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.'"
XVI
During these months, the story of Bettesworth's having been a soldier in the Crimea remained unverified. I was watching for hints of it from him, and he gave not the slightest; for opportunities of asking him about it without offence, and not one occurred. And slowly the tale receded from my mind, and my belief in it dwindled away.
By what chance, or in what circumstances, the mystery suddenly recurred to me is more than I can tell now. But one rainy May afternoon—I remember that much—the old man was in the wood-shed, sitting astraddle on one block of wood, and chopping firewood on another block between his knees. He looked careless enough, comfortable enough, sitting there in the dry, with the sound of rain entering through the open shed door. What was it he said, or I, to give me an opening? I shall never know; but presently I found myself challenging him to confess the truth of what was reported of him.
And I remember well how at once his careless expression changed, as if he had been taxed with a fault, and how for some seconds he sat looking fixedly before him in a shamefaced, embarrassed way, like a schoolboy who has been "found out." For some seconds the silence lasted; then he said reluctantly, "It's true. So I was." And the circumstantial talk that followed left me without any further doubt on the point.
It was at the Rose and Crown—a well-known tavern in the neighbouring town—that he 'listed. His "chum" (I don't know who his chum was) had already enlisted at Alton, and "everybody thought," as Bettesworth said, that he too had done so at the same time, for he had the soldier's belt on, there in the Alton inn. But he had not taken the shilling there. He returned home to his brother Jim, "what was up there at Middlesham, same job as old Stubby got now—seventeen year he had 'long with the charcoal-burners up there"—and Jim urged him to "go to work." Bettesworth, however, was obstinate. "No," he said, "I shall go to Camden Fair." "Better by half go to work." "No, I shall git about." "And I come down to the town" (so his tale continued), "and there I see my chum what had 'listed at Alton day before. 'Come on,' he says; 'make up your mind to go with we.' ''Greed,' I says. And I went up 'long with 'n to the Rose and Crown...."