Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer

g the work he was doing there yesterday, I found him some digging to do in a more sheltered corner, where the fork would e

scorcher, that was.-There! I couldn't tell anybody how we did git through. Still, we got through, somehow.

m was also dead. Including the other twin, there were seven children living. Bettesworth talked o

ear to see 'em like that, 'specially if there's little childern about. I give away bushels o' taters that winter, 'cause them

hine, dimmed now and then by grey fog close down to the earth, and now and then by large drifts of foggy cloud passing over from the north. By mid-day the roads were sticky, where the sunshine

ellow sunset; the soft dim blue of the upper sky was changing to hazy grey in the south-east; in the west, veiling the sunset, lay a bank of

orth, how are

cold,

ut from their movement and their indistinct and changing form it was plain that they belonged to the system of those larger clouds whi

raightened up

hat everybody

ks uncommonly

in' to have some snow, an' no mistake." He chuckled grimly and continued, "I dunno how we shall git on if it c

nyhow, there seems to b

ut up with it. Bear it an' grumble-that's what we

right to grumble; but we hardly learnt to li

'tis a great ill-convenience.'" The touch of epigram in Tower's saying seemed to please Bettesworth, and his speech flowed out with a smooth undulat

worth of a certain boy's being bitten by a dog. "Have he bit'n much?" was the first eager exclamation, fol

y sent to 'n from the Post Office to tell 'n 'less he mind to keep his dog tied up he'd have to send an' fetch his letters hisself.... Nasty sly sort o' dog he is, no mistake. He goes slinkin' an' prowlin' about up there; he's never tied up. And he don't

at a man should care to

th shook

And he took this 'ere shoulder o' mutton and run upstairs into one o' the rooms, and he wouldn't come out for nobody. I was at work out in the garden, and the servant she come runnin' out to me, to ast me if I'd come an' get 'n out. 'I dunno s'much about that,' I says; ''ten't a job as I cares about

and-

me for me sure enough. But I give 'n two or three 'cross the nose with

dn't have rel

raid of 'n. I drove 'n out, but I wa

to cover a short flight of steps in the garden. Two briars at the top of the steps, one on each side, had overgrown

only clashed with all the gradients of the garden, but converged towards one another, so that, seen from above, they were horrid to behold. And then the slanting side-rails! They agreed with nothing else in all the landscape save the steps below them. Of course, when the briars covered these discrepancies, all would be well; but just while Bettesworth and myself

wires over it, being, as we fondly imagined, an easier task, released our t

ight enoug

l do,"

e, "I can easy ti

d I, "tha

s and fastened the ends of 'em with jest black cotton. We made it look all like a knot, and he never see what we was up to. An' when it come to pullin', there was he makin' out to be pullin', leanin' back with his arms stretched out a-gruntin' 'Ugh!... Ugh!' and all the time never pullin' a pound. Why, if he'd on'y pulled half a dozen pounds, he'd ha' broke that cotton;

r wire-straining. We began to agree that we hardly felt as if

much about goin' out to ta

gh, but, to our dismay, the tightening of a second wire invariably

tight, an'

ook at the

's we got one tight we loosened another. We did git in a pucker over 'm, an' no mistake. I remember I told Bill Harris down 'ere what a bother we'd bin 'avin', and he says, 'Ah, I knows you must 've had a job.' He'd had just such a bother hisself, on'y he had all the proper tools an' everything. He borried Mr. Mi

glad of other people's p

away and left

' he thought for to have it all jest right an' proper. But everybody as come

hope we shan't have t

I en't never see 'em a puttin' of it up; but I've seen the fences after it bin put up, an' ver

m undertake such a job. To make up for his defective sight, it was his way to grope out blindly for a thing just before him, and find it by touch; and in

t they smart wherever the cold water touched one o' they scratches! My ol' gal says to me, 'What be ye hushin' about?' 'So 'd you hush,' I says, '

the shadows like daffodils shining against grass. And there is the roar of a big wind in t

wift sunshine glistens on the white of their shirts, and shows them up agai

I went to him and complained of the coldness of it

since then, but she'll git back again to the south, you'll see. I've noticed it many's a time. Right south she was at twelve o'clock when t

ow that she could

ind spring. I don't say she'll bide there all the time;

this strong north wind. It wou

to it when I be in bed-it makes me feel so comfortable. No matte

the ground long ago; the beans are up two inches; the first sowing of peas shows well in the rows; others were put in last week. Shallots are sending up their green spikes; there are a few potatoes already planted; and now every ef

y garden. It was seven o'clock, and dark, by the time they had finished; then they went home and had supp

n' about, and gets so

I eats.... No, nor I don't sleep, neither. If I got anythink

pe, had one smoke, then ki

en't no good settin' here,

gain in the morning

d. "It got to be done, and I

eady mentioned, and came to

Presently the man from the cottage just a

er than ever this ye

. I wants to git it

ghed. "Be you determined on gettin' all

care whether 'tis March or April.

ffed him. "You bin th

x he went back home, an

Noah. "What? Y

you ought

l eleven or twelve at night readin' the paper.

ge, and the public-house is the club-room where the discus

's tired, and wants to go to bed. But Saturday night and Sunday-well, you can't bide indoors solitary, lookin' at the fire. If

wers, "Well, then, if I was you, I should dig that ground up now-rake off the stones" (carrots being "a very tender herbage"). "Then, if it comes rain, that

n't let it settle the drill sows 'em too deep; it sinks in. Ca

ar, and he made five pound of 'em." Or was it that he had five tons, and sold

oon be puttin' in

t o' mine

n't sowed non

Durrant, t

knowed he once plant some three foot both ways. And law, what a crop he did git! 'Twas a piece o' ground his landlord let 'n have for the breakin' of it up. And he trenched in a lot o' fuzz-old fuzz-bushes as high as you be-and so on. Everything went in. And such a crop o' taters as he had-no, no dressin'. Only this old fuzz-stuff. Regents, they was. Oh, that was a splendid tater, too! But you never hears of 'em now. They sims to be reg'lar gone out. I got some o' these here Dunbars, down here. I should like to see half a bushel o' they in this bit o' ground o' you