"Twal'month. And I had to pay my washin' an' buy my own clothes out o' that."
The point was interesting. Did he buy his clothes at a shop, ready made?
"Yes. That was always same as 'tis now. Well, there was these round frocks--you'd get _they_"--home-made, he meant. And he told how his sister-in-law, Mrs. Loveland, and her mother "used to earn half a living" at making these "round" or smock frocks to order, for neighbours. The stuff was bought: the price for making it up was eighteen-pence, "or if you had much work on 'em, two shillin's."
"The gaugin', you know, about here." Bettesworth spread his hands over his chest, and continued, "Most men got 'em made; their wives 'd make 'em. Some women, o' course, if they wasn't handy wi' the needle, 'd git somebody else to do 'em. They was warmer 'n anybody 'd think. And if you bought brown stuff, 'tis surprisin' what a lot o' rain they'd keep out. One o' them, and a woollen jacket under it, and them yello' leather gaiters right up your thighs--you could go out in the rain.... But 'twas a white round frock for Sundays."
At this point I let the talk wander; and presently Bettesworth was relating perhaps the least creditable story he ever told me about himself. In judging him, however, if anyone desires to judge him after so many years, the circumstances should be borne in mind. The farm-lad on thirty shillings a year, the young soldier from the Crimea where he had been rationed on rum, marrying at last and settling down in this village where the rough eighteenth-century habits still lingered, might almost be expected to shock his twentieth-century critics. Be it admitted that his behaviour on the death of his father-in-law was disgraceful; but let it be allowed also that that father-in-law, the old road-foreman, was a drunken tyrant--at times a dangerous madman--at whose death it was natural to rejoice. However, I will let Bettesworth get on with his story.
The "white round frock on Sundays" reminded him of his father-in-law's costume-frock as described, tall hat, and knee-breeches; and this recalled (here on this rainy June day where we talked in the shed) how tall a man he was; and how, lying on the floor in the stupor of death, just across the lane there, he looked "like a great balk o' timber." Confusedly the narrative hurried on after this. A cottage was mentioned, which used to stand where now that resident lives who could not endure the Bettesworths for his tenants. This was the maiden home of Bettesworth's mother-in-law; and to this the mother-in-law would flee for refuge, in terror of being murdered by her husband in his drunken frenzies. Then would the husband follow, and "break in all the windows"; for which he was "kept out" of the owner's will, and lost much property that would have been his. Particulars of his suicide followed: the man cut his throat and lay speechless for eight days before he died. But at the first news Bettesworth, being one son-in-law, was dispatched to a village some five miles distant, to fetch home another. He borrowed a pony and cart; found his brother-in-law, "and," he said, "we both got as boozy as billyo on the way home.... ''Arry,' I says, 'the old foreman bin an' done for hisself.'" At every public-house they came to they had beer, treating the pony also; and finally they came racing through the town at full speed. "We should ha' bin locked up for it now. No mistake we _come_, when we did get away. And when we got 'ome, 'Arry stooped over to speak to 'n, an' fell over on his face. I didn't wait for _my_ lecture: I had to get the pony home. It was runnin' off 'n, when I got 'n down to his stable, with the pace we'd made, an' the beer he'd had. We should ha' got into trouble for it if 't had been now. The old woman come out, an' begun goin' on about it; but the old man says, 'You might be sure they'd travel, for such a job. And he won't be none the worse for it.' We put 'n in the stable, an' give 'n another pint o' beer, and rubbed 'n down an' throwed two or three hop-sacks over 'n; an' next mornin' he was as right as ever."