St. Mary's Beacon

A Perilous Hour.

I was apprenticed to a decorative painter, but being of a bold, danger-loving turn, I ran away to sea before my time was out. After some years of knocking about, I got tired of a maritime life, and having married, determined to stick to the shore. I got work with a builder whose peculiar line lay in erecting tall chimneys. I had always a very cool head, and could stand on elevations that made most men dizzy, and so I was soon a favorite hand with my master.

We had on one occasion to fasten a lightning conductor which had sprung near the top of a very high chimney, and Mr. Staming chose myself and one James Colly to do it, as the most daring of his men. About half a dozen of us went that morning with a hand-cart, containing the necessary ropes, blocks, the kite, and a box or cradle. Having flown the kite, and dropped its line across the top of the chimney, we soon drew up a rope, at the end of which was a block, through which ran the line whereby we were to be drawn up.

Colly had only been married a fortnight; and as we stepped into the cradle the men banteringly asked him if he hadn't a last dying speech to leave for his wife; and then Mr. Staming having shaken hands with us, and bid us be cool and steady, we were drawn slowly up. It was known all over the town that the conductor was to be fixed, though as the day was not named, I did not expect we should have had many spectators; but as we got higher, and the view opened under our feet, I saw that the streets were already thronged with starers. Colly was very quiet; and when I waved my cap to the people, he said, snappishly, that this was no time for such folly, and that he thought I might think of better things than how to amuse those gaping fools, who, he dared say, desired no better fun than to see us meet with an accident.

I had come up in the best heart, thinking, indeed, nothing about the danger we incurred; but as we drew nearer and nearer to the top, and had nothing, as it seemed, belonging to this world near us but this straining rope, I began to see the peril of the undertaking. What Colly thought of it, I don't know—he sat at the bottom of the cradle, never looking out, though I told him he would do better to keep his eyes about him, so that he might grow used to the height.

Good Heavens! what was this? Here we were within a yard of the top projecting coping, and still they were winding away without slacking speed in the least! I guessed in a moment that they mistook our height, and that with the great purchase of that windlass the rope would be broken when the cradle came to the block. I sprang up, and catching the rope, climbed hand over hand to the coping. Colly, too, sprang up and followed me. He, too, got safe; and still they went on winding up, winding up, till the rope sung again with the strain there was upon it.

Then it snapped, and cradle, hauling-line, and the main rope with its block fell down. Thus were we two poor men left in a most desperate situation.

Poor Colly was completely dazed with affright; and the moment he got upon the coping, which was only a foot and a half broad, he called out: "Where can I pray? where can I kneel and pray?" and so I said very solemnly: "Sit down, Jem. God will hear us if we pray to him sitting down."

The color of his face was of a transparent blue, and it was distorted and twitching, as if he was in a fit. His eyes were very wild, and drawn into a squint, and he couldn't sit steady, but swayed his body backward and forward, so that I felt certain that he must topple over.

"Come, Jem lad," I said, thinking to take the fright off him, "it's bad enough, but it can be mended. Hitch up a bit, and put your arm round the rod—may be it will steady you."

"Where are you, and where is this rod?" he asked, in a very hollow voice, though he was looking straight at me, and the rod was only a foot or two to his left. By this I knew he was gone blind with fright, and self-preservation said, "Don't go near him;" but then I remembered his new-wedded wife, and that taking him all through, he was always a very decent fellow; and I thought how I should have liked him to have done if I had been in his case; so I determined to run a bit of risk in his favor. Of course, I durst not get on my feet; but working myself on by my hands, I got to him, and putting my arm round his waist, and telling him as cheerfully as I could to keep cool, I got him with his arm round the rod. It had, however, sprung the stapling for five yards down, and was so loose that it swayed with him, and I expected any minute to see him falling head and heels down, and the rod tearing away with him.

There was great bustle down below; people were rushing round the yard and pushing to get in, but as yet there were but some score of men at the foot of the chimney, and, by close looking, I saw them put somebody on a board, and carry him gently away towards the engine-house. One of the men walked after with a hat in his hand; then I knew that somebody had been hurt with the falling cradle, and that it must be poor Mr. Staming, as none of our men wore hats.

Not a face was turned up to us. I learned afterwards that our men were so taken up with sorrow that so good a man and so kind a master should be killed, that for a while they had never a thought about us; and the people outside imagined that we had come down with the cradle, so thus were we left in total isolation for full twenty minutes.

While I was watching them below, feeling very sorry for my poor master, I was startled by a wild laugh from Colly, who began making catcalls, and yelling as if he was possessed. Then I knew, of course, that he was gone mad.

Even now I tremble when I think of that time. It was horrible to peer down the shaft, black and sooty and yawning, and scarcely less so to look outside and see a flight of pigeons sweeping round at considerably less height than we were. Then Colly—thank God he was so dazed that he could not see me—called my name three times, as I sat fairly cringing in dread that his sight might clear, and with a ghastly grin, and chewing with his mouth, he began working himself towards me. I worked away from him as noiselessly as I could, with every hair of my head standing on end. He followed me twice round that horrid coping, making most hideous noises, and then being come a second time to the rod, he got an idea in his muddled head that I had fallen over, for he never lost a sense of where he was all through this trying time. Then he tried to get on his feet; but, at the risk of my own life, I could not let the poor fellow rush on certain death without one more effort; and I cried out for him to sit down, and he cowered down like a whipped dog all trembling. I suppose it had been put into his head that I was a dead man speaking to him.

That morning my wife had got a letter from her sister in Canada, and as there were parts we could not make out, I had put it in my pocket, intending to get our time-keeper to read it for me. It had a scrap of uncovered paper at the bottom; and by another good providence, I happened to have a bit of red lead-pencil in my pocket. I wrote on the paper, "Get us down—Colly's gone mad;" this I shut in my tobacco box, and was fortunate enough to drop just at the feet of a couple of men who were standing by the engine-house door.

Directly all was bustle to rescue us. They got the kite up again, and I watched it mounting slowly—slowly; and when the slack twine fell between Colly and myself, I took it in my hand and could have kissed it. Poor Colly, with his teeth chattering, still fancied I was a spirit, and I did all I could to favor that idea until they got another cradle up to us. Then having got him in, I scrambled in myself, and clutching him fast, I shouted for them to lower; and so we were got down, he wrestling and fighting with me all the way.

He was in a madhouse for some months, and then went to scavenging, for he never could face any height again; and I have never had the same clear head since that adventure.