Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer Part 18

"Oh, he's gettin' all right: goin' to school again Monday. He've kicked up a rare s.h.i.+ne, 'cause they wouldn't let 'n go. I likes 'n for that. I likes to hear of a boy eager for learnin'--not to see 'm make a s.h.i.+ne and their mothers have to take 'em three parts o' the way. Not but what I wanted makin' when I was a nipper. Many's a time I've clucked up to a tree jest this side o' Cowley Bridge, and that old 'oman" (I don't know what old woman) "come out an' drive me. There wa'n't no school then nearer 'n Lyons's--where Smith the wheelwright lives now. He used to travel with tea, and I dessay half a dozen of us 'd come to his school from Cowley Bridge. We'd start off an' say we wouldn't go to school; but we _'ad_ to."

The frost, had it continued, would very soon have been calamitous to the working people. As it was, I saw bricklayers--good men known to me, and neighbours, too--standing idle in the town, at the street corners. And Bettesworth said,

"Some o' the shop-keepers down in the town begun to cry out about it.

They missed the Poor Man. And I heared the landlord down 'ere at the Swan say he was several pounds out o' pocket by it."

_December 2, 1904._--Fortunately it was not to last. The men got to work again; our gardening tasks could go forward. My notebook has this entry for the 2nd of December:

"Laying turf this afternoon, in wonderful mild dry weather."

XXIX

The thought came to me one of those afternoons, Was it I, or was it Bettesworth, who was growing dull? It might well have been myself; for at the unaccustomed labour of turf-laying, in weather that had turned mild and relaxing, mind no less than body was aware of fatigue, and perhaps on that account the old man's talk seemed less vivid than usual, less deserving of remembrance. At the same time I could not help speculating whether the livelier interests of his conversation might not be almost over. Had he much more to tell? Or had I heard it practically all?

At this turf-laying the parts were reversed now. Time had been when, at similar employments, I was the helper or onlooker; but now Bettesworth's sight was so bad that I could no longer leave him to unroll two turfs side by side and make their edges fit. I had to be down on the ground with him, or instead of him.

And yet he would not accept criticism. Did I say, "Shove that end up a little tighter," he would rejoin, "That's jest what I was a-goin' to do." Or, to my comment, "That isn't a first-rate fit just there,"

"No, sir," he would admit, "I was only jest layin' it so ontil," etc., etc. "You'll see that'll go down all right. That'll go down all right.... Yes, that'll go down all right." And he would fumble unserviceably, while the sentence trailed away into inaudible reiterations. Still, it was a rich, creamy, very quiet and pleasing old voice that spoke.

The habit of repeating his own words was growing upon the old man fast since his wife's death; and it irritated me at times, filling up the gaps and interrupting my share of the conversation. Instead of listening to me, he mumbled on, dreamily. Now and again, however, he appeared to become aware of the habit. More than once, after relating something he had said at home, he added in explanation, "I was talkin'

to _myself_, you know. I en't got n.o.body else to talk _to_." This was almost the only indication he allowed me to see of that loneliness which others a.s.sured me he was feeling. Did he, I wonder, fear that if I knew of it I should be urging him to give up his cottage? For whatever reason, he made no confidant of me on that point. Once, indeed, there was mention of sitting indoors one evening by his fire, "till he couldn't sit no longer," but got up and walked up and down his garden, driven by crowding thoughts. Another time, "All sorts o'

things keeps comin' into my mind now," he said. And these were the utmost complainings to which he condescended, in my hearing.

It was very fortunate that he had excellent neighbours in old Mrs.

Norris (old Nanny, he called her) and her son, known as Kid, Kiddy, or Kidder. While stooping over our turfs I heard many tiny details of Bettesworth's kindly relations with these good people; and, as pleasantly as oddly, between them and myself a sort of friends.h.i.+p grew up, through the old man's mediation. We seldom met; we knew little of one another save what he told us; but he must have gone home and talked to them of me, just as he came here and told me about them; and thus, while I was learning to like them cordially, I think they were learning to like me, and it seemed to stamp with the seal of genuineness my intercourse with Bettesworth himself. But it was truly queer. Old Nanny Norris--the skinny old woman with the strange Mongolian or Tartar face and eyes--took to stopping for a chat, if we met on the road. In the town once, where I stood talking with some one else, she, coming up from behind me, could not pa.s.s on without looking round, nodding joyfully and grimacing her countenance--the countenance of an eastern image--into a jolly smile. She wore a Paisley shawl, and a little bonnet gay with russet and pink.

Bettesworth was distressed only by Nanny's deafness. "_En't_ that a denial to anybody!" he exclaimed feelingly. "There, I can't talk to her. I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf. Everybody can hear what you got to say, and if 't en't nothing, still you don't want everybody to hear it.... Old Kid _breaks_ out at her sometimes: 'Gaw'

dangy! I'll _make_ ye hear!' Every now an' then I laughs to myself to hear 'n, sittin' in there by myself."

He handed me another turf, and continued: "'Tis a good thing for she that old Kidder en't never got married. But she slaves about for 'n; n.o.body _could_n't do no more for 'n than she do. When I got home to dinner she come runnin' round. She'd jest bin to pay all his clubs for 'n. He belongs to three clubs: two slate clubs an' the Foresters."

"He doesn't mean to be in any trouble if he's ill," I grumbled up from the turf.

"Not he. Thirty-two s.h.i.+llin's a week he'll get, if he's laid up.

There's Alf" (one of his half-brothers) "and him--rare schemin'

fellers they be, no mistake." Particulars followed about this family of strong brothers; but, in fine, "Kidder 've always bin the darlin'.

He's the youngest."

Fearless, black-bearded strong man that he is, though very quiet, even silky and soft in his ordinary demeanour, it was laughable to think of Kid Norris as a "darling." Along with Alf he was at work all through the summer on the new railway near Bordon Camp, they two being experts and earning a halfpenny an hour more than the common navvy. Their way was to leave home at four in the morning and walk the eight miles to their work. In the evening the 7 p.m. up-train brought them within a mile and a half of this village. Once or twice they overtook me, making their way homewards, long-striding; and sometimes they would work an hour or two after that in their gardens, in the summer twilight.

When the weather worsened and the days shortened, Kid threw up his railway-work, and took a job at digging sea-kale for a large grower.

The fields were scattered about the district; some of them within two miles, and the remotest not more than three, from his home. He was the leading man of a gang of labourers; and at my paltry turf-laying I heard of his work, which, it appears, was new to him. "They had to save," he said (and the fact was interesting to old Bettesworth), "jest the parts he should ha' throwed away.... It did take some heavin': they stamms was gone down like tree-roots," especially down there in such-and-such a field. "Up here above Barlow's Mill 'twan't half the trouble." The master said to Kid, "You no call to slack. I got plenty o' trenchin' you can go on at, when the kale's up." Then said Kid to his gang, "Some o' you chaps 'll have to move about a bit quicker, if you're goin' trenchin' 'long o' me." He sent one of them packing--a neighbour from this village, too. "Not a bad chap to work, so far as that goes, but too stiff, somehow," Bettesworth said, evidently knowing the man's style.

Towards the end of one afternoon, "It looks comin' up rainy,"

Bettesworth observed, "but old Kid wants it frosty. Where he is now--trenchin' up there at Waterman's--he says this rain makes it so heavy; it comes up on they spuds jest as much as ever a man can lift."

"And that's not a little," said I; "Kid's a strong man."

"Well--he's jest the age; jest on forty. I says to 'n, 'Some of 'em 'd go for you, if they knowed you was wantin' frost.' He laughed. 'We all speaks for ourselves, don't we?' he says."

Then Bettesworth added, "There, I never could have a better neighbour 'n he is. Always jest the same. He looks out for me, too."

I grieve that I have forgotten the particular instance of looking out: it was a case of Kid's mother telling him that she was short of some commodity or other--hot water, perhaps, for tea; upon which Kid said, "Well, see there's some left for old Freddy." On another occasion, "I had," Bettesworth remarked, "my favourite dish for supper last night--pig's chiddlins," and he owed the treat to his neighbours.

"They'd killed their pig, and old Nanny brought me in a nice hot plateful. I _did_ enjoy 'em: they was so soft an' nice. There's nothin' I be more fond of, if I knows who cleaned 'em. But I en't tasted any since I give up keepin' pigs myself."

I could not spare many hours a day for it, so that our turfing work dragged out wearisomely; but throughout it Bettesworth's conversation maintained the same homely inconspicuous character. Once it was about the celery in the garden: "'Tis the nicest celery I ever had--so crisp, an' so well-bleached. I've had two sticks." (He had been told to help himself.) "Last night I put some in a saucepan an' boiled it up; an' then a little pepper an' salt and a nice bit o' b.u.t.ter." He has no teeth now for eating it uncooked; "or else at one time I could," he a.s.sured me.

One after another his simple domestic arrangements were talked over.

He made no fire at home in the morning; Nanny gave him a cup of tea; and so he saved coal, which he had been buying from one of the village shops, half a hundredweight at a time. But the price was exorbitant, and Bettesworth had found a way of buying for fourpence the hundredweight cheaper. And "fo'pence--that's a lot. Well, there's the price of a loaf _soon_ saved." "And a loaf," I put in, "lasts you...?"

"Lasts me a long time, and _then_ I gives the crusts and odd bits to Kid for his pig.... One way and another I makes it all up to 'em."

Of a well-to-do neighbour, "He don't shake off that lumbago in his back yet, so he says.... Ah, he have bin a strong man. So he ought to be, the way he eats. His sister was sayin' only t'other day how every mornin' he'll eat as big a plateful o' fat bacon as she puts before 'n."

A difficulty with a turf which was cut too thick at one corner made a queer diversion. The old man was wearing new boots, and already I knew how he had bargained for them at Wilby's shop, getting a pair of cork socks, besides laces and dubbin, thrown in for his money. And now, this little corner of gra.s.s obstinately sticking up, "Let's see what Mr. Wilby 'll do for 'n," said Bettesworth, and he stamped his new boot down hard and the thickened sod yielded. "Do they hurt you at all?" I asked then. "No," he said, "not no more'n you may expect. New boots always draws your feet a bit. That one wrung my foot a little yest'day. When I got home, 'fore ever I lit my candle, I'd unlaced 'n and fetched 'n off. I flung 'n down. But I be very well pleased with 'em. 'Tis jest across here by the seam where they hurts.... No, I en't _laced_ 'em tight. I don't hold with that, for new boots. Of course they en't leather; can't be for the money. When you've paid for the makin' what is there left for leather, out of five-and-sixpence? No, they _can't_ be leather....

"Little Tim" (Bettesworth's five-year-old chum) "jest got some new uns, with nails in 'em. Nex' pair he has, he says, he's goin' to have 'em big, with big nails, jest like his father's. 'You ben't man enough yet, Tim,' I says. But he got some little gaiters too. 'Now I be ready,' he says, 'if it snows or anything.'"

As a rule we endured in silence the minor discomforts incidental to work like ours, in a raw winter air. But there were exceptions, as when we agreed in hating to handle the tools with our hands so caked over with the black earth. To me, indeed, the spade felt as if covered with sandpaper, so that sometimes it was less painful to use fingers, although of course they did but get the more thickly encrusted with soil by that device. This state of our hands was the cause of another small distress: one could not touch a pocket-handkerchief. And of this also we spoke, once, when I all but laughed aloud at what Bettesworth said.

It began with his testily remarking, "My nose is more plag' than enough!" There was, indeed, and had been for a long time, a glistening drop at the end of it.

My own was in like case, no pocket-handkerchief being available. So I said, "Mine would be all right in a second, if I could only get to wipe it."

Then said Bettesworth, innocently (for he had no suspicion how funny his reply was), "Ah, but that's what you can't do, without makin' your face all dirty."

With our noses distilling dew-drops, and our hands gloved-over with mud and aching with cold, we may be pardoned, I hope, for complaining sometimes of the weather. I believe that really we liked it; for down there so close to the gra.s.s and the soil we were entering into intimacies like theirs, with the cool winter air; but our enjoyment was subconscious, whereas consciously we criticized and were not too well pleased. After one interval of grumbling, I tried to cheer up, with the suggestion, "We must be thankful it isn't so cold as yesterday." Bettesworth, however, was not to be so easily appeased, but replied, "We don't feel it down here, where 'tis so sheltered, but depend upon it, 'tis purty cold down the road, when you gets into the wind. I met old Steve when I was comin' back from dinner. 'How d'ye get on up there?' I says." (_Up there_ is on the ridge of the hill, where Steve works in a garden.) ""Tis purty peaky up there,' he says.

I'll lay it is, too. I shouldn't think there's anybody got a much colder job than he have. 'Pend upon it, he _do_ feel it."

"I was afraid on Sunday we were in for more snow."

"Ah, so was I. I found my old hard broom. Stacked in he was, behind a lot o' peasticks an' clutter. I'd missed 'n for a long time--ever since our young Dave" (his nephew's son) "come to clear up the garden for me. He'd pulled up the peasticks an' put 'em in the old shed--well, I'd told 'n to. And I _fancied_ that's where the broom must be. So Sunday I fetched 'em all out of it and got 'n out and took 'n indoors with the shovel, in case any snow _should_ come.

"Little Dave's gone on 'long o' George Bryant, up at Powell's. Handy little chap, he is...."

In this way, so long as the turf-laying lasted, Bettesworth's talk went drivelling on. Was he really getting dull? I had begun by fancying so; and yet as I listened to him, perhaps myself benumbed a little by the cold open air, something rather new to me--a quality in the old man's conversation more intrinsically pleasing than I had previously known--began to make its subtle appeal. Half unawares it came home to me, like the contact of the garden mould, and the smell of the earth, and the silent saturation of the cold air. You could hardly call it thought--the quality in this simple prattling. Our hands touching the turfs had no thought either; but they were alive for all that; and of such a nature was the life in Bettesworth's brain, in its simple touch upon the circ.u.mstances of his existence.

The fretful echoes men call opinions did not sound in it; clamour of the daily press did not disturb its quiet; it was no bubble puffed out by learning, nor indeed had it any of the gracefulness which some mental life takes from poetry and art; but it was still a genuine and strong elemental life of the human brain that during those days was my companion. It seemed as if something very real, as if the true sound of the life of the village, had at last reached my dull senses.

The themes might be trivial, yet the talk was not ign.o.ble. The rippling comments upon their affairs, which swing in perpetual ebb and flow amidst the labouring people, lead them perhaps no farther; and yet, should they not be said? Could they be dispensed with? Are they not an integral part of life? Let me quote another fragment:

"After that rain yesterday, old Kid says, up in that clay at Waterman's when you takes your spud out o' the ground you can't see whether 'tis a spud or a board. And it's enough to break your shoulders all to pieces. He _was_ tired last night, he says."

Well--to me the observation justifies itself, and I like it for its own sake. It touched me with an elusive vitality of its own, for which after our turf-laying I began generally to listen in Bettesworth's talk, and which nowadays I hear in that of his neighbours, as when old Nanny Norris meets me on the road and stops for a gossip.