"But they burns 'em, some says."
Heaven only knows where he could have picked up such an idea. As the
war proceeded, he kept himself fairly up to date with its main events
by listening to other men's talk. He used, as we know, to go to the
public-house on Sunday evenings "to get enlightenment to the mind;"
and there is mention in the next fragment of another source of
information which he valued. To reach that, however, we have to enter
another year--the year 1900.
V
_February 13, 1900._--The winter was passing by, with the war, indeed,
to make it memorable to us, but uneventfully at home. January, like
December, had been mild--too mild, some people said, of whom, however,
Bettesworth was not one. February set in with more severity of
weather. On the third we had snow, and in the succeeding days frost
followed, and the roads grew slippery.
These things no doubt provided Bettesworth with topics for many little
chats I must have enjoyed with him, although I saved no reminder of
any of them. But about the middle of the month a circumstance came to
my knowledge which made his good-tempered gossip seem rather
remarkable. I could not but admire that a man so situated should be
able to talk with such urbanity.
He had been at the barber's the previous evening, where another man
was discoursing at large about the war. And said Bettesworth:
"I _do_ like to hear anything like that. Or if they'll read a
newspaper. There I could 'bide listenin' all night. And if anybody
else was to open their mouths, I should be like enough to tell 'em to
shut up. Because, if you goes to hear anything, _hear_ it. Same as at
church or chapel or a entertainment: _you_ goes to listen, an' then
p'r'aps four or five behind ye gets to talkin'. I always says, if you
goes anywhere, go and be quiet. You en't obliged to go, but when you
do go, behave yourself."
The talkers, I might have reminded Bettesworth, are not always "behind
ye"; there are those who take front seats who might profit by his
little homily on good manners. But he only meant that the discourtesy
is the more disturbing, because it is the more audible, when it comes
from behind.
He passed easily on to a discussion of the weather, and again his
superlative good sense was to the fore. On Sunday, he said, he had
tried to persuade his neighbours--working-men, like himself, only
younger--to bring their shovels and scatter sand on the path down the
gully, which was coated with ice. Already he had done a longish piece
of it himself, but much remained to do. Several men had "went up
reg'lar busters," and "children and young gals" on their way to church
had fallen down. It would be a public service to besprinkle the path
with sand. So Bettesworth made his suggestion to his neighbours--"four
or five of 'em. They was hangin' about: hadn't got nothin' to do." But
no. They shrugged their shoulders and walked away. It was no business
of theirs. They even laughed at the old man for the trouble he had
already taken, for which no one would pay him. And now, in telling me
about it, it was his neighbours' want of public spirit that annoyed
him. They had not come up to his standard of the behaviour meet for a
labouring man.
Who would have imagined that, while he was telling me this, and for
days previously, he was in a state of severe mental distress,
aggravated by bodily fatigue? I had no suspicion of it, and was
surprised enough when told by a third person. But it was true--too
true. He admitted it readily when I asked him. His wife was ill again,
worse than she had been for three years, since the time when she fell
down in an epileptic fit and broke her wrist. She had had many minor
attacks during the interval, but this was serious now.
As I have already told the poor old woman's story, or at least this
part of it, in another place, I may not repeat it here; but for the
sake of continuity the episode must be summarized. Three years earlier
Bettesworth had obtained an order for his wife's admission to the
workhouse infirmary. Hateful though the merest suspicion of benefiting
by parish aid was to him, there had been no other course open at that
time; for what could he do for an old woman with a broken limb, and a
malady that made her for the time half-witted? And yet, owing to
overcrowding at the infirmary, amazed and indignant he had brought her
home again on the fourth day, because she had been lodged and treated
as a common pauper. Consequently I knew that he must be at extremities
now, when it came out that he was deciding again to send the old lady
to the infirmary. But he was at his wits' end what to do for her. He
could not afford to stay at home from work; yet while he was away she
was alone, since her condition and temper made neighbours reluctant to
help. Sometimes the fear haunted him that she would meet a violent
death, falling in a fit on to the fire, perhaps; sometimes he dreaded
that he would have to put her finally away into an asylum. What he
endured in the long agonizing nights when her fits were upon her, in
the silent winter evenings when he sat for hours watching her pain and
wondering what to do, no one will ever know. As best he could, he used
at such times to wash her and dress her himself--he with his fumbling
fingers and dim eyes; and wanting sleep, wanting the food that neither
of them could prepare, alone and unknown, he struggled to keep in
order his miserable cottage. Almost a week must have passed like this
before I heard of the trouble, and asked him about it. Then he laid
his difficulties before me, and asked for my advice.
To men in Bettesworth's position it is always an embarrassment to
comply with the formalities of official business. They do not see the
reason, and they feel keenly the wearisomeness, of the steps which must
be taken to gain their end. Bettesworth now seemed paralyzed; he had
forgotten how to go on; moreover, he could not be satisfied--although
there was a new infirmary--that his wife would be more decently
treated there than in the old one. If only he could be sure of that!
But of course he was not important enough to approach, himself, anyone
so important as a guardian; and, accordingly, I undertook to make
inquiries for him.
It is indeed a tedious business--I experienced it afterwards too--that
of getting a sick person from this village into the local infirmary.
It seemed that Bettesworth must lose at least a day's work in
arranging for the removal of his wife. She could not be admitted to
the house without a certificate from the parish doctor, who lived in
the town, a mile and a half away. But the doctor might only attend
upon Bettesworth's presenting an order to be obtained from the
relieving officer, two miles away in the exactly opposite direction.
The medical man would then come as soon as he found convenient, and
Bettesworth would be provided with a certificate for his wife's
removal to the infirmary. But he might not act upon that alone. With
that in his possession, he would have to wait again upon the relieving
officer, to get an order upon the workhouse master to admit the
patient, and to arrange for a conveyance to take her away.
We talked it over, he and I, that afternoon, not cheered by the wild
weather that was hourly worsening. If all went well on the morrow,
Bettesworth would have some twelve miles of walking to do; but it was
most likely that, between relieving officer and doctor, two or even
three days would elapse before the desired relief would be
accomplished. However, the immediate thing to do was clear enough: he
must make his first visit to the relieving officer as soon as
possible.
I forget on what grounds, but we agreed that it was useless to attempt
anything that night; and since the officer would be off at eight in
the morning for his day's duty in other places, Bettesworth proposed
to be up betimes, and catch him at his office before he started. It
would be just possible then, by hurrying, to get back over the three
or four miles to the town, and find the doctor before he too should
leave for the day. Otherwise there would be a sickening delay.
The whole thing was sickening already, in its inevitable mechanical
clumsiness. Still, there was no help for it. The weather meanwhile was
threatening hindrance. A small driving snow had set in in the
afternoon, and was inclined to freeze as it fell; and for some time
before dark the opposite side of the valley had become all but
invisible, blotted out by the dreary whiteness of the storm. At
nightfall, the weather seemed to turn wicked. Hours afterwards, as I
sat listening to the howling gusts of wind, which puffed the smoke
from out of my fire, and brought the snow with a crisp bristling sound
against my window, I could not get out of my head the thought of
Bettesworth, alone with his crazy wife down there in that cottage, or
the fear that deep snow might prevent his morning's journey. And then
it was that recollection of his recent quiet conversations came over
me. So to have talked, keeping all this trouble to himself, while he
listened to the war news, and did his best to make the footways
passable--there was surely a touch of greatness in it.
And it makes no difference to my estimate of him that, after all, he
did not go to the relieving officer the next morning. On the further
progress of Mrs. Bettesworth's illness at this time my notebook is
silent; but, as I recall now, she took a turn for the better that
night, and by the morning was so improved that thought of the
infirmary was given up.