Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 9

"Ah, old Jerry Penfold. We always called 'n Old Jerry. He bin dead several times--or, 't least, they thought so. Rare ructions there bin over there, no mistake. They got to sharin' out his kit. One come an'

took away his clock, and another his chest o' drawers, and some of his sons even come an' took away his tools. But the oldest son got the lawyer an' made 'em bring it all back."

"Rare ructions"--yes: but Bettesworth used the word "rare" as we should use "great," and did not mean that the affair was very unusual. He was not scandalized so much as amused by it. For my part, knowing nothing of the family, who dwelt in another quarter of the parish, I sought only to identify Old Jerry. Some years previously an old man who walked along the road with me one night had interested me with a tale of his shepherding and other labours on a certain farm. I had never learnt his name, nor had seen the man since; but now it occurred to me that perhaps he was old Penfold. I asked Bettesworth.

Bettesworth decided in the negative. Old Penfold had never been a shepherd, or worked for the farmer I named.

Yet another old man then came into my mind: a diminutive man, upwards of eighty, who was still creeping honourably about at work. Frequently I met him; but he seemed so shut up in himself that I had never cared to intrude upon him with more than a "Good-day" when we met. But now I named him to Bettesworth: old d.i.c.ky Martin. Could the missing shepherd have been he?

Bettesworth shook his head emphatically. It turned out that he and old d.i.c.ky were chums in their way: they knew all about one another, and with mutual respect. "Couldn't ha' bin old d.i.c.ky," said Bettesworth.

"He never worked anywhere else about here 'xcept in builders' yards.

Forty-four year ago he started for Coopers, and bin on there ever since. He was a sailor before that. He come out o' the navy when he come here."

Out of the navy! And to think I had been ignorant of such a thing as that! I had not found my shepherd; but to have discovered a sailor was something. Scenting romance, in the foolish superficial way of outsiders, I resolved to improve my acquaintance with old d.i.c.ky, little dreaming that the sailor was going to show me a soldier too; little supposing that Bettesworth's information about this old man would be capped by information from him, quite as surprising, about Bettesworth.

How I fell in with old Martin, early in February, is of no moment here. He talked very much in Bettesworth's manner, and especially about cruising in the Mediterranean sixty years ago. But when I said at last, believing it true, "I don't suppose there is another man in our parish has travelled so far as you," his reply startled me.

"No, I dessay not--without 'tis your man, Fred Bettesworth."

"He? He never was out of England."

"Yes he was. He bin as fur as Russia and the Black Sea, at any rate."

"You must be wrong. I should have heard of it if he had."

"I dunno about that. P'raps he don't care to talk about it, but 'tis right enough. I fancy he did get into some trouble. He was a soldier though, in the Crimea."

Old d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky 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 pa.s.s on to April, when bird-notes were sounding through all the gardens.

"Hark at those starlings!" I said to Bettesworth. And he, "Yes--I dunno who 'twas I was talkin' to this mornin', sayin' how he liked to hear 'em. 'So do our guv'nor,' I says. I likes 'em best when there's two of 'em gibberin' to one another--jest like 's if they was talkin'.

An' they lifts up their feet, an' flaps up their wings, an' they nods." The old man's words ran rhythmically to suit the action he was describing; and then, dropping the rhythm, "I likes to hear 'em very well. And I don't think they be mischieful birds neither, like these 'ere sparrers and caffeys" (chaffinches). "They beggars, I shouldn't care so much if when they picked out the peas from the ground they'd eat 'em. But they jest nips the little green top off and leaves it.

Sims as if they does it reg'lar for mischief."

_April 28._--This sunny, objective side of Bettesworth's temperament may be remembered in connexion with some other remarks of his on a very different subject. There was at that time a man living near us whose mere presence tried his patience. The man belonged to one of the stricter Nonconformist sects, and had the reputation of being miserly. "Looks as miserable, he do" (so Bettesworth chanced to describe him), "as miserable as--as sin. I never see such a feller."

At this I laughed, admitting that our neighbour certainly did not look as if he knew how to enjoy himself.

"He _don't_. Don't sim to have no pleasure, nor 'sociate with anybody.

There! I'd as lief not have a life at all, as have one like his. I'd do without, if I couldn't do no better'n that."

Bettesworth's judgment was possibly in error; for there is no telling what mystical joys, what dreams of another world, may have illuminated this man's inner life, and made him suspicious of people like Bettesworth and me. But if there were such compensation, Bettesworth's temperament was incapable of recognizing it, and the point is instructive. His own indomitable cheerfulness was of the objective pagan order. The field of his emotions and fancies had never been cultivated. His thoughts did not stray beyond this world. From such deep sources of physical sanity his optimism welled up, that he really needed, or at any rate craved for, no spiritual consolation. Like his remote ancestors who first invaded this island, he had the habit of taking things as they came, and of enjoying them greatly on the whole.

He half enjoyed, even while he was irritated by it, the odd figure presented by this Nonconformist.

_May 7._--A week afterwards he exhibited the same sort of aloof interest, annoyed and yet amused, in a jibbing horse. A horse had brought a ton of coal a part of the way down the lane, and then refused to budge farther; and Bettesworth could not forget the incident. It tickles me still to recall with what a queer look on his face he spoke of the n.o.ble animal. The expression was the result of his trying to say his word for _horse_ (not _'oss_, but _'awss_), while a facetious smile was twitching at the corners of his mouth.

This was several days after the event. At the time of its occurrence, someone had remarked that the horse had no pluck, and Bettesworth had rejoined indignantly, "_I'd_ see about his pluck, if I had the drivin'

of 'n!" But after a day or two his indignation turned to quiet gaiety.

"Won't back," he said, "and he won't draw."

I suggested, "Not bad at standing still."

Then came the queer expression on Bettesworth's face, with "'Good 'awss to _eat_,' the man said." Truly it was odd to see how Bettesworth's lips, grim enough as a rule, arched out sarcastically over the word _'awss_.

And it was in a temper not very dissimilar that he commonly regarded our Nonconformist neighbour. The man amused him.

A pagan of the antique English kind, ready to poke fun at a bad horse, or sneer at a fanatic, or be happy in listening to the April talk of the starlings, Bettesworth had quite his share too of the pugnacity of his race. Years ago he had said that a fight used to be "just his clip," as a young man; not many years ago he had promptly knocked down in the road a baker who had got down out of his cart to make Bettesworth move his wheelbarrow out of the way (I remember that when the old man told me of this I advised him not to get into trouble, and he pleaded that it "seemed to do him good"); and now during this spring--I cannot say exactly when--the fighting spirit suddenly woke up in him once more.

The circ.u.mstance takes us out again from the peace of the garden to the crude struggle for life in the village. Looking back to that time, I can see our valley as it were sombrely streaked with the progress of two or three miserable family embroilments, squalid, weltering, poisoning the atmosphere, incapable of solution. And though Bettesworth was no more implicated in these than myself, but like me was a mere onlooker, he was not, like me, an outsider. He was down on the very edge of these troubles, and it was the momentary overflow of one of them in his direction one night that suddenly started him fighting, in spite of his years.

I may not go into details of the affair. It is enough that during this April and May our end of the parish was looking on, scandalized, at the blackguard behaviour of a certain labourer towards his family and especially his own mother. Of powerful build, the man had been long known for a bully; and if report went true, he had received several thrashings in his time. But just now he was surpa.s.sing his own record.

He was also presuming upon the forbearance of better men than himself, and could not keep his tongue from flouts and gibes at them. Speaking of him to me, Bettesworth expressed his disapproval and no more.

Others, however, were less reticent; and there came a day when I heard of a quarrel this man had tried to fix upon Bettesworth at the public-house one evening. He was summarily ejected, my informant said; and something--I have forgotten what--caused me to suspect that the "chucker out" was old Bettesworth. That was not explicitly stated, however. Nor did Bettesworth himself tell me at the time any more than that there had been a disturbance in the taproom, the man being turned out, after insulting him.

_May 15._--But, alluding to the affair some time afterwards, he placidly continued the story. "I cut 'n heels over head, an' when he got up, and made for the doorway and the open road, I went for 'n again. They got round me, or I should ha' knocked 'n heels over head again. I broke my way through four or five of 'em. 'If I was twenty years younger,' I says to 'n, 'I'd jump the in'ards out of ye.' Some of 'em says, if he dares touch the old man they'd go for 'n theirself.

'All right!' I says, 'you no call to worry about me. I can manage he.'

And they told 'n, 'You got hold o' the wrong one this time, Sammy.'"

XVI

During these months, the story of Bettesworth's having been a soldier in the Crimea remained unverified. I was watching for hints of it from him, and he gave not the slightest; for opportunities of asking him about it without offence, and not one occurred. And slowly the tale receded from my mind, and my belief in it dwindled away.

By what chance, or in what circ.u.mstances, the mystery suddenly recurred to me is more than I can tell now. But one rainy May afternoon--I remember that much--the old man was in the wood-shed, sitting astraddle on one block of wood, and chopping firewood on another block between his knees. He looked careless enough, comfortable enough, sitting there in the dry, with the sound of rain entering through the open shed door. What was it he said, or I, to give me an opening? I shall never know; but presently I found myself challenging him to confess the truth of what was reported of him.

And I remember well how at once his careless expression changed, as if he had been taxed with a fault, and how for some seconds he sat looking fixedly before him in a shamefaced, embarra.s.sed way, like a schoolboy who has been "found out." For some seconds the silence lasted; then he said reluctantly, "It's true. So I was." And the circ.u.mstantial talk that followed left me without any further doubt on the point.

It was at the Rose and Crown--a well-known tavern in the neighbouring town--that he 'listed. His "chum" (I don't know who his chum was) had already enlisted at Alton, and "everybody thought," as Bettesworth said, that he too had done so at the same time, for he had the soldier's belt on, there in the Alton inn. But he had not taken the shilling there. He returned home to his brother Jim, "what was up there at Middlesham, same job as old Stubby got now--seventeen year he had 'long with the charcoal-burners up there"--and Jim urged him to "go to work." Bettesworth, however, was obstinate. "No," he said, "I shall go to Camden Fair." "Better by half go to work." "No, I shall git about." "And I come down to the town" (so his tale continued), "and there I see my chum what had 'listed at Alton day before. 'Come on,' he says; 'make up your mind to go with we.' "Greed,' I says. And I went up 'long with 'n to the Rose and Crown...."

"How old were you then? It must have been before you were married?"

"Yes; I was sixteen. I served a year and eight months."

"Ah." I looked out at the May foliage and the kindly rain, and thought of the Crimean winter.