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III
THE GREATEST DANGER TO A STEEPLE-CLIMBER LIES IN BEING STARTLED

IT appears that professional steeple-climbers are quiet-mannered men, with a certain gentleness of voice (like deaf people) that impresses one far more than any strident boasting. This habit of silence they form from being silent so much aloft. And when they do speak it is in a low tone, because that is the least startling to a man as he swings over some reeling gulf. Next to an actual disaster (which usually kills outright and painlessly) what a steeple-climber most dreads is being startled. This was explained to me in one of our many talks by "Steeple Bob," famous over the land for daring feats, but never reckless ones. How plainly I call up his pale, serious face and the massive shoulders, somewhat bent, and the forearm with muscles to impress a prize-fighter! Pleasant to note that Merrill uses excellent English.

"Did you ever have an impulse to jump off a steeple?" I questioned, recalling the sensations of many people in looking down even from a housetop.

"I've kept pretty free from that," said he; "but there's no doubt climbing steeples does tell on a man's nerves. Now, there was Dan O'Brien; he had an impulse to jump off a steeple one day, and a strong impulse, too. He went mad on one of the tallest spires in Cincinnati; right at the top of it."

"Went mad?"

"Yes, sir, raving mad, and I was by him when it happened. I forget whether the church was Baptist or Presbyterian, but I know it stood on Sixth Street, near Vine, and there was a big hand on top of the steeple, with the forefinger pointing to heaven. We were putting fresh gilding on this hand. I was working on the thumb side and O'Brien on the little-finger side, both of us standing on tiny stagings about the size of a chair-seat, and both of us made fast to the steeple by life-lines under our arms. That's an absolute rule in climbing steeples – never to do the smallest thing unless you're secured by a life-line. It was coming on dark, and I was hurrying to get the gold leaf on, because we'd given the hand a fresh coat of sizing that would be dry before morning. We hadn't spoken for some time, when suddenly I heard a laugh from O'Brien's side that sent a shiver down my spine. Did you ever hear a crazy man laugh? Well, if ever you do, you'll remember it. I looked at him and saw by his face that something was wrong.

"'What are you doing?' said I.

"He answered very polite and steady like, but his tone was queer: 'I'm trying to figure out how long it would take a man to get down if he went the fastest way.'

"I thought I had better keep him in a good humor, so I said: 'I'll tell you what, Dan, you brace up and get this gold on, and then we'll race to the ground in our saddles.'

"'That's a fair idea,' said he in a shrill voice, 'but I've got a better one. We'll race down without any saddles; yes, sir, without any lines, without a blamed thing.'

"'Don't be a fool, Dan. What you want to do is to get that gold on – quick.' I tried to speak sharp.

"'No, sir; I'm going to jump, and so are you.'

"I caught his eye just then and saw it wasn't any time to bother about gold leaf. I reached up and eased the hitch of my line around the hand so I could swing toward him. I knew if I once got my grip on him he wouldn't make any more trouble. But I'd never had a crazy man to deal with, and I didn't realize how tricky and quick they are. While I was working around to his side and thinking he didn't notice it, he was laying for me out of the corner of his eye, and the first thing I knew he had me by the throat and everything was turning black. I let go of the line and dropped back on my saddle-board helpless, and if it hadn't been for blind luck I guess the people down below would have got their money's worth in about a minute. But my hand struck on the tool-box as he pressed me back, and I had just strength enough left to shut my fingers on the first tool I touched and strike at him with it. The tool happened to be a monkey-wrench, and when a man gets a clip on the head with a thing like that he's pretty apt to keep still for a while. And that's what O'Brien did. He keeled over and lay there, and I did, too, until my head got steady. Even then I guess we'd both have fallen if it hadn't been for the life-lines.

"The rest was simple enough after I got my senses back. Dan was unconscious, and all I had to do was fasten a rope to him and lower away. They took care of him down below until the ambulance came, and he spent that night in a hospital. And he's spent most of his years since then in an asylum, his mind all gone except for short periods, when he comes to himself again, and then he always starts out to put an end to me. That last impulse to destroy me has never left him."

It was after this that I learned about that other danger to steeple-climbers, of being startled. Merrill says that men of his craft, whether they realize it or not, work under constant nervous strain. However calm a steeple-climber may think himself, his body is always afraid, his muscles are always tense, his clutch on ropes and stones is always harder, two or three times harder, than the need is; his knees hug what comes between them so tightly that it hurts, even when they might safely be relaxed. That is the trouble, a steeple-climber cannot relax his body or control its instinctive shrinking. It is not looking down into the gulf around him that he minds (the climber who cannot do that with indifference is unfit for the business); what he sees he can cope with; it is what he cannot see that does the mischief – what he fears vaguely. And a sudden noise, an unexpected movement may throw him into all but panic. So the veteran climber, swinging at the steeple-top opposite his partner, is careful to say in a low tone, "I'm going to lower my saddle," before he does lower it; or, "I'm going to strike a match," before he strikes it.

Sometimes a new helper at the hauling-line down on the bell-deck will shift his place from weariness or thoughtlessness, and let the line move up an inch or two, which drops the saddle an inch or two far aloft – drops it suddenly with a jerk. It's a little thing, yet the climber's heart would not pound harder were the whole steeple falling. Merrill told me that one of his greatest frights came from the simple brushing against his legs of a rope pulled without a word by a careless partner. To Merrill's nerves, all a-quiver, this was not a rope, but some nameless catastrophe to overwhelm him. He knew only that something had moved where nothing had any business to move, that something had touched him where nothing was. A steeple-climber is like a child in the dark – in terror of the unknown. In all the world, perhaps, there is no one so utterly alone as he, swinging hour after hour on his steeple-top. The aëronaut has with him a living, surging creature – his balloon; the diver feels always the teeming life of the waters; but this man, lifted into still air, poised on a point where nothing comes or goes, where nothing moves, where nothing makes a sound – he, in very truth, is alone.

"It's always the little things that frighten you," reflected Merrill, "not the big things. I'll give you an instance. When I went up inside St. Paul's steeple the first time (I wanted to inspect the beams, and see how the dowel was anchored) I got into a tight place that might well frighten a man. I got squeezed fast between timbers that fill nearly all the slender top space, and couldn't get up or down, but just hung there, breathing air full of dust and calling for help. I called three quarters of an hour before any one came, and then it was only by accident. But I wasn't frightened. On the other hand, a day or two later, when I was making fast a rope outside (I was just under the ball that holds the weather-vane) I got a bad start from nothing at all. I had my arms around the spindle of the steeple, making a hitch, and my head pressed against the copper sheathing, when I heard a most unearthly screech. I guess the shock of that thing did me five hundred dollars' worth of harm – shortened my life days enough to earn five hundred dollars in. And what do you think it was? The weather-vane had turned a little in the wind and creaked on its bearings, that's all. It doesn't seem as if that ought to scare a man, does it?"

There was something quite touching, I thought, in the humble frankness of this big-shouldered man. Yes, he had been afraid, he whose business it was to fear nothing, afraid of some squeaking copper, and his face seemed to say that there are things about steeples not so easily explained, things not even to be talked about. And abruptly, as by an effort, he left this part of the subject and told a funny story of his adventures coming home late one night without a key, and getting in by way of the roof and an iron pipe; a simple enough climb had he not been taken for a "purglaire" by an irate German lodger, who appeared in nightgown and phlegmatic fright, and vowed he would "haf him a revolfer, a skelf-skooter, in the morning."

This effort at diversion turned Merrill into gaiety for a moment, but straightway memory brought back the somber theme.

"I'll give you another case," said he, changing again abruptly, "where I wasn't frightened, but should have been. It was out in Chicago, and two of us were on a staging hung down the front of a clothing factory. We were painting the walls. My partner had made his end of the staging fast, and I had made mine fast. Perhaps if I'd been longer in the business I would have taken more notice how he secured his rope, for it meant safety to me as well as him, and I knew he'd been drinking, but I supposed it was all right. Well, it wasn't all right; his rope held for three or four hours, and then, at just about eleven o'clock, it slipped, and the staging fell from under us. We were six stories up, and right below were the sidewalk flagstones. That's the time I ought to have been frightened, but I only said to myself, 'Hello! this thing's going down,' and caught the window-ledge in front of me. Then I hung there, wondering if I could pull myself up or if any one would come to help me. I called out not very loud, and I wasn't excited. Pretty soon I saw I couldn't pull myself up, for I had a poor hold with my fingers, and the ledge was smooth stone. Then I saw they'd have to hurry if they were going to pull me in. Then I didn't care. I – I – "

"You fell?"

He nodded.

"What, six stories down?"

He nodded again. "The thing that saved me was an awning over the sidewalk. Some man across the way saw me hanging from the window, and he ran over quickly and let the awning down. I'd like to shake that man by the hand, but I never knew who he was. When I came to myself I was at the hospital done up in plaster, and I stayed there nine months."

"Badly hurt?" I asked, shrinking.

Merrill smiled. "It didn't do me any particular good. I'm a big, strong fellow now, but I wasn't much after that fall. Both my legs were broken. Both my arms were broken. My right shoulder and right wrist were dislocated, and – let's see. Oh, yes, I had three ribs torn away from the breast-bone."

"And your – "

"My partner? Poor lad! You wouldn't care to hear how they found him. They laid him away kindly the next day."

He smiled in a sort of appealing way, and then came the worn, wistful look I had noticed, and his forehead lines deepened. I fancy all men who follow steeple-climbing get those strained, anxious eyes.

IV
EXPERIENCE OF AN AMATEUR CLIMBING TO A STEEPLE-TOP

IT came to my knowledge, one bracing day in October, that "Steeple Bob" had agreed to "do" that famous Brooklyn Church of the Pilgrims, with its queer, crooked spire and big brass ball, a landmark from the river on Columbia Heights.

"It's one of those easy jobs that are the hardest," said Merrill. "If you want to see us use the stirrups come over."

That was exactly what I did want to see, this puzzling stirrup process which allows a man to lift himself by his boot-straps, as it were, up the last and narrowest and most dangerous length of a steeple; so I agreed to be there.

"If you like, you can go up on the swing yourself!" said Merrill, with the air of conferring a favor. I expressed my thanks as I would to a lion-tamer offering me the hospitality of his cages, then asked how he meant that easy jobs are the hardest.

"Why, easy jobs make a man careless, and that gets him into trouble. Another thing, little old churches look easy, but they're apt to be treacherous. Now, this steeple on the Church of the Pilgrims is built of wood, with loose shingles on it, and a tumble-down iron lightning-rod, and rickety beams, and shaky ladders, and – well, you feel all the time as if you were walking on eggs. It's just the kind of a steeple that killed young Romaine about a month ago."

Of course I asked for the story of young Romaine, and was told of certain climbers who advertise their skill by using a steeple-top for acrobatic feats that have nothing to do with repairing. Upon such Merrill frowned severely.

"Romaine was a fine athlete," said he, "and a fearless man, but he went too far. He would stretch out on his stomach across the top of a steeple, and balance there without touching hands or knees, and he'd do all sorts of circus tricks on lightning-rods and weather-vanes and flagpoles – anything for notoriety. I told him he'd get killed sure some day, but he laughed at me. Well, it wasn't a week after I warned him when he was killed. He climbed an old lightning-rod without testing it (it was on a little church up at Cold Spring, New York), and just as he was reaching the steeple-top, with a whole town watching him, the end of the rod pulled out, and he swung off with it, ripping out every dowel, like the buttons off a coat, right down to the ground – smash. Poor fellow, when I read the news I left my job at Trinity and took the first train up to bury him."

This sad story lingered in my mind that night, and was there still the next afternoon as I drew near the Church of the Pilgrims to witness the first day's climbing. Already, at a distance, I knew that the men were at work from the upbent heads of people on the street who stared and pointed. And presently I made out two white figures on the steeple, one swinging about fifteen feet below the ball, the other standing against the shingled side without any support that I could see. Up the old tower (inside) I made my way, and two ladders beyond the "bell-deck" came upon Walter Tyghe, "Steeple Bob's" assistant, astride of a stone saddle on one of the four peaks where the tower ends and the steeple begins. There was a clear drop of a hundred feet all around him. He was "tending" the two men aloft, as witnessed a couple of ropes dangling by him. It was two jerks to come down and one to go up. Were he to lose his balance and let go the hauling-rope, the men on the swing would instantly be killed, as they had no "lock-blocks" on.

"Come out here," said Walter, "there's plenty of room," and, thus encouraged, I straddled the peak, and we sat face to face, as two men might sit on a child's rocking-horse, while the tower pigeons circled beneath us, alarmed at this intrusion. Far down on the sidewalk were little faces of distorted people; far up at the steeple-top were legs kicking at ropes. And off over red housetops was the river, and the great towers of New York spread with silver plumes by the steam jets.

"Now you can see the stirrups working," said Walter, and, looking up, I saw a figure swing back from the steeple, an arm shoot out, and a length of rope go wriggling around the shaft, cast like a lasso. Then the rope was drawn into a noose, and the noose hauled tight. The legs kicked, the figure hitched itself up about a foot, and again the rope was cast (another rope), and a second noose still higher made secure. That is all there is to it. The steeple-climber stands in a stirrup held by one noose while he lassoes the shaft above him with another noose, supporting another stirrup on which he presently stands. And so, foot by foot, the climber rises, shifting noose and stirrup at each change, resting now on one, now on the other, and finally reaching the cross, or ball, or weather-vane at the very top.

"That's Joe Lawlor chuckin' the rope," explained Walter; "Merrill, he's on the swing. Say, Lawlor's a wonder at rigging. He can do anything with ropes. He's the feller that climbs up the front of a house with suckers on his feet."

Of this fact I took note, and then inquired if I couldn't get up further inside the steeple, so as to be nearer the men. Walter said I could climb ladders up to where they had punched a hole through for the rope to hold the block and falls, and I tried it. Alas! when I got there, after breathing dust and squeezing between beams, I found that I could see nothing. I was almost at the steeple-top, and could hear Merrill, through the wooden shell, humming a tune as he worked, but I was further away than before.

"Hello in there!" came a voice. "Don't monkey with that line." And it came to me that this rope, reaching down by me from yonder little hole (the one knocked through), held the block which held the swing which held the man. And an accident to this rope would mean instant death. I touched it, and drew my hand away, as one might touch some animal through the cage bars, and I felt like saying, "Good little rope!"

It was coming on to dark now, and we all went home together, over the bridge and up the avenues, talking of steeples the while. And Lawlor explained the action of his suckers in climbing walls, which is precisely that of a boy's sucker in lifting a brick. The big climbing-leathers, well soaked in oil, are pressed alternately against the stones, the right leg resting on one while the left leg presses the other against the wall a step higher. And so you walk right up the building or church or flagpole, and the smoother the surface the easier you go up. In fact, if the surface is rough you cannot use the suckers at all, as the air gets under and prevents their holding.

Then the men spoke of various jobs aloft that called up memories. Merrill told of cleaning the fifteen-foot Diana statue on the Madison Square Garden tower. "It's hard getting over her," he said, "because she's so blamed smooth. I guess I took three quarts of rust out of her ball-bearings. You know she's a weather-vane, and turns with the wind." I wondered how many New-Yorkers who see the Diana every day of their lives have ever dwelt on the fact that she turns.

Talking of weather-vanes reminded my friends of a ticklish job they did on St. Paul's steeple, in New York, when Merrill, standing under the ball, held Lawlor on his giant shoulders so that Joe could lift off the weather-vane on top and ease the shaft where it had jammed. With Lawlor's weight and the weather-vane's weight, "Steeple Bob" held four hundred pounds on his shoulders during those important minutes, and, it might almost be said, stood on the dizzy edge of nothing while he did it.

Finally, Lawlor expressed the opinion that there isn't any meaner job in the business than a chimney.

"A chimney?" said I.

"That's what. I mean one o' them big ones you see on factories. We have to scrape 'em and paint 'em just like steeples, and that means climbing up the whole length inside. The climbing's easy enough on bolts and braces, but it's something fierce the air you breathe. Why, I've gone up a two-hundred-and-forty-foot chimney with a five-foot opening at the bottom, and found the soot so thick about half-way up – so thick, sir, that I've been almost stuck in it. Yes, sir, just had to shove my head into an eight-inch hole and bore through black stuff, beds of it. And mind, not a hole for air as big as a pin-head from bottom to top."

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.