Christmas was approaching near--was "buckin' up," as Bettesworth
quaintly phrased it; and that it contributed to the melancholy of his
existence will easily be understood. It is nowhere mentioned in my
book, but a remorse was beginning to haunt him, for having let his
wife be taken away to the infirmary, to die there. "I done it for the
best, poor old dear," I remember his saying several times; "but it
hurts me to think I let her go." In the long evenings before
Christmas, alone in his cottage and unable to pass time by reading, he
had too much time for brooding over his loss.
The nights as well as the evenings were probably too long for him, and
I make no question that his happiest hours were those he spent at
work, when he could forget himself and still talk cheerfully. Thus
there is quite a gleam of cheerfulness in the following instructive
fragment, of the 17th of December.
_December 17, 1904._--"When the wind blowed up in the night I thought
'twas rain. I got out an' went to the winder--law! _'twas_ dark! But
the winder an' all seemed as dry!"
"What time was that?"
"I DUNNO, sir."
"The moon must have been down?"
"Yes, the moon was down."
"Then it must have been getting on for morning."
"I dunno.... But I'd smoked two pipes o' baccer before Kid called me.
I _have_ smoked some baccer since I bin livin' there alone. The last
half-pound I had is purty well all gone; and 'tent the day for another
lot afore Monday." (This was Saturday.) "But I shall ha' to get me
some more to-night. Why, that's quarter of a pound a week!
"Old Kid says, 'Don't it make ye _dry_?' this smoking. 'No,' I says,
'that" (namely, to drink) "en't no good.' Kid don't smoke. Reg'lar
old-fashioned card, he is. 'Ten't many _young_ men you'll see like 'n.
But he's as reg'lar in his habits as a old married man. Ay, and he's
as good, too. 'T least, he's as good to me. So they both be."
"Isn't he to his mother?"
"Ah! an' she to him. No woman couldn't look after a baby better. Every
night as soon as he's home and ready to sit down, there's his supper
on the table. 'Supper's ready, Kid,' she says. 'So's yourn too,
Freddy,' she says to me. 'Ah,' I says, 'Wait a bit, Nanny, till my
kettle's boilin'.' Because I always has tea along o' my supper. Kid,
he don't have his till after; but I likes mine with my supper. So I
tells her to put it in the oven till I'm ready. Cert'nly, my little
kettle don't take long to boil. But I shall ha' to get me quarter of
a ton o' coal, soon as Chris'mas is over."
A faint memory, for which I have had to grope, restores a mention by
Bettesworth of three glasses of grog to which he treated Kid Norris
and himself and old Nanny. Perhaps this was at Christmas time; at any
rate I am not aware that the season was brightened for him by any
other celebration. It passed, and the New Year came in, and still he
was living the same broken life, yet telling rather of the few
pleasures it contained than of its desolation. I am sure he did not
mean to let me know that he was being constantly reminded of his wife,
yet the next conversation gives reason to suppose that such was the
case.
_January 10, 1905._--He had spent two vigorous days in cutting down
and sawing into logs an old plum-tree, and grubbing out its roots.
That was a job which he might still be left to do without supervision;
but I had to assist, when it came to planting a young tree in the
vacant space. A pear-tree, this new one was; and he asked, "Was it a
'William' pear?" It was a _Doyenne du Comice_, I said. His shrug
showed that he did not get hold of the name at all, and I fancied him
a little contemptuous of such outlandishness; so I added that I had
seen some of the pears in a fruiterer's window, and wished to grow the
like for myself.
"Ah"--the suggestion was enough. He wondered if that was the sort he
had bought for his "poor old gal"; and then he told again how he had
given three halfpence apiece for pears to take to her at the
infirmary, and would have given sixpence rather than go without them.
"And _then_ the poor old gal never tasted 'em.... She wa'n't up there
long.... That Blackman what drove the fly that took her ast me about
her t'other day. He didn't know" (that she was dead), "or he _said_ he
didn't. 'She was only up there three days,' I said. Since then, he've
took old Mrs. Cook--Jerry's mother.... Jerry kep' her as long as he
could, but 't last she _'ad_ to go. Yes, he stuck to 'er as long as he
could, Jerry did. None o' the others didn't, ye see.... But he had
money: there was two hunderd pound, so they said, when his wife's
mother died, and nobody couldn't make out what become of it exactly.
But Jerry had some, an' purty soon got rid of it. Purty near killed
'n. 'Fore he'd done with it he couldn't stoop to tie up his shoelaces,
he was got that bloaty.... I reckon he bides down there by hisself,
now."
In that he resembled Bettesworth, then. I asked if Jerry had no wife.
"She died about two year ago. Poor thing--she'd bin through
_every_thing; bin to hospitals and all." It was one hop-picking, about
nine years ago, and just after she was married, that "they was larkin'
about--jest havin' a bit o' fun, ye know; there wasn't no spite in
it--and one of 'em swished her right across the eye with a
hop-bine.... I s'pose 'twas something frightful, afore she died; 't
had eat right into her head."
The old man pondered over the horror, then continued, "There must be
something poisonous about hop-bine. Same as with a ear o' corn. How
many you sees have lost an eye by an ear o' corn swishin' into it!
En't you ever heard of it? _I_'ve knowed it, many's a time. There was"
(I forget whom he named)--"it jest flicked 'n across the sight, and he
went purty near mad wi' the pain of it. Oats is the worst. Well, as
you knows, oats is so thin, 't'll stick to the eyeball purty near like
paper.... But I'd sooner cut oats than any other; it cuts so sweet.
That was always my favourite corn to cut. Cert'nly I en't never had no
accident with it. Barley cuts sweet, but 't en't like oats."
The next day's chatter gives one more touch to the picture of
Bettesworth's pleasant intercourse with his neighbours at this period.
Apropos of nothing at all the old man began his story.
_January 11, 1905._--"When I went home last night I see my door was
open; but I never went in, because you knows I had to go on further to
take that note for you. But after I'd done that I come back same way,
and then I see a light in the winder. 'Hullo!' I says to myself.
'What's up now, then?' So I pushed on; and when I got indoors there
was old Nanny--she'd made up my fire an' biled my kettle, an' was
gettin' my dinner ready. Ah, an' she'd bin upstairs, too: she'd
scrubbed it out--all the rooms; and she says, 'I've made yer bed too,
Fred....' But I give her a shillin', so she can't go about sayin' she
done all this for me for nothin'. _She_ en't got nothin' to complain
of. Besides, 't wants a scrub out now an' again. Not as 'twas anyways
_dirty_, 'cause _t'en't_. She said so herself. 'If it's a fine day
to-morrer, Fred, I'll come an' scrub your floors out for ye: 't'll do
'em good. Not as they be DIRTY,' she says; 'I see 'em myself, so I
knows....' Well, so she did. She come in last week, and hung my new
curtains.... I've had new curtains" (little muslin blinds) "to the
winders, upstairs an' down--I bought 'em week afore last--and ol' Nan
've made 'em an' put 'em up for me. No mistake she is a one to work!
Works as hard as any young gal--and she between seventy an' eighty."