I chanced to be able to give him the correct date, which he accepted easily, as if he had known all the time. "Oh ah," he said. "But there was something in eighteen hunderd and forty-seven—some great affair or other?... I dunno what 'twas, though, now.... Forty-seven? H'm!"
What could it have been? No, not the Mutiny. "That come after the Crimea. 'Twa'n't that. But there was something, I know."
I could not imagine what it could have been; but Bettesworth still pondered, and at last an idea struck him. "June, '47.... H'm!... Oh, I knows. Old Waterloo Day, that's what 'twas! There used to be a lot of 'em" (he was hurrying on, and I could only surmise that he meant Waterloo veterans) "at Chatham. I see one of 'em there myself, what had cut one of his hamstrings out o' cowardice, so's he shouldn't have to go into the battle. So then they cut the other, too, an' kep' 'n there" (at Chatham) "for a peep-show. He wa'n't never to be buried, but put in a glass case when he died.
"He laid up there in his bed, and anybody as mind could go up an' see 'n. They used to flog 'n every Waterloo Day—in the last years 'twas a bunch o' black ribbons he was flogged with. He had a wooden ball tied to a bit o' string; and you go up, and ast 'n about the 71st (?), and see what you'd git! 'Cause one of the soldiers o' the 71st went up there once, an' called 'n all manner o' things. O' course, when he'd throwed this ball he could always draw 'n back again, 'cause o' the string.... And every mornin' he was ast what he'd have to drink. They said he was worth a lot, and 't'd all go to a sergeant-major's daughter when he died, what looked after 'n.
"He was worth a lot o' money. Lots used to go up to see 'n—I did, and so did a many more, 'cause he was kep' there for show, and everybody as went up he'd ast 'm for something. He'd git half a crown, or ten shillin's, or a sovereign sometimes. But lots o' soldiers used to go an' let 'n have it.
"Ye see, he couldn't git up. He cut his own hamstring for cowardice, so's he shouldn't go into battle, and then they cut the other. 'Twas the Dook o' Wellington, they says, ordered it to be done, for a punishment. And, o' course, he never was able to walk again. That done him. There he laid on the bed, with waddin' wrapped all round to prevent sores. And in one part o' the room was the glass case ready for when he died, for 'n to be embarmed an' kep'—'cause he was never to be buried. Fifty year he laid there! I shouldn't much like his bit, should you?"
XXI
November 4, 1903.—One morning—it was the 4th of November—Bettesworth said, "I got a invitation out to a grand dinner to-night, down in the town. Veterans of the Crimea. But I shan't go. I'd sooner be at home and have a bit o' supper an' get to bed early.... No; it don't cost ye nothin'—an' plenty of everything; spirits, good food, a very good dinner. Still, you can't go to these sort o' things without spendin' a shillin'. And then be about half the night. I don't care about it. If I was to go, 't'd upset me to-morrer."
All this bewildered me. For one thing, it was plain that the fact of Bettesworth's having been a soldier was no secret after all. As he now went on to tell me, he had actually attended two previous dinners. Who were they, then, who knew his record, and got him his invitation? Who, indeed, was giving the dinner? Rumours of some such annual celebration, it is true, had reached me; but it was no public function. Even by name the promoters were unknown to me; and yet somehow they had known for several years before I did that my man had been a soldier in the Crimea.
At the moment, however, it was Bettesworth's refusal of the invitation that most surprised me, although his alleged reasons were very good. He so loved good cheer, and he had so few opportunities of enjoying it—the Oddfellows' dinner was the only other chance he ever had in any year—that I immediately suspected him of having been swayed in this instance by something else besides prudence. He sounded over-virtuous. And presently it struck me that there might have been something offensive to him in the way the invitation was given.