The day was sultry, and towards noon a strong wind sprang up that
roared in the pine tops like the dashing of distant billows, but
without in the least degree abating the heat. The children were
lying listlessly upon the floor, and the girl and I were finishing
sunbonnets, when Mary suddenly exclaimed, “Bless us, mistress, what a
smoke!”
I ran immediately to the door, but was not able to distinguish ten
yards before me. The swamp immediately below us was on fire, and the
heavy wind was driving a dense black cloud of smoke directly towards
us.
“What can this mean?” I cried. “Who can have set fire to the fallow?”
As I ceased speaking, John Thomas stood pale and trembling before me.
“John, what is the meaning of this fire?”
“Oh, ma’am, I hope you will forgive me; it was I set fire to it, and I
would give all I have in the world if I had not done it.”
“What is the danger?”
“Oh, I’m afraid that we shall all be burnt up,” said John, beginning to
whimper. “What shall we do?”
“Why, we must get out of it as fast as we can, and leave the house to
its fate.”
“We can’t get out,” said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which seemed
the concentration of fear; “I would have got out of it if I could; but
just step to the back door, ma’am, and see.”
Behind, before, on every side, we were surrounded by a wall of fire,
burning furiously within a hundred yards of us, and cutting off all
possibility of retreat; for, could we have found an opening through the
burning heaps, we could not have seen our way through the dense canopy
of smoke, and, buried as we were in the heart of the forest, no one
could discover our situation till we were beyond the reach of help.
I closed the door, and went back to the parlor. Fear was knocking
loudly at my heart, for our utter helplessness destroyed all hope of
our being able to effect our escape. The girl sat upon the floor by the
children, who, unconscious of the peril that hung over them, had both
fallen asleep. She was silently weeping; while the boy who had caused
the mischief was crying aloud.
A strange calm succeeded my first alarm. I sat down upon the step of
the door, and watched the awful scene in silence. The fire was raging
in the cedar swamp immediately below the ridge on which the house
stood, and it presented a spectacle truly appalling.
From out of the dense folds of a canopy of black smoke--the blackest I
ever saw--leaped up red forks of lurid flame as high as the tree-tops,
igniting the branches of a group of tall pines that had been left
for saw logs. A deep gloom blotted out the heavens from our sight.
The air was filled with fiery particles, which floated even to the
doorstep--while the crackling and roaring of the flames might have been
heard at a great distance.
To reach the shore of the lake, we must pass through the burning
swamp, and not a bird could pass over it with unscorched wings. The
fierce wind drove the flames at the sides and back of the house up the
clearing; and our passage to the road or to the forest, on the right
and left, was entirely obstructed by a sea of flames. Our only ark of
safety was the house, so long as it remained untouched by the fire.
I turned to young Thomas, and asked him how long he thought that would
be. “When the fire clears this little ridge in front, ma’am. The Lord
have mercy on us then, or we must all go.”
The heat soon became suffocating. We were parched with thirst, and
there was not a drop of water in the house, and none to be procured
nearer than the lake. I turned once more to the door, hoping that a
passage might have been burnt through to the water. I saw nothing but a
dense cloud of fire and smoke--could hear nothing but the crackling and
roaring of flames, which were gaining so fast upon us that I felt their
scorching breath in my face.
“Ah,” thought I--and it was a most bitter thought--”what will my
beloved husband say when he returns and finds that his poor wife and
his dear girls have perished in this miserable manner? But God can save
us yet.”
The thought had scarcely found a voice in my heart before the wind rose
to a hurricane, scattering the flames on all sides into a tempest of
burning billows. I buried my head in my apron, for I thought that all
was lost, when a most terrific crash of thunder burst over our heads,
and, like the breaking of a waterspout, down came the rushing torrent
of rain which had been pent up for so many weeks.
In a few minutes the chip yard was all afloat, and the fire effectually
checked. The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been gathering all day,
and which was the only one of any note we had that summer, continued to
rage all night, and before morning had quite subdued the cruel enemy
whose approach we had viewed with such dread.
--SUSANNAH MOODIE.