_October 17, 1900._-Two words of Bettesworth's, noted down for their
strangeness at the time, restore for me the October daylight, 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 sheltered corner where the beans stood, uplifted as it
was above the mists that chilled the bottom of the valley, "these
little 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, Bettesworth's name
for that form of blight--"they little minners"--brings back the scene:
the quiet vegetable garden, the sad rich autumn tints, the overcast
sky, the moist motionless air.
To this undertone of peace--the peace you can best absorb at labours
like his--he was able to discourse 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 excitement from the outside
world found its way down the lane. Saturday, November 10, was the day
when General Buller, 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 welcome. On the following Monday Bettesworth, full of
enthusiasm, gave me an account of the affair as 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 reminded not without concern of the
sunstroke which had threatened Skinner's reason two summers
previously. Nevertheless, the tale was worth Bettesworth'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 disinclination,
but I can amplify it. He was not now a young man, to go tearing off
enthusiastically 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 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 Bettesworth felt inclined,
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
published, and may be omitted here. The illness, however, 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 recruiting 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 disturbance
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, 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 anybody." "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 Office and
inefficiency 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
the mother had not allowed him to see 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 glimpses of trouble in another
household--that of the Skinners, Bettesworth being cognizant of all,
but saying little. It did not disturb the peacefulness 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.