XV
April 17, 1902.—We pass on to April, when bird-notes were sounding through all the gardens.
"Hark at those starlings!" I said to Bettesworth. And he, "Yes—I dunno who 'twas I was talkin' to this mornin', sayin' how he liked to hear 'em. 'So do our guv'nor,' I says. I likes 'em best when there's two of 'em gibberin' to one another—jest like 's if they was talkin'. An' they lifts up their feet, an' flaps up their wings, an' they nods." The old man's words ran rhythmically to suit the action he was describing; and then, dropping the rhythm, "I likes to hear 'em very well. And I don't think they be mischieful birds neither, like these 'ere sparrers and caffeys" (chaffinches). "They beggars, I shouldn't care so much if when they picked out the peas from the ground they'd eat 'em. But they jest nips the little green top off and leaves it. Sims as if they does it reg'lar for mischief."
April 28.—This sunny, objective side of Bettesworth's temperament may be remembered in connexion with some other remarks of his on a very different subject. There was at that time a man living near us whose mere presence tried his patience. The man belonged to one of the stricter Nonconformist sects, and had the reputation of being miserly. "Looks as miserable, he do" (so Bettesworth chanced to describe him), "as miserable as—as sin. I never see such a feller."
At this I laughed, admitting that our neighbour certainly did not look as if he knew how to enjoy himself.
"He don't. Don't sim to have no pleasure, nor 'sociate with anybody. There! I'd as lief not have a life at all, as have one like his. I'd do without, if I couldn't do no better'n that."
Bettesworth's judgment was possibly in error; for there is no telling what mystical joys, what dreams of another world, may have illuminated this man's inner life, and made him suspicious of people like Bettesworth and me. But if there were such compensation, Bettesworth's temperament was incapable of recognizing it, and the point is instructive. His own indomitable cheerfulness was of the objective pagan order. The field of his emotions and fancies had never been cultivated. His thoughts did not stray beyond this world. From such deep sources of physical sanity his optimism welled up, that he really needed, or at any rate craved for, no spiritual consolation. Like his remote ancestors who first invaded this island, he had the habit of taking things as they came, and of enjoying them greatly on the whole. He half enjoyed, even while he was irritated by it, the odd figure presented by this Nonconformist.
May 7.—A week afterwards he exhibited the same sort of aloof interest, annoyed and yet amused, in a jibbing horse. A horse had brought a ton of coal a part of the way down the lane, and then refused to budge farther; and Bettesworth could not forget the incident. It tickles me still to recall with what a queer look on his face he spoke of the noble animal. The expression was the result of his trying to say his word for horse (not 'oss, but 'awss), while a facetious smile was twitching at the corners of his mouth. This was several days after the event. At the time of its occurrence, someone had remarked that the horse had no pluck, and Bettesworth had rejoined indignantly, "I'd see about his pluck, if I had the drivin' of 'n!" But after a day or two his indignation turned to quiet gaiety. "Won't back," he said, "and he won't draw."
I suggested, "Not bad at standing still."
Then came the queer expression on Bettesworth's face, with "'Good 'awss to eat,' the man said." Truly it was odd to see how Bettesworth's lips, grim enough as a rule, arched out sarcastically over the word 'awss.
And it was in a temper not very dissimilar that he commonly regarded our Nonconformist neighbour. The man amused him.
A pagan of the antique English kind, ready to poke fun at a bad horse, or sneer at a fanatic, or be happy in listening to the April talk of the starlings, Bettesworth had quite his share too of the pugnacity of his race. Years ago he had said that a fight used to be "just his clip," as a young man; not many years ago he had promptly knocked down in the road a baker who had got down out of his cart to make Bettesworth move his wheelbarrow out of the way (I remember that when the old man told me of this I advised him not to get into trouble, and he pleaded that it "seemed to do him good"); and now during this spring—I cannot say exactly when—the fighting spirit suddenly woke up in him once more.
The circumstance takes us out again from the peace of the garden to the crude struggle for life in the village. Looking back to that time, I can see our valley as it were sombrely streaked with the progress of two or three miserable family embroilments, squalid, weltering, poisoning the atmosphere, incapable of solution. And though Bettesworth was no more implicated in these than myself, but like me was a mere onlooker, he was not, like me, an outsider. He was down on the very edge of these troubles, and it was the momentary overflow of one of them in his direction one night that suddenly started him fighting, in spite of his years.
I may not go into details of the affair. It is enough that during this April and May our end of the parish was looking on, scandalized, at the blackguard behaviour of a certain labourer towards his family and especially his own mother. Of powerful build, the man had been long known for a bully; and if report went true, he had received several thrashings in his time. But just now he was surpassing his own record. He was also presuming upon the forbearance of better men than himself, and could not keep his tongue from flouts and gibes at them. Speaking of him to me, Bettesworth expressed his disapproval and no more. Others, however, were less reticent; and there came a day when I heard of a quarrel this man had tried to fix upon Bettesworth at the public-house one evening. He was summarily ejected, my informant said; and something—I have forgotten what—caused me to suspect that the "chucker out" was old Bettesworth. That was not explicitly stated, however. Nor did Bettesworth himself tell me at the time any more than that there had been a disturbance in the taproom, the man being turned out, after insulting him.
May 15.—But, alluding to the affair some time afterwards, he placidly continued the story. "I cut 'n heels over head, an' when he got up, and made for the doorway and the open road, I went for 'n again. They got round me, or I should ha' knocked 'n heels over head again. I broke my way through four or five of 'em. 'If I was twenty years younger,' I says to 'n, 'I'd jump the in'ards out of ye.' Some of 'em says, if he dares touch the old man they'd go for 'n theirself. 'All right!' I says, 'you no call to worry about me. I can manage he.' And they told 'n, 'You got hold o' the wrong one this time, Sammy.'"