This was in allusion to the indifferent crop of hops just being picked and the consequently small demand for charcoal; but it was a digression too. We had begun talking of a wasp sting. From that to gnats, and from gnats to a certain tank where they bred, was an obvious transition.
And now the tank suggested charcoal. For, according to Bettesworth, a little knob of charcoal put into a tank is better than an equal quantity of lime, for keeping the water sweet. Further, "If you got a bit o' meat that's goin' anyways wrong, you put a little bit o' charcoal on to that, and you won't taste anything bad. I've heared ever so many charcoal-burners say that. And meat is a thing as won't keep—not butcher's meat; partic'lar in the summer when you sims to want it most—something with a little taste to 't." So, charcoal is useful; but "Ah! it's purty near all up with charcoal-burnin' now."
A good deal that followed, about the technicalities of charcoal-burning, has been printed in another place, and is omitted here. One point, however, may now be taken up. It is the curious fact that all the charcoal-burners of the neighbourhood are congregated in one district, and the numerous families of them rejoice in one name—that of Parratt.
"I never knowed anybody but Parratts do it about here," Bettesworth said; and the name reminded him of a story, as follows:
"My old brother-in-law Snip was down at Devizes one time—him what used to travel with a van—Snip they always called 'n. And there was a feller come into the fair with one of these vans all hung round with bird-cages, ye know—poll-parrots and all kinds o' birds. So old Snip says to 'n, 'Parrots?' he says, 'what's the use o' you talkin' about parrots? Why, where I come from,' he says, 'we got Parratts as 'll burn charcoal, let alone talk. Talk better 'n any o' yourn,' he says. 'You give 'em some beer and they'll talk—or dig hop-ground, or anything.' Lor'! how that feller did go on at 'n, old Snip said!"
Bettesworth knew something of charcoal-burning by experience, but he owned himself ignorant of its inner technical niceties. Moreover, he felt it right to respect a trade "mystery," explaining, "'Tis no use to be a trade, if everybody can do it. 'Relse we should have poor livin' then."
October 31, 1902.—A memorandum of October 31 gives just a foretaste of the approaching winter, and just a momentary searching back into the experience gained when Bettesworth worked at a farm. For there must have been hoar-frost lingering on the lawn that last morning in October, to evoke the old man's opinion, "the less you goes about on grass while there's a frost on it the better" for the grass. "If anybody goes over a bit o' clover-lay with the white frost on it you can tell for a month after what course they took."
November 11.—Amid some personalities which it would be difficult to disguise and which had better be omitted, I find in November another reference to the harsh social life of the village, and it is in connexion with that same bully whom Bettesworth had previously chastised. As before, details must be suppressed; I only suggest that in these dark November nights the labourers in want of company of course sought it at the public-house. There, I surmise, the bully was boasting, until Bettesworth shut him up with a retort brutally direct. Even as it was repeated to me his expression is not printable. Bettesworth was no angel. He seemed rather, at times, a hard-grained old sinner; but he always took the manly side, whether with fists or coarse tongue. In this instance his fitting rebuke won a laugh of approval from the company, and even "a pint" for himself from one who was a relative, but no friend, of the offender.
December 16.—One dry, cloudy day in December Bettesworth used his tongue forcibly again, but in how much pleasanter a connexion! A little tree in the garden had to be transplanted to a new position, on the edge of a bed occupied by old sprouting stumps of kale. One of these stumps was exactly in the place destined for the tree, and Bettesworth ruthlessly pulled it up, talking to it:
"You come out of it. There's plenty more like you. If you complains, we'll chuck ye in the bottom o' the hole for the tree to feed on!"