Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer

r beans (I can picture now their warm tints of decay), and he estimated our chances of getting another picking from them. The chances were good, he thought, because in the sheltered

I find it associated in my mind with the

of "white fly" flitted out as I walked between them; and, again, Bettesworth's name for that form of blight-"they little minn

ls of it; but, in rough summary, an old woman had died, her last days rendered unhappy by the misbehaviour of her son-a young labourer. Talk of his "carrying on," his late hours, his frantic drinking, and subsequent delirium, cr

ler gets such a good ho

er right to 't?" was Bett

ershot station by hundreds, if not thousands, to make sure that he had a welcome. On the following Monday Bettesworth, full of enthusiasm, gave me an account of the affair as he had had it from numerous eyewitnesses. For, in truth, it had been "all the talk yesterday"-on the Sunday, namely. Young Bill Skinner, in particular, had been voluble, with such exclamations, such staring of excited eyes, that Bettesworth wa

he cheerin'-there! Skinner said he hollered till he was hoarse. He ast me" (Bettesworth)

o tearing off enthusiastically for an eight-mile walk, which was sure to end in a good deal of drinking and excitement. His d

and exhibiting an unwonted kindliness, had thrown her into sudden hysteria ending in epileptic fits. Even had Bettesworth felt inclined, he could not have left her. He told me the circumstances, and much, too, of her life history-the most of which has been already published, an

. The inflated prices of labour seemed to him unwholesome; they were having an injurious effect upon young men, giving them an exaggerated opinion of their true worth as labourers. And this was particularly true, since the building of the new camp at Bordon had begun. "Old Tom Rawson," he reported, had "never seen the likes of the young fellers that was callin' theirselves carpenters an' bricklayers now. Any young chap only got to take a trowel over to Woolmer (by Bordon), and he'd be put on as a bricklayer, at sixpence a hour. And you maw

hat had he to do with the War Office and inefficiency in high places? From this very talk, it is recorded, he turned appreciatively to watch the cat purring round my legs, and by her fond softness was reminded of his rabbits-six young ones-which the mother had not allowed him to see until yesterday. And

, Bettesworth being cognizant of all, but saying little. It did not disturb the peacefulness of his own existence. Events might come or delay, he was content; he was ha