"All he kep' on about was the devil. The devil kep' comin' and botherin' of 'n. 'Tis a bad job. I s'pose he went right into it—studyin' about these here places nobody ever bin to an' come back again to tell we. Nobody don't know nothin' about it. 'Ten't as if they come back to tell ye. There's my father, what bin dead this forty year. What a crool man he must be not to 've come back in all that time, if he was able, an' tell me about it. That's what I said to Colonel Sadler. 'Oh,' he says, 'you better talk to the Vicar.' 'Vicar?' I says. 'He won't talk to me.' Besides, what do he know about it more 'n anybody else?"
Early in the summer of 1896 Bettesworth had been immensely proud of his peas, which were ready for picking quite a week before other people had any. The fame of these peas had got abroad in the parish; it had reached a youth—a new curate fresh from a theological college—and had appealed to his fancy so strongly that he sent a servant to buy threepennyworth of the precious crop. And Bettesworth had chuckled.
"I bin a-laughin' to myself all the mornin'.... Three penn-'oth o' peas! I never heared talk o' such a thing! I told the gal to go back and tell 'n to save his money till they was cheaper."
June 13, 1899.—But three years later Bettesworth seems to have changed his policy. On June 13 once more he had peas to boast of, and already for some days his wife was itching to be at them.
"Look, there's a nice pea, and there," she would say, handling the dangling pods.
But Bettesworth would answer, "Yes, they be; and you let 'em bide."
"For the sake of a shillin' now," he explained to me, "I en't a-goin' to have that haulm spoilt, and lose two or three shillin's later on."
His brother-in-law agreed that he was right. It was all reported to me in Bettesworth's own words.
"'I thinks you be right, Fred,' he says. 'You better get along without that shillin' now, and have two or three later on.'"
Old Mrs. Skinner, too, commended him. She told of a neighbour who had picked a few peas very early, and ruined his crop; for in the hot weather the juicy haulm was sure to wither soon if bruised by handling.