It was on the next morning (Friday) that he told me these few particulars, and how his wife seemed a trifle--only a trifle--better; how, too, he had "washed her as well as he could," and, being asked, how he had not been to bed himself. And now he was on his way to the town to buy a few necessaries. Who was with his wife meanwhile? That was a question I dared not ask, because I knew that the distressful old woman was a by-word for sluttishness among the neighbours, so much that they would hardly go near her; and I knew that Bettesworth, though silent on the subject, was sore about it. Without doubt the old woman was quite alone, whenever circumstances compelled him to leave her. The "necessaries" he was going to buy included beef-tea "and some cakes," he said. At the mention of cakes I exclaimed, but he protested reproachfully, "Well, but she en't had _nothin'_ to eat!" Clearly he did not regard milk as food, or indeed anything else that was not solid. In the matter of beef-tea, "I can't make it myself," he said, "but you can buy it, can't ye, in jars?" He was perhaps thinking of Bovril, or something of the kind. Fortunately there were those at hand who knew how to make beef-tea, and undertook at once to relieve the old man of this burden. Taking him apart then, I asked if he needed a shilling or two. He almost groaned in deprecation, "I owes you such a lot now, and keeps on gettin' into debt. I'd sooner rub along with jest as little as ever I possibly can." It was of his rent he was thinking, which of course was payable for those weeks of his own illnesses, as well as for his absence from work now, when he was not earning any wages from which the rent could be deducted. Perhaps he was unaware that I had no account of the debt; in any case, it seemed to be preying upon his mind. I did not press the point, therefore, and he started off for the town without aid from me. In another way, too, the old man's reluctance to be a burden manifested itself. What he had told me so far was told because I wished to hear it, and he wished me to understand. He made no long tale: he was brief, unaffected, and as for seeking compassion, it was far from his intention. Of one thing only did he complain: a near relative's indifference. "He was over by our place twice o' Sunday," Bettesworth said scornfully, "and couldn't look in to see how the poor old gal was. He was ready enough to send to me when he had his mishap" (falling from a rick, and finding himself in agony at night), "and I run off an' went all down to the town for 'n, late at night. But now _I_ wants help--no: he won't come anear. That's the sort o' feller _he_ is." So Bettesworth, uttering his sole complaint. But he did not demand from others the sympathy he looked for from a relation, or seek to inflict them with the tale of troubles which, after all, he would have to bear by himself.