When I began, some years ago, to record the earlier conversations in this book, it was their quiet humour and their unconscious oddity that chiefly interested me. My acquaintance with Bettesworth was still young; and though I was beginning to value the man, I had not as yet seen in him much more than his garrulous and good-tempered quaintness. He was something of a comic character in my eyes.

Soon, however, came hints of a life far from comic under the odd exterior. Distressful poverty—that cynically grinning life-companion of the labouring people—insisted upon exhibiting itself in spite of Bettesworth's uncomplaining pride. It was betrayed pathetically, for instance, in his subdued but trembling delight over the gift of a strip of worn-out carpet, fit, I had thought, to cover his potatoes from frost, but more highly destined to occasion pride and enduring pleasure to the old man and his wife, who had never before possessed such a luxury. Instances such as this of the presence of sensitive feelings in the man made it particularly painful to see him in the cold weather stand shivering and hungry amongst the unemployed—for I have never been able to find him constant work. When to this poverty were added mishap and illness, from which he arose visibly aged, the comedy of Bettesworth's talk and its unconquerable good temper veiled so much silent suffering as to make me wonder and admire where before I might have laughed.