Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

Chapter 44

The Beano

 

Now and then a transient gleam of sunshine penetrated the gloom in

which the lives of the philanthropists were passed. The cheerless

monotony was sometimes enlivened with a little innocent merriment.

Every now and then there was a funeral which took Misery and Crass

away for the whole afternoon, and although they always tried to keep

the dates secret, the men generally knew when they were gone.

 

Sometimes the people in whose houses they were working regaled them

with tea, bread and butter, cake or other light refreshments, and

occasionally even with beer - very different stuff from the petrifying

liquid they bought at the Cricketers for twopence a pint. At other

places, where the people of the house were not so generously disposed,

the servants made up for it, and entertained them in a similar manner

without the knowledge of their masters and mistresses. Even when the

mistresses were too cunning to permit of this, they were seldom able

to prevent the men from embracing the domestics, who for their part

were quite often willing to be embraced; it was an agreeable episode

that helped to vary the monotony of their lives, and there was no harm

done.

 

It was rather hard lines on the philanthropists sometimes when they

happened to be working in inhabited houses of the better sort. They

always had to go in and out by the back way, generally through the

kitchen, and the crackling and hissing of the poultry and the joints

of meat roasting in the ovens, and the odours of fruit pies and tarts,

and plum puddings and sage and onions, were simply maddening. In the

back-yards of these houses there were usually huge stacks of empty

beer, stout and wine bottles, and others that had contained whisky,

brandy or champagne.

 

The smells of the delicious viands that were being prepared in the

kitchen often penetrated into the dismantled rooms that the

philanthropists were renovating, sometimes just as they were eating

their own wretched fare out of their dinner basket, and washing it

down with draughts of the cold tea or the petrifying liquid they

sometimes brought with them in bottles.

 

Sometimes, as has been said, the people of the house used to send up

some tea and bread and butter or cakes or other refreshments to the

workmen, but whenever Hunter got to know of it being done he used to

speak to the people about it and request that it be discontinued, as

it caused the men to waste their time.

 

But the event of the year was the Beano, which took place on the last

Saturday in August, after they had been paying in for about four

months. The cost of the outing was to be five shillings a head, so

this was the amount each man had to pay in, but it was expected that

the total cost - the hire of the brakes and the cost of the dinner -

would come out at a trifle less than the amount stated, and in that

case the surplus would be shared out after the dinner. The amount of

the share-out would be greater or less according to other

circumstances, for it generally happened that apart from the

subscriptions of the men, the Beano fund was swelled by charitable

donations from several quarters, as will be seen later on.

 

When the eventful day arrived, the hands, instead of working till one,

were paid at twelve o’clock and rushed off home to have a wash and

change.

 

The brakes were to start from the `Cricketers’ at one, but it was

arranged, for the convenience of those who lived at Windley, that they

were to be picked up at the Cross Roads at one-thirty.

 

There were four brakes altogether - three large ones for the men and

one small one for the accommodation of Mr Rushton and a few of his

personal friends, Didlum, Grinder, Mr Toonarf, an architect and Mr

Lettum, a house and estate Agent. One of the drivers was accompanied

by a friend who carried a long coachman’s horn. This gentleman was

not paid to come, but, being out of work, be thought that the men

would be sure to stand him a few drinks and that they would probably

make a collection for him in return for his services.

 

Most of the chaps were smoking twopenny cigars, and had one or two

drinks with each other to try to cheer themselves up before they

started, but all the same it was a melancholy procession that wended

its way up the hill to Windley. To judge from the mournful expression

on the long face of Misery, who sat on the box beside the driver of

the first large brake, and the downcast appearance of the majority of

the men, one might have thought that it was a funeral rather than a

pleasure party, or that they were a contingent of lost souls being

conducted to the banks of the Styx. The man who from time to time

sounded the coachman’s horn might have passed as the angel sounding

the last trump, and the fumes of the cigars were typical of the smoke

of their torment, which ascendeth up for ever and ever.

 

A brief halt was made at the Cross Roads to pick up several of the

men, including Philpot, Harlow, Easton, Ned Dawson, Sawkins, Bill

Bates and the Semidrunk. The two last-named were now working for

Smeariton and Leavit, but as they had been paying in from the first,

they had elected to go to the Beano rather than have their money back.

The Semidrunk and one or two other habitual boozers were very shabby

and down at heel, but the majority of the men were decently dressed.

Some had taken their Sunday clothes out of pawn especially for the

occasion. Others were arrayed in new suits which they were going to

pay for at the rate of a shilling a week. Some had bought themselves

second-hand suits, one or two were wearing their working clothes

brushed and cleaned up, and some were wearing Sunday clothes that had

not been taken out of pawn for the simple reason that the pawnbrokers

would not take them in. These garments were in what might be called a

transition stage - old-fashioned and shiny with wear, but yet too good

to take for working in, even if their owners had been in a position to

buy some others to take their place for best. Crass, Slyme and one or

two of the single men, however, were howling swells, sporting stand-up

collars and bowler hats of the latest type, in contradistinction to

some of the others, who were wearing hats of antique patterns, and

collars of various shapes with jagged edges. Harlow had on an old

straw hat that his wife had cleaned up with oxalic acid, and Easton

had carefully dyed the faded binding of his black bowler with ink.

Their boots were the worst part of their attire: without counting

Rushton and his friends, there were thirty-seven men altogether,

including Nimrod, and there were not half a dozen pairs of really good

boots amongst the whole crowd.

 

When all were seated a fresh start was made. The small brake, with

Rushton, Didlum, Grinder and two or three other members of the Band,

led the way. Next came the largest brake with Misery on the box.

Beside the driver of the third brake was Payne, the foreman carpenter.

Crass occupied a similar position of honour on the fourth brake, on

the back step of which was perched the man with the coachman’s horn.

 

Crass - who had engaged the brakes - had arranged with the drivers

that the cortege should pass through the street where he and Easton

lived, and as they went by Mrs Crass was standing at the door with the

two young men lodgers, who waved their handkerchiefs and shouted

greetings. A little further on Mrs Linden and Easton’s wife were

standing at the door to see them go by. In fact, the notes of the

coachman’s horn alarmed most of the inhabitants, who crowded to their

windows and doors to gaze upon the dismal procession as it passed.

 

The mean streets of Windley were soon left far behind and they found

themselves journeying along a sunlit, winding road, bordered with

hedges of hawthorn, holly and briar, past rich, brown fields of

standing corn, shimmering with gleams of gold, past apple-orchards

where bending boughs were heavily loaded with mellow fruits exhaling

fragrant odours, through the cool shades of lofty avenues of venerable

oaks, whose overarched and interlacing branches formed a roof of

green, gilt and illuminated with quivering spots and shafts of

sunlight that filtered through the trembling leaves; over old mossy

stone bridges, spanning limpid streams that duplicated the blue sky

and the fleecy clouds; and then again, stretching away to the horizon

on every side over more fields, some rich with harvest, others filled

with drowsing cattle or with flocks of timid sheep that scampered away

at the sound of the passing carriages. Several times they saw merry

little companies of rabbits frisking gaily in and out of the hedges or

in