Only two men from our motley bunch of renegades escaped capture: Messrs. Upwitch and Graham, for neither man would open the door to the All Souls Church under a declaration of “right of asylum” no matter how hard the freckled fist of the law beat upon it. Each man knew that the attempted arrests were politically-motivated, that the Tiadaghton Project represented dictatorial despotism at its most extreme, and that each member of the small confederation of those who opposed the Project (that fraternity including Messrs. Upwitch and Graham amongst its core membership) were eligible for religious sanctuary under longstanding common law. (They knew, as well, that each of the doors to the All Souls Church in the Dell were made of solid lignum vitae, the hardest wood in the world, and that any attempt to batter them down was doomed to failure.)
This sudden thwarting turn placed the young sheriff and his deputies in an awkward spot. Lord Mayor Feenix was called in to help facilitate the irksome removal.
“Vicar Upwitch, it is the Lord Mayor of Milltown rapping now. Please open the door and admit me so that we may speak.”
Came a sonorous pastoral voice from behind the door (both Upwitch and Graham standing defiantly on the other side of that secured portal, Upwitch with proud, raised chin and Graham wringing his hands in fret and worry): “Speak of what, sir?”
“The warrant that Sheriff Boldwig holds in his hand. It is a warrant for your arrest and the arrest of your friend and fellow conspirator, Mr. Graham, and it must be executed.”
“If you are come to assist in this ridiculous legal charade, Lord Mayor, we’ll not admit you. Mr. Graham and I are exercising our right of asylum.”
“There is no such right within the Dell of Dingley, Reverend Upwitch.”
“Not every right possessed by the citizens of this valley devolves from the pen of the Petit-Parliament, sir. Some rights are bestowed by our Creator. They are intrinsic to our species, sacrosanct and inviolable, especially in the face of the sort of rampant tyranny that now infects this Dell. Will you deny, Lord Mayor, that several of our friends have been arrested to await an indictment of conspiracy to commit criminal acts that are without any merit whatsoever?”
“Of course I’ll deny it. I’ll deny it in full voice, young man.” Then in an undervoice to the sheriff, came a mumble and then a whining murmured defence made by its recipient, something easily gleaned by the two men inside to indicate that Sheriff Boldwig should not have shared with the barricaded fugitives the names of any of the other co-conspirators and was an arrant fool for having done so.
Once again from the Lord Mayor through the thick wooden church door: “This church is no fortress, Reverend Upwitch. If we cannot ram this door, we will fracture a stained-glass window or two and enter easily in that manner. Do you wish your lovely stained-glass windows destroyed?”
“And do you,” returned the vicar, “wish me to climb to the top of the campanile and ring the bell to convoke a crowd, which I shall be more than willing to address with my voice-trumpet? And what will I say, Lord Mayor, that may be of interest to them? I think I shall tell them, sir, of the true purpose of your July 15 gathering, and how all of the rest of us are to be abandoned to Heaven-only-knows what sort of fate.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come, come, Lord Mayor. You would actually allow me to climb to the top of that campanile and tell everyone who will listen the truth about Dingley Dell? Knowing the threat that this would pose to the success of your Bon Voyage party? Consider the question carefully, sir. How should you like to be kept here with all the rest of us because you have failed to keep the hordes from finding out about the Tiadaghton Project?”
“Where do you come up with such nonsense? Who has told you these things?”
“I shan’t betray my sources, Lord Mayor. Let me simply say that we are not the innocents and simpletons you have long taken us for.”
“Good God.”
“Yes, God is good, your honour, and takes, methinks, a rather dim view of your complicity in bringing about an end to our Dingley Dell.”
Upwitch and Graham could not see the face of the man who had just been told that everything which he thought had been kept quiet and covert and multiply veiled was now known to a select few who had absolutely no right to the purchase of it. But the face must assuredly have been drained of all colour — for there was a sickly pallor to the very voice of the Lord Mayor as he, no doubt, thought through the repercussions attendant upon this significant revelation. Finally he said, “You will stay there, Upwitch, and you will not be disturbed under your absurd declaration of asylum, but if you so much as take one step outside this edifice, you will be promptly placed under arrest. We will have constables watching each and every door round the clock. Your lies stop here, sir, just as they have been put under commensurate lock and key at the gaol. This infestation of opposition and deliberate prevarication will not spread. I hope that there is food enough in your rectory larder to feed the two of you until—”
Lord Mayor Feenix stopt himself, but Uriah Graham, taking sudden and uncharacteristic courage, finished the thought for him: “Until all Bashaws should be gone from this valley — swept away, Lord Mayor, by their fear and by their cupidity and by their contempt for those who would in similar circumstances have never sold their own souls to the Devil the way that you have. We await that day, Lord Mayor — we await it most eagerly— the day that you and your ilk shall be gone from Dingley Dell forever.”
Lord Mayor Feenix muttered something in response that was received only by the ears of the Boy Sheriff. Yet the two men who stood behind the door, having won a small victory largely through intellectual ingenuity, could easily guess its apostrophising gist: “Enjoy your short-lived freedom such as it is, gentlemen. Enjoy it well.”
And this imagining sent a chill down the spines of both of the partnered stalwarts — a most frigid chill indeed.
Chapter the Forty-third. Wednesday, July 9, 2003
ith a number of those Dinglians most familiar to the reader either incarcerated in the gaol, committed to the Bedlam Asylum, or selfimmured behind the solid stone walls of the All Souls Church, I now turn your attention to that other set of Dinglians who remained at liberty during what would become the final hours in the life of this cursed dale, each of whom would play a contributory role in bringing this story to its close.
Let us begin with Harry Scadger, still at large and still fretful about the declining health of his consumptive daughter Florence. She had received some of the doses of the Outland medicine that was put to work to heal her, but was now coughing without respite and with a frighteningly sanguinary product. Abbey Hexam who, in the absence of her now imprisoned employeress, was working alone in the stationer’s shop below the rooms offered to the Scadgers by Antonia, could not help hearing the rasping, unrelenting cough. When the last customer of the day had departed, she quickly shut and latched the door to the street and climbed the stairs to ask if there be anything that she could do for the afflicted girl.
“You are most kind to ask,” said Matilda Scadger from the bedside of her daughter. “But Mr. Scadger left only a little while ago down the back stairs to fetch Dr. Timberry. The doctor was to come yesterday but did not.”