_June 20._--On the afternoon of June 20th, once more Bettesworth was
at work among the potatoes, yet not in the circumstances of last year,
when we were rejoicing in the rain. According to my book, this was "a
real summer afternoon--Hindhead showing the desired dazzling blue;
soft high clouds floating from the westwards; a soft wind occasionally
stirring the trees." Blackbirds, it seems, were flitting about the
garden to watch their young, warning them, too, with an incessant
"twit-twit, twit-twit"; and no doubt, besides this June sound, there
was that of garden tools struck into the soil.
And yet, for me, rather than the far-reaching daylight or the
vibrating afternoon air, another of the great characteristics of
English summer clings to this and the following few fragments about
Bettesworth. I might look away to Hindhead and rejoice in the sense of
vast warm distance; I might admire the landscape, and practise my
æsthetics; but he was becking in amongst the potatoes, and it is his
point of view, not mine, that has survived and given its tinge to
these talks.
Forgetful, both of us, that the same subject in almost the same place
had occupied us a year ago, we spoke of his work; and first he admired
the potatoes, and then he praised his beck. "Nice tool," he said. I
took hold of it: "Hand-made, of course?" "Yes; belonged to my old
gal's gran'mother. There's no tellin' how old he is."
He went on to explain that it was a "polling beck," pointing out
peculiarities hardly to be described here. They interested me; yet not
so much as other things about the tool, which it was good to handle.
From the old beck a feeling came to me of summer as the country
labourers feel it. This thing was probably a hundred years old.
Through a hundred seasons men's faces had bent over it and felt the
heat of the sun reflecting up from off the potatoes, as the tines of
the beck brightened in the hot soil. And what sweat and sunburn, yet
what delight in the crops, had gone to the polishing of the handle! A
stout ash shaft, cut in some coppice years ago, and but rudely
trimmed, it shone now with the wear of men's hands; and to balance it
as I did, warm and moist from Bettesworth's grasp, was to get the
thrill of a new meaning from the afternoon. For those who use such
tools do not stop to admire the summer, but they co-operate with it.
The old man took his beck again, and I saw the sunlight beating down
upon his back and brown arms as he once more bent his face to the
work. Then our talk changed. Soon I fetched a tool for myself, so as
to be working near him and hear his chatter.
He touched on scythes for a moment, and then glanced off to name a
distant village (a place which lies on a valley side, facing the
midday heat), and to tell of a family of blacksmiths who once lived
there. "They used to make purty well all sorts o' edge-tools. And they
earned a name for 't, too, didn't they? I've see as many as four of
'em over there at a axe. Three with sledge-'ammers, and one with a
little 'ammer, tinkin' on the anvil." "And he is the master man of
them all," I laughed. Bettesworth laughed too--we were so happy there
in the broiling sunshine--"Yes, but I've often noticed it, the others
does all the work." To which I rejoined, "But he keeps time to the
sledges; and it's he who knows to a blow when they have done enough."
"There was one part of making a axe," said Bettesworth, "as they'd
never let anybody see 'em at." What could that have been? We agreed
that it had to do with some secret process of hardening the steel.
Another shifting of the talk brought us round to his
brother-in-law--that accomplished farm-labourer, who was then,
however, driving a traction engine, with one truck which carried three
thousand bricks. "That must do away with a lot of hoss hire," said
Bettesworth. "And yet," I urged, "there seem more horses about than
ever." "And they be dear to buy, so Will Crawte says," added
Bettesworth.
"How many load," I asked ignorantly, "do you reckon three thousand
bricks? More than a four-horse load, isn't it?"
Bettesworth made no effort to reckon, but said easily, "Yes. They
reckons three hunderd an' fifty is a load, of these here wire-cut
bricks; four hunderd, of the old red bricks; and stock bricks is five
hunderd. And slates, 'Countess' slates--they be twenty inches by
ten--six hunderd o' they goes to a load."
Wondering at his knowledge, I commented on the endless variety of
technical details never dreamt of by people like myself; and
Bettesworth assented, without interest, however, in me or other people
or anything but his subject. "That's one o' the things you wants to
learn, if you be goin' with hosses--when you got a load. Law! half o'
these carters on the road dunno whether they got a load or whether
they en't. I've almost forgot now; but I learnt it once."
"How do you mean 'learnt' it? Picked it up?"
"No. 'Tis in a book. You can learn to reckon things.... If you be
goin' for a tree, or a block o' stone, or bricks, you wants to know
what's a load for a hoss, or a two or a three hoss load. A mason told
me once, when I was goin' for a block o' stone. He put his tape round
it, an' told me near the matter what it weighed. He said you always
ought to carry a two-foot rule in your pocket; and then put it across
the stone--or p'r'aps 'tis two or three bits you got to take...."
As there is nothing in the talk itself to give the impression, it must
have been my working in the sunshine when I heard of these details,
that now makes them--the glaring stone-mason's yard, the village
smithy, the engine hauling bricks along the high road--seem all
sun-baked and dusty, in the heat which men like Bettesworth have to
face, while I am admiring the summer landscape.
Twice in the early days of July the old man's homely rustic living is
touched upon. By now, in the cottage gardens, the broad-beans are at
their best; and he desires, it is said in one place, no better food
than beans, served for choice with a bit of bacon. But there are peas
too; and one day he tells me simply that he "had peas three times
yesterday. There's always some left from dinner, and then I has 'em in
a saucer for my supper."
_July 29._--As July ran to its close, the weather, though still warm,
turned gloomy, and showers came streaking down in front of the grey
dismal distance. "They gives a _poor_ account of the harvest," says
Bettesworth. "What? have they started?" I ask; and he, "Yes, I've
heared of a smartish few."
I supposed he meant in Sussex; but it appeared not. "No," he said, "I
dunno as they've begun in Sussex, but about here. Lent corn, oats,
an' barley, an' so on. There's So-and-so"--he named three or four
farmers reported to have begun cutting, and went on, "But 'tis all
machine work, so there won't be much" (extra work). "But the straw
en't no higher 'n your knees in some parts, so they says.... 'Twas the
cold spring--an' then the dryth. But it don't much matter about the
barley. I've heared old people say they've knowed barley sowed and up
and harvested without a drop o' rain on it fust to last. Where you
gets straw" (with other crops, I suppose, is the meaning) "there en't
no fear about the barley: 'tis a thing as 'll stand dryth as well as
purty near anything."
He had "heard old people say"--things like these that he was now
saying. And Bettesworth's phrase will bear thinking of, for its
indication of the topics which the progress of the summer months had
always been wont to renew in his brain year by year.
Unhappily, about this period something less pleasing was beginning to
force itself upon his attention.