_June 1, 1904._--A cool thundery rain this first of June drove
Bettesworth to shelter. As usual at such times, he busied himself at
sawing and splitting wood for kindling fires.
At the moment of my joining him he was breaking up an old wooden
bucket which had lately been condemned as useless. "Th' old bucket's
done for," he said contemplatively. "I dessay he seen a good deal o'
brewin'; but there en't much of it done now. A good many men used to
make purty near a livin' goin' round brewin' for people. Brown's in
Church Street used to be a rare place for 'em. Dessay you knows
there's a big yard there; an' then they had some good tackle, and
plenty o' room for firin'. Pearsons, Coopers"--he named several who
were wont to make use of Brown's yard and tackle. I asked, "Did the
cottage people brew?" But Bettesworth shook his head. "I never knowed
none much--only this sugar beer."
"But they grew hops?" I asked.
"Oh yes," Bettesworth assented, "every garden had a few hills o'
hops. But 't wa'n't very often they brewed any malted beer. Now 'n
again one 'd get a peck o' malt, but gen'ly 'twas this here sugar
beer. Or else I've brewed over here at my old mother-in-law's, 'cause
they had the tackle, ye see; and so I have gone over there when I've
killed a pig, to salt 'n."
A suggestion that he would hardly know how to brew now caused him to
smile. "No, I don't s'pose I should," he admitted.
I urged next that nearly all people, I supposed, used at one time to
brew their own beer. To which Bettesworth:
"And so they did bake their own bread. They'd buy some flour...."
I interrupted, remembering how he had himself grown corn, to ask if
that was not rather the custom.
"Sometimes. Yes, I _have_ growed corn as high as my own head, up there
at the back of this cot.... But my old gal and me, when hoppin' was
over, we'd buy some flour, enough to last us through the winter, and
then with some taters, and a pig salted down, I'd say, 'There, we no
call to _starve_, let the winter be _what_ it will.' Well, taters, ye
see, didn't cost nothin'; and then we always had a pig. You couldn't
pass a cottage at that time that hadn't a pigsty.... And there was
milk, and butter, and bread...."
"But not many comforts?" I queried.
"No; 'twas rough. But I dunno--they used to look as strong an' jolly
as they do now. But 'twas poor money. The first farm-house I went to I
never had but thirty shillin's and my grub."
"Thirty shillings in how long?"
"Twal'month. And I had to pay my washin' an' buy my own clothes out o'
that."
The point was interesting. Did he buy his clothes at a shop, ready
made?
"Yes. That was always same as 'tis now. Well, there was these round
frocks--you'd get _they_"--home-made, he meant. And he told how his
sister-in-law, Mrs. Loveland, and her mother "used to earn half a
living" at making these "round" or smock frocks to order, for
neighbours. The stuff was bought: the price for making it up was
eighteen-pence, "or if you had much work on 'em, two shillin's."
Much fancy-work, did he mean?
"The gaugin', you know, about here." Bettesworth spread his hands over
his chest, and continued, "Most men got 'em made; their wives 'd make
'em. Some women, o' course, if they wasn't handy wi' the needle, 'd
git somebody else to do 'em. They was warmer 'n anybody 'd think. And
if you bought brown stuff, 'tis surprisin' what a lot o' rain they'd
keep out. One o' them, and a woollen jacket under it, and them yello'
leather gaiters right up your thighs--you could go out in the rain....
But 'twas a white round frock for Sundays."
At this point I let the talk wander; and presently Bettesworth was
relating perhaps the least creditable story he ever told me about
himself. In judging him, however, if anyone desires to judge him after
so many years, the circumstances should be borne in mind. The farm-lad
on thirty shillings a year, the young soldier from the Crimea where he
had been rationed on rum, marrying at last and settling down in this
village where the rough eighteenth-century habits still lingered,
might almost be expected to shock his twentieth-century critics. Be it
admitted that his behaviour on the death of his father-in-law was
disgraceful; but let it be allowed also that that father-in-law, the
old road-foreman, was a drunken tyrant--at times a dangerous
madman--at whose death it was natural to rejoice. However, I will let
Bettesworth get on with his story.
The "white round frock on Sundays" reminded him of his father-in-law's
costume-frock as described, tall hat, and knee-breeches; and this
recalled (here on this rainy June day where we talked in the shed) how
tall a man he was; and how, lying on the floor in the stupor of death,
just across the lane there, he looked "like a great balk o' timber."
Confusedly the narrative hurried on after this. A cottage was
mentioned, which used to stand where now that resident lives who could
not endure the Bettesworths for his tenants. This was the maiden home
of Bettesworth's mother-in-law; and to this the mother-in-law would
flee for refuge, in terror of being murdered by her husband in his
drunken frenzies. Then would the husband follow, and "break in all
the windows"; for which he was "kept out" of the owner's will, and
lost much property that would have been his. Particulars of his
suicide followed: the man cut his throat and lay speechless for eight
days before he died. But at the first news Bettesworth, being one
son-in-law, was dispatched to a village some five miles distant, to
fetch home another. He borrowed a pony and cart; found his
brother-in-law, "and," he said, "we both got as boozy as billyo on the
way home.... ''Arry,' I says, 'the old foreman bin an' done for
hisself.'" At every public-house they came to they had beer, treating
the pony also; and finally they came racing through the town at full
speed. "We should ha' bin locked up for it now. No mistake we _come_,
when we did get away. And when we got 'ome, 'Arry stooped over to
speak to 'n, an' fell over on his face. I didn't wait for _my_
lecture: I had to get the pony home. It was runnin' off 'n, when I got
'n down to his stable, with the pace we'd made, an' the beer he'd had.
We should ha' got into trouble for it if 't had been now. The old
woman come out, an' begun goin' on about it; but the old man says,
'You might be sure they'd travel, for such a job. And he won't be none
the worse for it.' We put 'n in the stable, an' give 'n another pint
o' beer, and rubbed 'n down an' throwed two or three hop-sacks over
'n; an' next mornin' he was as right as ever."
"How long ago?" I asked.
"I 'most forgets how long ago 'twas. A smartish many years. His
wife--she bin dead this--let's see--three-an'-twenty year; and she
lived a good many years after he."
She had property--her husband's, no doubt--which her son Will
(Bettesworth's wife's brother, remember) inherited, yet only by the
skin of his teeth. For if some infant or other had breathed after
birth, that infant's relatives would have been the heirs. On this sort
of subject people like Bettesworth are always most tedious and
obscure. As to the household stuff, it was to be divided; "and when it
come to our turn to choose," Bettesworth said, "my old gal and me said
Will could have ourn. We'd got old clutter enough layin' about, and
Will hadn't got none, ye see, always livin' with his mother. So he had
the stuff an' the cot. They" (the rival party) "had two or three tries
for it; but 'twas proved that the child never breathed. My wife's
sister Jane thought _she_ was goin' to get it. But I says, 'No, Jane;
you wears the wrong clothes. That belongs to William.'"
Bettesworth ceased. In the ten or fifteen minutes while he had been
talking we had got far from the subject of peasant industries; and yet
somehow the thought of them was still present to both of us, and when
he grew silent I nodded my head contemplatively, murmuring something
about "queer old times." "Yes," he returned, "a good many wouldn't be
able to tell ye how they _did_ bring up a family o' childern, if you
was to ast 'em." And so, with the rain pattering down upon the shed
roof, I left the old man to his wood-chopping.
_June 11, 1904._--The twentieth century is driving out the
old-fashioned people and their savagery from the village, but here and
there it lets in savagery of its own. Into that hovel down by the
stream, which Bettesworth had vacated, there had come fresh tenants,
as I knew; but that was all I knew until one morning Bettesworth told
me something, which I lost no time in hurrying down on to paper, while
his sentences were hot in my mind, as follows:
"Ha' ye heared about our neighbours down 'ere runnin' away?"
"No! Where?"
"Down here where I used to live. Gone off an' left their little
childern to the wide world."
"Well, but ... who...?"
"Worcester they _calls_ 'n. But I dunno what his name is."
"Where did he come from? I don't seem to know him."
"No, nor me. I dunno nothin' about 'n. He bin a sojer an' got a
pension. He bin at work down at this Bordon. But his wife bin carryin'
on purty much. Had another bloke about there this fortnight. An' then
went off, an' give one of her little childern a black eye for a
partin' gift. He come 'ome o' Sunday, and didn't find nobody about
there; and took all there was and his pension papers and was off. And
there's them two poor little dears left there alone wi' nobody to look
after 'em or get 'em a bit o' vittles."
Of course I exclaimed, while Bettesworth went on,
"Ah ... I reckon they ought to be hung up by the heels, leavin' their
childern like that. I always _was_ fond o' childern, but if 't 'd bin
older ones able to look after theirselves I shouldn't ha' took so much
notice. But these be two little 'ns ben't 'ardly able to dress
theirselves: two little gals about five or six. Poor little dears,
there was one of 'em went cryin' 'cause her mother was goin' away, and
her mother up with her hand and give her one. Law! somebody ought to
ha' bin there with a stick and hit her across the head and killed her
dead!
"There they was all day and all night. Mrs. Mardon went to the
policeman about it. He said she better take care of 'em. 'But I can't
afford to keep 'em,' she says. 'No,' he says, 'cert'nly not. 'Ten't to
be expected you should. But you look after 'em for a week, an' we'll
see if their parents comes back. And if they don't, we'll see the
relievin' officer, an' pay you for your trouble; and the children 'll
be took to the workhouse, and then we shall very soon _have_ 'em'"
(the parents). "And so they will, too. They says he's gone to
Salisbury. But they'll have 'n. Old soldier, and a pensioner, and all:
they'll find 'n."
"What's his name, do you say?"
"They _calls_ 'n Worcester: we dunno whether 'tis his right name, or
only a nickname. He ought to _ha'_ Worcester! He's like 'nough to cop
it, too!"