What kind of being her fears had raised for her she did not know; what she saw was a rather undersized man with sloping shoulders and a handkerchief tucked into the back of his neck. He was eating bread and cheese, and walking aimlessly a little way and back again. He half turned his face—a red, foolish, timid face—but it was the bread and cheese that steadied Cicely completely. If there was only an eater of bread and cheese to elude she thought she could do it, and she waited, no longer trembling. Even then she noticed, but was not aware that she noticed, a light odour of burning; and soon she saw the soldier stroll away to the left, or north. He did not reappear; she advanced cautiously and looked round the boulder at the head of the ravine; he was forty yards away, still walking. The bare top before her was no wider than Horwick market-place; she could run it or creep ... she crept, having control of herself again. With a little wary run she was across and crouching behind another rock. A little way before her Soyland seemed to end where the top of a mountain-ash showed over an edge, and on the purple sunlit hill across the next valley she could see the grey cairn against the sky. As she dropped over the rocky verge there came again the smell of burning ling, but again she was hardly aware of it. The wide basin beneath her was a sea of blooming heather, and almost lost in it was the small cluster of birches and the stone shaft where she was to wait for Arthur. She began the most difficult task of all—the descent with her back to the rocky, sentinelled skyline.
Suddenly, as if some obstruction had fallen from her senses, she identified the half-noticed, familiar smell, and in a flash it came to her what Arthur was about. A light vapour crept up the valley below her. A cliff of rock blocked her view to the south; she hastened towards it and looked beyond. As she did so she heard a soft, deep, distant bay.
No flame was visible; a long, low, rolling line of grey smoke hid all beyond it. It was advancing the whole width of Soyland and more, and its under surface seemed to drag in the heather like shreds and wisps of grey wool. Listening, she could hear the subdued low roaring and hissing; and then a wandering breeze made for a moment a breach in the dense grey roll. It showed a glimpse of ragged, orange, murky flame, that was blotted out again; and then, as the smoke took the lower slopes, the sky became veiled, the day began to fall to a filthy brownish twilight, and the sun dipped to a dull and bloody red. From behind her, over Soyland, the roaring sounded more loudly.
Cicely knew enough of burning moorland to be aware that, once you were caught in that smoke, the flame was like to appear suddenly, leaping all about you. Already the pungent smell filled her nostrils and lungs, and all at once, somewhere behind her, a gun was discharged. As if it had been a signal to herself, she sprang forward down the hillside.
The shaft among the birches was clearly visible, but the grey smoke was creeping towards it, and here and there, in advance of the general line, detached puffs smouldered, like sheep-fleece caught in briars. The smoke from these points veered with the variable wind, and a minute’s longer delay might cut her off. She took no thought for cover now. A sheep-track threaded the heather, leading far to the north of the cairn; its direction was of less consequence than the chance of being lost in blinding, stifling smoke with flame behind it; and she sped down the sheep-track, away from the fire and across its path. As she did so she muttered, as folk repeat before going to sleep something they desire to wake up with in the morning, “Keep out o’ the smoke—keep out o’ the smoke——”
Very soon the birches became shrouded, then blotted out.
When flame comes along damp heather, the bushes in advance pour out a thick white smoke and then burst into flame of themselves; with dry, the flames run forward yards at a time, with outriders of flying sparks. Both dry and damp were there, for even the long drought had not dried up the hidden rills and heavy marshy patches. Among the grey there rose from these compact white spiral columns that twisted and rolled, terrifying in the enveloping twilight. She could hear the clamour of the birds, and even then there came to her a thankfulness that the nesting was long past, and that all were on the wing. A score of bleating sheep rushed past her; the light penetrating mist began to enwrap her; and she turned to the north again, looking ever for the westernmost point at which the moor burned.
She saw it, or thought she did, when she was half-way across the hollow. Still she kept away from it; and then, for the first time, she glanced behind her. Above her head the sky still showed, its blue only partially embrowned; but the rocky hill she had descended was completely obliterated, and through the dreadful curtain that hid it there glared dull copper-coloured tracts. Swiftly she looked north; scarlet knots and clusters of soldiers had gathered on the heights; she forgot that they stuffed handkerchiefs into their necks and ate bread and cheese; she turned hurriedly southward again. The cairn on the hill crest above the shaft and the birches was now far to her left instead of in front of her; the course that, but for her delay, would have led straight towards it was a mile-long pall of smoke.
Suddenly a panic took her. A high ceaseless crackling now filled the valley, and behind it was an ominous roar. She turned again, almost direct for the cairn; the smoke was now shrouding it. She had seen the redcoats on the heights moving round as if to cut her off, and her one thought was to make for the birches where Arthur would be—they could not be very far away. She fancied that the smoke had changed a little in direction, too, and was falling more behind her. She coughed and choked as she tore forwards towards the point that she had judged to be the limit of the fire.
In a few minutes the smoke had filled her throat and she had fled choking before it. It advanced almost as quickly as she, but she found easier breathing, and by and by came slanting towards it again. Again she retreated, baffled and half-blinded. The heat was all about her, and she tore at the band of her skirt. She pulled the skirt off and wound it about her head. This darkness of her own making seemed all at once to terrify her, and, with muffled shouts of “Arthur! Arthur!” she plunged forward. She fell back again. She advanced again, and again had to fall back.