Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

Mr. Chowser, who had made it up to the asylum roof as well (but more conveniently through the internal stairwell) in the company of little Jack and Maggy the cook, waited his turn to shake the hand of the brave Trimmers boy who was once a student at his school, and then found passed to him by that hand the pocket watch that Newman had stolen to sell for himself in the Outland.

“So did no one wish to buy it — a watch so fine as this?” asked Chowser, shaking his head, bemused.

“On the contrary, Mr. Chowser. A jeweller did buy it. But he returned it to me before he and Miss Wolf brought me home. He said that it belongs here in Dingley Dell, and I agreed. It belongs with you. ”

There was one other important matter that required some planning, and Vincent begged leave to go to the All Souls Church to help with its organisation (and with some reluctance, Maggy Finching gave him that leave in exchange for a kiss upon the lips that blest the departure). A company of men was required to go down to Belgrave Dam and dynamite a part of it as Chivery had directed. The sheriff ’s tipstaff Magwitch had learnt the names of two Blackheath men, Joper and Stryver, who were well versed in the placement of charges through their explosives work in the coal mine. They knew the amount and ratio of nitroglycerin (three parts), infusorial earth (one part) and sodium carbonate (a small admixture) necessary to do the job, and could easily be found encamped at Regents Park, their village having been destroyed only the night before.

The men were at first unimpressed by concerted efforts to impress them into service to save the Dell. “And what be da reason me mate and me should t’help a valley dat gave no thought ever elseways of ourselves and our families?”

“Because the ones what disregarded you ain’t around no more,” answered Ephraim Scadger. “And the ones who be left are your friends now.”

Harry Scadger, standing with his brothers Ephraim and Melchisedech, nodded in agreement, though he couldn’t help being distracted by the jarring collision of the two distinctly different Dinglian dialects.

“What is more,” added Mel to what his brother had just said, “I have a gun and my brother Ephraim has the electrifier and we’ll give you the protection you need all right.”

Magwitch shook his head. “That’s a job best done by a sheriff ’s patrol, gentlemen.”

Mel shook his own head to counter the statement. “We never done nothin’ for the Dell and we never take nothin’, but all that be changing now. We give and take like the citizens we always shoulda been. And right now, sir, we give. ”

“I cannot stop you if you wish to go,” said the assistant sheriff. “But it’s best if you’re properly deputized. Come over here, gentlemen. Give me your hands. Consider yourselves duly deputed.”

“Thankee sir, and you’ll not regret it. Me brother and I know well the ways of the Outlanders who have always gone a’lurkin’ hither and thither in our wood. As low and snaky a bunch they be as some of your own men, Mr. Tipstaff.” This last pronouncement from Melchisedech Scadger came just as the speaker caught sight of a particularly low and snaky deputy who had just stepped into the narthex of the church: Nick Gradgrind.

The two men exchanged dark, mutually suspicious looks, each laying a palm upon his pistol as if there were to be a duel in short order.

“What is this?” asked Muntle, who had just arrived himself, and had inadvertently put himself into the middle of the freshly brewing confrontation. “We haven’t time for this.”

Harry attempted to explain: “Sheriff Muntle. This man — one of your most recently-hired deputies — shot and killed my older brother Solomon.”

“In self-defence,” returned Gradgrind.

“Despicable lie,” retorted Harry. “My brother wasn’t armed. Moreover, there was no reason for the deputy to impede our journey. He sought first to intimidate us and then to do worse — much worse.”

“Yes, I see.” Muntle sniffed and scratched his forehead. “Gradgrind: although I didn’t appoint you, I do have the power withal to remove you. Surrender your badge and your pistol. You no longer serve the sheriff of Dingley Dell.”

Nick Gradgrind shook his head. “But I will not.”

“What do you mean, ‘I will not’? I’m sacking you, Puppy.”

Nick Gradgrind would not go without making further asseveration in his own defence. He pointed to Harry. “This man has no standing to make charges against me. He is a Scadger. A Scadger. ”

“To-day, Gradgrind, we are all of us Scadgers. Those who once divided us are gone. And if we cannot learn to work together, then we are all destined to die — together, apart, it makes no difference, man. We shall all be dead. Is this your choice, Gradgrind? To be as dead as those you have always so vaunted and esteemed?”

Gradgrind shook his head.

“Then give me your gun and go off and do some good. Go to the East End and see how the workhouse evacuations are progressing.”

“The East End ?”

“Yes, Nick,” said Muntle, taking the pistol and handing it to Magwitch. “Have you never been there?”

“He has been there,” said Violetta Scadger with a knowing look. Zephaniah’s wife continued: “He was born there and he grew up there.”

Resigning himself to the inevitable, Nick Gradgrind drifted out. Muntle turned to Harry and Mel. “I am gravely sorry to learn what Gradgrind has done. I should put him into a gaol cell at the Inn-of-Justice, but he would only drown there before his trial.” Then, addressing the men standing in the narthex as a whole: “To Belgrave Dam, men. You have your instructions. You will be forever in our debt, should you succeed.”

“And what if we shall fail?” asked Magwitch archly.

“Then we shall all be dead together and nothing will matter then, now will it?”

Rugg was dead.

The Senator, kneeling next to the still body of the aged Dinglian, felt for a pulse that he knew would not be there. “We’ll have someone come back for the body. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

“Make sure that he’s buried in Dingley Dell,” said Phillips.“That’s what he wanted.”

“If it’s possible to do it. Does someone wish to say a prayer?”

Phillips said a prayer. There was a curious but altogether appropriate reference to snakes. There was also mention of the fact that Rugg had been instrumental in saving the life of Newman Trimmers. To this Alice subjoined, “God bless his soul.”

“A good man, dear Lord. The Outland was lucky to have him for so long. Amen.”

The trio continued down the forest path.

After a lengthy ruminative silence, Phillips picked up a thread that had earlier been left dangling: “And the governor actually believed you?”

“He did.”

“You told him the most incredible story he’d ever heard in his life and he took it for gospel truth right then and there?”

The Senator nodded. “He first asked if I was drunk. Having established that I was neither drunk nor stoned nor suffering from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, he said that he had no choice but to believe me. He knows that I have never lied to him. The governor also knows that we are neither of us ‘Show me’ Missourians. We’re ‘I trust thee’ Pennsylvanians.”

“What about the dam?”

The Senator shook his head solemnly. “He agrees with me that the charges are probably concealed far below the waterline and set to go off by remote activation. It would be impossible to find them in the hour that remains, even if there were men willing to risk their lives looking for them.” The Senator sighed. “I suppose we’ll know when it happens.”