Fire in the Woods / Illustrated

by James De Mille

With these words the priest hurried up to the two guides, and spoke a few words to them in French. The guides answered, and after a short conversation the priest went into the house. The guides took his horse and put him in the stable; and by the time they had returned, the priest came out, and they all went off towards the woods.

“Don’t be discouraged,” said the priest to Bart, “about the fires. After all, they may have driven your friend away in this direction. For you see he would naturally keep as far as possible away from them, and as they advanced he would retreat. And so, if they are really coming in this direction, he would be forced to come this way too. If so, I think some of my friends would be likely to meet with him. The only real danger is, that he may be tired out, and be unable to endure the fatigue. But you say he is an active boy, and that he had a little food with him; and so I really think that there is every reason for hope. You must try, then, to keep up your spirits, and remember that even if we don’t find him he may yet be safe, and may meet with others; or he may even get out of the woods unassisted.”

These words were very encouraging to Bart, and excited his best hopes. As he was naturally light-hearted and sanguine, he determined to struggle against his depression, and cling as long as possible to the hopes that the present held out. The consequence was, that he at once surmounted his gloom, and dismissed from his mind those desponding thoughts which had taken possession of him ever since he saw the glow of the fire. He became more like his old self, and commenced the exploring tour, full of life, and energy, and hope.

Far different was it with Pat. His trouble arose from a dark, dreadful terror which had taken full possession of him, and which not even his buoyancy of soul and natural cheerfulness could withstand. It was the terror that had been awakened by the mention of the leprosy.

And so it was that as the party entered the woods, Pat held back; and he who was usually among the first, now lingered the last. He had a terrible fear that he had run a risk of catching the loathsome disease by bathing in what he considered the “leper waters,” and by entering the house of one who was on such familiar terms with the lepers as the priest professed to be. It seemed to him, now, that the only possible chance that remained for him was to keep as far away from the priest as possible. He remembered with horror that he had eaten at the priest’s house on the preceding evening. He had not eaten anything that morning, nor had any of them as yet; for the guides carried provisions, and it was intended to breakfast in the woods. But to Pat all thoughts of eating were obnoxious; the sickening thought of the leprosy drove away all his appetite; and if he followed them into the woods, it was at a distance; and then only because there still remained a loyal regard for Phil, and thus the tables were completely turned. Bart, who the day before had been despondent, was now hopeful; while Pat, who had then been the hopeful one, had now sunk down into a state of depression to which language fails to do justice.

After walking into the woods for some distance, they sat down and made a breakfast off some ham and crackers, which were carried by the guides. Pat sat at a distance from the rest, and resolutely refused all invitations to partake, pleading a slight sickness; nor was poor Pat’s plea altogether a feigned one; for by this time he had worked himself into a state of utter panic, and the miserable feelings resulting from his loss of a night’s sleep and from hunger were attributed by him to the approach of leprosy. So poor Pat stood aloof from the rest, pale, anxious, and already beginning to think that he had made a great mistake in accompanying them at all. The more he thought upon this, the more convinced did he become that his presence there in company with them was both unnecessary and unwise,—unnecessary, for, as it now seemed to him, Phil was perfectly able to take care of himself; and unwise, for he was only destroying his chance of escape from the leprosy, by thus remaining in the company of those who had its terrible seeds clinging to their clothes and to their persons.

A prey thus to his anxiety, Pat’s generous desire to help Phil gradually weakened in the presence of his instinct of self-preservation, and his belief that Phil was safe somewhere made him all the more eager to secure safety for himself. The wretchedness which he felt, from the loss of his night’s rest, and want of food, and terror, all combined, tended to turn all his thoughts upon himself; and the more wretched he felt, the more did he attribute it to the awful disease which he so greatly dreaded. And so, at last, by the time they had finished their repast, Pat had felt so overcome by his terrors, that he determined, at all hazards, to free himself from his dangerous associates, and escape somewhere before it was too late. Having thus made up his mind, it only remained to find some favorable opportunity of slipping away unobserved, and thus securing that safety for which he longed.

After their breakfast they began to go forward. The two guides of course went first, one behind the other. Then followed the priest, and after him came Bart. Pat wanted Solomon to go next; but Solomon declined, from a feeling of humility natural to him, which made him seek the lowest—that is to say, the last—place on the line of march, and partly also from a desire to be in the rear, so as to see that no one straggled away. Thus they all went on in Indian file, and after Bart came Pat, while Solomon brought up the rear.

As they thus went on, one after the other, in Indian file, through the woods, it was, of course, impossible for any one to see all the rest of the party. It was enough if each one should see the one who might be immediately in front. This was especially the case when the woods grew thicker and the march more laborious. Bart then could only see the priest; and Pat, Bart; while Solomon could only see Pat. In this way they went on then, and this mode of progress soon suggested to Pat a simple, easy, and perfectly natural mode of separating himself from the others. He had only to slacken his pace a little for a short distance. He had only to fall back slightly, and he would easily be able to put between himself and the others such obstacles that they would be able neither to see him nor to find him. This, now, became his fixed resolve.

So, as he went on, Pat allowed Bart to go gradually farther and farther ahead, until at length he was out of sight. But even then he was not satisfied. He still kept on, but chose a course which swerved slightly from the one which the others were following; and entering upon this course, he sought to make it more and more apart from the track of the others. As he went along he kept constantly turning to the right, and thus before long he had made a complete circuit; and then, when he thought he had turned far enough to be heading towards the place from which he set out, he tried to go in a straight line. In all this he was completely successful; that is to say, so far as concerned his desire not to be noticed; and so he kept on for so long a time that at length he began to be on the lookout for the open land and the sea.