III
Farmer Bates met me at Great Hittenden Station. His was the only available horse and cart at Pym, for the Berridges were in a very small way, and it is doubtful if they could have made both ends meet if Mrs. Berridge had not done so well by letting her two spare rooms.
I have a great admiration for Farmer Bates and Mrs. Berridge. I regret intensely that they should both have been unhappily married. If they had married each other they would undoubtedly have made a success of life.
Bates was a Cockney by birth, but always he had had an ambition to take a farm, and after twenty years of work as a skilled mechanic he had thrown up a well-paid job, and dared the uncertainties which beset the English farmer. That venture was a constant bone of strife between him and his wife. Mrs. Bates preferred the town. It has always seemed to me that there was something fine about Bates and his love for the land.
"Good growing weather, Mr. Bates," I said, as I climbed up into the cart.
"Shouldn't be sorry to see some more rain," replied Bates, and damped my ardour for a moment.
Just before we turned into the lane that leads up the long hill to Pym, we passed a ramshackle cart, piled up with a curious miscellany of ruinous furniture. A man was driving, and beside him sat a slatternly woman and a repulsive-looking boy of ten or twelve years old, with a great swollen head and an open, slobbering mouth.
I was startled. I jumped to the conclusion that this was the child I had seen in the train, the son of Ginger Stott.
As we slowed down to the ascent of the long hill, I said to Bates: "Is that Stott's boy?"
Bates looked at me curiously. "Why, no," he said. "Them's the 'Arrisons. 'Arrison's dead now; he was a wrong 'un, couldn't make a job of it, nohow. They used to live 'ere, five or six year ago, and now 'er 'usband's dead, Mrs. 'Arrison's coming back with the boy to live. Worse luck. We thought we was shut of 'em."
"Oh!" I said. "The boy's an idiot, I suppose."
"'Orrible," replied Bates, shaking his head, "'orrible; can't speak nor nothing; goes about bleating and baa-ing like an old sheep."
I looked round, but the ramshackle cart was hidden by the turn of the road. "Does Stott still live at Pym?" I asked.
"Not Ginger," replied Bates. "He lives at Ailesworth. Mrs. Stott and 'er son lives here."
"The boy's still alive then?" I asked.
"Yes," said Bates.
"Intelligent child?" I asked.
"They say," replied Bates. "Book-learnin' and such. They say 'e's read every book in Mr. Challis's librairy."
"Does he go to school?"
"No. They let 'im off. Leastways Mr. Challis did. They say the Reverend Crashaw, down at Stoke, was fair put out about it."
I thought that Bates emphasised the "on dit" nature of his information rather markedly. "What do you think of him?" I asked.
"Me?" said Bates. "I don't worry my 'ead about him. I've got too much to do." And he went off into technicalities concerning the abundance of charlock on the arable land of Pym. He called it "garlic." I saw that it was typical of Bates that he should have too much to do. I reflected that his was the calling which begot civilisation.