"Ever been out o' work, matey?"

"Not to signify," he says.

"'Cause if ever you are, and come down werry
close to ground, you'll be as glad to handle the
trowel again as I am." He didn't puff any
more that day, not as I heerd.

London work was something fresh to me.  I
used to think that I'd been about some tidy
buildings down our way, but what was the
tidiest on 'em to the London jobs I was put
on! Jobs where the scaffolding must have cost
hundreds upon hundreds of pounds more than
the house, land, and everything else put
together, of the biggest place I had ever worked
upon. I used, too, to think I was pretty strong
in the head; but I soon began to sing small
here—specially when I had been up about a
week and was put on at a big hotel. Right up
so high that one turned quite creepy, and used
to get thinking of what would be the
consequences if a sharp puff of wind come and
upset one's balance. I could never have believed,
neither, that such a Jacob's Ladder of scaffold-
poles could have been built up to stand without
crushing and snapping those at the bottom
like so many reeds or tobacco-pipes; but I
suppose them as builds them knows best what
should be done, and what they'll bear. But
though I did not like it much, I took good
care not to mention it to my lass, for I knew
she'd have been on the fidget all day if I had
told her.

By degrees I got to stand it all pretty well;
and we began to feel a bit settled in our one
room. Not that we much liked it, but then it
was werry pleasant to go in the crowd on pay day,
and draw your week's wage, good wage too,
jest as I had seen it when settin' in my own
place at home, We still called it home, for we
couldn't get to feel that we were at home in
London, and Polly she said she never should,
after having a little house of her own; but as
there was only our two selves, we made things
pretty comfortable.

The big hotel was getting on at a tremendious
rate, for there was a strong body on us at work,
and it used to make me think and think of the
loads upon loads of stuff the hotel swallowed
up, and how much more it would take before
it was finished. One day when I was bricklaying
up at the top—I don't know how many feet from
the ground, and I never used to care to look to
see, for fear of turning giddy—one day it came
on to blow a regular gale, and blew at last so
hard, that the scaffold shook and quivered, while,
wherever there was a loose rope, it rattled and
beat against the poles, as if it was impatient of
being tied there, and wanted to break loose and
be off.

It blew at last so werry hard, that I should have
been precious glad of an excuse to get down,
but I couldn't well leave my work, and the old
hands didn't seem to mind it much: so I kep' at
it. Whenever the wind blows now, and I shut
my eyes, I can call it all back again; the creaking
and quivering of the poles, the rattling of
the boards, the howling and whistling of the
gale as it swept savagely by, in a rage because
it could not sweep us away.

A high wind is pretty hard to deal with, sometimes,
on the ground; and I have seen folks
pretty hard driven to turn a corner. So it may
be guessed what sort of fun it is right up on a
spidery scaffold, where a man is expected to
work with both hands, and hold on by nothing,
and that, too, where a single step backards would
be—there, it's a thing as allus makes me nervous
to talk about.

It was getting to be somewhere about half-past
three, and I was working hard, so as to
keep from thinking about the storm, when all
at once I happened to turn my head, and see
that the men was a-scuffling down the ladders as
hard as they could go. And then, before I had
time to think, there was a loud crash, and a
large piece of the scaffolding gave way, and
swept with it poles, boards, and bricks, right into
the open space below.

I leaped up at a pole which projected from
the roof above me, just above my head, caught
it, and hung suspended, just as the boards upon
which I stood but an instant before gave way,
and fell on to the next stage, some twenty feet
below. Tightly clasping the rough fir pole, I
clung for life.

Think? I did think. I thought hundreds
of things in a few seconds, as I shut my eyes
and began to pray, for I felt as I could not hold
on long, and I knew as I should fall first on the
stage below, when the boards would either give
way, or shoot me off again with a spring, and
then I knew there would be a crowd round
something upon the ground, and the  police coming
with a stretcher.

"Creep out, mate, and come down the rope,"
cried a voice from below. I turned my head,
so that I could just see that the pole I was
hanging to had a block at the end, through which
ran a rope for drawing light things up and down
to the scaffold. For an instant I dared not move;
then, raising myself, I went hand over hand
towards the pulley, and in another instant I should
have grasped it, when I heard a rushing sound,
and the creaking of a wheel, as the rope went
spinning through, and was gone: the weight
of the longer side having dragged the other
through. As I hung, I distinctly heard it fall,
perhaps a hundred and fifty feet.

As the rope fell, and I hung there, I could
hear a regular shriek from those below; but
nobody stirred to my assistance, for I was
beyond help then; but I seemed to grow stronger
with the danger, though my arms felt as if they
were being wrenched out of their sockets, and
my nerves as if they were torn with hot irons.
Sobbing for breath, I crept in again till I was
over the stage first; then close into the face of
the building; and there I hung. Once I tried
to get some hold with my feet, but the smooth
bricks let my toes slip over them directly. Then
I tried to get a leg over the pole, so as to climb
up and sit there; but the time was gone by for
that. I had hung too long, and was now growing
weaker every moment.