Such were the makeshift, yet not altogether unhappy domestic, conditions by which Bettesworth was enabled for a little while to maintain his independence, and carry on the obstinate and now hopeless struggle to earn a living for himself. He was a man with work to do, and with the will to do it, as yet. On this same eleventh of January we may picture him forming one of a curious group of the working men of the parish, who gathered in a rainy dawn on a high piece of the road, and looked apprehensively at the weather. "I thought," Bettesworth told me afterwards, "we was in for a reg'lar wild day; and so did a good many more. The men didn't like startin'.... I come out to the cross-roads 'long of old Kid, and he said he didn't hardly know what to think about it. And while we stood there, Ben Fowler come along. 'I don't hardly know what to make of it,' he says. And then some more come. There was a reg'lar gang of 'em; didn't like to go away. Well, a man don't _like_ to set off for a day's work an' get wet through afore he begins." _January 17._--Not many more days of work, however, were to be added to the tale of Bettesworth's laborious years. On the 17th of January it appears that he was still going on, for old Nanny seen at an unaccustomed hour on the road, spoke of him as getting about with difficulty. This is what she said, in her gruff, quick, scolding voice: "I couldn't git to the town fust thing, 'twas so slippery. Bettesworth said he couldn't git down our steps this mornin', so I bin chuckin' sand over 'em. Don't want ol' Freddy to break his leg.... All up there by Granny Fry's the childern gets slidin,' an' makes it ten times wuss than what 'twas afore, an' the more you says to 'm the wuss they be." With this last glimpse of him fumbling painfully on the slippery pathway, we finish our acquaintance with Bettesworth's working life. XXXI _January 22, 1905._--The 22nd of January was the date, as nearly as I can make out now, of Bettesworth's being seized by another of his bronchial colds, from which he had hitherto been tolerably free this winter. An influenza attacking myself about the same time prevented me from going out to see how he fared, and for about ten days I know only that he did not come to work. Then, on the 3rd of February, leaning heavily on his stick and looking white and feeble, he managed to get this far to report himself. It would take over long to tell how he sat by the kitchen fire that day and discussed sundry affairs of the village. For himself, he was rapidly getting well, and hoped to be back at work in a few days. I surmise that he had been lonely. Kid Norris had not come near him, but had been audible through the partition wall, asking his deaf mother "How old Freddy was?" Old Nanny herself had an extremely bad cold. _February 8._--A few more days pass; and then on February the 8th there is the following brief entry in my note-book: