XXV
June 20.—On the afternoon of June 20th, once more Bettesworth was at work among the potatoes, yet not in the circumstances of last year, when we were rejoicing in the rain. According to my book, this was "a real summer afternoon—Hindhead showing the desired dazzling blue; soft high clouds floating from the westwards; a soft wind occasionally stirring the trees." Blackbirds, it seems, were flitting about the garden to watch their young, warning them, too, with an incessant "twit-twit, twit-twit"; and no doubt, besides this June sound, there was that of garden tools struck into the soil.
And yet, for me, rather than the far-reaching daylight or the vibrating afternoon air, another of the great characteristics of English summer clings to this and the following few fragments about Bettesworth. I might look away to Hindhead and rejoice in the sense of vast warm distance; I might admire the landscape, and practise my æsthetics; but he was becking in amongst the potatoes, and it is his point of view, not mine, that has survived and given its tinge to these talks.
Forgetful, both of us, that the same subject in almost the same place had occupied us a year ago, we spoke of his work; and first he admired the potatoes, and then he praised his beck. "Nice tool," he said. I took hold of it: "Hand-made, of course?" "Yes; belonged to my old gal's gran'mother. There's no tellin' how old he is."
He went on to explain that it was a "polling beck," pointing out peculiarities hardly to be described here. They interested me; yet not so much as other things about the tool, which it was good to handle. From the old beck a feeling came to me of summer as the country labourers feel it. This thing was probably a hundred years old. Through a hundred seasons men's faces had bent over it and felt the heat of the sun reflecting up from off the potatoes, as the tines of the beck brightened in the hot soil. And what sweat and sunburn, yet what delight in the crops, had gone to the polishing of the handle! A stout ash shaft, cut in some coppice years ago, and but rudely trimmed, it shone now with the wear of men's hands; and to balance it as I did, warm and moist from Bettesworth's grasp, was to get the thrill of a new meaning from the afternoon. For those who use such tools do not stop to admire the summer, but they co-operate with it.
The old man took his beck again, and I saw the sunlight beating down upon his back and brown arms as he once more bent his face to the work. Then our talk changed. Soon I fetched a tool for myself, so as to be working near him and hear his chatter.
He touched on scythes for a moment, and then glanced off to name a distant village (a place which lies on a valley side, facing the midday heat), and to tell of a family of blacksmiths who once lived there. "They used to make purty well all sorts o' edge-tools. And they earned a name for 't, too, didn't they? I've see as many as four of 'em over there at a axe. Three with sledge-'ammers, and one with a little 'ammer, tinkin' on the anvil." "And he is the master man of them all," I laughed. Bettesworth laughed too—we were so happy there in the broiling sunshine—"Yes, but I've often noticed it, the others does all the work." To which I rejoined, "But he keeps time to the sledges; and it's he who knows to a blow when they have done enough." "There was one part of making a axe," said Bettesworth, "as they'd never let anybody see 'em at." What could that have been? We agreed that it had to do with some secret process of hardening the steel.
Another shifting of the talk brought us round to his brother-in-law—that accomplished farm-labourer, who was then, however, driving a traction engine, with one truck which carried three thousand bricks. "That must do away with a lot of hoss hire," said Bettesworth. "And yet," I urged, "there seem more horses about than ever." "And they be dear to buy, so Will Crawte says," added Bettesworth.
"How many load," I asked ignorantly, "do you reckon three thousand bricks? More than a four-horse load, isn't it?"
Bettesworth made no effort to reckon, but said easily, "Yes. They reckons three hunderd an' fifty is a load, of these here wire-cut bricks; four hunderd, of the old red bricks; and stock bricks is five hunderd. And slates, 'Countess' slates—they be twenty inches by ten—six hunderd o' they goes to a load."
Wondering at his knowledge, I commented on the endless variety of technical details never dreamt of by people like myself; and Bettesworth assented, without interest, however, in me or other people or anything but his subject. "That's one o' the things you wants to learn, if you be goin' with hosses—when you got a load. Law! half o' these carters on the road dunno whether they got a load or whether they en't. I've almost forgot now; but I learnt it once."
"How do you mean 'learnt' it? Picked it up?"
"No. 'Tis in a book. You can learn to reckon things.... If you be goin' for a tree, or a block o' stone, or bricks, you wants to know what's a load for a hoss, or a two or a three hoss load. A mason told me once, when I was goin' for a block o' stone. He put his tape round it, an' told me near the matter what it weighed. He said you always ought to carry a two-foot rule in your pocket; and then put it across the stone—or p'r'aps 'tis two or three bits you got to take...."
As there is nothing in the talk itself to give the impression, it must have been my working in the sunshine when I heard of these details, that now makes them—the glaring stone-mason's yard, the village smithy, the engine hauling bricks along the high road—seem all sun-baked and dusty, in the heat which men like Bettesworth have to face, while I am admiring the summer landscape.
Twice in the early days of July the old man's homely rustic living is touched upon. By now, in the cottage gardens, the broad-beans are at their best; and he desires, it is said in one place, no better food than beans, served for choice with a bit of bacon. But there are peas too; and one day he tells me simply that he "had peas three times yesterday. There's always some left from dinner, and then I has 'em in a saucer for my supper."
July 29.—As July ran to its close, the weather, though still warm, turned gloomy, and showers came streaking down in front of the grey dismal distance. "They gives a poor account of the harvest," says Bettesworth. "What? have they started?" I ask; and he, "Yes, I've heared of a smartish few."
I supposed he meant in Sussex; but it appeared not. "No," he said, "I dunno as they've begun in Sussex, but about here. Lent corn, oats, an' barley, an' so on. There's So-and-so"—he named three or four farmers reported to have begun cutting, and went on, "But 'tis all machine work, so there won't be much" (extra work). "But the straw en't no higher 'n your knees in some parts, so they says.... 'Twas the cold spring—an' then the dryth. But it don't much matter about the barley. I've heared old people say they've knowed barley sowed and up and harvested without a drop o' rain on it fust to last. Where you gets straw" (with other crops, I suppose, is the meaning) "there en't no fear about the barley: 'tis a thing as 'll stand dryth as well as purty near anything."
He had "heard old people say"—things like these that he was now saying. And Bettesworth's phrase will bear thinking of, for its indication of the topics which the progress of the summer months had always been wont to renew in his brain year by year.
Unhappily, about this period something less pleasing was beginning to force itself upon his attention.