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He had been extending his inquiries further and more particular inquiries into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had lived with him was not his wife. "But you told me they had seven children," said the King.
"Pish!" answered another, "it is steeplejack Jan, who can hang on a wall like a fly." "Look out for the ends of the rope," cried the thin voice above, and down they came. "Spare me," screamed the wretched priest, as his executioners caught hold of him. "Yes, yes, as you spared the Heer Jansen a few months ago." "It was to save his soul," groaned Dominic.
"There has been an accident," said his Majesty. "Over there!" He pointed. "A steeplejack has fallen." The secretary slid respectfully to the window and looked out. To that polite official gaze of inquiry the scene of the tragedy returned a blank and uncommunicative stare. "Poor wretch!" murmured the King. "I actually saw him go!
He had gone straight to the Minister of the Interior and had reported to him the failure of his efforts, for it was this minister who had in the first place come to him. The steeplejack had fallen, so to speak, right into the middle of his department; and with the King's donation coming on the top the catastrophe bulked large.
This weathercock the highest point of the constitutional edifice requiring to be touched up afresh for the public eyes was truly symbolical of the crown in its relation to the popular will; twisting this way and that responsive to and interpretative of outside forces, it had no will of its own at all, and yet to do its work it must blaze resplendently and be lifted high, and to be put in working trim and kept with luster untarnished it required at certain intervals the attentions of a steeplejack one accustomed to being in high places, accustomed to isolation and loneliness, accustomed to bearing a burden upon his back before the eyes of all: one whose functions were rather like his own.
Or his mind may be concentrated on the scientific bearings of the case, so that he will involuntarily treat the patient as a specimen on which to pursue his researches. The steeplejack experiences no giddiness or fear in scaling a church spire because the thought of danger is immediately replaced by the knowledge of his own clear head and sure foot.
This, too, with a long poise and then a flying clutch, I accomplished; and with the rest of my descent I will not weary the reader. It was interminably slow, and it was laborious; but, to speak comparatively, it was safe. My boots lasted me to within twenty feet of the parapet, and then, just as I had kicked my toes bare, a steeplejack appeared at the little doorway with a ladder.
That newspaper, the Akbar, told the yarn t'other day, and all Algiers is laughing over it even now. It is so funny for that steeplejack up aloft in his crow's-nest to make declarations of love under your very nose to the little beauty whilst singing out his prayers, and making appointments with her between bits of the Koran."
"Aye and Gaukrodger, and Marshall, and the steeplejack that had just come down, and another or two," said Cobcroft. "They'd no chance they were standing in a group at the very foot, talking. They were all killed there and then instantaneous. Some others were struck and injured one or two died. Yes, sir, I'm not very like to forget that!" "A terrible experience!" agreed Collingwood.
"Upward! Like the gentleman in the poetry-book, he wants to go higher, higher, ever higher " "Aeroplane?" "No, not that way steeplejack." "Painting spires?" "Not only spires, but signs in high places dangerous places-and, you know, Mr. Stone, he told us that day at the Embury house that he didn't climb that he painted signs, and let other people put them up." "Yes; well? What of it?"
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