, therefore, that if he +moved it should be not far away. His last move had been in the wrong +direction--from the adjoining bluff to a hollow further down +stream--and now he desired to get back. + +One of the steep and narrow lanes mentioned above is that which runs +down beside this garden, where Bettesworth's work lay. It is +picturesque enough, beneath its deep banks and hedgerows and overhung +by my garden trees; but that is of no moment here. Within +Bettesworth's memory it afforded access even for a waggon right down +to "the Lake," and so over into the meadow opposite; but the last +hundred yards of it, from Mrs. Skinner's cottage downwards, have long +been washed out into a mere foot-track, deeply sunk between its banks, +swooping down precipitously to the stream-level, and scarce two feet +wide. So you emerge from the sand cliffs, and the valley is before +you. Then the footpath winds along to the left (eastwards), having the +cliff on one hand and the stream on the other, to a wider stretch, +until with this for its best approach you come to a little hovel of +three rooms and a lean-to shed, standing with its back walls close in +against the sandy cliff. + +At the period we are dealing with, this cottage had a poverty-stricken +appearance, upon which Bettesworth himself had been wont to comment +severely, though the place was in reality no worse than others beyond +it and elsewhere in the parish. But it had suffered from utter neglect +under the previous tenant, a thriftless Irishman, while, after the +Irishman left, it stood empty for a time, and looked like falling +quite derelict. Then, however, the landlord had a few repairs done, +and at the end of September, to my amazement, I heard from Bettesworth +that he had taken it. He would save eighteen-pence a week by the +change: the new rent was only two shillings. + +Ought I to have expostulated? Perhaps I should have done so, but for +the queer expression in the old man's face when telling me his +intention. There was some shame, but more of dogged defiance. "You +think what you like," so I interpreted it--"that's the place I'm going +to." He was armed, too, with testimony in favour of the cottage. + +"Skinner" (the bricklayer) "says he don't see why it shouldn't make a +very nice little place for two. He done up the roof there t'other +week, and he ought to know." Later, the old man repeated Skinner's +opinion, and added, "I think _I_ can make it comfortable. Ye see, +there en't bin nobody to try before." + +This was true enough. The Irishman's tenancy had not in any sense +improved the cottage. The place could not be worse used, and it might +conceivably be fairly habitable in more careful hands. + +During the first week in October Bettesworth effected his removal. It +was an inauspicious time. He had been counting upon the stream-bed for +a roadway along which to cart his things, so as to avoid scrambling up +and down the devious pathways and tracks that led to the cottage, but, +unfortunately, the stream this week was in flood. A cart might, +indeed, have struggled along it, and one was, in fact, bespoken--Jack +Crawte's, to wit; but at the appointed time the cart failed to arrive, +and upon Bettesworth's going to inquire for it, he discovered that the +Crawtes were all gone into the town to the fair. + +Next day they promised to come "by-and-by." Bettesworth accepted the +promise, but he also chartered two donkey-carts, which were really +more suitable for getting out from the first cottage into one lane, +and then round and about, up and down, to the head of the gully by +Mrs. Skinner's. Farther than that even donkey-carts were useless. For +the last and worst hundred yards nothing but a wheelbarrow or a strong +back could be of any use. + +Fortunately (in these circumstances), poor old Bettesworth's household +goods were not many, nor yet magnificent; yet still they were enough +for him to manage. The main of them were shifted on the Thursday, and +I should not like to say how many times that day the old man slaved +down the gorge with loaded wheelbarrow and up with it empty; but Mrs. +Skinner witnessed his doings, and complimented him. + +"Why, Freddy," she said--"why, Freddy, you'd kill half the young uns +_now_, old as you be." + +There should have been a helper--one Moses Cook, familiarly known as +"Little Moser"; but little Moser was not a success. On the Wednesday, +promising to lend a hand "in five minutes," he delayed coming until he +had found time to get drunk and then arrived with the proposal that +Bettesworth should give him a pint to start with. "_Git_ out o' my +way!" was Bettesworth's reply. The next day the little man was +willing, but useless. + +"Couldn't even git up there by ol' Dame Skinner's with a empty barrer! +I says to 'n, 'Git in an' let me wheel ye up!' I says. Made me that +wild! Why, I'd lifted a chest into the barrer all by myself--and _he_ +must ha' weighed a hundred and a quarter, with what there was in 'n, +ye know--and wheeled 'n down. And then to see this little feller. 'You +be in my way,' I says. 'You better go 'ome and sit down, and then +p'raps we shall be able to git something done!' I _was_ wild. I told +'n, 'They says Gawd made man in His own image--you must be a bloomin' +counterfeit!'" + +At one time there was a threat of rain, and Bettesworth "whacked all +the beddin' he could on to the barrer, and down and in with it." +Fortunately, the rain held off. + +Towards night the cart came into action. It brought a load or two of +firewood--not along the stream itself, but beside it, through the +flooded meadow. The wood was tipped out on to the raised bank across +the stream, just opposite Bettesworth's new home, there to remain for +the night. But the old man could not rest with it there. + +"I got all that across," he said, "and into the dry. Crawte couldn't +hardly believe it when I told 'n this mornin'. But I _did_. Fetched it +across in the dark." It was an almost incredible feat, for the night +was of the blackest, and the stream four or five feet wide. "And then, +when I got in, I had to put up the bedstead, with only the ol' gal to +help me. An' if you told her one thing, it only seemed to make her +forget to do something else. Talk about _tired_! I never had nothin' +all that time--not even half a pint o' beer. Ye see, there wa'n't +nobody I could send, an' I couldn't spare time to go myself, 'relse I +_should_ ha' liked a glass o' beer. But I never had nothin' not afore +I'd done. Then I had some tea, but I was too tired to eat. P'r'aps, if +I'd ha' been able to have half a pint earlier, I might ha' bin able to +eat; but, as 'twas, I couldn't eat. And now this mornin' my back and +shoulders aches--with wheelin' down that gully, ye know." + +As it is not mentioned elsewhere, I may as well say here that +Bettesworth's endeavours to make this little place habitable and +respectable were for a time fairly successful. As it should have been +explained, after emerging from the gully the public footpath runs +close in front of the doorway of the place, leaving some eight feet of +garden between itself and the stream. Of old, in the Irishman's time, +this garden was an entanglement of weeds and stunted cabbages, while +the footpath was unswept, disgusting, and often blocked with a pail of +ashes or other household refuse. But now a spirit of order had +appeared on the scene. The cabbage-plot became comely; in due season +old-fashioned cottage flowers--pinks and nasturtiums--appeared in two +tiny borders under the windows on either side of the door, and the +mean doorway itself was beautified by a rough but sufficient arbour of +larch-posts before it, up which "canary-creeper" found its way. +Accordingly, I heard from time to time, but neglected to set down, how +this and that wayfarer had praised the old man's improvements. Did not +the Vicar himself say (I seem to remember Bettesworth's telling me so +with much gratification) that he would never have believed the place +could be made to look so well? Of the inside, perhaps, not so much +could be said; but even this was passable at first, before the old +wife's breakdown spoilt all. For several years, in fact, Bettesworth +was, I believe, very happy in this cottage. At any rate, it gave him +scope for labour, and he always liked that. He had hardly been in +possession a week before he was talking of an improvement much to his +mind. + +"There's a rare lot o' capital soil in the lake under they withies +just against my garden," he said; and he proposed taking it out to +enrich his garden. + +"It'll be good for the lake, too," I suggested. + +"Yes," he replied, "it wants clearin' out. Why, in some places there +en't no lake, and half the water that comes down got to overflow and +make floods." + + + + +IV + + +And now, Bettesworth being settled in this hovel, his story begins at +last to move forwards. For a while, indeed, little, if any, change in +the man himself will be discernible. We shall be aware only of the +quiet lapse of time as the seasons steal over him, and leave him +older, or as the progress of public events is dimly reflected in +occasional scraps of his conversation. And even of public events not +much will be heard. Such things, which had never greatly concerned +Bettesworth, were less likely than ever to attract his attention now. +For five days in the week he rarely got farther from home than the +lower half of the lane, where it degenerates into the gully between my +garden and his cottage. On Saturday afternoons he journeyed into the +town to get a shave and do his shopping; on Sunday evenings he +generally went to the public-house; and as this was all he saw of the +world, it is no matter for surprise if his interests remained +extremely parochial. + +And yet his ignorance of what was happening did sometimes surprise me. +Of course, I know that what was wanting was the opportunity of +enlightenment, and that he was not naturally deficient in the +instincts that make for it. His appreciation of Nansen's adventures +may be cited as a proof that he was ready and even eager to be +informed. But for all that, it is true that the affairs which excited +the rest of the world usually left him undisturbed, and the public +noise needed to be a great one to reach his ears. Mr. Chamberlain's +protectionist propaganda was not loud enough, incredible though that +may seem. As a peasant, Bettesworth had a theory which I have often +heard him affirm, that, for farmers to prosper, "bread never ought to +be no less than a shillin' a gallon," so that I expected to hear him +at least talk of "fiscal reform." But he never did. The proposal was +months old when I at last broached the subject to him, and all he said +was, "Oh dear! we don't want no taxes on food!" as if he had never +heard that such a thing was projected. And it is my firm belief that +to the day of his death he knew only what little I told him about it, +and would hardly have been able to say where he had heard the name of +Chamberlain. His home was down there by the stream bed; his work was +half-way up the lane. Walking to it, he might hear Mrs. Skinner +talking to her pigs; walking back, he could see Crawte's cows turned +out in the meadow at the bottom of the valley. He never read a +newspaper, and how should he have learnt anything about the political +ferment which was spreading through the towns of all England, and +engaging the attention of the whole world? + +At the end of 1899, however, he had not long been in his new dwelling +before his attention was effectually arrested by the war in South +Africa; and my next note is a remark of his on this subject, which +shows him taking not quite a parochial view of the situation. He did +not approve of war. Several years previously, at the outbreak of the +Spanish-American affair, he had spoken uneasily of the consequent rise +in the price of bread, and his concern now may therefore be imagined. +Still, there was one bright spot. + +"There's one thing I be glad of," he said: "all they reserves called +out. There never no business to be none o' they in the country." + +His reason was that in time of peace the reserves, with their +retaining pay, had been wont to undersell the civilian workman in the +labour market, and that such competition was unfair. + +This, of course, was soon forgotten in the interest of the war itself. +Our parish, so near to Aldershot, sent out perhaps a disproportionate +number of its young men to the front, men whom Bettesworth knew, whose +fathers and mothers were his good friends, and at whose deaths, now +and then announced, he would grimly shut his lips. Morning after +morning he asked, "Any news of the war, sir?" and listened gravely to +what could be told. But he did not so much think as feel about it all. +He knew nothing, cared nothing, about the policy which had led up to +hostilities; he was too ill-informed to be infected by the raw +imperialism of the day; his attitude was simply "national." "Our +country"--that was his expression--was in difficulties, and he longed +to see the difficulties overcome. Such was his simple instinctive +position, and it excused in him some feelings which would have been +less pardonable in a more enlightened man. At the close he would have +liked to shoot without pity President Kruger and the Boer Generals, as +the enemies of "our country." + +But how ignorant of the facts he was at the beginning of the war! Of +our many talks on the subject I seem to have preserved only one, but +that is so strange that now I can hardly believe in its accuracy. + + +_December 16, 1899._--Dated the 16th of December, 1899, it states that +Bettesworth had heard the week's disastrous news from the seat of war, +and was letting off his dismay in exclamatory fashion. "Six hundred +missin'! Look at that. What do that _missin'_ mean?" His tone implied +that he knew only too well. + +I said, "Most likely it means that they are prisoners." + +And then he said, "Ah, prisoners--or else burnt." + +It was my turn to exclaim. "Burnt? No, no! They are prisoners." + +"But they burns 'em, some says." + +Heaven only knows where he could have picked up such an idea. As the +war proceeded, he kept himself fairly up to date with its main events +by listening to other men's talk. He used, as we know, to go to the +public-house on Sunday evenings "to get enlightenment to the mind;" +and there is mention in the next fragment of another source of +information which he valued. To reach that, however, we have to enter +another year--the year 1900. + + + + +V + + +_February 13, 1900._--The winter was passing by, with the war, indeed, +to make it memorable to us, but uneventfully at home. January, like +December, had been mild--too mild, some people said, of whom, however, +Bettesworth was not one. February set in with more severity of +weather. On the third we had snow, and in the succeeding days frost +followed, and the roads grew slippery. + +These things no doubt provided Bettesworth with topics for many little +chats I must have enjoyed with him, although I saved no reminder of +any of them. But about the middle of the month a circumstance came to +my knowledge which made his good-tempered gossip seem rather +remarkable. I could not but admire that a man so situated should be +able to talk with such urbanity. + +He had been at the barber's the previous evening, where another man +was discoursing at large about the war. And said Bettesworth: + +"I _do_ like to hear anything like that. Or if they'll read a +newspaper. There I could 'bide listenin' all night. And if anybody +else was to open their mouths, I should be like enough to tell 'em to +shut up. Because, if you goes to hear anything, _hear_ it. Same as at +church or chapel or a entertainment: _you_ goes to listen, an' then +p'r'aps four or five behind ye gets to talkin'. I always says, if you +goes anywhere, go and be quiet. You en't obliged to go, but when you +do go, behave yourself." + +The talkers, I might have reminded Bettesworth, are not always "behind +ye"; there are those who take front seats who might profit by his +little homily on good manners. But he only meant that the discourtesy +is the more disturbing, because it is the more audible, when it comes +from behind. + +He passed easily on to a discussion of the weather, and again his +superlative good sense was to the fore. On Sunday, he said, he had +tried to persuade his neighbours--working-men, like himself, only +younger--to bring their shovels and scatter sand on the path down the +gully, which was coated with ice. Already he had done a longish piece +of it himself, but much remained to do. Several men had "went up +reg'lar busters," and "children and young gals" on their way to church +had fallen down. It would be a public service to besprinkle the path +with sand. So Bettesworth made his suggestion to his neighbours--"four +or five of 'em. They was hangin' about: hadn't got nothin' to do." But +no. They shrugged their shoulders and walked away. It was no business +of theirs. They even laughed at the old man for the trouble he had +already taken, for which no one would pay him. And now, in telling me +about it, it was his neighbours' want of public spirit that annoyed +him. They had not come up to his standard of the behaviour meet for a +labouring man. + +Who would have imagined that, while he was telling me this, and for +days previously, he was in a state of severe mental distress, +aggravated by bodily fatigue? I had no suspicion of it, and was +surprised enough when told by a third person. But it was true--too +true. He admitted it readily when I asked him. His wife was ill again, +worse than she had been for three years, since the time when she fell +down in an epileptic fit and broke her wrist. She had had many minor +attacks during the interval, but this was serious now. + +As I have already told the poor old woman's story, or at least this +part of it, in another place, I may not repeat it here; but for the +sake of continuity the episode must be summarized. Three years earlier +Bettesworth had obtained an order for his wife's admission to the +workhouse infirmary. Hateful though the merest suspicion of benefiting +by parish aid was to him, there had been no other course open at that +time; for what could he do for an old woman with a broken limb, and a +malady that made her for the time half-witted? And yet, owing to +overcrowding at the infirmary, amazed and indignant he had brought her +home again on the fourth day, because she had been lodged and treated +as a common pauper. Consequently I knew that he must be at extremities +now, when it came out that he was deciding again to send the old lady +to the infirmary. But he was at his wits' end what to do for her. He +could not afford to stay at home from work; yet while he was away she +was alone, since her condition and temper made neighbours reluctant to +help. Sometimes the fear haunted him that she would meet a violent +death, falling in a fit on to the fire, perhaps; sometimes he dreaded +that he would have to put her finally away into an asylum. What he +endured in the long agonizing nights when her fits were upon her, in +the silent winter evenings when he sat for hours watching her pain and +wondering what to do, no one will ever know. As best he could, he used +at such times to wash her and dress her himself--he with his fumbling +fingers and dim eyes; and wanting sleep, wanting the food that neither +of them could prepare, alone and unknown, he struggled to keep in +order his miserable cottage. Almost a week must have passed like this +before I heard of the trouble, and asked him about it. Then he laid +his difficulties before me, and asked for my advice. + +To men in Bettesworth's position it is always an embarrassment to +comply with the formalities of official business. They do not see the +reason, and they feel keenly the wearisomeness, of the steps which must +be taken to gain their end. Bettesworth now seemed paralyzed; he had +forgotten how to go on; moreover, he could not be satisfied--although +there was a new infirmary--that his wife would be more decently +treated there than in the old one. If only he could be sure of that! +But of course he was not important enough to approach, himself, anyone +so important as a guardian; and, accordingly, I undertook to make +inquiries for him. + +It is indeed a tedious business--I experienced it afterwards too--that +of getting a sick person from this village into the local infirmary. +It seemed that Bettesworth must lose at least a day's work in +arranging for the removal of his wife. She could not be admitted to +the house without a certificate from the parish doctor, who lived in +the town, a mile and a half away. But the doctor might only attend +upon Bettesworth's presenting an order to be obtained from the +relieving officer, two miles away in the exactly opposite direction. +The medical man would then come as soon as he found convenient, and +Bettesworth would be provided with a certificate for his wife's +removal to the infirmary. But he might not act upon that alone. With +that in his possession, he would have to wait again upon the relieving +officer, to get an order upon the workhouse master to admit the +patient, and to arrange for a conveyance to take her away. + +We talked it over, he and I, that afternoon, not cheered by the wild +weather that was hourly worsening. If all went well on the morrow, +Bettesworth would have some twelve miles of walking to do; but it was +most likely that, between relieving officer and doctor, two or even +three days would elapse before the desired relief would be +accomplished. However, the immediate thing to do was clear enough: he +must make his first visit to the relieving officer as soon as +possible. + +I forget on what grounds, but we agreed that it was useless to attempt +anything that night; and since the officer would be off at eight in +the morning for his day's duty in other places, Bettesworth proposed +to be up betimes, and catch him at his office before he started. It +would be just possible then, by hurrying, to get back over the three +or four miles to the town, and find the doctor before he too should +leave for the day. Otherwise there would be a sickening delay. + +The whole thing was sickening already, in its inevitable mechanical +clumsiness. Still, there was no help for it. The weather meanwhile was +threatening hindrance. A small driving snow had set in in the +afternoon, and was inclined to freeze as it fell; and for some time +before dark the opposite side of the valley had become all but +invisible, blotted out by the dreary whiteness of the storm. At +nightfall, the weather seemed to turn wicked. Hours afterwards, as I +sat listening to the howling gusts of wind, which puffed the smoke +from out of my fire, and brought the snow with a crisp bristling sound +against my window, I could not get out of my head the thought of +Bettesworth, alone with his crazy wife down there in that cottage, or +the fear that deep snow might prevent his morning's journey. And then +it was that recollection of his recent quiet conversations came over +me. So to have talked, keeping all this trouble to himself, while he +listened to the war news, and did his best to make the footways +passable--there was surely a touch of greatness in it. + +And it makes no difference to my estimate of him that, after all, he +did not go to the relieving officer the next morning. On the further +progress of Mrs. Bettesworth's illness at this time my notebook is +silent; but, as I recall now, she took a turn for the better that +night, and by the morning was so improved that thought of the +infirmary was given up. + + + + +VI + + +For eight months after this the account of Bettesworth's sayings and +doings is all but a blank. There was one summer--and perhaps it was +this one of the year 1900--when he joined an excursion for his annual +day's holiday, and made a long trip to Weymouth. Need it be said that +he enjoyed the outing immensely? He came back to work the next day +overflowing with the humour and interest of what he had seen and done. +Had not old Bill Brixton lost his hat out of the train? And some other +old chap sat down on a seat on Weymouth front, and stayed there all +day and seen nothing? Bettesworth, too, had sat down, and had a most +enjoyable conversation with a native of the place; but he had also +taken steamer to Portland, and there got a drive to the prison and +seen the convicts, and had a joke and a laugh with the driver of the +brake, and a drink with a party of excursionists from Birmingham, who +appreciated his society, and called him "uncle," and whose unfamiliar +speech he imitated well enough to make me laugh. And then he had +persuaded a seaman to take him out to the fleet and show him over a +man-of-war; and finally had enlivened the homeward journey by chaffing +old Bill, and sharing with him "a quarten o' whisky," which he +carried in a medicine bottle. + +This, I am inclined to believe, was an event of 1900, but I cannot +verify it, and in any case it accounts for but one day. The dimness of +the remainder of those eight months is but faintly illuminated--and +that, it may be, for me only--by two memoranda mentioning Bettesworth +as present at certain affairs, and by one all too short scrap of his +own talk. He was speaking of Irishmen, no doubt in reference to some +gallant deed or other in South Africa, and this is what he said: + +"Ye see, they makes as brave soldiers as any.... All I got to say +about Irishmen is, when you be at work with 'em, you got to think +yourself as good as they, or a little better. 'Relse if they thinks +you be givin' way they'll trample on ye. 'Xcept for that, I'd as lief +work with Irishmen as Englishmen.... I remember once when I was at +work on a buildin' for Knight, a Irishman come for me with his shovel +like this." Bettesworth turned his shovel edgeways, raising it high. +"He'd ha' split me if he'd ha' hit me; and as soon as he'd missed me I +downed 'n. Little Georgie Knight come down off the scaffold to stop +us; I'd got the feller down, an' was payin' of 'n. '_I'll_ give 'n +'Ome Rule!' I says; and so I did, too. He'd ha' killed me if he'd hit +me. I s'pose I'd said somethin' he didn't like." + +A March note, this last. As there is nothing else, I take it that the +daily conversation was of the usual kind, about being forward in +sowing seeds, and allowing enough room for potatoes, and so on. + + +_June 10._--A note of June names Bettesworth among other interested +spectators of an event no less singular than the death of a donkey. To +me, the name of him on the page of my journal, coupled with one of his +dry remarks, brings back vividly the whole scene: the glowing Sunday +afternoon, the blue loveliness of the distant hills, the look of the +grass, and all the tingling sense of the far-spread summer life +surrounding the dying animal. But the narrative has little to do with +Bettesworth, and would be out of place here. It just serves as a +reminder that one more summer was passing over him; that, among the +strong men who felt the heat in this valley that season, he was still +one. + +Carry that impression on, through the harvest time, and yet on and on +until the end of September, and you may see him (or I, at least, may) +one dark night, entering, all dazzled by the naked lamp, a little room +where the Liberals have summoned an "important meeting of Liberal +workers." He has come, like the present writer, in the expectation of +hearing some "spouting," as he said afterwards. But though he is +disappointed, and finds himself,--he, the least fanatic of men--the +witness only of excited efforts to arrange for canvassing the district +in readiness for the approaching election, still, conforming to his +own rule of "behaving," he sits respectfully silent, though looking +disconsolate and "sold," and his grey head, the home of such steady +thoughts, has a pathetic dignity in its dark corner, and surrounded by +the noisy politicians. + + + + +VII + + +So cramped-in as it was between sandbank and stream, Bettesworth's +garden had no place for a pigsty; and as his wife could not be happy +without "something to feed," he had bought her a few fowls to amuse +her. With stakes and wire netting he made a diminutive "run" for them, +which really seemed to adorn the end of the cottage, being stuck into +the corner made by the whitewashed wall and the yellow sand-cliff. The +fowls, it is true, had not room to thrive; but if Bettesworth made but +little profit of them, they afforded him much contentment; and the +afternoon sunshine used to fall very pleasantly on the little +fowl-pen. + +Needless to say, he was not exempt from the common troubles of the +poultry-keeper. I remember smiling to myself once at his gravity in +mentioning that one of the hens had begun to crow. He did not, indeed, +own to thinking it a sign of bad luck, but his looks seemed to suggest +that he was uneasy. As everyone knows, a crowing hen, if it does not +portend death, is neither fit for gods nor men; so Bettesworth +realized that he must kill the ill-omened bird, "as soon as he could +find out which of 'em 'twas." Another time there were some little +chicks, and his cat became troublesome; and, worse still, there came a +rat, which had to be ferreted out. + +And were there marauders besides these? I have stated that beyond +Bettesworth's own cottage there were others of the same class, one of +which was inhabited for a little while by a family whose honesty was +not above suspicion. Would these people interfere with his fowls? It +was a point to be considered. + +He considered it--it was on a day in October, 1900--and so strayed off +into a rambling talk of many things. The ill-conditioned neighbours +(he comforted himself by thinking) would leave his fowls alone, +because depredations of that kind were an unheard-of thing in our +parish. + +"There, I will say that," he observed, "you never no fear o' _losin'_ +anything here. If a man leaves his tool--a spud or anything--in the +ground, there 'tis. Nobody don't touch it. Up there at (he named a +near village) they say 'tis different. But here, I should think there +never was a better place for that!" + +For a certain reason I took up this point, and hinted that Flamborough +in Yorkshire must be an equally honest place. The Flamborough people, +I had been told, never lock their doors at night, for fear of locking +out the spirits of relatives drowned at sea. + +Would Bettesworth take the bait, and tell me anything he might know +about ghosts? Not he. The interruption changed the course, but not +the character, of his talk. He looked rather shocked at these +benighted Yorkshiremen, and commented severely, "Weak-minded, _I_ +calls it." Then, after a momentary silence, he was off on a new track, +with reminiscences of Selsey fishermen whom he used to see when he +went harvesting into Sussex; who go about, "any time o' night, +accordin' to the tides," and whose thick boots can be heard "clumpin' +along the street" in the dark. All men at Selsey, he said, were +fishermen. The only regular hands employed by the neighbouring farmers +were shepherds and carters. + +He had got quite away from the point in my mind. But as I had long +wondered whether Bettesworth had any ghost stories, I harked back now +to the Flamborough people, egging him on to be communicative. It was +all in vain, however. He shook his head. The subject seemed foreign to +him. + +"As I often says, I bin about all times o' the night, an' I never met +nothin' worse than myself. Only time as ever I was froughtened was +when I was carter chap at Penstead. Our farm was down away from +t'other, 'cause Mr. Barnes had two farms--'t least, he had three--and +ourn was away from t'other, and I was sent late at night to git out +the waggon--no, the pole-carriage. I set up on the front on the +shafts, with a truss o' hay behind me; and all of a sudden she" (the +mare, I suppose he meant) "snarked an' begun to turn round in the +road. The chap 'long with me--no, he wa'n't 'long with me, 'cause +he'd gone on to open the gate, and so there was I alone. And all +'twas, was a old donkey rollin' in the road. She'd smelt 'n, ye know; +an' the nearer we got, the more froughtened she was, till she turned +right round there in the road. 'Twas a nasty thing for me; they hosses +with their legs over the traces, and all that, and me down atween +'em." + +He was fairly off now. A tale followed of stumbling over a drunken +man, who lay all across the road one dark night. + +"Wonder's 't hadn't broke his ribs, me kickin' up again' him like +that. I went all asprawl; barked me hands too. But when he hollered +out, I knowed who 'twas then. 'Twas old...." + +Well, it doesn't matter who it was. There were no ghost stories to be +had, so I related a schoolday adventure, of a glow-worm picked up, and +worn in a cap for a little way, and then missed; of a glimmer seen in +the ditch, which might be the glow-worm; of a groping towards the +glimmer, and a terrified leap back, upon hearing from behind it a +gruff "Hullo, mate!" + +Bettesworth did not find this silly, like my Flamborough story. It +opened another vista of reminiscence, down which he could at least +look. Unhesitatingly he took the chance, commenting, + +"Ah! porchers, very likely, lurkin' about there for a meetin, p'r'aps. +They do like that, sometimes. I remember once, when Mellish was keeper +at Culverley, there was some chaps in there at The Horse one night +with their dogs, talkin' about what they was goin' to do. Mellish, he +slips out, to send the word round, 'cause all the men at Culverley was +s'posed to go out at such a job, if need be. So he sends round the +message to 'em--Bromley, an' Dick Harris, an' Knight, an' several +more, to meet 'n at a certain place, where he'd heard these chaps say +they was goin' to work. And so they (the poachers) set in there +talkin' about what they was goin' to do; and at last, when they come +away, they went right off into the town. While they'd bin keepin' the +keeper there a-watchin' 'em, another gang had bin' an' purty well +cleared the place out. _Bags_-full, they must ha' had. Mellish told me +so hisself. While he was expectin' to have they, they was havin' him. +He never was so sold, he said. But a clever trick, I calls it." + + + + +VIII + + +_October 17, 1900._-Two words of Bettesworth's, noted down for their +strangeness at the time, restore for me the October daylight, the +October air. He was discussing the scarlet-runner beans (I can picture +now their warm tints of decay), and he estimated our chances of +getting another picking from them. The chances were good, he thought, +because in the sheltered corner where the beans stood, uplifted as it +was above the mists that chilled the bottom of the valley, "these +little snibblin' frostis that we gets o' mornin's" would not be felt. +"Snibblin'" was a new word to me, and now I find it associated in my +mind with the earliest approaches of our English winter. + +Near the beans there were brussels sprouts, their large leaves soaked +with colour out of the clouded day. Little grey swarms of "white fly" +flitted out as I walked between them; and, again, Bettesworth's name +for that form of blight--"they little minners"--brings back the scene: +the quiet vegetable garden, the sad rich autumn tints, the overcast +sky, the moist motionless air. + +To this undertone of peace--the peace you can best absorb at labours +like his--he was able to discourse dispassionately of things not +peaceful. In a cottage higher up the valley there was trouble this +October. I may not give details of it; but, in rough summary, an old +woman had died, her last days rendered unhappy by the misbehaviour of +her son--a young labourer. Talk of his "carrying on," his late hours, +his frantic drinking, and subsequent delirium, crept stealthily up and +down the lanes. He was "a low blackguard," "a scamp," and so forth. +The comments were excited, generally breathless, once or twice shrill. +But Bettesworth kept his head. An indignant matron said spitefully, + +"'Ten't every young feller gets such a good home as that left to 'n." + +"Well, and who got a better right to 't?" was Bettesworth's calm +rejoinder. + + +_November 10._--A month later a ripple of excitement from the outside +world found its way down the lane. Saturday, November 10, was the day +when General Buller, recalled from the war, arrived at Aldershot, and +for miles around the occasion was made the excuse for a holiday by the +working people. It was a point of honour with them not to desert their +favourite under a cloud. They left off work early, and flocked to +Aldershot station by hundreds, if not thousands, to make sure that he +had a welcome. On the following Monday Bettesworth, full of +enthusiasm, gave me an account of the affair as he had had it from +numerous eyewitnesses. For, in truth, it had been "all the talk +yesterday"--on the Sunday, namely. Young Bill Skinner, in particular, +had been voluble, with such exclamations, such staring of excited +eyes, that Bettesworth was reminded not without concern of the +sunstroke which had threatened Skinner's reason two summers +previously. Nevertheless, the tale was worth Bettesworth's hearing and +repeating; "there never was a man in England so much respected" as +Buller, Skinner supposed. On alighting from the train, the General's +first act had been to shake hands with his old coachman--a deed that +touched the hearts of all these working folk. + +"And there was never a sign o' soldiers; 'twas all +townspeople--civilians, that is; and the cheerin'--there! Skinner said +he hollered till he was hoarse. He ast me" (Bettesworth) "how 'twas I +didn't go over; but I said, 'Naw....' Not but what I _likes_ the old +feller!" + +Bettesworth made no answer but that expressive "No" of disinclination, +but I can amplify it. He was not now a young man, to go tearing off +enthusiastically for an eight-mile walk, which was sure to end in a +good deal of drinking and excitement. His days for that were gone by +for ever. Prudence warned him that he was best off pottering about in +his regular way, here at home. + +There was another reason, too, to restrain him. It brings us swiftly +back for a moment from war incidents and the public excitement to the +very interior of that hovel down by the "Lake," to learn that poor old +Lucy Bettesworth was once more ill at this time. Her brother calling, +and exhibiting an unwonted kindliness, had thrown her into sudden +hysteria ending in epileptic fits. Even had Bettesworth felt inclined, +he could not have left her. He told me the circumstances, and much, +too, of her life history--the most of which has been already +published, and may be omitted here. The illness, however, was not so +severe as to engage all Bettesworth's thoughts. It allowed him to take +interest in Buller's return, and on the same day to discourse of other +outside matters too, in which all our valley was interested through +these months. + +Word had reached him somehow of the proposals just then announced for +the higher training of our soldiers; and he foresaw increased +difficulties in recruiting on these terms. There was too much work to +be had, and it was too well paid, to make young men eager to join the +army; and the service certainly did not need to be rendered less +attractive than it was. Bettesworth, it seemed, had already been +discussing this very point with his neighbours. As to the disturbance +of the labour market consequent upon the war, he viewed it with no +favour. The inflated prices of labour seemed to him unwholesome; they +were having an injurious effect upon young men, giving them an +exaggerated opinion of their true worth as labourers. And this was +particularly true, since the building of the new camp at Bordon had +begun. "Old Tom Rawson," he reported, had "never seen the likes of the +young fellers that was callin' theirselves carpenters an' bricklayers +now. Any young chap only got to take a trowel over to Woolmer (by +Bordon), and he'd be put on as a bricklayer, at sixpence a hour. And +you mawn't stop to show 'em nothing. If the clurk o' the works or the +inspector come round, 't 'd be, 'What's that man doin', showin' the +others?' Tom said he wa'n't _goin'_ to show 'em, neither. Why, at one +time nobody ever thought of employin' a man, onless he could show his +indentures. But now--'tis anybody." "The foreman" had lately come to +Tom Rawson "askin' him jest to give an eye to some young chaps," and +promising him another halfpenny an hour. And Bettesworth commented, +"But dessay he (the foreman) was gettin' his bite out o' the +youngsters." + +Not Bettesworth, not even that hardened old Tom Rawson, would have +countenanced such things had they been appealed to; but tales of this +kind only filtered down into Bettesworth's obscure nook, to provide +him with a subject for five minutes' thought, and then leave him again +to his homely occupations. What had he to do with the War Office and +inefficiency in high places? From this very talk, it is recorded, he +turned appreciatively to watch the cat purring round my legs, and by +her fond softness was reminded of his rabbits--six young ones--which +the mother had not allowed him to see until yesterday. And he spoke +wonderingly of her mother-instinct. The old rabbit was "purty near +naked," having "almost stripped herself" to make a bed for these young +ones, so that the bed was "all white fluff before they come," and now +she "kep' 'em covered up." "Everything," said Bettesworth, "has their +_nature_, ye see." + +In this fashion, with these trivial interests, the year drew on to its +close in our valley. December gives glimpses of trouble in another +household--that of the Skinners, Bettesworth being cognizant of all, +but saying little. It did not disturb the peacefulness of his own +existence. Events might come or delay, he was content; he was hardly +in the world of events, but in a world where things did not so much +"happen" as go placidly on. He worked, and rested, and I do not +believe that he was often dull. + + + + +IX + + +_January, 1901._--The winter, which so far had been mild and open, +began to assume its natural character with the new year; and on the +first Monday of January--it was the 7th--we had snow, followed by hard +frost. The snow was not unexpected. Saturday--a day of white haze +suffused with sunlight--had provided a warning of it in the shape of +frozen rime, clinging like serried rows of penknife blades to the +eastern edges of all things, and noticeably to the telegraph-wires, +which with that additional weight kept up all day a shiver of +vibration dazzling to look at against the misty blue of the sky. Then +the snow came, and the frost on top of that, and by Tuesday it was bad +travelling on all roads. + +Bettesworth grumbled, of course; but I believe that really he rather +liked the touch of winter. At any rate, it was with a sort of gloating +satisfaction that he remarked: + +"I hunted out my old gaiters this morning. They en't much, but they +keeps your legs dry. And I do think that is so nice, to feel the +bottoms of your trousers dry." + +I suppose it is, when one thinks of it, though it had never struck me +before. But then, I had never had the experience which had shown +Bettesworth the true inwardness of this philosophy of his. + +"I've knowed what it is," he said, "to have my trousers soppin' wet +all round the bottoms, and then it have come on an' freezed 'em as +stiff as boards all round." + +That was years ago, during a short spell of piecework in a gravel-pit. +Now, secure in his gaiters and in his easier employment, he could look +back with amusement to the hardships he had lived through. One of a +similar kind was hinted at presently. For the roughness of the roads, +under this frozen snow, naturally suggested such topics. + +"What d'ye think of our neighbour Mardon?" he exclaimed. "Bin an' +chucked up his job, and 's goin' back to Aldershot blacksmithin' +again. He must be in want of a walk!" + +"Regular as clockwork," Mardon, be it explained, had walked daily to +his work at Aldershot, and then back at night, for upwards of twenty +years. The day's walk was about ten miles. Then suddenly he left, and +now for six months had been working as bricklayer's labourer, at a job +about an equal distance away in another direction, to which he walked +as before every day, wet or fine. This was the job he had "chucked," +to return to his old trade in the old place. He might well give it up! +Said Bettesworth, + +"How many miles d'ye think he walked last week, to put in forty-five +hours at work? Fifty-four! Four and a half miles there, and four and a +half back. Fifty-four miles for forty-five hours. There's walkin' for +ye! And through that enclosure, too!" + +The "enclosure" is a division of Alice Holt Forest--perhaps two miles +of it--on Mardon's way to his now abandoned job. And Bettesworth +recalled the discomforts of this walk. + +"I knows what it is, all through them woods in the dark, 'cause I used +to go that way myself when I was workin' for Whittingham. 'Specially +if the fox-hounds bin that way. Then 'tis mud enough to smother ye. +There was a fancy sort o' bloke--a carpenter--used to go 'long with +us, with his shirt-cuffs, and his trousers turned up, and his shoes +cleaned. We did use to have some games with 'n, no mistake. He'd go +tip-toein' an' skippin' to get over the mud; an' then, jest as we was +passin' a puddle, we'd plump one of our feet down into 't, an' send +the mud _all over_ 'n. An' with his tip-toein' an' skippin' he got it +wuss than we did, without that. An' when we come to the Royal Oak, +'cause we gen'ly used to turn in there on our way home, he'd be +lookin' at hisself up an' down and grumblin'--'Tha bluhmin' mud!' +(this in fair imitation of Cockney speech)--'tha bluhmin' mud! Who can +_stick_ it!' Same in the mornin' when he got there. He'd be brushin' +his coat, an' scrapin' of it off his trousers with his knife, an' +gettin' a bundle o' shavin's to wipe his boots. + +"But a very good carpenter! Whittingham used to say he couldn't wish +for a better man. But he'd bin used to bench-work all his life, an' +didn't know what to make of it. An' we used to have some games with +'n. If there was any job wanted doin' out o' doors, they'd send for he +sooner 'n one o' t'others, jest to see how he'd go on. And handlin' +the dirty timber, an' lookin' where to put his saw--oh, we did give 'n +a doin'. But 'twas winter, ye know, and I fancy he didn't know hardly +where to go. We had some pantomimes with 'n, though, no mistake. + +"There used to be another ol' feller--a plumber--when I was at work +for Grange in Church Street; Ben Crawte went 'long with 'n as +plumber's labourer. Ben had some pantomimes with he too. He'd git the +handles of his tools all over dirt, for he to take hold of when he +come to use 'em. Oldish man he was--old as I be, I dessay. And he'd +pay anybody to give 'n a lift any time, sooner 'n he'd walk through +the mud. We never knowed the goin' of 'n, at last...." + +I, for my part, do not remember "the goin'" of these queer +reminiscences. They are like the snows of the past--like the snow +which actually lay white in our valley while Bettesworth talked. + +As to his heartless treatment of this unhappy carpenter, those who +would condemn it may yet consider how that gang of men could have +endured their miserable journeys, if they had admitted that anyone +had the least right to be distressed. Among labourers there is such +peril in effeminacy that to yield to it is a kind of treason. +Bettesworth had nothing but contempt for it. I more than once heard +his scorn of "tip-toeing," and shall be able to give another instance +by-and-by. + + + + +X + + +During this year 1901, until the last month or two, not much +additional matter relating to Bettesworth was recorded; it just +suffices to show his life quietly passing on in company with the +passing seasons. + + +_February 1, 1901._--We have already had a glimpse of the winter. And +now, although it is only February, there comes, as in February there +often will, a day truly springlike, and Bettesworth's talk matches it. +The first morning of February was clear and shimmering, the roads +being hard with frost, the air crisp, the trees hung with the dazzling +drops into which the sunshine had converted the rime of the dawn. Most +of these drops appeared blinding white, but now and again there would +come from them a sparkle of flame-red or a glisten of emerald, or, +best of all, a flash of earnest burning blue, as if the morning sky +itself were liquefying on the bare branches. The grass, although under +it the ground was frozen, had a brilliancy of colour which certainly +was no winter tint. It suggested where, if one looked, one would find +the green spear-points of crocuses and daffodils already inch-high out +of the soil. The spring, in fact, was in the air, and the earth was +stirring with it. + +In Bettesworth's mood, too, was a hint of spring. All through the +winter many hours which would otherwise have been lonely for him in +this garden had been cheered by the companionship of a robin. How +often he remarked, "You may do anything you mind to with 'n, but you +mawn't handle 'im"! For the bird seemed to know him, and he used to +call it his "mate," because it worked with him wherever he was turning +up the soil. + +And now on this gay morning, as we crossed the lawn together, he said, +"Little Bob bin 'long with me again this mornin', hoppin' about just +in front o' my shovel, and twiddlin' and talkin' to me.... Look at 'n! +There he is now!" on the low bough of a young beech-tree at the edge +of the grass. And as we stood to admire, "_There's_ a little chap!" he +exclaimed exultantly. Then he took up his shovel to resume work near +the tree, and "Little Bob" hopped down, every minute picking up +something to swallow. I could not see what tiny morsels the bird was +finding, and, confessing as much, felt snubbed by Bettesworth's +immediate reply, "Ah, _he_ got sharp eyes." Presently, however, the +robin found a large centipede, and suddenly--it was gone alive and +wriggling down the small throat. "He must ha' got a good bellyful," +said Bettesworth. + +At intervals Bob would pause, look straight at us, and "twiddle" a +little song in an undertone which, for all one could hear to the +contrary, might have come from some distance behind or beside us, and +could only be identified as proceeding from the robin by the +accompanying movements of his ruddy throat. + +"Sweet little birds, I calls 'em," said Bettesworth, using an epithet +rare with him. "And it's a funny thing," he continued, "wherever a +man's at work there's sure to be a robin find him out. _I_'ve noticed +it often. If I bin at work in the woods, a robin 'd come, or in the +harvest-field, jest the same.... Hark at 'n twiddlin'! And by-'n-by +when his crop's full he'll get up in a tree and _sing_...." + +The old man did a stroke or two with his shovel, and then: "I don't +hear no starlin's about. 'Relse, don't ye mind last year they had a +nest up in the shed?" + +I hinted that my two cats might have something to do with the absence +of the starlings, and Bettesworth's talk flitted easily to the new +subject. + +"Ah, that young cat--_she_ wouldn't care" how many starlings she +caught. "_She's_ goin' to be my cat" (the cat for his favour). "Every +mornin', as soon as the servant opens the door, she" (the cat) "is +out, prowlin' all round. And she don't mind the cold; you see, she +liked the snow--played with it. Now, our old Tab, as soon as I be out +o' my nest she's in it. Very often she'll come up on to our bed, +heavin' and tuckin' about, to get into the warm." + +What a gift of expression the old man had got! But almost without a +pause he went on, "The postman tells me he brought word this mornin' +to all the pubs, tellin' 'em they was to close to-morrow" (Saturday, +the day of Queen Victoria's funeral), "out of respect to our Queen's +memory. 'T least, they're requested to--en't forced to. But so they +ought to show her respect. Go where you will, you can't hear anybody +with a word to say against her. 'Tis to be hoped the new King 'll be +as worthy of respect." + +Again, without transition: "How that little tree do grow!" He placed +his hand on the stem of a young lime. "Gettin' quite a body. So-and-so +tells me he put them in overright Mr. Watson's forty-five years ago, +and look what trees they be now! They terrible wanted to cut 'em down +when they made that alteration to the road down there, but Watson said +he wouldn't have 'em moved for any money.... I likes a lime; 'tis such +a bower." + +So the pleasant chatter oozed out of him, as he worked with leisurely +stroke, enjoying the morning. With his robins and his bowers, he was +in the most cheerful spirits. At one time there was talk of the +doctor, whom he had seen going down the lane on a bicycle, and had +warned against trying to cross the stream, which the coming of the +mild weather had flooded; and of the doctor's thanks, since he +disliked wading; and of Bettesworth's own suggestion, laughingly +assented to, that the doctor's "horse" was not partial to water. + +It was all so spontaneous, this chatter, so innocent of endeavour to +get the effect it produced, that a quite incongruous subject was +powerless to mar its quality. He told me that, two days ago, he had +bespoken at the butcher's shop a bullock's head, and that when he went +to get it on this same glistening morning the butcher commended him +for coming early, because "people was reg'lar runnin' after him for +'em." So early was he that the bullock had not been killed an hour, +and he had to wait while they skinned the head and "took the eyes +out," Bettesworth no doubt looking on with interest. And he had +brought this thing home with him--was going to put it in brine at +night, "and then to-morrer into the pot it goes, and that 'll make me +some rare nice soup." + + +_March 1, 1901._--I am reminded, however, that this was not real +spring, but only a foretaste of it. As yet the birds were not pairing, +and before their day came (according to Bettesworth, St. Valentine's +is the day when the birds begin to pair) there was more snow. But +observe the advance the spring has made when March comes in. On the +first afternoon of March I noticed Bettesworth's "mate" with him +again, "twiddlin'," as usual; but I fancied and said that he looked +larger than before, and Bettesworth suggested that perhaps he was +living better--getting more food. Then I thought that the robin's +crest seemed more feathery, and was told at once, "That shows the time +o' year. Wonderful how tame he is!" exclaimed the old man. He added, +shaking his head, "But he goes away courtin' at times. He loses a lot +o' time" (from his work with Bettesworth). "Then he comes back, and +sets up on the fence an' _sings_ to me.... But he loses a lot o' time. +I tells 'n I shall 'ave to 'ave done with 'n." + + +_April 19._--Six weeks go by, during which the lawn grass has been +growing, and by the middle of April Bettesworth is busy with the +lawn-mower. There was a neglected grass plot, never mown before save +with the scythe, over which he tried this spring to run the machine. +But failing, and explaining why, he used an old word so oddly that I +noted it, whereby it happens that I get now this minute reminder of an +April occupation. + +"She," he said, meaning the machine, would certainly refuse to cut +some of the coarser tussocks of this grass. "Why, even down there +where I bin cuttin', see how she took they cuds in her mouth and spet +'em out--like a old feller with a chew o' baccer--he'll bite and +spet...." + +The "cuds" to which he referred were little tufts of grass, which only +persistent rolling would reduce to a level meet for a lawn-mower. + + +_June 22._--Omitting one short reference to somebody else's family +history, and one yet shorter observation on horses and their eyesight, +we skip right over May, nor stop again till we come to the longest +days. Here the record alights for a moment, just long enough to show a +wet mid-June, and Bettesworth keenly alive to the duties of husbandmen +in it. He glanced down towards the meadow in the bottom of the valley. +An unfinished rick of hay stood there, waiting for the remaining +grass, which lay about on the ground, and was losing colour. And +Bettesworth said, + +"Bill Crawte 'll play about wi' that little bit o' hay down there till +'tis all spoilt." + +In truth, it should have been taken up the previous day, as I ventured +to suggest. Then Bettesworth, contemptuously, + +"He told me he heared it rainin' this mornin' at three o'clock, and +got up to cover his rick over. _He'd heared_ it _rainin'_. Why, he +might ha' bin asleep, an' then that rain would ha' gone down into that +rick two foot or more." + +That is all. There is no more to tell of the old man's summer, nothing +for July and August. But in September we get a glance back to the past +harvest, a glance round at the earliest autumn prospects, and a +strange suggestion of the first-class importance of these things in +the life of country labouring folk. In brief compass, the talk runs +rapidly over many points of interest. + + +_September 6._--For if "the fly" was not on our seedling cabbage, as +we were inclined to fear, it had certainly ruined sundry sowings of +turnips, both in this garden and down there where Bettesworth lived. + +"We can't help it," so he philosophized, "and I don't care if we get +enough for ourselves, though I should ha' liked to have more." But +"Hammond says _he's_ turnips be all spiled, and Porter's brother what +lives over here at this cot" (the brother, that is, of Porter, who +lives over here), "he bin down to Sussex harvestin' for the same man I +worked for so many years. Seven weeks. But then he bin hoein'.... He +was tellin' me his master down there sowed hunderd an' twenty acres o' +swedes, and never saved twenty of 'em. Fly took 'em all, and he had to +drill again with turnips. Swedes, and same with the mangol'. + +"He says they've had it as hot down there as we have here. But, straw! +There was some straw, by all accounts. Young Collison what lives over +opposite me was 'long with 'n. Seven weeks he" (which?) "was away, but +it seems he had a bit of a miff with his wife, and went off +unbeknownst to her. She went to the relievin' officer, and he told her +_they'd_ find 'n, if she'd go into the union. He was off harvestin'. +He told me o' Sunday he thought 't 'd do her good." + +"Who was she?" + +"Gal from Reading. He was up that way somewhere for 'leven year, in a +brick-works. And she thought very likely as he was gone off into some +brick-works again; but he was down in Sussex, harvestin'." + + +_September 21._--Though only two weeks later, there is distinct autumn +in the next fragment, and yet perhaps for me only, because of the +picture it calls up. I remember a very still Saturday afternoon, a sky +curtained by quiet cloud, the air motionless, a grey mist stealing +into the lane that leads down into the heart of the valley. Certainly +it was an autumn day. + +As he always did on Saturdays, Bettesworth had swept up the garden +paths with extra care, and on this afternoon had taken the sweepings +into the lane, to fill up a rut there. Upon my going out to see him, +he chuckled. + +"You'd ha' laughed if you'd ha' bin out here wi' me at dinner-time. A +lady come up the lane, wantin' to know who you was. 'Who lives here?' +she says." He mimicked a high-pitched and affected voice. "'Mister +Bourne,' I says. 'Iss he a gentilman?' she says. 'You don't s'pose +he's a lady, do ye?' I says. 'What a beastlie road!' she says, and +went off, tip-toein' an' twistin' herself about--dunno how to walk nor +talk neither." + +I asked who the lady was. + +"I dunno. Strangers--she and a man with her. 'Iss he a gentilman?' she +says. I can't _bear_ for people to be inquisitive. What should she +want to know all about you for? Might ha' knowed you wasn't a lady. +There, I was _bound_ to give her closure, askin' me such a silly +question!" + +"What were they doing down here?" + +"They was down here hookin' down blackberries with a stick. And then +come askin' me a silly question like that! _Silly_ questions! I don't +see what people wants to ast 'em for. She went off 'long o' the man, +huggin' up close to him, an' twistin' herself about. Dunno how to walk +nor yet talk! 'Iss he a gentilman!'" + + +_November 10, 1901._--Two odd words--one of them perhaps newly coined +for the occasion, the other misused--were the reason for my preserving +a short note which brings us to November, and shows us Bettesworth +proposing to himself a task appropriate to the season. The sap was +dying down in the trees; the fruit bushes had lost their leaves, and +stood ready for winter, and their arrangement offended Bettesworth's +taste. He would have had the garden formal and orderly, if he had been +able. + +"I thought I'd take up them currant bushes," he said, "and put 'em in +again in rotation"--in a straight row, he meant, as he went on to +explain. "They'd look better than all jaggled about, same as they be +now." + +And so the currant-bushes, which until then were "jaggled," or +zig-zagged about, were duly moved, and stand to this day in a line. At +that time he could still see a currant-bush, and criticize its +position. + + +_November 22._--Towards fallen leaves, it is recorded a little later, +he preserved a constant animosity. His patient sweepings and +grumblings were one of the notes of early winter for me--"the +slovenliest time of all the year," he used to say. + +He even doubted that leaves made a good manure, and he quoted +authorities in support of his own opinion. Had not a gardener in the +town said that he, for his part, always burnt the leaves, as soon as +they were dry enough to burn, because "they be reg'lar poison to the +ground"? Or, "if you opens a hole and puts in a bushel or two to form +mould, they got to bide three years, an' _then_ you got to mix other +earth with 'em." As litter for pigs, he admitted, dead leaves were +useful; yet should the cleanings of the pigsty be afterwards heaped up +and allowed to dry, the first wind would "purl the leaves about all +over the place.... And that makes me think there en't much _in_ 'em," +or surely they would rot? + +But unquestionably leaves make good dry litter. "My old gal" (so the +discourse proceeded)--"my old gal used to go out an' get 'em," so that +the pig might have a dry bed; in which care the "old gal" contrasted +nobly with "Will Crawte down 'ere," who had little pigs at this time +"up to their belly in slurry." They could not thrive--Bettesworth was +satisfied of that. His wife, in the days of her strength, would "go +out on to the common, tearin' up moth or rowatt with her hands--her +hands was harder 'n mine--and she'd tear up moth or rowatt or +anything," to make a clean bed for the pig. + +I suppose that by "moth" he meant moss. "Rowatt" is old grass which +has never been cut, but has run to seed and turned yellow. With regard +to rowatt, it makes a good litter and a tolerable manure, said +Bettesworth; with this drawback, however, that "if you gets it wi' the +seed on," however much it may have been trampled in the pigsty, "'tis +bound to come up when you spreads the manure on the ground." + + + + +XI + + +A timely reminder occurs here, that with all its rustic +attractiveness--its genial labours in this picturesque valley, its +sensitive response to the slow changes of the year--Bettesworth's life +could not be an idyllic one. For that, he needed a wife who could make +him comfortable, and encourage him by the practice of old-fashioned +cottage economies; but Fate had denied him that help. From time to +time I heard of old Lucy's having fits, but I paid little heed, and +cannot tell why I noted the attack by which she was prostrated at the +end of this November, unless that again it was borne in upon me how +Bettesworth himself must suffer on such occasions. + + +_November 24, 1901._--On Sunday, November 24, the trouble was taking +its ordinary course. There had been the long night, disturbed by +successive seizures, in one of which the old woman could not be saved +from falling out of bed "flump on the floor"; there was the helpless +day in which Bettesworth must cook his own dinner or go without; there +were the dreadful suggestions from the neighbours that he ought to put +his wife away in an asylum; there was his own tight-lipped resolve to +do nothing of the sort, but to remember always how good to him she had +been. It was merely the usual thing; and if we remember how it kept +recurring and was a part almost of Bettesworth's daily life, that is +enough, without further detail. + +To get a clear impression of his contemporary circumstances is +necessary, lest the narrative be confused by his frequent references +to old times. Tending his wife, working unadventurously in my garden, +loving the succession of crops, humbly subservient to the weather or +gladdening at its glories, as he went about he spilt anecdotes of +other years and different scenes, which must be picked up as we go. +But the day-to-day existence must be kept in mind meanwhile. He +gossipped at haphazard, but the telling of any one of those narratives +which so often interrupt the course of this book was only the most +trivial and momentary incident in his contemporary history. He spoke +for a few minutes, and had finished, and his day's work went on as +before. + + +_November 26._--Thus, around the next glimpse of an exciting moment +forty odd years ago, one has to imagine the November forenoon, raw, +grey with pale fog, in which Bettesworth was at some pottering job or +other, slow enough to make me ask if he were not cold; and so the talk +gets started. No, he was not cold; he felt "_nice_ and warm.... But +yesterday, crawlin' about among that shrubbery after the dead +leaves," his hands were very cold. Yesterday, I remembered then, had +been a day of hard rimy frost, so that it had surprised me, I said, to +see "one of Pearson's carmen" driving without gloves. Bettesworth +looked serious. + +"You'd have thought he'd have had gloves for _drivin'_," he said. +Then, meditatively, "I don't think old _Wells_ drives for Pearsons +much now, do he? You very often sees somebody else out with his horse. +He bin with 'em a smart many years. He went there same time as I lef' +Brown's. That was in 1860. Pearsons sent across the street for me to +go on for they, but I'd agreed with Cooper the builder, you know." + +From amidst a confusion of details that followed, about Cooper's +business, and where he got his harness, and so on, the fact emerged +that the builder had the use of a stable in Brown's premises, which +explains how Bettesworth's former master makes his appearance on the +scene presently. For Bettesworth had still to work at this stable, +though for a new employer. + +"Cooper had a little cob when I went on for 'n. His father give it to +'n--or no, 'twas the harness his father give 'n. One o' these little +Welsh rigs. Spiteful little card he was. I knocked 'n down wi' the +prong seven times one mornin'. When I went in to the stable he kicked +up, and the manure an' litter went in here, what he'd kicked up. In +here." Bettesworth thrust forward his old stubbly chin, and pointed +into the neck-band of his shirt. + +I said, "There would have been no talks for me with Bettesworth if he +had touched you!" + +"No. He'd have killed me. I ketched up the fust thing I could see, an' +that was the prong, and 't last I was afraid _I'd_ killed _he_. A +bad-tempered little card he was, though. They be _worse_ than an +intire 'orse.... They be worse than an intire _'orse_." + +He was dropping into meditation, standing limply with drooping arms, +and fixing an absent-minded look upon his job. For his memory was +straying among the circumstances of forty years ago. Then suddenly he +straightened up again and continued, + +"While I'd got the prong, Brown heard the scufflin', and come runnin' +down. 'What the plague's up now?' he says. 'I dunno,' I says; 'I shall +either kill 'n or conquer 'n.' ... But he _was_ a bad-tempered one. He +wouldn't let ye go into the stable to do 'n. I had to get 'n out and +tie his head to a ring in the wall, high up, an' then I could pay 'n +as I mind to. Brown says at last, 'That's enough;' he says, 'I won't +have it.' But Cooper says, 'You let 'n do as he likes.' And I says, +'If I don't have my own way with 'n, you'll have to do 'n yourself.' +But a _good_ little thing on the road, ye know. Quiet! And wouldn't +touch no vittles nor drink away from home, drive 'n where you mind. +Never was a better little thing to go. I think Cooper give eighteen or +twenty pound for 'n. But a _nasty_ little customer--wouldn't let ye +go near 'n in the stable. They jockeys thought _they_ was goin' to +have 'n. They all said they thought he'd be a rum 'n, and so he was, +too. + +"One time Mrs. Cooper come into the yard with a green silk dress on, +and he put his head round and grabbed it" (near the waist, to judge by +Bettesworth's gesture), "and tore out a great piece--a yard or more. +Do what I would, I couldn't help laughin', though she was a testy sort +o' woman. And she did fly about, the servant said, when she went +indoors. + +"But I thought I'd killed 'n that time with the prong. Sweat, he did, +and bellered like a bull; and 't last I give 'n one on the head. I +made sure I'd killed 'n. _I_ was afraid, then. I thought I'd hit too +hard. And I sweat as much as he did then." + + + + +XII + + +_December 2, 1901._--In view of the hatred in which Bettesworth had +previously held the workhouse infirmary, and which he was destined to +renew later, it is interesting to observe how favourably the place +impressed him about this time, when he visited a friend there. + +The friend, whom I will rename "Tom Loveland," had been taken to the +infirmary in October, suffering with the temporary increase of some +obscure chronic disorder which to this day cripples him. Bettesworth +had gone to see him on Sunday afternoon, December 1, in company with +Harriett Loveland, the man's wife. + +The patient still lay there, "on his back," I heard on the Monday. + +"On Saturday they took off the poultices. Seven weeks they bin +poulticin' of 'n; but Saturday the doctor thought there was 'a slight +change.' But, law!" Bettesworth continued, in scorn of the doctor's +opinion, "they abscesses 'll keep comin'." + +"There was two more died, up there in that same room where he is, o' +Saturday." This made six deaths since Loveland's admission. "One of +'em was a man I used to know very well--that 'ere Jack Grey that used +to do" so-and-so at where-is-it. "They sent for his wife, an' she got +there jest two minutes afore he died. Loveland says, 'I tucked my head +down under the blankets when I see 'em bring in the box' (the coffin) +'for 'n.' 'What, did ye think he was for you, Tom?' I says. But he +always was a meek-hearted feller: never had no nerve." + +But it was in the appointments of the place where Loveland lay that +Bettesworth was chiefly interested. He was almost enthusiastic over +the whiteness of the sheets, the beeswaxed floor ("like glass to walk +on. I says to Harriet, 'You must take care you don't slip up'"), the +little cupboards ("lockers, they calls 'em") beside each bed; the +nurse, who "seemed to be a pleasant woman;" the daily attendance of +the medical men; and other advantages. All these things persuaded +Bettesworth that the patients were "better off up there than what they +would be at home." And out in the grounds, "You'd meet two old women, +perhaps, walkin' along together; and then, a little further on, some +old men," which all appeared to be very satisfactory. + +Were there any circumstances to give offence? Yes: "There's that +Gunner, what used to live up the lane, struttin' about there, like +Lord Muck, in his fine slippers. He's a wardsman. And Bill Lucas, +too." (This latter is a man who lost good work and a pension by giving +way to drink.) "_He_ books ye in an' books ye out. 'I s'pose this is +your _estate_?' I says to 'n." In fact, Bettesworth would seem to have +been publicly sarcastic at this man's expense; and other visitors, I +gathered, laughed at hearing him. "'You be better able to work than +what I be,' I says; 'and yet we got to keep ye. It never ought to be +allowed.'" + +To those in the infirmary "You may take anything you mind to, except +spirits or beer. Tea, or anything like that, they may have brought." +And so Bettesworth, having gone unprepared, gave Loveland a shilling, +"to get anything he fancied." + + + + +XIII + + +As yet Bettesworth's cottage by the stream still suited him fairly +well, but he had not lived there for two years without finding out +that it had disadvantages. Of these perhaps the worst was that the +owner was himself only a cottager--an old impoverished man who never +came near the place, and was unable to spend any money on repairing +it. Difficulties were therefore arising, as I learnt one Monday +morning. The reader will observe the day of the week. + + +_December 9, 1901._--"Didn't it rain about four o'clock this mornin'!" +Bettesworth began, with an emphasis which provoked me to question +whether the rainfall had amounted to a great deal, after all. But he +insisted: "There must ha' bin a smartish lot somewhere. The lake's +full o' water, down as far as Mrs. Skinner's. When the gal come after +the rent yesterday...." + +This day being Monday, I exclaimed at his "yesterday." Did he mean it? + +"Yes, they always comes Sundays. She says, 'Gran'father told me I was +to look to see whether you'd cleaned out the lake in front of the +cottage.'" + +In fact, a fortnight previously a message from the owner had reached +Bettesworth requesting him to do this. The answer given then was +repeated now: "You tell your gran'father he may come an' do it +hisself. I shan't." + +"'Oh,' she says" (I continue in Bettesworth's words), "'Mr. Mardon'" +(the tenant of the next cottage) "'said he'd do some.'" + +"'He may come and do this if he mind to,' I says. ''Twon't flood +_me_.'" Mardon's cottage was certainly in danger of flooding, should +there come prolonged rain. + +"Then I said to her, 'How about our well, then? We en't had no water +ever since I spoke to you 'bout it before.' + +"'Oh,' she says, 'they come an' looked at the well Saturday. But +gran'father says 't 'll cost too much. 'T 'll want a lot o' bricks an' +things. If he has it done, he says he'll have to put up your +rent--yours and Mr. Mardon's--'cause you be the only two as pays +anything. En't it a shame?' she says. 'There's that old Mileham--he +earns good money every week, and never pays a ha'penny.'" + +At this point I foolishly interrupted, and being told how Mileham +"won't pay, and poor old Mrs. Connor, she en't _got_ it to pay," I +interrupted again, not understanding. + +"Hasn't _got_ it to pay? How do you mean?" + +"Why, what _have_ she got, sir? All the time her husband was alive, +drawin' his pension, the rent was paid up every pension day. But now +she en't got nothin' comin' in, and that lout of a boy of hers don't +do nothin'. So there's only me and Mardon pays any rent." + +I laughed. "It's a fine encouragement to you to be asked to pay more." + +"Yes. I says to her, 'Then we two got to pay for four? You tell your +gran'father he may put it up, but I shan't pay no more for this old +hutch. And I shan't pay what I do, as soon as I can find another place +to go to. If he mind to let we get the well done, and we take it out +o' the rent,' I says, 'I'll agree to that. Not pay no more rent till +we've took it all out.' But she wouldn't say nothin' to that. Or else +generally she got plenty o' gab." + +"Who is she?" I asked. + +"He's grand-daughter.... That young Mackenzie was her father. She've +got plenty o' gab. 'You 'alf-bred Scotch people,' I says to her +sometimes, 'talks too much.' I tells her of it sometimes. She don't +like me." + +It seemed unlikely that Bettesworth would long continue to be a tenant +under such a landlord. The change, however, was not to come yet. + +As yet, indeed, difficulties like these were but trivial incidents of +the life in which Bettesworth continued to take an interest as virile +as ever. He had dealt with landlords before, and had no qualms now. It +might be that the great strength of his prime was gone, but his health +seemed unimpaired, and I believe he still felt master of his fate as +he went quietly about his daily work. + +It is true that my very next note of him contains evidence of a +digestive weakness which, having not much troubled him hitherto, +though he had always been subject to it, was growing upon him, and +beginning to undermine his forces. But it was for another +reason--because of a curious word he used--that I then recorded what +he told me. + + +The entry in my journal, bearing still the date December 9, is to the +effect that "on Friday afternoon" a horrid pain took him right through +the midriff, from front to back. "I begun to think I was goin' to +croak," he said afterwards, when telling me about it. "And I reached, +and the sheer-water run out o' my eyes an' mouth. I didn't know where +to go for an hour or more, I was in that pain. I 'xpect 'twas stoopin' +down over my work brought it on. I'd had a hot dinner, ye see--bit o' +pickled pork an' pa'snips. And then stoopin' down.... But that +sheer-water--you knows what I means--run out o' my mouth." I did not +know what he meant, until the next day, when I asked how he felt. He +was "all right," but, repeating the story, said, "and the water run +out o' my mouth, jest like boilin' water." + +During the last year or two of his life I think he seldom went a week +without a recurrence of this pain of indigestion, the disorder being +doubtless aggravated by the breakdown of his domestic arrangements. +But this is looking too far ahead. At the period which now concerns +us, he was far from thinking of himself as an invalid. He could joke +about his passing indispositions as he could defy his landlord. This +particular attack, unless I am much mistaken, was the subject of a +flippancy I remember his repeating to me. A neighbour looking in upon +him and seeing his serious condition said genially, "You ben't goin' +to die, be ye, Freddy?" And he answered, "I dunno. Shouldn't care if I +do. 'Tis a poor feller as can't make up his mind to die once. If we +had to die two or three times, then there might be something to fret +about." In relating this to me, he added more seriously, "But nobody +dunno _when_, that's the best of it." + +Knowing now how his attitude changed towards death when it was really +near, I can see in this sturdy defiance the evidence of the physical +vigour he was still enjoying. There was no real cause for fretting +about himself, any more than about his affairs; and so he went through +this winter, garrulous and good-tempered, even happy in his way. + +Accordingly, taking my notes in their due order, they bring before my +mind, as I read them again now, pleasant pictures of the old man. I +can see him at work, or taking his wages, or starting for the town; +often the very weather and daylight around him come back to me; and +the chief loss is in his voice-tones, which I cannot by any effort of +memory recover. + + +_December 10, 1901._--One such mind-picture dates from December 10. +The short winter afternoon was already closing in, with a mist--the +forerunner of rain--enveloping the garden between the bare-limbed +trees. Over our heads sounded the roar of wind in a little fir-wood; +but down under the oak-trees by the well, where Bettesworth was +digging, there was shelter and stillness, or only the slight trembling +of a few leaves not yet fallen. It was "nice and warm," he assured me, +and then paused--himself a dusky-looking old figure in the oncoming +dusk--to ask, whom did I think he had seen go down the lane just now? +It was no other than his former neighbour, "old Jack Morris's widow." + +And once again his talk shows how far he was, that afternoon, from +thinking of himself as an infirm person, or an object of pity. I am +struck by the contrast between his later view of things and this which +he professed, when still in good health. For, speaking appreciatively +of Widow Morris as "the _cleanest_ old soul as ever lived," he went on +to say that, though he did not know what she was doing at that time, +she had been in the workhouse. It puzzled him how she lived, and +others like her. And when I said, "She ought to be in the workhouse," +he echoed the opinion emphatically. "_Better_ off there than what they +be at home, sir." So with Mrs. Connor. "It's a mystery how she lives. +And there's that son of hers, mungs about with a short pipe stuck in +his mouth," and by sheer idleness had lost several jobs, at which he +might have been earning eleven shillings a week. "And that poor gal, +he's sister, got to starve herself to keep her mother and that lout. +Cert'nly, she ought to keep her mother," but, for the lout, +Bettesworth's politer vocabulary was insufficient. + +So we talked in the gathering winter dusk, able, both of us, in the +assurance of the comfortable evening before us, to consider the +workhouse as a refuge with which neither of us would ever make +personal acquaintance. If I was unimaginative and therefore callous, +so was Bettesworth. It was he who said, "I reckons that's what they +places be for--old people past work, and little helpless childern." +But as to the able-bodied, "That stoneyard's the place for they, _I_'d +put it on to 'em, so's it 'd give 'em sore hearts, if it didn't sore +hands." + +And then he told of a tramp--a carpenter--who had earned his tenpence +an hour, and now was using workhouses to lodge in at night, while all +day he was "munging about" (or "doing a mung"), cadging a few +halfpence for beer. + +"And that 'ere bloke down near we, he's another of 'em. Earns +eightpence-halfpenny, and his son sixpence. But they gets it all down +'em." They had not paid Mrs. Skinner for the pork obtained from her +the previous week; indeed, they paid nobody. "Never got nothing, and +yet there's only they two and the old woman." + +What a contrast were these wasters--that was the idea of Bettesworth's +talk--with those two poor old widow women, whom he could afford to +pity in his strength and comfort! + + +_December 24._--The next note brings us to Christmas Eve. The weather +on the preceding day had changed from rimy frost to tempestuous rain, +which at nightfall began to be mingled with snow. By his own account +Bettesworth went to bed soon after seven, although even his wife urged +that it was too early, and that he would never lie till morning. He +had heard the tempest, and the touch of the snow against his bedroom +window, and so had his wife. It excited her. "Ben't ye goin' to look +out at it?" she said. And he, "That won't do me no good, to look at +it. We got a good fire in here." + +Such was his own chuckling account of his attitude towards the storm +when I stood by him the next morning high up in the garden, and +watched him sweeping the path. He discussed the prospects for the day, +rejoiced that the snow had not lain, and, looking keenly to the south, +where a dun-coloured watery cloud was travelling eastwards, its edges +melting into luminous mist and just hiding the sun, he thought we +might expect storms. The old man's spirits were elated; and then it +was, when the western end of the valley suddenly lit up as with a +laugh of spring sunlight, and the radiance came sweeping on and broke +all round us--then it was that Bettesworth, as I have elsewhere[1] +related, stood up to give the sunshine his glad welcome. + +A narrative followed which helps to explain his good spirits, or at +least discovers the powers of endurance on which they rested. I said, +"We have passed the shortest day--that's a comfort." He stopped +sweeping again, to answer happily, "Yes. And now in about four or five +weeks we shall begin to see the difference. And that's when we gets +the bad weather, lately." + +He stood up, the watery sunshine upon him, and leaning on his broom, +he continued, "I remember one winter, after I was married, we did have +some weather. Eighteen inches and two foot o' snow there was--three +foot, in some places. I'd bin out o' work--there was plenty o' work to +do, but we was froze out. For five weeks I 'adn't earnt tuppence. When +Christmas Day come, we _had_ somethin' for dinner, but 'twa'n't much; +and we had a smartish few bottles o' home-made wine. + +"Christmas mornin' some o' the chaps I'd bin at work with come round. +'What about that wine?' they says. So we had two or three cupfuls o' +wine; and then they says, 'Ben't ye comin' 'long o' we?' 'No,' I says, +'not 's mornin'.'" Here he shut his mouth, in remembered resignation, +as if still regarding these tempters. "'What's up then?' they says. +'_Come_ on!' 'No,' I says, 'not to-day.' 'Why not?' 'Cause I en't got +no money,' I says. 'Gawd's truth!' they says, 'if that's it...' and I +raked in six shillin's from amongst 'em. I give four to the old gal, +and I kep' two myself, and then I was right for the day." + +He made as if to resume sweeping, but desisted to explain, "Ye see, +they was my mates on the same job as me; and they knowed I'd ha' done +the same for e'er a one o' they, more 'n once. + +"My old mother-in-law was alive then, over here" (he looked across the +hollow to the old house), "and they wanted we to go and 'ave the day +with they. But my temper wouldn't have that. I says to the old gal, +'None o' their 'elp. We'll bide away, or else p'r'aps by-'n-by they'll +twit us.' I'd sooner ha' gone without vittles, than for they to help +and then twit us with it afterwards, talkin' about what they'd done +for us at Christmas." + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] Author's note. "The Bettesworth Book" (second impression). + + + + +XIV + + +One of Bettesworth's swift short tales about his neighbours interested +me considerably at this time, as illustrating the half-sordid, +half-barbarous state of the people amongst whom he had to hold his own +when not at work. I did not suspect that the same tale would put me on +the track of a curious discovery relative to his own past history. + + +_January 23, 1902._--It was a quiet, windless morning, and the sound +of the knell reached us through the still air. Bettesworth said, "I +s'pose old Jerry's gone at last, then." + +"Old Jerry?" I asked. + +"Ah, old Jerry Penfold. We always called 'n Old Jerry. He bin dead +several times--or, 't least, they thought so. Rare ructions there bin +over there, no mistake. They got to sharin' out his kit. One come an' +took away his clock, and another his chest o' drawers, and some of his +sons even come an' took away his tools. But the oldest son got the +lawyer an' made 'em bring it all back." + +"Rare ructions"--yes: but Bettesworth used the word "rare" as we +should use "great," and did not mean that the affair was very +unusual. He was not scandalized so much as amused by it. For my part, +knowing nothing of the family, who dwelt in another quarter of the +parish, I sought only to identify Old Jerry. Some years previously an +old man who walked along the road with me one night had interested me +with a tale of his shepherding and other labours on a certain farm. I +had never learnt his name, nor had seen the man since; but now it +occurred to me that perhaps he was old Penfold. I asked Bettesworth. + +Bettesworth decided in the negative. Old Penfold had never been a +shepherd, or worked for the farmer I named. + +Yet another old man then came into my mind: a diminutive man, upwards +of eighty, who was still creeping honourably about at work. Frequently +I met him; but he seemed so shut up in himself that I had never cared +to intrude upon him with more than a "Good-day" when we met. But now I +named him to Bettesworth: old Dicky Martin. Could the missing shepherd +have been he? + +Bettesworth shook his head emphatically. It turned out that he and old +Dicky were chums in their way: they knew all about one another, and +with mutual respect. "Couldn't ha' bin old Dicky," said Bettesworth. +"He never worked anywhere else about here 'xcept in builders' yards. +Forty-four year ago he started for Coopers, and bin on there ever +since. He was a sailor before that. He come out o' the navy when he +come here." + +Out of the navy! And to think I had been ignorant of such a thing as +that! I had not found my shepherd; but to have discovered a sailor was +something. Scenting romance, in the foolish superficial way of +outsiders, I resolved to improve my acquaintance with old Dicky, +little dreaming that the sailor was going to show me a soldier too; +little supposing that Bettesworth's information about this old man +would be capped by information from him, quite as surprising, about +Bettesworth. + +How I fell in with old Martin, early in February, is of no moment +here. He talked very much in Bettesworth's manner, and especially +about cruising in the Mediterranean sixty years ago. But when I said +at last, believing it true, "I don't suppose there is another man in +our parish has travelled so far as you," his reply startled me. + +"No, I dessay not--without 'tis your man, Fred Bettesworth." + +"He? He never was out of England." + +"Yes he was. He bin as fur as Russia and the Black Sea, at any rate." + +"You must be wrong. I should have heard of it if he had." + +"I dunno about that. P'raps he don't care to talk about it, but 'tis +right enough. I fancy he did get into some trouble. He was a soldier +though, in the Crimea." + +Old Dicky was so convinced that I held my peace, though far from +convinced myself. A vague sensation crept over me of having heard some +faint rumour of the same tale, years ago; but what might have been +credible then seemed hardly credible now. I thought that now I knew +all there was to know about Bettesworth's life; and I could not see +where, among so many episodes, this of soldiering was to find room. +Besides, how was it possible that, in ten years or so, during which +Bettesworth had prattled carelessly of anything that came uppermost in +his mind, no hint of this had escaped him? It would have slipped out +unawares, one would have supposed; by some inadvertence or other I +should have learnt it. But, save for that forgotten rumour, nothing +had come until now. Now, however, the man who spoke of it spoke as +from his own personal knowledge. It was very strange. + +One thing was clear. If there were truth in this tale after all, +Bettesworth's silence on the subject must have been intentional. Was +there something about it of which he was ashamed? What was that +"trouble" to which old Dicky so darkly alluded? Eager as I was to +question Bettesworth, I was most reluctant to hear anything to his +discredit. And the reluctance prevailed over my curiosity. Feeling +that I had no right to force a confidence from him, I tried to dismiss +the subject from my mind; and for a time I succeeded. + + + + +XV + + +_April 17, 1902._--We pass on to April, when bird-notes were sounding +through all the gardens. + +"Hark at those starlings!" I said to Bettesworth. And he, "Yes--I +dunno who 'twas I was talkin' to this mornin', sayin' how he liked to +hear 'em. 'So do our guv'nor,' I says. I likes 'em best when there's +two of 'em gibberin' to one another--jest like 's if they was talkin'. +An' they lifts up their feet, an' flaps up their wings, an' they +nods." The old man's words ran rhythmically to suit the action he was +describing; and then, dropping the rhythm, "I likes to hear 'em very +well. And I don't think they be mischieful birds neither, like these +'ere sparrers and caffeys" (chaffinches). "They beggars, I shouldn't +care so much if when they picked out the peas from the ground they'd +eat 'em. But they jest nips the little green top off and leaves it. +Sims as if they does it reg'lar for mischief." + + +_April 28._--This sunny, objective side of Bettesworth's temperament +may be remembered in connexion with some other remarks of his on a +very different subject. There was at that time a man living near us +whose mere presence tried his patience. The man belonged to one of +the stricter Nonconformist sects, and had the reputation of being +miserly. "Looks as miserable, he do" (so Bettesworth chanced to +describe him), "as miserable as--as sin. I never see such a feller." + +At this I laughed, admitting that our neighbour certainly did not look +as if he knew how to enjoy himself. + +"He _don't_. Don't sim to have no pleasure, nor 'sociate with anybody. +There! I'd as lief not have a life at all, as have one like his. I'd +do without, if I couldn't do no better'n that." + +Bettesworth's judgment was possibly in error; for there is no telling +what mystical joys, what dreams of another world, may have illuminated +this man's inner life, and made him suspicious of people like +Bettesworth and me. But if there were such compensation, Bettesworth's +temperament was incapable of recognizing it, and the point is +instructive. His own indomitable cheerfulness was of the objective +pagan order. The field of his emotions and fancies had never been +cultivated. His thoughts did not stray beyond this world. From such +deep sources of physical sanity his optimism welled up, that he really +needed, or at any rate craved for, no spiritual consolation. Like his +remote ancestors who first invaded this island, he had the habit of +taking things as they came, and of enjoying them greatly on the whole. +He half enjoyed, even while he was irritated by it, the odd figure +presented by this Nonconformist. + + +_May 7._--A week afterwards he exhibited the same sort of aloof +interest, annoyed and yet amused, in a jibbing horse. A horse had +brought a ton of coal a part of the way down the lane, and then +refused to budge farther; and Bettesworth could not forget the +incident. It tickles me still to recall with what a queer look on his +face he spoke of the noble animal. The expression was the result of +his trying to say his word for _horse_ (not _'oss_, but _'awss_), +while a facetious smile was twitching at the corners of his mouth. +This was several days after the event. At the time of its occurrence, +someone had remarked that the horse had no pluck, and Bettesworth had +rejoined indignantly, "_I'd_ see about his pluck, if I had the drivin' +of 'n!" But after a day or two his indignation turned to quiet gaiety. +"Won't back," he said, "and he won't draw." + +I suggested, "Not bad at standing still." + +Then came the queer expression on Bettesworth's face, with "'Good +'awss to _eat_,' the man said." Truly it was odd to see how +Bettesworth's lips, grim enough as a rule, arched out sarcastically +over the word _'awss_. + +And it was in a temper not very dissimilar that he commonly regarded +our Nonconformist neighbour. The man amused him. + +A pagan of the antique English kind, ready to poke fun at a bad horse, +or sneer at a fanatic, or be happy in listening to the April talk of +the starlings, Bettesworth had quite his share too of the pugnacity +of his race. Years ago he had said that a fight used to be "just his +clip," as a young man; not many years ago he had promptly knocked down +in the road a baker who had got down out of his cart to make +Bettesworth move his wheelbarrow out of the way (I remember that when +the old man told me of this I advised him not to get into trouble, and +he pleaded that it "seemed to do him good"); and now during this +spring--I cannot say exactly when--the fighting spirit suddenly woke +up in him once more. + +The circumstance takes us out again from the peace of the garden to +the crude struggle for life in the village. Looking back to that time, +I can see our valley as it were sombrely streaked with the progress of +two or three miserable family embroilments, squalid, weltering, +poisoning the atmosphere, incapable of solution. And though +Bettesworth was no more implicated in these than myself, but like me +was a mere onlooker, he was not, like me, an outsider. He was down on +the very edge of these troubles, and it was the momentary overflow of +one of them in his direction one night that suddenly started him +fighting, in spite of his years. + +I may not go into details of the affair. It is enough that during this +April and May our end of the parish was looking on, scandalized, at +the blackguard behaviour of a certain labourer towards his family and +especially his own mother. Of powerful build, the man had been long +known for a bully; and if report went true, he had received several +thrashings in his time. But just now he was surpassing his own record. +He was also presuming upon the forbearance of better men than himself, +and could not keep his tongue from flouts and gibes at them. Speaking +of him to me, Bettesworth expressed his disapproval and no more. +Others, however, were less reticent; and there came a day when I heard +of a quarrel this man had tried to fix upon Bettesworth at the +public-house one evening. He was summarily ejected, my informant said; +and something--I have forgotten what--caused me to suspect that the +"chucker out" was old Bettesworth. That was not explicitly stated, +however. Nor did Bettesworth himself tell me at the time any more than +that there had been a disturbance in the taproom, the man being turned +out, after insulting him. + + +_May 15._--But, alluding to the affair some time afterwards, he +placidly continued the story. "I cut 'n heels over head, an' when he +got up, and made for the doorway and the open road, I went for 'n +again. They got round me, or I should ha' knocked 'n heels over head +again. I broke my way through four or five of 'em. 'If I was twenty +years younger,' I says to 'n, 'I'd jump the in'ards out of ye.' Some +of 'em says, if he dares touch the old man they'd go for 'n theirself. +'All right!' I says, 'you no call to worry about me. I can manage he.' +And they told 'n, 'You got hold o' the wrong one this time, Sammy.'" + + + + +XVI + + +During these months, the story of Bettesworth's having been a soldier +in the Crimea remained unverified. I was watching for hints of it from +him, and he gave not the slightest; for opportunities of asking him +about it without offence, and not one occurred. And slowly the tale +receded from my mind, and my belief in it dwindled away. + +By what chance, or in what circumstances, the mystery suddenly +recurred to me is more than I can tell now. But one rainy May +afternoon--I remember that much--the old man was in the wood-shed, +sitting astraddle on one block of wood, and chopping firewood on +another block between his knees. He looked careless enough, +comfortable enough, sitting there in the dry, with the sound of rain +entering through the open shed door. What was it he said, or I, to +give me an opening? I shall never know; but presently I found myself +challenging him to confess the truth of what was reported of him. + +And I remember well how at once his careless expression changed, as if +he had been taxed with a fault, and how for some seconds he sat +looking fixedly before him in a shamefaced, embarrassed way, like a +schoolboy who has been "found out." For some seconds the silence +lasted; then he said reluctantly, "It's true. So I was." And the +circumstantial talk that followed left me without any further doubt on +the point. + +It was at the Rose and Crown--a well-known tavern in the neighbouring +town--that he 'listed. His "chum" (I don't know who his chum was) had +already enlisted at Alton, and "everybody thought," as Bettesworth +said, that he too had done so at the same time, for he had the +soldier's belt on, there in the Alton inn. But he had not taken the +shilling there. He returned home to his brother Jim, "what was up +there at Middlesham, same job as old Stubby got now--seventeen year he +had 'long with the charcoal-burners up there"--and Jim urged him to +"go to work." Bettesworth, however, was obstinate. "No," he said, "I +shall go to Camden Fair." "Better by half go to work." "No, I shall +git about." "And I come down to the town" (so his tale continued), +"and there I see my chum what had 'listed at Alton day before. 'Come +on,' he says; 'make up your mind to go with we.' ''Greed,' I says. And +I went up 'long with 'n to the Rose and Crown...." + +"How old were you then? It must have been before you were married?" + +"Yes; I was sixteen. I served a year and eight months." + +"Ah." I looked out at the May foliage and the kindly rain, and thought +of the Crimean winter. + +"You saw some cold weather, then?" + +"No mistake. Two winters and one summer." He was, in fact, before +Sebastopol, and now that the secret was out, he hurried on to tell +familiarly of Kertch, the Black Sea, the Dardanelles, so glibly that +my memory was unable to take it all in. What was most strange was to +hear these places, whose names to stay-at-home people like myself have +come to have an epic sound, spoken of as the scene of merely trivial +incidents. As it was only of what he observed himself that Bettesworth +told, this could hardly have been otherwise; yet it is odd to think +that Tolstoi, writing his marvellous descriptions of the siege, may +have set eyes on him. To this harum-scarum English plough-boy, +ignorant, rollicking, reckless, it was not the great events, on a +large scale, that were prominent, but the queer things, the little +haphazard details upon which he happened to stumble. Through the +narrative his own personality was to the fore; just the same dogged +personality that I was to know afterwards, but not yet chastened and +made wise by experience. + +It was here in the Crimea that, carrying that letter to post to his +brother, as already told in "The Bettesworth Book," he met his "mate," +and, opening the letter, took out the "dollar" it contained, and spent +it on a bottle of rum, tossing the letter away. "In those days," said +he, "I could drink as much rum as I can beer now. We had rum twice a +day: rum and limejuice. That was to keep off the scurvy. Never had no +cups nor nothing. We had knives, same as that old clasp-knife I got +now, and used to knock off the necks o' the bottles with they." + +He remembered well the hard times, and the privations our troops +endured. "Sixteen of us in one o' they little tents. We had a blanket +and a waterproof sheet--not the fust winter, though; and boots that +come up to your thigh, big enough to get into with your shoes on. +There was one little chap named Tickle, he got into his boots with his +shoes on, and couldn't git 'em off again. He was put under stoppages +for 'em. Fifty shillin's for a pair o' they boots. You got into +'em--they was never made to fit no man--and bid in 'em for a month +together--freezed on to ye." + +Again, "It was starvation done for so many of our chaps out there. +Cold an' starvation. I've bin out on duty forty-eight hours at a +stretch; then march back three mile to camp; and then some of us 'd +have to march another seven mile to fetch biscuit from the sea. And +_then_ you only got your share, same as the rest.... Sometimes the +biscuit was dry; and then again you'd on'y git some as had bin trod to +death by mules or camels.... That was the way to git a appetite.... +But there was plenty o' rum; good rum too; better 'n what you gits +about here." The system of pay, or rather the want of system, appears +to have made this abundance of rum a more than usually doubtful +blessing. The men went sometimes "weeks together without gettin' any +pay; and then when we got it, it was very soon all gone." Sixpence a +day--four and twopence a week--(Bettesworth figured it out)--a very +handy sum was this week's pay, I gathered, for buying rum by the +bottle. The price of a bottle of stout was half a crown. + +Reverting to the terrible weather, Bettesworth told how he had seen +"strong men, smoking their pipe," and four hours afterwards beheld +them carried by on a stretcher, to be buried. Ill-fed, I inferred, +they succumbed thus suddenly to the fearful cold. Green coffee was +provided, and the men had to hunt about for roots to make a fire for +cooking it. And then, just as they had got their coffee into their +mess-tins, they would be called out, perhaps, to stand on duty for +eight hours together. + +The dead were buried "in their kit," with their clothes on. Sometimes, +Bettesworth hinted, money would be found on them and appropriated from +their pockets, but "we wan't allowed no plunder," he added. As for the +graves, "I've see 'em chucked into graves eighteen inches or two foot +deep, perhaps--just a little earth put over 'em; and when you go by a +fortnight or so after, you might see their toes stickin' out o' the +ground. You never see no coffin." The only coffin that Bettesworth saw +was Lord Raglan's. "That was a funeral! Seven miles long...." + +At the close of the war Bettesworth came home "among the reductions," +yet not for several months, during which he was employed on "fatigue +parties" in collecting old metal--guns, ammunition cases, and so +forth--for ballast to the ships in Balaclava Harbour. He described the +Harbour: it was "like comin' in at that door; an' then, when you gets +inside, it all spreads out...." Storm in the Black Sea overtook the +troop-ship, where were "seventeen hunderd of us. Three hunderd was +ship's company.... And some down on their knees prayin', some cursin', +some laughin' an' drinkin', some dancin'.... And the troop-ship we +come home in--might 's well ha' come in a hog-tub. She'd bin all +through the war, and he" (the captain) "reckoned 'twas great honour to +bring her home, and he wouldn't have no tugs. Forty-nine days we was, +comin' home. And she leaked, an' then 'twas 'all hands to the +pumps....' Great pumps...." + +Yes, of course he remembered the pumps. It was Bettesworth all over, +to take a vivid and intelligent practical interest in anything of the +kind that there was to be seen. He had had no observation lessons at +school, and had never heard of "object studies"; he simply observed +for the pleasure of observing, instinctively as a cat examines a new +piece of furniture, and if not with any cultivated sense of +proportion, still with a great evenness of judgment. On one other +occasion, and one only in my hearing, he reverted to his Crimean +experiences; and as will be seen in its proper place, the narrative +again showed him observing with the same balanced mind, never +enthusiastic, but also never satiated, never bored. + +But what of the "trouble" into which he was alleged to have fallen? I +may as well tell all I know, and have done with it. From Bettesworth +himself no breath of trouble ever reached me. But his avoidance of +this period as a topic of conversation often struck me as a suspicious +circumstance; so that I was not quite unprepared for a statement old +Dicky Martin volunteered when Bettesworth had been some three weeks +dead. He had been "rackety," and had been punished: that was the +substance of the tale. "He got into trouble for goin' into the French +lines after some rum--him an' two or three more. They never stopped, +he told me, to ask 'n no questions, but strapped 'n up and give 'n two +or three dozen for 't." + + + + +XVII + + +I suppose that Bettesworth's Crimean reminiscences occupied in +narration to me something less than fifteen minutes of his life, so +that obviously the space they take up in this volume is out of all +proportion to their importance. For my theme is not this or that +recollection of his, but the way in which the old man lived out these +last of his years, while the memories passed across his mind. It is of +small consequence what he remembered. Had he recalled the Indian +Mutiny instead of the Crimea, it would have been all one, by that wet +afternoon of May, 1902. He would have sat on his block dandling the +chopper just the same, and the raindrops from trees outside would have +come slanting into the shed doorway and splashed on my hand as I +listened to him. + +And as they are disproportionately long, these day-dreams of +Bettesworth, so also they become too solid on the printed page, side +by side with the reality which encompassed them then, and is my +subject now. They provoke us to forget the old man, alive and talking. +They take us back fifty years too far. From the hardships of the +Crimean War it is a wrench to return to the reality--the shed in this +valley, the patter of the rain, the old gossipping voice. But all +this, so impossible to restore now that it too has become only a +reminiscence, being then the commonplace of my life as well as of +Bettesworth's, was allowed to pass by almost unnoticed. I let slip +what I really liked, took for granted the strong life that alone made +me care for the conversation, and saved only some dead litter of +observation which was let fall by the living man and seemed to me odd. + +Need I explain how of this too I was gradually saving less and less? +The oddness was wearing off; only the more exceptional things seemed +now worth taking care of. Unless there was something as surprising to +hear as this talk of the Crimean War--and such exceptions of course +appeared with increasing rareness--I hardly took the trouble, at this +period, to set down in writing any of Bettesworth's daily gossip. The +naturalist, having noted in his diary the first two swallows that do +not after all make a summer, has no record save in his brain of the +subsequent curvings and interlacings in the summer sky; and I, +similarly, find myself with little besides a vague memory of +Bettesworth's doings in this summer of 1902. In fact, it is not even a +memory that I have. There is only an inference that day by day he must +have done his work in the warm weather, and I must have talked to him. +But I am unable to restore this for a reader's benefit. "Imagine him +going on as usual," shall I say? Why, it is more than I can do myself. +A row of asterisks would serve the purpose equally well. + +So there is a void for two months--nay, with one exception, for more +than three, from the middle of May to the end of August; in which one +surmises that the summer flies buzzed in the garden, and Bettesworth +did his hoeing and grass-cutting, and was companionable. The one +exception, fortunately, has the very life in it which I am regretting. +It is but a short sentence of six words, yet they are as if spoken +within the hour, and are the clearer for the void around them. + +On the afternoon of July 15, the grape vine on the wall near my window +was being attended to by the pruner. He stood on a ladder, which was +held steady by Bettesworth at the foot; and presently through the open +window the old man's voice reached me, complaining of the recent +blighty weather: "There en't nothin' 'ardly looks _kind_." + +"No; not to say _kind_," the pruner assented. + +That is all. But precisely because there is nothing in it, because it +is a piece of normal instead of exceptional talk, it has the accent of +the season. Bettesworth's voice reaches me; the light falls warm +through the vine-leaves; the lost summer seems to come back with all +the accompanying scene, almost as distinctly as if I had but just +written the words down. + + +_August 28, 1902._--The harvest, of course, could not go by without +remark from him. From the garden we could see, beyond the meadow in +the bottom of the valley, a little two-acre cornfield, which had stood +for several days half reaped--the upper side uncut, the lower side +prosperous-looking with its rows of sheaves. Then there came a morning +when it was all in sheaves, and Bettesworth said, + +"Old Ben" (meaning Ben Turner) "done it for 'n" (the owner) "last +night. Made a dark job of it." + +I realized that in his cottage down by the lake, Bettesworth, going to +bed, had been able to hear the reaping in the dark, across the meadow. + +He proceeded, "Ben took his hoss and cart down into Sussex a week or +two ago, to see if he could get a job harvestin'. Was only gone three +days, though: him an' four or five more. But I reckon they only went +off for a booze--I don't believe they made e'er a try to get a +job...." + +"Our Will" (his brother-in-law) "says down there at Cowhatch they had +a wonderful crop of oats. But he reckons they've wasted enough with +the machine to ha' paid for reapin' it by hand. Stands to +reason--where them great things comes whoppin' into it over and over, +it shatters out a lot. Will says where they've took up the sheaves you +can see the ground half covered with what they've wasted." + +Not knowing what to say, I hesitated, and at last muttered +simultaneously with Bettesworth, "'T seems a pity." + +"It's what I calls 'pound wise,'" added he, misquoting a proverb which +possibly was not invented by his class, and was foreign to him. + + +_September 20, 1902._--I turn over the page in my note-book, but come +to a new date three weeks later. Quiet autumn sunshine, the entry +says, had marked the last few days, breaking through with a limpid +splash in the mornings, after the mist had gone. Amidst this, under +the softened tree-shadows, Bettesworth was cutting grass with his +fag-hook. + +And "Ah," he said, "it's purty near all up with charcoal-burnin' now." + +This was in allusion to the indifferent crop of hops just being picked +and the consequently small demand for charcoal; but it was a +digression too. We had begun talking of a wasp sting. From that to +gnats, and from gnats to a certain tank where they bred, was an +obvious transition. + +And now the tank suggested charcoal. For, according to Bettesworth, a +little knob of charcoal put into a tank is better than an equal +quantity of lime, for keeping the water sweet. Further, "If you got a +bit o' meat that's goin' anyways wrong, you put a little bit o' +charcoal on to that, and you won't taste anything bad. I've heared +ever so many charcoal-burners say that. And meat is a thing as won't +keep--not butcher's meat; partic'lar in the summer when you sims to +want it most--something with a little taste to 't." So, charcoal is +useful; but "Ah! it's purty near all up with charcoal-burnin' now." + +A good deal that followed, about the technicalities of +charcoal-burning, has been printed in another place, and is omitted +here. One point, however, may now be taken up. It is the curious fact +that all the charcoal-burners of the neighbourhood are congregated in +one district, and the numerous families of them rejoice in one +name--that of Parratt. + +"I never knowed anybody but Parratts do it about here," Bettesworth +said; and the name reminded him of a story, as follows: + +"My old brother-in-law Snip was down at Devizes one time--him what +used to travel with a van--_Snip_ they always called 'n. And there was +a feller come into the fair with one of these vans all hung round with +bird-cages, ye know--poll-parrots and all kinds o' birds. So old Snip +says to 'n, 'Parrots?' he says, 'what's the use o' you talkin' about +parrots? Why, where I come from,' he says, 'we got Parratts as 'll +burn charcoal, let alone talk. Talk better 'n any o' yourn,' he says. +'You give 'em some beer and _they'll_ talk--or dig hop-ground, or +anything.' Lor'! how that feller did go on at 'n, old Snip said!" + +Bettesworth knew something of charcoal-burning by experience, but he +owned himself ignorant of its inner technical niceties. Moreover, he +felt it right to respect a trade "mystery," explaining, "'Tis no use +to be a trade, if everybody can do it. 'Relse we should have poor +livin' then." + + +_October_ 31, 1902.--A memorandum of October 31 gives just a foretaste +of the approaching winter, and just a momentary searching back into +the experience gained when Bettesworth worked at a farm. For there +must have been hoar-frost lingering on the lawn that last morning in +October, to evoke the old man's opinion, "the less you goes about on +grass while there's a frost on it the better" for the grass. "If +anybody goes over a bit o' clover-lay with the white frost on it you +can tell for a month after what course they took." + + +_November 11._--Amid some personalities which it would be difficult to +disguise and which had better be omitted, I find in November another +reference to the harsh social life of the village, and it is in +connexion with that same bully whom Bettesworth had previously +chastised. As before, details must be suppressed; I only suggest that +in these dark November nights the labourers in want of company of +course sought it at the public-house. There, I surmise, the bully was +boasting, until Bettesworth shut him up with a retort brutally direct. +Even as it was repeated to me his expression is not printable. +Bettesworth was no angel. He seemed rather, at times, a hard-grained +old sinner; but he always took the manly side, whether with fists or +coarse tongue. In this instance his fitting rebuke won a laugh of +approval from the company, and even "a pint" for himself from one who +was a relative, but no friend, of the offender. + + +_December 16._--One dry, cloudy day in December Bettesworth used his +tongue forcibly again, but in how much pleasanter a connexion! A +little tree in the garden had to be transplanted to a new position, on +the edge of a bed occupied by old sprouting stumps of kale. One of +these stumps was exactly in the place destined for the tree, and +Bettesworth ruthlessly pulled it up, talking to it: + +"You come out of it. There's plenty more like you. If you complains, +we'll chuck ye in the bottom o' the hole for the tree to feed on!" + + + + +XVIII + + +The Old Year, so far as my notes show it, had run to its close without +event for Bettesworth, just as the New Year was to do, excepting for +one big trouble. Yet he was not quite the man at the opening of 1903 +that he had been at the opening of 1902. The twelve uneventful months +had, in fact, been leaving their marks upon him--marks almost +imperceptible as each occurred, yet progressive, cumulative in their +effect. On this day or on that, none could have pointed to a change in +the old man, or alleged that he was not so the day before; but as the +seasons swung round it was impossible not to perceive how he was +aging. It is well, therefore, to pause and see what he had become by +this time before we enter upon another year of his life. + +There was one silent witness to the increasing decay of his powers +that could not be overlooked. The garden gave him away. People coming +to visit me and it were embarrassed to know what to say, or they even +hinted that it would be an economy to allow Bettesworth a small +pension and hire a younger man, who would do as much work, and do it +better, in half the time. As if I needed to be told that! But then +they were not witnesses, with me, of the pluck--better worth +preserving than any garden--with which Bettesworth sought to make +amends for his vanished youth. His tenacity deepened my regard for +him, even while its poor results almost wore out my patience. He who +had once moved with such vigour was getting slow; and the time was +coming, if it had not come, when I had to wait and dawdle while he +dragged along behind me from one part of the garden to another. A more +serious matter was that with greater effort on his part the garden +ground was less well worked. I don't believe he knew that. He used a +favourite old spade, worn down like himself, and never realized that +"two spits deep" with this tool were little better than one spit with +a proper one; and he could not make out why the carrots forked, and +the peas failed early. + +But the worst trial of all was due to another and more pitiful cause. +I could reconcile myself to indifferent crops--after all, I had +enough--but exasperation was daily renewed by the little daily +failures in routine work, owing to his defective sight, which grew +worse and worse. There were the garden paths. With what care the old +man drew his broom along them, working by faith and not sight, blindly +feeling for the rubbish he could not see, and getting it all save from +some corner or other of which his theories had forgotten to take +account! Little nests of disorder collected in this way, to-day here, +to-morrow somewhere else, surprising, offensive to the eye. Again, at +the lawn-mowing, never man worked harder than Bettesworth, or more +conscientiously; but he could not see the track of his machine, and +seams of uncut grass often disfigured the smoothness of the turf even +after he had gone twice over it to make sure of perfection. It was +alarming to see him go near a flower border. He would avoid treading +on any plant of whose existence he knew, by an act of memory; but he +could not know all, and I had to limit his labours strictly to that +part of the garden he planted or tended himself. + +What made the situation so difficult to deal with was that his +intentions were so good. He was himself hardly aware that he failed, +and I rather sought to keep him in ignorance of the fact than +otherwise. I felt instinctively that, once it was admitted, all would +be over for Bettesworth; because he was incapable of mending, and open +complaints from me must in the end have led to his dismissal. For that +I was not prepared. He would never get another employment; to cut him +off from this would be like saying that the world had no more use for +him and he might as well die out of the way. But I had no courage to +condemn him to death because my lawn was ill cut. With one exception, +when I sent him to an oculist to see if spectacles would help him (the +oculist reported to me that there was "practically no sight left"), we +kept up the fiction that he could see to do his work. And his +patient, silent struggles to do well were not without an element of +greatness. + +But though the drawbacks to employing the old man were many, and such +as to set me oftentimes wondering how long I should be able to endure +them, it must not be thought that he was altogether useless. If he was +slow, he was still strong; if he was half blind, he was wholly +efficient at heavy straightforward work. During this winter, in making +some radical changes which involved a good deal of excavating work, +Bettesworth was like a first-rate navvy, and eagerly put all his +experience at my disposal. There was a trench to be opened for laying +a water-pipe. With a young man to help him, he dug it out and filled +it in again, in about half the time that the job would have taken if +it had been entrusted to a contractor. In one place a little pocket of +bright red gravel was found. This, of his own initiative, he put aside +for use on the paths which he was too blind to sweep clean. But, in +truth, a sort of sympathy with my desires and a keen eye to my +interests frequently inspired him to do the right thing in this kind +of way. He had identified himself with the place; was proud of it; +boasted to his friends of "our" successes; and like a miser over his +hoard, never spared himself where the good of the garden was +concerned, but with aching limbs--his ankle where he had once broken +it pained him cruelly at times--went slaving on for his own +satisfaction, when I would have suggested to him to take things +easily. + +I have said that there were those who considered him too expensive a +protégé for me. There were others, I am sure, to whom he appeared no +better than a tedious old man, opinionated, gossiping, not over clean. +Pretty often--especially in bad weather, when there was not much he +could be doing--he went on errands for me to the town, to fetch home +groceries and take vegetables to my friends, and all that sort of +thing. At my friends' he liked calling; they owed to him rather than +to me not a few cookings of cabbage and sticks of celery, for which +they would reward him with praise, and perhaps a glass of beer or the +price of it. Afterwards I would hear lamentings from them how long he +had stayed talking. Once or twice--hardly oftener in all these +years--I had to speak to him in sharp reprimand for being such a +prodigious long time gone; for the glass of beer and the gossip where +he delivered his cabbages did not always satisfy his cravings for +society and comfort: he would turn into a public-house--"Dan +Vickery's" for choice--and come back too late and too talkative. It +was a fault, if you like; but the wonder to me is, not that he +sometimes drank two glasses where one was enough, but that, with his +wit and delight in good company, he did not oftener fall from grace. +Those two or three occasions when he earned my sharp reproofs, and for +half a day afterwards lost his sense of comfort in me as a friend, +were probably times when his home had grown too dreary, his outlook +too hopeless, even for his fortitude. Some readers, no doubt, will be +offended by his taste for beer. I hope there will be some to give him +credit for the months and years in which, with these few exceptions, +he controlled the appetite. Remember, he had no religious convictions, +nor did the peasant traditions by which he lived afford him much +guidance. Alone, of his own inborn instinct for being a decent man, he +strove through all his life, not to be rich, but to live upright and +unashamed. Fumbling, tiresome, garrulous, unprofitable, lean and grim +and dirty in outward appearance, the grey old life was full of fight +for its idea of being a man; full of fight and patience and stubborn +resolve not to give in to anything which it had learnt to regard as +weakness. I remember looking down, after I had upbraided a failure, at +the old limbs bending over the soil in such humility, and I could +hardly bear the thought that very likely they were tired and aching. +This enfeebled body--dead now and mouldering in the churchyard--was +alive in those days, and felt pain. Do but think of that, and then +think of the patient, resolute spirit in it, which almost never +indulged its weaknesses, but had its self-respect, its half-savage +instincts toward righteousness, its smothered tastes, its untold +affections and its tenderness. That was the old man, gaunt-limbed, but +good-tempered, partially blind and fumbling, but experienced, whom we +have to imagine now indomitably facing yet another year of his life, +and a prospect in which there is little for him to hope for. Nay, +there was much for him to dread, had he known. A separate chapter, +however, must be given to the severe trouble which, as already hinted, +overtook him in the early weeks of 1903. + + + + +XIX + + +While the advance of time was affecting Bettesworth himself, another +influence had begun to play havoc with his environment. A glance in +retrospect at this nook of our parish during this same winter of +1902-3 shows the advent of new circumstances, of a kind full of menace +to men like him. Things and persons of the twentieth century had begun +to invade our valley, where men and women so far had lived as if the +nineteenth were not half through. + +The coming of the new influence was perhaps too subtle for Bettesworth +to be conscious of it. Perhaps he marked only the normal crumbling +away of the old-fashioned life, by death or departure of his former +associates, and failed to notice that these were no longer being +replaced, as they would have been in former times, by others like +them. Of our old friends close around us four or five were by this +time dead, and others had moved farther afield. We missed especially +old Mrs. Skinner. Since her husband's death in 1901 her domestic +arrangements had not been happy, and in the autumn just past she had +disposed of her little property, and was gone to live across the +valley. But note the circumstances. Only some ten years previously her +husband had bought this property--the cottage and nearly an acre of +ground--for about £70. He may have subsequently added £50 to its +value. Now, however, his widow was able to sell it for something like +£220. The increase shows what a significant change was overtaking us. + +I shall revert to this presently. For the moment I stop to gather up +some stray sentences of Bettesworth's which, perhaps, indicate how +unlikely he was to accommodate himself to new circumstances. + +The purchaser of Mrs. Skinner's cottage was a man named Kelway--a +curious, nondescript person, as to whose "derivings" we speculated in +vain. What had he been before he came here? No one ever discovered +that, but his behaviour was that of an artisan from near London--a +plasterer or a builder's carpenter--who had come into a little money. +I remember his telling me jauntily on one occasion that he should not +feel settled until he had brought home his American organ (I was +heartily glad that it never came!), and on another that he had made +"hundreds of wheelbarrows" in his time, which I thought unlikely; and +I cannot forget--for there are signs of it to this day--how ruthlessly +he destroyed the natural contours of his garden with ill-devised +"improvements." He pulled out the interior partitions of the cottage, +too, wearing while at the work the correct garb of a plasterer; and +it was in this costume that he annoyed Bettesworth by his patronizing +familiarity. "He says to me" (thus Bettesworth), "'I suppose you don't +know who I am in my dirty dishabille?' 'No,' I says, 'and if I tells +the truth, I don't care nuther.' _He's dirty dishabille!_... He got +too much old buck for me!" Shortly afterwards he asked Bettesworth to +direct him to a good plumber. "'I can do everything else,' he says, +'but plumbing is a thing I never had any knowledge of.' So I says, 'If +I was you I should sleep with a plumber two or three nights.'" + + +_January 27, 1903._--Again, in the end of January, Bettesworth +reported: "That man down here ast me about peas--what sort we gets, +an' so on." (Remember that he had nearly an acre of ground.) "So I +told 'n, and he says, 'What do they run to for price?' 'Oh, about a +shillin' a quart,' I says; and that's what they _do_ run to. 'I must +have half a pint,' he says. I bust out laughin' at 'n. An' he says he +must have a load o' manure, too! He must mind he don't overdo it! I +was _obliged_ to laugh at 'n." + +Of course, such a neighbour would in no circumstances have pleased +Bettesworth. I believe the man had many estimable qualities, but they +were dwarfed beside his own appreciation of them; and his subsequent +disappointments, which ultimately led to his withdrawal from the +neighbourhood, were not of the kind to engage Bettesworth's sympathy. +Indeed, he had no chance of approval in that quarter, coming in the +place of old Mrs. Skinner, with her peasant lore and her pigs. + +But if this egregious man was personally offensive to Bettesworth, he +was not intrinsically more strange to the old man than those who +followed him or than others who were settling in the parish. There +were to be no more Mrs. Skinners. Wherever one of the old country sort +of people dropped out from our midst, people of urban habits took +their place. These were of two classes: either wealthy people of +leisure, seeking residences, and bringing their own gardeners who +wanted homes, or else mechanics from the neighbouring town, ready to +pay high rents for the cottages whose value was so swiftly rising. The +stealthiness of the process blinded us, however, to what was +happening. When Bettesworth began, as he did now, to feel the pressure +of civilization pushing him out, neither he nor I understood the +situation. + +Right and left, property was changing hands. A big house in the next +hollow, but with its grounds overpeering this, had been bought by a +wealthy resident, and was under repair, already let to some friends of +his. There went with it in the same estate the hill-side opposite this +garden, with two or three cottages visible from here; and everybody +rejoiced when the disreputable tenants of one of these cottages had +notice to quit. It was hoped that the new owner was sensible of the +duties as well as the rights attaching to property. + +Meanwhile, Bettesworth's hovel, too, was in the market, the landlord +of it being lately dead; and in the market it remained, while +Bettesworth clamoured in vain for repairs. At last he gave up hope. By +the beginning of 1903 he had resolved to quit his old cottage as soon +as he could find another to go into. + +He waited still some weeks, however--property was valuable, cottages +were eagerly sought after--and then what seemed a golden opportunity +arose. The cottage with the disreputable tenants has been mentioned, +adjoining the grounds of the big house. It must have been early in +February when the whisper that it was to be vacant reached +Bettesworth, who forthwith announced to me his intention of applying +for it. Too big, perhaps too good, for him and his wife I may have +thought the place; but there was no other in the neighbourhood to be +heard of, and it was not only for its pleasantness that the old man +coveted it. With his wife there he would be able to keep watch over +her while he was at work here, and there would be almost an end to +those anxieties about her fits, which often made him half afraid to go +home. I remember the secrecy of his talk. He wanted no one to +forestall him. The thing was urgent; and I had no hesitation in +writing a recommendation of him as a desirable tenant, which he +forthwith took to the owner. Why, indeed, should I have hesitated? +Between Bettesworth's punctiliousness on such matters and my own +intention of helping him if need be, there was no fear as to the +payment of the rent. And the improvements he had made to that place +down by the stream argued well for the care he would take of this +better cottage. + +My recommendation did its work. Bettesworth was duly accepted as +tenant; he gave notice to leave the other place, and began +preparations for moving; and then, too late, it dawned upon me that +perhaps I had made a mistake. I had forgotten old Mrs. Bettesworth. I +had not set eyes on her for months; for much longer I had not been +inside her dwelling, to see the state it was in. I only knew that +outside the walls were whitewashed, the garden and paths orderly. + +The first doubts visited me when I saw that repairs to the new abode +were being done on a scale too extravagant to fit the Bettesworths. +The next resulted from an inspection I made of the cottage at +Bettesworth's desire. He was beyond measure proud to have a place into +which he could invite me without shame; and he took me all over it, +and described to me his plans for improving the garden, without +suspicion of anything amiss. Probably his eyes were too dim to see +what I saw. Some of his furniture, already heaped on the floor in one +of the clean new-papered rooms, had a sooty, cobwebby look that filled +me with forebodings of trouble. However, it was too late to withdraw. +There was no going back to that abandoned place down in the valley. +There was nothing to do but hope for the best. + +Hope seemed justified for a week or two, while Bettesworth's new +garden, heretofore a wilderness, assumed a new order. He had sowed +early peas--probably other things too--having actually paid a +neighbour to help him get the ground dug; and he was extremely happy, +until a day came when he said, cautiously and bitterly, "I thinks I +got a enemy." He went on to explain that some one, he suspected, +wanted his cottage, and was trying to get him out of it. I have +forgotten what raised his suspicions. He did not even then realize +that himself, or rather his wife, was the only enemy he had to fear. + +That was the miserable truth, however. Down in that other place, +secluded from the neighbours, the old woman had grown utterly squalid, +though Bettesworth had not seen it. And now the owner of the new +cottage, perhaps from the grounds of the large residence destined for +his friends, had caught sight of old Lucy Bettesworth, and had been, +as anyone else would have been, horrified at her filthy appearance. +But he did not act on that single impression: it was not until kindly +means had been taken to ascertain the truth of it that he first +expostulated, and then told Bettesworth that he could not be permitted +to stay. Nay, I was allowed to try first if persuasion of mine could +remedy the evil. + +Unfortunately, remedies were not in Bettesworth's power, or he would +by now have employed them, being alarmed as well as indignant. He +listened to my hints that his wife was intolerably dirty, but (I write +from memory) "What can I do, sir?" he said. "I knows she en't like +other women, with her bad hand and all." (She had broken her wrist +some years before, and never regained its strength.) "But I can't +afford to dress her like a lady. I told 'n so to his head: 'I can't +keep a dressed-up doll,' I says." Neither could he, being so nearly +blind, see that his wife was going about unwashed, grimy, like a +dreadful apparition of poverty from the Middle Ages. To her it would +have been useless to speak. Her epilepsy had impaired her intellect, +and any suggestion of reform, even from her own husband, seemed to her +a piece of persecution to be obstinately resented. + +So there was nothing to be done. The prospective tenants of the big +house near by could not be expected to endure such a neighbour; the +cottage itself, which had cost £20 for repairs, the owner told me, was +no place for such a tenant. The Bettesworths therefore must go. They +received formal notice to quit; then, as nothing appeared to be +happening, a more peremptory notice was sent limiting their time to +three weeks, yet promising a sovereign as compensation for the work +done and the crops planted in the garden. In the meantime they had +probably done more than a sovereign's worth of damage to the cottage +interior, with its new paper and paint. + +But though nothing appeared to be happening, the two old people were +secretly in a state near to distraction. The reader will remember the +peculiar topography of this parish, with the tenements dotted about +for a mile or more on the northern slope of the valley. All up and +down this district, and then on the other side, where he was less at +home, Bettesworth hunted in vain for an available cottage within +possible reach of his work: there was not one to be found. And now he +realized his physical feebleness. Years ago, miles would not have +mattered; he could have shifted to another village and defied the +demands of our new-come town civilization; but now a walk of a mile +would be a consideration. His legs were too old and stiff for a long +walk as well as a day's work. + +For several days--and days are money, especially to a working-man--he +searched up and down, his despair increasing, his dismay deepening, at +every fresh disappointment. I began to fear he would break down. He +could not sleep, nor yet could his wife. She had been crying half the +night--so he told me after the misery had endured the best part of the +week. "She kep' on, 'Whatever will become of us, Fred? Wherever +_shall_ we go?'" and he, trying to reassure her that they would "find +somewhere to creep into," seemed to be face to face with the +workhouse as his only prospect. So they spent their night, and rose to +a hopeless morning. + +It was time, evidently, for me to take the matter up. Besides, the old +people's trouble was getting on my nerves. Across the valley there was +an empty cottage--one of a pair--which the owner had refused to let on +the strange plea that the tenants who had just left had been so +troublesome and destructive that he was resolved against taking any +others. Such a dry, whimsical old man was this landlord that the story +was not incredible. A retired bricklayer, and a widower, he lived by +himself on next to nothing, not from miserliness but from choice, and +his chief object in life seemed to be to avoid trouble. He had, +however, worked with Bettesworth in years gone by, and was, in fact, a +sort of chum of his, so that it seemed worth while to try what +persuasion would do to shake his resolution of keeping an empty +cottage. And where Bettesworth had failed, I might succeed. + +So, one fine morning--it was near the middle of March by now--I hunted +up this old man--a man as genial and kindly as I wish to see--and made +him a proposal. He showed some reluctance to entertain it. Why? The +truth came out at last: he did not want the Bettesworths for tenants; +he knew the indescribable state of the old woman; it was to her that +he objected; and it was to spare his old chum's feelings that he had +invented that story about being unwilling to let the cottage at all. + +But the case was desperate. How I pleaded it I no longer remember, nor +is it of any importance. I think there were two interviews. In the end +the cottage was let, not direct to Bettesworth, but to me with +permission to sublet it to him; and two, or at most three days +afterwards, Bettesworth was in possession, and the other cottage once +more stood empty. + +So the squalid episode was over. After such a narrow escape from the +workhouse, it was as it were with a gasp of relief that the old couple +settled down in their new abode, safe at last. The place, though, was +not one which Bettesworth would have chosen, had there been a choice. +Down there by the meadow where he had come from, though the cottage +might be crazy, the outlook had been fair. He had been peacefully +alone there; in summer evenings he had heard the men mowing; on winter +nights there was the wind in the withies and the sound of the stream. +But from this time onwards we have to think of him as living in one of +a mean group of tenements which exhibit their stuccoed ugliness +nakedly on a bleak slope above the meadow. As to the neighbours--some +of them resented his coming, for of course the scandal of his wife's +condition was public property by now. With a certain defiant shame, +therefore, he crept in amongst them. Fortunately, the people in the +next-door cottage--an unmarried labourer and his mother--knew +Bettesworth's record, and regarded him as a veteran to be cared for; +and not many weeks passed before the old man felt himself established +in their good-will, and was trying to persuade himself that all was +for the best. + +Of course, he was only partially successful in that endeavour. +Occasional bitter remarks showed that he still harboured a resentment +against the owner of the cottage from which he had been turned out, +and, in fact, there were circumstances which would have made it +difficult for him quite to forget the affair. Perched on one of the +steepest of the bluffs, high above the stream, the cottage in which he +was not good enough to live stood beside the path he now had to travel +to and from his work every day. Often, as his legs grew weary and his +breath short with ascending the footpath, he must have felt tempted to +curse the place. Often it must have seemed to taunt him with his +unfitness. Even when he was at work, there it was full in sight. In +bad weather, and as he grew feebler, it stood there on its uplifted +brow, not sheltering the wife to whom he wanted to go at dinner-time, +but like an obstacle in his way. Instead of being his home, it cut him +off from his home; and he took to bringing his dinner with him, +wrapped in a handkerchief; poor cold food which he frequently left +untasted, preferring a pipe. + +Yet it was not his nature to be embittered. When the peas he had sown +came up, though for another man's benefit, he looked across at them +from this garden and admired them. They were a fine crop and +remarkably early. If, however, they made him a little envious, he was +generous enough to be pleased too. Perhaps the sight comforted him, +proving that he would have done well there, at least with the garden, +if they had let him stay. And certainly he was flattered when the new +tenant, wholly grateful, asked him what sort of peas these were. +"Earliest of All," he replied, giving the name by which he had really +bought them. And by-and-by a joke arose out of the answer, because the +other man would not believe that the peas were really so called, but +thought Bettesworth was "kiddin' of 'n" with a name invented by +himself. The old man had many a chuckle over this piece of +incredulity. "I tells 'n right enough," he laughed; "but he won't have +it." + + + + +XX + + +As may be imagined, the troubles through which Bettesworth had thus +come did nothing to rejuvenate him. On the contrary, they openly +convicted him of old age, and made it patent that he was no longer +very well able to take care of himself. In fact, the man's instinctive +pride in himself had been shaken, and though I do not think he +consciously slackened his efforts to do well, his unconscious, +spontaneous activity was certainly impaired. It was as though the +inner stimulus to his muscles was gone. He forgot to move as fast as +he was able. Sometimes he would, as it were, wake up, and spur himself +back into something like good labouring form; but after a little time +he would relapse, and go dreamily humming about his work like a very +old man. In these days, my own interest in him reached its lowest ebb. +I found myself burdened with a dependent I could not in honour shake +off; but there was little pleasure to be had in thinking of +Bettesworth. Only now and again, when he dropped into reminiscence, +did he seem worth attention; only now and again, in my note-books of +the period, does he re-emerge, telling chiefly of things the present +generations have forgotten. + +To the earliest notice of him for the year an irony attaches, since it +begins by recording with extreme satisfaction the first of those +summer rains which were to make 1903 so memorable and disastrous. How +little did we guess, on that June 10, what was in store for us! My +note describes, almost gloatingly, "one of those gloomy summer +evenings that we get with thundery rain. There is scarcely any wind; +grey cloud, well-nigh motionless, hangs over all the sky; the distant +hills are a stronger grey; the garden is all wet greenness--deep +beyond deep of sombre green, turning black under the denser branches +of the trees. Now and again rain shatters down into the rich +leafage--a solemn noise; and thrushes are vocal; but these sounds do +not disturb the impressive quietness." + +So the entry proceeds, noting how stiff and strong the grass was +already looking after a threat of drought; how the hedgerows were +odorous with the pungent scent of nettles; how the lustrous opaque +white of horse-daisies starred certain grassy banks; and at last, how +all my neighbours who have gardens were as well pleased as myself with +the weather. + +And so the note comes round to Bettesworth. He too, with his head full +of recollections of past summer rains, and of hopes of rich crops to +result from this present one, was glorying in the gloom of the day. +As the old wise toads crept out from hole and wall-cranny and waddled +solemn and moist-skinned across the lawn about their affairs, so +Bettesworth about his, not much regarding a wet coat. He had theories +as to hilling potatoes, or rather as to not hilling them until the +ground could be drawn round the haulm wet. And here was his chance. In +the afternoon he took it, joyfully, and the earth turned up rich and +dark under his beck.[2] + +The tool set him talking. For hilling potatoes he reckoned, a beck is +much better than a hoe: "leaves such a nice crumb on the ground." He +was resolved to have his "five-grained spud" or garden fork turned +into a beck--the next time he went to the town, perhaps, "'cause it +wouldn't take 'em long, jest to turn the neck, and then draw the +rivets an' take the tree out an' put in a handle. 'T'd make a good +tool then--so sharp! + +"This old beck I'm usin'," he went on happily, "I warrant he's a +hunderd year old. He belonged to my wife's gran'father afore I had 'n; +and _I_'ve had 'n this thirty year or more.... He's a reg'lar +hand-made one--and a good tool still. That's who he belonged to--my +old gal's gran'father. + +"He" (the grandfather) "had this place over here o' Warner's--'twas +him as built that, you know." The property mentioned is a large +cottage and garden, adjoining that from which Bettesworth and his +wife had so lately been turned out. "And he was the one as fust +planted Brook's Field. He had Nott's, down here, and Mavin's, and +Brook's Field--and a _purty_ bit that was, too! He was the fust one as +planted it. Dessay he had a hunderd acres. Used to keep a little team, +and a waggon shed--up the lane here, an' come down this lane an' right +in there...." + +But we need not follow Bettesworth into these topographical details. +Returning, in a moment, to the prosperity of his wife's grandfather, +he hinted at the basis of it. The man was a peasant-farmer, producing +for his own needs first, and enjoying certain valuable rights of +common. + +"He used to keep two or three cows," said Bettesworth. "Well, moost +people used to keep a cow then, what _was_ anybody at all. Ye see, the +commons was all open, and the boys what looked after the cows used to +git so much for every one; so the more (cows) they could git the +better their week's wages was for lookin' after 'em. + +"They _was_ some boys too, some of 'em--when there got two or three of +'em up there in the Forest together, 'long o' the cows!" The old man +chuckled grimly. "I rec'lect one time me an' Sonny Mander and his +brother went after one o' the forest ponies. There was hunderds o' +ponies then. Deer, too. And as soon as we caught 'n, I was up on his +back. I didn't care after I got _upon_ 'n. I clung on to his +mane--his mane was down to the ground--and off he went with me, all +down towards Rocknest and"--well, and more topography. "He tore +through everything, an' scratched my face, and I was afraid to get off +for fear he should gallop over me.... And they hollerin' after 'n only +made 'n worse. He run till he was beat, afore I got off. + +"_Purty_ tannin' I got, when I got 'ome! 'Cause me clothes was tore, +and me cap was gone.... Oh, _I_ had beltinker! They had the news afore +I got 'ome, 'cause so many cowboys see me." + +Smiling, Bettesworth resumed work with his ancient beck, by dexterous +twist now right and now left turning the dark wet earth in to the +potato haulm. + + +It was about this time that, our talk working round somehow to the +subject of donkeys, Bettesworth remarked, as if it were a part of the +natural history of those interesting animals, and indeed one of their +specific habits, "Moost donkeys goes after dirty clothes o' Monday +mornin's." I suppose that is true of the donkeys kept by the numerous +cottage laundresses in this parish. + +From this he launched off into a long rambling narrative, which I did +not understand in all its details, of his "old mother-in-law's +donkey," named Jane, whom he once drove down into Sussex for the +harvesting. "She drinked seven pints o' beer 'tween this an' +Chichester. Some policemen give her one pint when we drove down into +Singleton. There was three or four policemen outside the public +there," Goodwood races being on at the time; and these policemen +treated Jane, while Bettesworth went within to refresh himself. "That +an' some bread was all she wanted. I'd took a peck o' corn for her, +but she didn't sim to care about it; and I give a feller thruppence +what 'd got some clover-grass on a cart, but she only had about a +mouthful o' that." In short, Jane preferred bread and beer. "Jest +break a loaf o' bread in half an' put it in a bowl an' pour about a +pint o' beer over 't.... But she'd put her lips into a glass or a cup +and soop it out. Reg'lar coster's donkey, she was, and they'd learnt +her. Not much bigger 'n a good-sized dog--but _trot_!" + +How she trotted, and won a wager, against another donkey on the same +road, was told so confusedly that I could not follow the tale. + +In Sussex, Jane was the delight of the farmer's children. "'May I have +a ride on your donkey?' they'd say, twenty times a day. 'Yes,' I'd +say, 'if you can catch her.' And she'd let 'em go up to her, but as +soon as ever they got on her back they was off again. 'You give her a +bit o' bread,' I'd say; 'p'raps she'll let ye ride then.' And they +used to give her bread," but she would never suffer them to ride her. + +People on the road admired the donkey--nay, the whole equipage. +"Comin' home, down Fernhurst Hill, I got up--'cause I rode down +'ills--I walked all the rest--and says, 'Now, Jane, there's a pint o' +beer for ye at the bottom of the hill.' So we come down" to the inn +there, named by Bettesworth but forgotten by me, "and three or four +farmers there says, 'Here comes the man wi' the little donkey!' And I +called out for a pint, and she thought she was goin' to have it; but I +says, 'No, this is for me. You wait till you got your wind back.'" + +We spoke afterwards of other donkeys, and particularly of one--a +lady's of the neighbourhood--which, as Bettesworth had been told, was +"groomed and put into the stable with a cloth over him, jest like the +other horses.... Law! if donkeys was looked after, they'd _kill_ all +the ponies (by outworking them), but they don't get no chance." + + +The harvesting expeditions into Sussex, and the keeping of cows on the +common, were parts of an antique peasant economy now quite obsolete. +In August of this year a further glimpse of it was obtained, in a +conversation which, I grieve to say, I neglected to set down in +Bettesworth's own words. + + +_August 21, 1903._--There was a time shortly after his marriage, and, +as I guess, between forty and fifty years ago, when he rented a +cottage and garden quite close to this house. The price of wheat being +then two shillings the gallon, he used to grow wheat in his garden; +and his average crop was at the rate of fourteen or fifteen sacks to +the acre, or nearly twice as much as local farmers now succeed in +growing. + +In making this use of his garden he was by no means singular. Many of +his neighbours at that date grew their own corn; and it was Mrs. +Bettesworth's brother (a man still living, and now working a threshing +engine) who dibbed it for them. The dibber ("dessay he got it now") +was described by Bettesworth--a double implement, made for dibbing two +rows at a time. It had two "trees," like spade handles, set side by +side, each of which was socketed into an iron bent forwards like a +letter L. On the under-side of each iron, four excrescences made four +shallow holes in the ground, "about like a egg"; and a rod connecting +the two irons kept the double tool rigid. Walking backwards, the man +using this implement could press into the ground two rows of +egg-shaped holes at a time, as fast as the women could follow with the +seed. For it seems that two women followed the dibber, carrying their +seed-corn in basins and dropping one or two grains into each hole. The +ground was afterwards rolled with a home-made wooden roller; and as +soon as the corn came up the hoe was kept going, the rows being about +eight inches asunder, until the crop was knee high. + +Is it wrong to give so much space to these haphazard recollections? +They interrupt the narrative of Bettesworth's slow and weary +decline--that must be admitted. Yet, following as they do so close +upon his wretched experiences in contact with more modern life, they +help to explain why he and modernity were so much at odds. He had been +a labourer, a soldier, all sorts of things; but he had been first and +last by taste a peasant, with ideas and interests proper to another +England than that in which we are living now. + +In course of time, but not yet, a good deal more was to be gleaned +from him about this former kind of country existence. I shall take it +as it comes, and, while Bettesworth is losing grip of life, let the +contrast between him dying and the modern world eagerly living make +its own effect. As now this detail, and now that, is added to the +mass, perhaps a little of the atmosphere may be restored in which his +mind still had its being, and through which he saw our time, yet not +as we see it. + + +Meanwhile, there is one reminiscence which stands by itself and throws +light on little or nothing, but is too queer to be omitted. Having no +place of its own, it is given here because it comes next in my +note-book. + + +_October 24, 1903._--It was the weather that started our talk. +Bettesworth could not remember anything like this year 1903 for rain. +But there! he supposed we should get some fine weather again +"somewhen?" + +Now, I had just been reading some history, and was able to answer +with some confidence, "Oh yes. There have been wet years before this." +And I mentioned the year after the Battle of Waterloo. + +Then Bettesworth, "Let's see. Battle of Waterloo? That was in '47, +wa'n't it?" + +I chanced to be able to give him the correct date, which he accepted +easily, as if he had known all the time. "Oh ah," he said. "But there +was something in eighteen hunderd and forty-seven--some great affair +or other?... I dunno what 'twas, though, now.... Forty-seven? H'm!" + +What could it have been? No, not the Mutiny. "That come after the +Crimea. 'Twa'n't that. But there was something, I know." + +I could not imagine what it could have been; but Bettesworth still +pondered, and at last an idea struck him. "June, '47.... H'm!... Oh, I +knows. Old Waterloo Day, that's what 'twas! There used to be a lot of +'em" (he was hurrying on, and I could only surmise that he meant +Waterloo veterans) "at Chatham. I see one of 'em there myself, what +had cut one of his hamstrings out o' cowardice, so's he shouldn't have +to go into the battle. So then they cut the other, too, an' kep' 'n +there" (at Chatham) "for a peep-show. He wa'n't never to be buried, +but put in a glass case when he died. + +"He laid up there in his bed, and anybody as mind could go up an' see +'n. They used to flog 'n every Waterloo Day--in the last years 'twas +a bunch o' black ribbons he was flogged with. He had a wooden ball +tied to a bit o' string; and you go up, and ast 'n about the 71st (?), +and see what you'd git! 'Cause one of the soldiers o' the 71st went up +there once, an' called 'n all manner o' things. O' course, when he'd +throwed this ball he could always draw 'n back again, 'cause o' the +string.... And every mornin' he was ast what he'd have to drink. They +said he was worth a lot, and 't'd all go to a sergeant-major's +daughter when he died, what looked after 'n. + +"He was worth a lot o' money. Lots used to go up to see 'n--I did, and +so did a many more, 'cause he was kep' there for show, and everybody +as went up he'd ast 'm for something. He'd git half a crown, or ten +shillin's, or a sovereign sometimes. But lots o' soldiers used to go +an' let 'n have it. + +"Ye see, he couldn't git up. He cut his own hamstring for cowardice, +so's he shouldn't go into battle, and then they cut the other. 'Twas +the Dook o' Wellington, they says, ordered it to be done, for a +punishment. And, o' course, he never was able to walk again. That done +him. There he laid on the bed, with waddin' wrapped all round to +prevent sores. And in one part o' the room was the glass case ready +for when he died, for 'n to be embarmed an' kep'--'cause he was never +to be buried. Fifty year he laid there! I shouldn't much like his bit, +should you?" + +FOOTNOTE: + +[2] A tool of which the iron part resembles that of a garden fork, the +handle, however, being socketed into it at right angles, as in a rake. + + + + +XXI + + +_November 4, 1903._--One morning--it was the 4th of +November--Bettesworth said, "I got a invitation out to a grand dinner +to-night, down in the town. Veterans of the Crimea. But I shan't go. +I'd sooner be at home and have a bit o' supper an' get to bed +early.... No; it don't cost ye nothin'--an' plenty _of_ everything; +spirits, good food, a very good _dinner_. Still, you can't go to these +sort o' things without spendin' a shillin'. And then be about half the +night. I don't care about it. If I was to go, 't'd upset me +to-morrer." + +All this bewildered me. For one thing, it was plain that the fact of +Bettesworth's having been a soldier was no secret after all. As he now +went on to tell me, he had actually attended two previous dinners. Who +were they, then, who knew his record, and got him his invitation? Who, +indeed, was giving the dinner? Rumours of some such annual +celebration, it is true, had reached me; but it was no public +function. Even by name the promoters were unknown to me; and yet +somehow they had known for several years before I did that my man had +been a soldier in the Crimea. + +At the moment, however, it was Bettesworth's refusal of the invitation +that most surprised me, although his alleged reasons were very good. +He so loved good cheer, and he had so few opportunities of enjoying +it--the Oddfellows' dinner was the only other chance he ever had in +any year--that I immediately suspected him of having been swayed in +this instance by something else besides prudence. He sounded +over-virtuous. And presently it struck me that there might have been +something offensive to him in the way the invitation was given. + +It had been received on the previous evening. He had just got round to +the public-house, "'long of old White," when "a feller come in," +inquiring for him. Bettesworth did not know the man; it was "somebody +in a grey suit." "Stood me a glass of hot whisky-and-water, he did, +and old White too." And, referring to Bettesworth's military service, +"'What was ye?' he says. 'A man,' I says. He laughed and says, 'What +are ye drinkin'?' 'Only a glass o' cold fo'penny,' I says." And +Bettesworth seems to have said it in a very meek voice, subtly +insinuating that "the feller" might stand something better. + +I inferred, further, that Bettesworth's conscience was now pricking +him for some incivility he had shown in declining the invitation. At +any rate, he made a lame attempt, not otherwise called for, to prove +that a self-respecting man would not humble himself to anyone upon +whom he was not dependent. He had evidently been the reverse of +humble; and possibly the invitation was patronizing, and raised his +ire. + +"Or else," he concluded, "I be purty near the only veteran left about +here. There used to be Tom Willett and"--another whose name I have +forgotten--"in the town, but they be gone, and I dunno who else there +is. And I knows there's ne'er another in this parish. Dessay they'll +get a few kiddies from Aldershot. 'Cause there's any amount o' +drink...." + +Well, Bettesworth did not go to the dinner, and I never quite +understood why. Possibly he really felt too old for dissipation, even +of a decorous kind: still more likely, he dreaded being at once +under-valued and patronized, among the "kiddies" from Aldershot. He +certainly did well to avoid their company. Long afterwards, when for +other reasons I was making inquiries about this dinner, I learnt that +the behaviour of some of the guests had been scandalous. Some had been +carried away, drunk. Others had taken with them, hidden in their +pockets, the means of getting drunk at home. So I was told; but not by +the promoters, who had shortly afterwards left the neighbourhood. + + +On this same date (4th November, 1903) Bettesworth informed me of +another circumstance which affected him seriously. It was that he had +lately been superannuated from his club, which he had joined in July, +1866. At that distant time, when he was still a young man, and a +strong one, how should he look forward to the year 1903? By what then +seemed a profitable arrangement, he paid his subscription on a lower +scale, on the understanding that he would receive no financial help in +time of sickness after he was sixty-five years old. He had now passed +that age. Henceforth, for a payment of threepence a month, he was to +have medical attendance free, and on his death the club would pay for +his funeral. + +He was mighty philosophical over this. For my part, it was impossible +to look forward without apprehension to the position he would be in +during the approaching winter. A year previously he had shown symptoms +of bronchitis. But what was to become of him now, if he should be ill, +and have no "sick-pay" upon which to fall back? + + + + +XXII + + +I think it must have been during the winter we have reached that the +village policeman stopped me in the road one night to talk about old +Mrs. Bettesworth. He told me, what I vaguely knew, that she was +increasingly ill. Once, if not oftener (I write from memory), he had +helped get her home out of the road, where she had fallen in a fit; +and a fear was upon him that she would come to some tragical end. Then +there would be an inquest; Bettesworth might be blamed for omitting +necessary precautions; at any rate, trouble and scandal must ensue. +The policeman proposed that it would be well if a doctor could see the +old woman occasionally, and suggested that through my influence with +Bettesworth it might be arranged. + +Although I promised to see what could be done to carry out so +thoughtful a suggestion, and meant to keep my promise, as a matter of +fact no steps towards its performance were ever taken; and the thing +is mentioned here only as a piece of evidence as to the conditions in +which Bettesworth passed the winter. In the background of his mind, +there stood always the circumstances which had inspired apprehension +in the policeman. I never noted down his dread, because it was too +constant a thing; and for a like reason, he seldom spoke of it; but +there it always was, immovable. The policeman's talk merely shows that +the reasons for it were gathering in force. + +Save for one or two other equally vague memories, that winter is lost, +so far as Bettesworth is concerned. We had some cold though not really +severe weather--nothing so terrible as an odd calculation of his would +have made it out to be. "For," said he, "we _be_ gettin' it! The +Vicar's gardener says there was six degrees o' frost this mornin'.... +And five yesterday; an' seven the mornin' before. That makes eighteen +degrees!" So he added up the thermometer readings; and, associated +with his words, there comes back to me a winter afternoon in which the +air had grown tense and still. Under an apple-tree, where the ground, +covered with thin snow, was too hard frozen for a tool to penetrate, +the emptyings of an ash-bin from the kitchen lay in a little heap; and +a dozen or so of starlings were quarrelling over this refuse, flying +up to spar at one another, and uttering sharp querulous cries. A white +fog hung in the trees. It was real winter, and I laughed to myself, to +think what a record Bettesworth might make of it by the following +morning. + +Seeing that every winter now he was troubled with a cough, I may as +well give here some undated sentences I have preserved, in which he +described how he caught cold on one occasion. "If I'd ha' put on my +wrop as soon 's I left off work," he said, "I should ha' bin aw-right. +'Stead o' that, I went scrawneckin' off 'ome jest's I was, an' that's +how I copt it." The word scrawnecking, whatever he meant by it, +conjures up a picture of him boring blindly ahead with skinny throat +uncovered. He took little care of himself; and considering how ill-fed +he went now that his wife was so helpless, it was small wonder that he +suffered from colds. They did not improve his appetite. They spoilt +many a night's rest for him, too. At such times, the account he used +to give of his coughing was imitative. "Cough cough cough, all night +long." A strong accent on the first and fourth syllables, and a "dying +fall" for the others, gives the cadence. + +Beyond these memories nothing else is left of Bettesworth's +experiences during those three months--December, 1903, and January and +February, 1904. Coming to March, I might repeat some interesting +remarks of his upon an affair then agitating the village; but after +all they do not much concern his history, and there are strong reasons +for withholding them. And suppressing these, I find no further account +of him until the middle of May. + +The interval, however, between the 3rd of March and the 16th of May, +was sadly eventful for Bettesworth. I cannot say much about it. As +once before when his circumstances grew too tragical, so on this +occasion a vague sense of decency forbade me to sit down and record in +cold blood his sufferings, perhaps for future publication. + +What happened was briefly this: that some time in March one of the +colds which had distressed him all the winter settled upon his chest +and rapidly turned to bronchitis. If his wife's condition is taken +into account, the seriousness of the situation will be appreciated. At +his time of life bronchitis would have been bad enough, even with good +nursing; but poor old Lucy Bettesworth was far past devoting to her +husband any attention of that sort. Even in her best state she was +past it, and she was by no means at her best just now. She needed care +herself; had a heavy cold; was at times beyond question slightly +crazy; and, to aggravate the trouble, she was insulting even to the +two or three neighbours who might have conquered their reluctance to +enter the filthy cottage and help the old man. For perhaps a week, +therefore, he lay uncared for, and none realized how ill he was. Only +the next-door neighbour spoke of hearing him coughing all night long. + +The old woman received me downstairs when I went to make inquiries. +She sat with her hand at her chest, dishevelled and unspeakably dirty. +And she coughed; tried to attract my sympathy to herself; assured me +"I be as bad as he is"; looked indeed ill, and half-witted. "You can +go up and see 'n," she said. I stumbled up the stairs and found +Bettesworth in bed, with burning cheeks and eyes feverishly bright. +The bedding was disgusting; so were the remains of a bloater left on +the table beside him, so much as to give me a feeling of nausea. As +for nursing, he had had none. He had got out of bed the previous night +and found a packet of mustard, of which he had shaken some into his +hand, and rubbed that into his chest, dry; and that was the only +remedy that had been used for his bronchitis, unless--yes, I think +there was a bottle of medicine on the mantelpiece; for he was still +entitled to the services of the club doctor, who had been sent for. +But in such a case, what could a doctor do? + +The next day the old man was worse, at times wandering in his mind. +And, as there was no one else to take the initiative, and as he looked +like dying and involving us all in disgrace, I interviewed the doctor +and--but the story grows wearisome. + +To finish, then: the workhouse infirmary was decided upon, as the only +place where Bettesworth could get the nursing without which he would +probably die. Fortunately, he received the proposal reasonably; he was +ready to go anywhere to get well, as he felt that he never would at +home. He merely stipulated that his wife must not be left. A walk to +find the relieving officer and get the necessary orders from him was +to me the only pleasant part of the episode. It took me, on a +brilliant spring evening, some three miles farther into the country, +where I saw the first primroses I had seen outside my garden that +year. It also enabled me to see how parish relief looks from the side +of the poor who have to ask for it, but that was not so pleasant. +However, the officer was civil enough; he gave me the necessary +orders; we made all the arrangements, and on the following day the two +old Bettesworths were driven off miserably in a cab to the workhouse. + +How fervently everybody hoped, then, that Bettesworth would leave his +wife behind, if he ever came out of the institution himself alive! And +yet, though it's true he was dependent on me for the wherewithal to +keep his home together, how much nobler was his own behaviour than +that we would have commended! Once in the infirmary, he recovered +quickly; and in ten days, to my amazement (and annoyance at the time), +word came that the old couple were out again. They had toddled feebly +home--a two-mile journey; they two together, not to be separated; each +of them the sole person in the world left to the other. The old woman, +people told me, was amazingly clean. Her hair, which had been cut, +proved white beyond expectation; her face was almost comely now that +it was washed. Had I not seen her? What a pity it was, wasn't it, the +old man wouldn't leave her up there to be took care of, and after all +the trouble it had been, too, to get 'em there! + +I believe it was on the day before Good Friday (1904) that they +returned home. When Bettesworth got to work again is more than my +memory tells me. I suppose, though, that I must have paid him a visit +first--probably during the following week; for I remember hoping to +see the old woman's white hair and clean face, and being disappointed +to find her as grimy as ever--her visage almost as black as her hands, +and her hair an ashy grey. + + + + +XXIII + + +_May 16, 1904._--"It is long," says a note of the 16th of May, "since +I wrote down any of Bettesworth's talk; but it flows on +constantly--less vivacious than of old, perhaps, for he is visibly +breaking since his illness in the spring, and is a stiff, shiftless, +rather weary, rather sad old man; but his garrulity has not lost its +flavour of the country-side; and many of his sayings sound to me like +the traditional quips and phrases of earlier generations." + +This was apropos of a remark he had let fall about a certain Mr. +Sparrow in an adjacent village, for whom Bettesworth's next-door +neighbour Kiddy Norris had been labouring, until Kiddy could no longer +endure the man's grasping ways. Stooping over his wooden grass-rake, +Bettesworth murmured, as if to the grass, "Old Jones used to say +Sparrows pecks." Then he told how Sparrow, deprived of the services +not only of Kiddy, but of Kiddy's mate Alf, was at a loss for men to +replace them; and, "Ah," Bettesworth commented, "he can't have 'em on +a peg, to take down jest when he mind to." The saying had a suggestive +old-world sound: I could imagine it handed about, on the Surrey +hill-sides, and in cottage gardens, and at public-houses, over and +over again through many years. + +Presently Bettesworth said casually, "I hear they're goin' to open +that new church over here in Moorway's Bottom to-morrer. Some of 'em +was terrifyin' little Alf Cook about it last night" (Sunday night; +probably at the public-house), "tellin' him he was goin' to be made +clerk, and he wouldn't be tall enough to reach to ring the bell." + +"Little Alf," I asked, "who used to work for So-and-so?" + +"Worked for 'n for years. The boys do terrify 'n. Tells 'n he won't be +able to reach to ring the bell. They keeps on. Why, he en't tall +enough to pick strawberries, they says." + +"He's got a family, hasn't he?" + +"Yes--but they be all doin' for theirselves. Two or three of 'em be +married. _He_ might ha' bin doin' very well. His old father left 'n +the house he lives in, and a smart bit o' ground: but I dunno--some of +'em reckons 'tis purty near all gone." + +"Down his neck?" + +"Ah. They was talkin' about 'n last night, and they seemed to reckon +there wa'n't much left. But he's a handy little feller. Bin over there +at Cashford this six weeks, so he told me, pointin' hop-poles for they +Fowlers. He said he'd had purty near enough of it. But he poled, I +thinks he said, nine acres o' hop-ground for 'em last year. He bin +pointin' this year. He says he might do better if 'twas nearer +home--he can't git rid o' the chips over there; people won't have 'em. +If he'd got 'em here, they'd be worth sixpence a sack--that always was +the price. He gits so much a hunderd for pointin'; and he told me it +was as much as he could do to earn two-and-nine or three shillin's" (a +day). "Then o' course there's the chips, only he can't sell 'em. +Cert'nly they'd serve he for firin'; but that en't what he wants." + + +_May 20._--"There's a dandy. You lay there." Bettesworth chose out and +put on one side a dandelion from the grass he was chopping off a green +path. "I'll take he home for my rabbits," he said. + +A sow-thistle in the near bank caught my eye. "Your rabbits will eat +sow-thistles too, won't they?" I asked. + +"Yes, they likes 'em very well. They'll eat 'em--an' then presently I +shall eat they." + +I pulled up the thistle, and another dandelion, while Bettesworth +discoursed of the economics of rabbit-keeping. "'Ten't no good keepin' +'em for the pleasure.... But give me a wild rabbit to eat afore a tame +one, any day. My neighbour Kid kills one purty near every week. He had +one last Sunday must ha' wanted some boilin', or bakin', or +somethin'." + +"What, an old one?" + +"Old buck. I ast 'n, 'What, have ye had yer teeth ground, then?' I +says. He's purty much of a one for rabbits." + +I was not so wonderfully fond of them, I said. + +"No? I en't had e'er a one--I dunno _when_. Well--a rabbit, you come +to put one down afore a hungry man, what is it? He's mother have gone +an' bought one for 'n at a shop, when he en't happened to have one +hisself--give as much as a shillin' or fifteenpence. 'Ten't worth it. +Or else I've many a time bought 'em for sixpence--sixpence, or +sixpence-ha'penny, or sevenpence. And they en't worth no more." + +During all this he was sweeping up his grass cuttings. The children +came out of school for afternoon recess, and their shoutings sounded +across the valley. "There's the rebels let loose again," said +Bettesworth. From where we stood, high on one of the upper terraces of +the garden, we could see far. The sky was grey and melancholy. A wind +blew up gustily out of the south-east, and I foreboded rain. "We don't +want it from that quarter," Bettesworth replied. "That's such a _cold_ +rain. And I've knowed it keep on forty-eight hours, out o' the +east.... I felt a lot better" (of the recent bronchitis) "when she" +(the wind) "shifted out o' there before." + +Meanwhile I had pulled up one or two more dandelions, to add to +Bettesworth's heap; and now I espied a small seedling of bryony, which +also I was careful to pull out. The root, already as big as a man's +thumb, came up easily, and I passed it to Bettesworth, asking, "Isn't +that what they give to horses sometimes?" + +He handled it. "I never _heared_ of anybody," he answered, perhaps not +recognizing it at this small stage of growth. "Now, ground _ivy_! +That's a rare thing. If you bakes the roots o' that in the oven, an' +then grinds it up to a powder, you no need to _call_ yer horses to ye, +after you've give 'em that. They'll foller ye for it. Dandelion roots +the same. Make 'em as fat! And their coats come up mottled, jest as if +you'd knocked 'em all over with a 'ammer. They'll foller ye about +anywhere for that. _I_'ve give it to 'em, many's a time; bin out, +after my day's work, all round the hedges, purpose to get things for +my 'osses. There's lots o' things in the hedgerow as is good for 'em. +So there is for we too, if we only knowed which they was. We shouldn't +want much _doctor_ if we knowed about herbs. + +"Old Waterson, he used to eat dandelion leaves same as you would a +lettuce, and he said it done 'n good, too. Old Steve Blackman was +another. He used to know all about the herbs. If you went into his +kitchen, you'd see it hung all round with little bundles of 'em, to +dry. _He_ was the only one as could cure old Rokey Wells o' the yeller +janders. Gunner had tried 'n--all the doctors had tried 'n, and give +'n up. He'd bin up there at the infirmary eighteen months or more, +till old Steve see 'n one day and took to 'n. And he made a hale +hearty man of 'n again. + +"That 'ere Holt--Tom Holt, _you_ know, what used to be keeper at +Culverley--_he_ got the yeller janders now. He's pensioned off--twelve +shillin's a week, and his cot and firin'. Lives in Cashford Bridge +house--you knows that old farmhouse as you goes over Cashford Bridge. +He lives there now. If old Steve's son got his father's book now, +he'll be able to cure 'n. He used to keep a book where he put all the +receipts, so 't is to be hoped his son have kep' it. They says Holt +'ve got the yeller janders wonderful strong, but if...." + + +_May 24._--In Bettesworth's opinion, an important part of the training +of a labourer relates to getting about and finding work. The old man +was at the Whit Monday fête with a man named Vickery, of whom he +talked, imitating Vickery's gruff voice with appreciation. +Vickery--sixty or seventy years old--came (I learn) from a village out +Guildford way--"that was his native," says Bettesworth--but was +adopted by an aunt in this parish, who left him her two cottages at +her death. All this, if not interesting to us, was deeply so to +Bettesworth. And Vickery, it appears, has worked all his life in one +situation, at Culverley Park. He began as a boy minding sheep. As a +man, he managed the gas-house belonging to the mansion; and when the +electric light was installed, he took over the management of that, +making up his time with chopping fire-wood, and so forth. And, says +Bettesworth, "They'd ha' to set fire to Culverley to get rid of 'n. He +never worked nowhere else. That's how they be down there. Old Smith's +another of 'em. He bin there forty year. He turned seventy, here a +week ago. Never had but two places, and bin at Culverley forty year. +Why, if they was turned out they wouldn't know how to go about. Same +when Mr. John Payne died: there was a lot o' young fellers turned off. +They hadn't looked out for theirselves; their fathers had always got +the work for 'em, and law! they didn' know where to go no more than a +cuckoo! But I reckon that's a very silly thing." + + + + +XXIV[3] + + +_June 1, 1904._--A cool thundery rain this first of June drove +Bettesworth to shelter. As usual at such times, he busied himself at +sawing and splitting wood for kindling fires. + +At the moment of my joining him he was breaking up an old wooden +bucket which had lately been condemned as useless. "Th' old bucket's +done for," he said contemplatively. "I dessay he seen a good deal o' +brewin'; but there en't much of it done now. A good many men used to +make purty near a livin' goin' round brewin' for people. Brown's in +Church Street used to be a rare place for 'em. Dessay you knows +there's a big yard there; an' then they had some good tackle, and +plenty o' room for firin'. Pearsons, Coopers"--he named several who +were wont to make use of Brown's yard and tackle. I asked, "Did the +cottage people brew?" But Bettesworth shook his head. "I never knowed +none much--only this sugar beer." + +"But they grew hops?" I asked. + +"Oh yes," Bettesworth assented, "every garden had a few hills o' +hops. But 't wa'n't very often they brewed any malted beer. Now 'n +again one 'd get a peck o' malt, but gen'ly 'twas this here sugar +beer. Or else I've brewed over here at my old mother-in-law's, 'cause +they had the tackle, ye see; and so I have gone over there when I've +killed a pig, to salt 'n." + +A suggestion that he would hardly know how to brew now caused him to +smile. "No, I don't s'pose I should," he admitted. + +I urged next that nearly all people, I supposed, used at one time to +brew their own beer. To which Bettesworth: + +"And so they did bake their own bread. They'd buy some flour...." + +I interrupted, remembering how he had himself grown corn, to ask if +that was not rather the custom. + +"Sometimes. Yes, I _have_ growed corn as high as my own head, up there +at the back of this cot.... But my old gal and me, when hoppin' was +over, we'd buy some flour, enough to last us through the winter, and +then with some taters, and a pig salted down, I'd say, 'There, we no +call to _starve_, let the winter be _what_ it will.' Well, taters, ye +see, didn't cost nothin'; and then we always had a pig. You couldn't +pass a cottage at that time that hadn't a pigsty.... And there was +milk, and butter, and bread...." + +"But not many comforts?" I queried. + +"No; 'twas rough. But I dunno--they used to look as strong an' jolly +as they do now. But 'twas poor money. The first farm-house I went to I +never had but thirty shillin's and my grub." + +"Thirty shillings in how long?" + +"Twal'month. And I had to pay my washin' an' buy my own clothes out o' +that." + +The point was interesting. Did he buy his clothes at a shop, ready +made? + +"Yes. That was always same as 'tis now. Well, there was these round +frocks--you'd get _they_"--home-made, he meant. And he told how his +sister-in-law, Mrs. Loveland, and her mother "used to earn half a +living" at making these "round" or smock frocks to order, for +neighbours. The stuff was bought: the price for making it up was +eighteen-pence, "or if you had much work on 'em, two shillin's." + +Much fancy-work, did he mean? + +"The gaugin', you know, about here." Bettesworth spread his hands over +his chest, and continued, "Most men got 'em made; their wives 'd make +'em. Some women, o' course, if they wasn't handy wi' the needle, 'd +git somebody else to do 'em. They was warmer 'n anybody 'd think. And +if you bought brown stuff, 'tis surprisin' what a lot o' rain they'd +keep out. One o' them, and a woollen jacket under it, and them yello' +leather gaiters right up your thighs--you could go out in the rain.... +But 'twas a white round frock for Sundays." + +At this point I let the talk wander; and presently Bettesworth was +relating perhaps the least creditable story he ever told me about +himself. In judging him, however, if anyone desires to judge him after +so many years, the circumstances should be borne in mind. The farm-lad +on thirty shillings a year, the young soldier from the Crimea where he +had been rationed on rum, marrying at last and settling down in this +village where the rough eighteenth-century habits still lingered, +might almost be expected to shock his twentieth-century critics. Be it +admitted that his behaviour on the death of his father-in-law was +disgraceful; but let it be allowed also that that father-in-law, the +old road-foreman, was a drunken tyrant--at times a dangerous +madman--at whose death it was natural to rejoice. However, I will let +Bettesworth get on with his story. + +The "white round frock on Sundays" reminded him of his father-in-law's +costume-frock as described, tall hat, and knee-breeches; and this +recalled (here on this rainy June day where we talked in the shed) how +tall a man he was; and how, lying on the floor in the stupor of death, +just across the lane there, he looked "like a great balk o' timber." +Confusedly the narrative hurried on after this. A cottage was +mentioned, which used to stand where now that resident lives who could +not endure the Bettesworths for his tenants. This was the maiden home +of Bettesworth's mother-in-law; and to this the mother-in-law would +flee for refuge, in terror of being murdered by her husband in his +drunken frenzies. Then would the husband follow, and "break in all +the windows"; for which he was "kept out" of the owner's will, and +lost much property that would have been his. Particulars of his +suicide followed: the man cut his throat and lay speechless for eight +days before he died. But at the first news Bettesworth, being one +son-in-law, was dispatched to a village some five miles distant, to +fetch home another. He borrowed a pony and cart; found his +brother-in-law, "and," he said, "we both got as boozy as billyo on the +way home.... ''Arry,' I says, 'the old foreman bin an' done for +hisself.'" At every public-house they came to they had beer, treating +the pony also; and finally they came racing through the town at full +speed. "We should ha' bin locked up for it now. No mistake we _come_, +when we did get away. And when we got 'ome, 'Arry stooped over to +speak to 'n, an' fell over on his face. I didn't wait for _my_ +lecture: I had to get the pony home. It was runnin' off 'n, when I got +'n down to his stable, with the pace we'd made, an' the beer he'd had. +We should ha' got into trouble for it if 't had been now. The old +woman come out, an' begun goin' on about it; but the old man says, +'You might be sure they'd travel, for such a job. And he won't be none +the worse for it.' We put 'n in the stable, an' give 'n another pint +o' beer, and rubbed 'n down an' throwed two or three hop-sacks over +'n; an' next mornin' he was as right as ever." + +"How long ago?" I asked. + +"I 'most forgets how long ago 'twas. A smartish many years. His +wife--she bin dead this--let's see--three-an'-twenty year; and she +lived a good many years after he." + +She had property--her husband's, no doubt--which her son Will +(Bettesworth's wife's brother, remember) inherited, yet only by the +skin of his teeth. For if some infant or other had breathed after +birth, that infant's relatives would have been the heirs. On this sort +of subject people like Bettesworth are always most tedious and +obscure. As to the household stuff, it was to be divided; "and when it +come to our turn to choose," Bettesworth said, "my old gal and me said +Will could have ourn. We'd got old clutter enough layin' about, and +Will hadn't got none, ye see, always livin' with his mother. So he had +the stuff an' the cot. They" (the rival party) "had two or three tries +for it; but 'twas proved that the child never breathed. My wife's +sister Jane thought _she_ was goin' to get it. But I says, 'No, Jane; +you wears the wrong clothes. That belongs to William.'" + +Bettesworth ceased. In the ten or fifteen minutes while he had been +talking we had got far from the subject of peasant industries; and yet +somehow the thought of them was still present to both of us, and when +he grew silent I nodded my head contemplatively, murmuring something +about "queer old times." "Yes," he returned, "a good many wouldn't be +able to tell ye how they _did_ bring up a family o' childern, if you +was to ast 'em." And so, with the rain pattering down upon the shed +roof, I left the old man to his wood-chopping. + + +_June 11, 1904._--The twentieth century is driving out the +old-fashioned people and their savagery from the village, but here and +there it lets in savagery of its own. Into that hovel down by the +stream, which Bettesworth had vacated, there had come fresh tenants, +as I knew; but that was all I knew until one morning Bettesworth told +me something, which I lost no time in hurrying down on to paper, while +his sentences were hot in my mind, as follows: + +"Ha' ye heared about our neighbours down 'ere runnin' away?" + +"No! Where?" + +"Down here where I used to live. Gone off an' left their little +childern to the wide world." + +"Well, but ... who...?" + +"Worcester they _calls_ 'n. But I dunno what his name is." + +"Where did he come from? I don't seem to know him." + +"No, nor me. I dunno nothin' about 'n. He bin a sojer an' got a +pension. He bin at work down at this Bordon. But his wife bin carryin' +on purty much. Had another bloke about there this fortnight. An' then +went off, an' give one of her little childern a black eye for a +partin' gift. He come 'ome o' Sunday, and didn't find nobody about +there; and took all there was and his pension papers and was off. And +there's them two poor little dears left there alone wi' nobody to look +after 'em or get 'em a bit o' vittles." + +Of course I exclaimed, while Bettesworth went on, + +"Ah ... I reckon they ought to be hung up by the heels, leavin' their +childern like that. I always _was_ fond o' childern, but if 't 'd bin +older ones able to look after theirselves I shouldn't ha' took so much +notice. But these be two little 'ns ben't 'ardly able to dress +theirselves: two little gals about five or six. Poor little dears, +there was one of 'em went cryin' 'cause her mother was goin' away, and +her mother up with her hand and give her one. Law! somebody ought to +ha' bin there with a stick and hit her across the head and killed her +dead! + +"There they was all day and all night. Mrs. Mardon went to the +policeman about it. He said she better take care of 'em. 'But I can't +afford to keep 'em,' she says. 'No,' he says, 'cert'nly not. 'Ten't to +be expected you should. But you look after 'em for a week, an' we'll +see if their parents comes back. And if they don't, we'll see the +relievin' officer, an' pay you for your trouble; and the children 'll +be took to the workhouse, and then we shall very soon _have_ 'em'" +(the parents). "And so they will, too. They says he's gone to +Salisbury. But they'll have 'n. Old soldier, and a pensioner, and all: +they'll find 'n." + +"What's his name, do you say?" + +"They _calls_ 'n Worcester: we dunno whether 'tis his right name, or +only a nickname. He ought to _ha'_ Worcester! He's like 'nough to cop +it, too!" + +FOOTNOTE: + +[3] The earlier portions of this chapter have already appeared in +_Country Life_. + + + + +XXV + + +_June 20._--On the afternoon of June 20th, once more Bettesworth was +at work among the potatoes, yet not in the circumstances of last year, +when we were rejoicing in the rain. According to my book, this was "a +real summer afternoon--Hindhead showing the desired dazzling blue; +soft high clouds floating from the westwards; a soft wind occasionally +stirring the trees." Blackbirds, it seems, were flitting about the +garden to watch their young, warning them, too, with an incessant +"twit-twit, twit-twit"; and no doubt, besides this June sound, there +was that of garden tools struck into the soil. + +And yet, for me, rather than the far-reaching daylight or the +vibrating afternoon air, another of the great characteristics of +English summer clings to this and the following few fragments about +Bettesworth. I might look away to Hindhead and rejoice in the sense of +vast warm distance; I might admire the landscape, and practise my +æsthetics; but he was becking in amongst the potatoes, and it is his +point of view, not mine, that has survived and given its tinge to +these talks. + +Forgetful, both of us, that the same subject in almost the same place +had occupied us a year ago, we spoke of his work; and first he admired +the potatoes, and then he praised his beck. "Nice tool," he said. I +took hold of it: "Hand-made, of course?" "Yes; belonged to my old +gal's gran'mother. There's no tellin' how old he is." + +He went on to explain that it was a "polling beck," pointing out +peculiarities hardly to be described here. They interested me; yet not +so much as other things about the tool, which it was good to handle. +From the old beck a feeling came to me of summer as the country +labourers feel it. This thing was probably a hundred years old. +Through a hundred seasons men's faces had bent over it and felt the +heat of the sun reflecting up from off the potatoes, as the tines of +the beck brightened in the hot soil. And what sweat and sunburn, yet +what delight in the crops, had gone to the polishing of the handle! A +stout ash shaft, cut in some coppice years ago, and but rudely +trimmed, it shone now with the wear of men's hands; and to balance it +as I did, warm and moist from Bettesworth's grasp, was to get the +thrill of a new meaning from the afternoon. For those who use such +tools do not stop to admire the summer, but they co-operate with it. + +The old man took his beck again, and I saw the sunlight beating down +upon his back and brown arms as he once more bent his face to the +work. Then our talk changed. Soon I fetched a tool for myself, so as +to be working near him and hear his chatter. + +He touched on scythes for a moment, and then glanced off to name a +distant village (a place which lies on a valley side, facing the +midday heat), and to tell of a family of blacksmiths who once lived +there. "They used to make purty well all sorts o' edge-tools. And they +earned a name for 't, too, didn't they? I've see as many as four of +'em over there at a axe. Three with sledge-'ammers, and one with a +little 'ammer, tinkin' on the anvil." "And he is the master man of +them all," I laughed. Bettesworth laughed too--we were so happy there +in the broiling sunshine--"Yes, but I've often noticed it, the others +does all the work." To which I rejoined, "But he keeps time to the +sledges; and it's he who knows to a blow when they have done enough." +"There was one part of making a axe," said Bettesworth, "as they'd +never let anybody see 'em at." What could that have been? We agreed +that it had to do with some secret process of hardening the steel. + +Another shifting of the talk brought us round to his +brother-in-law--that accomplished farm-labourer, who was then, +however, driving a traction engine, with one truck which carried three +thousand bricks. "That must do away with a lot of hoss hire," said +Bettesworth. "And yet," I urged, "there seem more horses about than +ever." "And they be dear to buy, so Will Crawte says," added +Bettesworth. + +"How many load," I asked ignorantly, "do you reckon three thousand +bricks? More than a four-horse load, isn't it?" + +Bettesworth made no effort to reckon, but said easily, "Yes. They +reckons three hunderd an' fifty is a load, of these here wire-cut +bricks; four hunderd, of the old red bricks; and stock bricks is five +hunderd. And slates, 'Countess' slates--they be twenty inches by +ten--six hunderd o' they goes to a load." + +Wondering at his knowledge, I commented on the endless variety of +technical details never dreamt of by people like myself; and +Bettesworth assented, without interest, however, in me or other people +or anything but his subject. "That's one o' the things you wants to +learn, if you be goin' with hosses--when you got a load. Law! half o' +these carters on the road dunno whether they got a load or whether +they en't. I've almost forgot now; but I learnt it once." + +"How do you mean 'learnt' it? Picked it up?" + +"No. 'Tis in a book. You can learn to reckon things.... If you be +goin' for a tree, or a block o' stone, or bricks, you wants to know +what's a load for a hoss, or a two or a three hoss load. A mason told +me once, when I was goin' for a block o' stone. He put his tape round +it, an' told me near the matter what it weighed. He said you always +ought to carry a two-foot rule in your pocket; and then put it across +the stone--or p'r'aps 'tis two or three bits you got to take...." + +As there is nothing in the talk itself to give the impression, it must +have been my working in the sunshine when I heard of these details, +that now makes them--the glaring stone-mason's yard, the village +smithy, the engine hauling bricks along the high road--seem all +sun-baked and dusty, in the heat which men like Bettesworth have to +face, while I am admiring the summer landscape. + + +Twice in the early days of July the old man's homely rustic living is +touched upon. By now, in the cottage gardens, the broad-beans are at +their best; and he desires, it is said in one place, no better food +than beans, served for choice with a bit of bacon. But there are peas +too; and one day he tells me simply that he "had peas three times +yesterday. There's always some left from dinner, and then I has 'em in +a saucer for my supper." + + +_July 29._--As July ran to its close, the weather, though still warm, +turned gloomy, and showers came streaking down in front of the grey +dismal distance. "They gives a _poor_ account of the harvest," says +Bettesworth. "What? have they started?" I ask; and he, "Yes, I've +heared of a smartish few." + +I supposed he meant in Sussex; but it appeared not. "No," he said, "I +dunno as they've begun in Sussex, but about here. Lent corn, oats, +an' barley, an' so on. There's So-and-so"--he named three or four +farmers reported to have begun cutting, and went on, "But 'tis all +machine work, so there won't be much" (extra work). "But the straw +en't no higher 'n your knees in some parts, so they says.... 'Twas the +cold spring--an' then the dryth. But it don't much matter about the +barley. I've heared old people say they've knowed barley sowed and up +and harvested without a drop o' rain on it fust to last. Where you +gets straw" (with other crops, I suppose, is the meaning) "there en't +no fear about the barley: 'tis a thing as 'll stand dryth as well as +purty near anything." + +He had "heard old people say"--things like these that he was now +saying. And Bettesworth's phrase will bear thinking of, for its +indication of the topics which the progress of the summer months had +always been wont to renew in his brain year by year. + +Unhappily, about this period something less pleasing was beginning to +force itself upon his attention. + + + + +XXVI + + +Into the peacefulness of Bettesworth's last working summer a +disquieting circumstance had been slowly intruding; and now, with +August, it developed into a subject of grave fears. I do not know when +I first noticed a small sore on the old man's lower lip, but I think +it must have been in May or early June. On being asked, he said it had +been there since his illness in the spring, and "didn't seem to get no +worse." Certainly he was not troubling about it. + +Weeks passed, perhaps six weeks, in which, though the ugly, angry look +of the thing sometimes took my attention, I forbore to speak of it +again, being unwilling to arouse alarm. Then it occurred to me that if +I was too fanciful, Bettesworth was not fanciful enough. In his robust +out-door life he had never learnt to be nervous and anticipate +horrors; and he might not be sufficiently alive to the dreadful +possibilities which were presenting themselves to my own imagination. +I urged him accordingly to see his club doctor. + +He did so, not immediately, though after how long an interval I am +unable to say, since none of this affair got into my note-book. The +doctor no sooner saw the sore than he said it must be cut out. "Do +you smoke?" was one of his first questions; and "Where is your pipe?" +was the next. Bettesworth produced his pipe--an old blackened +briar--and was comforted to learn that it was considered harmless. But +he must have the sore removed, and his two or three remaining teeth +near it would have to come out. When could he have it done? the doctor +asked. Bettesworth said that he must consult me on that point, and +came away promising to do so. + +Considering how sure he must have been that I should put no obstacle +in his way, I incline to think that by now he must himself have begun +to feel alarm. He waited, however, about a week, and then one morning +off he went again to see the doctor, half expecting, I believe, to +have the operation done then and there, before he came home. + +An hour afterwards I met him returning, looking worried. The doctor +was just setting off for his holiday, and could not now undertake the +operation, but advised him to go to Guildford Hospital. Perhaps +Bettesworth would have liked me to pooh-pooh the suggestion--he little +relished the idea of leaving his wife and his work, and taking a +railway journey to so dismal an end; but even as he talked, I was +watching on his lip that which might mean death. So I sent him off +straightway to the Vicarage, where he could obtain a necessary letter +of introduction to the hospital. + +Of what immediately followed my memory is quite blank. I only recall +that the old chap started at last all alone on his journey to +Guildford, not knowing how long he would be away, or what was likely +to happen to him. A niece of his had provided him with a stamped +addressed envelope and a clean sheet of note-paper, in case he should +need to get anyone at the hospital to send a message home. + + +_August 6, 1904._--So he disappeared for a time. Three or four days, +we supposed, would be the extent of his absence; but the days went by +and no word came from him. For all we knew he might never have reached +the hospital; and it began to be a serious question what would become +of his wife, and whether she would not have to be sent to the +workhouse for want of a protector. At last, I wrote for information to +the matron of the hospital. Her answer, which lies before me now, and +is the only piece of evidence I have preserved of the whole business, +is dated August 6th. On that day, it stated, Bettesworth was to be +operated upon, and, if all went well, he would most likely be able to +leave the hospital in ten days or a fortnight. + +Unless I mistake, the ten days or a fortnight dragged out to nearly +three weeks, in which I had the old wife on my mind. A visit to her +one Sunday morning reassured me. Poor old Lucy Bettesworth! I did not +anticipate, then, that I should never again see her alive. Dirty and +dishevelled as ever, alone in the squalid cottage, she received me +with a meek simplicity that in my eyes made amends for many faults. +She was more sane than I had dared to hope I should find her, eager +for "Fred" to come home, but contented, it seemed, to wait, if it was +doing him good. She did not want for anything; she ate no meat, and it +cost her nothing to live. Would I like a vegetable marrow? There was a +nice one in the garden that "wanted cuttin'." + +Perceiving that she desired me to have the vegetable marrow, I allowed +her to take me out into the garden to get it. "Could I cut it?" Of +course I could, and did. Then a qualm struck her: perhaps I shouldn't +like carrying it! But she might be able to wrap it up in a piece of +newspaper.... + +To that, however, I demurred. There was no harm in being seen with a +vegetable marrow on Sunday morning; and I took it, undraped by paper, +aware that the despised old woman had done me the greatest courtesy in +her power. And that was, as it proved, the last time I ever saw her. + +Bettesworth, meanwhile, in the hospital, was not quite forgotten. His +niece has been mentioned who gave him the stamped envelope which he +had not used. We shall hear a good deal of her, later on--a helpful +but delicate woman, who was Bettesworth's niece only by marriage with +a nephew of his, of whom also we shall hear. These two on that Sunday +morning--it being a quiet, half-hazy, half-sunny August day--walked +over to Guildford, and brought back news that the old man was doing as +well as could be hoped. They proposed to repeat the visit the +following week. It made a pleasant Sunday outing. + +But before that week was ended Bettesworth was suddenly home again, +unannounced. An odd look about him puzzled me, until I realized that +he had grown a beard--a white, scrubby, short-trimmed beard, which +gave him a foxy expression that I did not like. His lip was in +strapping, a little blood-stained, but he reported that all was going +on well. The surgeons had carved down into his jaw, and believed the +operation to have been quite successful. Satisfied as to this, I could +endure his changed appearance. + +Something about his manner was less satisfactory. Looking back, I +think I know what was the matter; but at the time a sort of levity in +him struck a false note. Besides, he seemed not to realize that his +wife might have suffered by his absence, or that others had put +themselves about on his behalf. He struck me as selfish and +self-satisfied. I forgot what a lonely expedition his had been, and +how he had had to start off and face this miserable experience without +a friend at hand to care whether he came through it alive or not. + +Left to himself (it is obvious enough now) and determined to go +through the business in manly fashion, he had rather overdone it--had +over-played his part. In refusing to admit fear, he had erred a +little on the other side, and he still erred so in telling his +experiences, perhaps because he was still not quite free of fear. By +his account, his stay in the hospital had been an interesting holiday. +Everything about it was a little too good to be believed. He had +jested with the doctors and the nurses. They called him "Dad," and "a +joking old man," and he felt flattered: they had had a "fire-drill," +and from his bed, or his seat under the veranda among the +convalescents, he had entered into the spirit of the thing. Grimmer +details, too, did not escape him: the arrival of new patients in the +night--"accident cases" brought in for immediate treatment; the +sufferings he witnessed; the hopeless condition of a railway porter, +and so forth. All this was told in his own manner, with swift +realistic touch, convincingly true; with a genuine sense of the humour +of the thing, he mentioned the operating-room by the patients' name +for it--"the slaughter-house"; but none the less his narrative had an +offensive emptiness, an unreality, a flippancy, unworthy, I thought, +of Bettesworth. + +A little more sense would have shown me the clue to it, in his +behaviour just before the operation. He was dressed in "a sort of a +white night-gown," waiting for his turn; and, he said, "I made 'em +laugh. I got up and danced about on the floor. 'Now I be Father +Peter,' I says." Then the nurse came to conduct him to "the +slaughter-house." "'Old Freddy's goin' to 'ave something now,' they" +(the nearer patients) "says. I took hold o' the nurse's arm. 'Now I be +goin' out for a walk with my young lady,' I says. 'We be goin' out +courtin'.'" And in such fashion, over-excited, he maintained his +fortitude, with a travesty of the courage he was all but losing. He +never confessed to having felt fear. The nearest approach to it was +when he was actually lying on the operating-table. Left quite alone +there (for half an hour, he alleged and believed), "I looked all +round," he said, "and up at the skylight, and I says to myself, 'So +this is where it is, is it?'" + +With these tales he came home, repeating them until I was weary. By +and by, however, he settled down to work, although one or two visits +had to be paid to the hospital, for dressing the lip; and as he +settled down, his normal manner returned. For some weeks--nay, for +longer--his friends were not free of anxiety about him. There were +pains in his jaw, and in his lip too, enough to draw dire forebodings +from those of pessimistic humour. But Bettesworth owned to no fears. +So it went on for a month or so, when that occurred which effectually +banished from his mind all remembrance of this trouble. + + + + +XXVII + + +_September 19, 1904._--Because they can so little afford to be ill, it +is habitual among the very poor to neglect an illness long after other +people would be seriously alarmed at it; and the habit had been +confirmed in Bettesworth with regard to his wife's maladies, by her +having so many times recovered from them without help. It was almost a +matter of course to him, when about the middle of September, and less +than a month after his return from the hospital, she became once more +exceedingly unwell. So she had often done: it was not worth +mentioning, and was not mentioned, to me. I knew of no trouble. If I +had been asked about his welfare at that time, I should have said that +the old man was rather unusually happy. I should have said so +especially one Monday morning (it was the 19th of September); because +on that day we were picking apples, and his conversation was so +delightfully in harmony with the sunshine glinting among the +apple-boughs. He told of cider and cider-making; and then of shepherds +he had known on the Sussex Downs, and of their dogs, and their +solitary pastimes upon the hills. Hearing him, no one, I am sure, +could have supposed that at home his wife had been dangerously ill for +nearly a week, and that consequently his own comfort there had for the +time ceased to exist. + +Later on that Monday his wife's condition (not his own) was somehow +made known to me. I suppose Bettesworth consulted me on the step he +was contemplating, of going to the relieving officer to-morrow to get +an order for medical attendance for old Lucy. At any rate, by Monday +night that is what he had resolved to do, and I knew it and approved, +remembering what the policeman had said to me. It seemed a wise +precaution to take, but evidently it could not be urgent. Bettesworth +was choosing Tuesday, because on Tuesday mornings the relieving +officer is in attendance in the parish, and the order could therefore +be got without a five-mile walk for it. + +From various circumstances it may be inferred that the early part of +Tuesday was an unhappy time for Bettesworth: a time of fretful +watching for the dawn, perhaps after a wakeful night; of impatience to +come and begin his day's work, and then of impatience for eleven +o'clock to arrive, and of brooding obstinate thoughts, until at eleven +he might go and get the miserable interview over. For it made him +miserable to have to sue in the form of a pauper, and he was prepared, +as poor folk generally are, to find in the relieving officer a bully +if not a brute. I may say at once that he was agreeably deceived, and +said as much afterwards--he was treated humanely and with +appreciation; but the relieving officer's account of the interview +sufficiently proves that the old man went to it in but a surly temper. +I imagine him standing up as straight as his crooked old limbs would +let him, rolling his head back defiantly, with tightened lips and +suspicious eyes, and answering as uncivilly as he dared. A compliment +was offered him, on his haste to get away from the infirmary in the +spring. "_I_ en't no workhouse man!" he answered brusquely. And he did +his best to persuade the relieving officer that he would never want +relief for himself, asserting that he belonged to a club, and +concealing the fact that he was a superannuated member of it, no +longer entitled to benefit from the club funds. + +And then, the interview over, and the order obtained, his cheerfulness +for the rest of the day is suggestive of an ordeal successfully +passed. True, I have lost record of how he pottered through the +afternoon--it was, of course, useless to go to the parish doctor at +that time of day--but he seemed to have suddenly lost the weakness +still lingering from the operation in the hospital; and being short of +money, he proposed an extra job for the evening. He wanted to clear +out a cesspit in my garden. I urged that he had better rest, and take +care of himself as well as of his wife. "_I_ be gettin' bonny!" he +said happily. + +He carried his point, too. As if he had no wife ill at home, at about +eight o'clock, which was usually his bed-time, he came back and began +his self-imposed task, with a young labourer to help. And he must have +been in merry spirits, for he kept his mate amused, so that from the +house I could hear the man laughing, in frequent bleating outbursts of +hilarity, at some facetious saying or other. One of these sayings I +heard, on going out to see how the work was progressing. "He must be a +greedy feller as wants more 'n one or two whiffs o' this," Bettesworth +remarked; and his companion let out another good-tempered laugh. From +the old man's manner I argued that his wife must be doing well; but +probably it indicated only a reaction from the moody temper of the +morning. The job was finished at about half-past nine, and conscious +of a good day's work done, Bettesworth once more crept over the hill +and across the valley, home. + +But not to go to bed, or to sleep. While he was at work in the +moonlight and making his friend laugh, I did not know, but he did, +what was in store for him. Having no spare bed, he began his night +downstairs and dozed for a while in an easy-chair; then roused and +went out into the moonlight to smoke a pipe; and so he got through the +night. Tobacco was his solace. He smoked, he told me, a full ounce in +the ensuing twenty-four hours. At seven in the morning--his usual +hour--he was here beginning work: at nine he left off, to go into the +town and present his order at the doctor's. + +That journey on the Wednesday morning proved the beginning of a period +of intenser wretchedness for the old man. He set out in apparent +equanimity; but the fatigue of the night was upon him, the glow of +yesterday's contentment had died out, and his nerves must have been +all on edge to take as he did a remark of the doctor's--"What do you +want of an order? You're in constant work, aren't you?" It seemed to +him that he was being insulted for coming as a pauper, and it was all +he could do to refrain from a rejoinder that would have resulted in +his being summarily ejected from the doctor's presence. And was he as +submissive as he fancied? It is more likely that the ungraciousness of +his manner was to blame for what he regarded as pure heartlessness in +the other. That he must be at home to meet the doctor was +self-evident; but it was important to him not to lose a whole day from +his work, and he desired to know whether the visit would be made +before his dinner-time or after it? I hazard a guess that he stated +the case in tones of defiant bargaining; at any rate, he could get no +answer but that the doctor would call during the day. With that he +returned here--a quivering mass of resentment; and in that temper, to +which nothing is so repugnant as waiting, by my persuasion rather than +by his goodwill he left his work and went home to wait. + +With what increasing bitterness he wore through the day, with what +fretfulness and final despair as of a man despised and forgotten, must +be left to conjecture. For the doctor did not come, after all. +Conjecture, too, must picture if it can the night that followed--the +attempts to sleep in the chair, the restless wanderings into the +garden to smoke, the repetition, in fact, of the preceding night's +misery, but with a great addition of weariness and distress. +Bettesworth, when he came round the next morning to tell me how he was +situated, did not so much as mention all this; he only let fall one +pitiful detail. Some time in the night he had given his wife a little +brandy; and about daybreak he went out to draw fresh water into the +kettle "so's not to have it no-ways stale," for making her a cup of +tea. But, partaking of a cup himself at the same time, he "hadn't had +it above five minutes afore he was out in the garden" to let the tea +come back again. After that, he appears to have abandoned the attempt +to get sustenance elsewhere than from tobacco. It was a dismal story +to hear: but there was nothing to be done; and having heard it, I sent +him home again to go on waiting. This was Thursday, two days after he +obtained the relieving officer's order for medical assistance, and by +now the state of his wife was causing him grave fears. + +But why had the doctor not been near? To Bettesworth's wounded +feelings the explanation needed no seeking: he was being made to wait +for richer people, because he was poor and unimportant. Meanwhile, +happening to meet with the relieving officer, I laid the case before +him, and heard that a call to a distance had obliged the doctor to +leave his work for a day or two in the hands of a _locum tenens_, who +must have blundered. And this proved to be the fact. On Thursday +afternoon a doctor who was a stranger at last found his way to +Bettesworth's cottage, and the unhappy old man's long suspense was so +far over. At once all his bitterness died out. The doctor "was as nice +a gentleman as ever I talked to," he affirmed. "He said she was very +bad. She wasn't to have nothing but only milk an' beef-tea an' brandy, +an' she wasn't to be left alone." Bettesworth therefore did not leave +home again that day. He got his niece, whose young family prevented +her from giving much help, to go to the town and bring home the +medicine, and so he settled down for another night like those that had +gone before. + +It was on the next morning (Friday) that he told me these few +particulars, and how his wife seemed a trifle--only a trifle--better; +how, too, he had "washed her as well as he could," and, being asked, +how he had not been to bed himself. And now he was on his way to the +town to buy a few necessaries. Who was with his wife meanwhile? That +was a question I dared not ask, because I knew that the distressful +old woman was a by-word for sluttishness among the neighbours, so much +that they would hardly go near her; and I knew that Bettesworth, +though silent on the subject, was sore about it. Without doubt the old +woman was quite alone, whenever circumstances compelled him to leave +her. + +The "necessaries" he was going to buy included beef-tea "and some +cakes," he said. At the mention of cakes I exclaimed, but he protested +reproachfully, "Well, but she en't had _nothin'_ to eat!" Clearly he +did not regard milk as food, or indeed anything else that was not +solid. In the matter of beef-tea, "I can't make it myself," he said, +"but you can buy it, can't ye, in jars?" He was perhaps thinking of +Bovril, or something of the kind. Fortunately there were those at hand +who knew how to make beef-tea, and undertook at once to relieve the +old man of this burden. + +Taking him apart then, I asked if he needed a shilling or two. He +almost groaned in deprecation, "I owes you such a lot now, and keeps +on gettin' into debt. I'd sooner rub along with jest as little as ever +I possibly can." It was of his rent he was thinking, which of course +was payable for those weeks of his own illnesses, as well as for his +absence from work now, when he was not earning any wages from which +the rent could be deducted. Perhaps he was unaware that I had no +account of the debt; in any case, it seemed to be preying upon his +mind. I did not press the point, therefore, and he started off for the +town without aid from me. + +In another way, too, the old man's reluctance to be a burden +manifested itself. What he had told me so far was told because I +wished to hear it, and he wished me to understand. He made no long +tale: he was brief, unaffected, and as for seeking compassion, it was +far from his intention. Of one thing only did he complain: a near +relative's indifference. "He was over by our place twice o' Sunday," +Bettesworth said scornfully, "and couldn't look in to see how the poor +old gal was. He was ready enough to send to me when he had his mishap" +(falling from a rick, and finding himself in agony at night), "and I +run off an' went all down to the town for 'n, late at night. But now +_I_ wants help--no: he won't come anear. That's the sort o' feller +_he_ is." So Bettesworth, uttering his sole complaint. But he did not +demand from others the sympathy he looked for from a relation, or seek +to inflict them with the tale of troubles which, after all, he would +have to bear by himself. + + +At this point, if the actual course of this over-crowded Friday were +to be followed strictly, the narrative would suffer a strange +interruption. For, having business of my own in the town, I set off at +the same time with Bettesworth, expecting little cheerfulness from him +on the way. But I had failed to appreciate the man's stoicism, or the +strong grip he had over his feelings. For several nights he had not +rested on a bed; he had taken during the same period next to no food; +he had been harassed by suspense, worn by indignation, baffled +constantly by the obstacles which his poverty set in his way; and it +would have been pardonable if he had proved himself but a gloomy +companion for a walk. Yet from the moment of our setting out he put +aside all his difficulties, and not only did he not distress me, but +for the half-hour before we separated he kept me interested in his +sensible conversation on local topics, or charmed by the pleasant +rustic flavour of some of his reminiscences. Here, therefore, would be +the natural place for inserting some fragments of this talk, which I +wrote down in the evening. It happened, however, that in writing I +gave precedence to an important change which by then had come over the +situation at Bettesworth's home; and as I propose to take the account +of this development and the issue of it straight from my note-book, +the bits of gossip too had better come in just as they stand there. + +It appears, then, to have been at about six o'clock in the afternoon +that I was writing, as follows: + +Bettesworth has just been over (from his home) to consult me, and +perhaps to have a chat and relieve his overburdened soul. When he got +back from the town this morning, he found the doctor paying another +visit, who was "wonderful nice," and offered to give him a certificate +for admitting the old woman to the infirmary, if he would care to have +it and would call for it at the surgery. Bettesworth only wanted my +encouragement. He is going down this evening for the certificate, and +hopes to get his wife removed to-morrow. + +It will be none too soon. The watching is wearing him out. Last night +he had left her and gone downstairs, and sat dozing in the chair, when +she tried to get out of bed, and fell heavily on the floor. He ran +up--and forgot to take the candle back with him, thereby adding to his +difficulties--and somehow managed to get her back into bed again and +covered up, without aid. But now, says he, "I said to Dave Harding as +I come up the road, 'What I should like to do 'd be to crawl up into +the fir-woods where nobody couldn't see me, and lay down an' get three +or four hours' sleep.' 'You couldn't do it,' he says; ''t'd be on your +mind all the time. You might get off for ten minutes, p'raps, an' then +you'd be up an' off again.' But that's what I sims as if I should +like, more 'n anything: jest to crawl away somewhere, where nobody +wouldn't come, for a good sleep. Then wake up and 'ave a floush--'t'd +freshen me up." + +Certainly he is overdone. Upon my renewing offers of a little help, he +became tearful, almost sobbing: "You be the only friend I got.... I +bin all over the country," and have faced all sorts of things, "but I +_be_ hammer-hacked about, now, no mistake." His grief consists in +being able to do so little for his wife. He has given her since his +dinner-time her medicine, then a sip of brandy "to take the taste out +of her mouth.... And then I said, 'Now here's a cake I bought for ye +in the town; have a bit o' that.' So she nibbled a bit, and I says, +'Eat 'n up.' No, she didn't want no more. 'But you got to _'ave_ it,' +I says. I a'most forced it down her throat. I do's the best I can for +her; but I en't got nobody to tell me what to do." + +And he is galled by turns, by turns amused, at her behaviour towards +himself. "I can't do nothink right for her. She's more stubborn to me +than to anybody else: keeps on findin' fault. Last night, in the +night, she roused up an' accused me o' goin' away. 'You bin away +somewheres,' she says. 'Oh yes, you 'ave; I heared ye come creepin' +back up the road.' And I'd bin sittin' there all the time." + +This and much more he told. I tried to get away (we were in the +garden), for I was busy; but he followed me, to talk still, and +wandered off into recollections of his experiences at Guildford +Hospital. + + +_7.30 p.m._ Bettesworth has called once more, coming from the town, to +show me the doctor's certificate (gastritis, it says), and to let me +know that to-morrow morning he will not be here at his usual time. He +proposes going to the relieving officer to obtain his order for a +conveyance to move the old woman. "I shall be over there by seven +o'clock," he says. The cumbersomeness of all these formalities is +sickening. Having got the order, he will probably need to go right +back to the town to arrange about the conveyance. + +He was very tired, and rather wet, the night having set in with +showers coming up on the east wind. So I got him a chair in the +scullery, for the wet was making his old corduroys smell badly, and +gave him a small glass of brandy-and-water. He refused a biscuit; "I +couldn't swaller it," he said. "I can't eat, for thinkin' o' she." + +He is not without a kind of pitiful consolation. "Seven or eight," he +says, have professed their willingness to receive him into their +homes, if need should be. One, even now, on the road from the town, +has said, "Don't you trouble about _yerself_, Freddy; you can have a +home with me, if you should want one." But the idea associated with +this, of parting from his wife, breaks him down. The doctor who +granted the certificate--the right doctor, this time--was sympathetic. +"He come out to me because he see I was touched, and says, 'You no +call to be _oneasy_, old gentleman; she'll be looked _after_ up there. +Everything 'll be done for her as can be done.'" + +But these nights, in which he does not go to bed! His ankles and +calves get the cramp, for he seems not to have thought, so little +practice has he had in making himself comfortable, of resting his feet +on another chair, while he is lying back in the easy-chair +downstairs.... He has gone home now, to make up a fire and get what +rest he may. "But then," he says, "she'll holler out, an' I got to +run." He told me again how she "fell out o' bed flump" last night, and +he stormed upstairs and found her on the floor, for "she didn't know +how to get in again, not no more'n a cuckoo." + +The group of cottages where he lives stands high above the road, which +is reached by steps roughly cut into the steep bank. On one of these +recent nights, having gone down the steps meaning to buy his wife +sixpennyworth of brandy, Bettesworth felt in his trousers pocket for +the shilling he had put there, and--it was gone. "Oh, I was in a way! +I went back, an' crawled all up they steps, feelin' for it," the hour +being eight o'clock, and moonlight. "As I went past old Kiddy's, I +called out to 'n, 'Kid!', 'cause I wanted to tell 'n what trouble I +was in, and I knowed he'd ha' come and helped me to find 'n, if he'd +bin about. But he was gone to bed, 'cause he starts off so early in +the mornin'." Thus the old man got back home, disconsolate, without +the necessary brandy for his wife; and, calling upstairs to her, "Lou, +I've lost that shillin'," he began to prepare for his night in the +easy-chair. But, first feeling in his pocket once more, he discovered +there (fruits of his wife's incapacity) "a hole," he said, "I could +put my finger through." + +He pulled up his trouser legs to the knee, "because I always ties my +garters up above the knee," and, with his foot on "the little stool I +always puts 'n on to lace up my boots--I've had 'n ever since my boy +was born--I thought I felt somethin' in the heel o' my shoe, and as +soon as I pulled 'n off it rattled on the floor. _Wa'n't_ that a +miracle? My hair stood bolt upright! I gropsed an' picked 'n up, and +hollered up the stairs, 'I've found 'n!' 'Oh, have ye?' she says. 'I +thought you'd bin an' spent 'n.'" Quickly he was off again to the +public-house--Tom Durrant's--and "I says, 'I lost that shillin' once. +I'll take good care I don't lose 'n again!' And I chucked 'n up on the +counter. Durrant says, 'Oh, did ye lose 'n?' So then I come back 'ome +with my sixpenn'oth o' brandy. But wa'n't it a miracle? My hair stood +reg'lar bolt upright, and I was that _contented_!" + +There was much, very much, that I am missing; but I must not quite +pass over the old man's talk on the way to the town this morning. He +did not once mention his trouble. All the way it was his ordinary +chatter--the chatter of a most vigorous mind, which had never learnt +to think of things in groups, but was intensely interested in details. + +It began at once, with reference to a cottage--a sort of "week-end" +cottage--we were passing, into which, Bettesworth said, new tenants +were coming. "How they keep changing!" said I; and he, "Well enough +they may, at the price." "What is it, then?" "Four pound a month. +Furnished, o' course; but there en't much there. And," he added, "I +can't see payin' a pound a week for a place to lay down in." + +Next--but what came next had better be omitted now. It related to the +family affairs of a certain coal-carter, and so led up to discourse of +other carter men who lived in the village. From them, the transition +to the employer of two of them was easy. He "got the two best carters +in the neighbourhood now," said Bettesworth; but as for horses, "he +en't got a hoss fit to put in a cart, 'cause he en't never had anybody +before as understood anything about 'em. Somebody ought to put the +cruelty inspector on to him, to go to his place and see. He _did_ go, +once; but he" (the horse-owner) "got wind of it and," as far as could +be gathered from Bettesworth's talk, is suspected of having "squared" +the inspector. But "there's a lot talkin' about the condition of the +hosses down there," and, indeed, things "down there" seem to be +generally mismanaged. The premises are "a reg'lar destructive old +place": the carts, "he won't never have 'em only botched up, an' they +be all to pieces;" and the harness is treated no better. "The saddles, +they says, the flock 's all in lumps: _sure_ a hoss's back an' +shoulders 'd get sore. That's where they do's all the work, poor +things. When I had hosses to look after, as soon as I got 'em in I +always looked to their back an' shoulders first. I'd get a sponge, or +a cloth...." + +One of the two good carters above mentioned "can trace up a hoss's +tail, you know, with straw. There en't one in ten knows how to do +that. I've earnt many a shillin' at it." But Bettesworth had known one +man who used to earn as much as thirty shillings in a day at this +work, at horse-fairs. Him Bettesworth has occasionally helped, I +understand; and also, "Old Bill Baldwin--I've sometimes bin down an' +done it for him." + +Now, I had thought Bill Baldwin knew all that was worth knowing about +horses and horse management; so I asked, surprisedly, "What, can't he +do it?" + +"He can do the tracin', in a straight run; but he can't tie up. I +could do it all: the tails, and the manes too--you've see it. I'd get +a bit o' live" (lithe?) "straw ... 't was when I was a boy-chap, a +little bigger 'n that 'n" (whom at the moment we were meeting) "down +at Penstead at Farmer Barnes's. I used to be such a one for the +hosses; and I could do it, because my fingers was so lissom." (Poor +old stubbed, stiff, bent fingers! to think of it!) "And then, I took +such a delight in it. And Mrs. Barnes--she was a Burton--she was as +proud o' them hosses! Used to get up at four o'clock in the mornin', +purpose to see 'em start off. And the harness was all as clean--the +brass used to shine as bright as ever any gold is, and she _was_ +proud. Twenty thousand pound, was the last legacy she had. She was +just such another woman to look at as old Miss Keen, what used to +live down in the town; and a better woman never was. + +"That's where I got all my scholarship.... Well, I could read--a +little--but not to understand it. But she--she give me shirts, an' +trousers--'cause we wore smock-frocks then--but she give me shirts an' +trousers to go to night-school in. Course, I couldn't have had proper +clothes without. 'Cause 'twas only thirty shillin's a year besides +grub an' lodgin'.... And 't wan't no use to talk about runnin' away. I +hadn't got no home. Besides, we was hired from Michaelmas to +Michaelmas." + +We spoke again of various neighbours, and thus drifting on (I am +omitting vast quantities) Bettesworth presently told of a recent +attempt at starting a village football club, or rather, of the +subsequent discussion of the affair at the public-house. An enthusiast +there wished to get "as many members as ever they could." "But how be +ye goin' to pick 'em for play?" asked another. "Oh, pick the best." +Bettesworth tells me this, adding, "I don't call that fair do's at +all. I can't see no justice in that, that one should pay to be a +member of a club, purpose for somebody else to have all the play. +That's the way they breaks up a club. Break up any club, that would." + + +_September 24._--Word was brought this afternoon (Saturday) that +Bettesworth was at the kitchen door, wishing to see me. Of course he +has not been to work to-day. I found him standing outside, patient +and quiet, until, being asked how things were going, he began to cry, +and shook his head, so that I feared something had miscarried and +asked, "Why, haven't you got your wife away?" + +"Yes, we got her away, but she was purty near dead when we got her +there. The matron shook her head, and said, 'You'll never see her home +again alive.'" + +There were repetitions and variations of this; but I, reiterating my +assurances that "she had got a lot of strength," and that in fine the +old wife would yet live to come home again, quite forgot to observe +exactly what Bettesworth said. His distress was too afflicting. + +It would take long, too, to tell of his morning in his own words, +beginning with the early walk to Moorways for the relieving officer's +order, and telling how old chums starting off to work were astonished +to see him thus unwontedly on the road, and what they said as he +passed them by as if with a renewal of vigour, and how one was +"puffed, tryin' to keep up." The long waiting at the office door (the +officer had been out in his garden getting up potatoes), and +Bettesworth's meditations, "I wish he'd come," and the instructions +furnished him as to how to go on--they were all narrated simply, +because they happened; but the touch of grey morning mist which +somehow pervaded the talk while I was hearing it could not be +reproduced with its words. The old man was back here soon after eight +o'clock, on his way to the town to order the fly which should take his +wife to the infirmary. He had had no breakfast. I gave him tea and +bread and butter; but he left the bread and butter--couldn't swallow +it, he said. He had had a glass of beer at the Moorways Inn. + +He went into the town, and I met him on the road, returning. The fly +proprietor had recognized him and behaved kindly. "Got a bit o' +trouble then, old gentleman?" Yes, the fly should be there to the +minute. + +At noon, to the minute, it arrived, the driver of it being a son of an +old neighbour of Bettesworth's. Meanwhile, Bettesworth's niece, "Liz," +and a neighbour's wife--a Mrs. Eggar--whom he spoke of as "Kate," were +there trying to dress the old woman--and failing. They got her +stockings on, but no boots; a petticoat or so, but no bodice with +sleeves; and for that much they had to struggle, even calling on +Bettesworth to come upstairs and help them. Then the fly came, "and +all she kep' sayin' was, 'Leave me to die at home. I wants to die at +home'" and she fought and would not be moved. + +To get her downstairs the help of two men besides the driver was +enlisted, Kate's husband being one of them. By a kindly policy, +Bettesworth himself was sent to hold the horse ("'cause he wanted to +start off"), in order that the sight of her husband might not +increase the poor old woman's reluctance; and so they carried her +downstairs, "bodily," he said, meaning, I suppose, that she did not +support herself at all. + +The doctor had advised, and the neighbours too, that Bettesworth +himself should not accompany his wife. But now the niece Liz, being +unwell, was afraid to be alone with what looked a dying woman, and at +the last moment Bettesworth jumped into the cab. As it started, the +old woman's head fell back, her mouth dropped open. A pause was made +at the public-house, to get brandy for her, which, however, she could +not, or would not, take. Gin was tried, and she just touched it. Liz +took the brandy; Bettesworth and the driver shared a pint of beer; +then they drove off again. Once, on the way, Liz said, "Uncle, she's +gone! Hadn't ye better stop the fly?" But he put his head down against +her cheek, and found that she was still living; and so they came to +the outer entrance of the infirmary. Further than that Bettesworth was +dissuaded from going: it was not well that his wife should be agitated +by the sight of him at the very gates; and accordingly he came away. + +So he is alone in his cottage, and may rest if he can. He is to have +meals at his niece's, but will sleep at home. The kindness is touching +to him, not alone of the nephew and niece, but of his neighbours +generally. "Kate said she'd ha' went down in the fly, if I'd ha' let +her know in time. An' she'd wash for me--if I'd take anything I +wanted along to her Monday or Tuesday, she'd wash it. I says to her, +'You be the first friend I got, Kate.' Well, Liz had told me she +_couldn't_ undertake it. She was forced to get somebody to do her own, +and the doctor come to see her one day expectin' to find her in bed, +and she was gettin' the dinner. There's Jack" (her husband) "and four +boys.... So Kate's goin' to do the washin' for me, and she and her +daughter's goin' one day to give the place a scrub out. More'n that +she _can't_ do--with eight little 'uns, and then look at the washin'!" +For Mrs. Eggar takes in washing, to eke out her husband's fifteen or +sixteen shillings a week. + +Besides these friends, there are those who are willing to find the old +man a home, "if anything should happen to the old gal." "'Tis a sort +o' comfortin'," he says, "to think what good neighbours I got;" but he +hopes not to break up his home yet. In an unconscious symbolism of his +affection for all the home things he bought this afternoon a +pennyworth of milk for the cat, who came running to meet him on his +return to the lonely cottage, and then ran upstairs "to see if the old +gal was there." + +He will keep his home together if he may, with warm feelings towards +his neighbours. "But as for these up here," and he points +contemptuously in the direction of the old woman's relatives, "I dunno +if they knows she's gone, and I shan't trouble to tell 'em." + +[So I wrote on the Saturday evening. Four clear days pass, without any +note about Bettesworth; then on the following Thursday the narrative +is reopened. It is given here, unaltered.] + + +_September 29._--Bettesworth's wife died at the workhouse infirmary, +about midnight of the 27th. + +She had been unconscious since her admission, and spoke only twice. +Once she said, "Bring my little box upstairs off the dresser, Fred;" +the other time it was, "Fred, have ye wound up the clock?" These +things were reported to him by the nurse, when he reached the +infirmary on Tuesday afternoon--the usual afternoon for the admission +of visitors. + +He had gone down then, with his niece Liz, to see the old lady. And of +course I heard the details of the expedition when he came back. +Stopping at a greengrocer's in the town, he bought two ripe pears, at +three halfpence each. "Did ye ever hear tell o' such a price for a +pear? What 'd that be for a bushel? Why, 't'd come to a pound! But I +said, 'I'll ha' the best.' Then I bought her some sponge-cakes at the +confectioner's;" and with these delicacies he went to her. + +She could not touch them. She lay with her eyes open, but unconscious +even of the flies, which he, sitting beside, kept fanning from her +face. There was no recognition of him; so he asked which was "her +locker," proposing to leave the pears and sponge-cakes there for her, +on the chance of her being able to enjoy them later. "Poor old lady, +she'll never want 'em," the nurse said; and he replied, "Now I've +brought 'em here I shan't take 'em back. Give 'em to some other poor +soul that can fancy 'em." + +They gave him permission to stay as long as he liked; but, said he, "I +bid there an hour an' a quarter, an' then I couldn't bide no longer. +What was the use, sir? She didn't know me." So at last he came away, +provided with a free pass, "to go in at any hour o' the day or night +he mind to." + +Yesterday (Wednesday) morning he was about his work here when a letter +was brought to him. It contained only a formal notice that "Lucy +Bettesworth was lying dangerously ill, and desired to see him." +Probably the notice was mercifully designed to prepare him for the +worse news it might have told, but of course he did not know it, even +if that was the case. He left here at once, to go and see his wife. + +Between two and three hours afterwards he was back again. "How is it?" +I asked, guessing how it was. "She's gone, sir"--and then he broke +down, sobbing, but only for a minute. He had already ordered the +coffin--"a nice box," he called it. The remainder of the day was spent +in getting the death certificate and observing other formalities. He +had the knell rung, too. Nothing would he neglect that would testify +to his respect for the partner he had lost; and I think in all this +he was partly animated by a savage resentment towards her relatives, +who had ignored her, and by a resolved opposition to those who had +contemned his wife while she lived. "Everybody always bin very good, +to _me_," he has said, with significant emphasis on the last word. + +In the evening he had the corpse brought away to his nephew Jack's. He +also slept at Jack's, and in numerous ways Jack is behaving well to +him. To spare the old man's weariness he spent the evening in going to +see about the insurance money; and to-day it is Jack who is getting +six other men to carry the coffin at the funeral on Saturday. + +This morning Bettesworth went to the Vicar to arrange about the +funeral. "He spoke very nice to me," he said. Thence he was sent to +the sexton, near at hand; and soon he came to me to borrow a two-foot +rule, because the sexton wanted to know the exact measurements of the +coffin before digging the grave; "and _don't_ let's have any +mistakes!" he had said, for there had been a mistake not so long ago, +a grave having been dug too small for the coffin. + +Knowing Bettesworth's fumbling blindness, and seeing him nervous, "Can +you manage it?" I asked, "or would you like me to go over and measure +it for you?" There was no hesitation: "It _would_ be a kindness, if +you don't mind, sir...." I have but just now returned. + +I think I will not record particulars of that visit. If I had not +previously known it, I should have known then that Bettesworth is--but +there are no fit epithets. Nothing sensational happened, nothing +extravagantly emotional. But all that he did and said, so simple and +unaffected and necessary, was done as if it were an act of worship. No +woman could have been tenderer or more delicate than he, when he drew +the sheet back from the dead face, to show me.... The coffin itself +(because he is so poor and so lonely)--a decent elm coffin--is a kind +of symbol, and so a comfort to him, enabling him to testify to his +unspoken feelings towards his dead wife. + + +_October 1._--I went to the funeral of Bettesworth's wife this +Saturday afternoon. In his decent black clothes and with his grey hair +the old man looked very dignified, showing a quiet, unaffected +patience. + +There were but few people present: four or five relatives besides the +bearers and the undertaker and sexton; while a young woman (Mrs. +Porter) with her little boy Tim stood in the background, she carrying +a wreath she had made. She is a near neighbour to us, and a very +impoverished one, to whom the old man has shown what kindness has been +in his power; while she on many mornings has called him into her +cottage at breakfast time, to give him a cup of hot tea. + + + + +XXVIII + + +Shutting his mouth doggedly, Bettesworth went back to his cottage, to +live alone there with his cat. There had been some talk of his going +into lodgings; but after all, this was still his home. Should he once +give it up, he reasoned, and dispose of his furniture, it would be +impossible ever again to form a home of his own, however much he might +desire to do so. To live with neighbours might be very well; yet how +if he and they should disagree? He would have burnt his boats; he +would be unable to resume his independence. Better were it, then, to +keep while he still had it a place where he was his own master, and +take the risk of being lonely. + +For some seven weeks after the wife's funeral there is next to nothing +to be told of him. I find that I am unable to remember anything about +him for that period, unless it was then--and it could not have been +much later--that he renewed some of his household goods, and amongst +them his mattress, being visited apparently by a wish to regain the +character for cleanliness which had been lost in his wife's time. It +must have been then also that he first talked of buying muslin for +blinds to his windows. It is further certain that he chatted a great +deal about his next-door neighbours--the Norrises, mother and son, +upon whose society he was now chiefly dependent; but of all this not a +syllable remains, nor is there any dimmest picture in my memory of +what the old man did, or even how he looked, in those seven weeks. + + +_November 22, 1904._--At the end of them, on a raw morning in +November, amid our struggles to heave out of the ground a huge shrub +we were transplanting, it was remarkable how strong Bettesworth +seemed, because of the cunning use he made of every ounce of force in +his experienced old muscles. How to lift, and how to support a weight, +were things he knew as excellently as some know how to drive a +golf-ball. Nor was my theory quite so good as his experience, for +showing where our skids and levers should be placed. It was +Bettesworth who got them into the serviceable positions. + +Something about those skids set us talking of other skidding work, and +especially of the extremely tricky business of loading timber on a +trolly. "I see a carter once," said Bettesworth, "get three big +elm-trees up on to a timber-carriage, with only hisself and the +hosses. He put the runnin' chains on and all hisself." + +"And _that_ takes some doing," I said. + +"Yes, a man got to understand the way 'tis done.... I never had much +hand in timber-cartin' myself; but this man.... 'Twas over there on +the Hog's Back, not far from Tongham Station. We all went out for to +see 'n do it--'cause 'twas in the dinner-time he come, and we never +believed he'd do it single-handed. The farmer says to 'n, 'You'll +never get they up by yourself.' 'I dessay I shall,' he says; and so he +did, too. Three great elm-trees upon that one carriage.... Well, he +had a four-hoss team, so that'll tell ye what 'twas. They _was_ some +hosses, too. Ordinary farm hosses wouldn't ha' done it. But he only +jest had to speak, and you'd see they watchin' him.... When he went +forward, after he'd got the trees up, to see what sort of a road he'd +got for gettin' out, they stood there with their heads stretched out +and their ears for'ard. 'Come on,' he says, and _away_ they went, +_tearin'_ away. Left great ruts in the road where the wheels went +in--that'll show ye they got something to pull." + +We got our shrub a little further, Bettesworth grunting to a heavy +lift; then, in answer to a question: + +"No, none o' we helped 'n. We was only gone out to see 'n do it. He +never wanted no help. He didn't say much; only 'Git back,' or 'Git +up,' to the hosses. When it come to gettin' the last tree up, on top +o' t'other two, I never thought he could ha' done it. But he got 'n +up. And he was a oldish man, too: sixty, I dessay he was. But he jest +spoke to the hosses. Never used no whip, 'xcept jest to guide 'em. +Didn't the old farmer go on at his own men, too! 'You dam fellers call +yerselves carters,' he says; 'a man like that's worth a dozen o' you.' +Well, they couldn't ha' done it. A dozen of 'em 'd ha' scrambled +about, an' _then_ not done it! Besides, their _hosses_ wouldn't. But +this feller--the old farmer says to 'n, 'I never believed you'd ha' +done it.' 'I thought mos' likely I should,' he says. But he never had +much to say." + +Sleet showers were falling, and a north wind was roaring through the +fir wood on top of the next hill while we worked. Dropping into the +vernacular, "I don't want to see no snow," said I. "No," responded +Bettesworth, "it's too white for me." "January," I went on, "is plenty +soon enough for snow to think about comin'." "April," he urged. "Ah +well, April," I laughed; and he, "Let it wait till there's a warm sun +to get rid of it 's fast as it comes." + +Then he continued, "That rain las' night come as a reg'lar su'prise to +me. I was sittin' indoors by my fire smokin'--I 'ave got rid o' some +baccer lately--and old Kid went up the garden. He see my light, and +hollered out, 'It don't half rain!' '_Let_ it rain,' I says. I was in +there as comfortable...." + +In the next night but one a little snow fell, enough to justify our +forecast and no more; and then we had frost, and garden work could +hardly go on. I was meaning to lay turf over a plot of ground where +the shrubs had stood; but the work had to wait: the frozen turfs could +not be unrolled. + +Bettesworth did not like the weather. I have told of those steps +connecting his cottage with the road. They were slippery now, and the +handrail to them was icy when he clutched it, coming down in the dark +of the mornings. At the bottom of the steps, before the road is +reached, there is a steep path, commonly known as "Granny Fry's." Boys +were sliding there after breakfast, and they called out to +Bettesworth, "Be you roughed, Master Bettesworth?" According to his +tale, he spoke angrily: "''Tis _you_ ought to be roughed,' I says; +'you ought to be roughed over the bank. You be old enough to know +better.' And so they be, too. They be biggish boys; and anybody goin' +there might easy fall down and break their back--'specially after +dark." + +When he came back from his dinner, he said, "Somebody 've bin an' +qualified old Granny Fry's." How? "Oh, somebody 've chucked some dirt +over where they boys had made it so slippery." + +He was obliged to admit, though, that in his own boyhood he had been +as careless as any of these. And a few minutes later he was confessing +to another boyish fault. In a cottage hard by, little Timothy +Porter--a chubby little chap about five years old--was on very +friendly terms with old Bettesworth. He had but lately started his +schooling, and almost immediately was taken unwell and had to stay at +home a week or two. I happened now to ask Bettesworth how little Tim +was getting on. + +"Oh, he's gettin' all right: goin' to school again Monday. He've +kicked up a rare shine, 'cause they wouldn't let 'n go. I likes 'n for +that. I likes to hear of a boy eager for learnin'--not to see 'm make +a shine and their mothers have to take 'em three parts o' the way. Not +but what I wanted makin' when I was a nipper. Many's a time I've +clucked up to a tree jest this side o' Cowley Bridge, and that old +'oman" (I don't know what old woman) "come out an' drive me. There +wa'n't no school then nearer 'n Lyons's--where Smith the wheelwright +lives now. He used to travel with tea, and I dessay half a dozen of us +'d come to his school from Cowley Bridge. We'd start off an' say we +wouldn't go to school; but we _'ad_ to." + +The frost, had it continued, would very soon have been calamitous to +the working people. As it was, I saw bricklayers--good men known to +me, and neighbours, too--standing idle in the town, at the street +corners. And Bettesworth said, + +"Some o' the shop-keepers down in the town begun to cry out about it. +They missed the Poor Man. And I heared the landlord down 'ere at the +Swan say he was several pounds out o' pocket by it." + + +_December 2, 1904._--Fortunately it was not to last. The men got to +work again; our gardening tasks could go forward. My notebook has this +entry for the 2nd of December: + +"Laying turf this afternoon, in wonderful mild dry weather." + + + + +XXIX + + +The thought came to me one of those afternoons, Was it I, or was it +Bettesworth, who was growing dull? It might well have been myself; for +at the unaccustomed labour of turf-laying, in weather that had turned +mild and relaxing, mind no less than body was aware of fatigue, and +perhaps on that account the old man's talk seemed less vivid than +usual, less deserving of remembrance. At the same time I could not +help speculating whether the livelier interests of his conversation +might not be almost over. Had he much more to tell? Or had I heard it +practically all? + +At this turf-laying the parts were reversed now. Time had been when, +at similar employments, I was the helper or onlooker; but now +Bettesworth's sight was so bad that I could no longer leave him to +unroll two turfs side by side and make their edges fit. I had to be +down on the ground with him, or instead of him. + +And yet he would not accept criticism. Did I say, "Shove that end up a +little tighter," he would rejoin, "That's jest what I was a-goin' to +do." Or, to my comment, "That isn't a first-rate fit just there," +"No, sir," he would admit, "I was only jest layin' it so ontil," etc., +etc. "You'll see that'll go down all right. That'll go down all +right.... Yes, that'll go down all right." And he would fumble +unserviceably, while the sentence trailed away into inaudible +reiterations. Still, it was a rich, creamy, very quiet and pleasing +old voice that spoke. + +The habit of repeating his own words was growing upon the old man fast +since his wife's death; and it irritated me at times, filling up the +gaps and interrupting my share of the conversation. Instead of +listening to me, he mumbled on, dreamily. Now and again, however, he +appeared to become aware of the habit. More than once, after relating +something he had said at home, he added in explanation, "I was talkin' +to _myself_, you know. I en't got nobody else to talk _to_." This was +almost the only indication he allowed me to see of that loneliness +which others assured me he was feeling. Did he, I wonder, fear that if +I knew of it I should be urging him to give up his cottage? For +whatever reason, he made no confidant of me on that point. Once, +indeed, there was mention of sitting indoors one evening by his fire, +"till he couldn't sit no longer," but got up and walked up and down +his garden, driven by crowding thoughts. Another time, "All sorts o' +things keeps comin' into my mind now," he said. And these were the +utmost complainings to which he condescended, in my hearing. + +It was very fortunate that he had excellent neighbours in old Mrs. +Norris (old Nanny, he called her) and her son, known as Kid, Kiddy, or +Kidder. While stooping over our turfs I heard many tiny details of +Bettesworth's kindly relations with these good people; and, as +pleasantly as oddly, between them and myself a sort of friendship grew +up, through the old man's mediation. We seldom met; we knew little of +one another save what he told us; but he must have gone home and +talked to them of me, just as he came here and told me about them; and +thus, while I was learning to like them cordially, I think they were +learning to like me, and it seemed to stamp with the seal of +genuineness my intercourse with Bettesworth himself. But it was truly +queer. Old Nanny Norris--the skinny old woman with the strange +Mongolian or Tartar face and eyes--took to stopping for a chat, if we +met on the road. In the town once, where I stood talking with some one +else, she, coming up from behind me, could not pass on without looking +round, nodding joyfully and grimacing her countenance--the countenance +of an eastern image--into a jolly smile. She wore a Paisley shawl, and +a little bonnet gay with russet and pink. + +Bettesworth was distressed only by Nanny's deafness. "_En't_ that a +denial to anybody!" he exclaimed feelingly. "There, I can't talk to +her. I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf. Everybody can hear +what you got to say, and if 't en't nothing, still you don't want +everybody to hear it.... Old Kid _breaks_ out at her sometimes: 'Gaw' +dangy! I'll _make_ ye hear!' Every now an' then I laughs to myself to +hear 'n, sittin' in there by myself." + +He handed me another turf, and continued: "'Tis a good thing for she +that old Kidder en't never got married. But she slaves about for 'n; +nobody _could_n't do no more for 'n than she do. When I got home to +dinner she come runnin' round. She'd jest bin to pay all his clubs for +'n. He belongs to three clubs: two slate clubs an' the Foresters." + +"He doesn't mean to be in any trouble if he's ill," I grumbled up from +the turf. + +"Not he. Thirty-two shillin's a week he'll get, if he's laid up. +There's Alf" (one of his half-brothers) "and him--rare schemin' +fellers they be, no mistake." Particulars followed about this family +of strong brothers; but, in fine, "Kidder 've always bin the darlin'. +He's the youngest." + +Fearless, black-bearded strong man that he is, though very quiet, even +silky and soft in his ordinary demeanour, it was laughable to think of +Kid Norris as a "darling." Along with Alf he was at work all through +the summer on the new railway near Bordon Camp, they two being experts +and earning a halfpenny an hour more than the common navvy. Their way +was to leave home at four in the morning and walk the eight miles to +their work. In the evening the 7 p.m. up-train brought them within a +mile and a half of this village. Once or twice they overtook me, +making their way homewards, long-striding; and sometimes they would +work an hour or two after that in their gardens, in the summer +twilight. + +When the weather worsened and the days shortened, Kid threw up his +railway-work, and took a job at digging sea-kale for a large grower. +The fields were scattered about the district; some of them within two +miles, and the remotest not more than three, from his home. He was the +leading man of a gang of labourers; and at my paltry turf-laying I +heard of his work, which, it appears, was new to him. "They had to +save," he said (and the fact was interesting to old Bettesworth), +"jest the parts he should ha' throwed away.... It did take some +heavin': they stamms was gone down like tree-roots," especially down +there in such-and-such a field. "Up here above Barlow's Mill 'twan't +half the trouble." The master said to Kid, "You no call to slack. I +got plenty o' trenchin' you can go on at, when the kale's up." Then +said Kid to his gang, "Some o' you chaps 'll have to move about a bit +quicker, if you're goin' trenchin' 'long o' me." He sent one of them +packing--a neighbour from this village, too. "Not a bad chap to work, +so far as that goes, but too stiff, somehow," Bettesworth said, +evidently knowing the man's style. + +Towards the end of one afternoon, "It looks comin' up rainy," +Bettesworth observed, "but old Kid wants it frosty. Where he is +now--trenchin' up there at Waterman's--he says this rain makes it so +heavy; it comes up on they spuds jest as much as ever a man can lift." + +"And that's not a little," said I; "Kid's a strong man." + +"Well--he's jest the age; jest on forty. I says to 'n, 'Some of 'em 'd +go for you, if they knowed you was wantin' frost.' He laughed. 'We all +speaks for ourselves, don't we?' he says." + +Then Bettesworth added, "There, I never could have a better neighbour +'n he is. Always jest the same. He looks out for me, too." + +I grieve that I have forgotten the particular instance of looking out: +it was a case of Kid's mother telling him that she was short of some +commodity or other--hot water, perhaps, for tea; upon which Kid said, +"Well, see there's some left for old Freddy." On another occasion, "I +had," Bettesworth remarked, "my favourite dish for supper last +night--pig's chiddlins," and he owed the treat to his neighbours. +"They'd killed their pig, and old Nanny brought me in a nice hot +plateful. I _did_ enjoy 'em: they was so soft an' nice. There's +nothin' I be more fond of, if I knows who cleaned 'em. But I en't +tasted any since I give up keepin' pigs myself." + + +I could not spare many hours a day for it, so that our turfing work +dragged out wearisomely; but throughout it Bettesworth's conversation +maintained the same homely inconspicuous character. Once it was about +the celery in the garden: "'Tis the nicest celery I ever had--so +crisp, an' so well-bleached. I've had two sticks." (He had been told +to help himself.) "Last night I put some in a saucepan an' boiled it +up; an' then a little pepper an' salt and a nice bit o' butter." He +has no teeth now for eating it uncooked; "or else at one time I +could," he assured me. + +One after another his simple domestic arrangements were talked over. +He made no fire at home in the morning; Nanny gave him a cup of tea; +and so he saved coal, which he had been buying from one of the village +shops, half a hundredweight at a time. But the price was exorbitant, +and Bettesworth had found a way of buying for fourpence the +hundredweight cheaper. And "fo'pence--that's a lot. Well, there's the +price of a loaf _soon_ saved." "And a loaf," I put in, "lasts you...?" +"Lasts me a long time, and _then_ I gives the crusts and odd bits to +Kid for his pig.... One way and another I makes it all up to 'em." + +Of a well-to-do neighbour, "He don't shake off that lumbago in his +back yet, so he says.... Ah, he have bin a strong man. So he ought to +be, the way he eats. His sister was sayin' only t'other day how every +mornin' he'll eat as big a plateful o' fat bacon as she puts before +'n." + +A difficulty with a turf which was cut too thick at one corner made a +queer diversion. The old man was wearing new boots, and already I knew +how he had bargained for them at Wilby's shop, getting a pair of cork +socks, besides laces and dubbin, thrown in for his money. And now, +this little corner of grass obstinately sticking up, "Let's see what +Mr. Wilby 'll do for 'n," said Bettesworth, and he stamped his new +boot down hard and the thickened sod yielded. "Do they hurt you at +all?" I asked then. "No," he said, "not no more'n you may expect. New +boots always draws your feet a bit. That one wrung my foot a little +yest'day. When I got home, 'fore ever I lit my candle, I'd unlaced 'n +and fetched 'n off. I flung 'n down. But I be very well pleased with +'em. 'Tis jest across here by the seam where they hurts.... No, I en't +_laced_ 'em tight. I don't hold with that, for new boots. Of course +they en't leather; can't be for the money. When you've paid for the +makin' what is there left for leather, out of five-and-sixpence? No, +they _can't_ be leather.... + +"Little Tim" (Bettesworth's five-year-old chum) "jest got some new +uns, with nails in 'em. Nex' pair he has, he says, he's goin' to have +'em big, with big nails, jest like his father's. 'You ben't man enough +yet, Tim,' I says. But he got some little gaiters too. 'Now I be +ready,' he says, 'if it snows or anything.'" + +As a rule we endured in silence the minor discomforts incidental to +work like ours, in a raw winter air. But there were exceptions, as +when we agreed in hating to handle the tools with our hands so caked +over with the black earth. To me, indeed, the spade felt as if covered +with sandpaper, so that sometimes it was less painful to use fingers, +although of course they did but get the more thickly encrusted with +soil by that device. This state of our hands was the cause of another +small distress: one could not touch a pocket-handkerchief. And of this +also we spoke, once, when I all but laughed aloud at what Bettesworth +said. + +It began with his testily remarking, "My nose is more plag' than +enough!" There was, indeed, and had been for a long time, a glistening +drop at the end of it. + +My own was in like case, no pocket-handkerchief being available. So I +said, "Mine would be all right in a second, if I could only get to +wipe it." + +Then said Bettesworth, innocently (for he had no suspicion how funny +his reply was), "Ah, but that's what you can't do, without makin' your +face all dirty." + +With our noses distilling dew-drops, and our hands gloved-over with +mud and aching with cold, we may be pardoned, I hope, for complaining +sometimes of the weather. I believe that really we liked it; for down +there so close to the grass and the soil we were entering into +intimacies like theirs, with the cool winter air; but our enjoyment +was subconscious, whereas consciously we criticized and were not too +well pleased. After one interval of grumbling, I tried to cheer up, +with the suggestion, "We must be thankful it isn't so cold as +yesterday." Bettesworth, however, was not to be so easily appeased, +but replied, "We don't feel it down here, where 'tis so sheltered, but +depend upon it, 'tis purty cold down the road, when you gets into the +wind. I met old Steve when I was comin' back from dinner. 'How d'ye +get on up there?' I says." (_Up there_ is on the ridge of the hill, +where Steve works in a garden.) "''Tis purty peaky up there,' he says. +I'll lay it is, too. I shouldn't think there's anybody got a much +colder job than he have. 'Pend upon it, he _do_ feel it." + +"I was afraid on Sunday we were in for more snow." + +"Ah, so was I. I found my old hard broom. Stacked in he was, behind a +lot o' peasticks an' clutter. I'd missed 'n for a long time--ever +since our young Dave" (his nephew's son) "come to clear up the garden +for me. He'd pulled up the peasticks an' put 'em in the old +shed--well, I'd told 'n to. And I _fancied_ that's where the broom +must be. So Sunday I fetched 'em all out of it and got 'n out and took +'n indoors with the shovel, in case any snow _should_ come. + +"Little Dave's gone on 'long o' George Bryant, up at Powell's. Handy +little chap, he is...." + + +In this way, so long as the turf-laying lasted, Bettesworth's talk +went drivelling on. Was he really getting dull? I had begun by +fancying so; and yet as I listened to him, perhaps myself benumbed a +little by the cold open air, something rather new to me--a quality in +the old man's conversation more intrinsically pleasing than I had +previously known--began to make its subtle appeal. Half unawares it +came home to me, like the contact of the garden mould, and the smell +of the earth, and the silent saturation of the cold air. You could +hardly call it thought--the quality in this simple prattling. Our +hands touching the turfs had no thought either; but they were alive +for all that; and of such a nature was the life in Bettesworth's +brain, in its simple touch upon the circumstances of his existence. +The fretful echoes men call opinions did not sound in it; clamour of +the daily press did not disturb its quiet; it was no bubble puffed out +by learning, nor indeed had it any of the gracefulness which some +mental life takes from poetry and art; but it was still a genuine and +strong elemental life of the human brain that during those days was my +companion. It seemed as if something very real, as if the true sound +of the life of the village, had at last reached my dull senses. + +The themes might be trivial, yet the talk was not ignoble. The +rippling comments upon their affairs, which swing in perpetual ebb and +flow amidst the labouring people, lead them perhaps no farther; and +yet, should they not be said? Could they be dispensed with? Are they +not an integral part of life? Let me quote another fragment: + +"After that rain yesterday, old Kid says, up in that clay at +Waterman's when you takes your spud out o' the ground you can't see +whether 'tis a spud or a board. And it's enough to break your +shoulders all to pieces. He _was_ tired last night, he says." + +Well--to me the observation justifies itself, and I like it for its +own sake. It touched me with an elusive vitality of its own, for which +after our turf-laying I began generally to listen in Bettesworth's +talk, and which nowadays I hear in that of his neighbours, as when old +Nanny Norris meets me on the road and stops for a gossip. + + + + +XXX + + +Christmas was approaching near--was "buckin' up," as Bettesworth +quaintly phrased it; and that it contributed to the melancholy of his +existence will easily be understood. It is nowhere mentioned in my +book, but a remorse was beginning to haunt him, for having let his +wife be taken away to the infirmary, to die there. "I done it for the +best, poor old dear," I remember his saying several times; "but it +hurts me to think I let her go." In the long evenings before +Christmas, alone in his cottage and unable to pass time by reading, he +had too much time for brooding over his loss. + +The nights as well as the evenings were probably too long for him, and +I make no question that his happiest hours were those he spent at +work, when he could forget himself and still talk cheerfully. Thus +there is quite a gleam of cheerfulness in the following instructive +fragment, of the 17th of December. + + +_December 17, 1904._--"When the wind blowed up in the night I thought +'twas rain. I got out an' went to the winder--law! _'twas_ dark! But +the winder an' all seemed as dry!" + +"What time was that?" + +"I DUNNO, sir." + +"The moon must have been down?" + +"Yes, the moon was down." + +"Then it must have been getting on for morning." + +"I dunno.... But I'd smoked two pipes o' baccer before Kid called me. +I _have_ smoked some baccer since I bin livin' there alone. The last +half-pound I had is purty well all gone; and 'tent the day for another +lot afore Monday." (This was Saturday.) "But I shall ha' to get me +some more to-night. Why, that's quarter of a pound a week! + +"Old Kid says, 'Don't it make ye _dry_?' this smoking. 'No,' I says, +'that" (namely, to drink) "en't no good.' Kid don't smoke. Reg'lar +old-fashioned card, he is. 'Ten't many _young_ men you'll see like 'n. +But he's as reg'lar in his habits as a old married man. Ay, and he's +as good, too. 'T least, he's as good to me. So they both be." + +"Isn't he to his mother?" + +"Ah! an' she to him. No woman couldn't look after a baby better. Every +night as soon as he's home and ready to sit down, there's his supper +on the table. 'Supper's ready, Kid,' she says. 'So's yourn too, +Freddy,' she says to me. 'Ah,' I says, 'Wait a bit, Nanny, till my +kettle's boilin'.' Because I always has tea along o' my supper. Kid, +he don't have his till after; but I likes mine with my supper. So I +tells her to put it in the oven till I'm ready. Cert'nly, my little +kettle don't take long to boil. But I shall ha' to get me quarter of +a ton o' coal, soon as Chris'mas is over." + + +A faint memory, for which I have had to grope, restores a mention by +Bettesworth of three glasses of grog to which he treated Kid Norris +and himself and old Nanny. Perhaps this was at Christmas time; at any +rate I am not aware that the season was brightened for him by any +other celebration. It passed, and the New Year came in, and still he +was living the same broken life, yet telling rather of the few +pleasures it contained than of its desolation. I am sure he did not +mean to let me know that he was being constantly reminded of his wife, +yet the next conversation gives reason to suppose that such was the +case. + + +_January 10, 1905._--He had spent two vigorous days in cutting down +and sawing into logs an old plum-tree, and grubbing out its roots. +That was a job which he might still be left to do without supervision; +but I had to assist, when it came to planting a young tree in the +vacant space. A pear-tree, this new one was; and he asked, "Was it a +'William' pear?" It was a _Doyenne du Comice_, I said. His shrug +showed that he did not get hold of the name at all, and I fancied him +a little contemptuous of such outlandishness; so I added that I had +seen some of the pears in a fruiterer's window, and wished to grow the +like for myself. + +"Ah"--the suggestion was enough. He wondered if that was the sort he +had bought for his "poor old gal"; and then he told again how he had +given three halfpence apiece for pears to take to her at the +infirmary, and would have given sixpence rather than go without them. +"And _then_ the poor old gal never tasted 'em.... She wa'n't up there +long.... That Blackman what drove the fly that took her ast me about +her t'other day. He didn't know" (that she was dead), "or he _said_ he +didn't. 'She was only up there three days,' I said. Since then, he've +took old Mrs. Cook--Jerry's mother.... Jerry kep' her as long as he +could, but 't last she _'ad_ to go. Yes, he stuck to 'er as long as he +could, Jerry did. None o' the others didn't, ye see.... But he had +money: there was two hunderd pound, so they said, when his wife's +mother died, and nobody couldn't make out what become of it exactly. +But Jerry had some, an' purty soon got rid of it. Purty near killed +'n. 'Fore he'd done with it he couldn't stoop to tie up his shoelaces, +he was got that bloaty.... I reckon he bides down there by hisself, +now." + +In that he resembled Bettesworth, then. I asked if Jerry had no wife. + +"She died about two year ago. Poor thing--she'd bin through +_every_thing; bin to hospitals and all." It was one hop-picking, about +nine years ago, and just after she was married, that "they was larkin' +about--jest havin' a bit o' fun, ye know; there wasn't no spite in +it--and one of 'em swished her right across the eye with a +hop-bine.... I s'pose 'twas something frightful, afore she died; 't +had eat right into her head." + +The old man pondered over the horror, then continued, "There must be +something poisonous about hop-bine. Same as with a ear o' corn. How +many you sees have lost an eye by an ear o' corn swishin' into it! +En't you ever heard of it? _I_'ve knowed it, many's a time. There was" +(I forget whom he named)--"it jest flicked 'n across the sight, and he +went purty near mad wi' the pain of it. Oats is the worst. Well, as +you knows, oats is so thin, 't'll stick to the eyeball purty near like +paper.... But I'd sooner cut oats than any other; it cuts so sweet. +That was always my favourite corn to cut. Cert'nly I en't never had no +accident with it. Barley cuts sweet, but 't en't like oats." + + +The next day's chatter gives one more touch to the picture of +Bettesworth's pleasant intercourse with his neighbours at this period. +Apropos of nothing at all the old man began his story. + + +_January 11, 1905._--"When I went home last night I see my door was +open; but I never went in, because you knows I had to go on further to +take that note for you. But after I'd done that I come back same way, +and then I see a light in the winder. 'Hullo!' I says to myself. +'What's up now, then?' So I pushed on; and when I got indoors there +was old Nanny--she'd made up my fire an' biled my kettle, an' was +gettin' my dinner ready. Ah, an' she'd bin upstairs, too: she'd +scrubbed it out--all the rooms; and she says, 'I've made yer bed too, +Fred....' But I give her a shillin', so she can't go about sayin' she +done all this for me for nothin'. _She_ en't got nothin' to complain +of. Besides, 't wants a scrub out now an' again. Not as 'twas anyways +_dirty_, 'cause _t'en't_. She said so herself. 'If it's a fine day +to-morrer, Fred, I'll come an' scrub your floors out for ye: 't'll do +'em good. Not as they be DIRTY,' she says; 'I see 'em myself, so I +knows....' Well, so she did. She come in last week, and hung my new +curtains.... I've had new curtains" (little muslin blinds) "to the +winders, upstairs an' down--I bought 'em week afore last--and ol' Nan +'ve made 'em an' put 'em up for me. No mistake she is a one to work! +Works as hard as any young gal--and she between seventy an' eighty." + +I said, "Yes, she's one of the right sort, is Nanny." + +"One o' the right sort for me. 'Tis to be hoped nothin' 'll ever +happen to _she_!" + +Such were the makeshift, yet not altogether unhappy domestic, +conditions by which Bettesworth was enabled for a little while to +maintain his independence, and carry on the obstinate and now hopeless +struggle to earn a living for himself. He was a man with work to do, +and with the will to do it, as yet. On this same eleventh of January +we may picture him forming one of a curious group of the working men +of the parish, who gathered in a rainy dawn on a high piece of the +road, and looked apprehensively at the weather. "I thought," +Bettesworth told me afterwards, "we was in for a reg'lar wild day; and +so did a good many more. The men didn't like startin'.... I come out +to the cross-roads 'long of old Kid, and he said he didn't hardly know +what to think about it. And while we stood there, Ben Fowler come +along. 'I don't hardly know what to make of it,' he says. And then +some more come. There was a reg'lar gang of 'em; didn't like to go +away. Well, a man don't _like_ to set off for a day's work an' get wet +through afore he begins." + + +_January 17._--Not many more days of work, however, were to be added +to the tale of Bettesworth's laborious years. On the 17th of January +it appears that he was still going on, for old Nanny seen at an +unaccustomed hour on the road, spoke of him as getting about with +difficulty. This is what she said, in her gruff, quick, scolding +voice: "I couldn't git to the town fust thing, 'twas so slippery. +Bettesworth said he couldn't git down our steps this mornin', so I bin +chuckin' sand over 'em. Don't want ol' Freddy to break his leg.... All +up there by Granny Fry's the childern gets slidin,' an' makes it ten +times wuss than what 'twas afore, an' the more you says to 'm the wuss +they be." + +With this last glimpse of him fumbling painfully on the slippery +pathway, we finish our acquaintance with Bettesworth's working life. + + + + +XXXI + + +_January 22, 1905._--The 22nd of January was the date, as nearly as I +can make out now, of Bettesworth's being seized by another of his +bronchial colds, from which he had hitherto been tolerably free this +winter. An influenza attacking myself about the same time prevented me +from going out to see how he fared, and for about ten days I know only +that he did not come to work. Then, on the 3rd of February, leaning +heavily on his stick and looking white and feeble, he managed to get +this far to report himself. It would take over long to tell how he sat +by the kitchen fire that day and discussed sundry affairs of the +village. For himself, he was rapidly getting well, and hoped to be +back at work in a few days. I surmise that he had been lonely. Kid +Norris had not come near him, but had been audible through the +partition wall, asking his deaf mother "How old Freddy was?" Old Nanny +herself had an extremely bad cold. + + +_February 8._--A few more days pass; and then on February the 8th +there is the following brief entry in my note-book: + +"Bettesworth started work again yesterday. He planted some shallots, +and even while I watched him smoothing the earth over them, he raked +out two which, failing to see, he trod upon and left on the ground." + +And that was Bettesworth's last day's work. He never again after that +day put hand to tool, and probably some suspicion that the end had at +length come to the usefulness of his life prompted me the next morning +to make that entry in my book. + +On that day he had professed to be fairly well, and so he seemed. He +mentioned, however, when I asked if Kid Norris had yet been to see +him, that the kindness of the Norrises had "fell away very much. Very +much, it have. I en't _told_ nobody, but...." He talked of giving up +his cottage and accepting an offer to lodge with George Bryant. This +young labourer, who has been spoken of before, was now and to the end +a stanch friend and admirer of Bettesworth. With him Bettesworth +fancied he would be comfortable, and I thought so too, and encouraged +him in the project, for the old man's illness had shown that it was +not right for him to live alone. + +But the proposal came too late. On the following morning (the 8th: a +Tuesday) no Bettesworth appeared; but about nine o'clock a messenger, +who was on the way to fetch a doctor, called to say that Bettesworth +was very ill; and then I remembered that on the previous afternoon he +had spoken of having been shivering all through his dinner-hour. + +It was a wet day: the influenza had barely left me, and I dared not go +out to visit Bettesworth. Towards evening, as there had been no news +of him, a member of my family started out across the valley to make +inquiries, and had not long been gone, when one of his neighbours +arrived here. It was Mrs. Eggar--"Kate," as he called her: the same +good helpful woman who had volunteered to do his washing when his wife +was ill, and had despatched the messenger for a doctor this morning. +On this evening she had stepped into the gap again. Her errand was to +urge that Bettesworth should be sent off at once to the infirmary, and +to persuade me to write to the relieving officer asking him to take +the necessary action. Her daughter, she said, would carry my letter to +him in the morning, and would bring back any message or instructions +he might send. + +From her account of him it was evident that Bettesworth was in a +critical state. He ought not to be left alone for the approaching +night; but the question was, who would sit up with him? As it was out +of my own power to do that, and as the old man's life might depend on +its being done, my duty was clear enough: I could make it worth +somebody's while to undertake the watching; and accordingly I made the +offer. The woman hesitated, thinking of her family and her laundry +work, and of her husband's toilsome days too; and then, seeing that +with all their toil they were very poor (she told me much about her +circumstances afterwards), she finally decided that she and her +husband would see Bettesworth through the night. Her husband had work +three or four miles away, and was leaving home at four in the morning: +she herself had a young baby at the time; but, says my note-book, +"they did it." + +And on the following morning, as we had arranged, their daughter went +that weary journey to the relieving officer, and brought back to me by +ten o'clock his order for the medical officer's attendance. It seemed +that the old pitiful routine we had been through several times before +was to be entered upon once more; but to expedite matters I enclosed +the order for attendance in a note of my own to the doctor; and the +girl started off with it to the town, to add another three miles to +the five or six she had already walked that morning. + +That, one would have supposed, should have almost ended the trouble; +but though a man be dying it is not easy, under the existing Poor Law, +to get him that help which the ratepayers provide, for the machinery +is cumbersome, and the people who should profit by it do not +appreciate its intricacies, or know how to make it work smoothly. In +the present instance much trouble would have been saved, if +Bettesworth's neighbours had known enough to correct an oversight of +the doctor's. There was no delay on his side; but unfortunately it +was the _locum tenens_ again who called; and he contented himself with +giving his verbal assent to Bettesworth's going to the infirmary. +That, of course, was useless; but the women attending Bettesworth did +not know it. On the contrary, they supposed that the formal +certificate could be dispensed with, and that a note from myself would +satisfy the relieving officer. A message from them reached me, begging +me to write such a note, which, they said, Bettesworth's nephew would +take over to Moorway's in the evening. + +Of course the suggestion was utterly futile. The relieving officer +could not recognize a request from me as an order, and an attempt to +make him do so, if it effected nothing worse, would certainly delay +Bettesworth's removal for yet another day, although, as it was, the +unhappy old man must be left a second night in the care of his +ignorant if well-meaning neighbours. But worse might easily follow the +sending of Bettesworth's nephew for a long walk on such a fool's +errand. Strong passionate man that he was, it was more than likely +that he would quarrel with the officer; and to applicants for relief a +relieving officer is an autocrat with whom it is not well to quarrel. +These considerations, duly weighed, persuaded me not to do what I was +asked; but I sent the messenger back with the request that +Bettesworth's nephew should call upon me. + +He came in the evening: a black-haired powerful builder's-labourer, +tired with his day's work, but prepared to be sent on a five-mile +walk. As we discussed Bettesworth's condition, and the desirability of +getting him to the infirmary, the man's tone jarred a little. He said, +"It's the best place for him. But it strikes me he'll never come home +again." A feeling passed over me that a wish was father to this +thought: that Jack Bettesworth was not eager for the responsibility +which would rest upon him, if his uncle should come home. After events +seem to prove that I wronged the man: on this occasion I was chiefly +eager to secure his help. Almost apologetically I said, "It makes a +lot of running about." "Well, can't 'elp it," was the laconic answer. +We did help it to some extent, however, by sending him, not to the +relieving officer, which would have cost another five miles, but to +the doctor, at the expense of no more than three. The nephew was to +get the doctor's certificate, and post it in the town to the relieving +officer; and for this purpose he was furnished with a stamped and +addressed envelope, in which was enclosed a letter to the relieving +officer, begging him to attend to the case on his way through the +village in the morning. It was the best we could do. Should all go +well, not more than ten or twelve miles of walking (I omit the +carrying of messages to and from me) and not more than two days of +waiting would have sufficed for getting Bettesworth the help of which +he was officially certified to be in need. + + +_February 9, 1905._--And all did go well. On Thursday morning, the 9th +of February, I went to Bettesworth's cottage, and found preparations +in progress for his going away. There was more than preparation. With +all their kindliness, it must be said of the labouring people that +they want tact. Bettesworth's poor home had become a sort of show, in +its small squalid fashion. The door stood wide open; there were half a +dozen people in the living-room, where the old man had of late shut +himself in with his loneliness and his independence; and upstairs in +his bed he must have been aware of the nakedness of the place now +displayed. The unswept hearth and the extinct fire were pitiful to +see; yet there stood women and children, seeing them. Mrs. Eggar +("Kate") had a good right to be there. She had sat up a second night, +and, albeit sleepy-eyed and untidy, there was helpfulness in her large +buxom presence. Perhaps there were reasons too for her daughter's +being there with the baby. Another woman, tall, grave, and sympathetic +of aspect, had brought two more children; and she told me that +upstairs Jack Bettesworth's wife Liz was washing the old man. Liz, by +the way, was prepared to go with him on his journey. + +I went up into the little square-windowed dirty bedroom and saw him. +He was inclined to cry at the prospect of shutting up his home; but a +little talk about my garden--perhaps dearer to him now than even his +home was--brightened him up. It pleased him to learn that some early +peas had been sown. In what part? he wanted to know. And being told, +"Ah," he said, "and there's another place where peas 'd do well: up +there under George Bryant's hedge." When I left, it was with a promise +to go and see him in the infirmary on the next visiting day. Going out +I saw old Nanny Norris at her door, observant of all that went on, but +unserviceably deaf. She was wearing her bonnet and black shawl, looked +ill, and complained of cough and of pains across her shoulders. I +think there were two or three other women standing near. They were +probably waiting to see Bettesworth removed, as he duly was, at +mid-day. + + + + +XXXII + + +_February 10._--The day after his departure a rather annoying +circumstance came to light. The monthly contribution to the club was +found to be a whole year in arrear. As the sum was but threepence a +month, so that even now only three shillings were due, it seemed a +little too bad of Bettesworth to have neglected the payments which at +least secured him a doctor's attendance and at his death would produce +four pounds for funeral expenses. Perhaps, however, he was not so much +to blame as appeared; at any rate, the manner by which we learnt of +his carelessness offers to the imagination the material for an +affecting picture of the old man on his sick-bed. It was Mrs. Eggar +who, in some trouble for him, brought his club-membership card to me, +and told how he had asked her to find it. On the eve of his departure +he had taken her into his confidence, spoken of the possibility that +he might be going away only to die, and desired, in that event, to be +brought home from the infirmary and buried decently, "same as his +wife," with this sum which the club would pay. Of course the money for +the arrears had to be found, and Mrs. Eggar undertook to pay it to +the club secretary on the next day, when she went to the town to do +her Saturday's shopping. Bettesworth had further asked her, she said, +to find his discharge papers from the army, and see what reason for +his discharge was stated, since he had forgotten. I have never +understood why he should have been curious on that point, at such a +time. Defective sight seems to have been the unexciting reason +alleged. + +And now, its occupant gone and Mrs. Eggar's rummagings done, the +squalid tenement next door to the Norris's stood shut up, with the +door locked on the few poor belongings it contained. To the neighbours +there seemed to be all the circumstances of a death, except the death +itself. People began to remember, what I had failed to observe yet +could well believe, how greatly Bettesworth had changed of late; +others recalled complaints he had uttered of being unbearably lonely. +It was the general opinion that, even if he lived, he would never work +again, and never again come back to the place he had left. Three or +four men approached me in the hope of getting work in my garden; while +as for the cottage, had I cared to give it up, there were already (the +owner told me) four or five applicants eager to take it. What I should +do, and what Bettesworth, formed the subject of a good deal of +speculation. Old Nanny, meeting me in the road, plunged excitedly into +the middle of the discussion. In her harsh snapping voice she assured +me that the cottage was "as dirty as _ever_!" and that, as regarded +Bettesworth, the infirmary was "the best place _for_ him!" "Have ye +give up the cot?" she asked. "No." "Oh! ... Beagley" (the owner) "told +young Cook as you had?" "I haven't." "Well, he _said_ you had." For +some reason that was never divulged, Nanny had conceived a violent +animosity towards Bettesworth, which I then supposed to be peculiar to +herself; but in other respects her unmannerly questionings only +betrayed the attitude of almost all the other neighbours. Bettesworth +was done for: he had better stay at the infirmary and let others have +his work and his cottage. Such was the prevailing opinion. The people +were not intentionally unkind; but in the merciless working-class +struggle for life one may admire how long Bettesworth had held his +own. + +On the other hand, the opposite side, Bettesworth's side, was +championed probably by not a few labouring men, who had learnt to +appreciate his quality. Among these was George Bryant. Bryant had been +doing a few necessary jobs for me during Bettesworth's illness, and it +was to his interest, if anybody's, that the old man should not come +home again. When I repeated to him, however, what people had been +saying--namely, that Bettesworth ought now to stay in the infirmary, +he said "H'm!" and clearly did not agree. Finally, "Well, of course, +we knows 'tis a place where old people _ought_ to be looked after, +but--well, Bettesworth likes his liberty. And so should I, if I was +in his place!" + +With a cordial feeling which warmed me at the time and may give a +little colour now to the grey narrative, he spoke of the change he had +lately observed in Bettesworth, who had confessed to him that life had +grown so lonely "he didn't know how ever to put up with it." On the +very last Sunday evening Bryant had been over at the old man's +cottage, "and 'tis a _lot_ cleaner 'n what it used to be in the old +lady's time." But the difficulty was that Bettesworth could not see. I +assented, mentioning his last labours at planting shallots. Bryant +smiled; from his adjoining garden he had noticed the same thing a year +ago, with some peas. But, in general, he admired Bettesworth. "He's a +man that don't talk much till he's started, and then.... He was +tellin' me Sunday about the things he see in the war. I reckon that +got a lot to do with the way he is now: the cold winds, when the tents +blowed over, and he'd have to lay out all in the mud. He might think +'t didn't hurt 'n," but in all likelihood Bettesworth was now feeling +the effects of these sufferings of so long ago. The Crimean wind, as +described by Bettesworth, seemed to have impressed Bryant. "He did +tell me what regiment it belonged to, but I forgets which 'twas; but +one o' the regiments had the big drum lifted right up into the air an' +carried out to sea by the wind." + + + + +XXXIII + + +The remainder of Bettesworth's story may for the most part be told in +the notes made at the time, without much comment. I was unable to go +to the infirmary on the first visiting day after his admission, as I +had promised that I would; but I managed to get to him a week later, +namely on Tuesday, the 21st of February, when he had been there twelve +days; and on the next day the following account of the visit was +jotted down. + + +_February 22, 1905._--At the infirmary yesterday I found Bettesworth +still in bed, in a large ward on the ground floor. Out of doors, +though it was a day of fair sunshine generally, the north-east wind +was bitter, and a storm of sleet and sparse hail which I had been +watching as it drove across the eastern sky, and which had reached me +as I neared the gate, made it agreeable to get inside the fine +well-warmed building. From Bettesworth's bedside I could see, through +the tall windows of the ward, distant fields and the grey storm +drifting slowly over them. Trees on the horizon stood out sombre +against the sombre sky. + +Within, was plentiful light--plentiful air and warmth too, and cleanly +order. The place looked almost cheerful, although some twenty men lay +there, suffering or unhappy. One only was sitting up, who coughed +exhaustedly, not violently; he seemed able to do no more than sit up, +shaking with debility. In the beds the patients mostly lay quite +still. The man next beyond Bettesworth drew the counterpane up over +his ears, and I saw a glowing feverish eye watching me. There were but +few other visitors--only four, I think, besides myself. Somewhere an +electric bell sounded. A little nursing attendant with sleeves +stripped up came stumping cheerily all down the ward. She had been +washing dishes or something in a kind of scullery just outside when I +came in. As she passed through she said, as though to interest the +sick men, "This is how I do my work--see? Walkin' about like this!" + +My first impression of the place was favourable; all looked so +well-appointed, so sumptuous even. And there lay Bettesworth under his +white counterpane, himself wonderfully clean and trim, and wearing a +floppy white nightcap. I had hoped to find him sitting up; but +still.... + +"How are you?" I shook his hand--unrecognizably thin and clean and +soft--and he flushed and sat up, pleased enough. But, "I'm as well as +ever I shall be," he murmured; or was it (I don't quite remember) "I +shan't never be no better." Shocked, and not sure of having heard +aright, I asked again, and the answer came, "I shan't never be no +better, so long as I bides here." + +What was the matter, then? Everything. The interview turned forthwith +into one protracted, unreasoning grumble from the old man. He had not +food enough. Bread and butter--just a little piece at one time, and a +little piece more at some other time. And beef-tea--"they calls it +beef-tea, but 'tis only that stuff out o' the bottle--_I_ forgets the +name of it. Bovril? Ah, that's it. One cup we has at home 'd make +twenty o' these." + +I tried to reason with him, but it was useless. Evidently he was very +weak. He coughed at times, but said he had no pain now. What he wanted +was to get up, and be about, where he could obtain for himself such +things as he might fancy. If a man, he argued, feeling as he did, was +allowed to get up and put on his clothes for an hour or two, and have +a sluice down, wouldn't it brighten that man up? But last night--he +didn't know what time it was, and he got out of bed. One of the nurses +came in just then. "'What are you doin' out there?' she said; 'you +ought to be in bed.' 'And so did you ought to be,' I says." To judge +from his tone in narrating, he said it in no amiable voice. He added +petulantly, "There! give me Guildford Hospital before this, twenty +times over!" + +Thus he grumbled continuously. "There's old Hall in that bed over +there. _He's_ wantin' to go 'ome, too." Bettesworth spoke with a +sneer, not at our poor old neighbour Hall, but at Hall's pitiful +prospect of getting release from this imprisonment. He told me of the +other's bad cough, and of his age, and so forth, and for a minute or +two forgot his own grievances, but only for a minute or two. I asked +some question about the doctor. The doctor? They never set eyes on +him, for two or three days at a time. And he didn't give him any +medicine much, either. That bottle he" (Bettesworth) "had from the +club doctor before leaving home--he only had two doses out of it, but +that was a _lot_ nicer than this stuff. And the bed was hard--"nothin' +soft to lay on," and his back was getting sore. "Let's see--'twas a +fortnight last Thursday I come here, wasn't it?" "No, a week." "Oh, +only a week? I thought 'twas a fortnight. The time seems so _long_." + +A woman and a girl were at old Hall's bedside, farther down the ward. +I could see him sitting up, panting, white, the picture of despair. +Then the woman turned and came towards us; it was Bettesworth's niece +Liz. She was smiling a little bewilderedly. "He wants me to send for +the nurse," she said, alluding to Hall; "he wants to go home." + +She joined me in talking to Bettesworth. One or two things I told him +about the garden awakened but a faint interest in him; and meanwhile I +could see Hall sitting up, his under-lip drooping, his eyes abnormally +bright. Yet I think he could not see much. Usually he wears +spectacles, being eighty years old. And still we talked to +Bettesworth. His niece was as unsuccessful as myself in trying to +reason with him. To some remark of hers, suggesting that if he were at +home he would be without anyone to nurse him, he replied fiercely (and +I have no notion of his meaning), "No! and there won't _be_ none, +neither, once I gets home and got my key. I shall lock my door!..." +Liz argued then that this place was so comfortable and so clean. "'Tis +the patients has to do that," said Bettesworth. + +At last a nurse came to old Hall, and we listened while he proffered +his request to go home. "To-morrow," he said. "Oh, you can't go till +you've seen the doctor!" The nurse spoke pleasantly, though of course +with decision, and bustled away. But Bettesworth, with his sneer, +commented, "Ah! I _thought_ she'd snap his head off!" + +Weary of him, I went over to speak to Hall, who was now looking +utterly baffled. Until I was quite close he did not recognize me, but +then he shook hands joyfully. To him, as to Bettesworth, I counselled +patience. Ah, but he felt he shouldn't get on, so long as he bid +there. He couldn't get on with the food. The bread in the broth did +not get soft, and as for the dry bread--"I've no teeth at all in the +top row," he said, and therefore he could not masticate it. Another +reason for his wishing to leave was that his wife was ill with +bronchitis at home, and he longed to return to her. + +Well, I had no comfort for him, any more than for Bettesworth. And +when I left, they were still dissatisfied, and I was equally sure that +their grievances were unreal. What, then, was the matter with them? +The root of it all, I think, was in this: that they were homesick. The +good order, the cleanliness, the sense of air and space, the routine +of the institution, had overwhelmed them. They were no longer their +own masters in their own homes. They were pining for their little poky +rooms, nice and stuffy, with the windows shut and the curtains half +drawn; they missed their own furniture, pictures, and worthless +rubbish endeared to them by old associations. They did not care, at +their age, to begin practising hygiene and learn how to live to grow +old. They were old already, and wanted to be at home. + + +_February 28._--I have no record of my second visit to the infirmary a +week later; but, as I remember, Bettesworth was then sitting up in a +day-room, so that he was evidently better, although still extremely +feeble. + + + + +XXXIV + + +_March 7, 1905._--Bettesworth left the infirmary on Saturday morning, +March the 4th. I met him half a mile away from it, in the town, and he +was trembling with weakness where he stood. But he protested that he +should get home well enough; he had just had a nice rest, a friend of +mine having taken him into his house to sit down by the fire. My +friend told me afterwards how the old man, invited in because of his +pitiable condition, had seemed to crawl in a state of collapse to the +chair set for him. + +His tale to my friend was curiously different from the account he gave +me of his leaving the infirmary. To the former he explained that on +the Thursday he had desired to be allowed to go home. The wish was +communicated on the next day to the doctor, who asked, "Do you want to +go then?" and was answered ungraciously, "I shan't get no better +here." On Saturday, therefore, his clothes were brought to him, and +out he came. + +But this was not quite the same story that he told me. Perhaps I +should premise that I felt annoyed with him for coming out, since it +was plain who would have to provide for him; and he may have seen +that I was displeased when I said, "You have no business out! You're +not fit for work, and you ought to have stayed another week or two." +Somehow so I greeted him, none too kindly. He replied that there were +seven or eight "turned out" that morning, their room being wanted for +others. Nor did he forget to complain. His clothes, he said, having +been tied in a bundle with a ticket on them, and tossed into a shed, +had been returned to him so damp that he felt "shivery" getting into +them; and there was no fire by which to dress. + +What did he propose to do? was my next question. He was going home, to +make up a fire in his bedroom and air his bed. Already he had arranged +with Liz and Jack to come and help him do that. Such of his things as +were worth anyone's buying he should sell--Mrs. Eggar, for instance, +would take the Windsor chairs; and then he was going to live, +probably, at Jack's. But his first care was to go and air his bed. +Firing--coal, at least--he possessed; wood could be provided by +knocking up two old tables which were grown rickety. To my protest +against such destruction, he replied that already before his illness +he had touched one of the tables with his little axe. + +He trembled, but his mouth shut resolutely, so that I got the +impression, and that not for the first time of late, of something +desperate about him, something hard, fierce, suspicious. + +The discrepancy between his stories to my friend and to myself +strengthens the impression, and as I write this a hypothesis shapes +itself: that he fears to lose his employment with me; fears that I am +weary of him and anxious to get him permanently settled in the +workhouse. For this reason, perhaps, he reviles that hated place, +hurries from it, will not own to weakness though I see him shaking, +will be independent as to coal and the rest. I asked him how he was +off for money. He could do with a shilling or so; but he did not want +to get into debt. + +That was three days ago. I was from home to-day when he came to see +me, announcing himself vastly better. He has gone to live with Jack, +in whose house he has a room to himself and "a nice soft bed," and is +well looked after, he says. Liz has even been giving him a cup of tea +in bed--or desiring to do so. + +I understand him to have said that the old cot used to cost him as +much as six shillings a week to keep going. And that, he added, would +be nearly enough for him to live upon, in his new quarters. + + +_March 8._--I have promised Bettesworth (we walked down the garden +this morning to talk it over out of earshot) that when he finds +himself past work I will make him an allowance, to keep him from the +workhouse. He is to tell me, when the time comes; at present, he still +hopes to do a little more. + +I was wrong, it seems, in surmising that dread of losing his +employment made him so anxious to quit the infirmary. "Was it so?" was +a question put to him this morning, point blank. He denied it. "No," +he said; "I was afraid I should die. That's what made me so eager to +get away. I felt I should die if I bid there another week." So many +died, he said, while he was there--several in one day, I understood, +one being the man in the bed next to Bettesworth's. This man "made up +his mind" and was gone, in twenty minutes--one Freeland, from +Moorways. There also died there a certain old Taff Skinner, an old +neighbour whom Bettesworth, in his own convalescence, tried to get +upstairs to see. A nurse turned him back, he protesting that he +"didn't know as he was doin' wrong," and she explaining that he might +only visit another room or ward on visiting day. "Or else," he told +me, "Old Taff's wife an' daughter was there, and ast me if I wouldn't +go an' see 'n to cheer 'n up." + +Having got home and shifted a few things to Jack's, Bettesworth's +great joy was in his "nice soft bed." He has been used to feathers, +and found the mattress hard at the infirmary. He said with gusto, +"That was a treat to me, to get into that bed and roll myself over. +And my poor old back seemed almost well the next morning." Across the +loins and down the back of his thighs he is tender, and his elbows +were beginning to get sore from hoisting himself up on the mattress. +To ease the loins Jack has been rubbing in "some o' that strong +liniment." On the whole Jack seems to be treating the old man very +well. + +That he will continue to do so is devoutly to be hoped. For there are +not many refuges open to Bettesworth now, nor can the infirmary any +more be looked to as one of them. According to his last version of it, +when the doctor asked him if it was really his wish to leave, he +answered, "Once I gets away I'll never come here no more, not if +there's a ditch at home I can die in." + + +_March 12._--I find there is a steady set of public opinion--that is +to say, the opinion of his own class--against Bettesworth, which has +grown very marked since he came out of the infirmary, although +probably it is not quite a new thing. + +One of the first indications of it, besides old Nanny's animosity +already mentioned, appeared while he was still away, when Bill Crawte +spoke to me in the town, alleging that the old man had been +misbehaving of late in his evenings. I received an impression of +drinking bouts and disorder, which was conveyed in innuendo rather +than directly. "He spends too much money at the public-house; and he +can't take much without its going to his head"--such was Crawte's +expression, intended, it seemed, to warn me that I was deceived in my +protégé. + +A few days ago I met old Mrs. Skinner. I remember that I crossed the +street to speak to her "because she was such a stranger," and she +looked flattered, but complained of "such a bad face-ache, sir," and +grimaced, holding her black shawl over her mouth. Then she hurried +into the subject of Bettesworth's home-coming, and did not hesitate to +assure me that he was "a _bad_ old man." Once again I felt that I was +being warned that the old man was unworthy of my help. I had heard +Mrs. Skinner before, however--months before--on the same subject. In +her way she is a good woman whom I like and respect, but she has a +taste for commenting on other people's faults. Moreover, there was +never much love lost between her and Bettesworth: his old tongue, I +suspect, has been too shrewd for her at times. + +Yesterday I met old Nanny, with a bundle on her back, and I stopped to +speak, partly sheltered from a driving rain by the umbrella she held +behind her. She, too, has not scrupled before to complain of +Bettesworth's behaviour, and always with the air of saying to me "he's +not the good old man you take him for." But yesterday her tongue knew +no reticence; she felt wronged herself, and she lashed Bettesworth's +character mercilessly, in the hope of hurting him in my esteem. Swift +and snappish, out came the long screed, while the old woman's eyes +were fiery and her cheeks flushed. Oh, but she felt righteous, I am +sure. She was exposing a blackguard, a scamp! And if she could injure +him, she would. + +I do not recall many of her words. His ingratitude to her was +Bettesworth's chief offence--after all she had done for him! So she +told what she had done: how she had cooked his supper night after +night, and got it all ready while he sat down there at the +public-house waiting to be fetched. She wouldn't have done it, but Kid +said, "Poor old feller, help 'n all you can. He en't got nobody to do +anything for him." And she had washed his clothes, and scrubbed out +his house; and he was such a dirty old man that it almost made her +sick. And when he was ill, Mrs. Cook watching (downstairs, I gathered) +was obliged to sit all night with the window open, because the place +so stank. I heard how many pails of water it took to scrub the floor; +how the boards upstairs--new boards "as white as drippen snow" when +the Bettesworths took possession--would in all likelihood never come +white again; and how the landlord had said that he should demand a +week's rent (from me, of course) to pay for cleaning, when Bettesworth +moved. And now Bettesworth was gone away, "taking his money" (his +wages or his allowance), and "I don't like it, Mr. Bourne!" said old +Nanny, vehemently. Not, apparently, that the money was an object to +her, but that all her good offices had gone unthanked, nay, minimized. +Had not Bettesworth complained that he had no one to do anything for +him? And all the time Mrs. Norris was slaving for him. Had he not told +me during his illness that he had taken nothing, when, in fact, Mrs. +Cook not long before had taken him up a cup of tea and two slices of +bread and butter, which he had eaten? "I don't _like_ it, Mr. Bourne." +No, I could see that she did not; I could hear as much in the emphasis +of the words, rapped out like swift hammer-strokes; and the old woman +looked almost handsome in the flush of her indignation. + +I left her and passed on, wondering what the original offence could +have been to produce such bitterness. Probably it was some harsh +speech of Bettesworth's, some antique savagery drawn from him in the +despair of his lonely situation, with his powers failing, the +workhouse looming. Suspicious, hard, obstinate, wrapped-up now wholly +in himself, he may easily ... but it is useless to surmise. + +Useless is it, too, to pretend that the repeated insinuations have had +no effect upon me. As a rule backbiters succeed only in making me see +their own unreason, while mentally I take sides with their victims; +but in this case fancies of my own were corroborated by the slanders +of the neighbours. I have believed, and think it likely, that +Bettesworth is ready to deceive me to his own advantage, just as I +have long known that he has not really been worth half his wages. He +is in desperate plight, dependent on my caprice, and he cannot afford +to be over scrupulous on a point of honour. As for old Nanny and the +others, I suppose their sense of justice is outraged by Bettesworth's +good fortune in having my protection. They are jealous; they resent +the imposition which they suppose is being put upon me, and imagine me +a blind fool who ought to be enlightened. + +To-day I fell in with old Mrs. Hall, whose husband is still at the +infirmary. She had nothing hopeful to tell me about that old man's +condition. He had been more contented, however, since his master had +written to him, though he did talk, bedridden as he is, of digging a +hole somewhere under the infirmary wall, so that he might escape to +the cab that would bring him back home. But Mrs. Hall didn't think--if +she said what she really thought--that he would ever come home again. +At his great age (why, he is eighty to-morrow!) how could she hope +that he would recover? Poor little dumpy old woman, with the plump +face, and dainty chin, and round eyes--her lips trembled, talking of +her husband and of her own difficulties. "For while he lays up there," +she said, "I got nothin' to live on," except a little help from the +Vicar. Her daughter, married and away in Devonshire, will pay the +quarter's rent, but.... + +"And Mr. Bettesworth's out, it seems," the old woman continued. "It +seems to me he's an ungrateful old man. For 'tis all nice and +comfortable up there. It do seem ungrateful." + +Such was Mrs. Hall's unasked for, unexpected comment, on Bettesworth's +behaviour. Poor old woman, to me too it seemed unjust that she should +be so unaided, and he, perhaps, so over-aided. He is no old woman, +though; allowance must be made for that. He could not away with the +sort of comfort so praised by Mrs. Hall. + + +Is, then, the last word about Bettesworth to be that he is dirty, +dishonest, degraded? He may be all three (he certainly is the first) +and yet have a claim to be helped now and remembered with honour. + +For, as another recent incident has served to remind me, our point of +view is in danger of growing too narrow. One of the kindest of +cultured women, going about her work of visiting the sick, asked me +how Bettesworth was doing. Then, in her amiable way, she talked of him +and of his wife, and soon was speaking of the extreme dirtiness in +which they had lived. As a district visitor she had once or twice come +upon them at meal-times, when their food on the table caused her a +physical loathing--just as once I had been nauseated myself by the +sight of a kippered herring by the old man's bedside. The district +visitor--being invited and finding no courteous excuse for +refusal--had sat down in Bettesworth's easy-chair, not without dread +of what she might bring away. Most cottages she could visit without +such terrors; most people, she supposed, "managed to get a tub once a +week"; but the Bettesworths.... The lady spoke laughingly. In her +comely life, an experience like this is afterwards an adventure. + +I smiled, and said, "They are survivals." + +"Of the fittest?" + +We both laughed; but when I added, "Yes, for some qualities," we knew +(or I at least knew) that indeed that squalor of an earlier century is +associated with a hardness of fibre most intimately connected with the +survival of the English people. + +Suppose that now in stress of circumstances, the toughness warps, +turns to ill-living, suspicion, selfishness and dishonesty, in the +grim determination not to "go under": is it then no longer venerable, +because it has ceased to be amiable? The onlooker should give an eye +to his own point of view. + + + + +XXXV + + +_March 13, 1905._--This (Monday) morning Bettesworth came, slowly +hobbling with his stick. Last week he had promised himself to be at +work again to-day; but no--he is less well, and fancies he has taken +fresh cold. + +He looked white, weak, pathetically docile and kind, as he led the way +from the kitchen door to the wood-shed, evidently desirous of a +private talk. + +He said he was "purty near beat, comin' over Saddler's Hill"; he had +never before had such a job, having been forced to stop to get breath. +It "felt like a lot o' mud in his chest; it was all slushin' and +sloppin' about inside him, jest like a lot o' thick mud." But he had +been worrying so: he wanted to pay me his rent. And then about his +club pay--that worried him, too. He need not have worried? Ah, but he +had done so, none the less; and Liz had said to him, "You better go up +an' see about it, and you'll feel better when you got it off your +mind"; or else he was hardly fit to be out in this cold wind. He had +stayed indoors from Saturday afternoon until this morning. At +tea-time, "about four o'clock yesterday," Liz had brought him a cup +of tea with an egg beaten up in it, which had seemed to do him good. +And she had got him half a quarte'n of whisky to hearten him up as he +came away this morning. But he could not eat. "Law! they boys o' +Jack's 'll eat three times what I do. I likes to see 'em. Jack says, +'What d'ye think o' that for a table?'" and indicates to Bettesworth +the plentiful supply. + +A hint brought the wandering talk back readily to the subject which +the old man had on his mind. "_I_ never owed that money to the club, +what you says Mrs. Eggar drawed from you.... She've done me out o' +that, ye see." Just as he had supposed, so it proved, he affirmed: he +had paid up to last August; and the inference was that Mrs. Eggar had +drawn the money from me for her own uses, and now Bettesworth must +repay it. + +He produced two membership cards in support of his statements. The +first was the same which Mrs. Eggar had brought me, at that time +bearing no receipt later than February, 1904, but now certifying a +further payment of 1s. 6d. up to August. The other was a new card, +giving receipt in full to February of this year. To judge by the ink, +these two receipts had been given at the same time; in other words, +they had been obtained by Mrs. Eggar in return for the money duly paid +in by her. But it took me long to satisfy Bettesworth (if he was +satisfied) that she had not "done" me out of three shillings on his +behalf. + +And then there was his rent, which had been running on all the time +that he was at the infirmary. He had brought the money for that now, +to get out of my debt. + +Of course it was refused. In consideration of this rent, I said, I had +not helped otherwise during his sickness, and I did not wish him to +repay it. What he said to that I regret that I do not exactly +remember, but it went somehow in this way:-- "You done a _lot_ for me, +sir; more 'n you any call to. And I thinks of you...." He was unable +to go on and express his meaning, but his tone rang very sincere. I +did not find any ingratitude in him; nor was there any dishonesty in +the purpose for which he had come to me. + +He, however, found dishonesty in the neighbours, who have bought his +household goods and now hang back with the purchase money. So cheap, +too, he had sold his things! "That landlord at the Swan said 'twas +givin' of 'em away.... But what could I do?" Bettesworth urged. His +brother-in-law had advised him "not to stand out for sixpence; 't +wa'n't as if they was new things," and had warned him against giving +trust. But what could he do? Even as it was, the trouble of attending +to the business had been too much for him in his weak state. So, one +had had a table, and another two saucepans, and so on; and now he +could not get the money. Instead of twenty-two shillings which should +have been received on Saturday, he found himself with no more than +five; and this morning only another five shillings had come in. + +Yes, the people had "had" him; he was sure of that. There was "that +Tom Beagley's wife.... She come to me Saturday sayin' Tom was on the +booze and hadn't given her no money, so she couldn't pay me.... +'That's a lie,' our Tom says; 'he en't bin on the booze. He bin at +work all the week, over here at Moorways.' So I told her I should have +the things back, if she didn't pay me this mornin'." Other instances +were generalized; Bettesworth thought himself cheated all round. + +By this time we had left the shed, and were standing in its shadow, +where the wind blew up cold and draughty. "Let's get into the +sunshine," I proposed. + +As we moved, "Wasn't it a day yesterday?" I remarked; and Bettesworth +assented, "No mistake!" It had in fact been a Sunday of March gales, +of furious rain and hail-storms, and then gay bursts of sunshine +hurrying down the valley. With none to sweep it, the path where we +stood was still bestrewn with a litter of dead twigs, which the east +winds had left, but this fierce westerly wind had finally torn out +from the lilac bushes. "It's a sort of pruning," I said, and was +answered, "Yes, that must do a lot o' good. Done it better 'n you +could ha' done, too." We found a sunny place, although still a +draughty wind searched us out, and fast-changing clouds sometimes drew +across the sunshine and left us shivering. "More showers," we +predicted, "before the day is out." + +There, in the sunshine, Bettesworth coughed--a little painful cough +without variety. It seemed as if it need not have begun, yet, having +begun, need never cease. "You must get rid of that cough," said I. + +"I en't got strength to cough," he replied. Then he put his hands +against the pit of his stomach. "That's where it hurts me. Sims to +tear me all to pieces." I advised care in feeding, and avoidance of +solids. "Bread an' butter's the only solid food I takes," he said. +"Liz wanted me to have a kipper. 'Naw,' I says, 'I en't much of a fish +man.' But I don't want it. I en't got no appetite." It was suggested +that the warm weather presently would restore him; but he returned, +very quietly; "I dunno. I sims to think I shan't last much longer. I +got that idear. I can feel it, somehow." + +"How long have you felt like that?" + +"This six weeks I've had that sort o' feelin'." He went on to repeat +what he had said to Jack in consequence. When he had got his bed and +other things into Jack's house, "'It's all yours now,' I says. 'You +take everything there is. All you got to do is to see me put away.'" + +His weakness was distressing to see, and he had to get back home +somehow. Would a little more whisky help him? We adjourned to the +kitchen, sat down there near the fire, and while the old man had his +stimulant he talked of many things. + +At first, handing me the key of his cottage, he told of his cat, how +plump she looked, and how she had welcomed him home in such fashion as +to make Liz say with a laugh, "No call to ask whose cat she is!" +Sometimes he thought of "gettin' old Kid to put a charge o' shot into +her"; sometimes, of "puttin' her in a sack an' drownin' her." Either +was more than he had the heart to do; yet he could not bear to think +of his cat without a home. Would not Mrs. Norris take care of her, +then?" Oh yes, she'd _feed_ her, but.... But Mrs. Norris can't _hear_, +poor old soul. She bin a good ol' soul to me, though; and so've Kid." +Of course I did not tell Bettesworth how old Nanny had lately talked +of him. + +What to do about his cabbages puzzled him. He had paid old Carver Cook +two shillings for digging the ground and planting them; and now that +he had given up the cottage, there was this value like to be lost! He +must get "whoever took the cot" to take to the cabbages too; they +ought to. He didn't like to cut 'em down--never liked to do anybody +else a bad turn, but.... Ultimately I promised to get the price +allowed, in settling with his landlord. + +Through devious courses the conversation slid back to his nephew's +family and household ways. Liz "don't sit down to dinner 'long o' the +others." There are six boys besides her husband for her to wait upon, +so that, were she to begin, "before she'd got a mouthful the others 'd +be wantin' their second helpin'." The custom sounds barbarous--or +shall I say archaic?--until one remembers that the husband and one or +two of the boys must get home from work to dinner and back again +within an hour. On Sunday afternoon "Jack was off to the town to this +P.S.A. or whatever it is. He brought home another prize too.... A +beautiful book--a foot by nine inches, and three or four inches thick! +Jack _can_ read, no mistake!" Unfortunately he reads in a very loud +voice, so that Bettesworth grows weary of it, in spite of his passion +for being read to. On Saturday night Jack was reading the paper, and +said, "'Like any more?' 'Not to-night, Jack; I be tired.' All about +this war" (in Manchuria). "Sunday he said, 'Shall I read ye the paper, +uncle? 'Tis nothin' but the war.' 'Then we won't have it to-day.'" + +Bettesworth's opinions on the war were tedious to me; he had so +greatly misunderstood. He thought that, after Mukden, the Russians +were retreating "right back into St. Petersburg," which would have +been a retreat indeed!" But it ought to be stopped now"; the other +Powers should interfere and say, "You've had your go in, and now you +must get back into your own bounds." For the Japanese, of course, +Bettesworth was full of admiration: "fighting without food!"... He +exclaimed at their pluck and their prowess. + +Gradually his own memories of war were awaking, and at last, "The +purtiest little soldiers I ever see was the Sardinians." He described +their smartness; their pretty tight-fitting uniform. "They camped +'longside o' we." Of their language "you could get to pick out a good +many words" (I think he meant English words they used), "but it +pestered 'em when they couldn't make ye understand.... But there, we +was as bad.... Every nation has their own slang." The funniest +Bettesworth ever heard was that of the Turks, "like a lot o' geese.... +I remember once a lot of 'em come up over the hill by our camp, with +about four hundred prisoners. They didn't let us have 'em, but was +takin' 'em on to their own camp; but they was so proud for us to see, +an' they was caperin' and cuttin' and dancin' about, jest like a lot +o' geese." + +Something reminded him of George Bryant and his present job; something +else, of his own coal supply, now removed to Jack's; and that brought +up the coal merchant's receipt, which he had found in his waistcoat +pocket. He had given it to Liz, with his wife's little box full of +receipts for coal, groceries, tea, and so on, and had recommended Liz +to "put 'em on the fire." "You _be_ a careless old feller!" Liz +retorted, and he repeated, laughing. + +He had been here nearly an hour, and at last I stood up. Bettesworth +took the hint. He was looking the better for his whisky as he went +off. But all the time, while he sat dreamily talking, he had had a +very mild, placid, old man's expression, and all my harsher thoughts +of him had quite slipped away. + + + + +XXXVI + + +_March 21, 1905._--There being no definite news of Bettesworth since +he crept away that day, this afternoon I knocked at the door of Jack +Bettesworth's cottage, where he is staying. Presently the old man +himself opened to me. His cheeks were flushed and feverish. He led the +way indoors, saying that he was all alone; and as we settled down (he +still wearing his cap) I remarked that he did not seem to be "up to +much," and he replied that I was right; "I got this here pleurisy, and +armonium or something 'long with it." He had got up from bed, quite +recently, to rest for an hour or two. + +He had seen the club doctor--Jack had fetched him on Sunday--"and you +couldn't wish for a pleasanter gentleman. He sounded me all over," and +sent out a plaster which "I'm wearin' now," Bettesworth said, "like +one o' they poor-man's plasters." This reminded him of a similar one +he had once had, of which he said that he "wore 'n for six months"; +and truly the old-fashioned "poor-man's plaster" was always alleged to +be unremovable. Once properly plastered, the patient had to earn his +name and wait until the thing should wear or "rot off," as +Bettesworth phrased it. How this six-months' plaster--right round his +waist, and "wide as a leather belt"--had been "gored" by his "old +mother-in-law, or else 't'd ha' tore flesh and all off," I will not +spend time in relating. + +Bettesworth had caught this new cold, he supposed, waiting for "they +old women" to come and pay him for his furniture; who did not come to +the old cottage at the time appointed, and kept him standing about. +Nor have they yet paid all. + +Not unhappily, but comfortably, he looked up to the mantelpiece and +said, "There's my old clock." I recognized the dingy old gabled +mahogany case; and the tick sounded familiar, reminding me of the +other rooms where I had heard it, and of the old wife who had been +alive then. "Mrs. Smith had my other," said Bettesworth, "and she en't +paid for 't yet. I shall have 'n back, if she don't. Jack persuaded me +to go an' get 'n back last week. 'That's all right,' I says, 'only I +can't get there.' He wanted to go instead of me, but I wouldn't have +that. He might get sayin' more 'n what he ought. But I shall have the +clock back if she don't pay." + +There also was his old mirror--he spoke of it--looking homely over the +mantelpiece; and I heard of a few pictures saved, which Jack had taken +out of their frames, to clean the glass, and had put back again. It +seemed to be comforting to the old man to have these relics of his +married life still about him; and in the midst of them he himself +looked very comfortable; for, as his back was to the light (he sat in +a Windsor chair with arms), I could not see the flush on his face. So +pleasant was it to find him at last beside a clean hearth, warm and +tidy and well cared-for, that I could not refrain from congratulating +him. Yes, he acknowledged his good fortune; he was swift to praise his +niece. "She looks after me," he said warmly, "as well as if I was a +child. I en't bin so comfortable since I dunno when." Perhaps never +before in his life. "Before I was bad myself, there was the poor old +gal. I went through something with she. When I was away at work, I was +always wonderin' about her." + +I had two shillings to hand over to him--the price obtained from his +landlord for the cabbages left in the cottage garden; and in answer to +inquiries as to his finances, he said that he had enough money to keep +him going for a fortnight or so. But he was paying Jack for his board +and lodging, and seemed fully alive to the desirability of continuing +to do so. + +On Sunday morning there had come to see him his sister-in-law from +Middlesham, to whom he complained of a brother-in-law's indifference. +The complaints were reiterated to me. "Dick en't never bin near so +much as to ask how I was gettin' on. I _told_ her he never come even +to his poor old sister, till the night afore the funeral. And after +all I've done for 'n, whenever he was in any trouble or wanted help +hisself, I was always the fust one he sent for, if there was anything +the matter with he, same as that time when he fell off the hayrick. +Sent for me in the middle o' the night to go to the doctor's for 'n, +when he'd got one of his own gals at home. It hurts me now, when I +thinks of it sittin' here.... If he'd only jest come and say How do! +But no...." We supposed that Dick feared lest he should be asked to +give help in some way. + +Pleurisy and pneumonia or not--it was hard to believe that he had +suffered from either, yet he had got hold of the words somehow-- +Bettesworth was at no loss that afternoon for interesting subjects of +conversation. An inquiry how his sister-in-law was faring led to a +talk about her two sons, of whom one is out of work. The other, a +basket-maker (blind or crippled, I do not know which) lives at home, +and has just got a lot of work come in. "Mostly stock work," +Bettesworth believed, "for some London firm he knows of." But besides +this, he has a hundred stone jars from the brewery, to re-case with +basket-work. The handles and bottoms are of cane, the rest "only +skeleton work, as they calls it." Bettesworth always loved to know of +technical things like this. + +Odd it is, I suggested, how every trade has its own terms of speech. +"Yes, and its own tools too," added Bettesworth; and with deep +interest he spoke of the tools this basket-maker uses for splitting +his canes, dividing them "as fine!" And the tools are "sharp as +lancets; and every tool with a special name for it." + +This reminded me to repeat to Bettesworth a similar account which a +friend of mine had lately given me, and will publish, it may be hoped, +of the Norfolk art of making rush collars. "Very nice smooth collars," +Bettesworth murmured appreciatively. But when I proceeded to tell how +the art is likely to die, because the few men who understand it keep +their methods secret, this stirred him. "Same," he said, "as them +Jeffreys over there t'other side o' Moorways, what used to make these +little wooden bottles you remembers seein'. They'd never let nobody +see how 'twas done. But I never heared tell of anybody else ever +makin' 'em anywhere." + +Yes, I remembered seeing these "bottles," like tiny barrels, slung at +labouring men's backs when they trudged homewards, or lying with their +clothes and baskets in the harvest-field or hop-garden. It was to the +small bung-hole in the side that the thirsty labourer used to put his +mouth, leaning back with the bottle above him. Whether the beer +carried well and kept cool in these diminutive barrels I do not know; +but certainly to the eye they had a rustic charm. So I could agree +with Bettesworth's praises: "_Purty_ little bottles they got to be at +last--even with glass ends to 'em, and white hoops. They used to boil +'em in a copper--whether that was so's to bend the wood I dunno. +Little ones from a pint up to three pints.... I had a three-pint one +about somewheres, but I couldn't put my hand on 'n when I turned out +t'other day. Eighteenpence was the price of a quart one--but they had +iron hoops.... But they wouldn't let nobody see how they made 'em.... +There was them blacksmiths over there, again--_they_ wouldn't allow +nobody to see how they finished a axe-head. + +"These Jeffreys never done nothing else but make these bottles, and go +mole-catchin'. Rare mole-catchers they was: earnt some good money at +it, too. But they had to walk miles for it. You can understand, when +the medders was bein' laid up for grass they had to cover some ground, +to get all round in time. I've seen 'em come into a medder loaded up +with a great bundle o' traps: an' then they'd begin putting' in the +rods--'cause they was allowed to cut what rods they wanted for it, +where-ever they was workin', and they knowed purty near where a mole +'d put his head up. 'Twas so much a field they got, from the farmer. I +never knowed nobody else catch moles like they did, but they wouldn't +show ye how they done it, or how they made their traps. + +"There was a man name o' Murrell--Sonny Murrell we always used to call +'n--lived at Cashford. _He_ was a very good mole-catcher. One time the +moles started in down Culverley medders, right away from Old Mill to +Culverley Mill--it looked as if they'd bin tippin' cart-loads o' +rubbish all over the medders. I never see such a slaughter as that +was, done by moles, in all my creepin's." (I think "creepin's" was the +word Bettesworth used, but his voice had sunk very low just here, and +I could as easily hear the clock as him.) "But they sent for Sonny. He +was a _clever_ old cock, in moles; they had to be purty 'cute to get +round 'n--some did, though; you'll see how they'll push round a +trap--but after he'd bin there a fortnight you couldn't tell as +there'd bin any moles at all." + +One other topic which we briefly touched upon must not be omitted. +Before my arrival Bettesworth had crept out to the gate by the road, +he was saying, tempted by the loveliness of the sunshine; and hearing +of it, I warned him to have a care of getting out in this easterly +wind. Ah, he said, we might expect east winds for the next three +months now, for this was the 21st of March, and "where the wind is at +twelve o'clock on the 21st of March, there she'll bide for three +months afterwards." So he had once firmly held; and he mentioned the +theory now, though apparently with little faith in it. For when I +laughed, he said, "I've noticed it a good many times, and sometimes it +have come right and sometimes it haven't. But that old Dick Furlonger +was the one. He said he'd noticed it hunderds o' times. We used to +terrify 'n about that, afterwards--'cause he was a man not more 'n +fifty; and we used to tease 'n, so's he'd get up an' walk out o' the +room." + + + + +XXXVII + + +During April I was away from home a good deal, and neither saw much of +Bettesworth nor heard about him anything of importance. He seems to +have recovered a little strength, to enable him to creep about the +village when the weather was at all fit, but the drizzling rains and +the raw chill winds of that spring-time were not favourable to the old +man, who had almost certainly had a slight touch of pleurisy, if +nothing worse, earlier in the year. + +May, however, was not a week old before the weather brightened and +grew splendid. The very sky seemed to lift in the serene warmth; and +now, if ever he was to do so, Bettesworth should show some +improvement. + +At first it almost looked as if he might rally. I remember passing +through the village, in the dusk of a Sunday evening (the 7th of May), +and there was Bettesworth, slowly toiling up the ascent to Jack's +cottage, even at that late hour. It was too dark to distinguish his +features, but by the lift of his chin and a suggestion of lateral +curvature in his figure, I recognized him. He had been to the Swan, +and was just going home, contented with his evening. The week that +followed saw him here twice; and again on the 15th he came, and, +finding me in the garden, was glad enough to be invited to a seat +where he might rest. + +And then as we sat there together it became clear to me that he would +never again be any better than he was now. The sunshine was soft and +pleasant, where it alighted on his end of the seat, and the shade of +the garden trees at my end was refreshing, but to him no summer day +was to bring its gifts of renewed life any more. When he arrived, I +had expected that presently, after a rest, it would be his wish to go +farther into the garden and see how the crops promised; but he made no +offer to move. To get so far had been all that he could do. His +thighs, as could be seen by the clinging of the trousers to them, were +lamentably shrunken. His body was wasting: only his aged mind retained +any of his former vigour. + +A curious thing he told me, in connexion with the shrinking of his +muscles. He had bared his thighs one evening, to show his +"mates"--Bryant, George Stevens, and others--how thin they were; and +by his own account the men had solemnly looked on at the queer piteous +exhibition, acknowledging themselves shocked, and wondering how he +could creep about at all. Bryant, by the way, had already told me of +the incident, speaking compassionately. He added that Bettesworth +offered to show his arms also, but that he had said, "No, Fred, you +no call to trouble. I can take your word for it without seein'." + +Sitting there weary in the sunshine, Bettesworth was in a melancholy +humour. "A gentleman on the road," he said, had met him the previous +day, and remarked "to his wife what was with him, 'That old gentleman +looks as if he bin ill.' 'So he have,' old George Stevens says, cause +he was 'long with me. He" (the gentleman) "looked at my hands and +says, 'Why, your hands looks jest as if they was dyin' off.' I dunno +what he meant; but he called his wife and said, 'Don't his hands look +jest as if they was dyin' off?' And she said so they did.... I dunno +who he was: he was a stranger to me. But what should you think he +meant by that?" + +Mournfully the old man held out his knotted hand for my opinion. He +was plainly worried by the odd phrase, and fancied, I believe, that +the "gentleman" had seen some secret token of death in his hands. + +The instinctive will to live was still strong in him, sustained by the +conservatism of habit, and in opposition to his reason. According to +Bryant, he said a day or two before this, "I prays for 'em to carry me +up Gravel Hill"; and that is the way from his lodging to the +churchyard. + + +_May 17._--Once more, on the 17th of May, he found his way here. Not +obviously worse, he complained of having coughed all night, and he was +going to try the remedy suggested by a neighbour: a drink made by +shredding a lemon, pouring boiling water over it, adding sugar.... He +was more cheerful, however. He sat in the sunshine, and chatted in his +kindliest manner, chiefly about his neighbours. + +There was Carver Cook, for instance. He was seventy-seven years old, +and fretting because he was out of work. "I en't earnt a crown, not in +these last three weeks," he had told Bettesworth. On the previous +afternoon, just as it was beginning to rain, the two old men had met +near the public-house, and gone in together out of the wet; and +"Carver" standing a glass of ale, there they stayed until the rain +slackened, and had a very happy, comfortable two hours. I asked what +Bettesworth's old friend had to live upon. + +"Well," Bettesworth said, "he've got that cot; and he've saved money. +Oh yes, he've got money put by. But he says if it don't last out he +shall sell the cot. He shan't study nobody. None of his sons an' +daughters don't offer to help 'n, and never gives 'n nothin'. His +garden he does all hisself; and when he wants any firin' or wood, he +gets a hoss an' gets it home hisself. But old Car'line, he says, is +jest as contented now as ever she was in her life. 'Why don't ye look +in and see her?' he says. But I says, 'Well, Carver, I never was much +of a one for pokin' into other people's houses.'" He paused, allowing +me to suggest that perhaps he preferred other people to come and see +him. But to that he demurred. "No.... I likes to meet 'em _out_; an' +then you can go in somewhere and have a glass with 'em, if you mind +to." + +Thoroughly to Bettesworth's taste, again, as it is to the groom's +taste to talk of horses, or to the architect's to discuss new +buildings, was a little narrative he had of another neighbour's work +in the fields. "Porter's brother," he said, "started down there at +Priestley's Friday mornin', and got the sack dinner-time." How? Well, +it was a job at hoeing young "plants" in the field, at which the man +got on very well at first; but presently he came to "four rows o' +cabbage and then four rows o' turnips," and there the ground was so +full with weeds that to hoe it properly was impossible. The hoe would +strike into a tangle of "lily," or bindweed, with tendrils trailing +"as fur as from here to that tree" (say four or five yards); and when +pulled at, the lily proved to have turned three or four times round a +plant, which came away with it. "So when the foreman come and saw, he +says, 'I dunno, Porter--I almost thinks you better leave off.' 'Well, +I'd jest as soon,' Porter says, 'for I can't seem to satisfy +_myself_.'" So he left off, and the foreman supposed they would have +to plough the crop in and plant again. + +It was pleasant enough to me to sit in the afternoon sunshine and +hear this talk of village folk and outdoor doings, but after a little +while I was called away, and did not see Bettesworth's departure. I +should have watched it, if I had known the truth; for, once he had got +outside the gate, he had set foot for the last time in this garden. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +_June 9, 1905._--Some three weeks later, not having in the interval +seen anything of Bettesworth, I was on the point of starting to look +him up, when his niece came to the door. She had called expressly to +beg that I would go and visit him, because he seemed anxious to see +me. He was considerably worse, in her opinion; indeed, for the greater +part of the week--in which there had been cold winds with rain--he had +kept his bed and lain there dozing. Whenever he woke up, he had the +impression either that it was early morning or else late evening; and +once or twice he had asked, quite early in the day, whether Jack was +come home yet. + +On reaching the cottage I found him in his bed upstairs. Certainly he +had lost strength since I saw him. At first his voice was husky, and +he was inclined to cry at his own feebleness; soon, however, he +recovered his habitual quick, quiet speech, though a touch of +weariness and debility remained in it. Stripping back the sleeve of +his bed-gown he exhibited his arm: the muscle had disappeared, and the +arm was no bigger than a young boy's. He shed tears at the sight, +himself. Nor was he without pain. As he lay there that morning his +legs, he said, had felt "as if somebody was puttin' skewers into 'em, +right up the shins"; but he had rubbed vaseline over them, and after +about half an hour the pain diminished. The doctor, visiting, had said +"Poor old gentleman"; and, to him, not much more. "Old age--worn out," +was the simple diagnosis he had furnished downstairs, to Liz. + +Another visitor had called--who but the owner of that cottage from +which the Bettesworths had been compelled to turn out two years ago? I +do not think Mr. ---- recognized Bettesworth. He had merely heard of +an old man in bad plight--an old Crimean soldier, too--and he wished +to be helpful. "And a very good friend to me he was!" Bettesworth said +heartily, in a sort of emotional burst, losing control of his voice +and crying again. Mr. ---- had "come tearin' up the stairs--none o' +they downstairs didn't know who he was," and had spoken +compassionately. "'What you wants,' he says, 'is feedin' up--port +wine!--and you shall have it.'" He was told that the doctor had +recommended whisky. "'Very well. When I gets home I'll send ye over a +bottle, the best that money can buy.'" Having left, "he come hollerin' +back again: 'Here! here's five shillin's for him!'" But, said +Bettesworth to me, "I never spent it on jellies an' things; I thought +it might be put to better use than that." + +Besides this unexpected friend, Bettesworth told me that a Colonel +resident in the parish was moving on his behalf, endeavouring to get +him a pension for his services in the Crimea. "But that en't no use," +the old man said; "I en't got my papers," or at any rate he had not +the essential ones. He tried to account for their disappearance: "Ye +see, I've had several moves, an' this last one there was lots o' +things missin' that I never knowed what become of 'em." + +He chatted long, and rationally enough, in his customary vein, but +saying nothing very striking or particularly characteristic. There +were some pleasant remarks on one "Peachey" Phillips, a coal-cart man. +Peachey "looks after his old mother at Lingfield," and is "a good chap +to work" (a "chap" of fifty years old, I should judge), but has been +hampered by want of education. According to Bettesworth, "he might +have had some _good_ places if he'd had any schoolin'," and he had +regretfully confessed it to Bettesworth. "Cert'nly he's better 'n he +was. His little 'ns what goes to school--he've made they learn him a +little; but still.... Well, you can't get on without it. Nobody ever +ought to be against schoolin'.... Yes, a good many is, but nobody +never ought to be against it. I don't hold with all this drillin' and +soldierin'; but readin', and summin', and writin', and to know how to +right yourself...." + +As Bettesworth lay in bed there upstairs, and unable to see much but +his bedroom walls and their cheap pictures, for the window was rather +high up and narrow, his mind was still out of doors. He inquired about +several details in the garden; and particularly he wanted to know if a +young hedge was yet clipped, in which he had taken much interest. It +chanced that a man was working on it that afternoon; and Bettesworth's +thought of it therefore struck me as somewhat remarkable. Evidently he +was longing to see the garden; and though we did not know then that +the desire would never be gratified, still that was the probability, +and perhaps he realized it. He was a little tearful, as the time came +for me to leave him. + +After this I tried to make a point of seeing him once a week. Friday +afternoons were the times most convenient, and the following Sunday +commonly afforded the leisure for recording the visits. I give the +accounts of them pretty much as they stand in my book. + + +_June 18, 1905 (Sunday Morning)._--I saw Bettesworth on Friday +afternoon. His voice was husky, and feebler than I have before heard +it; but then in every way he was weaker, and seemed to have given up +hope; in fact, he said that he wished it was over, though not quite in +those words. He complained of pain in his chest and about the +diaphragm, and in his legs. I did not acknowledge to him that he +seemed worse to me; but visitors of his own sort practise no such +reticence. He told me that Mrs. Blackman, Mrs. Eggar and others had +seen him, and they all said, "Oh dear, Fred, how bad you looks!" +Carver Cook's observation was yet more pointed: "Every time I sees ye, +you looks worse 'n you did the time afore." Bettesworth related all +this almost as if talking of some third person. + +The Vicar, lest the higher purpose of his visits should be overlooked +if he went to Bettesworth as alms-giver too, had entrusted me with a +few shillings for the old man, who received them gladly, but seemed +equally pleased to have been remembered. When I handed the money over, +and named the giver, "Oh ah!" he said, "he come to see me. I was +layin' with my face to the wall, and Liz come up and says, 'Here's the +Vicar come to see ye.' 'The Vicar!' I says, 'what do _he_ want to see +me for?' I reckon he must have heard me say it. He set an' talked...." +But Bettesworth did not vouchsafe any information as to the interview. +When well and strong, he had been suspicious of the clergy; now, I +believe, he was a little uncomfortable with a feeling that he had made +a hole in his manners. + +Feeble though he was, on the previous day he had crept downstairs, he +said, and even out and to the corner of the road forty yards away. I +think it must have been on some similar expedition that those women +saw him, and uttered their discouraging exclamations upon his look of +ill-health; but the desire to be up and out was incurable in him. +Yesterday, however, he fell, and had to be helped home, where he +literally crawled upstairs on hands and knees, exhausted and +breathless. So now, since the breathlessness troubled him, and since +he knew me to have had bronchitis, did I know, he asked, "anything as +'d ease it"? Eagerly he asked it, with a most pitiful reliance upon +me; but I had to confess that I knew no cure; and the poor old man +seemed as if a support he had clutched at had disappeared. Drearily he +spoke of his condition. He couldn't eat: a pint of milk was all he had +been able to take yesterday; the same that morning. Liz had said, "'We +got a nice little bit o' hock--couldn't ye eat a bit o' that?'" and +had brought him a piece, but he "couldn't face it." "But what's goin' +to become of ye?" she exclaimed, "if you don't eat nothing?" But he +couldn't. His mouth was so dry; he was unable to swallow anything +solid. Was there anything I could get him, that he would fancy? He +hesitated; then, "Well, ... I _should_ like a bit o' rhubarb. They had +some here t'other day--little bits o' sticks no bigger 'n your finger. +And they boys set down to it.... 'En't ye goin' to spare me _none_?' I +says." ... The story wilted away, leaving me with a belief that none +had been spared for him. So I promised him some rhubarb, and the next +day a small tart was made and sent over to him. The bearer returned +saying that Liz, seeing it, had laughed: "We got plenty, and he's had +several lots." If this is true, as it probably is, Bettesworth's +delusion on the point is the first instance of senility attacking his +intellect. + +For although on this Friday his usual garrulity about other topics +than his illness was noticeably diminished, still in his handling of +the subjects he did touch upon his strong mental grip was no wise +impaired. From Alf Stevens, who helped him home, he went on to Alf's +father, old George, who "en't so wonderful grand" in health, and to +Alf's brother, who "boozes a bit," being out of work and unsettled, +"or may wander off no tellin' where" in search of a job. Being now +quartered at home, "he don't offer to pay his old father nothin'. +P'r'aps of a Sat'day he'll bring home a joint o' meat.... But a very +good bricklayer." Bettesworth has the whole situation in all its +details under review before him. Moreover, this bricklayer out of work +led him to speak of a serious matter, not previously known to me +getting about the world, but to him lying in bed very well known--the +alarming scarcity of work this summer. He named a number of men +unemployed in the parish. I added another name to the list--that of a +carpenter. "Ne'er a better tradesman in the district; but en't done +nothin' for months," Bettesworth murmured unhesitatingly in his +enfeebled voice. "And So-and-so" (he mentioned a local contractor) "is +goin' to sack a dozen of his carters to-morrow, I'm told...." + +The old man lay there, aware of these things; and as I write the +thought crosses my mind that a valuable organizing force has been left +undeveloped and lost in Bettesworth. + +It looks more and more doubtful if he will linger on until the autumn. + + +_June 25, 1905 (Sunday)._--It did not occur to me at the time, but +after I got away from seeing Bettesworth on Friday a resemblance +struck me between his look of almost abject helplessness and that of +poor old Hall, whom I saw at the infirmary and who is since dead. + +In the morning, with extreme difficulty, and his niece helping him, +Bettesworth had got into the front bedroom while his own bed was being +made and his room cleaned. To that extent has he lost strength in the +last few weeks. Sometimes his niece chides him (kindly, I feel sure) +for being so cast-down, but he says, "I can't help it, and 'ten't no +use for anybody to tell me not. It hurts me to think that a little +while ago I was strong and ready to do anything for anybody else, and +now I got to beg 'em to come an' do anything for me." + +I suspect that he gives some trouble. Fancies and the unreason +characteristic of old age appear--for instance, about his food. He +cannot take solids: they go dry in his mouth and he is unable to +swallow them; yet he begged for some one to buy him a slice or two of +ham the other day. He "seemed to have had a fancy for it this +fortnight." All he takes, on his own evidence, is a little milk. + +He confessed to being occasionally light-headed. "I sees all the +people I knows, in this room here. After I got back into bed to-day, +there was three fellers leanin' over the foot o' the bed, lookin' at +me; and one of 'em said, 'I reckon I shall get six months if I don't +quit the neighbourhood.' I sprung forward--'I'll break your head if +you don't clear out of _here_!' and I was goin' to hit 'n, an' then he +was gone." + +In telling this the old man suited his action to the tale, and again +sat upright, his thin grey hair tumbled, his jaw fallen, his eyes +hopeless for very weakness. It was then that he looked so much like +old Hall. + +He was wishing to be shaved, but could get nobody to do it for him. A +labourer across the valley had been sent to: "He'd ha' come an' done +it right enough, only he has rheumatics so bad he can't hold the +razor." + +There was not much talk of the old kind; and for the first time in my +acquaintance with Bettesworth I had to search for topics of +conversation. One subject was raised by my mention of a neighbouring +farmer who proposed to begin cutting his late hay next week. "Ah, with +a machine," said Bettesworth; "he can't git the men. 'R else he used +to say he'd never have a machine so long as he could git men to mow +for him. Billy Norris and his brother" (elder brother to Kid Norris) +"mowed for 'n eighteen years" in succession.... "They'd _live_ in a +fashion nobody else couldn't. Never no trouble to they about their +food. They'd just gather a few old sticks an' bits o' rubbish, and +make a fire--nothin' but a little smoke an' flare--an' stick a bloater +or a rasher on a pointed stick and hold it up again' the flare an' +smoke jest to warm it, and down he'd go, and they'd be up and on +mowin' again. Then there was a barrel o' beer tumbled down into the +medder--they used to roll 'n into one o' they water-gripes and put a +little o' the damp grass over 'n, and the beer 'd keep as _cool_.... +And when he was empty then he'd be took away and another brought +in.... But 'twas tea--that's what they drunk for breakfast. Jest have +a drink o' beer when they started mowin'; then go on for an hour or +two. Then one of 'em 'd go back to where their kit was, an' make the +tea in the drum, an' get a little flare an' smoke; an' they'd jest +hold their bloater on a pinted stick again' the smoke--I've laughed at +'em many's a time. Dick Harding over here used to say 't'd starve he +to work 'long with 'em; he could do the mowin' but he couldn't put up +with the food. That was their way, though. If they was out with the +ballast-train or the railway-cuttin', they'd sit down on the bank--all +they wanted was a little smoky fire." Bettesworth laughed a little, +amused at these sturdy men, and at his own description of their +cooking. + +I asked: "You never did much mowing yourself, did you?" + +He hesitated, yet scarcely two seconds, and then replied: "Not much. I +helped mow Holt Park once. My father-in-law--_Foreman_, we used to +call 'n--was at it--what lived where Mrs. Warner is, and I lived where +Porter do. And the Foreman sent for me to go and help. I didn't want +to go--'tis hard work; anybody might have mowin' for me; but at last I +agreed to go. But law! the second mornin' I was like that I didn't +hardly know how to crawl down there" the three miles. "It got better +after an hour or two.... But if a feller goes mowin' for eight or nine +weeks on end, it do give 'n a doin'." + +Thus for a little while Bettesworth chatted, in the vein that had +first attracted me to him. Shall I ever hear him again, I wonder? We +tried other subjects: the washed-out state of our lane and the best +way to remedy it, the garden, the celery, the position of this or that +crop. It entertained him for a few minutes; then he failed to seize +some quite simple idea, and knew that he had failed, and said +despondently, "I can't keep things in my mind like I used to." + + +_July 2 (Sunday)._--Perhaps Bettesworth would have been more like +himself on Friday, if I had called at the usual afternoon hour, +instead of in the morning. As it was, he seemed fretful and +impatient, and his face was flushed. I did not perceive that he was +noticeably weaker, but rather that he was irritable. He had pain in +his chest and side; and he said that at night, when he lies with his +hands clasped over his waist, his chest is full of "such funny noises, +enough to frighten ye to hear 'em." His temper was embittered and +angry, especially angry, when some reference was made to his being in +the infirmary in the spring. For he affirmed, "If I hadn't ha' went +there, I should ha' bin a man, up and at work _now_. I told the doctor +there, 'If I was to bide here, you'd _starve_ me to death.'" +Embittered he was against his acquaintances, so that he almost wept. +"It hurts me so, to think how good I bin to 'em; and now when I be bad +myself there en't none of 'em comes near me." He instanced his sister +and her two sons at Middlesham; and his brother-in-law too: "Look what +I done for him!" If only he could get about! Get so that he could sit +and feel the air! But his bedroom is upstairs, and he is too weak to +leave it. The previous night, trying to get out of bed, he "almost +broke his neck," falling backwards with his head against the bedstead. +"I thought I'd split 'n open," he said, "but I never called nobody. +Jack said, 'Why hadn't ye called me?'" ... The old man's talk was too +incoherent, too rambling, to be followed well at the time or +remembered now. + +We discussed a local beanfeast excursion to Ramsgate, which was to +take place the following day; and he brightened up to recall how he +had joined a similar trip to Weymouth some years ago. It was his last +holiday, in fact. Even now it made him laugh, to remember how old Bill +Brixton had gone on that day; and he laughed a little scornfully at +the trouble they had taken to enjoy themselves, and the fatigues they +endured. Then there came just a touch of his old manner: "I had a +little bottle with me and filled it up with a quarte'n o' whisky; and +when we was comin' home it seemed to brighten ye up. I says to old +Bill, 'Put that to your lips,' I says. So he tried. 'Why, it's +whisky!' he says. But that little wouldn't hurt 'n. 'Tis a _lot_ o' +whisky you gets for fo'pence! 'Twouldn't have hurt 'n, if he'd took it +bottle and all." + +These monster excursions had never really appealed to Bettesworth's +old-fashioned taste. Rather than be cooped up in a train, I remember +he used to say, give him a quiet journey on the open road, afoot or by +waggon, so that a man may "see the course o' the country," and if he +comes to anything interesting, stop and look at it. And now, on his +bed, the ill-humour he was displaying that morning vented itself +again, in reference to a project he had heard of for another +excursion. The Oddfellows' annual fête was at hand; and, he said, with +a sneering intonation, "The secretary and some of they" (respectable +new-fangled people, he meant) "wanted 'em to go to Portsmouth. So they +called a full meetin', an' the meetin'"--ah, I have forgotten the +turn of speech. It suggested that these officious persons, interfering +to dictate how the working man should take his pleasure, had met with +a well-deserved snub, since the excursion was voted down and the +customary dinner was to be held. To myself, as to Bettesworth, this +seemed the preferable course: "It's really better," I said. Then he, +"So _'tis_, sir. It's the old, natural _way_. We _al_ways reckoned to +have _one day_ in the year, when we all had holiday. And then +everybody could join in--the women with their little childern, and +all. 'Tis _nice_...." + +Mentioning the endeavours of the Colonel and Mr. ---- to get a pension +for him, I said, "They're very interested in it." "More so than what I +be," he answered. Still, I urged, it was worth trying for; and as for +the lost papers, duplicates of them might be obtained, if we knew the +regiment. I was saying this, when with a sort of pride, though still +irritably, the old man broke in, "I can tell ye _all_ that: regiment, +an' regimental number, and officers, and all." At that I asked what +was his regiment? + +He stiffened his head and neck (was it just one last flicker of the so +long forgotten soldier's smartness?) and said, "Forty-eighth, and my +number was three nought nought seven.... I could name twenty people +that knowed about my service. There's old Crum Callingham. He used to +work for Sanders then, the coal merchant. The day I came back, didn't +we have a booze, too! He was at work in Sanders's hop-garden, and I +found 'n out, and two more, and I kep' sendin' for half-gallons.... +Yes, that was the same day as I got 'ome--from Portsmouth." + + +That afternoon I happened to meet old Beagley--the retired bricklayer, +and recently Bettesworth's landlord. He spoke of Bettesworth with more +than usual appreciation, saying that he had been a strong man, as if +he meant unusually strong. His sight must have been bad "thirty or +forty years," Beagley estimated. He (Beagley) remembered first +noticing it when he dropped his trowel from a scaffold, and sent +Bettesworth down the ladder for it. He observed that Bettesworth could +not see the trowel, but groped for it, as one gropes in the dark, +until his hand touched it. But, added Beagley, "he'd mix mortar as +well as any man I ever knew. I've had him workin' for me, and noticed. +I'd as soon have had him as anybody. He couldn't have _seen_ the lumps +of lime, but I suppose 'twas something in the _feel_ of it on the +shovel. At any rate, he always _done_ it; and I've often thought about +it." + + +_July 14 (Friday)._--I saw Bettesworth this afternoon, and it looks as +if I shall not see him many times more. + +Since my last visit to him a fortnight ago, the change in him is very +marked. His niece, downstairs, prepared me for it. He was very ill, +she said, and so weak that now they have to hold him up to feed him. +Of course he can take no solids; not even a mouthful of sponge-cake +for which he had had a fancy. His feet and the lower parts of his body +are swelling: the doctor says it is dropsy setting in, and reports +further that his heart is "wasting away." Hearing all this--yes, and +how Mrs. Cook thought he should be watched at night, for he could not +last much longer--hearing this, I fancied when I got upstairs that +there was a look as of death on the shrunken cheeks: they had a +corpse-like colour. Possibly it was only my fancy, but it was not +fancy that his flesh had fallen away more than ever. + +It has been an afternoon of magnificent summer weather, not sultry, +but sumptuous; with vast blue sky, a few slow-sailing clouds, a +luxuriant west wind tempering the splendid heat. The thermometer in my +room stands at 80° while I am writing. So Bettesworth lay just covered +as to his body and legs with a counterpane, showing his bare neck, +while his sleeves falling back to the elbow displayed his arms. From +between the tendons the flesh has gone; and the skin lies fluted all +up the forearm, all up the neck. But at the foot of the bed his feet +emerging could be seen swollen and tight-skinned. His ears look +withered and dry, like thin biscuit. + +He did not complain much of pain. Sometimes, "if anything touches the +bottom o' my feet, it runs all up my legs as if 'twas tied up in +knots." Again, "what puzzles the doctor is my belly bein' like +'tis--puffed up and hard as a puddin' dish." The doctor has not +mentioned dropsy, to him. Enough, perhaps, that he has told him that +his heart was "wasting away." "That's a bad sign," commented +Bettesworth, to me. He said he had asked the doctor, "'Is there any +chance o' my gettin' better?' 'Not but a very little,' he said. 'If +you do, it'll be a miracle.'" At that, Bettesworth replied, "Then I +wish you'd give me something to help me away from here." "Why, where +d'ye want to go to?" the doctor asked; and was answered, "Up top o' +Gravel Hill" to the churchyard. "I told him that, straight to his +head," said the old man. + +He lay there, thinking of his death. Door and window were wide open, +and a cooling air played through the room. Through the window, from my +place by the bed, I could see all the sunny side of the valley in the +sweltering afternoon heat; could see and feel the splendour of the +summer; could watch, right down in the hollow, a man hoeing in a tiny +mangold-field, and the sunshine glistening on his light-coloured +shirt. Bettesworth no doubt knew that man; had worked like that +himself on many July afternoons; and now he lay thinking of his +approaching death. But I thought, too, of his life, and spoke of it: +how from the hill-top there across the valley you could not look round +upon the country in any part of the landscape but you would everywhere +see places where he had worked. "Yes: for a hundred miles round," he +assented. + +It came up naturally enough, I remember, in the course of desultory +talk, with many pauses. He had had "gentry" to see him, he was saying, +and he named the Colonel, and Mr. ----. "Who'd have thought ever +_he_'d ha' bin like that to me?" he exclaimed gratefully. And each of +these visitors had spoken of his "good character"; had "liked all they +ever heared" about him, and so on; and it was then that I remarked +about the places where he had worked, as proof that his good character +had been well earned. But as we talked of his life, all the time the +thought of his death was present. I fancied once that he wished to +thank me for standing by him, and could not bring it off, for he began +telling how the Colonel had said, "'You've got a very good friend to +be thankful for.'" But it was easy to turn this. The Colonel too is a +friend. He had left an order for a bottle of whisky to be bought when +the last one sent by Mr. ---- is empty; and he has not given up yet +the endeavour to get Bettesworth's Crimean service recognized with a +pension. + +I cannot recall all that passed; indeed, it was incoherent and +mumbling, and I did not catch all. He revived that imaginary grievance +against his neighbour, for drawing money from me to pay his club when +he went to the infirmary. It appeared that Jack had been going into +the matter, and had satisfied Bettesworth that the payments had never +been really owing; so they hoped that, now I knew, I should take +steps to be righted. Bettesworth seemed to find much relief in the +feeling that his own character was cleared from blame. "Some masters +might have give me the sack for it," he said, "when I got back to +work." To this he kept reverting, as if in the hope of urging me to +have justice; and then he would say, "There, I'm as glad it's all +right as if anybody had give me five shillin's." To humour him I +professed to be equally glad; it was not worth while to trouble him +with what I knew very well to be the truth--that Mrs. Eggar was in the +right, and had really done him a service. + +What more? He said once, "I thinks I shall go off all in a moment. +Widder Cook was here ... she was talkin' about her husband Cha'les. +They'd bin tater-hoein', an' when they left off she said, 'a drop o' +beer wouldn't hurt us.' 'No,' he said, 'a drop o' beer and a bit o' +bread an' cheese, an' then git off to bed.' So they sent for the beer. +And they hadn't bin in bed half an hour afore she woke, and he'd +moved; an' she put her arm across 'n an' there he was, dead." So the +widow had told Bettesworth; and now he repeated it to me--the last +tale I shall ever hear from him, I fancy, and told all mumblingly with +his poor old dried-up mouth. He added, almost crying, "I prays God to +let me go like that." We agreed that it was a merciful way to be +taken. + +It still interested him to hear of the garden, and he asked how the +potatoes were coming up, and listened to my account of the peas and +carrots, but said he was "never much of a one" for carrots. At home I +had left George Bryant lawn-mowing. Well, Bettesworth too had mown my +lawn in hot weather, and smiled happily at the reminiscence. He smiled +again when, recalling how I had known him now for fourteen years, I +reminded him of the great piece of trenching which had been his first +job for me. + +So presently I came away, out on to the sunny road, thinking, "I shall +not see him many more times." From just there I caught a glimpse of +Leith Hill, blue with twenty intervening miles of afternoon sunlight: +twenty miles of the England Bettesworth has served. + +Half-way down the hill the old road-mender, straightening up from his +work as I passed, asked, "Can ye keep yerself warm, sir?" And I +laughed, "Pretty nearly. How about you?" "It _boils_ out," he said. +The perspiration stood on his face while he spoke of motor-cars, and +the dust they raised; but to me dust and swift-travelling cars and all +seemed to tell of summer afternoon. And though the reason is obscure, +somehow it seems fit that possibly my last talk with Bettesworth +should be associated with the blue distant English country, and the +summer dust, and that sunburnt old folk jest which consists in asking, +when it is so particularly and exhilaratingly warm as to-day, "Can you +keep yourself warm?" + + +_July 21._--The weather was as brilliantly hot this afternoon as a +week ago; and Bettesworth's bedroom looked just as before; but the old +man was changed. He lay with eyes looking glazed between the half-shut +lids, and he was breathing hard. His niece accompanied me upstairs; +but he took no notice of our entry until she mentioned my name, upon +which he turned a little and put up a feeble hand for me to take. He +was in a sort of stupor, though he seemed to rouse a little, and to +understand one or two remarks I ventured. But when he spoke it was as +if utterly exhausted, and we could not always make out his meaning. In +the hope of helping him to realize that I was with him, I told of the +garden, and how Bryant was mowing again, though in this hot weather +the lawn was "getting pretty brown, _you_ know." "Yes," he said +feebly, "and if you don't keep it cut middlin' short, it soon goes +wrong." Next I reported on the potatoes--how well they were coming: +"the same sort as you planted for me last year." "Ah--the _Victoria_, +wa'n't they?" The question was a mere murmur. "No, _Duke of York_. And +don't you remember what a crop we had, when you planted 'em?" There +came the faintest of smiles, and "None of what I planted failed much, +did they?" Indeed, no. The shallots he had planted during his last +day's work had just been harvested; the beans which he sowed the same +day had but now yielded their last picking. I told him they were +over. "You can't expect no other," he said, meaning at this time of +year and in such dry weather. I mentioned the celery, reminding him, +"You _have_ sweated over watering celery, haven't you?" Again he just +smiled, and I fancy this smile was the last sign of rational interest +and pride in his labour. + +For after this he became incoherent and wandering. Dimly we made out +that he "wanted to put them four poles against the veranda," +apparently meaning my veranda. "What for?" his niece asked. "To keep +the wall up." Then I, "We won't trouble about that to-day," as if he +had been consulting me about the work, and he seemed satisfied to have +my decision. But I had stayed too long; so, grasping his hand, I said +"Good-bye." He asked, "Are ye goin' to the club?" (He was thinking of +the Oddfellows' fête arranged for to-morrow week, and had been +wondering all day, his niece said, not to hear the band.) "It isn't +till to-morrow week," we said. "How they do keep humbuggin' about," he +muttered crossly. "Yes, but they've settled it now," we assured him. + +I have promised to go again to see him--to-morrow or on Sunday, +because, according to his niece, he had been counting on my visit, and +asking for several days "if this was Friday." + +The thought came to me on my way home, that he is dying without any +suspicion that anyone could think of him with admiration and +reverence. + + +_July 25 (Tuesday)._--Bettesworth died this evening at six o'clock. + + +_July 28 (Friday)._--This afternoon I went to the funeral. + + +A week earlier (almost to the hour) when I parted from him, he seemed +too ill to take his money--too unconscious, I mean. I offered it to +his niece, standing at the foot of the bed; but she said, glancing +meaningly towards him, "I think he'd like to take it, sir." So I +turned to him and put the shillings into his hand, which he held up +limply. "Your wages," I said. + +For a moment he grasped the silver, then it dropped out on to his bare +chest and slid under the bed-gown, whence I rescued it, and, finding +his purse under the pillow, put his last wages away safely there. + +On the Saturday I saw him, but I think he did not know me: and that +was the last time. The thought of him keeps coming, wherever I go in +the garden; but I put it aside for fear of spoiling truer because more +spontaneous memories of him in time to come. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer, by +George Sturt (AKA George Bourne) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42092 *** |