صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

MASTER TOMMY'S EXPERIMENT:

:

A HEATHER-BURNING STORY.

ONE breezy morning in late March, the factor, his grieve, and a couple of keepers stood on an occupation road, at a gate leading out on to a great stretch of moorland. The heather was black in many places, or rather there were black spots and long lanes running through the heather, showing where it had been recently burnt, and the men were discussing the advisability of continuing their work and burning more. The wind was so high, and the ling which came next in turn was so dry and parched by it, helped by occasional blinks of a March sun, that the keeper was afraid the fire might get "the head of them," and burn more than would be good for his department and the forester, who arrived shortly after the discussion began, concurred in these views. But the grieve, a man of weight, both in opinion and substance, vehemently scoffed at the possibility of such a thing happening. "We've plenty of hands," he said; "the season is getting on, and we've still lots to do, and if we don't do it now, we shan't do it at all this year-that's my opinion. When the head keeper suggested that even if half the moor was burnt, he, the grieve, would not be much put out, that official threw the taunt aside with a grunt, and fixed his eyes on the factor, awaiting his decision. And the factor, being interested in the keeper's grouse and the grieve's sheep, as well as in the plantation which the forester was always trying to persuade his master to make on part of that hill-side, considered the matter fairly and dispassionately,

and thus gave it: "We'll try it, anyhow, and we'll take plenty of men." Then the grieve blew a joyous whistle, putting a forefinger of each hand in his mouth, causing to issue thence a shrill sound, which went far over hill and dale; and in a short time a goodly array of men appeared from all parts of the compass from the steading below, and from various bothies and cottages round, some of them finishing their breakfasts as they arrived, and all armed with one or two long switches of birch, called technically "beaters," or "trees." They, too, had been discussing the wind, uncertain as to what would prove the order of the day; but when it came they came also, like good soldiers, keeping their private opinions to themselves, whatever they might be--or at all events, not obtruding them upon their betters.

This small army, twenty or so in number, climbed the hill above them, and soon reached the place where the day's work was to commence. The factor lit a matchthe wind had it out in a second, but not before the thin white grass, to which it was applied, caught fire. The grieve thrust a long withered bunch of heather into the young flame, and in a few seconds ran out a line of fire twenty yards long. The men ranged themselves up against it, and with their birch switches beat out the flame on the windward side,-not always easy work, for it ran through the undergrowth with wonderful quickness, and care, and sometimes a few minutes' hard work, was necessary to prevent it spreading in a wrong direction. In an hour, a very

[ocr errors]

long line of fire was established, the noble language to become ever eating up against the breeze, greatly enamoured of it; and never crackling and sputtering, and re- had the verb "amo seemed more ducing to soft black powder or hollow to him, or more meaningburnt stalks everything that came less, than on that fine March mornin its way. Then when this line ing. On the previous day—a halfwas four or five feet wide-the holiday-he had, for the first time, heather, fifty yards off, was kindled assisted at the annual ceremony of in a parallel, and a rush of red "muir - burn." A good-natured flame and grey dense smoke tore keeper had got him a birchen over the strip, raging and fuming switch suitable to his age and diwith irresistible fury till it reached mensions, and Tommy, most exthe black boundary, where it im- ceedingly to his edification, had mediately died harmlessly out. spent three hours in thrashing The first line was ever carried on away at any bit of flame he could well in advance of the second, and reach. He got greatly in the before midday a long black trail way of everybody. Now and then was left behind, carried up hill he tumbled into a hag, and had to and down dale, straight and even, be pulled out. Two or three times measured and kept in check by he lost himself in the smoke, and the careful eyes of men trained announced his condition to all and experienced in such work. whom it might concern with wild The men had brought what they and mournful howls. He was called "a dry piece" with them, voted a nuisance by every one on and the factor supplied the mois- the hill; but this did not lessen ture which they considered neces- his enjoyment in the least, and he sary for its proper digestion was much put out when the last whisky. They all had a glass at flames were extinguished, and he dinner-time, and about six o'clock was told the fun was over for the were preparing for another as a day. Then he went home; and a strengthener for the last hour's more grimy, smoky urchin never work, when an accident happened entered his father's house. His which made them all change their clothes were torn and his face plans, and prevented many an black, and he carried with him honest fellow from eating his por- into the drawing-room an atmoridge at home that night, or sleep- sphere which caused him to be ing in his own bed. promptly ejected, a housemaid being sent in chase, with orders to severely wash him. When the process had been carried out-not without much kicking—and the soap was well from his eyes, he informed her that burning heather was the grandest sport in which he had ever engaged, and that for his part, when he became a man, he intended to do little else. But the next morning, as we have related, his manœuvres to avoid lessons were detected and checkmated, and strict orders were given that he was to return to the house immediately the minister let him

That morning Master Tommy, aged ten, son of the laird, went through the programme which he had for some time chalked out for himself as being necessary. He hid himself in a barn, then in a shrubbery, was discovered, admonished, howled, had his ears boxed, and then consented to set out on his daily visit to the kind minister who was teaching him Latin—a governess accompanying him to the gate of the manse, and watching him safely inside the door. Master Tommy had not advanced far enough into the mysteries of

go, and that on no account was he to think of going on the hill again. Tommy, without any intention of keeping it, gave his word, as being the easiest way of preventing a messenger being sent to conduct him home at night. But he was so inattentive and so troublesome to his tutor, that that gentleman, after a long lecture on his bad behaviour and evil ways, was glad to let him go at four o'clock-a full hour before his time. Tommy carefully reconnoitred the road near the manse, to see if any one was lying in wait to take him home, and then, climbing the dyke, set off with a beating heart, as fast as his small legs would let him, to the nearest hill-top, from which he expected to be able to see signs of the whereabouts of the workmen. His sagacity was rewarded. He saw a long line of fire slowly burning up against the wind, but at a great distance: he could not make out the figures of the men attending it. Tommy, however, was not so disheartened at this as might have been supposed. Crushed into a shapeless mass in one of his hot knickerbocker pockets was an emblem of great power-a box of matches, warranted to strike on anything. He drew this treasure out, and with a shaking hand struck one, and lit a small isolated tuft of heather. Then with a larger tuft, which he managed to pull up, he beat out the flame almost before it had well kindled. There was shelter in this hollow, though on the open moor the wind was blowing as freshly as ever, and he had no difficulty in accomplishing this. So for a long time he amused himself mightily, burning tiny patches here and there; and as the ground was damp and the heather poor and thin, he easily put out his conflagrations. Tommy was a sharp and clever

boy, and he had sense enough to know that a big flame would be the means of bringing people down to see what was the matter and inquire as to the kindler,—and he did not want to betray himself and curtail his delightful amusement. But the spirit of mischief was abroad on those moors that March afternoon-whether in the shape of old Katherine Buchanan the witch, as some said afterwards, or merely as an impalpable essence, as is most likely, matters little— and this spirit led Tommy step by step from the safe and thinly covered marshy hollow towards the skirt of a long plantation. This plantation had been in some respects a failure. The ground was cold, and the larch and firs had made but small progress, rather inclining to bush out in width than exert themselves to stand up as forest trees. After the forester and his men had several times "beat up" the wood, making good the gaps among the plants, the owner got tired of their want of success. The fences were "let" down, and sheep and cattle could get in if they wanted. was little there to tempt them: the long rank heather, and the still longer sour white grass, would have been despised by any old blackface who stood on this side of starvation. This badly developed wood was about 800 yards long, and lay broadside on to a vast extent of moorland, terminated by older woods, and the latter stretched away in stately pride for miles and miles. The heather on the far side of the young wood at which Tommy had arrived was exceedingly dense and high. The authorities had meditated planting this also, but the failure in what had already been done made them delay the work, and meanwhile it had not been burnt or interfered

But there

with, but left that it might be a shelter to the young trees, if ever they were put in young wood does not do well on burnt ground.

If we have made the surroundings of this place clear to the reader, we have shown that a mischievous boy possessed of that most dangerous commodity, a little learning, and a box of matches to boot, could not well have been deposited in a locality where he could do more harm. Tommy eyed the long rank heather on the tumbled-down bank of the plantation, and a noble ambition shot into his mind. "I'll light it below," he thought, "and then run up the bank and put it out before it gets on. It'll burn splendidly!" This boy, after his late experiences, considered himself capable of coping with a very formidable conflagration. He had been timid in the hollow, where there was no need for fear, and now he was about to be fearfully rash where there was the greatest cause for alarm. "Be not too bold." Tommy had never read Spenser, and would have appreciated him as much as the Latin grammar. He struck one of his last matches, applied it to an inviting tussock of dry grass, and sprang up the bank, armed with his little heather switch. He did not stay there long, however, neither had he occasion to use any more of the treasures in his box. In two or three seconds Tommy jumped off this bank, dropped his switch, and ran off as fast as his legs would carry him; and the wish that predominated then in his small breast was that he had never been born.

The fire ran quickly up the sloping bank; then for a moment or two it seemed baffled, and a man with strong arms and a knowledge of using them, could have got the

mastery. But it slowly worked its way across the thin herbage on the turf dyke, and got inside the wood: a long venomous yellow flame shot out ahead, and touched a tuft of grass; ready fuel lay on every side, and the plantation was fairly alight in a few seconds. The fire spread out and took to itself ample ground. It ran furiously in a long red and yellow wall up the little brae where the trees first began, encouraged and fanned by the motion in the air its own blaze made, shrivelling up the stunted Scotch firs and spruce which had so long striven to make their livelihood out of the inhospitable soil, and had now to see and feel a moment's blaze and pain ruin the work of years. As it neared the top of the brae the fire got help from the wind, roughly blowing where there was no shelter, and it then went roaring and hissing through the plantation, driving out all its small tenants-the rabbits and hares—and proclaiming in a most unmistakable way to all within a wide radius that it had started off at last to do its work, and that it meant to do it thoroughly.

So, about six o'clock, the men legitimately burning, a mile and a half or so away from the scene of Master Tommy's little experiment, were thinking of their suppers, and impatiently watching the indefatigable grieve, who still kept running out his safety-lines and calling on them to stand by him lest the boundaries should be passed. Old Mungo M'Naughton had been sent a little way back to bring on the basket which held the whisky and the glasses. Mungo pulled

out the cork of one bottle and tasted it, to see if any of the idle loons had been playing a trick on honest men by exchanging peat water for good liquor; and while

he was slowly tilting the bottle's base up against the dying sun, he became aware of something which alarmed him so much that he swallowed more in one gulp than he could manage, and nearly choked, and for a moment he could not call out. By the time the whisky had found out its waysome through his waistcoat, but the bulk down his shrivelled old throat the other men had seen the blaze, and he lost for ever the credit and honour of having been the first to call attention to it. "What's that, forester?" "By what's that?" The young wood's on fire!" " Away with you; -run, men, run; -get to it for God's sake, or we'll never manage that!" The factor called the oldest and steadiest boy to him: "Run for your life, lad, to the farm, and alarm everybody. Shout at all the bothies, and send up every living soul to the hill." The lad set off like a young deer, grieving to leave temporarily the scene of so much excitement, and yet proud of his task, and at being the first bearer of ill news. Two active men were detailed to cut fresh beaters in a neighbouring wood, and then the factor set off after his rapidly lessening men as hard as he could stretch, with that peculiar sinking about the knees and thumping of the heart which people feel when suddenly called on for exciting work which entails great physical labour. Wonderful stories were told afterwards as to the time taken by some active souls to cover that mile and a half. Robert M'Corquodale claimed to have been the first at the fire; but as he was reported to have slunk away half-an-hour previously, hoping not to be missed, and his house lay in the direction of the manse, he did not ultimately get as much credit for his nimbleness as he

thought due. However, in no long time every one was up, different emotions agitating different bosoms,— some of the youngsters merely excited at the prospect of seeing enormous damage caused; the older men understanding well the long and serious work which lay before them. The grieve and keepers were horrified at the sight, and the head forester almost out of his mind at the prospect of such ruin to his department.

The sight was an appalling one : the fire was sweeping up the whole breadth of the plantation, and not all the men in Scotland and all the fire-engines in London would have availed anything there. The wind drove it furiously on; great flames shot out on all sides-twisted, yellow, scorching flames-licking up with thirsty tongues everything that came in their way, shooting out with extraordinary rapidity twenty feet in advance, and seizing on everything they touched. Green or dry it made little difference, and the spreading spruce and silver firs, which would have burnt but languidly on a bonfire, changed in a moment their sappy luxuriance for a shrivelled mass of brown desolation. No one there, however little used to such a sight, but knew that to attempt to cope with the fire then was as useless as to start to bail Loch Awe with a stable bucket. The god would work his way in that wood at any rate, let who will say him nay. The men were as bold and hardy and daring as Scotch hillmen could be, but even they could do nothing against the mass of red edging from which flames shot out many feet, and fiercely licked round the forms of any standing within measurable distance of their possessions. The grieve pluckily tried it, darting in at a weak place and giving one mighty stroke with his beater.

« السابقةمتابعة »