“Well, the only thing as I can see for it,” he said, “is that the boy will ’ave to go down to the yard and get the long rope. It won’t do for anyone else to go: there’s been one row already about the waste of time because we didn’t call at the yard for the ladder at six o’clock.”
Bert was down in the basement of the house limewashing a cellar. Crass called him up and gave him the necessary instructions, chief of which was to get back again as soon as ever he could. The boy ran off, and while they were waiting for him to come back the others went on with their several jobs. Philpot returned to the small gable he had been painting before breakfast, which he had not quite finished. As he worked a sudden and unaccountable terror took possession of him. He did not want to do that other gable; he felt too ill; and he almost resolved that he would ask Crass if he would mind letting him do something else. There were several younger men who would not object to doing it—it would be mere child’s play to them, and Barrington had already—yesterday—offered to change jobs with him.
But then, when he thought of what the probable consequences would be, he hesitated to take that course, and tried to persuade himself that he would be able to get through with the work all right. He did not want Crass or Hunter to mark him as being too old for ladder work.
Bert came back in about half an hour flushed and sweating with the weight of the rope and with the speed he had made. He delivered it to Crass and then returned to his cellar and went on with the limewashing, while Crass passed the word for Philpot and the others to come and raise the ladder. He handed the rope to Ned Dawson, who took it up to the attic, accompanied by Sawkins; arrived there they lowered one end out of the window down to the others.
“If you ask me,” said Ned Dawson, who was critically examining the strands of the rope as he passed it out through the open window, “If you ask me, I don’t see as this is much better than the one we made up by tyin’ the short pieces together. Look ’ere,”—he indicated a part of the rope that was very frayed and worn—“and ’ere’s another place just as bad.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake don’t say nothing about it now,” replied Sawkins. “There’s been enough talk and waste of time over this job already.”
Ned made no answer and the end having by this time reached the ground, Bundy made it fast to the ladder, about six rungs from the top.
The ladder was lying on the ground, parallel to the side of the house. The task of raising it would have been much easier if they had been able to lay it at right angles to the house wall, but this was impossible because of the premises next door and the garden wall between the two houses. On account of its having to be raised in this manner the men at the top would not be able to get a straight pull on the rope; they would have to stand back in the room without being able to see the ladder, and the rope would have to be drawn round the corner of the window, rasping against the edge of the stone sill and the brickwork.
The end of the rope having been made fast to the top of the ladder, Crass and Harlow stood on the foot and the other three raised the top from the ground; as Barrington was the tallest, he took the middle position—underneath the ladder—grasping the rungs, Philpot being on his left and Bundy on his right, each holding one side of the ladder.
At a signal from Crass, Dawson and Sawkins began to haul on the rope, and the top of the ladder began to rise slowly into the air.