In this fashion, with these trivial interests, the year drew on to its close in our valley. December gives glimpses of trouble in another household--that of the Skinners, 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 hardly in the world of events, but in a world where things did not so much "happen" as go placidly on. He worked, and rested, and I do not believe that he was often dull. IX _January, 1901._--The winter, which so far had been mild and open, began to assume its natural character with the new year; and on the first Monday of January--it was the 7th--we had snow, followed by hard frost. The snow was not unexpected. Saturday--a day of white haze suffused with sunlight--had provided a warning of it in the shape of frozen rime, clinging like serried rows of penknife blades to the eastern edges of all things, and noticeably to the telegraph-wires, which with that additional weight kept up all day a shiver of vibration dazzling to look at against the misty blue of the sky. Then the snow came, and the frost on top of that, and by Tuesday it was bad travelling on all roads. Bettesworth grumbled, of course; but I believe that really he rather liked the touch of winter. At any rate, it was with a sort of gloating satisfaction that he remarked: "I hunted out my old gaiters this morning. They en't much, but they keeps your legs dry. And I do think that is so nice, to feel the bottoms of your trousers dry." I suppose it is, when one thinks of it, though it had never struck me before. But then, I had never had the experience which had shown Bettesworth the true inwardness of this philosophy of his. "I've knowed what it is," he said, "to have my trousers soppin' wet all round the bottoms, and then it have come on an' freezed 'em as stiff as boards all round." That was years ago, during a short spell of piecework in a gravel-pit. Now, secure in his gaiters and in his easier employment, he could look back with amusement to the hardships he had lived through. One of a similar kind was hinted at presently. For the roughness of the roads, under this frozen snow, naturally suggested such topics. "What d'ye think of our neighbour Mardon?" he exclaimed. "Bin an' chucked up his job, and 's goin' back to Aldershot blacksmithin' again. He must be in want of a walk!" "Regular as clockwork," Mardon, be it explained, had walked daily to his work at Aldershot, and then back at night, for upwards of twenty years. The day's walk was about ten miles. Then suddenly he left, and now for six months had been working as bricklayer's labourer, at a job about an equal distance away in another direction, to which he walked as before every day, wet or fine. This was the job he had "chucked," to return to his old trade in the old place. He might well give it up! Said Bettesworth,