Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 7

_November 10, 1901._--Two odd words--one of them perhaps newly coined for the occasion, the other misused--were the reason for my preserving a short note which brings us to November, and shows us Bettesworth proposing to himself a task appropriate to the season. The sap was dying down in the trees; the fruit bushes had lost their leaves, and stood ready for winter, and their arrangement offended Bettesworth's taste. He would have had the garden formal and orderly, if he had been able.

"I thought I'd take up them currant bushes," he said, "and put 'em in again in rotation"--in a straight row, he meant, as he went on to explain. "They'd look better than all jaggled about, same as they be now."

And so the currant-bushes, which until then were "jaggled," or zig-zagged about, were duly moved, and stand to this day in a line. At that time he could still see a currant-bush, and criticize its position.

_November 22._--Towards fallen leaves, it is recorded a little later, he preserved a constant animosity. His patient sweepings and grumblings were one of the notes of early winter for me--"the slovenliest time of all the year," he used to say.

He even doubted that leaves made a good manure, and he quoted authorities in support of his own opinion. Had not a gardener in the town said that he, for his part, always burnt the leaves, as soon as they were dry enough to burn, because "they be reg'lar poison to the ground"? Or, "if you opens a hole and puts in a bushel or two to form mould, they got to bide three years, an' _then_ you got to mix other earth with 'em." As litter for pigs, he admitted, dead leaves were useful; yet should the cleanings of the pigsty be afterwards heaped up and allowed to dry, the first wind would "purl the leaves about all over the place.... And that makes me think there en't much _in_ 'em,"

or surely they would rot?

But unquestionably leaves make good dry litter. "My old gal" (so the discourse proceeded)--"my old gal used to go out an' get 'em," so that the pig might have a dry bed; in which care the "old gal" contrasted n.o.bly with "Will Crawte down 'ere," who had little pigs at this time "up to their belly in slurry." They could not thrive--Bettesworth was satisfied of that. His wife, in the days of her strength, would "go out on to the common, tearin' up moth or rowatt with her hands--her hands was harder 'n mine--and she'd tear up moth or rowatt or anything," to make a clean bed for the pig.

I suppose that by "moth" he meant moss. "Rowatt" is old gra.s.s which has never been cut, but has run to seed and turned yellow. With regard to rowatt, it makes a good litter and a tolerable manure, said Bettesworth; with this drawback, however, that "if you gets it wi' the seed on," however much it may have been trampled in the pigsty, "'tis bound to come up when you spreads the manure on the ground."

XI

A timely reminder occurs here, that with all its rustic attractiveness--its genial labours in this picturesque valley, its sensitive response to the slow changes of the year--Bettesworth's life could not be an idyllic one. For that, he needed a wife who could make him comfortable, and encourage him by the practice of old-fashioned cottage economies; but Fate had denied him that help. From time to time I heard of old Lucy's having fits, but I paid little heed, and cannot tell why I noted the attack by which she was prostrated at the end of this November, unless that again it was borne in upon me how Bettesworth himself must suffer on such occasions.

_November 24, 1901._--On Sunday, November 24, the trouble was taking its ordinary course. There had been the long night, disturbed by successive seizures, in one of which the old woman could not be saved from falling out of bed "flump on the floor"; there was the helpless day in which Bettesworth must cook his own dinner or go without; there were the dreadful suggestions from the neighbours that he ought to put his wife away in an asylum; there was his own tight-lipped resolve to do nothing of the sort, but to remember always how good to him she had been. It was merely the usual thing; and if we remember how it kept recurring and was a part almost of Bettesworth's daily life, that is enough, without further detail.

To get a clear impression of his contemporary circ.u.mstances is necessary, lest the narrative be confused by his frequent references to old times. Tending his wife, working unadventurously in my garden, loving the succession of crops, humbly subservient to the weather or gladdening at its glories, as he went about he spilt anecdotes of other years and different scenes, which must be picked up as we go.

But the day-to-day existence must be kept in mind meanwhile. He gossipped at haphazard, but the telling of any one of those narratives which so often interrupt the course of this book was only the most trivial and momentary incident in his contemporary history. He spoke for a few minutes, and had finished, and his day's work went on as before.

_November 26._--Thus, around the next glimpse of an exciting moment forty odd years ago, one has to imagine the November forenoon, raw, grey with pale fog, in which Bettesworth was at some pottering job or other, slow enough to make me ask if he were not cold; and so the talk gets started. No, he was not cold; he felt "_nice_ and warm.... But yesterday, crawlin' about among that shrubbery after the dead leaves," his hands were very cold. Yesterday, I remembered then, had been a day of hard rimy frost, so that it had surprised me, I said, to see "one of Pearson's carmen" driving without gloves. Bettesworth looked serious.

"You'd have thought he'd have had gloves for _drivin'_," he said.

Then, meditatively, "I don't think old _Wells_ drives for Pearsons much now, do he? You very often sees somebody else out with his horse.

He bin with 'em a smart many years. He went there same time as I lef'

Brown's. That was in 1860. Pearsons sent across the street for me to go on for they, but I'd agreed with Cooper the builder, you know."

From amidst a confusion of details that followed, about Cooper's business, and where he got his harness, and so on, the fact emerged that the builder had the use of a stable in Brown's premises, which explains how Bettesworth's former master makes his appearance on the scene presently. For Bettesworth had still to work at this stable, though for a new employer.

"Cooper had a little cob when I went on for 'n. His father give it to 'n--or no, 'twas the harness his father give 'n. One o' these little Welsh rigs. Spiteful little card he was. I knocked 'n down wi' the p.r.o.ng seven times one mornin'. When I went in to the stable he kicked up, and the manure an' litter went in here, what he'd kicked up. In here." Bettesworth thrust forward his old stubbly chin, and pointed into the neck-band of his shirt.

I said, "There would have been no talks for me with Bettesworth if he had touched you!"

"No. He'd have killed me. I ketched up the fust thing I could see, an'

that was the p.r.o.ng, 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 circ.u.mstances of forty years ago. Then suddenly he straightened up again and continued,

"While I'd got the p.r.o.ng, Brown heard the scufflin', and come runnin'

down. 'What the plague's up now?' he says. 'I dunno,' I says; 'I shall either kill 'n or conquer 'n.' ... But he _was_ a bad-tempered one. He wouldn't let ye go into the stable to do 'n. I had to get 'n out and tie his head to a ring in the wall, high up, an' then I could pay 'n as I mind to. Brown says at last, 'That's enough;' he says, 'I won't have it.' But Cooper says, 'You let 'n do as he likes.' And I says, 'If I don't have my own way with 'n, you'll have to do 'n yourself.'

But a _good_ little thing on the road, ye know. Quiet! And wouldn't touch no vittles nor drink away from home, drive 'n where you mind.

Never was a better little thing to go. I think Cooper give eighteen or twenty pound for 'n. But a _nasty_ little customer--wouldn't let ye go near 'n in the stable. They jockeys thought _they_ was goin' to have 'n. They all said they thought he'd be a rum 'n, and so he was, too.

"One time Mrs. Cooper come into the yard with a green silk dress on, and he put his head round and grabbed it" (near the waist, to judge by Bettesworth's gesture), "and tore out a great piece--a yard or more.

Do what I would, I couldn't help laughin', though she was a testy sort o' woman. And she did fly about, the servant said, when she went indoors.

"But I thought I'd killed 'n that time with the p.r.o.ng. Sweat, he did, and bellered like a bull; and 't last I give 'n one on the head. I made sure I'd killed 'n. _I_ was afraid, then. I thought I'd hit too hard. And I sweat as much as he did then."

XII

_December 2, 1901._--In view of the hatred in which Bettesworth had previously held the workhouse infirmary, and which he was destined to renew later, it is interesting to observe how favourably the place impressed him about this time, when he visited a friend there.

The friend, whom I will rename "Tom Loveland," had been taken to the infirmary in October, suffering with the temporary increase of some obscure chronic disorder which to this day cripples him. Bettesworth had gone to see him on Sunday afternoon, December 1, in company with Harriett Loveland, the man's wife.

The patient still lay there, "on his back," I heard on the Monday.

"On Sat.u.r.day they took off the poultices. Seven weeks they bin poulticin' of 'n; but Sat.u.r.day the doctor thought there was 'a slight change.' But, law!" Bettesworth continued, in scorn of the doctor's opinion, "they abscesses 'll keep comin'."

"There was two more died, up there in that same room where he is, o'

Sat.u.r.day." This made six deaths since Loveland's admission. "One of 'em was a man I used to know very well--that 'ere Jack Grey that used to do" so-and-so at where-is-it. "They sent for his wife, an' she got there jest two minutes afore he died. Loveland says, 'I tucked my head down under the blankets when I see 'em bring in the box' (the coffin) 'for 'n.' 'What, did ye think he was for you, Tom?' I says. But he always was a meek-hearted feller: never had no nerve."

But it was in the appointments of the place where Loveland lay that Bettesworth was chiefly interested. He was almost enthusiastic over the whiteness of the sheets, the beeswaxed floor ("like gla.s.s to walk on. I says to Harriet, 'You must take care you don't slip up'"), the little cupboards ("lockers, they calls 'em") beside each bed; the nurse, who "seemed to be a pleasant woman;" the daily attendance of the medical men; and other advantages. All these things persuaded Bettesworth that the patients were "better off up there than what they would be at home." And out in the grounds, "You'd meet two old women, perhaps, walkin' along together; and then, a little further on, some old men," which all appeared to be very satisfactory.

Were there any circ.u.mstances to give offence? Yes: "There's that Gunner, what used to live up the lane, struttin' about there, like Lord Muck, in his fine slippers. He's a wardsman. And Bill Lucas, too." (This latter is a man who lost good work and a pension by giving way to drink.) "_He_ books ye in an' books ye out. 'I s'pose this is your _estate_?' I says to 'n." In fact, Bettesworth would seem to have been publicly sarcastic at this man's expense; and other visitors, I gathered, laughed at hearing him. "'You be better able to work than what I be,' I says; 'and yet we got to keep ye. It never ought to be allowed.'"

To those in the infirmary "You may take anything you mind to, except spirits or beer. Tea, or anything like that, they may have brought."

And so Bettesworth, having gone unprepared, gave Loveland a shilling, "to get anything he fancied."

XIII

As yet Bettesworth's cottage by the stream still suited him fairly well, but he had not lived there for two years without finding out that it had disadvantages. Of these perhaps the worst was that the owner was himself only a cottager--an old impoverished man who never came near the place, and was unable to spend any money on repairing it. Difficulties were therefore arising, as I learnt one Monday morning. The reader will observe the day of the week.

_December 9, 1901._--"Didn't it rain about four o'clock this mornin'!"

Bettesworth began, with an emphasis which provoked me to question whether the rainfall had amounted to a great deal, after all. But he insisted: "There must ha' bin a smartish lot somewhere. The lake's full o' water, down as far as Mrs. Skinner's. When the gal come after the rent yesterday...."

This day being Monday, I exclaimed at his "yesterday." Did he mean it?

"Yes, they always comes Sundays. She says, 'Gran'father told me I was to look to see whether you'd cleaned out the lake in front of the cottage.'"