Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 5

He considered it--it was on a day in October, 1900--and so strayed off into a rambling talk of many things. The ill-conditioned neighbours (he comforted himself by thinking) would leave his fowls alone, because depredations of that kind were an unheard-of thing in our parish.

"There, I will say that," he observed, "you never no fear o' _losin'_ anything here. If a man leaves his tool--a spud or anything--in the ground, there 'tis. n.o.body don't touch it. Up there at (he named a near village) they say 'tis different. But here, I should think there never was a better place for that!"

For a certain reason I took up this point, and hinted that Flamborough in Yorks.h.i.+re must be an equally honest place. The Flamborough people, I had been told, never lock their doors at night, for fear of locking out the spirits of relatives drowned at sea.

Would Bettesworth take the bait, and tell me anything he might know about ghosts? Not he. The interruption changed the course, but not the character, of his talk. He looked rather shocked at these benighted Yorks.h.i.+remen, and commented severely, "Weak-minded, _I_ calls it." Then, after a momentary silence, he was off on a new track, with reminiscences of Selsey fishermen whom he used to see when he went harvesting into Suss.e.x; who go about, "any time o' night, accordin' to the tides," and whose thick boots can be heard "clumpin'

along the street" in the dark. All men at Selsey, he said, were fishermen. The only regular hands employed by the neighbouring farmers were shepherds and carters.

He had got quite away from the point in my mind. But as I had long wondered whether Bettesworth had any ghost stories, I harked back now to the Flamborough people, egging him on to be communicative. It was all in vain, however. He shook his head. The subject seemed foreign to him.

"As I often says, I bin about all times o' the night, an' I never met nothin' worse than myself. Only time as ever I was froughtened was when I was carter chap at Penstead. Our farm was down away from t'other, 'cause Mr. Barnes had two farms--'t least, he had three--and ourn was away from t'other, and I was sent late at night to git out the waggon--no, the pole-carriage. I set up on the front on the shafts, with a truss o' hay behind me; and all of a sudden she" (the mare, I suppose he meant) "snarked an' begun to turn round in the road. The chap 'long with me--no, he wa'n't 'long with me, 'cause he'd gone on to open the gate, and so there was I alone. And all 'twas, was a old donkey rollin' in the road. She'd smelt 'n, ye know; an' the nearer we got, the more froughtened she was, till she turned right round there in the road. 'Twas a nasty thing for me; they hosses with their legs over the traces, and all that, and me down atween 'em."

He was fairly off now. A tale followed of stumbling over a drunken man, who lay all across the road one dark night.

"Wonder's 't hadn't broke his ribs, me kickin' up again' him like that. I went all asprawl; barked me hands too. But when he hollered out, I knowed who 'twas then. 'Twas old...."

Well, it doesn't matter who it was. There were no ghost stories to be had, so I related a schoolday adventure, of a glow-worm picked up, and worn in a cap for a little way, and then missed; of a glimmer seen in the ditch, which might be the glow-worm; of a groping towards the glimmer, and a terrified leap back, upon hearing from behind it a gruff "Hullo, mate!"

Bettesworth did not find this silly, like my Flamborough story. It opened another vista of reminiscence, down which he could at least look. Unhesitatingly he took the chance, commenting,

"Ah! porchers, very likely, lurkin' about there for a meetin, p'r'aps.

They do like that, sometimes. I remember once, when Mellish was keeper at Culverley, there was some chaps in there at The Horse one night with their dogs, talkin' about what they was goin' to do. Mellish, he slips out, to send the word round, 'cause all the men at Culverley was s'posed to go out at such a job, if need be. So he sends round the message to 'em--Bromley, an' d.i.c.k Harris, an' Knight, an' several more, to meet 'n at a certain place, where he'd heard these chaps say they was goin' to work. And so they (the poachers) set in there talkin' about what they was goin' to do; and at last, when they come away, they went right off into the town. While they'd bin keepin' the keeper there a-watchin' 'em, another gang had bin' an' purty well cleared the place out. _Bags_-full, they must ha' had. Mellish told me so hisself. While he was expectin' to have they, they was havin' him.

He never was so sold, he said. But a clever trick, I calls it."

VIII

_October 17, 1900._-Two words of Bettesworth's, noted down for their strangeness at the time, restore for me the October daylight, the October air. He was discussing the scarlet-runner beans (I can picture now their warm tints of decay), and he estimated our chances of getting another picking from them. The chances were good, he thought, because in the sheltered corner where the beans stood, uplifted as it was above the mists that chilled the bottom of the valley, "these little snibblin' frostis that we gets o' mornin's" would not be felt.

"Snibblin'" was a new word to me, and now I find it a.s.sociated in my mind with the earliest approaches of our English winter.

Near the beans there were brussels sprouts, their large leaves soaked with colour out of the clouded day. Little grey swarms of "white fly"

flitted out as I walked between them; and, again, Bettesworth's name for that form of blight--"they little minners"--brings back the scene: the quiet vegetable garden, the sad rich autumn tints, the overcast sky, the moist motionless air.

To this undertone of peace--the peace you can best absorb at labours like his--he was able to discourse dispa.s.sionately of things not peaceful. In a cottage higher up the valley there was trouble this October. I may not give details of it; but, in rough summary, an old woman had died, her last days rendered unhappy by the misbehaviour of her son--a young labourer. Talk of his "carrying on," his late hours, his frantic drinking, and subsequent delirium, crept stealthily up and down the lanes. He was "a low blackguard," "a scamp," and so forth.

The comments were excited, generally breathless, once or twice shrill.

But Bettesworth kept his head. An indignant matron said spitefully,

"'Ten't every young feller gets such a good home as that left to 'n."

"Well, and who got a better right to 't?" was Bettesworth's calm rejoinder.

_November 10._--A month later a ripple of excitement from the outside world found its way down the lane. Sat.u.r.day, November 10, was the day when General Buller, recalled from the war, arrived at Aldershot, and for miles around the occasion was made the excuse for a holiday by the working people. It was a point of honour with them not to desert their favourite under a cloud. They left off work early, and flocked to Aldershot station by hundreds, if not thousands, to make sure that he had a welcome. On the following Monday Bettesworth, full of enthusiasm, gave me an account of the affair as he had had it from numerous eyewitnesses. For, in truth, it had been "all the talk yesterday"--on the Sunday, namely. Young Bill Skinner, in particular, had been voluble, with such exclamations, such staring of excited eyes, that Bettesworth was reminded not without concern of the sunstroke which had threatened Skinner's reason two summers previously. Nevertheless, the tale was worth Bettesworth's hearing and repeating; "there never was a man in England so much respected" as Buller, Skinner supposed. On alighting from the train, the General's first act had been to shake hands with his old coachman--a deed that touched the hearts of all these working folk.

"And there was never a sign o' soldiers; 'twas all townspeople--civilians, that is; and the cheerin'--there! Skinner said he hollered till he was hoa.r.s.e. He ast me" (Bettesworth) "how 'twas I didn't go over; but I said, 'Naw....' Not but what I _likes_ the old feller!"

Bettesworth made no answer but that expressive "No" of disinclination, but I can amplify it. He was not now a young man, to go tearing off enthusiastically for an eight-mile walk, which was sure to end in a good deal of drinking and excitement. His days for that were gone by for ever. Prudence warned him that he was best off pottering about in his regular way, here at home.

There was another reason, too, to restrain him. It brings us swiftly back for a moment from war incidents and the public excitement to the very interior of that hovel down by the "Lake," to learn that poor old Lucy Bettesworth was once more ill at this time. Her brother calling, and exhibiting an unwonted kindliness, had thrown her into sudden hysteria ending in epileptic fits. Even had Bettesworth felt inclined, he could not have left her. He told me the circ.u.mstances, and much, too, of her life history--the most of which has been already published, and may be omitted here. The illness, however, was not so severe as to engage all Bettesworth's thoughts. It allowed him to take interest in Buller's return, and on the same day to discourse of other outside matters too, in which all our valley was interested through these months.

Word had reached him somehow of the proposals just then announced for the higher training of our soldiers; and he foresaw increased difficulties in recruiting on these terms. There was too much work to be had, and it was too well paid, to make young men eager to join the army; and the service certainly did not need to be rendered less attractive than it was. Bettesworth, it seemed, had already been discussing this very point with his neighbours. As to the disturbance of the labour market consequent upon the war, he viewed it with no favour. The inflated prices of labour seemed to him unwholesome; they were having an injurious effect upon young men, giving them an exaggerated opinion of their true worth as labourers. And this was particularly true, since the building of the new camp at Bordon had begun. "Old Tom Rawson," he reported, had "never seen the likes of the young fellers that was callin' theirselves carpenters an' bricklayers now. Any young chap only got to take a trowel over to Woolmer (by Bordon), and he'd be put on as a bricklayer, at sixpence a hour. And you mawn't stop to show 'em nothing. If the clurk o' the works or the inspector come round, 't 'd be, 'What's that man doin', showin' the others?' Tom said he wa'n't _goin'_ to show 'em, neither. Why, at one time n.o.body ever thought of employin' a man, onless he could show his indentures. But now--'tis anybody." "The foreman" had lately come to Tom Rawson "askin' him jest to give an eye to some young chaps," and promising him another halfpenny an hour. And Bettesworth commented, "But dessay he (the foreman) was gettin' his bite out o' the youngsters."

Not Bettesworth, not even that hardened old Tom Rawson, would have countenanced such things had they been appealed to; but tales of this kind only filtered down into Bettesworth's obscure nook, to provide him with a subject for five minutes' thought, and then leave him again to his homely occupations. What had he to do with the War Office and inefficiency in high places? From this very talk, it is recorded, he turned appreciatively to watch the cat purring round my legs, and by her fond softness was reminded of his rabbits--six young ones--which the mother had not allowed him to see until yesterday. And he spoke wonderingly of her mother-instinct. The old rabbit was "purty near naked," having "almost stripped herself" to make a bed for these young ones, so that the bed was "all white fluff before they come," and now she "kep' 'em covered up." "Everything," said Bettesworth, "has their _nature_, ye see."

In this fas.h.i.+on, with these trivial interests, the year drew on to its close in our valley. December gives glimpses of trouble in another household--that of the Skinners, Bettesworth being cognizant of all, but saying little. It did not disturb the peacefulness of his own existence. Events might come or delay, he was content; he was hardly in the world of events, but in a world where things did not so much "happen" as go placidly on. He worked, and rested, and I do not believe that he was often dull.

IX

_January, 1901._--The winter, which so far had been mild and open, began to a.s.sume its natural character with the new year; and on the first Monday of January--it was the 7th--we had snow, followed by hard frost. The snow was not unexpected. Sat.u.r.day--a day of white haze suffused with sunlight--had provided a warning of it in the shape of frozen rime, clinging like serried rows of penknife blades to the eastern edges of all things, and noticeably to the telegraph-wires, which with that additional weight kept up all day a s.h.i.+ver of vibration dazzling to look at against the misty blue of the sky. Then the snow came, and the frost on top of that, and by Tuesday it was bad travelling on all roads.

Bettesworth grumbled, of course; but I believe that really he rather liked the touch of winter. At any rate, it was with a sort of gloating satisfaction that he remarked:

"I hunted out my old gaiters this morning. They en't much, but they keeps your legs dry. And I do think that is so nice, to feel the bottoms of your trousers dry."

I suppose it is, when one thinks of it, though it had never struck me before. But then, I had never had the experience which had shown Bettesworth the true inwardness of this philosophy of his.

"I've knowed what it is," he said, "to have my trousers soppin' wet all round the bottoms, and then it have come on an' freezed 'em as stiff as boards all round."

That was years ago, during a short spell of piecework in a gravel-pit.

Now, secure in his gaiters and in his easier employment, he could look back with amus.e.m.e.nt to the hards.h.i.+ps he had lived through. One of a similar kind was hinted at presently. For the roughness of the roads, under this frozen snow, naturally suggested such topics.

"What d'ye think of our neighbour Mardon?" he exclaimed. "Bin an'

chucked up his job, and 's goin' back to Aldershot blacksmithin'

again. He must be in want of a walk!"

"Regular as clockwork," Mardon, be it explained, had walked daily to his work at Aldershot, and then back at night, for upwards of twenty years. The day's walk was about ten miles. Then suddenly he left, and now for six months had been working as bricklayer's labourer, at a job about an equal distance away in another direction, to which he walked as before every day, wet or fine. This was the job he had "chucked,"

to return to his old trade in the old place. He might well give it up!

Said Bettesworth,

"How many miles d'ye think he walked last week, to put in forty-five hours at work? Fifty-four! Four and a half miles there, and four and a half back. Fifty-four miles for forty-five hours. There's walkin' for ye! And through that enclosure, too!"

The "enclosure" is a division of Alice Holt Forest--perhaps two miles of it--on Mardon's way to his now abandoned job. And Bettesworth recalled the discomforts of this walk.

"I knows what it is, all through them woods in the dark, 'cause I used to go that way myself when I was workin' for Whittingham. 'Specially if the fox-hounds bin that way. Then 'tis mud enough to smother ye.

There was a fancy sort o' bloke--a carpenter--used to go 'long with us, with his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs, and his trousers turned up, and his shoes cleaned. We did use to have some games with 'n, no mistake. He'd go tip-toein' an' skippin' to get over the mud; an' then, jest as we was pa.s.sin' a puddle, we'd plump one of our feet down into 't, an' send the mud _all over_ 'n. An' with his tip-toein' an' skippin' he got it wuss than we did, without that. An' when we come to the Royal Oak, 'cause we gen'ly used to turn in there on our way home, he'd be lookin' at hisself up an' down and grumblin'--'Tha bluhmin' mud!'

(this in fair imitation of c.o.c.kney speech)--'tha bluhmin' mud! Who can _stick_ it!' Same in the mornin' when he got there. He'd be brus.h.i.+n'

his coat, an' sc.r.a.pin' of it off his trousers with his knife, an'

gettin' a bundle o' shavin's to wipe his boots.

"But a very good carpenter! Whittingham used to say he couldn't wish for a better man. But he'd bin used to bench-work all his life, an'

didn't know what to make of it. An' we used to have some games with 'n. If there was any job wanted doin' out o' doors, they'd send for he sooner 'n one o' t'others, jest to see how he'd go on. And handlin'