I
_December 7, 1892._--The ground in the upper part of the garden being
too hard frozen for Bettesworth to continue this morning the work he
was doing there yesterday, I found him some digging to do in a more
sheltered corner, where the fork would enter the soil. With snow
threatening to come and stop all outdoor work, it was not well that he
should stand idle too soon.
"Oh dear!" he said one day, "we don't want no snow! We had enough o'
that two winters ago. That was a fair scorcher, that was.--There! I
couldn't tell anybody how we _did_ git through. Still, we _got_
through, somehow. But there was some about here as was purty near
starved. That poor woman as died over here t'other day...."
Here he broke off, to tell of a labourer's wife who had died in giving
birth to twins, one of whom was also dead. Including the other twin,
there were seven children living. Bettesworth talked of the husband,
too; but presently working round again to the bad winter of 1889-1890,
he proceeded:
"I _knows_ they" (this woman and her family) "was purty near starvin'.
_I_ give her two or three half-bushels o' taters. I can't bear to see
'em like that, 'specially if there's little childern about. I give
away bushels o' taters that winter, 'cause them as _had_ got any had
got 'em buried away--couldn't git at 'em (in the frozen ground). Mine
was stowed away where I could git 'em."
Accordingly, anticipating hard times, I set Bettesworth to work in the
sheltered spot where digging was still possible, and left him. The day
proved sunny on the whole, with a soft winter sunshine, dimmed now and
then by grey fog close down to the earth, and now and then by large
drifts of foggy cloud passing over from the north. By mid-day the
roads were sticky, where the sunshine had thawed the surface, but in
shady places the ground was still hard. Here and there was ice, and
odd corners remained white with the sprinkling of snow which had
fallen two nights previously.
Towards sunset I went to see what Bettesworth had done. He had done
very little, and, moreover, he had disappeared. The air glowed with
the yellow sunset; the soft dim blue of the upper sky was changing to
hazy grey in the south-east; in the west, veiling the sunset, lay a
bank of clouds, crimson shaded to lilac. I turned to enjoy this as I
climbed the garden to find Bettesworth, where he was busy at his
yesterday's task.
"Well, Bettesworth, how are you getting on?"
"Oh, _cold_, sir."
Overhead, one or two wisps of smoky-looking cloud were floating
southwards. In the sunlight they showed amber against the soft blue,
but from their movement and their indistinct and changing form it was
plain that they belonged to the system of those larger clouds which
had all day been crossing ominously out of the north. I glanced up at
them, and remarked that I feared the snow was not far off now.
Bettesworth straightened up from his work.
"Ah, that's what everybody bin sayin'."
"Well, it looks uncommonly like coming."
"Ah, it do. Didn't it look black there, along about nine or ten
o'clock this mornin'? I thought then we was goin' to have some snow,
an' no mistake." He chuckled grimly and continued, "I dunno how we
shall git on if it comes to that. But there, we've had it before an'
got through somehow, and I dessay we shall git through again."
"It's to be hoped so. Anyhow, there seems to be no way of altering
it."
"No, sir; there don't. I 'xpect we shall have to put up with it. Bear
it an' grumble--that's what we shall have to do. We've had to do that
before now."
It was a blessing, I laughed, that we had the right to grumble; but we
hardly learnt to like the winter the better for being used to it.
"No; that don't make it none the sweeter, do it? Still, we can't help
that. As my old neighbour, Jack Tower, used to say, 'Puverty en't no
_crime_, but 'tis a great ill-convenience.'" The touch of epigram in
Tower's saying seemed to please Bettesworth, and his speech flowed out
with a smooth undulating balance as he repeated slowly, tasting the
syllables: "No, cert'nly, puverty en't no crime; but it is a very
ill-convenient thing, an' no mistake."
To the same period as the foregoing piece belongs an undated fragment,
which tells how news came to Bettesworth of a certain boy's being
bitten by a dog. "Have he bit'n _much_?" was the first eager
exclamation, followed by, "These here messin' dawgs! There's too many
of 'em, snappin' and yappin' about. I don't _like_ 'em!"
Then he went on, "I don't see what anybody wants to keep dogs for,
interferin' with anybody. Why, there's Kesty's dog up there--look at
that dog of he's! Why, that dog of he's, he've bit three or four of
'em. He bit the postman two or three times, till they sent to 'n from
the Post Office to tell 'n 'less he mind to keep his dog tied up he'd
have to send an' fetch his letters hisself.... Nasty sly sort o' dog
he is, no mistake. He goes slinkin' an' prowlin' about up there; he's
never tied up. And he don't make no sound, ye know. No, you'll never
hear 'n make no noise; but he'll have ye. And he en't partic'lar,
neither, about lettin' of ye go by, even if it's on the highroad,
onless he've a mind to. He'll come slinkin' round, an goo for ye, 's
likely as not."
"Odd," I suggested, "that a man should care to keep a dog like that."
Bettesworth shook his head.
"There's too _many_ of 'em about, by half. And I en't partic'lar fond
o' dogs, nowhen." He looked up, and a knowing look came into his grey
eyes as he continued, "I was workin' one time for Malcolms up here,
and they had a dog, and one day he stole a shoulder o' mutton,
indoors. Sort of collie, _he_ was. And he took this 'ere shoulder o'
mutton and run upstairs into one o' the rooms, and he wouldn't come
out for nobody. I was at work out in the garden, and the servant she
come runnin' out to me, to ast me if I'd come an' get 'n out. 'I dunno
s'much about that,' I says; ''ten't a job as I cares about.' I can
tell ye, I wa'n't partic'lar about _doin'_ of it. 'Oh,' she says, 'do
come an' get 'n out. We be all afraid. And you can have a stick,' she
says. 'No,' I says, 'I won't have no stick'--'cause, what good's a
stick, ye know? He'd ha' come for me all the one for that. So I
_catches_ up a 'and-saw...."
"A _hand-saw_?"
"I did. I took this 'ere 'and-saw, and I went upstairs to 'n, and he
come for me sure enough. But I give 'n two or three 'cross the nose
with this saw, and he didn't like that. He went off downstairs quick
sticks."
"H'm! I shouldn't have relished the job."
"No, sir; I didn't _like_ it. I was afraid of 'n. I drove 'n out, but
I was afraid of 'n all the one for that."
_January 7, 1896._--A task reserved for this winter's leisure was the
making of an arched way of larch-poles and wire to cover a short
flight of steps in the garden. Two briars at the top of the steps, one
on each side, had overgrown them, and these were now to be trained to
the new framework, which was to slant down at the same slope as the
steps.
Until we began the work, it seemed simple enough; but almost
immediately we plunged into bewilderment, owing to the various slopes
and slants to be considered. The steps go askew between two parts of a
zigzag path, and our archway, therefore, needed to be several feet
longer on one side than on the other. The consequence was that the
horizontal ties at the top not only clashed with all the gradients of
the garden, but converged towards one another, so that, seen from
above, they were horrid to behold. And then the slanting side-rails!
They agreed with nothing else in all the landscape save the steps
below them. Of course, when the briars covered these discrepancies,
all would be well; but just while Bettesworth and myself were at work
upon this thing, the farther we progressed with it the more distracted
it looked, as though we had gathered into one spot all the conflicting
angles of this most uneven of gardens, and were tying them up into one
hideous knot. The work became a nightmare, and for an hour or two we
lost our good spirits, and found it all we could do to keep our
temper.
However, we got the framework together somehow, after which the
straining of wires over it, being, as we fondly imagined, an easier
task, released our thoughts a little. Bettesworth paid out and held
the wire while I fastened it.
"Is that tight enough?" said he.
"That'll do," said I.
"Because," said he, "I can easy tighten it more yet."
"No," said I, "that'll do."
"Well, of course, if that'll _do_," he conceded; and then, not
finishing his sentence, he chattered on. "Only, I don't want to be
like ol' Sam Cook. He was 'long o' we chaps at work for Putticks when
they was a-buildin' Coswell Church. I was there scaffoldin', an' this
here Cook was s'posed to be helpin' of us. But we see as he never
pulled, an' so one day we got two ropes and fastened the ends of 'em
with jest black cotton. We made it look all like a knot, and he never
see what we was up to. An' when it come to pullin', there was he
makin' out to be pullin', leanin' back with his arms stretched out
a-gruntin' 'Ugh!... Ugh!' and all the time never pullin' a pound. Why,
if he'd on'y pulled half a dozen pounds, he'd ha' broke that cotton;
but it never broke. Mr. John Puttick hisself was there, and he says,
'Well, I never see the like o' that in all my time! Why,' he says,
'you wouldn't pull enough to pull a sausage asunder,' he says. Ye
see, he (Cook) always went by the name o' _Sausage_, 'cause his wife
used to make sausages, so Mr. Puttick says to 'n, 'Why, you wouldn't
pull a sausage asunder!' he says."
Too soon, unlooked-for difficulties presented themselves in our
wire-straining. We began to agree that we hardly felt as if we had
been apprenticed to the work, and Bettesworth muttered,
"I dunno as I should care much about goin' out to take a job puttin'
up wire."
To get the first wire tightly fixed between two posts was easy enough,
but, to our dismay, the tightening of a second wire invariably
slackened the first. Bettesworth was jubilating over his second wire.
"There, he's tight, an' _no_ mistake!"
"Ah, but look at the first one!"
"What! He _en't_ got loose, is he, sir? Oh dear, oh dear! That _do_
look bad! Never can let 'n go like that, can us, sir?" Gradually his
memory began harking back to earlier instances of our difficulty.
"'Tis like when I helped Mr. Franks puttin' wires up for he's
ras'berries. We had just such a bother as this. Fast 's we got one
tight we loosened another. We did git in a pucker over 'm, an' no
mistake. I remember I told Bill Harris down 'ere what a bother we'd
bin 'avin', and he says, 'Ah, I knows you must 've had a job.' He'd
had just such a bother hisself, on'y he had all the proper tools an'
everything. He borried Mr. Mills's wire-strainers, and when he got the
fust wire up--oh, he thought he was gettin' on capital. He seemed like
makin' a reg'lar good job of it. But when he come to put up t'other
wire--oh dear, oh dear!--he got in such a hobble. 'There,' he says, 'I
was ashamed for anybody to see it, and I come away an' left it.'"
I was in the humour to be glad of other people's perplexities, and I
laughed.
"Oh, he came away and left it, did he?"
"Yes. Don't ye see, 'twas a reg'lar fence, 'tween his garden an' the
next. An' he thought for to have it all jest right an' proper. But
everybody as come by could see, and he was that put out about it that
he come away an' left it."
"Bother the stuff! I hope we shan't have to go and leave this."
"I dunno how we be to do it. There, _'tis_ to be done, we knows that,
'cause I've seen it.... No, I en't never see 'em a puttin' of it up;
but I've seen the fences after it bin put up, an' very nice they looks
wi' the wire all as straight.... But how they doos it, I'm sure I
don't know."
We finished at last, after a fashion, and Bettesworth went on to train
and tie the briars. If work had not been scarce, it would have been
cruel to let him undertake such a job. To make up for his defective
sight, it was his way to grope out blindly for a thing just before
him, and find it by touch; and in dealing so with this briar, with
its terrible thorns, his hands got into a pitiable state. He showed me
them on resuming his work the next morning, saying,
"I shan't be sorry when I done wi' this customer. His nails is too
sharp for my likin'. When I went 'ome yesterday and washed my hands,
goo! didn't they smart wherever the cold water touched one o' they
scratches! My ol' gal says to me, 'What be ye hushin' about?' 'So 'd
you _hush_,' I says, 'if you'd bin handlin' they roses all the
aft'noon, same as me.' I tried with gloves, but they wa'n't no good.
You can't git to tie, with gloves on."
_March 26, 1896, 10.30 a.m._--There are deep cloud-shadows, and rapid
sun-glints lighting up the shadows like daffodils shining against
grass. And there is the roar of a big wind in the air, and majestic
clouds are sailing across, and beyond these the sky is a dazzling
blue.
All growing things seem busy. Everywhere on the land men are at work;
the swift sunshine glistens on the white of their shirts, and shows
them up against the darkness of the new plough-furrows or the freshly
dug garden-ground.
Bettesworth was sowing peas. Blustered by the wind, I went to him and
complained of the coldness of it. "A good touch of north in it," was a
phrase I used.
"Yes, sir; she (the wind) have shifted there since the mornin'. She
was due west when I got up--when that little rain come. She've gone
round since then, but she'll git back again to the south, you'll see.
I've noticed it many's a time. Right south she was at twelve o'clock
when the sun crossed the line o' Saturday (March 21), and that's where
she'll keep tackin' back to all through the quarter--till midsummer,
that is."
"Well, I don't know that she could do much better."
"No, sir. Strikes me we be goin' to have a very nice, kind spring. I
don't say she'll bide there all the time; but if she gits away, that's
where she'll come back to."
Again I expressed my dislike of this strong north wind. It would soon
make me sleepy, I said.
"_Would_ it, sir? Oh, I do like to hear the wind! To lay and listen to
it when I be in bed--it makes me feel so comfortable. No matter what
'tis like outside, I feels that _I_ be in the warm aw-right."
_March 31, 1897._--At six minutes to five this morning Bettesworth was
lacing up his boots. The day is the last of March, which, for
gardeners in this village, is the middle of the busiest time of the
year. The early seeds have been in the ground long ago; the beans are
up two inches; the first sowing of peas shows well in the rows; others
were put in last week. Shallots are sending up their green spikes;
there are a few potatoes already planted; and now every effort must be
made, and advantage be taken of every opportunity, to get the
remainder of the ground ready and the main crops planted at the
earliest possible time; for in this soil, as Bettesworth says, "you
can't be much too for'ard."
Late last night he and his old wife planted their potatoes in a few
rods of ground he has at the end of my garden. It was seven o'clock,
and dark, by the time they had finished; then they went home and had
supper--or, at least, the wife had, whose work had not been arduous
until the evening. She scolded her husband.
"There you goes slavin' about, and gets so tired you can't eat."
"It's true," Bettesworth confesses. "The more I works the less I
eats.... No, nor I don't sleep, neither. If I got anythink on my mind,
I can't sleep. I seems to want to be up and at it."
Supper over, he lit his pipe, had one smoke, then kicked off his boots
and said,
"Well, I be off to bed. 'Ten't no good settin' here, lookin' at the
fireplace."
The wife grumbled again in the morning, urging him to rest.
"But what's the use?" he said. "It got to be done, and I can't rest
ontil _'tis_ done."
So he got up at the time already mentioned, and came to rake over the
potato-ground.
It slopes down to the lane, this ground. Presently the man from the
cottage just across the lane came out for his day's work.
"Why, you be for'arder than ever this year, ben't ye, Fred?"
"No, I dunno as I be. I wants to git it done, though, anyhow."
Then the Vicar's gardener passed. He laughed. "Be you determined on
gettin' all your ground planted in March, then, Fred?"
Bettesworth laughed back. "I don't care whether 'tis March or April.
When I be ready it got to go in."