XXIII

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."

I was not so wonderfully fond of them, I said.

"No? I en't had e'er a one—I dunno when. Well—a rabbit, you come to put one down afore a hungry man, what is it? He's mother have gone an' bought one for 'n at a shop, when he en't happened to have one hisself—give as much as a shillin' or fifteenpence. 'Ten't worth it. Or else I've many a time bought 'em for sixpence—sixpence, or sixpence-ha'penny, or sevenpence. And they en't worth no more."

During all this he was sweeping up his grass cuttings. The children came out of school for afternoon recess, and their shoutings sounded across the valley. "There's the rebels let loose again," said Bettesworth. From where we stood, high on one of the upper terraces of the garden, we could see far. The sky was grey and melancholy. A wind blew up gustily out of the south-east, and I foreboded rain. "We don't want it from that quarter," Bettesworth replied. "That's such a cold rain. And I've knowed it keep on forty-eight hours, out o' the east.... I felt a lot better" (of the recent bronchitis) "when she" (the wind) "shifted out o' there before."

Meanwhile I had pulled up one or two more dandelions, to add to Bettesworth's heap; and now I espied a small seedling of bryony, which also I was careful to pull out. The root, already as big as a man's thumb, came up easily, and I passed it to Bettesworth, asking, "Isn't that what they give to horses sometimes?"

He handled it. "I never heared of anybody," he answered, perhaps not recognizing it at this small stage of growth. "Now, ground ivy! That's a rare thing. If you bakes the roots o' that in the oven, an' then grinds it up to a powder, you no need to call yer horses to ye, after you've give 'em that. They'll foller ye for it. Dandelion roots the same. Make 'em as fat! And their coats come up mottled, jest as if you'd knocked 'em all over with a 'ammer. They'll foller ye about anywhere for that. I've give it to 'em, many's a time; bin out, after my day's work, all round the hedges, purpose to get things for my 'osses. There's lots o' things in the hedgerow as is good for 'em. So there is for we too, if we only knowed which they was. We shouldn't want much doctor if we knowed about herbs.

"Old Waterson, he used to eat dandelion leaves same as you would a lettuce, and he said it done 'n good, too. Old Steve Blackman was another. He used to know all about the herbs. If you went into his kitchen, you'd see it hung all round with little bundles of 'em, to dry. He was the only one as could cure old Rokey Wells o' the yeller janders. Gunner had tried 'n—all the doctors had tried 'n, and give 'n up. He'd bin up there at the infirmary eighteen months or more, till old Steve see 'n one day and took to 'n. And he made a hale hearty man of 'n again.

"That 'ere Holt—Tom Holt, you know, what used to be keeper at Culverley—he got the yeller janders now. He's pensioned off—twelve shillin's a week, and his cot and firin'. Lives in Cashford Bridge house—you knows that old farmhouse as you goes over Cashford Bridge. He lives there now. If old Steve's son got his father's book now, he'll be able to cure 'n. He used to keep a book where he put all the receipts, so 't is to be hoped his son have kep' it. They says Holt 've got the yeller janders wonderful strong, but if...."

May 24.—In Bettesworth's opinion, an important part of the training of a labourer relates to getting about and finding work. The old man was at the Whit Monday fête with a man named Vickery, of whom he talked, imitating Vickery's gruff voice with appreciation. Vickery—sixty or seventy years old—came (I learn) from a village out Guildford way—"that was his native," says Bettesworth—but was adopted by an aunt in this parish, who left him her two cottages at her death. All this, if not interesting to us, was deeply so to Bettesworth. And Vickery, it appears, has worked all his life in one situation, at Culverley Park. He began as a boy minding sheep. As a man, he managed the gas-house belonging to the mansion; and when the electric light was installed, he took over the management of that, making up his time with chopping fire-wood, and so forth. And, says Bettesworth, "They'd ha' to set fire to Culverley to get rid of 'n. He never worked nowhere else. That's how they be down there. Old Smith's another of 'em. He bin there forty year. He turned seventy, here a week ago. Never had but two places, and bin at Culverley forty year. Why, if they was turned out they wouldn't know how to go about. Same when Mr. John Payne died: there was a lot o' young fellers turned off. They hadn't looked out for theirselves; their fathers had always got the work for 'em, and law! they didn' know where to go no more than a cuckoo! But I reckon that's a very silly thing."