"Why, Freddy," she said—"why, Freddy, you'd kill half the young uns now, old as you be."
There should have been a helper—one Moses Cook, familiarly known as "Little Moser"; but little Moser was not a success. On the Wednesday, promising to lend a hand "in five minutes," he delayed coming until he had found time to get drunk and then arrived with the proposal that Bettesworth should give him a pint to start with. "Git out o' my way!" was Bettesworth's reply. The next day the little man was willing, but useless.
"Couldn't even git up there by ol' Dame Skinner's with a empty barrer! I says to 'n, 'Git in an' let me wheel ye up!' I says. Made me that wild! Why, I'd lifted a chest into the barrer all by myself—and he must ha' weighed a hundred and a quarter, with what there was in 'n, ye know—and wheeled 'n down. And then to see this little feller. 'You be in my way,' I says. 'You better go 'ome and sit down, and then p'raps we shall be able to git something done!' I was wild. I told 'n, 'They says Gawd made man in His own image—you must be a bloomin' counterfeit!'"
At one time there was a threat of rain, and Bettesworth "whacked all the beddin' he could on to the barrer, and down and in with it." Fortunately, the rain held off.
Towards night the cart came into action. It brought a load or two of firewood—not along the stream itself, but beside it, through the flooded meadow. The wood was tipped out on to the raised bank across the stream, just opposite Bettesworth's new home, there to remain for the night. But the old man could not rest with it there.
"I got all that across," he said, "and into the dry. Crawte couldn't hardly believe it when I told 'n this mornin'. But I did. Fetched it across in the dark." It was an almost incredible feat, for the night was of the blackest, and the stream four or five feet wide. "And then, when I got in, I had to put up the bedstead, with only the ol' gal to help me. An' if you told her one thing, it only seemed to make her forget to do something else. Talk about tired! I never had nothin' all that time—not even half a pint o' beer. Ye see, there wa'n't nobody I could send, an' I couldn't spare time to go myself, 'relse I should ha' liked a glass o' beer. But I never had nothin' not afore I'd done. Then I had some tea, but I was too tired to eat. P'r'aps, if I'd ha' been able to have half a pint earlier, I might ha' bin able to eat; but, as 'twas, I couldn't eat. And now this mornin' my back and shoulders aches—with wheelin' down that gully, ye know."
As it is not mentioned elsewhere, I may as well say here that Bettesworth's endeavours to make this little place habitable and respectable were for a time fairly successful. As it should have been explained, after emerging from the gully the public footpath runs close in front of the doorway of the place, leaving some eight feet of garden between itself and the stream. Of old, in the Irishman's time, this garden was an entanglement of weeds and stunted cabbages, while the footpath was unswept, disgusting, and often blocked with a pail of ashes or other household refuse. But now a spirit of order had appeared on the scene. The cabbage-plot became comely; in due season old-fashioned cottage flowers—pinks and nasturtiums—appeared in two tiny borders under the windows on either side of the door, and the mean doorway itself was beautified by a rough but sufficient arbour of larch-posts before it, up which "canary-creeper" found its way. Accordingly, I heard from time to time, but neglected to set down, how this and that wayfarer had praised the old man's improvements. Did not the Vicar himself say (I seem to remember Bettesworth's telling me so with much gratification) that he would never have believed the place could be made to look so well? Of the inside, perhaps, not so much could be said; but even this was passable at first, before the old wife's breakdown spoilt all. For several years, in fact, Bettesworth was, I believe, very happy in this cottage. At any rate, it gave him scope for labour, and he always liked that. He had hardly been in possession a week before he was talking of an improvement much to his mind.
"There's a rare lot o' capital soil in the lake under they withies just against my garden," he said; and he proposed taking it out to enrich his garden.
"It'll be good for the lake, too," I suggested.
"Yes," he replied, "it wants clearin' out. Why, in some places there en't no lake, and half the water that comes down got to overflow and make floods."