Wondering at his knowledge, I commented on the endless variety of technical details never dreamt of by people like myself; and Bettesworth assented, without interest, however, in me or other people or anything but his subject. "That's one o' the things you wants to learn, if you be goin' with hosses—when you got a load. Law! half o' these carters on the road dunno whether they got a load or whether they en't. I've almost forgot now; but I learnt it once."
"How do you mean 'learnt' it? Picked it up?"
"No. 'Tis in a book. You can learn to reckon things.... If you be goin' for a tree, or a block o' stone, or bricks, you wants to know what's a load for a hoss, or a two or a three hoss load. A mason told me once, when I was goin' for a block o' stone. He put his tape round it, an' told me near the matter what it weighed. He said you always ought to carry a two-foot rule in your pocket; and then put it across the stone—or p'r'aps 'tis two or three bits you got to take...."
As there is nothing in the talk itself to give the impression, it must have been my working in the sunshine when I heard of these details, that now makes them—the glaring stone-mason's yard, the village smithy, the engine hauling bricks along the high road—seem all sun-baked and dusty, in the heat which men like Bettesworth have to face, while I am admiring the summer landscape.
Twice in the early days of July the old man's homely rustic living is touched upon. By now, in the cottage gardens, the broad-beans are at their best; and he desires, it is said in one place, no better food than beans, served for choice with a bit of bacon. But there are peas too; and one day he tells me simply that he "had peas three times yesterday. There's always some left from dinner, and then I has 'em in a saucer for my supper."
July 29.—As July ran to its close, the weather, though still warm, turned gloomy, and showers came streaking down in front of the grey dismal distance. "They gives a poor account of the harvest," says Bettesworth. "What? have they started?" I ask; and he, "Yes, I've heared of a smartish few."
I supposed he meant in Sussex; but it appeared not. "No," he said, "I dunno as they've begun in Sussex, but about here. Lent corn, oats, an' barley, an' so on. There's So-and-so"—he named three or four farmers reported to have begun cutting, and went on, "But 'tis all machine work, so there won't be much" (extra work). "But the straw en't no higher 'n your knees in some parts, so they says.... 'Twas the cold spring—an' then the dryth. But it don't much matter about the barley. I've heared old people say they've knowed barley sowed and up and harvested without a drop o' rain on it fust to last. Where you gets straw" (with other crops, I suppose, is the meaning) "there en't no fear about the barley: 'tis a thing as 'll stand dryth as well as purty near anything."
He had "heard old people say"—things like these that he was now saying. And Bettesworth's phrase will bear thinking of, for its indication of the topics which the progress of the summer months had always been wont to renew in his brain year by year.
Unhappily, about this period something less pleasing was beginning to force itself upon his attention.