STEEPLEJACK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21999, 4 January 1935, Page 2

STEEPLEJACK

C. HEDLEY BARKER

Memory persists, and gold is perdurable, so that probably in a thousand years from now some Mardenite will point to the golden cross on the steeple of Marden church, and Jack Sedge will become a bad lot for tho millionth time. For that is how the rustics speak his epitaph to-day, with head-shakings, a tone of weighty condemnation, and a solemn, reminiscent clouding of tho eye. "Ah I He were a bad lot, a mortal bad lot." And, further: " Leastways, that's what they do say. He was aforo my time. But, a mortal chancy customer, according to all accounts."

But, in any conversation about Jack Sedge it emerges that he was far from being gifted with those furtivo talents which are commonly associated with the bad lot. Crime was no habit with him;.indeed, the crime which has lived after him all these years to be quoted in countless debit columns was the only one that ho ever conceived. Moreover, lie did not lack the simple virtues which characterise the average country labouring man. He worked hard, drank in moderation, paid his dues, was a cood husband to his woman, and never short of a kind word. However, the work, the goodness, tho kind words: all the bright bits of worth that go to make a doucely man are as naucht when he has sinned and died.

Jack Sedge was a bad lot. He tried to steal the cross off St. Ethelbert's steeple; the holy cross, and, as vou might say, God's own property. Imagination doesn't flourish among tho people of tho soil. They till tho land, and see no wonder in its fruits; they plough, and sow, and reap, and order tho cattlo, and ask nothing but a bellyful of bread and a few pints of ale. Crops and harvests, droughts, market prices, fat heifers: such is the 6taple diet for their minds. In these circumstances such a thing as a golden cross—a cross, mark you, of solid gold—makes a rich dish. There it stood, atop of the steeple, looking about six inches long, and worth best part of a thousand pounds. The squire was ill, the squire was dying, and 10l when old Tom Thaxted was standing by to toll fifty-one years on St. Ethelbert's boll, tho squire was well again. So, as a mark of his gratitude, a thousand pounds took shape to deck the village church.

That was before Jack Sedge's time. When he was born the cross had marked the highest point in the county for a matter of twenty years, and, after its golden novelty had staled, he didn't so much as crane his neck for more than three decades. Moreover, it didn't occur to him until ho was forty-five that he could do happy things with a thousand pounds. Ho had been used to budgeting for tho necessities of life on a weekly exchequer of thirty shillings, and a thousand pounds would merely have left him dazed with puzzlement. But, suddenly, in middle age, he took occasion to tilt back his head in the shadow of the old church 6teeple. As he gazed upward his first sensation was one of nausea. Even at reasonable heights he had always been

subject to this feeling of sick giddiness, ond the sight of a human being with the whole sky for a setting turned his stomach queasy.

He imagined himself in that steeplejack's shoes, with only a ladder, a flimsy ladder to hold on to, up there, high up, maybe half-a-mile by the look of it, and the wind blowing, the 6teeple rocking, rocking dizzily. . . .

The landlord of the Dun Cow said: " You'm come all over white, Jack. Feeling queer?" " Ar," said Jack. " Half-noggin o' whisky." He had a job to keep from shuddering.

Later, ho forgot about the steeplejack and thought of the cross, the glittering, flashing cross of St. Ethelbert's. An idea had popped into his head, quick as a stoat, hesitating like, and with that same inquiring look that you saw in the beastie's eye, sort of on its toes, alert. He didn't like tho look of that idea, and then, afterwards, he did. Eight pounds the cross weighed, so 'twas »said, and a thousand pounds was tho worth of it. A thousand pounds, Jack Sedge, and you up there with a hacksaw, eh? At dead of night. Ah. that was the beauty of that notion —dead of night. If you couldn't see; if you couldn't look down and seo the sheer of that tower, you couldn't get sick, and that was certain.

He'd have to tell Nellie. He thought about it up and down, inside and out. and every which-way ho came at it led him to this: that he'd have to tell Nellio. Nellie was a terrible light sleeper; and, anyway, he'd always told her everything, everything. Ho coidd saw the cross up, melt it down, sell it piecemeal in tho next county, in the next county to that, aye, and further afield by many a mile. Carefid, that's how he'd go, careful ns a honey-bee, and Nellie could have some gowns, a new dresser with divided drawers: no end to the things she could have, and that was true as the Ten Commandments. Tt was awkward, telling Nellie. Not, mark you, that she was one for prayers and psalm - singing, but she was straight in her ways, straight to a penny, to a taty-pecling as you might say, and able to look in every next pair of eyes clear and true. Well, awkward or not awkward, she'd have to know, and she'd have to abide by it. Up that steonle he'd be to-night like n long-dog, and down he'd come heavyladen. sure as sunset. " What would vou say to a thousand pounds, lass?" He came out with it like that, straight away, no shillyshallying, and she stared at him as if he'd gone daft in tho head, and then she laughed. " Eh, got your dinner, yon great lout," she said, " and don't talk so senseless."

" Not so senseless, at that," ho caino back. " Look out at the back door, look up, and seo him a-shining there, all bright and handsome." She didn't grasp it, not at first. But when sho looked out at the back door, and looked up, a cry came from her; for it was like knives in her heart to think what he was planning. When she came in her eyes had gone big with fear, and there was a grey look about her lips; and she plumped down in a chair and shook with the shivers. " No," she said, and shook her head, and put up her hand as if fending off the horrors. " No, not that, Jack 1 You wouldn't do a thing like that. I never was one of parson's flock; never did hold with praising the Lord in public, but that isn't to say as I haven't a proper respect. That cross was set up there for the Lord God, ami it's His'n, and Ho'd damn the soul of any mortal as laid a thieving hand on it. I'd sooner see you struck dead, Jack, than a-climbinc up that ladder." But Jack was set on it. hard and fast. " You can talk of parsons and praising the Lord and damning of souls till you're black i' the face, lass," he

A SHORT STORY

(CorrniGnT)

said. "It won't budge me. And if yoi> ask me why. I'll say as the Lord 'uld hi content with a wooden cross. It's likely enough as He don't want that gold thing up there when the worth of it could be doing good work in the world; nor Ho nor St. Ethelbcrt neither. " That's not for you to say, Jack Sedge. It's for you to walk straight and conduct yourself decent. 1 don't know what's come over you. I never did 'icar o' such goings on. I wonder you a'n't afraid —afraid." She began to whimper. She came across to him and whimpered, and her shaking fingers touched his cheeks, his neck, his hair, in an access of love and fear. They caressed him with light, nervous, fumbling movements, and all tho while she whimpered out hot tears.

» •» * * # But when Jack Sedgo had mado up his mind on a thing he was hard: hard as granite, hard as flint, hard as a

pitiless heart. " But, tho height. Jack!" she said, eagerly clutching at a straw. " You come over all badly, all sickly, when you get high up." " Ah," he said, " but it'll be dark. I won't know I'm high up, in a manner of speaking. So long as I can't see the fall of yond steeple away from under me, I'll bo all right. Now, do you dry j'our eyes, Nellie, and bide quiet. I'm set on it, and I'll not ho moved, no, not by all tho king's hosses." He found a piece of stout canvas in the outhouse, and took needle and thread, and began to stitch it into a belt; stitched it right and proper, with buttons and buttonholes and all. When he had finished the belt to his satisfaction he fashioned another piece of the canvas into a round shape like a cup with no bottom, a sort of holster. He stitched away with methodical neatness, snaking the needle round tho rims of the holster, making a tidy seam, turning down the selvedge, finicking over it as if it were a job for nil time. And iwien the holster was sewn on to tho belt ho buttoned it around his waist and made a motion of slipping the cross into the holster. tea-time there was a hard look in Nellie's eye which he had never seen there before. She didn't eat; just sat thero staring, staring sightlessly out of the window with her face set in despair, and a kind of queer look about her as if she were listening for something, or waiting for a sign to be mado manifest every next second. But Jack Sedge was adamant, and strong to endure, and he made no movo to comfort her. The superstitious will read omens into

spilled salt, broken mirrors, crossed forks, and the like. And when the sun, going down in his western orbit, seized the cross of St. Ethelbert's in his

ruddy embrace and limned it in flame, Nellie Sedge read into that fiery symbol a tale of doom. Soft and low, fearing sorely for her man, she moaned to herself, and the moan turned" to a prayer that he might be spared this sacrilege, that his soul might bo absolved from dajnnation, that lie might, in the last resort, be struck paralytic. Jack Sedge was content to sit by tho hearth most nights with his pipe. Tonight he announced his intention of going to the Dun Cow. " And I'll be glad," he said, " to see a straight face on 'eo when I come back. Will I bring you in a bottle of ale?"

But she gave him no reply, and he banged the door as he went out. Tho smells in the creen lane came to him ou the cool of tho day sweet and strong; the smell of tussocks and loam and honeysuckle and wild thyme and nightscented stocks in the little front gardens.

In a larch tree by old Quilter's cottage a thrush gave praise, voicing the last valediction tc a happy day. A great peace had come upon the place, und upon Jack Sedee, thinking on tho way lie would spend a pound here and there, came a vast contentment, laced with a thin, fiery thread of stimulation. He opened the door of tho inn * * * * »

He was prepared to be amenable when lie arrived home, but the sight of his supper laid 011 the table incensed him. He called up the stairs, roughly, demanding to know what ailed her, that she should go to bed at this time. Listening, he detected a low, smothered sound of lament, a monotone of sobbing. But he steeled himself and was strengthened in his resolve. She Jay quiet when he went upstairs. Her eves followed him about tho room in mute appeal, and he ignored the appeal with clenched teeth, with glowers, and with ill-tempered hurling about of his clothes. And now he busied himself with the setting of the alarm. Day dawned at half-past four. He set the pointer at two o'clock. She knew it was no good trying to coax him, and she didn't speak.

He roso up when the alarm called him, and lit tho candle, and was dressed in two minutes. She gave a low cry when he put on the belt with its holster, and sat. up, her arms extended in a plea. " Not to-night, Jack, not to-night!" " If I didn't go to-night, I'd go the next night, or the next night after that," ho muttered, darkly, and she fell back, spent. All this she had known, and yet she had hoped, had dared to believe ifc might not be. He tied sacking over his hoots, and took the saw, and went furtively out, and in five minutes he had begun tg climb. The night was still and warm. Nothing stirred When he bad counted n hundred steps he looked down. He had counted a hundred and eighty steps when a sudden shock moved him; a shock like a stab in the back, like a bullet in tho hack. Ho cringed, aligned his body closely with the ladder, and bowed his head in a sweat. Was he seeing things? Oh, God, had he gone mental P He closed his eyes, hung on with his sweaty hands, and counted ten, and assured himself that it, couldn't be more than half-past-two. , Then had he seen the slates of tho steeple growing plainer to his eyes. Had he seen the rungs of tho ladder made visible, aye, as far as six feet above him? No, no, be hadn't, he couldn't, it was impossible, there wasn't, u chance! Dawn at half-past four, that was the way of it. And later on it would be five, six, seven; the days dawned according to tho seasons, without deviation, as sure as Christmas. How should a man sco what wasn't there? How, God save him, how?

Aye, how, indeed! When Jack Sedge opened his wos the sun had sprung fully-armed from tho eastern horizon. Twenty feet above him the crosn of St. Ethelbert's dazzled the ambient air. Jack Sedge gave out a sound. High on that steeple, caught like a rat in a trap, he closed his hunted eyes and gave out a sound strangely like Nellie's whimper. And now began a fight against impulse. But, the spunk had gone out of him, the goodness was gone away. He was no fit case for a fight. And, presently, feeling sick to his finger-tips, he looked, and saw the sheer fall of tho ladder away below, and shrieked, and, in a kind of convulsion, let go.

Such was tho end of Jack Sedge, a bad lot, struck down according to all accounts by the hand of God. It may bo. One cannot dogmatise. But, if the hand of God was lifted, then His chosen vessel still exists in the person of Nellie Sedge. For she it was who, resolved to save Jack's soul even though it cost him his life, put back the clock two hours.