Part 11 (1/2)

XVIII

The Old Year, so far as my notes show it, had run to its close without event for Bettesworth, just as the New Year was to do, excepting for one big trouble Yet he was not quite theof 1902 The twelve uneventfultheir marks upon hiressive, cumulative in their effect On this day or on that, none could have pointed to a change in the old ed that he was not so the day before; but as the seasons swung round it was i It is well, therefore, to pause and see what he had become by this time before we enter upon another year of his life

There was one silent witness to the increasing decay of his powers that could not be overlooked The garden gave hi to visit me and it were embarrassed to knohat to say, or they even hinted that it would be an econoer man, ould do as much work, and do it better, in half the time As if I needed to be told that! But then they were not witnesses, with arden--hich Bettesworth sought to make aard for him, even while its poor results alour was getting slow; and the ti, if it had not co behind arden to another A reater effort on his part the garden ground was less orked I don't believe he knew that He used a favourite old spade, worn down like himself, and never realized that ”two spits deep” with this tool were little better than one spit with a proper one; and he could not make out why the carrots forked, and the peas failed early

But the worst trial of all was due to another and more pitiful cause

I could reconcile h--but exasperation was daily renewed by the little daily failures in routine work, owing to his defective sight, which greorse and worse There were the garden paths With what care the old ht, blindly feeling for the rubbish he could not see, and getting it all save frootten to take account! Little nests of disorder collected in this way, to-day here, to-ain, at the laing, never man worked harder than Bettesworth, or more conscientiously; but he could not see the track of his ured the sone twice over it to o near a flower border He would avoid treading on any plant of whose existence he knew, by an act of memory; but he could not know all, and I had to liarden he planted or tended himself

What made the situation so difficult to deal as that his intentions were so good He was hiht to keep hinorance of the fact than otherwise I felt instinctively that, once it was admitted, all would be over for Bettesworth; because he was incapable of , and open complaints from me must in the end have led to his diset another e that the world had no ht as well die out of the way But I had no courage to condemn him to death because my laas ill cut With one exception, when I sent him to an oculist to see if spectacles would help him (the oculist reported to ht left”), we kept up the fiction that he could see to do his work And his patient, silent struggles to do ere not without an ele the oldhow long I should be able to endure theether useless If he was slow, he was still strong; if he was half blind, he holly efficient at heavy straightforork During this winter, in ood deal of excavating work, Bettesworth was like a first-rate navvy, and eagerly put all his experience ata water-pipe With a young ain, in about half the time that the job would have taken if it had been entrusted to a contractor In one place a little pocket of bright red gravel was found This, of his own initiative, he put aside for use on the paths which he was too blind to sweep clean But, in truth, a sort of sympathy with my desires and a keen eye toin this kind of way He had identified himself with the place; was proud of it; boasted to his friends of ”our” successes; and like a ood of the garden was concerned, but with aching limbs--his ankle where he had once broken it pained hi on for his own satisfaction, when I would have suggested to his easily

I have said that there were those who considered hie for me There were others, I am sure, to whoossiping, not over clean

Pretty often--especially in bad weather, when there was not --he went on errands for etables toAt ; they owed to hie and sticks of celery, for which they would reward hilass of beer or the price of it Afterwards I would hear la Once or twice--hardly oftener in all these years--I had to speak to hione; for the glass of beer and the gossip where he delivered his cabbages did not always satisfy his cravings for society and comfort: he would turn into a public-house--”Dan Vickery's” for choice--and come back too late and too talkative It was a fault, if you like; but the wonder to lasses where one was enough, but that, with his wit and delight in good corace

Those two or three occasions when he earned my sharp reproofs, and for half a day afterwards lost his sense of comfort in rown too dreary, his outlook too hopeless, even for his fortitude Some readers, no doubt, will be offended by his taste for beer I hope there will be soive him credit for the months and years in which, with these few exceptions, he controlled the appetite Reious convictions, nor did the peasant traditions by which he lived afford hi a decent h all his life, not to be rich, but to live upright and unasharirey old life was full of fight for its idea of being a ive in to anything which it had learnt to regard as weakness I re down, after I had upbraided a failure, at the old li over the soil in such huht that very likely they were tired and aching

This enfeebled body--dead now andin the churchyard--was alive in those days, and felt pain Do but think of that, and then think of the patient, resolute spirit in it, which aled its weaknesses, but had its self-respect, its half-savage instincts toward righteousness, its smothered tastes, its untold affections and its tenderness That was the old ood-te, but experienced, e have to i yet another year of his life, and a prospect in which there is little for him to hope for Nay, there was much for him to dread, had he known A separate chapter, however, iven to the severe trouble which, as already hinted, overtook him in the early weeks of 1903

XIX

While the advance of ti Bettesworth hiun to play havoc with his environ this same winter of 1902-3 shows the advent of new circus and persons of the twentieth century had begun to invade our valley, where men and woh

The co of the new influence was perhaps too subtle for Bettesworth to be conscious of it Perhaps heaway of the old-fashi+oned life, by death or departure of his forer being replaced, as they would have been in former times, by others like them Of our old friends close around us four or five were by this time dead, and others had moved farther afield We missed especially old Mrs Skinner Since her husband's death in 1901 her doements had not been happy, and in the autumn just past she had disposed of her little property, and was gone to live across the valley But note the circuht this property--the cottage and nearly an acre of ground--for about 70 He may have subsequently added 50 to its value Noever, his as able to sell it for soe was overtaking us

I shall revert to this presently For the ather up some stray sentences of Bettesworth's which, perhaps, indicate how unlikely he was to accommodate himself to new circue was a man named Kelway--a curious, nondescript person, as to whose ”derivings” we speculated in vain What had he been before he came here? No one ever discovered that, but his behaviour was that of an artisan from near London--a plasterer or a builder's carpenter--who had co me jauntily on one occasion that he should not feel settled until he had brought holad that it never came!), and on another that he had ht unlikely; and I cannot forget--for there are signs of it to this day--how ruthlessly he destroyed the natural contours of his garden with ill-devised ”improvee, too, wearing while at the work the correct garb of a plasterer; and it was in this costu familiarity ”He says to me” (thus Bettesworth), ”'I suppose you don't knoho I am in my dirty dishabille?' 'No,' I says, 'and if I tells the truth, I don't care nuther' _He's dirty dishabille!_ He got too much old buck for me!” Shortly afterwards he asked Bettesworth to direct hi else,' he says, 'but plue of' So I says, 'If I was you I should sleep with a pluain, in the end of January, Bettesworth reported: ”That ets, an' so on” (Reround) ”So I told 'n, and he says, 'What do they run to for price?' 'Oh, about a shi+llin' a quart,' I says; and that's what they _do_ run to 'I hin' at 'n An' he says he must have a load o' ed_ to laugh at 'n”

Of course, such a neighbour would in no circumstances have pleased Bettesworth I believe the man had many estimable qualities, but they were dwarfed beside his own appreciation of them; and his subsequent disappointhbourhood, were not of the kind to engage Bettesworth's sympathy

Indeed, he had no chance of approval in that quarter, co in the place of old Mrs Skinner, with her peasant lore and her pigs

But if this egregious man was personally offensive to Bettesworth, he was not intrinsically e to the old man than those who followed hi in the parish There were to be no more Mrs Skinners Wherever one of the old country sort of people dropped out from our midst, people of urban habits took their place These were of two classes: either wealthy people of leisure, seeking residences, and bringing their own gardeners anted ho town, ready to pay high rents for the cottages whose value was so swiftly rising The stealthiness of the process blinded us, however, to as happening When Bettesworth began, as he did now, to feel the pressure of civilization pushi+ng hiht and left, property was changing hands A big house in the next hollow, but with its grounds overpeering this, had been bought by a wealthy resident, and was under repair, already let to some friends of his There ith it in the saarden, with two or three cottages visible from here; and everybody rejoiced when the disreputable tenants of one of these cottages had notice to quit It was hoped that the neas sensible of the duties as well as the rights attaching to property

Meanwhile, Bettesworth's hovel, too, was in thelately dead; and in the market it remained, while Bettesworth claave up hope By the beginning of 1903 he had resolved to quit his old cottage as soon as he could find another to go into

He waited still soerly sought after--and then what seee with the disreputable tenants has beenhouse It must have been early in February when the whisper that it was to be vacant reached Bettesworth, who forthwith announced to ood, for hiht the place; but there was no other in the neighbourhood to be heard of, and it was not only for its pleasantness that the old man coveted it With his wife there he would be able to keep watch over her while he was at work here, and there would be almost an end to those anxieties about her fits, which often o home I remember the secrecy of his talk He wanted no one to forestall hi a recommendation of him as a desirable tenant, which he forthwith took to the owner Why, indeed, should I have hesitated?

Between Bettesworth's punctiliousness on suchhim if need be, there was no fear as to the payment of the rent And the iued well for the care he would take of this better cottage

My recommendation did its work Bettesworth was duly accepted as tenant; he gave notice to leave the other place, and began preparations for ; and then, too late, it dawned upon otten old Mrs Bettesworth I had not set eyes on her for , to see the state it was in I only knew that outside the walls ashed, the garden and paths orderly

The first doubts visiteddone on a scale too extravagant to fit the Bettesworths

The next resulted froe at Bettesworth's desire He was beyond measure proud to have a place into which he could invite me without shame; and he tookthe garden, without suspicion of anything amiss Probably his eyes were too dim to see what I saw Some of his furniture, already heaped on the floor in one of the clean new-papered roos of trouble However, it was too late to withdraw

There was no going back to that abandoned place down in the valley