XXIV[3]

XXIV[3]

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!"