THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
)
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER '•
MEMOIRS OF A
SURREY LABOURER
A RECORD OF THE LAST YEARS OF
FREDERICK BETTESWORTH
BY
GEORGE BOURNE, -;C^-^
AUTHOR OF "the BETTESWORTH BOOK "
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & COMPANY
HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
First Published, 1907
Re-iisued 1909
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 em-
ployer, 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 plenti-
fully 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,
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
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 Bettes-
worth'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 Bettes worth, 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 repro-
ducing 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 Bettes-
worth's decay.
To this idea, formed a year or so before Bettes-
INTRODUCTION ix
worth'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 com-
ment, therefore, which I should have preferred to
omit, has been introduced in order to give con-
tinuity 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 ex-
aggeration. 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 mc that it was his
X INTRODUCTION
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 re-
corded 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 comer, 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 hving. Bettesworth talked of the
husband, too ; but presently working round again
to the bad winter of 1889-1890, he proceeded :
I
2 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" 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 childem 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 Bettes-
worth 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 comers 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
cUmbed the garden to find Bettesworth, where he
was busy at his yesterday's task.
" Well, Bettesworth, how are you getting on ?"
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 3
" Oh, cold, sir."
Overhead, one or two wisps of smoky-looking
cloud were floating southwards. In the sunhght
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 mis-
take." 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 neigh-
I — 2
4 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
bour, 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 Ofhce 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."
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 5
" Odd," I suggested, " that a man should care
to keep a dog Uke 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 Mal-
colms 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 hke that. He went off down-
stairs quick sticks."
" H'm ! I shouldn't have relished the job."
" No, sir ; I didn't like it. I was afraid of 'n. I
6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 bewilder-
ment, 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,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 7
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 some-
how, 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'U 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 pulhn', there was he makin'
out to be pullin', leanin' back with his arms stretched
out a-gruntin' ' Ugh ! . . , Ugh !' and all the time
never pulhn' 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
8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 them-
selves 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 diffi-
culty. " '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 dowTi '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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 9
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
hke 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 aU as straight. . . . But
how they doos it, I'm sure I don't know,"
We finished at last, after a fashion, and Bettes-
worth 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
10 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 aU 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 —
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER ii
when that Uttle 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 hke 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. — ^^ six minutes to five this morn-
ing 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
12 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
be taken of every opportunity, to get the remainder
of the ground ready and the main crops planted
at the earhest 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 ht 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. Pre-
sently the man from the cottage just across the lane
came out for his day's work.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 13
" 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."
14 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 15
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 hke to
see half a bushel o' they in this bit o' ground o'
youm. 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 com-
fort of his older neighbours. " If any of the young
uns come in hoUerin' about, 'twas very soon ' Out-
side !' 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 anec-
dote 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
16
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 17
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 over-
whelmed 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 obhged to
keep his old horse almost constantly at work fetching
water, since he had twenty-two little pigs, besides
2
i8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 modem,
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 some-
how 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 19
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 cata-
logue them. Cunnin' Jack " learnt it all by hisself,
but I've beared a good many — travellin' folk and the
like — say as they never beared anybody play the
concertina like him. He's the on'y one 's ever I
beared 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 rcg'lar
2 — 2
20 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 hke 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 21
struck his son's horse. The " dummy " springs on
him, throws him on his back, making a noise " * bu-
bu,' hke 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 I 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 —
hstening to the gentle murmur on the roof, on the
long fresh grass of a small orchard plot, and on the
22 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 hedge-
row— 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 hght 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 list-
ened ; for the earth seemed busy too, but in a
softened way, managing its many businesses beauti-
fully. 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, pene-
trating, the bleating of a newly-born goat ; while
in the orchard just before me Bettes worth stooped
over a zinc pail, which, as he scrubbed it, gave out
a low metallic note. Then there were three under-
tones 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 23
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 beared 'bout young Crosby over here ?
He's gone clean off his head. They took 'n off to
the asylum at Brookwood this momin'. 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,
24 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" 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. Where-
fore now she's there again, and jest hke 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 am-
monium, 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 25
imprecation of this man's was, " Drabbit it !" at
which, however, Bettesworth used to expostulate,
telling his master, " Look 'ere, you Baptists may
He, 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 dehcious 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 informa-
tion 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
26 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 momin', . , .
Three penn-oth o' peas ! I never beared talk o'
such a thing ! I told the gal to go back and teU
'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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 27
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 he 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."
Ill
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 Frmn
were pubhshed. 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.
" 7've had some hard lay-downs in my time," he
28
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 29
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 re-
spectable 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 over-
30 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
hang 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-parish-
ioners half a mile away are practically strangers to
me. Hundreds, for it is a large parish. The bluffs
which separate the hollows are not impeopled ; 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 31
stuck into the sand-cliffs, and with gardens between
cUff 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 cot-
tages are scarce, as Bettesworth now found. More-
over, 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 Beltesworth 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 dishke 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 direc-
32 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
tion — 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 over-
hung 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 waUs close in against
the sandy cliff.
At the period we are dealing with, this cottage had
a poverty-stricken appearance, upon which Bettes-
worth 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 33
like falling quite derelict. Then, however, the land-
lord had a few repairs done, and at the end of Sep-
tember, to my amazement, I heard from Bettes-
worth 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 / 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 con-
ceivably 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 path-
ways and tracks that led to the cottage, but, unfor-
3
34 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
tunately, 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 wheel-
barrow 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 compli-
mented 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, famiharly known as " Little Moser "; but
little Moser was not a success. On the Wednes-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 35
day, 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 hfted a chest into the barrer aU by my-
self— 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." For-
tunately, 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 Bettes-
worth'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
3—2
36 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 httle 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 un-
swept, disgusting, and often blocked with a pail of
ashes or other household refuse. But now a spirit
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 37
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 way-
farer had praised the old man's improvements. Did
not the Vicar himself say (I seem to remember Bettes-
worth'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 even-
ings 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 enlighten-
38
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 39
ment, 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 Chamber-
lain. 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
40 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 effec-
tually 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 con-
sequent 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 an-
nounced, he would grimly shut his lips. Morning
after morning he asked, " Any news of the war, sir ?"
and hstened gravely to what could be told. But
he did not so much think as feel about it all. He
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 41
knew nothing, cared nothing, about the policy
which had led up to hostilities ; he was too ill-in-
formed 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 over-
come. 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 begin-
ning 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 i6th 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 hkely 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."
42 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" But they bums 'em, some says."
Heaven only knows where he could have picked up
such an idea. As the war proceeded, he kept him-
self fairly up to date with its main events by listen-
ing 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 informa-
tion 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 Decem-
ber, had been mild — too mild, some people said, of
whom, however, Bettesworth was not one. Feb-
ruary 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-tem-
pered 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 lis-
tenin' all night. And if anybody else was to open
their mouths, I should be like enough to tell 'em to
43
44 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
shut up. Because, if you goes to hear anything,
hear it. Same as at church or chapel or a entertain-
ment : you goes to Hsten, 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 obhged
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 httle homily
on good manners. But he only meant that the dis-
courtesy 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, hke 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 neigh-
bours— " 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 45
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
telHng 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 Hmb, and a malady that made her for
the time half-witted ? And yet, owing to over-
crowding 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
46 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
he was deciding again to send the old lady to the in-
firmary. 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 wonder-
ing 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 formahties 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 47
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 ar-
ranging 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 ob-
tained 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 worsen-
ing. If aU 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
48 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 pro-
posed 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 in-
evitable mechanical clumsiness. Still, there was no
help for it. The weather meanwhile was threaten-
ing hindrance. A small driving snow had set in in
the afternoon, and was inclined to freeze as it feU ;
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 after-
wards, as I sat listening to the howhng 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 49
was that recollection of his recent quiet conversa-
tions 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 pass-
able— 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 im-
proved that thought of the infirmary was given up.
VI
For eight months after this the account of Bettes-
worth'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 Wey-
mouth. 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 conversa-
tion 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
50
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 51
with him " a quarten o' whisky," which he carried
in a medicine bottle.
This, I am incHned to beheve, was an event of igoo,
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 httle 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. '/'// 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 hke."
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.
4—2
52 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 after-
noon, 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 vaUey 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, con-
forming to his own rule of " behaving," he sits re-
spectfully silent, though looking disconsolate and
" sold," and his grey head, the home of such steady
thoughts, has a pathetic dignity in its dark comer,
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 pig-
sty ; 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 content-
ment ; and the afternoon sunshine used to fall very
pleasantly on the httle fowl-pen.
Needless to say, he was not exempt from the
common troubles of the poultry-keeper. I remem-
ber smiling to myself once at his gravity in mention-
ing 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 reahzed that he must kill the ill-omened
bird, " as soon as he could find out which of 'em
S3
54 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
'twas." Another time there were some httle 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 inter-
fere 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 iU-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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 55
character, of his talk. He looked rather shocked
at these benighted Yorkshiremen, and commented
severely, " Weak-minded, / 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 em-
ployed 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 communi-
cative. 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,
56 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
'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 stum-
bling 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 Flam-
borough story. It opened another vista of reminis-
cence, down which he could at least look. Un-
hesitatingly 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 Cul-
verley, there was some chaps in there at The Horse
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 57
one night with their dogs, talkin' about what they
was goin' to do. MelHsh, he sHps 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-iull, 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 dayhght, 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 shel-
tered comer where the beans stood, uphfted as it was
above the mists that chilled the bottom of the valley,
" these httle 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, Bettes-
worth's name for that form of bhght — " they Httle
minners " — brings back the scene : the quiet vege-
table garden, the sad rich autumn tints, the over-
cast sky, the moist motionless air.
To this undertone of peace — the peace you can
58
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 59
best absorb at labours like his — he was able to dis-
course 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 excite-
ment from the outside world found its way down the
lane. Saturday, November 10, was the day when
General BuUer, 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 wel-
come. On the following Monday Bettesworth, full
of enthusiasm, gave me an account of the affair as
6o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 re-
minded not without concern of the sunstroke which
had threatened Skinner's reason two summers pre-
viously. Nevertheless, the tale was worth Bettes-
worth'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 disinchnation, but I can amplify it. He
was not now a young man, to go tearing off enthusi-
astically 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 6i
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 Bettes-
worth felt inchned, 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 pub-
lished, and may be omitted here. The illness, how-
ever, 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 re-
cruiting 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 dis-
turbance 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.
62 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 any-
body." " 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 Ofhce and in-
efficiency 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 63
the mother had not allowed himtosee 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 ghmpses of trouble in another household — that
of the Skinners, Bettesworth being cognizant of all,
but saying little. It did not disturb the peaceful-
ness 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. Satur-
day— 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 travelhng 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
64
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 65
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 piece-
work 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 pre-
sently. 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 dis-
tance 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 Bettes-
worth,
" How many miles d'ye think he walked last week,
5
66 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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.
" 1 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 67
" 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 Ufe, 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 Hft 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
5—2
68 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 hfe quietly
passing on in company with the passing seasons.
February i, 1901. — We have already had a gUmpse
of the winter. And now, although it is only Feb-
ruary, there comes, as in February there often will,
a day truly springUke, 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 ghsten of emerald,
or, best of all, a flash of earnest burning blue, as if
the morning sky itself were hquefying 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 fmd the green spear-points of
crocuses and daffodils already inch-high out of the
69
70 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 71
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 Httle 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 starhngs, and Bettes-
worth'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
72 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 '11 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 73
of endeavour to get the effect it produced, that a
quite incongruous subject was powerless to mar its
quahty. 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 glisten-
ing 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," Bettes-
worth 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 '11 make me some rare nice
soup."
March i, 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 hving
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. Won-
74 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
derful 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 — hke a old feller with a chew o'
baccer — he'll bite and spet. . . ."
The " cuds " to which he referred were httle tufts
of grass, which only persistent rolling would reduce
to a level meet for a lawn-mower.
June 22. — Omitting one short reference to some-
body else's family history, and one yet shorter ob-
servation on horses and their eyesight, we skip right
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 75
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 Bettes-
worth 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 'U play about wi' that Httle 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 beared it rainin' this mornin' at
three o'clock, and got up to cover his rick over. He'd
heaved 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 pros-
pects, 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 inchned to fear, it had
76 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
certainly ruined sundry sowings of turnips, both in
this garden and down there where Bettesworth hved.
" We can't help it," so he philosophized, " and I
don't care if we get enough for ourselves, though I
should ha' hked to have more." But " Hammond
says he's turnips be all spiled, and Porter's brother
what Hves 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 rehevin' officer, and he told her they'd find
'n, if she'd go into the union. He was ofif harvestin'.
He told me o' Sunday he thought 't 'd do her good."
" Who was she ?"
" Gal from Reading. He was up that way some-
where for 'leven year, in a brick-works. And she
thought very Hkely as he was gone off into some
brick-works again ; but he was down in Sussex,
harvestin'."
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER ^^
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 gentil-
man ?' 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 ?"
78 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" They was down here hookin' down blackberries
with a stick. And then come askin' me a silly ques-
tion 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' her-
self about. Dunno how to walk nor yet talk ! ' Iss
he a gentilman V "
November lo, 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 79
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 ad-
mitted, 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.
8o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 toler-
able manure, said Bettesworth ; with this drawback,
however, that " if you gets it wi' the seed on," how-
ever 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 pic-
turesque valley, its sensitive response to the slow
changes of the year — Bettesworth's Hfe 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 Httle 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 Bettes-
worth 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 ;
81 6
82 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
there was his own tight-Hpped 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 hap-
hazard, 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 yes-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 83
terday, crawlin' about among that shrubbery after
the dead leaves," his hands were very cold. Yester-
day, 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 i860. 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 har-
ness, 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 Bettes-
worth 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 httle 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."
6—2
84 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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
^ust 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 tb<^
scuffiin', 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 —
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 85
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 Bettes-
worth'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. / 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 in-
firmary, 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 Love-
land," 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 after-
noon, December i, in company with Harriett Love-
land, 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 sHght change.' But,
law !" Bettesworth continued, in scorn of the
doctor's opinion, " they abscesses '11 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
86
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 87
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 inter-
ested. He was almost enthusiastic over the white-
ness of the sheets, the beeswaxed floor (" hke glass
to walk on. I says to Harriet, ' You must take care
you don't sHp up ' "), the httle cupboards (" lockers,
they calls 'em ") beside each bed ; the nurse, who
" seemed to be a pleasant woman ;" the daily attend-
ance 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 shppers. 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.) " Ka
88 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 pubHcly 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 any-
thing you mind to, except spirits or beer. Tea, or
anything like that, they may have brought." And
so Bettesworth, having gone unprepared, gave Love-
land 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 disadvan-
tages. Of these perhaps the worst was that the
owner was himself only a cottager — an old im-
poverished 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 g, 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 " yes-
terday." 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.' "
89
go MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 '11 cost too
much. 'T 'U 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 aUve,. drawin' his pension,^ the rent was
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 91
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 0' 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 Mac-
kenzie was her father. She've got plenty o' gab.
' You 'alf-bred Scotch people,' I says to her some-
times, ' talks too much.' I tells her of it sometimes.
She don't like me."
It seemed unhkely 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.
92 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 — bjecause 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 after-
noon " a horrid pain took him right through the mid-
riff, 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 0' 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 Hke 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 aggra-
vated by the breakdown of his domestic arrange-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 93
ments. But this is looking too far ahead. At the
period which now concerns us, he was far from think-
ing of himself as an invaUd. 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.
94 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
December lo, 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 work-
house," 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 95
mouth," and by sheer idleness had lost several jobs,
at which he might have been earning eleven shilHngs
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 insuffi-
cient.
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 httle helpless chil-
dern." But as to the able-bodied, " That stone-
yard'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 aU 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 no-
body. " Never got nothing, and yet there's only
they two and the old woman."
96 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 97
and the radiance came sweeping on and broke all
round us — then it was that Bettes worth, as I have
elsewhere* 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 momin' some o' the chaps I'd bin
at work with come round. ' What about that
wine ?' they says. So we had two or three cup-
fuls o' wine ; and then they says, ' Ben't ye comin'
'long o' we?' 'No,' I says, 'not 's momin'.'"
Here he shut his mouth, in remembered resigna-
tion, as if still regarding these tempters. " ' What's
* Author's note. " The Bettes worth Book" (second impression).
7
98 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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."
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
99 7—2
100 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
not mean that the affair was very unusual. He
was not scandahzed 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 shepherd-
ing 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 Bettes worth.
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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER loi
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 foohsh super-
ficial way of outsiders, I resolved to improve my
acquaintance with old Dicky, httle 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 Feb-
ruary, 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, beheving 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."
102 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes worth.
And he, " Yes — I dunno who 'twas I was talkin'
to this mornin', sayin' how he hked 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 hfts 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 hkes to hear 'em very well. And I don't think
they be mischieful birds neither, hke 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 httle green top off and leaves it. Sims
as if they does it reg'lar for mischief."
April 28.— This sunny, objective side of Bettes-
worth's temperament may be remembered in con-
nexion with some other remarks of his on a very
different subject. There was at that time a man
hving near us whose mere presence tried his
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104 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
patience. The man belonged to one of the stricter
Nonconformist sects, and had the reputation of
being miserly. " Looks as miserable, he do "
(so Bettes worth chanced to describe him), " as
miserable as — as sin. I never see such a feller."
At this I laughed, admitting that our neighbour cer-
tainly 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."
Bettes worth'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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 105
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 comers 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 neigh-
bour. 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
io6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
of his race. Years ago he had said that a fight
used to be " just his dip," 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 embroil-
ments, squaHd, 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 buUy ; and if report went true, he had received
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 107
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 expHcitly 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 un-
verified. I was watching for hints of it from him,
and he gave not the shghtest ; 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
1 08
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 109
fixedly before him in a shamefaced, embarrassed
way, hke 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, how-
ever, 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."
no MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" 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 famiharly
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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER iii
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 abun-
112 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
dance 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 two-
pence a week — (Bettesworth figured it out) — a very
handy sum was this week's pay, I gathered, for buy-
ing 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 cofhn."
The only coihn that Bettesworth saw was Lord
Raglan's. " That was a funeral]! Seven miles
long. . . ."
■ MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 113
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 " Uke
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 com-
pany. . . . 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 furni-
ture, and if not with any cultivated sense of propor-
tion, 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
8
114 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes worth 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 hfe, 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
sohd 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
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ii6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
wrench to return to the reahty — 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 Bettes-
worth'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 conversa-
tion, 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 sur-
prising to hear as this talk of the Crimean War —
and such exceptions of course appeared with in-
creasing rareness — I hardly took the trouble, at
this period, to set down in writing any of Bettes-
worth'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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 117
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, fortu-
nately, 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 ex-
ceptional 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.
ii8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 morn-
ing 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."
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 119
" It's what I caUs ' pound wise,' " added he, mis-
quoting 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,
Bettes worth 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 de-
mand 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 beared 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
120 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
useful ; but " Ah ! it's purty near all up with char-
coal-bumin' 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," Bettes worth said ; and the name re-
minded 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 feUer come
into the fair with one of these vans aU hung round
with bird-cages, ye know — poU-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 '11 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 121
use to be a trade, if everybody can do it. 'Relse we
should have poor Hvin' 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 ex-
perience gained when Bettesworth worked at a farm.
For there must have been hoar-frost Hngering 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 hfe 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 pubhc-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
122 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 i6. — 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 posi-
tion, 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 Bettes worth, 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
123
124 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 beUeve he knew that. He used a favourite
old spade, worn down hke 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 in-
different crops — after all, I had enough — but ex-
asperation 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,
bhndly 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 125
to-morrow somewhere else, surprising, offensive to
the eye. Again, at the lawn-mowing, never man
worked harder than Bettesworth, or more conscien-
tiously ; 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 him-
self.
What made the situation so difficult to deal with
was that his intentions were so good. He was him-
self 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
126 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
the fiction that he could see to do his work. And
his patient, silent struggles to do well were not with-
out 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 satis-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 127
faction, when I would have suggested to him to take
things easily.
I have said that there were those who considered
him too expensive a protege 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 cook-
ings 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 talk-
ing. 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 dehvered his
cabbages did not always satisfy his cravings for
society and comfort : he would turn into a pubhc-
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 some-
times 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
128 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
in me as a friend, were probably times when his
home had grown too dreary, his outlook too hope-
less, 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 re-
ligious 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 weak-
ness. I remember looking down, after I had up-
braided 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 in-
dulged 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 129
but experienced, whom we have to imagine now
indomitably facing yet another year of his Ufe, and
a prospect in which there is httle 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 Bettes-
worth himself, another influence had begun to play
havoc with his environment. A glance in retro-
spect at this nook of our parish during this same
winter of 1902-3 shows the advent of new circum-
stances, 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 Bettes worth to be conscious of it. Per-
haps 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 hus-
band'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
130
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 131
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 ;^5o to its value. Now, how-
ever, 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 Bettes-
worth'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 per-
son, 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
9—2
132 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
was in this costume that he annoyed Bettesworth
by his patronizing famiharity. " 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 every-
thing 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 shiUin' 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 circum-
stances 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 133
not of the kind to engage Bettesworth's sym-
pathy. 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
134 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes-
worth, who forthwith announced to me his inten-
tion 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,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 135
should I have hesitated ? Between Bettesworth's
punctihousness on such matters and my own inten-
tion 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, cob-
webby look that filled me with forebodings of
136 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 sus-
picions. 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 squahd, 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 im-
pression : it was not until kindly means had been
taken to ascertain the truth of it that he first ex-
postulated, and then told Bettesworth that he could
not be permitted to stay. Nay, I was allowed to
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 137
try first if persuasion of mine could remedy the
evil.
Unfortunately, remedies were not in Bettes-
worth's power, or he would by now have employed
them, being alarmed as well as indignant. He
hstened 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 un-
washed, 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 persecu-
tion to be obstinately resented.
So there was nothing to be done. The prospec-
tive 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 Bettes-
worths 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
138 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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, Bettes-
worth 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 mat-
tered ; he could have shifted to another village and
defied the demands of our new-come town civiliza-
tion ; but now a walk of a mile would be a considera-
tion. 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 139
creep into," seemed to be face to face with the work-
house 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 de-
structive 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 him-
self 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 Bettes-
worth 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
140 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Hving 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. For-
tunately, the people in the next-door cottage — an
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 141
unmarried labourer and his mother — knew Bettes-
worth'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
142 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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. " EarUest
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 re-
juvenate him. On the contrary, they openly con-
victed 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 con-
sciously slackened his efforts to do well, his uncon-
scious, 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 atten-
tion ; only now and again, in my note-books of the
143
144 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 impres-
sive 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 145
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.*
The tool set him talking. For hilHng 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. 'I'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
* 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.
10
146 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 furty 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 Bettes-
worth. " Well, moost people used to keep a cow
then, what was anybody at all. Ye see, the com-
mons 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 147
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 every-
thing, an' scratched my face, and I was afraid to
get off for fear he should gallop over me. . . . And
they hoUerin' 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, / 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, Bettes-
worth 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
10 — 2
148 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
her one pint when we drove down into Singleton.
There was three or four pohcemen outside the pubhc
there," Goodwood races being on at the time ; and
these pohcemen 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 Fern-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 149
hurst 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 Bettes worth
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 par-
ticularly 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 ob-
tained, 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
150 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 com ; 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, carry-
ing their seed-corn in basins and dropping one or
two grains into each hole. The ground was after-
wards 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 hap-
hazard recollections ? They interrupt the narrative
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 151
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 Uttle 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 " some when ?"
Now, I had just been reading some history, and
152 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Water-
loo ? 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 some-
thing 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, 1 know."
1 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 153
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' WeUington, they says, ordered it to be done,
for a punishment. And, o' course, he never was able
to walk again. Tliat 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 ! 1 shouldn't much like his bit,
should you ?"
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 pro-
moters 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.
154
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 155
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 oppor-
tunities 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 pre-
sently it struck me that there might have been
something offensive to him in the way the invita-
tion 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
mihtary 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
156 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 1 was told ;
but not by the promoters, who had shortly after-
wards left the neighbourhood.
On this same date (4th November, 1903) Bettes-
worth informed me of another circumstance which
affected him seriously. It was that he had lately
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 157
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 iU. 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 neces-
sary 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 occa-
sionally, 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
158
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 159
apprehension in the pohceman. I never noted
down his dread, because it was too constant a thing ;
and for a Hke reason, he seldom spoke of it ; but
there it ahvays 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 Bettes worth is con-
cerned. We had some cold though not really
severe weather — nothing so terrible as an odd cal-
culation of his would have made it out to be, " For,"
said he, " we he 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 httle 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
i6o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 httle 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 imita-
tive. " 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 with-
holding them. And suppressing these, I find no
further account of him mitil the middle of May.
The interval, however, between the 3rd of March
and the i6th of May, was sadly eventful for Bettes-
worth. I cannot say much about it. As once before
when his circumstances grew too tragical, so on this
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER i6i
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 devot-
ing 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 her-
self ; 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 reluct-
ance to enter the filthy cottage and help the old
man. For perhaps a week, therefore, he lay uncared
for, and none realized how iU 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 her-
self ; 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
II
i62 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
found Bettesworth in bed, with burning cheeks and
eyes feverishly bright. The bedding was disgust-
ing ; 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 prob-
ably 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 neces-
sary 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 163
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 aU 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 re-
covered quickly ; and in ten days, to my amaze-
ment (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 expecta-
tion ; 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 aU the trouble
it had been, too, to get 'em there !
I beheve it was on the day before Good Friday
II — 2
i64 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
(1904) that they returned home. When Bettes-
worth 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 1 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 i6, 1904. — " It is long," says a note of the i6th
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 somid : I
could imagine it handed about, on the Surrey hill-
165
i66 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 " (Sun-
day night ; probably at the pubhc-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 Uves 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 Cash-
ford 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 167
'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 shiUin'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 dan-
delion 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 boihn', or bakin',
or somethin'."
" What, an old one ?"
"Old buck. I ast 'n, 'What, have ye had yer
i68 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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.
WeU — 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 hap-
pened 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 after-
noon recess, and their shoutings sounded across the
vaUey. " 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 rephed. " 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 dande-
lions, 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 169
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 foUer ye for it. Dandehon 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. 7've give it to 'em, many's a time ; bin out,
after my day's work, aU 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
170 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 fete 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 Bettes-
worth. 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 171
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*
June I, 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 Bettes-
worth shook his head. " I never knowed none much
— only this sugar beer."
" But they grew hops ?" I asked.
" Oh yes," Bettesworth assented, " every garden
* The earlier portions of this chapter have already appeared
in Country Life.
172
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 173
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 com, 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
174 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 1 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
shiUin's."
Much fancy-work, did he mean ?
" The gaugin', you know, about here." Bettes-
worth spread his hands over his chest, and con-
tinued, " 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 175
Bettesworth was relating perhaps the least credit-
able story he ever told me about himself. In judg-
ing 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 al-
lowed also that that father-in-law, the old road-fore-
man, 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 de-
scribed, tall hat, and knee-breeches ; and this re-
called (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 liis drunken
176 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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."
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 177
"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," Bettes-
worth said, " my old gal and me said Will could
have oum. 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 contempla-
tively, murmuring something about " queer old
times." " Yes," he returned, " a good many
12
178 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 II, 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 some-
thing, which I lost no time in hurrying down on to
paper, while his sentences were hot in my mind, as
follows :
" Ha' ye beared about our neighbours down 'ere
runnin' away ?"
" No ! Where ?"
" Down here where I used to live. Gone off an'
left their httle 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 fort-
night. An' then went off, an' give one of her little
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 179
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 Uttle 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 Httle 'ns
ben't 'ardly able to dress theirselves : two little gals
about five or six. Poor Httle 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 '11 be took to the workhouse, and then
we shall very soon have 'em ' " (the parents). " And
12 — 2
i8o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 !"
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 day-
light or the vibrating afternoon air, another of the
great characteristics of English summer clings to
this and the following few fragments about Bettes-
worth. I might look away to Hindhead and rejoice
in the sense of vast warm distance ; I might admire
the landscape, and practise my ccsthetics ; 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
181
/
i82 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 dehght 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 smnmer,
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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 183
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 harden-
ing the steel.
Another shifting of the talk brought us round to his
brother-in-law — that accomplished 1 arm-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 boss 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,
i84 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" 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." f
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
bosses — 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 185
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 beared of a
smartish few."
I supposed he meant in Sussex ; but it appeared
not. " No," he said, " I dunno as they've begun
i86 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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
beared 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 '11 stand dryth as
well as purty near anything."
He had " heard old people say " — things Uke
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 pleas-
ing 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
iUness 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
187
i88 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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. Bettes-
worth 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 con-
sult 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 opera-
tion 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 opera-
tion, but advised him to go to Guildford Hospital.
Perhaps Bettesworth would have liked me to pooh-
pooh the suggestion — he Httle rehshed 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 introduc-
tion to the hospital.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 189
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 pro-
vided 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
190 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 1 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 Hke a vegetable marrow ? There was a
nice one in the garden that " wanted cuttin'."
Perceiving that she desired me to have the vege-
table 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 Hke 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 \\dth 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 Bettes-
worth'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,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 191
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 reahzed that he had
grown a beard— a white, scrubby, short-trimmed
beard, which gave him a foxy expression that I
did not like. His Hp was in strapping, a little
blood-stained, but he reported that all was going
on weU. 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 experi-
ence 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-
192 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
played his part. In refusing to admit fear, he had
erred a Httle 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 im-
mediate 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 men-
tioned the operating-room by the patients' name
for it—" the slaughter-house "; but none the less
his narrative had an offensive emptiness, an un-
reality, a flippancy, unworthy, I thought, of Bettes-
worth.
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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 193
came to conduct him to " the slaughter-house."
" ' Old Freddy's goin' to 'ave something now,' they "
(the nearer patients) " says. I took hold 0' 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.
13
XXVIl
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 Sep-
tember, 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 pick-
ing 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 pas-
times upon the hills. Hearing him, no one, I am
194
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 195
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 sup-
pose 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 morn-
ings 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 im-
patience 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
13—2
196 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
was agreeably deceived, and said as much after-
wards— he was treated humanely and with apprecia-
tion ; but the relieving of&cer's accoimt of the inter-
view 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. " / 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 him-
self as well as of his wife. " / be gettin' bonny !"
he said happily.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 197
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," Bettes worth 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 moonhght and making his friend
laugh, I did not know, but he did, what was in
store for him. Having no spare bed, be began his
night downstairs and dozed for a while in an easy-
chair ; then roused and went out into the moon-
light 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 —
198 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 aU 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 199
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 aban-
doned 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
200 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes-
worth'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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 201
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.
202 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 / 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 203
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. Bettes-
204 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
worth 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 some-
how 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 any-
thing : 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 205
" 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 beared 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
2o6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
seven o'clock," he says. The cumbers omeness 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 '11 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-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 207
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, dis-
consolate, 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
fmger through."
He puUed up his trouser legs to the knee, " because
2o8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 bom — I thought I felt somethin' in the heel
o' my shoe, and as soon as I pulled 'n off it rattled
on the floor. Wd'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 f
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'
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 209
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 neigh-
bourhood 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 any-
thing 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 bosses 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 boss's back an' shoulders 'd get sore. That's
where they do's all the work, poor things. When I
had bosses 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. . . ."
14
210 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 shiUin' at it." But Bettesworth had
known one man who used to earn as much as thirty
shilhngs 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 manage-
ment ; 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 bosses ;
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 bosses ! 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 211
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 under-
stand 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) Bettes-
worth 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
14 — 2
212 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
to work to-day. I found him standing outside,
patient J 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 213
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
214 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 neigh-
bours generally. " Kate said she'd ha' went down
in the fly, if I'd ha' let her know in time. An' she'd
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 215
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 canH 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 neigh-
bours 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."
2i6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
[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 after-
noon— 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'U 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 217
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 coihn — " a nice box," he called
it. The remainder of the day was spent in getting
the death certificate and observing other for-
mahties. He had the knell rung, too. Nothing
would he neglect that would testify to his respect
2i8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 cof&n 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 219
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 cofhn 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 i. — 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 Uve alone there with his cat.
There had been some talk of his going into lodgings ;
but after all, this was stiU 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
220
]
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 221 ■
^
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 i
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 transplant-
ing, it was remarkable how strong Bettesworth 1
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 1
golf-baU. 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 bosses. He put the runnin' chains I
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' 1
222 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 bosses, too. Ordinary farm bosses
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, Bettes worth
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 bosses. 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 bosses. Never used no whip,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 223
'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 fi.r 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 !' ' Lei
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.
224 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 shding there after breakfast, and they called
out to Bettesworth, " Be you roughed, Master Bettes-
worth ?" 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 sHppery."
He was obhged 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 Uttle chap about five
years old — was on very friendly terms with old
Bettesworth. He had but lately started his school-
ing, 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 225
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 comers. 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 beared 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."
15
XXIX
The thought came to me one of those afternoons,
Was it I, or was it Bettes worth, 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 teU ? 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 unroU 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
226
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 227
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. StiU, 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 explana-
tion, " I was talkin' to myself, you know. I en't
got nobody else to talk ^0." This was almost the
only indication he allowed me to see of that loneli-
ness 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.
15—2
228 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
It was very fortunate that he had excellent
neighbours in old Mrs. Norris (old Nanny, he
caUed 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 him-
self. 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 coun-
tenance— 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. " EnH that a denial to anybody !" he
exclaimed feelingly. "There, I can't talk to her.
I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf. Every-
body can hear what you got to say, and if 't en't
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 229
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 couldn'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 mis-
take." 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 morn-
ing 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
230 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
I
overtook me, making their way homewards, long- -j
striding ; and sometimes they would work an hour j
or two after that in their gardens, in the summer
twilight.
When the weather worsened and the days short-
ened, 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 '11 have to move
about a bit quicker, if you're goin' trenchin' 'long
o' me." He sent one of them packing — a neigh-
bour 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 231
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 Hft."
" And that's not a Httle," 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 aU
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 in-
stance 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," Bettes-
worth remarked, " my favourite dish for supper last
night — pig's chiddUns," 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
232 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
throughout it Bettesworth's conversation main-
tained 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 arrange-
ments 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 viUage shops, half a hundredweight at a
time. But the price was exorbitant, and Bettes-
worth 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 233
one comer 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
comer of grass obstinately sticking up, " Let's see
what Mr. Wilby '11 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-six-
pence ? 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 dis-
comforts incidental to work like ours, in a raw
234 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER .
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 sand-
paper, 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-hand-
kerchief. 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 some-
times 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 sub-
conscious, whereas consciously we criticized and
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 235
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' peas ticks 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 pea-
sticks 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,
236 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 be-
numbed a little by the cold open air, something
rather new to me — a quality in the old man's con-
versation 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 237
dispensed with ? Are they not an integral part of
Ufe ? 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 yourshoulders
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 weU 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 follow-
ing 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 !"
238
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 239
" 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 aU gone ; and 'tent the
day for another lot afore Monday." (This was
Saturday.) " But I shaU 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
youm 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.
240 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER '
But I shall ha' to get me quarter of a ton o' coalj
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 Christmasi
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 hei
was living the same broken life, yet telling rather;
of the few pleasures it contained than of its desol-|
ation. I am sure he did not mean to let me knowi
that he was being constantly reminded of his wife,!
yet the next conversation gives reason to supposej
that such was the case. :
January lo, 1905. — He had spent two vigorous]
days in cutting down and sawing into logs an old I
plum-tree, and grubbing out its roots. That was aj
job which he might still be left to do without super-
vision ; 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 Cornice, \
I said. His shrug showed that he did not get hold i
of the name at all, and I fancied him a little con- 1
temptuous of such outlandishness ; so I added that ;
I had seen some of the pears in a fruiterer's window, i
and wished to grow the Uke for myself. 1
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 241
" Ah "' — the suggestion was enough. He won-
dered 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 everything ; 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 ;
16
242 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 con-
tinued, " There must be something poisonous about
hop-bine. Same as with a ear o' com. How
many you sees have lost an eye by an ear o' corn
swishin' into it ! En't you ever heard of it ? /'ve i
knowed it, many's a time. There was " (I forget I
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 ofj
nothing at all the old man began his story. j
January ii, 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 ?'
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 243
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 fenH. 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' '11 ever happen to she ./"
Such were the makeshift, yet not altogether
unhappy domestic, conditions by which Bettes-
worth 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
16 — 2
244 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes-
worth's laborious years. On the 17th of January it
appears that he was still going on, for old Nannyj
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 momin', 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 245 i
]
slidin,' an' makes it ten times wuss than what 'twas J
afore, an' the more you says to 'm the wuss they 1
be." i
With this last ghmpse of him fumbling painfully 1
on the slippery pathway, we finish our acquaint- '
ance 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 Bettes-
worth'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 him-
self, 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 :
246
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 247
" 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 follow-
ing 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
248 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 reUeving officer asking
him to take the necessary action. Her daughter,
she said, would carry my letter to him in the morn-
ing, and would bring back any message or instruc-
tions 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 hesi-
tated, thinking of her family and her laundry work,
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 249
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 after-
wards), she finally decided that she and her hus-
band 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 re-
lieving 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.
250 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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
Bettes worth 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 pas-
sionate man that he was, it was more than likely
that he would quarrel with the officer ; and to
apphcants for relief a reheving officer is an autocrat
with whom it is not well to quarrel. These con-
siderations, 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 251
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 Bettes worth's condition, and the desir-
ability 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 ofificer,
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
252 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
hf:lp of which he was officially certified to be in \
need. jl
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 j
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 him-
self in with his loneliness and his independence ; j
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 i
them. Mrs. Eggar (" Kate ") had a good right to i
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 j
reasons too for her daughter's being there with the I
baby. Another woman, tall, grave, and sympa-
thetic of aspect, had brought two more children ;
and she told me that upstairs Jack Bettesworth's j
wife Liz was washing the old man. Liz, by the way, ]
was prf;pared 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 '
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 253
the prospect of shutting up his home ; but a Httle
talk about m\- garden — perhaps dearer to liini
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 mider
George Bryant's hedge." Wlien I left, it was with
a promise to go and see liim in the infinnary on the
next visiting day. Going out I saw old Nanny
Norris at her door, observimt of all that went on,
but unserviceably deaf. She was wearing her
bonnet and black shawl, looked iU, and complained
of cough and of pains across her shoulders. I think
there were two or three other women st:inding near.
Thev were probably waiting to see Bettesworth
removed, as he dulv was. at mid-dav.
I
XXXII i
February lo. — The day after his departure a rather i
annoying circumstance came to light. The monthly i
contribution to the club was found to be a whole :
year in arrear. As the sum was but threepence a j
month, so that even now only three shillings were i
due, it seemed a little too bad of Bettesworth to i
have neglected the payments which at least secured i
him a doctor's attendance and at his death would
produce four pounds for funeral expenses. Per-
haps, 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 j
to me, and told how he had asked her to find it. j
On the eve of his departure he had taken her into !
his confidence, spoken of the possibihty that he |
might be going away only to die, and desired, in '
that event, to be brought home from the infirmary j
and buried decently, " same as his wife," with this i
sum which the club would pay. Of course the •
money for the arrears had to be found, and Mrs. ;
254 [
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 255
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 under-
stood 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
256 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 un-
mannerly 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, Bettes-
worth'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 mfirmary, 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 257
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 diffi-
culty 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 Bettes-
worth. " 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 Bettes-
worth 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."
17
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 admis-
sion, as I had promised that I would ; but I managed
to get to him a week later, namely on Tuesday, the
2ist 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.
258
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 259
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 de-
bility. 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 ;
aU looked so well-appointed, so sumptuous even.
And there lay Bettesworth under his white counter-
pane, 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 — unrecog-
nizably 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."
17 — 2
26o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 — / 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 261
'ome, too." Bettesworth spoke with a sneer,
not at our poor old neighbour Hah, but at Hall's
pitiful prospect of getting release from this imprison-
ment. 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 " (Bettes-
worth) "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-hp drooping, his eyes
abnormally bright. Yet I think he could not see
262 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 he 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 263
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
264
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 265
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 re-
turned 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 bed-
room 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 pos-
sessed ; 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 Jiim,
something hard, fierce, suspicious.
266 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 267
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
Bettes worth'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
268 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER j
loins Jack has been rubbing in " some o' that strong i
hniment." On the whole Jack seems to be treat- i
ing the old man very well. i
That he will continue to do so is devoutly to be !
hoped. For there are not many refuges open to I
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 i
really his wish to leave, he answered, " Once I gets
away Pll never come here no more, not if there's j
a ditch at home I can die in." i
i
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. j
One of the first indications of it, besides old J
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 '4
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 -i
he can't take much without its going to his head " — >j
such was Crawte's expression, intended, it seemed, ^
to warn me that I was deceived in my proteg^. \
A few days ago I met old Mrs. Skinner. I re- ^
member that I crossed the street to speak to her J
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 269
" 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 had 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 black-
guard, a scamp ! And if she could injure him, she
would.
270 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
I do not recall many of her words. His ingrati-
tude 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 i
wouldn't have done it, but Kid said, " Poor old 1
feller, help 'n all you can. He en't got nobody to i
do anything for him." And she had washed his i
clothes, and scrubbed out his house ; and he was i
such a dirty old man that it almost made her sick, i
And when he was ill, Mrs. Cook watching (down- i
stairs, 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 I
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) ^
1
to pay for cleaning, when Bettesworth moved. And ^
now Bettesworth was gone away, " taking his i
money" (his wages or his allowance), and "I don't 1
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, j
nay, minimized. Had not Bettesworth complained '
that he had no one to do anything for him ? And i
all the time Mrs. Norris was slaving for him. Had I
he not told me during his illness that he had taken i
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 271
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
Bettes worth's, some antique savagery drawn from
him in the despair of his lonely situation, with his
powers failing, the workhouse looming. Sus-
picious, 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
272 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 bhnd 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 in-
firmary 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 hus-
band 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 un-
grateful old man. For 'tis all nice and comfortable '
up there. It do seem ungrateful."
Such was Mrs. Hall's unasked for, unexpected I
comment, on Bettesworth's behaviour. Poor old l!
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 273
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 com-
fort 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 re-
mind 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 hved. 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 loath-
ing— 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 laugh-
18
274 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
ingly. 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 associ-
ated with a hardness of fibre most intimately con-
nected with the survival of the English people.
Suppose that now in stress of circumstances, the
toughness warps, turns to ill-living, suspicion, selfish-
ness and dishonesty, in the grim determination not
to "go under ": is it then no longer venerable,
because it has ceased to be amiable ? The on-
looker should give an eye to his own point of view.
XXXV
March 13, 1905. — This (Monday) morning Bettes-
worth 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 0' 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
275 18 — 2
276 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 0' Jack's '11 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.
" / 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 is. 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 277
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 liis 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
278 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 ;
Bettes worth 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 mis-
take !" 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 sun-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 279
shine and left us shivering. " More showers," we
predicted, " before the day is out."
There, in the sunshine, Bettes worth coughed — a
httle 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 avoid-
ance of soHds. " Bread an' butter's the only soHd
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 con-
sequence. 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.
28o MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 sUd
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 —
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 281
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 !" Un-
fortunately 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 re-
treating " right back into St. Petersburg," which
would have been a retreat indeed ! " But it ought
to be stopped now "; the other Powers should inter-
fere [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 ex-
claimed 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 smart-
282 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
ness ; 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 pes-
tered 'em when they couldn't make ye under-
stand. . . . But there, we was as bad. . . . Every
nation has their own slang." The funniest Bettes-
worth 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 hun-
dred 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 he a careless old
feller !" Liz retorted, and he repeated, laughing.
He had been here nearly an hour, and at last I
stood up. Bettes worth 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 Bettes-
worth'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, " hke 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
283
284 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
wear or " rot off," as Bettes worth 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 sup-
posed, 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 285
very comfortable ; for, as his back was to the Ught
(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 con-
gratulating 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 in-
quiries 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 desirabiUty 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 hissclf, I was always the fust one
\
286 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
he sent for, if there was anything the matter with j
he, same as that time when he fell off the hay- '
rick. Sent for me in the middle o' the night to go i
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 :l
feared lest he should be asked to give help in some i
way. '
Pleurisy and pneumonia or not — it was hard to
believe that he had suffered from either, yet he i
had got hold of the words somehow — Bettesworth j
was at no loss that afternoon for interesting sub-
jects 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) j
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 I
own terms of speech. " Yes, and its own tools too," j
added Bettesworth ; and with deep interest he
spoke of the tools this basket-maker uses for j
splitting his canes, dividing them " as fine !" And \
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 287
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 appre-
ciatively. But when I proceeded to tell how the
art is likely to die, because the few men who under-
stand 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
beared tell of anybody else ever makin' 'em any-
where."
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 diminu-
tive barrels I do not know ; but certainly to the
eye they had a rustic charm. So I could agree with
Bettes worth'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.
288 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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— ^/zgy 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 289
I never see such a slaughter as that was, done by
moles, in all my creepin's." (I think " creepin's "
was the word Bettes worth 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 Bettes-
worth 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."
19
XXXVII
During April I was away from home a good deal, |
and neither saw much of Bettesworth nor heard 1
about him anything of importance. He seems to ■]
have recovered a httle 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 *^j
sky seemed to lift in the serene warmth ; and nowv
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 1
Bettesworth, slowly toihng up the ascent to Jack's j
cottage, even at that late hour. It was too dark to j
distinguish his features, but by the lift of his chin
and a suggestion of lateral curvature in his figure, Ti
I recognized him. He had been to the Swan, and
290 ?i
J
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 291
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 re-
freshing, 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
cHnging 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, acknow-
ledging themselves shocked, and wondering how he
could creep about at all. Bryant, by the way, had
already told me of the incident, speaking com-
passionately. He added that Bettesworth offered
19 — 2
292 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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, Bettes worth
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 oppo-
sition 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 293
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 his-
self ; 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
294 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 hly 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 after-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 295
noon 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 Bettes worth, 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 im-
pression 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, how-
ever, 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 with-
296
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 297
out 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, visit-
ing, 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 phght — an
old Crimean soldier, too— and he wished to be help-
ful. " 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 tliouglit it might be put to better
use than that."
Besides this unexpected friend, Bettesworth told
298 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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. Ac-
cording to Bettes worth, " 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 httle 'ns what goes to
school — he've made they learn him a little ; but
still. . . . Well, you can't get on without it. No-
body 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 299
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 after-
noon ; 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 probabihty, and per-
haps 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 Bettes-
worth 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.
300 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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." Bettes worth 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 lay in' 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 uncom-
fortable with a feehng 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 discourag-
ing exclamations upon his look of ill-health ; but the
desire to be up and out was incurable in him.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 301
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 any-
thing sohd. 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 re-
turned saying that Liz, seeing it, had laughed :
"We got plenty, and he's had several lots." If
302 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 garruHty
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." Bettes-
worth 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 car-
penter. " 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 "
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 303
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 Bettes worth.
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
soHds : 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
304 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
" 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 hght-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 P 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 Bettes-
worth ; " 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 305
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 httle 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 httle smoky fire." Bettesworth
laughed a little, amused at these sturdy men, and
at his own description of their cooking.
20
3o6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Bettes worth 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 Bettes worth 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 im-
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 307
patient, and his face was flushed. I did not per-
ceive 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 acquaint-
ances, 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
Ramsgatc, which was to take place the following
20 — 2
3o8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
day ; and he brightened up to recall how he had
joined a similar trip to We5niiouth 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 d?y ; and he laughed a little scorn-
fully at the trouble they had taken to enjoy them-
selves, and the fatigues they endured. Then there
came just a touch of his old manner : " I had a httle
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 hps,' 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 ap-
pealed 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 fete was at hand ; and, he said, with a sneer-
ing intonation, " The secretary and some of they "
(respectable new-fangled people, he meant) "wanted
'em to go to Portsmouth. So they called a fuU
meetin'i an' the meetin' '" — ah, I have forgotten the
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 309
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 my-
self, as to Bettesworth, this seemed the preferable
course : " It's really better," I said. Then he,
" So His, sir. It's the old, natural way. We
a/ways reckoned to have one day in the year, when
we all had hohday. And then everybody could
join in — the women with their little childern, and
aU. '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 smart-
ness ?) and said, " Forty-eighth, and my number
was three nought nought seven. ... I could name
twenty people that knowed about myservice. 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
310 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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 Ports-
mouth."
That afternoon I happened to meet old Beagley —
the retired bricklayer, and recently Bettesworth's
landlord. He spoke of Bettes worth 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 some-
thing 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 after-
noon, 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, down-
stairs, prepared me for it. He was very ill, she said,
and so weak that now they have to hold him up to
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 311
feed him. Of course he can take no soUds ; 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 ot the bed his feet
emerging could be seen swollen and tight-skinned.
His ears look withered and dry, like thin biscuits
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'
312 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
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," com-
mented 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
repUed, " 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 hke 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 every-
where see places where he had worked. " Yes : for
a hundred miles round," he assented.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 313
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 beared " 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 telhng 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 in-
coherent 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^
314 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
I should take steps to be righted. Bettesworth
seemed to find much reUef in the feehng 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 hmnour 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
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 315
he asked how the potatoes were coming up, and
Ustened 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, Bettes worth 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 mc 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 par-
ticularly and exhilaratingly warm as to-day, " Can
you keep yourself warm ?"
3i6 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
July 21. — The weather was as brilHantly hot this
afternoon as a week ago ; and Bettesworth's bed-
room 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 under-
stand 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 Vic-
toria, 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.
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER 317
" You can't expect no other," he said, meaning at
this time of year and in such dry weather. I men-
tioned 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 wander-
ing. 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' fete 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.
3i8 MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
July 25 {Tuesday). — Bettesworth died this even-
ing 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.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
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