And once again his talk shows how far he was, that afternoon, from thinking of himself as an infirm person, or an object of pity. I am struck by the contrast between his later view of things and this which he professed, when still in good health. For, speaking appreciatively of Widow Morris as "the cleanest old soul as ever lived," he went on to say that, though he did not know what she was doing at that time, she had been in the workhouse. It puzzled him how she lived, and others like her. And when I said, "She ought to be in the workhouse," he echoed the opinion emphatically. "Better off there than what they be at home, sir." So with Mrs. Connor. "It's a mystery how she lives. And there's that son of hers, mungs about with a short pipe stuck in his mouth," and by sheer idleness had lost several jobs, at which he might have been earning eleven shillings a week. "And that poor gal, he's sister, got to starve herself to keep her mother and that lout. Cert'nly, she ought to keep her mother," but, for the lout, Bettesworth's politer vocabulary was insufficient.
So we talked in the gathering winter dusk, able, both of us, in the assurance of the comfortable evening before us, to consider the workhouse as a refuge with which neither of us would ever make personal acquaintance. If I was unimaginative and therefore callous, so was Bettesworth. It was he who said, "I reckons that's what they places be for—old people past work, and little helpless childern." But as to the able-bodied, "That stoneyard's the place for they, I'd put it on to 'em, so's it 'd give 'em sore hearts, if it didn't sore hands."
And then he told of a tramp—a carpenter—who had earned his tenpence an hour, and now was using workhouses to lodge in at night, while all day he was "munging about" (or "doing a mung"), cadging a few halfpence for beer.
"And that 'ere bloke down near we, he's another of 'em. Earns eightpence-halfpenny, and his son sixpence. But they gets it all down 'em." They had not paid Mrs. Skinner for the pork obtained from her the previous week; indeed, they paid nobody. "Never got nothing, and yet there's only they two and the old woman."
What a contrast were these wasters—that was the idea of Bettesworth's talk—with those two poor old widow women, whom he could afford to pity in his strength and comfort!
December 24.—The next note brings us to Christmas Eve. The weather on the preceding day had changed from rimy frost to tempestuous rain, which at nightfall began to be mingled with snow. By his own account Bettesworth went to bed soon after seven, although even his wife urged that it was too early, and that he would never lie till morning. He had heard the tempest, and the touch of the snow against his bedroom window, and so had his wife. It excited her. "Ben't ye goin' to look out at it?" she said. And he, "That won't do me no good, to look at it. We got a good fire in here."
Such was his own chuckling account of his attitude towards the storm when I stood by him the next morning high up in the garden, and watched him sweeping the path. He discussed the prospects for the day, rejoiced that the snow had not lain, and, looking keenly to the south, where a dun-coloured watery cloud was travelling eastwards, its edges melting into luminous mist and just hiding the sun, he thought we might expect storms. The old man's spirits were elated; and then it was, when the western end of the valley suddenly lit up as with a laugh of spring sunlight, and the radiance came sweeping on and broke all round us—then it was that Bettesworth, as I have elsewhere[1] related, stood up to give the sunshine his glad welcome.
A narrative followed which helps to explain his good spirits, or at least discovers the powers of endurance on which they rested. I said, "We have passed the shortest day—that's a comfort." He stopped sweeping again, to answer happily, "Yes. And now in about four or five weeks we shall begin to see the difference. And that's when we gets the bad weather, lately."
He stood up, the watery sunshine upon him, and leaning on his broom, he continued, "I remember one winter, after I was married, we did have some weather. Eighteen inches and two foot o' snow there was—three foot, in some places. I'd bin out o' work—there was plenty o' work to do, but we was froze out. For five weeks I 'adn't earnt tuppence. When Christmas Day come, we had somethin' for dinner, but 'twa'n't much; and we had a smartish few bottles o' home-made wine.
"Christmas mornin' some o' the chaps I'd bin at work with come round. 'What about that wine?' they says. So we had two or three cupfuls o' wine; and then they says, 'Ben't ye comin' 'long o' we?' 'No,' I says, 'not 's mornin'.'" Here he shut his mouth, in remembered resignation, as if still regarding these tempters. "'What's up then?' they says. 'Come on!' 'No,' I says, 'not to-day.' 'Why not?' 'Cause I en't got no money,' I says. 'Gawd's truth!' they says, 'if that's it...' and I raked in six shillin's from amongst 'em. I give four to the old gal, and I kep' two myself, and then I was right for the day."