Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“I am not the only one, Cecilia. There are others around me with tears in their eyes as well.”

“But you are the only one crying over things that need not be worth a tear. As for the silly trinket that still binds you to your family, if you are so needful of keeping it from being lost, then unclasp it and hold it in your hand until we can secure a jeweller in the Outland to replace the damaged clasp.”

This was the first thing said by Cecilia with which Alice actually agreed. She undid the pendant and put it into her hand. She closed her fist tightly round it, the tiny coiling chain feeling so small in her palm — as small and slight as the invisible chain that linked her to her blood family.

Soon Milltown was behind them and there were a few sighs of relief that the cavalcade had moved through the town without the smallest incident. The valley opened up now into a broad plain of field and small coppice, with a long, clear prospect comprehending the space that surrounded the muddy Riparian Road — the road that led by spur to the foot of the Northern Ridge. In one direction: the Wang-Wang rice farm — a boggy place with a little pagoda teahouse in the style of the Orientals. In another direction: the black, ruined apricot orchard, burnt to the ground, no doubt, by those vandalising gipsy Scadgers: such an ugly thing for the Eighty-three Elect to see amongst their final departing views of Dingley Dell. A cornfield there, next to an old, weathered barn. And over there another corn field, this one planted in New World corn, or maize, as it was sometimes called. And there straight ahead, the Northern Ridge, standing tall and majestic and carpeted in dark green as the early summer rains had brought its cover of shrub and dwarf trees to even deeper verdancy.

On did the procession move along, some of its constituents in march step, others slackening into a more plodding tread — for many of the Eighty-three Elect had not walked so long a distance in a very long while and were growing quite tired. Finally the group drew up to the spot at the foot of the ridge in which one commenced by wide foot- and barrow-path the climb to the top.

Pupker took the voice-trumpet and commanded attention from his pilgrims for what needed now to be said. “My friends, I have been given the report on conditions at the top and all is fair weather for our descent into the Outland. There are escorts who await us upon the Summit, of more than sufficient number to ease us in the early hours of our first foray into what will very shortly be shorn of its current appellation ‘the Terra Incognita .’ For it is now to be our home, soon to become as warm and familiar to each of us as was Dingley Dell. All of our luggage has been taken up ahead of us, all of your belongings put safely within the waggons which went out this morning. Now I must ask before we ascend: is there anyone amongst us who has changed his mind about making this journey? For this is the last time that you will be given leave to quit this party.”

Pupker waited to hear if anyone would speak. Cecilia looked at Alice, who seemed at first upon the verge of saying something, but then did not. Cecilia nodded and smiled and patted an approving hand upon Alice’s back. Alice, for her part, attempted to return the smile, but she could not. Cecilia did not know how close Alice had come to removing herself at that very moment from this group and returning herself with all due haste and a loving heart to the arms of her mother and father. But she could not bring herself to do it. For surely they must hate her now. For surely they had already erased her name from the family book and there would be no reconciliation. She had made her choice. She would hold her tongue; she could do nothing else.

“Our merry band of future Outlanders remaining intact, I shall now ask Sheriff Boldwig to deliver instructions to his deputies.” Pupker handed the voice-trumpet to the sheriff.

“Men,” said he, “you must now be scratching your heads over what Mr. Pupker has just said, or else you have astutely figured it out. You will stop here, gentlemen, for those whom you have shepherded to this spot will not, in truth, be climbing this mountain for the purpose of a party at all, but for the far more important reason of departing permanently from this Dell, and I regret to inform you that you will not be coming along with us. I have made no provisions for whom shall succeed me in my office. But I will now make that assignment. Mr. Magwitch, will you step forward?”

One of the deputies — in fact, its former tipstaff who had groused so vocally over the firing of his friend Vincent Muntle that he was demoted to deputy of the lowest rank — now stepped out of the knot of astonished sheriff ’s officers.

“Your past insubordination is forgiven in the spirit of my magnanimity. I christen thee the new sheriff of Dingley Dell.” Boldwig handed the man his badge and his pistol. “I wish you well. I wish all of you well and we thank you for your kind assistance in facilitating our migration from this valley.”

Magwitch was in a bit of a daze. “I am the new sheriff? And you are all going? The Lord Mayor, all the members of the Petit-Parliament? You are leaving us and never coming back?”

Billy nodded.

“Trusting that you will do with all of your power and pistols only the good work of proper law enforcement,” said the Lord Mayor with a yawn. And then to Pupker, his under-voiced words picked up by Alice’s sharp ear, “They’ll riot and pillage the valley till there be nothing left is what they’ll do — the savages — and how appropriate that this is how Dingley’s penultimate chapter gets written!”

The procession began to snake its way up the ascending switchback trail as the deputies — there were eighteen of them now serving under the newly elevated Sheriff Magwitch — stepped back and watched them go.

“What do we do now?” asked one of the deputies of the new sheriff.

“I suppose it would be best at this point for us to repair to the Innof-Justice and gather men and women round us who will decide what the future of our bereft valley holds for those of us who remain.”

“I have a gun,” said one of the most recently appointed deputies, a young shaver with bristle-brush hair. “Why should I not use it to my own benefit?”

“Because I will shoot you if you do,” said Magwitch. “We were left with these arms to keep order in the Dell, and renegade behaviour of any stripe will not be tolerated.”

“You will shoot me?”

“Right between the eyes.”

“Then we should both be dead, Sheriff, because I will shoot you at nearly the same time.”

“If that is what you want, Snagsby, then let us aim all of our guns at one another and have done with it. But if we are to hope for a peaceful continuity following the loss of our leaders, then I would advise each of you to use your authority sparingly and to good purpose. For my part, I intend to take my office and bestow it once again upon the man to whom it rightfully belongs: Vincent Muntle.”

“But he is in gaol,” said one of the other deputies.

“On a wholly fabricated charge. Do not be dense, Jaggers. Do you not see why all of these recent arrests were made? To facilitate a smooth passage out of the valley by all of those we now see huffing and puffing up that trail.”

There were various nods and a few grumbles from those who had greedily thought for a brief moment of using their newly-acquired weaponry to procure a free plum bun or mahogany umbrella stand or fine copper pocket watch or fishing rod or all the porter in a pewter ale-pot that their gullets could hold.

Which the cynical Lord Mayor should never know, his now being out of earshot of the abandoned deputies.