Wych Hazel Part 9

'How will _you_ get out, sir?'

'I don't know. If I cannot, I'll send Rollo.'

'Pray send him, sir,--by all means.'

'I can get you out without a rope,' said that gentleman, very dispa.s.sionately.

'Pray do, then,' said the other.

'There is a step or two here of roughness, but it is practicable; and with your help we can reach smooth going in a very few minutes. A little below there is a path. Let me see you safe down first, Mr. Falkirk. Can you manage that oak branch?--stop when you get to the bottom--Stand there, now.'

With the aid of his younger friend's hand and eyes Mr. Falkirk made an abrupt descent to the place indicated--a ledge not very far but very sheer below them. From a position which looked like a squirrel's, mid way on the rock with one foot on the oak, Rollo then stretched out his hand to Wych Hazel.

'Am I to stop when I get to the bottom?--most people like to do it before,' she said.

'You must. Come a little lower down, if you please. Take Mr.

Falkirk's hand as soon as you reach footing.'

It was no place for ceremony, neither could she help it. As she spoke, he took the young lady in both hands as if she had been a parcel, and swung her lightly and firmly, though it must have been with the exercise of great strength, down to a rocky cleft which her feet could reach and from which Mr.

Falkirk's hand could reach her. Only then did Mr. Rollo's hand release her; and then he bounded down himself like a cat. Once more, very nearly the same operation had to be gone through; then a few plunging and scrambling steps placed them in a clear path, and the sound of the waters of the fall told them which way to take. With that, Rollo lifted his hat again gravely and fell back behind the others. Wrapping herself in her mood as if it had been a veil, Wych Hazel likewise bent her head--it might have been to both gentlemen; but then she sped forward at a rate which she knew one could not and the other would not follow, and disappeared among the leaves like a frightened partridge.

What was she like when they reached the party on the height?

With no token of her adventures but the pink wreath round her hat and the pink flush under it, Miss Hazel sat there _a la reine_; Mr. Kingsland at her feet, a circle of standing admirers on all sides; her own immediate attention concentrated on a thorn in one of her wee fingers. Less speedily Mr. Falkirk had followed her and now stood at the back of the group, silent and undemonstrative. Rollo had gone another way and was not any longer of the party.

CHAPTER VII.

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 a.s.sociations 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 mola.s.ses 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.rs 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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. .h.i.therto 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?'