Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

That part of Maggy which did not embrace sound logic wondered if, against all odds, she might catch a glimpse of him in the shadows, his having daringly escaped from his confinement in Milltown, drawn, of course, to her side by the magnetism of her deep affection. It was a silly thought, but one that nonetheless captivated her and kept her eyes fixed upon the road for any sign of him. The hour was late and there should be no one coming down this isolate byway at such a time. But then at just the next moment, there was: two dark figures, in fact, each silhouetted against the moonlit landscape, each furtively creeping out from behind the stand of trees round which the road turned and made its appearance before the school. Since the dirt road terminated at the open and welcoming front gate of the Chowser school grounds there was no other place to which they could be headed. The two figures entered the gates and came very near to Maggy’s own window, startling her to such a degree that she shrunk back and slapped a hand directly upon her mouth lest they hear her audible gasp through the open casements.

It was good that the frightened cook should cover her mouth in such a manner, for what the phantoms did next would surely have invoked an even more vocal reaction. A spark was struck in one of their hands and then two large torches were lighted, both bursting suddenly upon their flambeau ends as if there was greatly combustible material packed there. It was now clear to Maggy that the torches had some purpose other than simply the lighting of the strangers’ way as they traversed the dark grounds. They were come for a reason far more sinister than mere prowling about; they were set, it now appeared to Maggy, to put the main school building to quick flame — to burn the building to the ground with all of its occupants fast asleep within their beds.

Maggy watched as the men went round the side of the building and disappeared from her view. But not another moment passed before she could smell the smoke of the arsons’ incendiary mission. Wasting no time, Maggy raced into the kitchen and threw open the door that gave on the garden. Above this door hung the noisy iron bell that summoned all of the hungry Chowser School residents to their meals. On occasion it was used for other convocational purposes. Now Maggy sought to employ it for a brand new purpose: to wake the sleepers in their beds and call for an immediate evacuation of the burning school.

The tocsin did its business, and shortly thereafter came a scramble and bustle of activity inside the school, which was already burning on its western end where the classrooms were situated. Yet even in the dormitories on the eastern side, one could smell the pungent smoke and all knew instantly what was happening.

All, that is…save young Jack Snicks, who continued to sleep through all the shouting and the hubbub — slept soundly and peacefully upon his cot until Alphonse Chowser retrieved him from the smoke-clouded dormitory. Alphonse pulled the nine-year-old boy up from his bed, along with a tangle of sheets and blankets, and patted him gently upon the cheeks. Jack awoke with a start; he had been in the midst of a most engaging dream in which he had been sitting before his late aunt’s cozy hearth when the flue suddenly shut and the room became filled with smoke.

“Do you not know what is happening, lad?” asked Chowser, setting the boy down upon the floor and taking him by the hand. Then answering his own enquiry as the two hurried in their bare feet toward the door that offered egress from the smoky room: “But of course you could not have known until I woke you. I often forget, my little sleepy man, that you’re a deaf mute, for you read lips so very well.”

Jack made an unintelligible noise with his tongue and throat that served to forgive Chowser the oversight.

There was a brief and valiant attempt at forming a bucket brigade amongst the pupils and the staff, but the fire raged too great, and the hand windlass turned too slowly above the well to retrieve the buckets fast enough to make any difference.

Before the large stone manse that served as boarding school to some thirty-some-odd boys (the current crop), Alphonse Chowser, Esq., stood robed but still shoeless, along with all of those equally barefooted boys and wide-eyed adult employees. There was Porter (who went by nothing but his occupational name alone); and Mary Katharine, the maid-of-all-work; and Diggory, the gardener; and Mr. Smangle, who handled the accounts and sometimes taught arithmetic and eulogic, which was a discipline developed by this rumple-haired, pock-marked man himself: a philosophy rooted in a Panglossian sort of view that most people are by their inherent nature good and kind, though this evening of arson would prove the exception that makes the rule.

And there was Maggy, the saviour of the night, who, through a sleepless longing for the man she loved, had made possible a full and successful evacuation of the school. Chowser took Maggy’s hand in a silent show of gratitude whilst shaking his head despondently as the flames spat and danced within his tired, worried eyes.

“Oh, Smangle,” suspired Chowser in a lamenting tone, “all of my years of work, vanishing before my eyes. It is most difficult to bear.”

“Who would do such a thing?” asked Mary Katharine, her fingers running desultorily through her sleep-mussed hair.

“Arsonists, as I have said. I saw them with my own eyes.” answered Maggy in a logical but not altogether enlightening way.

“We will rebuild, Chowser,” said Smangle. “We must rebuild. At all events, these flames do not put to ashes all of the work you have already done, for there are hundreds of upstanding men throughout the Dell who are walking testament to your years of self-sacrificing labour. They are testament to all that your father has done and to the efforts of your grandfather before him. The Chowser School does not die there ,” indicating the blazing fire with a gesturing hand, “but that it continues to live here .” Smangle pressed both of his hands tightly against his breast to show where his heart was.

“Mary Katharine asked the right question,” said Diggory. “Why would anyone want to burn down our school? For what possible reason?” The gardener was still wearing his sleeping smock. With one hand he clutched the handle of a spade, hastily drawn from his tool shed. With it, Diggory had hoped to strike blows upon the perpetrators of this dastardly act, though by that point the evildoers had already long vanished into the surrounding darkness. Diggory gave a nervous glance over his shoulder at his prized vegetable patch, which was too close to the darting flames for his comfort.

He turned back to Maggy. “And you’re very sure, Cook, that you saw them — the men with the torches? You are sure that they weren’t some fancy of your half-drowsy mind?” Diggory patted his callused hand soothingly upon the head of one of the youngest boys, who clung tremblingly to the gardener’s knee and would be in tears were such a thing ever to be permitted by his stoic older schoolmates.

“Alas, Gardener, I believe that Maggy’s eyes did not deceive her,” said Chowser through a sigh that carried a great weight of sorrow with it. “I have always wondered if it was not a bad decision on my grandfather’s part to build our school so far removed from Milltown or even from any of the other villages. Here we sit upon the veritable frontier of the Dell. I’ve sent Anthony on the fleet bay mare to fetch the firemen, but it will all be for naught. The blazes could not be contained even should the engine arrive at this very moment. In no time at all the whole building will be reduced to smoking wooden rubble.”

Chowser turned his back to the flames, able no longer to endure the sight of them. Yet still he could not successfully remove the scene from his view, for the fire shone in all the reflections round him: it shone in the blazing eyes of the boys who huddled close together and looked on in amazement at this destructive feat of nature (initiated in this case not by nature but by the villainous hand of man); its bright flames reflected in the coal scuttle held by Porter (thinking that it could be used to carry water to douse the flames, though it was found to be woefully inadequate for that purpose); it was mirrored in the Britannia metal tea pot rescued by Mary Katharine, the maid-of-all-work (because it was lovely and why should it not be saved?); and it gleamed bright yellow and orange from the side of the tin cash box, tucked beneath the arm of the ever practical Mr. Smangle.