XIV
One of Bettesworth's swift short tales about his neighbours interested me considerably at this time, as illustrating the half-sordid, half-barbarous state of the people amongst whom he had to hold his own when not at work. I did not suspect that the same tale would put me on the track of a curious discovery relative to his own past history.
January 23, 1902.—It was a quiet, windless morning, and the sound of the knell reached us through the still air. Bettesworth said, "I s'pose old Jerry's gone at last, then."
"Old Jerry?" I asked.
"Ah, old Jerry Penfold. We always called 'n Old Jerry. He bin dead several times—or, 't least, they thought so. Rare ructions there bin over there, no mistake. They got to sharin' out his kit. One come an' took away his clock, and another his chest o' drawers, and some of his sons even come an' took away his tools. But the oldest son got the lawyer an' made 'em bring it all back."
"Rare ructions"—yes: but Bettesworth used the word "rare" as we should use "great," and did not mean that the affair was very unusual. He was not scandalized so much as amused by it. For my part, knowing nothing of the family, who dwelt in another quarter of the parish, I sought only to identify Old Jerry. Some years previously an old man who walked along the road with me one night had interested me with a tale of his shepherding and other labours on a certain farm. I had never learnt his name, nor had seen the man since; but now it occurred to me that perhaps he was old Penfold. I asked Bettesworth.
Bettesworth decided in the negative. Old Penfold had never been a shepherd, or worked for the farmer I named.
Yet another old man then came into my mind: a diminutive man, upwards of eighty, who was still creeping honourably about at work. Frequently I met him; but he seemed so shut up in himself that I had never cared to intrude upon him with more than a "Good-day" when we met. But now I named him to Bettesworth: old Dicky Martin. Could the missing shepherd have been he?
Bettesworth shook his head emphatically. It turned out that he and old Dicky were chums in their way: they knew all about one another, and with mutual respect. "Couldn't ha' bin old Dicky," said Bettesworth. "He never worked anywhere else about here 'xcept in builders' yards. Forty-four year ago he started for Coopers, and bin on there ever since. He was a sailor before that. He come out o' the navy when he come here."
Out of the navy! And to think I had been ignorant of such a thing as that! I had not found my shepherd; but to have discovered a sailor was something. Scenting romance, in the foolish superficial way of outsiders, I resolved to improve my acquaintance with old Dicky, little dreaming that the sailor was going to show me a soldier too; little supposing that Bettesworth's information about this old man would be capped by information from him, quite as surprising, about Bettesworth.
How I fell in with old Martin, early in February, is of no moment here. He talked very much in Bettesworth's manner, and especially about cruising in the Mediterranean sixty years ago. But when I said at last, believing it true, "I don't suppose there is another man in our parish has travelled so far as you," his reply startled me.
"No, I dessay not—without 'tis your man, Fred Bettesworth."
"He? He never was out of England."
"Yes he was. He bin as fur as Russia and the Black Sea, at any rate."
"You must be wrong. I should have heard of it if he had."
"I dunno about that. P'raps he don't care to talk about it, but 'tis right enough. I fancy he did get into some trouble. He was a soldier though, in the Crimea."
Old Dicky was so convinced that I held my peace, though far from convinced myself. A vague sensation crept over me of having heard some faint rumour of the same tale, years ago; but what might have been credible then seemed hardly credible now. I thought that now I knew all there was to know about Bettesworth's life; and I could not see where, among so many episodes, this of soldiering was to find room. Besides, how was it possible that, in ten years or so, during which Bettesworth had prattled carelessly of anything that came uppermost in his mind, no hint of this had escaped him? It would have slipped out unawares, one would have supposed; by some inadvertence or other I should have learnt it. But, save for that forgotten rumour, nothing had come until now. Now, however, the man who spoke of it spoke as from his own personal knowledge. It was very strange.
One thing was clear. If there were truth in this tale after all, Bettesworth's silence on the subject must have been intentional. Was there something about it of which he was ashamed? What was that "trouble" to which old Dicky so darkly alluded? Eager as I was to question Bettesworth, I was most reluctant to hear anything to his discredit. And the reluctance prevailed over my curiosity. Feeling that I had no right to force a confidence from him, I tried to dismiss the subject from my mind; and for a time I succeeded.