COVER.
“Cis,” he said, anxiously, his hand at the screen of heather that closed
the mouth of their retreat, “you’ve got to get over Soyland alone, and
unseen. I’m going to show you a crack that will take you nearly to the
top. Except at the very top, there are stones enough and heather enough
to cover you, but you may have to creep. You’ll have to watch both
behind and ahead, for you mustn’t be seen and you mustn’t walk into the
arms of a sentry. They’re a good quarter of a mile apart--they can’t
cover a hundred miles of country--you can get through easily. I’m going
south a little way: listen where you’re to wait for me. You’ll cross
Soyland, sighting by a large cairn you’ll see on Brotherton Head. Under
it, among the heather, there’s an old square stone shaft and some
birches. I’ll be there in an hour. I’ll take Jimmy with me.--Now repeat
that after me.”
He could scarce hear her faint reply, and he shook her gently.
“Come now; I know you can be a brave and clever girl. I’ll tell you
again....”
She repeated the instructions after him, and then he said, “Quick, a
kiss ... now out you go!” He helped her through the opening and saw her
immediately and swiftly take the shelter of a large boulder.
“Yes, that’s the way,” he said approvingly; “yonder’s the foot of the
nick. Go quickly up it--take the risk--and then forward. Now....”
He dropped on his knees, marked the position of the bloodhounds across
the valley, noted their pace, and was off.
He had packed Jimmy in the breast of his coat and secured him with the
strap from which the provisions had been slung. His way lay south, round
the precipitous eaves of Soyland towards the falling moorland below. He
moistened his finger to the fresh wind, dodged again to a spot whence he
could see the bloodhounds, glanced at the rocks above him, and began to
move from rock to rock, making all the cover he might. Now and then he
murmured to Jimmy, who was restless with the shaking and close
confinement. “Be a man, Jimmy,” he kept saying; “across to this big
boulder now--now over this heather--we must keep an eye above us,
too--good! We’ll double here; never do to cross that open space, eh,
Jimmy?...” He made fair progress, and presently gave an “Ah!” of
satisfaction. A path of slippery bents ran up from below among the
rocks and heather, as a wave washes up a steep beach; unhesitatingly he
crouched and crawled towards it.
“Now hold tight for a slide, Jimmy!” he muttered.
He lay flat on his back and started himself down the slippery way. His
speed increased, and he clutched at heather roots to check himself,
using his heel also as a brake. That was dangerous, for it lifted his
whole body. The heather rocked and swept past him in a blur; he plunged
dizzily downwards, jolted and breathless; and sixty yards down he
clutched desperately at another bush and lifted twice clear over, his
body taking a heather bush at each bound. He lay in a deep gutter
between two purple clumps, scratched and bruised and panting, his body
arched over the child; then he was up again. His first glance was at the
rocky eaves; their line was sharp against the sky and unoccupied; and
between himself and the men with the hounds he had now set a low roll of
moorland.
It was now he who must take a risk--the risk of a sentry appearing
suddenly on the eaves. He ran twenty yards ahead, glanced up again at
the grey rocks, ran forward again, and continued to run, his head
constantly over his shoulder. Jimmy’s face puckered, and again Monjoy
hushed him.
“Ssh! Jimmy boy; we’ll manage yet, you and I; the farther south the
less chance they have of rounding us--but not too far, Jimmy, or we
shan’t catch those damned dogs. What fools they are to keep ’em leashed,
Jimmy! They’re lazy rascals.... Now just a little farther----”
The child became quiet again, and by and by a further fall of the land
gave them a moment’s breathing-space.
He was now far down in the valley, with nothing but the rolling heather
about him. “Do you think this’ll do?” he said to the child; and again he
moistened his finger to the wind. He drew out a pistol. He found a flat
stone, knocked the priming from the pan, and began to work up a little
tinder and tow with more powder from his flask. He set the stone down
under the heather and drew the trigger over it.
He had to draw thrice before the spark of flint and standard ignited the
charge on the stone; then it caught, and he drew the heather close over
it. A bright little flame licked and crackled; it spread; and a thin
smoke and the pungent smell of burning heather arose. Monjoy tore up a
smaller bush and held it for a moment in the blaze.
“Now we begin, Jimmy,” he said. “This is very bad for the birds, and
you’re not to do it when you get older, remember; but once in a
while----”
A few yards on he fired another bush. After the weeks of drought a spark
sufficed; and he advanced at a quick walk trailing his brand. When it
burnt out he took another. Already from the first point of firing, the
flames, of an orange scarce visible, were advancing up the hillside
before the light breeze. “Variable; but there’ll be more wind higher
up,” he assured Jimmy; “whew, but it’s dry! Too dry; we want some damp
to make a smoke--a nice dense smoke to hide us. What, Jim?--There, I
think that’ll do.”
He flung his brand from him and turned north again and a little west.
Cicely had mounted the rocky cleft in pitiful trepidation. “Brave and
clever,” she told herself she must be; she repeated the words over and
over, but they did not stop the painful thumping of her heart. This
increased as she neared the head of the ravine, and she felt that a
crisis of nerves was seizing her. It came, and she sank in a huddle
under a rock, stifling hysterical sobs in a fold of her skirt. She could
see the open space at the top of the ravine; she dared not approach it.
For nearly twenty minutes she lay, her sobs gradually subsiding, but her
will gone from her; and then there chanced something that brought her
round like vinegar. A stone’s-toss away she saw appear the red back of a
soldier.
What kind of being her fears had raised for her she did not know; what
she saw was a rather undersized man with sloping shoulders and a
handkerchief tucked into the back of his neck. He was eating bread and
cheese, and walking aimlessly a little way and back again. He half
turned his face--a red, foolish, timid face--but it was the bread and
cheese that steadied Cicely completely. If there was only an eater of
bread and cheese to elude she thought she could do it, and she waited,
no longer trembling. Even then she noticed, but was not aware that she
noticed, a light odour of burning; and soon she saw the soldier stroll
away to the left, or north. He did not reappear; she advanced cautiously
and looked round the boulder at the head of the ravine; he was forty
yards away, still walking. The bare top before her was no wider than
Horwick market-place; she could run it or creep ... she crept, having
control of herself again. With a little wary run she was across and
crouching behind another rock. A little way before her Soyland seemed to
end where the top of a mountain-ash showed over an edge, and on the
purple sunlit hill across the next valley she could see the grey cairn
against the sky. As she dropped over the rocky verge there came again
the smell of burning ling, but again she was hardly aware of it. The
wide basin beneath her was a sea of blooming heather, and almost lost in
it was the small cluster of birches and the stone shaft where she was to
wait for Arthur. She began the most difficult task of all--the descent
with her back to the rocky, sentinelled skyline.
Suddenly, as if some obstruction had fallen from her senses, she
identified the half-noticed, familiar smell, and in a flash it came to
her what Arthur was about. A light vapour crept up the valley below her.
A cliff of rock blocked her view to the south; she hastened towards it
and looked beyond. As she did so she heard a soft, deep, distant bay.
No flame was visible; a long, low, rolling line of grey smoke hid all
beyond it. It was advancing the whole width of Soyland and more, and its
under surface seemed to drag in the heather like shreds and wisps of
grey wool. Listening, she could hear the subdued low roaring and
hissing; and then a wandering breeze made for a moment a breach in the
dense grey roll. It showed a glimpse of ragged, orange, murky flame,
that was blotted out again; and then, as the smoke took the lower
slopes, the sky became veiled, the day began to fall to a filthy
brownish twilight, and the sun dipped to a dull and bloody red. From
behind her, over Soyland, the roaring sounded more loudly.
Cicely knew enough of burning moorland to be aware that, once you were
caught in that smoke, the flame was like to appear suddenly, leaping all
about you. Already the pungent smell filled her nostrils and lungs, and
all at once, somewhere behind her, a gun was discharged. As if it had
been a signal to herself, she sprang forward down the hillside.
The shaft among the birches was clearly visible, but the grey smoke was
creeping towards it, and here and there, in advance of the general line,
detached puffs smouldered, like sheep-fleece caught in briars. The smoke
from these points veered with the variable wind, and a minute’s longer
delay might cut her off. She took no thought for cover now. A
sheep-track threaded the heather, leading far to the north of the cairn;
its direction was of less consequence than the chance of being lost in
blinding, stifling smoke with flame behind it; and she sped down the
sheep-track, away from the fire and across its path. As she did so she
muttered, as folk repeat before going to sleep something they desire to
wake up with in the morning, “Keep out o’ the smoke--keep out o’ the
smoke----”
Very soon the birches became shrouded, then blotted out.
When flame comes along damp heather, the bushes in advance pour out a
thick white smoke and then burst into flame of themselves; with dry, the
flames run forward yards at a time, with outriders of flying sparks.
Both dry and damp were there, for even the long drought had not dried up
the hidden rills and heavy marshy patches. Among the grey there rose
from these compact white spiral columns that twisted and rolled,
terrifying in the enveloping twilight. She could hear the clamour of the
birds, and even then there came to her a thankfulness that the nesting
was long past, and that all were on the wing. A score of bleating sheep
rushed past her; the light penetrating mist began to enwrap her; and she
turned to the north again, looking ever for the westernmost point at
which the moor burned.
She saw it, or thought she did, when she was half-way across the hollow.
Still she kept away from it; and then, for the first time, she glanced
behind her. Above her head the sky still showed, its blue only partially
embrowned; but the rocky hill she had descended was completely
obliterated, and through the dreadful curtain that hid it there glared
dull copper-coloured tracts. Swiftly she looked north; scarlet knots and
clusters of soldiers had gathered on the heights; she forgot that they
stuffed handkerchiefs into their necks and ate bread and cheese; she
turned hurriedly southward again. The cairn on the hill crest above the
shaft and the birches was now far to her left instead of in front of
her; the course that, but for her delay, would have led straight towards
it was a mile-long pall of smoke.
Suddenly a panic took her. A high ceaseless crackling now filled the
valley, and behind it was an ominous roar. She turned again, almost
direct for the cairn; the smoke was now shrouding it. She had seen the
redcoats on the heights moving round as if to cut her off, and her one
thought was to make for the birches where Arthur would be--they could
not be very far away. She fancied that the smoke had changed a little in
direction, too, and was falling more behind her. She coughed and choked
as she tore forwards towards the point that she had judged to be the
limit of the fire.
In a few minutes the smoke had filled her throat and she had fled
choking before it. It advanced almost as quickly as she, but she found
easier breathing, and by and by came slanting towards it again. Again
she retreated, baffled and half-blinded. The heat was all about her, and
she tore at the band of her skirt. She pulled the skirt off and wound it
about her head. This darkness of her own making seemed all at once to
terrify her, and, with muffled shouts of “Arthur! Arthur!” she plunged
forward. She fell back again. She advanced again, and again had to fall
back.
She now knew not in what direction she was going, save that it was away
from the brown, murky night that was engulfing her and towards the
remnant of livid day that, through a fold of her wrapping, still showed
ahead. Not forty yards from her was a glare as of red copper. It broke
into a frightful bright flame, and was smothered again; and its roaring
filled her ears. That glimpse of hell appalled her; she gave a shriek
and fled from it in a straight line, as the sheep and birds had fled.
Then from behind the dark curtain of smoke there came suddenly a
shriller noise and a succession of loud cracks, an indescribable
mingling. A bright and lurid light towered high over her, and yellow
flame twisted upwards shrieking. Something--she knew not what--so
different was happening there that all at once an intelligence broke on
her--she was close to the birches, which were ablaze. Arthur would be
there--would be there, as he had promised--though her own courage had
failed. Arthur would be there waiting ... again she began to utter
piercing cries.
Through the tempest of roaring came another short crack, as if of a
pistol; smoke and fierce heat suffocated her; and she gave one last lost
cry.
An “Ahoy!” answered her. She was seized, by whom she knew not, and the
skirt was pressed closer about her head. Somebody hurried her forward,
lifting her from time to time completely off her feet; and her head was
so completely enwrapped that she did not know that twenty yards away the
breathing was easier. She was scarce conscious that her feet were taking
steep rising ground; she only knew that the heat was abated. She was
borne swiftly forward; presently her head was partly uncovered; but
there was no respite from the lifting and climbing.
Actually, it was not more than five minutes before they were well up the
hillside, with the conflagration sweeping away from them below. She
heard a gasping voice: “Not yet--more into the wind!” and she was helped
forward until a freshening breeze fanned her face. She was placed on a
bed of heather; she remembered afterwards that either she saw Jimmy or
dreamed she did; but Arthur was far up the hillside, firing the heather
again.
She lay for a quarter of an hour before he returned; then he flung
himself beside her and broke suddenly into sobs that shook his frame.
“Oh, my darling!” he cried heart-brokenly; “where had you been?”
She murmured something, her own eyes closing; and then he seized her as
if even yet some horror strove to part them.
“Oh, I waited--waited--all Soyland blazed--and the wind turned and still
you didn’t come; but I knew you were clever and brave, though I couldn’t
see you.... Ah! This won’t do.”
He stood up and began to walk about. Presently he was calmer, and sat
down again.
“That’s better,” he said. He took her in his arms and looked down at her
grimed and swollen eyes. “Yes, I knew you were clever and brave; and you
must be clever and brave again in a few minutes, dear. The next few
hours are our opportunity.... What do you say?”
Gathered against his bosom, she had murmured something.
“Yes, yes; you can have five minutes; you shall have that if I have to
fire all the ling in Lancashire. Yes, we’re better now.... See, Jimmy’s
putting out his arms to you, Cis----”
Softly he gave her the child.
Below them, the spectacle was one of infernal magnificence. They were
now in the rear of the flames that ran devouringly forward, rank on
rank, with a red courier springing up wherever a spark alighted. On the
level ground the flame had spread swiftly; it now reached the foot of
Brotherton Head. It took the whole of the slope above it in one terrific
red lick. With a short dull roar, as if of an explosion, the hill sprang
into a sheet of flame. All smoke was lost in an upward spouting of fire.
At three or four points of the hill, taller spouts--gorse,
likely--screamed upward and passed; and then came short bents, and for a
moment smoke could be seen far away, rolling over the whole of Back o’
th’ Mooin. To the south, for a mile and more, all was a desert of ash,
white and black and grey, with patches still smouldering; and a dancing
mesh of sparks and short flames and glowing embers formed the rear-guard
of the advance.
“Put your skirt on and come now,” said Monjoy, bending over his wife and
taking her blackened hands.
In a few minutes she was ready to set forth. He took Jimmy again, and,
still a little tremulous, he talked to the child as he supported Cicely
up the hill.
“Forward now, Jimmy; we’ve a day’s start of those men with the pretty
red coats. Forward to the Edge now, you and I and Cicely, and then down
into Ratchet, Jimmy. This is our good-bye to Back o’ th’ Mooin. When
you’re older I’ll tell you a tale about Back o’ th’ Mooin; come, take a
look at it now--you may chance to remember.... Look, Cis, how it’s
raging over yonder! That’s--yes--that’s at the furnaces--my
furnaces--and that white steaming’s Brotherton Bog. Whew!... This is a
most sinful thing, Jimmy; the poor birds are homeless now, as we are;
but our home’s near Cicely, wherever she is, eh? (He _is_ like his
mother, Cis!)--Come, dear; you shall rest again at the top....”
It was between afternoon and evening when, far to the south, they
reached the Edge. They could not yet see the great western plain, but
the land fell away steadily, and soon there was nothing but the
immediate foreground and the far distance. The sun sank as they rested
and walked again, and the heather and the sheep were dyed and flooded
with gold. The light grew richer and quieter and more serene; vapours
turned the sun to crimson; and suddenly, appearing beyond a last gradual
rise, the breadth of Lancashire lay spread out below them.
Three miles away, among broken hills, lay Ratchet, one or two of its
roof-windows still shining brightly. Far beyond it lay a russet patch
of smoke--the chimneys of a great town. Violet vapours crept over all
the plain. They could not see the sea in the gathering twilight. The rim
of the sun dipped into a bank of cloud; it lost its light and grew rusty
and died.
Faintly from Ratchet came the ringing of a bell, and Monjoy’s eyes
turned from the quiet vale to his wife.
“Tell me, dear--when you have kissed me--do you dread to leave and to
begin with me again in a new land?”
“No, no; let’s go quickly,” she replied.
“Forward, Jimmy,” Monjoy said; and they dropped down the winding path to
Ratchet.