The children were
lying listlessly upon the floor for coolness, and the girl and I
were finishing sun-bonnets, when Mary suddenly exclaimed, "Bless us,
mistress, what a smoke!" I ran immediately to the door, but was not
able to distinguish ten yards before me. The swamp immediately below
us was on fire, and the heavy wind was driving a dense black cloud
of smoke directly towards us.
"What can this mean?" I cried, "Who can have set fire to the fallow?"
As I ceased speaking, John Thomas stood pale and trembling before
me. "John, what is the meaning of this fire?"
"Oh, ma'am, I hope you will forgive me; it was I set fire to it, and
I would give all I have in the world if I had not done it."
"What is the danger?"
"Oh, I'm terribly afear'd that we shall all be burnt up," said the
fellow, beginning to whimper.
"Why did you run such a risk, and your master from home, and no one
on the place to render the least assistance?"
"I did it for the best," blubbered the lad. "What shall we do?"
"Why, we must get out of it as fast as we can, and leave the house
to its fate."
"We can't get out," said the man, in a low, hollow tone, which
seemed the concentration of fear; "I would have got out of it
if I could; but just step to the back door, ma'am, and see."
I had not felt the least alarm up to this minute; I had never seen
a fallow burnt, but I had heard of it as a thing of such common
occurrence that I had never connected with it any idea of danger.
Judge then, my surprise, my horror, when, on going to the back door,
I saw that the fellow, to make sure of his work, had fired the field
in fifty different places.
