SMOKE.
To Chickaree by the stage was a two-days' journey. The first
day presented nothing remarkable. Rollo was their only fellow
traveller whom they knew; and he did nothing to lighten the
tedium of the way, beyond the ordinary courtesies. And after
the first few hours the scenery had little to attract. The
country became an ordinary farming district, with no
distinctive features. Not that there be not sweet things to
interest in such a landscape, for a mind free enough and eyes
unspoiled. There are tints of colouring in a flat pasture
field, to feed the eye that can find them; there are forms and
shadows in a rolling arable country, sweet and changing and
satisfying. There are effects in tufts of spared woodland, and
colours in wild vegetation, and in the upturned brown and
umber of fields of ploughed earth, and in the grey lichened
rocks and the clear tints of their broken edges. There are the
associations and indications of human life, too; tokens of
thrift and of poverty, of weary toil and of well-to-do
activity. Where the ploughs go, and the ploughmen; where the
cattle are driven afield; where the farmyards tell how they
are housed and kept; where the women sit with their milking
pails or make journeys to the spring; where flowers trim the
house-fronts, or where the little yard-gate says that
everything, like itself, hangs by one hinge. A good deal of
life stories may be read by the way in a stage coach; but not
until life has unfolded to us, perhaps, its characters; and so
Wych Hazel did not read much and thought the ride tedious and
long. When she turned to her companions, Mr. Falkirk was
thoughtful and silent, Mr. Rollo silent and seemingly self-
absorbed, and if she looked at the other occupants of the
coach--Wych Hazel immediately looked out again.
The second day began under new auspices. None of their former
fellow travellers remained with them; save only Rollo and the
servants; and the empty places were taken by a couple of
country women, one young and rustic, the other elderly and
ditto. That was all that Wych Hazel saw of them. The fact that
one of the women presently fell to eating gingerbread and the
other molasses candy, effectually turned all Miss Kennedy's
attention out of doors.
The cleared country was left behind; and the coach entered a
region of undisturbed forest, through which it had many miles
to travel before reaching civilization again. The view was
shut in. The trees waved overhead and stretched along the road
endlessly, too thick for the eye to penetrate far. The coach
rumbled on monotonously. The smell of pines and other green
things came sweet and odorous, but the day was hot, and
everything was dry; the dust rose and the sunbeams poured
down. Wych Hazel languished for a change. Only a red squirrel
now and then reminded her what a lively life she led a day or
two ago. And Mr. Falkirk seemed too indifferent to mind the
weather, and Rollo seemed to like it! She was very weary.
Taking off her hat and leaning one hand on her guardian's
shoulder, she rested her head there, too--looking out with a
sort of fascinated intentness into the hazy atmosphere, which
grew every moment thicker and bluer and more intensely hazy.
It almost seemed to take shape, to her eye, and to curl and
wave like some animated thing among the still pines. The
countrywomen were dozing now; Mr. Rollo and Mr. Falkirk mused,
or possibly dozed too; it made her restless only to look at
them. Softly moving off to her own corner, Wych Hazel leaned
out of the window. Dark and still and blue--veiled as ever, the
pines rose up in endless succession by the roadside; a yellow
carpet of dead leaves at their feet, the woodpeckers busy, the
squirrels at play over their work. How free they all were!--
with what a sweet freedom. No danger that the brown rabbit
darting away from his form, would ever transgress pretty
limits!--no fear that vanity or folly or ill-humour would ever
touch the grace of those grey squirrels. As for the red ones!--
Miss Hazel brought her attention to the inside of the coach
for a minute, but the sight gave only colour and no check to
her musings. How strange of that particular red squirrel to
follow her steps as he had done the other day--to follow her
steps now, as she more than half suspected. What did he mean?
And what did she mean by her own deportment? Nothing, she
declared to herself:--but that red squirrels will bite
occasionally. There swept over her, sighing from among the
pine trees, the breath of a vague sorrow. In all the
emergencies that might come, in all that future progress, also
dim with its own blue haze, what was she to do? Mr. Falkirk
could take care of her property,--who could take care of _her?_
Deep was the look of her brown eyes, close and controlling the
pressure of her lips: the wrist where the three bracelets lay
felt the light grasp of her other hand.
The coach rolled on, through thickening air and darkening sky,
air thick also with a smell of smoke which it was odd no one
took note of; until the horses trotted round a sudden turn of
the road into the very cause of it all. The blue was spotted
now with faint red fire; with dull streaks as of beds of
coals, and little sharp points of flame. On both sides of the
road, creeping among the pines and leaping up into them, the
fire was raging. A low sound from Wych Hazel, a sound rather
of horror than fear, yet curiously pitiful and heart-stirring,
roused both her friends in an instant. Almost at the same
instant the coach came to a standstill, and Rollo jumped out.
'What's the matter, Rollo?'
'Fire in the woods, sir. We must turn about; that's all.'
The elder of the two women, who had just waked up, asked with
a terrified face, 'if there was any danger?' but nobody
answered her. Rollo took his seat again; at the same time the
horses' heads came about.
'What are you going to do?' she demanded.
'We are going back a little way. There is fire along the road
ahead of us; and the horses might set their feet upon some hot
ashes, which wouldn't be good for them.'
'But we're goin' back'ards!--where we come from! Calry, we're
goin' back hum!'
'We shall turn again presently,' said Rollo. 'Have patience a
few minutes.'
He spoke so calmly, the women were quieted. Mr. Falkirk,
however, leaned back no more. He watched the hazy smoke by the
roadside; he watched generally; and now and then his eye
furtively turned to Wych Hazel. For some little time they
travelled back hopefully on their way, though the smoky
atmosphere was too thick to let any one forget the obstacle
which had turned them. It grew stifling, breathed so long, and
it did not clear away; but though every one noticed this, no
one spoke of it to his neighbour. Then at last it began to
weigh down more heavily upon the forest, and visible puffs and
curls in the dense blue suggested that its substance was
becoming more palpable.
'Rollo--', said Mr. Falkirk in an undertone.
'Yes!' said the other, just as the coach again came to a
sudden stop and a volley of exclamations, smothered and not
smothered, sounded from the coach box. Both gentlemen sprang
out.
'Good patience!' said the older of the two women, 'it's the
fire again! it's all round us! O I wisht I hadn't a'come! I
wisht I was to hum!'--and she showed the earnestness of the
wish by beginning to cry. Her companion sat still and turned
very pale. Paler yet, but with every nerve braced, Wych Hazel
stood in the road to see for herself. The gentlemen were
consulting.
The fire had closed in upon the road they had passed over an
hour or two before. There it was, smoking, and breathing
along, gathering strength every minute; while a low, murmuring
roar told of its out-of-sight progress. What was to be done?
The driver declared, on being pressed, that a branch road, the
Lupin road it was called, was to his knowledge but a little
distance before them; a quarter of an hour would reach it.
'Drive on, then,'--said Rollo, turning to put Wych Hazel into
the coach.
The man mumbled, that he did not know whether his horses would
go through the fire.
'_I_ know. They will. We will go straight on. You are not
afraid,' he said, meeting Hazel's eyes for a moment. It was
not more than half a second, but nature's telegraph works well
at such instants. Wych Hazel saw an eye steady and clear,
which seemed to brave danger and not know confusion. He saw a
wistful face, with the society mask thrown by, and only the
girl's own childish self remaining.
'Afraid to go on? no,' she said; and then felt a scarcely
defined smile that warmed his eyes and brow as he answered,
'There is no need'--and put her into the coach. In both touch
and tone there lay a promise; but she had no time to think of
it. The coach was moving on again; the women were very
frightened, and cried and moaned by way of relieving their
feelings at the expense of other people's. Mrs. Saddler, who
has hitherto used only her eyes, now clasped her fingers
together and fell to the muttering of short prayers over and
over under her breath, the urgency of which redoubled when the
coach had gone a little further and the fire and smoke began
to wreathe thicker on both sides of the road.
'There is no occasion, Mrs. Saddler,' said Mr. Falkirk
somewhat sternly. 'Be quiet, and try to show an example of
sense to your neighbours.'
'Did you never say your prayers before?' said Rollo turning
towards her; they sat on the same seat. He spoke half kindly,
half amused, but with that mingled--though ever so slightly--an
expression of meaning more pungent; all together overcame Mrs.
Saddler. She burst into a fit of tears, which nervousness made
uncontrollable.
'What have I done?' said the young man as the weeping became
general at his end of the coach. 'It is dangerous to meddle
with edge tools! Come, cheer up! we shall leave all this smoke
behind us in a few minutes. You'll see clear directly.'
His tone was so calm the women took courage from it, and
ventured to use their eyes again. The stage-coach had left the
burning road; they were going across the woods in another
direction; the air was soon visibly more free of smoke. The
driver was hopeful, and sending his horses along at a good
pace. The shower withinside dried up; and Rollo throwing
himself back upon the seat gazed steadfastly out of the
window. Wych Hazel had gazed at him while he spoke to the
others, with a sort of examining curiosity in her brown eyes
that was even amused; but now she became as intent as himself
on affairs outside of the coach.
For a while all was quiet. Mrs. Saddler sat in brown
stupefaction after having received such rebukes, and no more
apples were brought forward on the front seat. The women
whispered together and watched their fellow-travellers--Rollo
especially. But at length it became evident to the keener
observers of the party that the air was thickening again; the
smell of burning woods which filled the air was growing more
pungent, the air more warm; those visible waves of the blue
atmosphere began to appear again. Once Mr. Falkirk leaned
forward as if to address Rollo; he thought better of it and
fell back without speaking. And on they went. The smell of
burning and the thick stifling smoke became very oppressive.
'There is a large tract on fire, Rollo,' Mr. Falkirk remarked
at length.
'Probably.'
In another minute the coach halted. Rollo put his head out of
the window to speak to the coachman, and the cool tone in
which he asked, 'What is it?' Wych Hazel felt at the time and
remembered afterwards. The driver's answer was unheard by all
but one. Rollo threw himself out.
'Stay where you are,' he said to Mr. Falkirk as he shut the
door. 'You keep order and I'll make order.'
He went forward. The coach stood still, with that fearful
wreathing of the blue vapour thicker and nearer around it. The
smell became so strong that the thought forced itself upon
every one, they must have come upon the fire again. The woman
wanted to get out. Mr. Falkirk dissuaded them. Wych Hazel kept
absolutely still. In a moment or two Rollo appeared at Mr.
Falkirk's side of the coach, and spoke rather low. 'I am going
to make explorations. Keep all as you are.'
Mr. Falkirk spoke lower still. 'Is the fire ahead?'
The answer was not in English or French. Looking from her
window as far as she could, Wych Hazel now saw Rollo cross the
road and make for a tall pine which stood at a little
distance. She saw him throw his coat and hat on the ground;
then catching one of the long lithe branches he was in a
moment off the ground and in the tree; yes, and making
determinately for the top of it. The 'red squirrel' had not
learnt climbing for nothing; agile, steady, quick, he mounted
and mounted. She grew dizzy with looking. Mr. Falkirk had not
the same view.
'What's he doing? what are we waiting for? Can you see?' he
asked impatiently.
'Yes--they are trying to find out which way to go, sir.'
Mr. Falkirk made a movement as if to get out himself; then
checked it, seeing the helpless bevy of women who were
dependent on him and now in the utmost perturbation. Standing
still tried their nerves. To keep order withinside the coach
was as much as he could attend to. Cries and moans and
questions of involved incoherency, poured upon him. Would they
ever get home? would the fire catch the coach? would it
frighten the horses? what were they stopping for?--were some of
the simplest inquiries that Mr. Falkirk had to hear and
answer; in the midst of which one of the ladies assured
herself and him that if 'Isaiah had come along with them they
would never have got into such a fix.' Mrs. Saddler Mr.
Falkirk peremptorily silenced; the others he soothed as best
he might; and all the while Wych Hazel watched the signs
without, and followed the climber in the pine tree, following
him in his venturesome ascent and descent, which were both
made with no lack of daring. He was on the ground at last,
swinging himself from the end of a pine branch which he had
compelled into his service; he came straight to Mr. Falkirk,
heated, but mentally as cool as ever.
'I see our way,' he said, 'I am going on the box myself. Don't
be concerned. I have driven a post-coach in England.'
He looked across to Wych Hazel, as he spoke, and his eye
carried the promise again. Wych Hazel met his look, though
with no answer in her own; fear, or self-control, or something
back of both, made the very lines of her face still; only a
sort of shiver of feeling passed over them as he said, 'Don't
be concerned.' All this passes in a second; then Rollo is on
the box with the stage driver and the stage is in motion
again. But it is motion straight on to where Wych Hazel has
seen that the smoke is thickest. The horses go fast; they know
that another hand has the reins; the ground is swiftly
travelled over. Now the puffs of smoke roll out round and
defined from the burning woodland; and then, above the rattle
of wheels and tread of hoofs, is heard another sound,--a
spiteful snapping and crackling, faint but increasing. Can the
air be borne?--it is hard to breathe; and flame, yes, flame is
leaping from the dried leaves and curling out here and there
from a tree. Mrs. Saddler put her head out of the coach.
'Oh, sir!' she shrieked, 'he is taking us right into it! O
stop him! we'll be burned, sure! it's all fire--it's all fire!'
The chorus of shrieks became now almost a worse storm within
than the tempest of fire which was raging without. The women
were wild. It was an awful moment for everybody. The fire had
full possession on both sides of the road, viciously sparkling
and crackling and throwing out jets of flames and volumes of
smoke, threatening to dispute the way with the stage coach;
yet through it lay the only way to safety. It could not be
borne long; the horses, urged by a hand that knew how to apply
all means of stimulus and spared none, drew the coach along at
a furious speed. The speed alone was distracting to the poor
women, who had never known the like; the coach seemed to them,
doubtless, hastening to destruction. Their shrieks were
uncontrollable; and indeed no topics of comfort could be
urged, when manifestly they were fleeing for their lives from
the fire, and the fire on every side, before and behind them
was threatening with fearful assertion of power that they
should not escape. How swiftly thoughts careered through the
mind of the one silent member of the company--thoughts like
those quick flashed of flame, those dark curls of smoke. The
questions she had been debating two hours before--were they all
to have one short, sharp answer?--And what would become of her
then? Were such days as the one before yesterday forever
ended? How would it feel to be caught and wreathed about like
one of those pines--how would Mr. Rollo feel to see it--and what
if all the rest should be dead, there in the fire, and she
only half dead; together with a strange impatience to know the
worst and endure the worst. She had drawn back a little from
the window, driven in by the scorching air, but looked out
still with both hands up to shield her eyes. She did not know
into what pitiful lines her mouth had shaped itself, nor what
faintness and sickness were creeping over her with every
breath of that smoke. The time was, after all, not long; but
in the thickest of the fire, when the smoke literally choked
up the way before the horses' eyes, the animals suddenly
stopped; from a furious speed, the coach came to a blank
stand-still. A voice was heard from the coach-box cheering the
horses--but the dead pause continued. And now when the rattle
of the wheels ceased, the sweep of the fiery storm could be
heard and felt. A wind had risen, or more likely was created
by the great draught of the fire; and its rush through the
woods, driving the flames before it, and catching up the
clouds of smoke to pile them upon the faces and throats of the
travellers was with a hiss and a fury and a blinding which
came like the malice of a spiteful thing. It was almost
impossible to breathe; and yet the coach stood still! A half-
minute seemed the growth of a year. The women became frantic;
Mr. Falkirk kept them in the coach by the sheer exertion of
force. Wych Hazel in vain strained her eyes to see through the
smoke what the detaining cause was.
The horses had been scared at last by the fire crackling and
snapping in their faces, and confounded by the clouds of
smoke. Bewildered, they had stopped short; and voice and whip
were powerless against fear. That was a moment never to be
forgotten, at least by those withinside the stage-coach, who
could do nothing but wait and scream.
'Hush! the horses are frightened: that is all,' said Mr.
Falkirk. 'He's----what's he doing, Wych?--yes, he's blinding the
leaders; that's it. There!'
The intense anxiety which was smothered in every one of these
words, Wych Hazel long remembered. They saw, as he spoke, they
could see Rollo at the horses' heads, going from one to the
other; they saw him dimly through the smoke; they caught the
light of something white in his hand. Mr. Falkirk had guessed
right. Then they saw Rollo throw himself postillion-wise upon
one of the leaders. In another moment the coach moved,
doubtfully; then amid the rush and roar they could hear the
cheer of their charioteer's voice, and the frightened animals
plunged on again. Presently, encouraged perhaps by a little
opening in the smoke, they dashed forward as heartily as ever,
and--yes--the smoke was less thick and the air less dark, and
momentarily brightening. The worst was over. Surely the worst
was over, but the travellers drew breath if freer yet
fearfully, till the lessening cloud and disappearing fire and
stillness in the woods, said that had left the danger behind.
Black charred stems and branches began to show what had been
where they now were; little puffs of grey smoke from half
consumed tufts of moss and old stumps of great trees were all
that was left of the army of fire that had marched that way.
The horses were brought back to a moderate going. A quieting
of the storm within accompanied the passing away of the storm
without. Fairly overcome now, dizzy besides with the almost
flaming current which had blown full against her in that last
charge through the fire, Wych Hazel drooped her head lower and
lower till it rested on the sill of the window; but no one
marked just then. The women were drying their eyes and
uttering little jets of excited or thankful exclamation. Mr.
Falkirk watched from his window what was to be done next.
'We'll have to put up, if it be onconvenient,' said the
driver. 'Can't ask a team to do _more'n_ that at a time, sir.
'Tain't no tavern, neither--but there's Siah Sullivan's; he's
got fodder, and food, allays, for a friend in need.'
'How far is Lupin?' called out Mr. Falkirk. 'Aren't we on the
Lupin road?'
'Na--it's a good bit 'tother side o' that 'ere flamin'
pandemony, sir, Lupin's.'
'No it isn't! I mean Lupin, where Braddock's mill used to be--
old John Braddock's.'
' 'Taint called Lupin now,' observed the driver,--'that ere's
West Lupinus. Wal--John Braddock's there now; it's four or five
mile straight ahead.'
'We can go there,' said Rollo. 'That will give us the best
chance.'
Gently they took those three or four miles. The open country
to which they soon came, getting out of the woods, looked very
lovely and peaceful to them; the fire had not been there, and
quiet sunshine lay along the fields. In the last mile or two
the fields gave place again to broken country; a brawling
stream was heard and seen by intervals, black and chafing over
a rocky bed. Then the road descended sharply, among thick
leafage, fresh and fair, not pine needles; and finally at the
bottom of the descent the stage stopped.