A sow-thistle in the near bank caught my eye. "Your rabbits will eat sow-thistles too, won't they?" I asked.
"Yes, they likes 'em very well. They'll eat 'em—an' then presently I shall eat they."
I pulled up the thistle, and another dandelion, while Bettesworth discoursed of the economics of rabbit-keeping. "'Ten't no good keepin' 'em for the pleasure.... But give me a wild rabbit to eat afore a tame one, any day. My neighbour Kid kills one purty near every week. He had one last Sunday must ha' wanted some boilin', or bakin', or somethin'."
"What, an old one?"
"Old buck. I ast 'n, 'What, have ye had yer teeth ground, then?' I says. He's purty much of a one for rabbits."
I was not so wonderfully fond of them, I said.
"No? I en't had e'er a one—I dunno when. Well—a rabbit, you come to put one down afore a hungry man, what is it? He's mother have gone an' bought one for 'n at a shop, when he en't happened to have one hisself—give as much as a shillin' or fifteenpence. 'Ten't worth it. Or else I've many a time bought 'em for sixpence—sixpence, or sixpence-ha'penny, or sevenpence. And they en't worth no more."
During all this he was sweeping up his grass cuttings. The children came out of school for afternoon recess, and their shoutings sounded across the valley. "There's the rebels let loose again," said Bettesworth. From where we stood, high on one of the upper terraces of the garden, we could see far. The sky was grey and melancholy. A wind blew up gustily out of the south-east, and I foreboded rain. "We don't want it from that quarter," Bettesworth replied. "That's such a cold rain. And I've knowed it keep on forty-eight hours, out o' the east.... I felt a lot better" (of the recent bronchitis) "when she" (the wind) "shifted out o' there before."
Meanwhile I had pulled up one or two more dandelions, to add to Bettesworth's heap; and now I espied a small seedling of bryony, which also I was careful to pull out. The root, already as big as a man's thumb, came up easily, and I passed it to Bettesworth, asking, "Isn't that what they give to horses sometimes?"
He handled it. "I never heared of anybody," he answered, perhaps not recognizing it at this small stage of growth. "Now, ground ivy! That's a rare thing. If you bakes the roots o' that in the oven, an' then grinds it up to a powder, you no need to call yer horses to ye, after you've give 'em that. They'll foller ye for it. Dandelion roots the same. Make 'em as fat! And their coats come up mottled, jest as if you'd knocked 'em all over with a 'ammer. They'll foller ye about anywhere for that. I've give it to 'em, many's a time; bin out, after my day's work, all round the hedges, purpose to get things for my 'osses. There's lots o' things in the hedgerow as is good for 'em. So there is for we too, if we only knowed which they was. We shouldn't want much doctor if we knowed about herbs.