Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon

“Poor old chap,” said a chorus of sympathising voices, and after bandaging and splinting the injuries I sent the man home.

He was too healthy and active a man to be ill long, and he rapidly improved, and in the course of my attendance I used to smile to myself and wonder whether Darwin was not right about our descent from the monkeys; for certainly the climbing propensity was very strong in Fred Fincher, who used to laugh when I talked to him about the folly of men to climb.

“Well, I dunno, sir,” he said, “climbing’s very useful sometimes. I’m a carpenter, and I have to climb a good deal about housetops in my trade, and nobody says it’s foolish then.”

“That’s a necessity,” I replied. “Yours was only a bit of foolish bravado.”

“Well, suppose it was, doctor,” he said smiling. “Anyhow I was not killed. It was nothing like getting up to oil the weathercock after all.”

“Oil what weathercock?” I said.

“Our weathercock, sir.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean at the old place, sir. You see this is how it was: —

“We’d got a weathercock a-top of our church spire at High Beechy; and it was a cock in real earnest, just like the great Dorking in Farmer Granger’s yard; only the one on the spire was gilt, and shone in the sun quite beautiful.

“There was another difference, though. Farmer Granger’s Dorking used to crow in the morn, and sometimes on a moonlight night; but the gilt one a-top of the steeple, after going on swinging round and round, to show quietly which way the wind blew, took it into its head to stick fast in calm weather, while in a rough wind – oh, lor’ a’ mercy! the way it would screech and groan was enough to alarm the neighbourhood, and alarm the neighbourhood it did.

“I wouldn’t believe as it was the weathercock at first, but quite took to old Mother Bonnett’s notion as it was signs of the times, and a kind of warning to High Beechy of something terrible to come to pass.

“But there, when you stood and saw it turning slowly round in the broad daylight, and heard it squeal, why, you couldn’t help yourself, but were bound to believe.

“Just about that time a chap as called himself Steeple Jack – not the real Steeple Jack, you know, but an impostor sort of fellow, who, we heard afterwards, had been going about and getting sovereigns to climb the spires, and oil the weathercocks, and do a bit of repairs, and then going off without doing anything at all – well, this fellow came to High Beechy, saw the Rector, and offered to go up, clean and scrape the weathercock, oil it and all, without scaffolding, for a five pound note.

“Parson said it was too much, and consulted churchwarden Round, who said ‘ditto;’ and so Steeple Jack did not get the job even when he came down to three pound, and then to a sovereign; for, bless you, we were too sharp for him at High Beechy, and suspected that all he wanted was the money, when, you know, we couldn’t have made him go up, it being a risky job.

“The weathercock went on squeaking then awfully, till one afternoon, when we were out on the green with the cricketing tackle for practice, the Rector being with me, for we were going to play Ramboro’ Town next week, and the Rector was our best bowler.

“He was a thorough gentleman was our Rector, and he used to say he loved a game at cricket as much as ever, and as to making one of our eleven, he used to do that, he said, because he was then sure that no one would swear, or take more than was good for him.

“Speaking for our lot, I’m sure it made us all respect him the more; and I tell you one thing it did besides, it seemed to make him our friend to go to in all kind of trouble, and what’s more, it fetched all our lot in the cricket club to church when I’m afraid if it hadn’t been out of respect to the parson we should have stopped away.

“Why, I’ve known him on a hot evening at practice between the overs suddenly cry ‘Hold hard!’ with the ball in his hands, and say —

“‘Tell you what, my lads, I think a glass of Tompkins’s home-brewed wouldn’t be amiss just now. Smith, my man, will you step across and tell them to send me a gallon?’

“Then when it was brought all cool and foaming from out of the cellar, and he took the first glass as a matter of course, he’d got a knack of saying something sensible to a man in a way as did more good than the preaching in a month of Sundays.

“‘That!’ he’d say, with a smack of the lips when he’d finished the cool draught, ‘That’s good, refreshing, invigorating, and hearty. What a pity it is some men will be such fools as to take more than is good for them. Come, my lads, another glass round, and then to work.’

“Why, you may laugh at me, but we all of us loved our parson, and he could turn us all this way or that way with his little finger.

“Well, we were out on the green, as I said, and the talk turned about oiling the weathercock, and about how we’d heard as Steeple Jack, as he called himself, had undertaken to do Upperthorpe steeple, as is thirty feet lower than ours, and had got the money and gone off.

“‘I thought he was a rogue,’ said Billy Johnson. ‘He looked like it; drinking sort of fellow. Tell you what, I’m game to do it any time you like.’

“‘Not you,’ says Joey Rance. ‘It ain’t in you.’

“‘Ain’t it,’ says Billy, tightening his belt, and then —

“‘My good man,’ says the Rector, ‘I couldn’t think of allowing it.’

“You see, ours was a splendid spire, standing altogether a hundred and seventy feet six inches high; and as it says in the old history, was a landmark and a beacon to the country for miles round. There was a square tower seventy feet high, and out of this sprang the spire, tapering up a hundred feet, and certainly one of the finest in the county.

“‘Oh, I’d let him go, sir,’ says Joey: ‘he can climb like a squirrel.’

“‘Or a tom-cat,’ says another.

“‘More like a monkey,’ says Sam Rowley, our wicket-keeper.

“‘Never mind what I can climb like,’ says Billy. ‘I’m game to do it; so here goes.’

“‘But if you do get up,’ said the Rector, ‘you will want tools to take off and oil the weathercock, and you can’t carry them.’

“Just then a message came from the house that the Rector was wanted, and he went away in a hurry: and no sooner had he gone than there was no end of chaff about Billy, which ended in his pulling up his belt another hole, and saying —

“‘I’m going.’

“‘And what are you going to do when you get up there?’

“‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘but tie the rope up to the top of the spire, and leave it for some of you clever chaps to do the work.’

“‘What rope shall you use?’ I said.

“‘The new well rope,’ says Billy. ‘It’s over two hundred feet long.’

“Cricketing was set aside for that day, for Joey Rance went off and got the rope, coming back with it coiled over his arm, and throwing it down before Billy in a defiant sort of way, as much as to say —

“‘There, now let’s see you do it.’

“Without a word, Billy picked up the coil of rope and went in at the belfry door, to come out soon after on the top of the tower, and then, with one end of the rope made into a loop and thrown over his shoulders, he went to one edge of the eight-sided spire and began to climb up from crocket to crocket, which were about a yard apart, and looking like so many ornamental knobs sticking out from the sides.

“We gave him a cheer as he began to go up, and then sat on the grass wondering like to see how active and clever the fellow was as he went up yard after yard climbing rapidly, and seeming as if he’d soon be at the top.

“The whole of the village turned out in a state of excitement, and we had hard work to keep two brave fellows from going up to try at other corners of the spire.

“‘He’ll do it – he’ll do it!’ was the cry over and over again.

“And it seemed as if he would, for he went on rapidly till he was within some thirty feet of the top; when all of a sudden he seemed to lose his hold, and came sliding rapidly down between two rows of crockets, faster and faster, till he disappeared behind the parapet of the tower.

“We held our breath, one and all, as we saw him fall, and a cold chill of horror came upon us. It was not until he had reached the top of the tower that we roused ourselves to run to the belfry door, and began to go up the newel staircase to get to the poor fellow, whom we expected to find half-dead.

“‘Hallo!’ cried Billy’s voice, as we got half-way up the corkscrew, ‘I’m coming down.’

“‘Aint you hurt, then?’ cried Joey Rance.