Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

Just such a creature now arrested his eye and halted his step. It was a most curious fellow given to running upon his hind legs back and forth within his long, narrow enclosure, his yellow-contoured mouth open and wide, the folds of his orange neck expanded into a sort of a ruff.

“Frill-necked Lizard,”said someone within the room.“ Chlamydoraurus kingii .”

Newman started. He spun round and found, seated in a shadowy corner of the large room, a little man hunched forward in a chair — a very old man intently observing him through sunken eyes.

“From Australia,” the cadaverous man went on. “He’s quite popular ‘Down Under.’ They even put his picture on one of their coins a few years back. Are you hiding from the Black mamba?”

Newman nodded but with only the slightest semblance of conviction.

“Wise choice. They are most deadly. Now, if you wish to take it into your head that I am hiding from the mamba myself, why, you are welcome to the presumption. For I have been ordered to stay fixed to this very spot.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why have you been asked to stay fixed to that spot?”

“Clive — the junior Clive and not the senior Clive who is presently chopping his way through the Amazon jungle — fears that I will go and tangle myself up with that fugitive elapid. They think I’m daft sometimes, these Pellers. Now I ask you, young man: if I were so precipitant as to go draping myself with poisonous fugitive elapids, would I have survived even half of my ninety-four years? Dear me. Now you are but a boy. Do you know what the word ‘precipitant’ means?”

“It means rash.”

“Capital! Who is your teacher, young man?”

“Mr. Chowser.”

“I knew a teacher many years ago with the name of Tobias Chowser.”

“I have seen his portrait upon the wall of the Chowser School. It was not long ago that I was under the tutelage of his grandson Mr. Alphonse Chowser.”

“God bless my weary soul, boy! Are you the one they’re looking for— the evasive lad from Dingley Dell?”

Newman nodded and drew closer to the old man.“Unless there is some other. Are you Mr. Rugg?”

“I am in fact.”

Newman smiled.

“And how is it that you’ve come here , my boy? Have you truly been so lucky as to have eluded capture thus far?”

Newman nodded again. “I came hither to meet you. But I fear that it won’t be long before I am taken. The man who fell upon the deadly snake did so because I smote him in the head with a paperweight.”

The elderly Mr. Rugg could not help grinning. There were wrinkles upon his face that disappeared altogether and new ones that were formed in the upsweep of his amused lips.

“Caldwell, no doubt. I hear that he and his men have been looking for you.”

“People tell you things?”

“I have ears. I have played the doddering fool for quite some time now but I am a very perceptive listener. Now boy, I do not wish to alarm you but there has not been for a great many years even a single immigrant from Dingley Dell — besides myself, of course — who has survived outside our beloved valley for more than a few days. You see, they have got very good — these Tiadaghton people — very good at tracking you all down and disposing of you in the most clean and efficient manner possible. But what you have accomplished, my boy — most exceptional! A capital thing! Yet you’re right in assuming that it only increases the likelihood of your capture now. They are a cold-hearted bunch, the Enforcers. Why, the Chlamydoraurus kingii over there has warmer blood running through its veins than do the members of that league of determined assassins.”

Newman sat himself down upon an empty folding chair situated next to the old man. “Why haven’t you returned?” he asked his frail companion. “You are only a short journey away.”

The old man took his horny and knotted hand and laid it gently upon Newman’s head.“There is too much here in the Outland that appeals to me, that enchains my intellectual interest. It has quite spoilt me, I am ashamed to admit. I have the best of both worlds, you know — living amongst the Beyonders but comforted in the knowledge that my homeland lies nestled so very close by. I think that I should like to go home to die when my time is come. Which might come soon. But not this moment.”

“There is someone who keeps one foot here and the other in Dingley Dell. Do you know her? She’s a nurse.”

“Ruth Wolf. Ah, yes. There is a secret society she has formed — the ‘Rescuers’ they are informally called — she and a few others. They return to Dingley Dell those who have escaped before any harm can be done to them by the likes of Caldwell and his band of gorilla Enforcers. It is quite the meritorious cause they have taken up, and I commend their efforts, but they have, to my knowledge, succeeded only six or seven times since their mission began.”

“But alas, Mr. Rugg, all who have returned to Dingley Dell have been taken with that disease which puts them away in Bedlam. I believe that it is called the ‘Terror Tremens.’”

“What disease is this? I know of no such disease. Do you see me shrinking with unremitted terror?”

Newman shook his head.

“It must be a means by which to secure their silence. Pray, do not let them diagnose you as such when you return home!”

“I shan’t let them!” said a very determined Newman Trimmers with a violent shake of the head.

“If I were you, my boy, I would go with Nurse Wolf. I would let her take me home. You will die if you remain on the outside, especially after what you did to the venomous Mr. Caldwell. Now I know that the lovely Rescuer Miss Carpenter who sits behind the cash register in the north building of this place — I know that she is secretly aligned with the rescuing Miss Wolf. And I have no doubt that she has already telephoned Miss Wolf to tell her of your newly discovered whereabouts and what it is that you have done — such a brave young lad you are! — and I suspect that Miss Wolf is already making her way to the Reptilarium. The question is what to do with you betweenwhiles. I take it that I have convinced you to rendezvous with this woman?”

“Yes. I wish most earnestly to go home and be reunited with my family.”

“Smart lad. Now let me think. Soon there will be a number of men— both representatives of the local constabulary and those thugs who do the dirty business of the Tiadaghton Project — who will be combing every inch of this place looking for you. The trick will be to put you in touch with Miss Wolf and only Miss Wolf.”

As the man sat and thought and gently stroked the white stubble upon his infrequently shorn chin, Newman took a breath to ask, “What is the Tiadaghton Project?”

“It is the very reason for there being a Dingley Dell. I haven’t time to tell it all to you and there is much that I do not know or scarcely care to know. But I do know that they have evolved into a ruthless, diabolical bunch and you are right to go with Miss Wolf to escape their murderous clutches. I will say this much, as well: they are in control of all that goes on in the Dell of Dingley. Tiadaghton is the name of the manipulating machine that pulls the marionette’s strings. Now, where to put you, where to put you? Ah!”

Mr. Rugg’s eyes grew large within their sockets and his face broke into a wide grin, which attenuated his thin white lips. “Bubbles is feeling much better now and is due to be returned to her permanent habitat by tomorrow. But for to-day, she should be a most suitable companion for you.”

“Bubbles?”

“The most docile Boa constrictor you will ever meet. And one of the world’s largest: over fourteen feet in length. She’s in that very cage over there.” Mr. Rugg pointed to a large cage across the room. “Bubbles likes to curl herself in the front and would block any view of you were you to place yourself in the back of her temporary domicile.”