_May 16, 1904._--"It is long," says a note of the 16th of May, "since
I wrote down any of Bettesworth's talk; but it flows on
constantly--less vivacious than of old, perhaps, for he is visibly
breaking since his illness in the spring, and is a stiff, shiftless,
rather weary, rather sad old man; but his garrulity has not lost its
flavour of the country-side; and many of his sayings sound to me like
the traditional quips and phrases of earlier generations."
This was apropos of a remark he had let fall about a certain Mr.
Sparrow in an adjacent village, for whom Bettesworth's next-door
neighbour Kiddy Norris had been labouring, until Kiddy could no longer
endure the man's grasping ways. Stooping over his wooden grass-rake,
Bettesworth murmured, as if to the grass, "Old Jones used to say
Sparrows pecks." Then he told how Sparrow, deprived of the services
not only of Kiddy, but of Kiddy's mate Alf, was at a loss for men to
replace them; and, "Ah," Bettesworth commented, "he can't have 'em on
a peg, to take down jest when he mind to." The saying had a suggestive
old-world sound: I could imagine it handed about, on the Surrey
hill-sides, and in cottage gardens, and at public-houses, over and
over again through many years.
Presently Bettesworth said casually, "I hear they're goin' to open
that new church over here in Moorway's Bottom to-morrer. Some of 'em
was terrifyin' little Alf Cook about it last night" (Sunday night;
probably at the public-house), "tellin' him he was goin' to be made
clerk, and he wouldn't be tall enough to reach to ring the bell."
"Little Alf," I asked, "who used to work for So-and-so?"
"Worked for 'n for years. The boys do terrify 'n. Tells 'n he won't be
able to reach to ring the bell. They keeps on. Why, he en't tall
enough to pick strawberries, they says."
"He's got a family, hasn't he?"
"Yes--but they be all doin' for theirselves. Two or three of 'em be
married. _He_ might ha' bin doin' very well. His old father left 'n
the house he lives in, and a smart bit o' ground: but I dunno--some of
'em reckons 'tis purty near all gone."
"Down his neck?"
"Ah. They was talkin' about 'n last night, and they seemed to reckon
there wa'n't much left. But he's a handy little feller. Bin over there
at Cashford this six weeks, so he told me, pointin' hop-poles for they
Fowlers. He said he'd had purty near enough of it. But he poled, I
thinks he said, nine acres o' hop-ground for 'em last year. He bin
pointin' this year. He says he might do better if 'twas nearer
home--he can't git rid o' the chips over there; people won't have 'em.
If he'd got 'em here, they'd be worth sixpence a sack--that always was
the price. He gits so much a hunderd for pointin'; and he told me it
was as much as he could do to earn two-and-nine or three shillin's" (a
day). "Then o' course there's the chips, only he can't sell 'em.
Cert'nly they'd serve he for firin'; but that en't what he wants."
_May 20._--"There's a dandy. You lay there." Bettesworth chose out and
put on one side a dandelion from the grass he was chopping off a green
path. "I'll take he home for my rabbits," he said.
A sow-thistle in the near bank caught my eye. "Your rabbits will eat
sow-thistles too, won't they?" I asked.
"Yes, they likes 'em very well. They'll eat 'em--an' then presently I
shall eat they."
I pulled up the thistle, and another dandelion, while Bettesworth
discoursed of the economics of rabbit-keeping. "'Ten't no good keepin'
'em for the pleasure.... But give me a wild rabbit to eat afore a tame
one, any day. My neighbour Kid kills one purty near every week. He had
one last Sunday must ha' wanted some boilin', or bakin', or
somethin'."
"What, an old one?"
"Old buck. I ast 'n, 'What, have ye had yer teeth ground, then?' I
says. He's purty much of a one for rabbits."