He was obliged to admit, though, that in his own boyhood he had been as careless as any of these. And a few minutes later he was confessing to another boyish fault. In a cottage hard by, little Timothy Porter—a chubby little chap about five years old—was on very friendly terms with old Bettesworth. He had but lately started his schooling, and almost immediately was taken unwell and had to stay at home a week or two. I happened now to ask Bettesworth how little Tim was getting on.
"Oh, he's gettin' all right: goin' to school again Monday. He've kicked up a rare shine, 'cause they wouldn't let 'n go. I likes 'n for that. I likes to hear of a boy eager for learnin'—not to see 'm make a shine and their mothers have to take 'em three parts o' the way. Not but what I wanted makin' when I was a nipper. Many's a time I've clucked up to a tree jest this side o' Cowley Bridge, and that old 'oman" (I don't know what old woman) "come out an' drive me. There wa'n't no school then nearer 'n Lyons's—where Smith the wheelwright lives now. He used to travel with tea, and I dessay half a dozen of us 'd come to his school from Cowley Bridge. We'd start off an' say we wouldn't go to school; but we 'ad to."
The frost, had it continued, would very soon have been calamitous to the working people. As it was, I saw bricklayers—good men known to me, and neighbours, too—standing idle in the town, at the street corners. And Bettesworth said,
"Some o' the shop-keepers down in the town begun to cry out about it. They missed the Poor Man. And I heared the landlord down 'ere at the Swan say he was several pounds out o' pocket by it."
December 2, 1904.—Fortunately it was not to last. The men got to work again; our gardening tasks could go forward. My notebook has this entry for the 2nd of December:
"Laying turf this afternoon, in wonderful mild dry weather."
XXIX
The thought came to me one of those afternoons, Was it I, or was it Bettesworth, who was growing dull? It might well have been myself; for at the unaccustomed labour of turf-laying, in weather that had turned mild and relaxing, mind no less than body was aware of fatigue, and perhaps on that account the old man's talk seemed less vivid than usual, less deserving of remembrance. At the same time I could not help speculating whether the livelier interests of his conversation might not be almost over. Had he much more to tell? Or had I heard it practically all?
At this turf-laying the parts were reversed now. Time had been when, at similar employments, I was the helper or onlooker; but now Bettesworth's sight was so bad that I could no longer leave him to unroll two turfs side by side and make their edges fit. I had to be down on the ground with him, or instead of him.
And yet he would not accept criticism. Did I say, "Shove that end up a little tighter," he would rejoin, "That's jest what I was a-goin' to do." Or, to my comment, "That isn't a first-rate fit just there," "No, sir," he would admit, "I was only jest layin' it so ontil," etc., etc. "You'll see that'll go down all right. That'll go down all right.... Yes, that'll go down all right." And he would fumble unserviceably, while the sentence trailed away into inaudible reiterations. Still, it was a rich, creamy, very quiet and pleasing old voice that spoke.