A Fiery Ordeal.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue I, 5 January 1901, Page 19

A Fiery Ordeal.

By

MAUD PEACOCKE.

PART I

It was the height of the New Zealand summer, and the hottest, driest, summer the colony had known for years. The crops had failed; the grassy paddocks were burnt brown, and the creeks had dwindled to mere threads, so that the cattle and horses had in many cases to be driven miles to water. The settlers in the district of Orangi in the North were beginning to shake their heads and prophesy ruin and disaster. And, indeed, ruin and disaster threatened many a homestead that summer of cloudless skies and brilliant sunshine. The whole countryside was alight with bush fires. Hundreds of acres of forest were swept away in flame and smoke owing to fires lit out of wanton mischief, or carelessness, well nigh as wanton, and which spread so widely and rapidly that in a few days they were beyond control, and a sight at which men could only stare aghast while they prayed for rain.

By day the hills far and near were shrouded in smoke, and at night the settlers’ homesteads were ringed round by fire. The sun rose and set like a rayless disc of molten copper through rolling clouds of smoke. One evening as the sun was setting over the distant ranges, dyeing the rolling smoke clouds with ruby hues a man was walking rapidly across a wide grassy paddock towards a low rambling house standing alone in the clearing. Thirty years ago David Carew, his wife and two children, landed in New Zealand with two or three hundred pounds on which to start farming. He bought a piece of land in the North, and by dint of steadiness and hard work, after the fashion of the hardy old pioneers of those days, he had made for himself a dwellingplace in the wilderness. Rude and primitive it was, but he and his wife were young and strong, and not afraid of hard work. His family had increased with the years, and the original little cabin, built of slabs and thatched with totara bark, had been added to many times. As we watch David Carew stride across the short dry grass we see in him a fair type of the old New Zealand settler. A man of medium height, broad-chested and powerfullybuilt, with a weather-beaten face and grizzled hair and beard. As he swung the tall five-barred gate leading to the farm yard, he overtook his son Ambrose driving the cows to the milking shed. Ambrose was a freckled-faced, bare-legged lad of fifteen. He was strolling very leisurely behind the cows and munching at an apple, while the animals themselves moved slowly, stopping now and then to crop a mouthful from the dry, burnt grass. “Well, ’Brose lad, have you been to the ten acre?” asked Carew, pausing with his hand on the top-bar of the gatd. Ambrose turned his apple about and about, and with a few rapid and scientific bites reduced it to the bare core, which after examining carefully and regretfully, he at length threw away. Then he made answer.

“Yes, me and Jack went. The fences are right so far, and we cut away and burnt the fern on each side.”

Gazing westward, Carew cried, suddenly, “By George, Tawhia’s alight!” Away to westward lay the bushclad ranges, and Ambrose, following the direction of his father’s gaze, saw a thick column of smoke rising distinct from the smoky haze that hid the nearer hills. The Carews' house was free from danger, standing, as it did, in a wide clearing, but at the small settlement of Tawhia, some two miles away, the scattered homesteads were mostly built on the very skirts of the bush. Carew’s married daughter lived there, and he mut-

tered anxiously, “I hope Tom has had his ’burn.* ” For miles around the settlers were fleeing their homes, some in senseless panic, before the dreaded fires had reached their boundary fences. Some stayed on to the last, fighting doggedly for their homes, but driven back inch by inch till they, too. were forced to fly. The poor homeless ones ■’ook shelter with the hospitable settlers, who cheerfully gave them welcome, though not knowing when their own turn might come. Carew proceeded to the house. After washing his hands in the porch he passed into the low-raftered kitchen. His wife, a cheery little applecheeked woman, met him on the thresnold.

“Tea is quite ready, so be quick. Father,” she said smiling. In a short time the family were seated round the tea-table, Carew at the head, his wife presiding over the tea cups; three pretty daughters, and two tall sons. Beside their own family seated at that hospitable board were a family who had been burnt out a week before; husband, wife, and two children, and a feeble old woman, who kept dabbing at her eyes with a blue checked apron and weeping copiously. The husband sat moodily, staring straight before him. while the wife, when she spoke at all, scolded the children irritably. Carew tried to keep a conversation going, but gave it up at last in despair, and said good-naturedly to the old woman, “Cheer up, Mrs Tate, cheer up; things’ll be brighter soon.”

The old woman shook her head despondently, and her son, suddenly rousing himself, said savagely. “Do be quiet, mother; what's the use of crying over spilt milk,” adding bitterly, “It won’t bring back the home or anything else we’ve lost.”

“Please God,” said she in a quavering voice, “I’ll not be a burden on anyone long.”

Carew broke in heartily, “There, there, Mrs Tate, don’t talk so. Let’s hcpe you’ll be spared a long while yet.”

But she shook her head again, muttering of the “extra month” and “hard times.’" Just then Ambrose, who had been looking from the window in a bored wav, exclaimed. “Here’s Tom ami Millv.”

As he spoke two horses swept by the window. Carew's son-in-law came first on a bay, holding before him on the saddle a small boy, bright-eyed an 1 sturdy; and close behind rode his wife, with a sleeping baby on her arm. The family seated at the table rose and hurried to the door. “Gran’pa, Gran’pa,” cried the little fellow on the horse, stretching out impatient arms to Carew. But for once he was disregarded. One of his aunts lifted him from the horse and set him down, while they all crowded round the riders to hear what tale they had to teU.

Tom Ashley rose in his stirrups and waved his whip excitedly towards Tawhia, where in the gathering dark might be seen a lurid glow in the sky. “The whole side of the range is afire,” he cried. “Merton’s is burnt down to the ground, and the fire is travelling up the valley, over the scrub land, like an army of devils. I've brought Milly and the youngsters over to be out of the way, and you fellows must ride like the mischief back w-ith me. or every stick and stone on the place 'II be in ashes before morning. The wind’s rising, too. and blowing dead for the house.” In less time than it takes to tell of it four horses were caught and saddled. and leaving Ambrose to take care of the women and children, Ashley, the two Carews and Tate rode off. It was a beautiful starlight night, but the air was close and dense with smoke. On every side, far and near.

might be seen the fiery signals of ruin and disaster; pillars of mingled fire and smoke, towering up to the ruddy sky, tracts of bush that had lately waved in the sunshine, now laid waste, smouldered sullenly in heaps of smoking ashes, and blackened stumps standing up gaunt and bare. The men rode in silence. Sometimes they passed patches of blazing fern by the roadside. In the narrow tracks, where they dropped into single file, the horses were sometimes up to their fetlocks in warm ashes, that rose in clouds of fine grey dust as they disturbed it. The riders pressed on. In a few minutes they came in sight of a long, low-backed range, covered with native bush from base to summit. Smoke hung over it now in clouds. There was no great show of fire in any one place, but at a hundred points the flames broke forth, and smoke arose in columns. As the riders approached they could hear the flames roaring and crackling in the undergrowth. Blazing fragments detached from the trees, and myriads of sparks whirled in the wind. There were several houses scattered about the valley, standing out plainly in the flicker*Q& glare. Tawhia settlement was quite a recent one, so that, though each house stood alone in its own patch of clearing, there were still patches of bush to be felled in the valley between the different farms. Only one house for years had stood alone at the head of the valley, an old tumble-down shanty, belonging to an old couple by the name of Weston, who had emigrated from the Old Country, and settled here when the colony was yet young. At one spot in the valley men were flitting about a comparatively cleared space, with torches in their hands. This was the scene of a last year’s “burn”; gaunt, grey trunks of rata and kauri, flinging out leafless limbs; little patches of fern starting a fresh growth; fallen trunks and blackened stumps. It was a strange scene. The weird glare, the men blackened and grimy, flitting about working away with axes and fern hooks, amongst the logs, stumps and leafless trees. Their object was to clear everything that might feed the hungry flames, and so prevent the spread of the fire. At his brother-in-law’s first alarm, Jack Carew, a fine strapping fellow of two and twenty, had saddled in hot haste, and in his eagerness had outstripped his companions on the road. This was not all anxiety as to his brother-in-law’s property. In the lonely house at the head of the valley, lived Peggy Weston, to whom Jack had quite lost, his manly heart, though in his slow, .cautious way he had not spoken of his hopes yet. She was a pretty brown-eyed girl, who led a lonely enough life, with her grandparents. Their house was in an isolated position, but Jack saw with the quick eye of anxiety that it was surrounded by thickets of gorse, ti-tree and bracken fern, up to the very fences. At any time the bracken will burn fiercely, but now, with much of it as dry as tinder, after the spell of hot weather, a falling spark might set it alight any moment. As they all dismounted Ashley gave a cry of alarm. A spark had fallen on the thatched roof of a cow shed at the back of his house, arid in a moment it was blazing. A post and rail fence ran in direct communication from the shed to the gate of the farm yard. “Chop the fences down,” cried Carew, and in a few moments they were engaged hacking at the fences with might and main.

The din was indescribable. The sound of the blows of the axes, the shouts of the men, fighting with the fire, the excited, ceaseless barking of dogs; the terrified bleating and lowing of sheep and cattle, and above all, the dull roar of the flames. Every now and again some forest king would fall to the ground, crashing through the lesser trees and undergrowth; shaking the earth with a dull thud, and raising clouds of dust and ashes. Here was the dull glow of some old tough stump, burning and smoking slow’ly away like a huge cinder ; here the quick crackling blaze of a patch of dry fern ; and here some great tree, wrapped in flame, stood like a pillar of fire against the dark sky.

After the fences had been chopped

down, the workers turned their attention to the fern at the back of the house. This they burned, beating the flames away from the house.

“ Oh for a good downpour of rain!” groaned Ashley, looking up at the star-lit sky.

After seeing things comparatively safe here. Jack turned to look at the " eston’s. To his dismay the fern on three sides of the house was in a blaze. The house stood on a slight rise, and the windows were lit with a ruddy glow. Otherwise the house was in darkness. It was now about 9.30. Jack knew the old couple retired early, and probably made Peggy do the same. It was awful to think they might be burned in their beds—his pretty Peggy, to whom he had never declared the love that thrilled him. And yet—how to get through that sea of flame ? Men, selfishly, yet naturally, anxious, as to the safety of their own homes, had spared no thought for others, and now, there was only one approach to the house that was not cut off by fire, and that was on the far side. It meant a long ride, round another way, before he could reach there, and by that time, what might not have happened? The thought was agony. He ground his teeth in impotent despair, looking up at the house, and picturing horrors to himself. Stay, was there not one way? At the back of the house was a small patch of bush, that was as yet untouched by the fire. By skirting the burning fern paddocks he might, with hard riding, gain this bush, before the flames, which were now racing towards it, reached it. It meant a race with the flames, but it was now neck-or-noth-ing. Jack sprang to his horse, leaped upon it. and galloped away across the clearing. Suddenly his good brown mare. Betty, pulled up, trembling in every limb.

“God!” he cried, in an agony of impatience and despair. A grim, fivebarbed wire fence stretched across the path.

Jack set his teeth in grim determination. and. leaning over, patted the mare’s neck. “We must jump it, old girl.” he said in a dogged voice, “there's no help for it.” The mare, uneasy at the flames, shrank back with a snort of terror. Carew, galloping off to a short distance, wheeled her round again, and set her at the fence, but Betty reared on her haunches and refused to take it. Three times he tried it, and each time failed. It would have been a difficult jump, under any circumstances, but a sort of wild exhilaration had seized him, and he tried again with whip and spur.

The fourth time the mare went over like a bird, and, as they landed. Carew found himself shouting like a madman. They passed so close to the burning fern that he felt the flames scorch his face, and the terrified mare, bounding aside, was away like an arrow up the rise. No need for whip and spur now. Crashing through titree scrub; over fallen trunks and blackened stumps, scattering the still warm ashes, under her flying hoofs, she thundered on.

Carew sat close in the saddle, guiding as well as he was able her mad flight. At times she stumbled, but always recovered herself in time. At length, however, as they had almost reached the bush, she put her foot in a rabbit hole, and floundered heavily forward: almost recovered herself, then stumbled again, and fell. There she lay. panting in pain and terror; with straining eyeballs, and shaking in every limb. Carew slipped off her back, and knelt beside her, patting the glossy brown neck. A pang of remorse seized him. that he had thus done the gallant mare to death. He had heard the sickening crack as she stumbled, and guessed too well that it meant the leg was broken. “My poor lass,” he cried, a sob in his throat, “done for now, poor girl.” She looked up at him wistfully. For the time everything else was swept off his mind. He just knelt beside her, stroking her neck, his eyes blinded with tears. A roar from the fire made him look up. There was not a hundred yards l>etween the flames and the bush now. Starting to his feet Carew cast one lingering glance at his faithful brute-companion, who whinnied faintly after him. There was a lump in his throat, and a mist before his eyes, but, setting his teeth resolutely, he hurried on. A few minutes later he plunged into the thicket of the bush. Fortunately there had been felling done lately, and the bush had been thinned a lot,

so that a dim light stole in between the brandies. There was no marked track to be followed, but Carew had been a good bush man all his life, and could make a fairly straight course to where he judged the house to be. At times in his haste he stumbled over the creeping supplejacks that strewed the way, or the fallen trunks of trees. The bush was not more than a square half mile in extent, and he had traversed perhaps half the distance when the first puff of smoke stole in through the trees. Carew caught his breath hard and started to run. The pungent smell of the burning tret's grew stronger every moment. Crashing through a thicket of fern he came face to face with the flames. He recoiled and tried another point, only to be again driven back. The whole undergrowth was blazing. Had he been in any condition to reason he might have known that the very presence of the flames showed him to have reached the outskirts of the bush, where the vegetation was dry as tinder from the long drought. It would probably have taken days for the flames to have reached the fresh, green heart of the bush. A bold rush would have taken him through the flames in safety. But, exhausted as he was, and confused by the darkness and the smoke he did not realise this. After trying at some half dozen points, always driven back, blinded and choked, the poor fellow lost his head entirely. He rushed wildly up find down through the labyrinth of trees, stumbling blindly and shouting for help. PART 11. At eight o’clock the old Weston couple put out the lamp and prepared to retire for the night. “Where’s the maid?’’ asked the old man as he took his candle. “Peggy! Peggy!” cried her grandmother, in a cracked voice. Peggy had been sitting in the porch, watching the men at the fire. Now, she came in, her eyes shining with exeitement.

“Grandfather,” she exclaimed, “come and see the burn. The whole side of the mountain seems alight, and the men are working in the clearing like mad.”

Old Weston laughed contemptuously. He was of the aggravating “oldest inhabitant” type. Whatever had been seen, heard, or done he had seen, heard, or done something greater. Now he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the mountain and said:

“Burn! Call that a burn? Why, I mind the time when the whole range was afire, like the ‘burnin’, fiery furnace’ we read of in Scripture. Why, this’d be nothing but a bonfire beside it—a .bonfire! ”

He shuffled off, chuckling to himself. The old woman prepared to follow, and Peggy said, timidly, “Mayn’t I stay up a bit longer, granny? I’m not sleepy.” “No, no!” was the reply. “Young maids should be abed early for their -beauty sleep. I always went to bed early in my young days.” She was old and wrinkled and withered now, but at the thought of her youthful charms she bridled and smiled.

Peggy said no more but went to her room. Arrived there, however, she blew out her light and sat at the open window watching the workers at the fire and dreaming her maiden dreams, with many a blush and smile in the darkness.

By and bye she began to nod. So she threw herself dressed as she was upon the bed and was soon sound asleep. She had slept for what seemed to her a few minutes when she suddenly started up broad awake. Her room was full of smoke and as light as day, lit by a dancing red glare from without. A sound of roaring and crackling drew her to the window, and a cry of dismay broke from her. Outside was a tossing sea of fire, gorse and ti-tree and the waist-high fern burning furiously. Running from window to window Peggy saw that the house was surrounded.

There was every reason for alarm. The fern, fires, though they burn fiercely while they last, soon burn themselves out, but the house timbers were old and rotten and dry as tinder. Any moment a spark might light and set the roof in a blaze. Peggy roused the old people with difficulty. They slept heavily, seeming dazed with the smoke that filled the room. The old

man whimpered and shook like a frightened child, and refused for some time to leave his bed. At last they induced him to get up, and Peggy ran to the back porch to see what eould be done. As she stood there she saw a man break from the trees at the back of the house and stagger rather than walk across the yard. The next moment he stood beside her. “Jack!” she shrieked, in mingled horror and relief. Jack it was. Hatless, shoeless, blackened and burnt, his clothes hanging in tatters upon him. “Water,” he gasped, hoarsely, and sank down upon the step. Peggy dashed inside and returned with a tin pannikin of water, which he drank greedily. When Carew’ had found his way cut off, he had almost lost his reason for the time being, exhausted and dazed as he was. He had rushed about wildly, seeking a place where he might break through. At last, quite by accident, he had hit upon a eattle track, which had led him in sight of the house.

“Jack, what is to be done?” cried Peggy, and he looked up in a stupid way, muttering vaguely, “must get out of this,” “not safe.” Just then a call from the house made Peggy turn and run in again. When she returned she found Carewfast asleep, with his head upon his arm. utterly done up and exhausted. She shook him by the arm. and he stirred drowsily. Evidently no help eould be expected from Jack. The poor girl felt helpless indeed. A spark lit upon an outhouse, and the roof was soon in a blaze. It caught the fence and ran along rapidly towards the house. Peggy looked longingly over the burning gorse to the right, of them, where the vivid, rank, green of a raupo swamp offered a haven of refuge. But how to traverse that sea of fire unscathed? Suddenly an inspiration flasheel across her mind. Somewhere in that paddock was a track that she used to drive the cattle to water every day. If they eould reach that they might be saved. Confused by the darkness and smoke she could not tell exactly where it was, but she felt confident she eould find it, partly because she did not dare think of failure, and partly because of au inner conviction that God always meets our greatest extremities with His surest aids.

Almost dragging Carew to his feet, and taking the trembling old woman on ter arm, they set off. It was a slow, painful journey. The old people moved with tottering steps, and Carew stumbled blindly, almost walking in his sleep. Twice he threw himself down, forgetting everything in his craving for sleep.

For weeks past he had been out night after night, working against the tires and to-night he had reached the limit of his endurance. Peggy implored and prayed and commanded. “For the love of heaven.” he pleaded once, “let me sleep! Go on, and leave me.” But she refused, and he stumbl-

ed on again. The old man. too. was in a panic, and it was all she could do to restrain him from making back for the house. He whimpered and whined and besought her to "be a good maid and let him go.” but she refused harshly, and he seemed cowed.

They reached the slip rails at length, and to the girl’s relief she found them only charred. She let them down with trembling fingers. Old Weston declared with a piercing shriek he would go no further, and bis wife hid her face in her hands and moaned. Even the girl s brave spirit shrank appalled. The passage looked so desperattly narrow, and twisting tongues of flame lunged and dartefl across in the gusts of wind. Carew, suddenly, made a mighty effort. and threw off the sleep that was overpowering him. Putting Peggy aside he strode forward and took the lead. The horrors of the awful journey, down that lane of fire! The distance was really very short, and the track considerably broader than appeared in the uncertain glare. The hot breath of the flames fanned their faces; and the smoke blinded and choked them. Shrinking, stumbling, they hurried on. and at length reached the swampy ground. The flames were almost down to the swamp-edge, and the heat was overpowering.

They flung themselves down on the damp ground, exhausted, and Carew immediately fell asleep again. The others lay there in wakeful silence, save for the old man's whimpering and moaning. Peggy fixed her eyes on the red glare in the sky. .With a start she saw the old roof-tree that had sheltered her, all her life, was now a mass of flame. Hour after hour they lay there, chilled to the bone, fitfully dozing and waking. When morning came a scene of desolation met the eye. The flames had died down, but a dismal cloud of smoke hung over the grey waste of ashes, and blackened stumps of gorse and titree. Here and there little fires still burned. Carew slept till the sun was high in the heavens. Then Peggy wakened him. He sat up with haggard looks and blood-shot eyes. The old people were still asleep. Then they told of how they had spent their night to each other, and so wrought upon was the sober and cautious Jack that there, in that strange time and place, he told his love. And Peggy? Did she hesitate because he, her lover, was dirty and grimed with blood-shot eyes and haggard’face? No! a thousand times no.

Thev waited till noon before they dared trust themselves on the hot ashes, with their well-nigh shoeless fee* Then, faint and hungry, bv slow degrees, they traversed the waste lands. In the second paddock they met David Carew, Ashley and several of the neighbours, going in search of them. How wild was the joy of the meeting! How incoherent the mutual explanations. They were borne off to the nearest house and provided with food and clothes.

Pretty Peggy blushed with shv pride as her lover told in glowing terms of how her pluck had saved them all. when he was useless. Then she broke down and cried and laughed hysterically with the reaction of it all. They made quite a heroine of her. and though old Weston, quite revived by the food and warmth, declared that it was nothing to what an aunt of his had done, actually sleeping three nights and days in the river, no one paid the least attention tohim.

Soon after that memorable night the welcome rains came, and early in the following spring Jack and Peggy were married. They found that gallant mare where she fell. The flames had never reached her, but her mad terror of the fire, the wild gallop and the pain had done their work. There she lay dead, and all their lives Jack and Peggy mourned her, who had lost her life in their service.