The wide open Space.—The terrific Scene.—Arrested and driven back.—New Purposes.—The Story of the Great Fire of Miramichi, and the Ruin wrought in one tremendous Night.
THE wide open space upon which they had come extended for some miles away on the right and on the left. About a mile off on the other side arose the trees of the forest again. Above these the smoke was rolling in vast, dense, voluminous clouds, while underneath them shone the red glare of a mighty conflagration. It was in those very woods which rose before them. They could see and feel its terrible presence. They could see, behind the line of trees that stood nearest, the dash of the surging flames as they seized upon the dry foliage and resinous wood of the forest; and the angry glow of the red fire, as, following the advance of the flame, it grasped and held in its blighting, withering embrace all that it seized upon. At the breath of the flame the forest shrank away; at the touch of the fire it crumbled into dust.

The foremost line of trees stood there, black against the glow of the fire that raged behind, like the bars of some vast, immeasurable furnace. Beneath, behind those bars, gleamed the fire; overhead rose the smoke, spreading over the sky, and filling all the air with its hot and suffocating fumes.

The whole party stood there looking on in silence. The guides conversed with one another and with the priest in French, of which Bart understood nothing. By the expression of their faces, and by the shaking of their heads, however, he learned,—if indeed he did not know well enough already,—that any farther progress in that direction was impossible.

“What do they say?” asked he at length of the priest.

“Well, of course, you see yourself,” said the priest, “that it’s impossible to go any farther, and consequently we must give up the idea of reaching that part of the forest where your friend was lost.”

“What shall we do?” exclaimed Bart, in deep distress.

“Well, that is what we are thinking of now. It all depends upon whether your friend has come in this direction or not. Now, you came in this direction, and you must have been within a few miles of this place; but you reached Tracadie safely, and saw no fire.”

“No,” said Bart, “only smoke.”

“But you must have been near it, for you saw the flames last evening. They were concealed by the trees when you were in the woods. Besides, the fire has, no doubt, been spreading in this direction ever since. Now, as for your friend, if he came in this direction at all, he may have reached a place to the north of the fire, and I am of the opinion that we might go in that direction. We shall thus see something of the other parties that are searching the woods up there. In fact there is nothing else to be done. If we don’t find him farther to the north, then I shall take it for granted that he has wandered in another direction altogether, and perhaps may come out at the Bay de Chaleur.”

“You don’t think, then, that there is—reason for despair?”

“Despair? Certainly not. Why should there be?”

“O, I don’t know. I was afraid that this fire extended everywhere, like the great fire that once raged here.”

“The great fire? O, no. Such a thing as that can only take place once in centuries. That was the result of a combination of circumstances so extraordinary, that it is not likely that they will ever occur again. And just now, such a fire as that is a simple impossibility.”

“But this fire seems pretty bad,” said Bart, “and it’s certainly increasing.”

“This fire? O, this is nothing,” said the priest.

“In these woods, there is a fire somewhere every summer,—and it runs on till a rain shower comes. This is only a local affair, confined to this particular district. It may possibly extend for ten or twelve miles, and have a width of two or three miles. It is troublesome, and you perceive the heat in the air, and it sends out smoke for many miles; but there is nothing in it that is at all extraordinary. There is nothing in it that a man cannot escape from. It is not like the swift and hurricane speed of the great fire, that swept in one night through all this country, and made one vast waste of ashes and death before morning. O, no. As for your friend, he ought to be able to get along; and every brook that he comes to will give him fish to eat. It’s the greatest country for trout and salmon in the world. In fact, I don’t see the slightest cause for anxiety about him.”

These words gave Bart a relief that was inexpressible, and he was now freed from the terrible anxiety that had so long devoured him. The opinion of the priest was of great value, for he, no doubt, knew perfectly well just what danger there might be. His estimation of the fire afforded still greater relief. Bart had feared that it was some universal conflagration; but it now turned out to be a local affair, so commonplace that no one here regarded it.

“I think,” said the priest, “that we had better go back at once.”

“Go back?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“To Tracadie.”

“But I thought we were going to search farther for Phil—to the north.”

“So we are,” said the priest; “but we’ll have to go back. If we were to walk through the woods, we would only be losing time. Now, I propose to go back, and drive along the road to a place about fifteen miles away, where some men are already in the woods engaged in this search. We can either go there, or go farther on; in fact, it might be well to go as far as the Bay de Chaleur, and get people there to keep a lookout. But first, we must go back, and we can see what the prospects are.”

They now retraced their steps in accordance with what the priest had said. It was a deep disappointment to Bart to find himself returning again without having accomplished anything; and in addition to this, he was very greatly troubled by the disappearance of Pat and Solomon. By the time they reached Tracadie it was evening, and as nothing more could be done that night, Bart once more took up his quarters for the night with the priest.

While sitting together that evening, the conversation was very naturally drawn to the great fire, of which the priest had already spoken several times; and at Bart’s request he now gave a more particular account of it.

“It was in the year 1825,” said the priest. “The summer had been the hottest and the dryest ever known, not only in this province, but all over North America. There was no rain for months. The hay crop was a total failure everywhere, and the garden vegetables all wilted and withered. Corn, turnips, potatoes, almost everything failed. The roads were all covered with fine dust, the fields were all cracked, and the grass was as if it had been scorched. The woods were dried and parched in the same way, the sap seemed to dry up in the trees, and the leaves and branches were ready to flash into a blaze at the slightest approach of fire.

“Fires, indeed, were in the woods in different places from midsummer till autumn. These burned steadily, though without making any very great progress. There were fires in these woods, and up at the head of the bay, and near the Nashwaak. The most extensive was one near Fredericton. There were also fires in the woods of Maine. And in Canada some of them had reached very serious dimensions. As a general thing, none of our people thought anything of it. Fires are so common that they excite no attention, and so it was with us. It was so dry that there was every reason to expect them, and if they were even larger than usual, that was no more than might be expected under such unusual circumstances.

“At last the month of October came, and in the early part of that month various causes contributed to spread the fires. On the 6th it was noticed that they had increased very greatly, and their extent was now far beyond anything that had ever been known before. People wondered at this, but thought that before long it must come to an end. Rain must come and put a stop to it.

“On the following day, the 7th, it was far worse. All through the preceding night the fires had been extending everywhere, and when day came it had an appearance different from anything ever known before. The sky had a deep purple tint, and immense clouds of black smoke rolled over the whole heavens. There was not a breath of wind, but everything was sunk into a calm so deep and profound that it seemed like the death of Nature. The heat was suffocating, the air thick and stagnant, so that breathing was difficult. No one could put forth the slightest exertion. Everybody lay about in a state of utter lassitude and listlessness, or tried in vain to find some cool place where the heat might be less oppressive.

“The most wonderful thing was the effect of all this upon the lower animals. The birds had all fled. The cattle in the fields seemed bewildered and terrified. They collected in groups, lowing piteously, and looking wildly around, eating nothing, but standing as though paralyzed. The dogs moaned, and crouched, and wandered restlessly out of doors and back again. But what was yet more astonishing was the behavior of the wild animals. Wolves, and bears, and hares, and foxes came from the woods to the open places, overcome with terror, and seeking refuge among the domestic animals.

“In spite of all this the people did not show much excitement. In the more lonely places they may have been frightened, but in the settlements they seemed simply listless. No one anticipated the terror that was approaching, or had any idea of the doom impending over the whole country. Strangely enough, the instinct of the lower animals was truer than the reason of man. As the fire was not yet visible, the people in the settlements made no preparations against it, nor did they even think that preparations were necessary. They knew, of course, that the heat and the unusual appearances were produced by fires in some place, but where it was, or how near it might be, they did not think.

“Evening came on, and at about seven o’clock a brisk wind suddenly sprang up. The sun set, and the darkness was intense beyond all description. And in that darkness nothing whatever was visible; there was something terrible beyond words in such deep gloom; but the wind went on and increased to a wilder degree, until at last it blew with extraordinary violence. Now, through the darkness a terrible sight became visible. All over the west and towards the north-west there shone a red glow, which grew brighter and brighter, until at last the whole skies were lightened up with flaming fires. The wind increased, coming from the west, until at length it blew a perfect hurricane; fiercer, more furious, more terrible than any in the memory of the oldest inhabitants here. Driven on by this fierce tempest, the fires spread with inconceivable rapidity, and all the west became a sea of fire, and above the woods vast flames shot up, furiously, far into the sky. There was no darkness now. It was driven away, and light had come; but the light was worse than the darkness had been.

“The hurricane increased, and the fires drove onward before it, and the fierce flames towered far up into the sky. Then there came a low moan from afar, which increased, and strengthened, and deepened, until at last it grew to a loud, appalling roar—a roar like sustained thunder, which still grew louder, and deeper, and nearer, and more awful. In the midst of this came the sound of crackling, like musketry volleys, and loud, tremendous explosions, like the discharge of cannon. And all this increased every minute, the fires sweeping onward more terribly, the roar of its advance gathering in intensity and volume, until at last the vast sheets of flame seemed to rise almost to the zenith. Overhead all the black smoke was now reddened in the glow of the fire, and there passed away over the sky a fierce torrent, bearing with it innumerable sparks, and blazing twigs, and branches of trees, which had been torn from the forest by the fire, and were now hurled through the air by the hurricane.

“Now there arose the wildest panic. All had been so sudden that there had been no time for thought—but even if there had been time, no thought could have availed. There was only one common impulse in all living things, whether man or beast, and that was escape. One cry only arose—the cry, ‘To the river! To the river!’ In this direction every one hurried, a confused crowd,—men, women, children, horses, cows, and dogs,—some carrying the old or the sick, others assisting the weak; fathers carrying their children, mothers their infants. Each seized what was most precious, and fled. All the time there were wild outcries—some of fear, others of hope, others of command, others of despair from some who had been separated from relatives, and were trying to find them again. Then they all hurried to the river; and some stood plunged in the water, others sought boats, others rafts, others floated on logs, while others sought the opposite shore, from which, however, the fires that spread even there soon drove them.

“And now the whole country, in all directions, blazed. The whole forest was as dry as tinder, and everywhere the floating sparks would fall upon the trees, and there would kindle fresh flames, which would sweep away before the hurricane like those behind. It was this that made the conflagration so swift and so universal.

“The morning at length came after that night of horror—the morning of the 8th of October; and never did human eye rest upon such a scene of desolation. The vast forests, the green meadows, the flourishing villages, the pleasant homes which a few hours before had formed one of the happiest countries in the world, was now one vast expanse of dust and ashes, out of which lowered the smouldering, blackened shafts of giant pine trees that had not been all consumed. The half-burned corpses of men, women, and children, cattle and wild beasts, strewed the forests, and in the dried-up beds of brooks and rivers lay the blackened bodies of burnt fishes. Six thousand square miles had been suddenly blasted by that unparalleled fire. And all this ruin had been wrought on that one night of horror.”

Such was the priest’s narrative of one of the most terrible fires on record—the great fire of Miramichi; a fire most remarkable for the astonishing rapidity of its course, and the thoroughness of its devastation. For, apart from other more immediate evils, it ruined the timber of all that country, turned fertile districts into barren wastes, and annihilated in one night all the resources of a great commerce.

To all this Bart listened with deep attention, and gained from it increased hope for Phil. For now he saw how different was this fire from the one of which he had been hearing, and how different the circumstances were. These woods were not dried like tinder, nor was it possible for a fire to spread so fast but that any living being could escape it. Besides, the woods were full of brooks and streams, and all these streams were full of fish; and Phil had his rod and lines, and was an expert fisherman. From all these thoughts he drew hope and confidence.

He was greatly puzzled, however, by the disappearance of Pat and Solomon. Their departure in the woods had greatly perplexed him, but he hoped that he would find them on his return to Tracadie. There were no signs of them. The night passed, but they did not make their appearance. Morning came, but brought them not.

He did not know what to think about it, and felt perplexed. Still he had no anxiety. Neither Pat nor Solomon was likely to come to any trouble in the woods, for they were perfectly well able to take care of themselves.

The party was now all broken up and scattered—Phil, Pat, Solomon, and Bart, all in different directions, and none of them knowing where the others were. But Bart’s mind was now intent upon finding Phil; and so, after a hurried breakfast, he got into the wagon with the priest, and they both drove off together.