Page:Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.djvu/355

 CHAPTER XXXII

next morning after breakfast Philpot, Sawkins, Harlow and Easton went to the yard to get the long ladder. It was called 'the Sixty-five' because it had sixty-five rungs; it was a builder's scaffold ladder, and altogether too heavy and cumbrous for painter's work. However, as none of the others were long enough to reach the high gable at 'The Refuge,' they managed with a struggle to get it down from the hooks and put it on one of the handcarts, and soon passed through the streets of mean and dingy houses in the vicinity of the yard and began the ascent of the long hill.

There had been a lot of rain during the night and the sky was still overcast with dark grey clouds. The cart went heavily over the muddy road. Sawkins was at the helm, holding the end of the ladder and steering; the others walked a little further ahead, at the sides of the cart.

It was such an exhausting shove that half-way up the hill they stopped for a rest, keeping a good look-out for Rushton or Hunter, who might pass at any moment.

'This is a bit of all right, ain't it?' remarked Harlow as he took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief.

At first no one made any reply, for they were all out of breath and Philpot's lean fingers trembled violently as he wiped the perspiration from his face.

'Yes, mate,' he said despondently, after a while. 'It's one way of gettin' a livin', and there's plenty better.'

In addition to the fact that his rheumatism was exceptionally bad, he felt low-spirited this morning. The gloomy weather and the prospect of a long day of ladder work probably accounted for his unusual dejection.

They relapsed into silence. The depression that possessed Philpot deprived him of all his usual jocularity and filled him 343