After bidding the men good night I reflected, with a kind of shame, that I had drawn back from daring only once what they dare every day, what they must dare for their living. And I reasoned myself into a feeling that it was my duty under the circumstances to go up that steeple on the swing, as Merrill had proposed. Having begun this investigation, I must see it through; and in this mind I went to the church again the next day.
I found all hands on the "bell-deck" spreading out packets of patent gilding for the ball which awaited its new dress, all sticky from a fresh coat of sizing. Lawlor remarked that there was better gold in these little yellow squares than in a wedding-ring. "It's twenty-four carats fine," said he, "and about as thick as a cobweb."
As to my going up on the swing there was no difficulty. Lawlor would go first, and be there to keep me in good heart, for they say it is not well for a novice to be at a steeple-top alone. Merrill would see to the lashings, and Walter would give a hand at the hauling-line. Thus all conditions favored my ascent; even the sun smiled, and after taking off coat and hat I was ready. There we were at the top of the tower, and at the base of the steeple Lawlor, red-faced and red-shirted, preparing to ascend; Merrill, pale, as he always is, but powerful, standing at the ropes; and I, in shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, watching Walter make a little harness for my kodak.
After a time Lawlor, having reached the top, called down something, and Merrill answered. It was my turn now. I climbed out through a small window and stood on the ledge, while "Steeple Bob" dropped the swing noose over my head and proceeded to lash me fast to seat and ropes.
"That's in case a suicidal impulse should get hold of you!" he said, smiling, but meaning it. "Now, keep this rope between your legs, and work your hands up along it as we lift you. It's anchored to St. Peter."
Then he explained how I was to press my toes against the steeple side, so as to keep my knees from barking on the shingles.
"And don't look down at all," he told me. "Just watch your ropes and take it easy. Are you ready?"
At this moment Walter said something in a low tone, and Merrill asked me to lend him my knife. I handed it out, and he stuck it in his pocket. "You don't need this now," said he, and a moment later the pulley ropes tightened and my small swing-board lifted under me. I was rising.
"Shove off there with your toes!" he cried. "Take short steps. Put your legs wider apart. Wider yet. You don't have to pull on the rope. Just slide your hands along. Now you're going!"
I saw nothing but the steeple side in front of me, and the life-line hanging down like a bell-rope between my spread legs, and the pulley block creaking by my head, and the toes of my shoes as I pressed them against the shingles step by step. It struck me as a ridiculous thing to be climbing a steeple in patent-leather shoes. I smiled to think of the odd appearance I must present from below. And then for the first time I let my eyes turn into the depths, and caught a glimpse of men on housetops watching me. I saw Merrill's upturned face down where the ropes ended. And I saw little horses wriggling along on the street.
There were three places where the steeple narrowed into slenderer lengths, and at each one was a sort of cornice to be scrambled over (and loose nails to be avoided), and then more careful steering with legs and toes to keep on one particular face of the steeple and not swing off and come bumping back, a disconcerting possibility. "Hello!" called Lawlor presently, from above. "You're doing fine. Come right along." And before I knew it the swing had stopped. I was at the top, or as near it as the tackle could take me. The remaining fifteen feet or so must be made with stirrups. And there was Lawlor standing in them up by the ball. There was not a stick of staging to support him (he had scorned the bother of hauling up boards for so simple a job), and he was working with both hands free, each leg standing on its stirrup, and several hitches of life-line holding him to the shaft top by his waist.
This steeple-lassoing exploit was one of the things I certainly would not attempt – would not and could not.
Strangely enough, as I hung here at rest I felt the danger more than coming up. It seemed most perilous to rest my weight on the swing-board, and I found myself holding my legs drawn up, with muscles tense, as if that could make me lighter. Gradually I realized the foolishness of this, and relaxed into greater comfort, but not entirely. Even veteran steeple-climbers waste much strength in needless clutching; cannot free their bodies from this instinctive fear.
I stayed up long enough to take three photographs (some minutes passed before I could unlash my kodak), and here I had further proof of subconscious fright, for I made such blunders with shutter and focus length as would put the youngest amateur to shame. Two pictures out of the three were failures, and the third but an indifferent success. There is one thing to be said in extenuation, that a steeple is never still, but always rocking and trembling. When Lawlor changed his stirrup hitches or moved from side to side the old beams would groan under us, and the whole structure rock. "She'd rock more," said Lawlor, "if she was better built. A good steeple always rocks."
There wasn't much more to say or do up here, and presently we exchanged jerks on the line for the descent. And Lawlor cried: "Lower away! Hang on, now!" And I did over again my humble part of leg-spreading and toe-steering, with the result that presently I was down on the "bell-deck" again, receiving congratulations.
"Here's your knife," said Merrill, after he had unlashed me.
"What did you take it for?" I asked.
"Oh, men sometimes get a mania to cut the ropes when they go up the first time. And that isn't good for their health. I was pretty sure you'd keep your head, but I wasn't taking any chances."
After this came thanks and warm hand-grips all around, and then I left these daring men to their duties, and went down the lower ladders. I am sure I never appreciated the simple privilege of standing on a sidewalk as I did, a few minutes later, when I left the Church of the Pilgrims and came out into the pleasant autumn sunshine.
THE DEEP-SEA DIVER
I
SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MEN WHO GO DOWN UNDER THE SEA
IN old South Street, far down on the New York river-front, is a gloomy brick building with black fire-escapes zigzagging across its face, and a life-size diver painted over its door, in red helmet and yellow goggle-eyes, to the awe and admiration of the young – to the awe and admiration of anybody who comes through this wicked-looking street by night, and smells the sea, and stares along miles of ships' noses that reach right over the car-tracks, and finally stops at the black-lettered announcement that wrecks are looked after here day or night, and mysteries of the deep penetrated by gentlemen of the diving profession in just such gigantic suits as this painted one.
None of this had I noticed, late one night (being occupied with the silent, hungry ships, and the fire-cars trailing over the dim bridge), until a brisk banjo-strumming caught my ear, and I paused at the house of wrecks, whence the sounds came. Somebody back in these moldering shadows was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and playing it remarkably well.
I followed the light down a narrow passage, and presently came upon the modern wrecker, in the person of Benjamin F. Bean, a large man smoking contentedly at a table whereon rested a telephone and phonograph. The phonograph was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and a single incandescent lamp, swinging overhead, illumined the scene. There were coils of rope about, and photographs of vessels in distress, and a bunk with tumbled sheets at one side, where Mr. Bean slept, often with his clothes on, while awaiting the ring of sundry danger-bells.
Divers fully expect to be objects of curiosity, for never do they work except before wondering audiences; so this one found my visit natural enough – was glad, I think, to talk a little and let the phonograph rest. It must be rather lonely, after all, watching for wrecks hour after hour, night after night, listening always for footsteps (the officer's tramp or the thug's stealthy tread), listening always to the hoot of passing vessels, listening always for bad news.
He explained to me what happens when the bad news comes, say a collision up the Hudson, a ferry-boat on fire down the bay, a line of barges sunk in the Sound, any one of a dozen ordinary disasters. In olden times such tidings must have traveled from mouth to mouth, and the wreckers of