Wych Hazel. Warner Susan
'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