Paul avoids looking about him, and his movements are slow and regular. I am seized with terror as I fancy that he makes an unnecessary start and turn—then the cross sinks into its resting-place and stands firmly. In the same moment the man stumbles—a cry resounds in my vicinity. But Paul is still standing on the summit.
The cry proceeds from Anna Maria. She is deathly pale, and without uttering another sound she seats herself upon a stone.
And now the merry-making begins. Paul takes out a glass and, raising it to his lips, drains it, then hurls it upon the ground. It breaks into a thousand pieces, and the people struggle with one another for the bits, that they may preserve them for their descendants and be able to say: "See, this is a part of the glass which was used at the raising of the cross on the church tower."
Paul still stands upon the pinnacle, arm in arm with the cross; in the tower window the grey head of our rhymster Rüpel now appears. Contracting his white eyebrows so violently that it can be seen even from below, the man begins thus to speak: "As the dizzy spire I cannot reach, so from this window I ’ll make my speech. On the highest point a youth doth stand, with handsome looks and glass in hand. But aged ones like me should teach, yet sermons I will never preach. For that below a chancel’s given, to honest priests, who guide to heaven. And the font baptismal stands near by—of no more use to such as I—but some folks in the parish here, need this wash-trough every year. The font should be both wide and long—in forest lands it must be strong; near by the confessional stands for all, where sins are left both great and small, which God forgives; though the priest his ears may close, the sins from his own heart he knows. Then there ’s the altar, where one leaves one’s woes, refreshed and young one homeward goes. And God twelve angels here will send, to guard this parish from end to end. Methinks I hear our bells ring clear: I see our sunlit cross in place, a sacred sign that by God’s grace we all together at last may wend our way to heaven when life shall end. But I must be the bell to-day, to tell abroad what you fain would say, and send it forth o’er mountain and wood to the town where dwells our master good—a message of thanks from this parish new, for the house of God which he builds for you. May angels guide us to heaven’s door,—this is my greeting, and still more—before above we have a happy birth, may we rejoice a little while on earth."