Dredger

“ Sometimes the stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but Durdles seems indifferent to either fortune. The hideous small boy, on the contrary, whenever he hits Durdles, blows a whistle of triumph through a jagged gap convenient for the purpose, in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out "Mulled agin!" and tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and vicious aim.
"What are you doing to the man?" demands Jasper, stepping out into the moonlight from the shade. ”

“ He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his pocket wherewith to light it, should there be need, and they go out together, dinner-bundle and all.
Surely an accountable sort of expedition! That Durdles himself, who is always prowling among old graves and ruins, like a Ghoule—that he should be stealing forth to climb, and dive, and wander without an object, is nothing extraordinary; but that the Choir Master or any one else should hold it worth his while to be with him, and to study moonlight effects in such company, is another affair. ”

“ As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where he himself lay.
"I dropped you, did I?" he says, picking it up, and recalling that part of his dream. As he gathers himself again into an upright position, or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is again conscious of being watched by his companion.
"Well?" says Jasper, smiling. "Are you quite ready? Pray don't hurry."
"Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I'm with you." ”

“ Sapsea hailed, not sorry to show him a bright example of behaviour to superiors.
‘Ah, Durdles! This is the mason, sir; one of our Cloisterham worthies; everybody here knows Durdles. Mr. Datchery, Durdles a gentleman who is going to settle here.’
‘I wouldn’t do it if I was him,’ growled Durdles. ‘We’re a heavy lot.’
‘You surely don’t speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles,’ returned Mr. Datchery, ‘any more than for His Honour.’
‘Who’s His Honour?’ demanded Durdles. ”

“ Sapsea informed the new settler of Durdles's habits, pursuits, abode, and reputation. "I suppose a curious stranger might come to see you, and your works, Mr. Hurdles, at any odd time?" said Mr. Hatchery upon that.
"Any gentleman is welcome to come and see me any evening if he brings liquor for two with him," returned Durdles, with a penny between his teeth and certain halfpence in his hands. "Or if he likes to make it twice two, he'll be doubly welcome." ”

“ Don’t they have to have scows alongside?”
“In the first place, it is n’t mud, at least not much of it. It is mostly sand and gravel, What a suction dredge devours goes into bins in her own hold, then it is taken out to sea and dumped. Do you see how low she is in the water? I guess they have just been waiting for us before putting out to sea to dump their load. I see the other dredge is over at Rockaway Inlet. I ’ll put you aboard this dredge, and by the time I get back from Rockaway, your boat will have dumped its load and returned.” ”

“ There was a silence between the two men; then Dredge continued in a lighter tone: “There's one thing, though, that we're both in danger of forgetting: and that is how little, in the long run, it all counts either way.” He smiled a little at Archie's outraged gesture. “The most we can any of us do—even by such a magnificent effort as your father's—is to turn the great marching army a hair's breadth nearer what seems to us the right direction; if one of us drops out, here and there, the loss of headway's hardly perceptible. ”

“ Then something clinks and gropes about, and he dreams that he is alone for so long a time, that the lanes of light take new directions as the moon advances in her course. From succeeding unconsciousness, he passes into a dream of slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes to a perception of the lanes of light—really changed, much as he had dreamed—and Jasper walking among them, beating his hands and feet.
"Holloa!" Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed. ”

“ Dredge simply continued the course which Lanfear's death had interrupted. He lectured well even then, with a persuasive simplicity surprising in the inarticulate creature one knew him for. But haven't you noticed that certain personalities reveal themselves only in the more impersonal relations of life? It's as if they woke only to collective contacts, and the single consciousness were an unmeaning fragment to them. ”

“ Durdles explains, doggedly.
The key proffered him by the bereaved widower being a large one, he slips his two-foot rule into a side pocket of his flannel trousers made for it, and deliberately opens his flannel coat, and opens the month of a large breast-pocket within it before taking the key to place in that repository.
"Why, Durdles!" exclaims Jasper, looking on amused. "You are undermined with pockets!"
"And I carries weight in 'em too, Mr. Jasper. Feel those;" producing two other large keys.
"Hand me Mr. Sapsea's likewise. Surely this is the heaviest of the three." ”

“ When a young fellow can get the big men fighting over him his future is pretty well assured. But Dredge was only thirty-four, and some people seemed to feel that there was a kind of deflected nepotism in Lanfear's choice.
“If he could choose Dredge he might as well have chosen his own son,” I've heard it said; and the irony was that Archie—will you believe it?—actually thought so himself! But Lanfear had Weyman behind him, and when the end came the Faculty at once appointed Galen Dredge to the chair of Experimental Evolution. ”

“ Dredge, “and do not think so much of it as you, being a stranger; but he is without doubt an exceedingly vain man and brimful of egotism. I am sorry you were obliged to hear so much of him.”
“I am very pleased he is gone, and hope never to meet him in company again, excepting as a reformed character. He may be a good neighbour; he may be wealthy; he may be a little wise and educated; but none of these things justify the excessive vanity and self-setting-off which are so prominent in his conversation.”
[Pg 182] The views of the Professor were such as others entertained who knew Mr. Slack. ”

“ The gate was locked, and the wire had been put on by a farmer who combined with great ingenuity a fervent hatred of his fellow-men. To Miss Drewitt it seemed insurmountable, but, aided by Mr. Tredgold and a peal of thunder which came to his assistance at a critical moment, she managed to clamber over and reach the shed. Mr. Tredgold followed at his leisure with a strip of braid torn from the bottom of her dress. ”

“ No—unless Datchery was Drood! “Now Durdles is useful again. Tapping with his hammer he would find a change . . . inquiry must be made.” Why should Durdles tap the Sapsea monument? As Durdles had the key, he would simply walk into the vault, and find the quicklime. Now, Jasper also, we presume, had a key, made from a wax impression of the original. If he had any sense, he would have removed the quicklime as easily as he inserted it, for Mr. Sapsea was mortal: he might die any day, and be buried, and then the quicklime, lying where it ought not, would give rise to awkward inquiries. ”

“ The taciturnity of Durdles is for the time overcome by Mr. Jasper’s wicker bottle, which circulates freely;—in the sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into Mr. Durdles’s circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once, and casts forth the rinsing.
They are to ascend the great Tower. On the steps by which they rise to the Cathedral, Durdles pauses for new store of breath. The steps are very dark, but out of the darkness they can see the lanes of light they have traversed. Durdles seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seats himself upon another. ”

“ And there was a veil of reticence, of secrecy, about Dredge, that always kept his conduct in a half-light of uncertainty. Of some men one would have said off-hand: “It’s impossible!” But one couldn’t affirm it of him.
Archie hadn’t seen him as yet; and Mrs. Lanfear had sent for me because she wished me to be present at the interview between the two men. The Lanfear ladies had a touching belief in Archie’s violence: they thought him as terrible as a natural force. My own idea was that if there were any broken bones they wouldn’t be Dredge’s ”

“ And Deirdre arose and drew the bolt from the leaf of the door, and she let in the hunter. She placed a seat in the place for sitting, food in the place for eating, and drink in the place for drinking for the man who came to the house. "Oh, for this life and raiment, you man that came in, keep restraint on your tongue!" said the old woman. "It is not a great thing for you to keep your mouth shut and your tongue quiet when you get a home and shelter of a hearth on a gloomy winter's night." ”

“ As in the story of Helen, it is not easy, or even possible in the story of Deirdrê, to disentangle the old, old facts of actual history from the web of romantic fairy tale that time has woven about them, yet so great is the power of Deirdrê, even unto this day, that it has been the fond task of those men and women to whom the Gael owes so much, to preserve, and to translate for posterity, the tragic romance of Deirdrê the Beautiful and the Sons of Usna. ”

“ Sir Mart. Pr'ythee insult not over the destiny of a poor undone lover; I am punished enough for my indiscretion in my despair, and have nothing to hope for now but death.
Warn. Death is a bug-word; things are not brought to that extremity; I'll cast about to save all yet.
Enter Lady Dupe.
L. Dupe. O, Sir Martin! yonder has been such a stir within; Sir John, I fear, smokes your design, and by all means would have the old man remove his lodging; pray God, your man has not played false. ”

“ Sapsea, with an Author's anxiety to rush into publication, replies that it cannot be out of hand too soon.
"You had better let me have the key, then," says Durdles.
"Why, man, it is not to be put inside the monument!"
"Durdles knows where it's to be put, Mr. Sapsea; no man better. Ask 'ere a man in Cloisterham whether Durdles knows his work."
Mr. Sapsea rises, takes a key from a drawer, unlocks an iron safe let into the wall, and takes from it another key. ”

“ She even began to long for the afternoon solely to be alone with it; and in the midst of the reverie it charmed into her mind, she would glance up as startled as a Dryad to see the “cook-general's” dark face fixing its still cold gaze on her from over the moss-greened wall. ”

“ Whom Durdles (there being command in his tone) surlily surveys from head to foot.
‘With submission to his Reverence the Dean, if you’ll mind what concerns you, Mr. Sapsea, Durdles he’ll mind what concerns him.’
‘You’re out of temper,’ says Mr. Sapsea, winking to the company to observe how smoothly he will manage him. ‘My friend concerns me, and Mr. Jasper is my friend. And you are my friend.’
‘Don’t you get into a bad habit of boasting,’ retorts Durdles, with a grave cautionary nod. ‘It’ll grow upon you.’
‘You are out of temper,’ says Sapsea again ”

“ Sir Mart. It may be you have, and it may be you have not, sir; you see I have no mind to satisfy you, sir: What a devil! a man cannot talk a little to his own flesh and blood, but you must be interposing, with a murrain to you.
Mood. Enough of this, good Anthony; this gentleman is to marry your sister.
Sir Mart. He marry my sister! Ods foot, sir, there are some bastards, that shall be nameless, that are as well worthy to marry her, as any man; and have as good blood in their veins.
Sir John. I do not question it in the least, sir.
Sir Mart. 'Tis not your best course, sir; you marry my sister! ”

“ As Durdles and Jasper come near, they are addressed by an inscribed paper lantern over the door, setting forth the purport of the house. They are also addressed by some half-dozen other hideous small boys—whether twopenny lodgers or followers or hangers-on of such, who knows!—who, as if attracted by some carrion-scent of Deputy in the air, start into the moonlight, as vultures might gather in the desert, and instantly fall to stoning him and one another. ”

“ I'm going to send the dredge back once more to make sure we aren't being misled."
"I think you're wrong," said Montresig. "All evidence does point to a race of giants, evil creatures at best, even if maybe they do have two eyes, a nose and a mouth like us. Not that I don't think it's a good idea to send the dredge back," he added hastily at the sight of Commander Losure's glowering countenance.
The Commander signaled to the dredge operator again and they waited while he returned the gun to wherever he got it and fished for something else from the surface of the green planet. ”

“ Sir John. Her name, sir, I beseech you.
Warn. For heaven's sake, sir, have a care.
Sir Mart. Thou art such a coxcomb—Her name's Millisent. [14]
Warn. Now, the pox take you, sir, what do you mean?
Sir John. Millisent, say you? That's the name of my mistress.
Sir Mart. Lord! what luck is that now! well, sir, it happened one of her gloves fell down; I stooped to take it up; and, in the stooping, made her a compliment.
Warn. The devil cannot hold him; now will this thick-skulled master of mine tell the whole story to his rival! ”

“ These swabs were, however, always termed “hempen tangles”—so much does science dignify every object it touches! The dredges were afterwards set aside for the ordinary beam-trawls used in shallow water around our own coasts. Their open meshes allowed the mud and sand to filter through easily, and their adoption was a source of satisfaction to some of the officers who looked with horror on the state of their usually immaculate decks, when the dredges were emptied of their contents. ”