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 circumstance 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 surpassing 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.'"