CHAMPAR TO THE RESCUE
Grigge unfastened the sheepfold gate and then turned and faced Neville,
who stood beside him.
“You’d better stop worrying about those who are away, and keep your
worry for those at home,” he said.
“What do you mean by that, Grigge? There’s no danger to Les Vignes. The
trouble is all the other way,” Neville answered, leaning back against
the grey paling. He was tired out and covered with mud. He had just
returned from a vain attempt to find the runaways, and he was not eager
to face either the governess or Mother Barbette.
“Things happen quickly these days. You can’t tell what may happen next.
Your fine friends up at the house are none too safe. There were five
fires not so very far from here only last week. One of the houses burned
was the home of a friend of the old man’s.” By “the old man,” Grigge
meant Marie Josephine’s grandfather.
Neville’s face was white in the dancing sunshine. He was not able to
deny the truth of what Grigge said, and he was thinking of the two lost
children. He did not know what to do.
“Dian should never have gone away. It would be better, a thousand times
better, to have Dian with us,” he said.
Grigge nodded. Here was one point on which he thoroughly agreed with
Neville.
“That’s true! He shouldn’t have wasted his time looking out for those
that don’t deserve it. He’s worth all of them put together!” he said.
Then he suddenly thought of the fight he had had with Jean, and of how
the Little Mademoiselle had cried out, “What would Dian say!” As he
stood there kicking his heels against the wooden gate, Grigge knew that
he cared more about what Dian would say than about anything else in the
world, for Dian had helped him to keep his hold on life, and to fight
despair. He had taught him to love the sun and the stars, the flowers
and the young animals. It was easier to love these than to love people.
“I rode like the wind and may have passed them by. I dared not ask
questions. I had a cup of coffee at that old green mill-inn and I don’t
like it. The woman who waited on me asked questions. I put her off, you
can be sure of that. She knows about what is going on here. She knows
the Du Mondes are here, and that old Martin and I are the only men left
to guard the place. When I rode away she called after me: 'You must be
lonely out Pigeon Valley way, you and old Martin. You’ve a pretty flock
to look out for!’” Neville stopped short and looked keenly at Grigge,
who returned the look doggedly. “If I thought you’d done anything
tricky, you young good-for-nothing!” he exclaimed, eyeing Grigge
suspiciously. Grigge said nothing, though he stuck his tongue out at him
impudently.
Neville turned away. He was angry at himself for having told Grigge,
whom he heartily disliked, anything about his worries. The boy’s voice
followed him: “You’d better keep your wits here at home. Things are
happening fast these days. One day here, and the next gone.”
When Neville left him, Grigge slouched back against the gate, his hands
in the pockets of his brown shepherd’s smock. He looked less badly
nourished than in the wintertime. His gaunt face was faintly brown from
long days in the spring meadows with his flock. There was little that he
really knew about what was going on in the country, but he did know that
there was turmoil in the towns nearest them and that Les Vignes was in
danger. Neville was like the aristocrats, for he did not see danger
until it was fairly upon him. Grigge gleaned every bit of information
that he could from passing peddlers, from farm men who came by, from
everyone who had anything to tell. There was no danger for himself or
his family, the rude huts along the back road would be as safe as could
be, but the great house on the terrace was in grave peril, and those who
lived in it would not believe it!
Grigge turned on his heel and went out toward the highroad. As he
reached the opening in the hedge, he looked through and fairly gasped in
astonishment. The coach for Calais stood near the gates! Grigge ducked
through the hedge and came up to it. The driver saw him and jumped down
from his high seat. The two stood facing each other, the cross-eyed
driver and Grigge. There was no one else around.
“I want to see a boy named Grigge Barbette on urgent business!” said the
coach driver at last.
“I’m Grigge Barbette!” exclaimed Grigge, and he was so excited that he
caught hold of the man’s arm. “What do you mean? Have you a message for
me?” he asked.
The coach driver eyed him sharply.
“How am I to know that you really are Grigge Barbette?” he said.
Grigge nodded toward the row of huts in the distance.
“Any one there will tell you,” he answered.
The man looked at him a moment longer. Then he put his hand in an inside
pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper sealed with a red seal.
“This is for you,” said Champar. “There’s no one I’d take all this fuss
for but Dian the shepherd. He knows, and I know, and the Lord above
knows I’d not be here on earth to-day but for him!”
Grigge tore open the note and read it. His long face turned ashy white
as he read. When he finished he looked up in a sort of daze at the coach
driver, who said:
“I’m here and I’ll do what’s best. I wonder if they know up there at the
house that it may not be standing to-morrow night! I don’t care much
whether it is or not myself, or wouldn’t if Dian didn’t set such store
by it. Well, I’ll do what I can. That’s what he wrote in the note. 'Do
what you can. Get the family at Les Vignes to some hiding place near
Calais if there is danger.’”
Champar looked at Grigge, who returned his look almost unseeingly.
“You mean there really is danger here?”
The driver laughed gruffly as he replied:
“Sans-culottes from Saulieu are out on the warpath. They’ve been joined
by former olive mill workers down that way. They burned down the château
of the Comte d’Veraux night before last. They have this place in mind.
The people do not love Les Vignes. Your own cousins are with the
rabble!”
Grigge stood with the note in his hand, looking up at Champar.
“He says to consult with you in case of danger,” he gasped. It was more
than for a moment he could sense or understand. Here was word from Dian.
He was trusted to fulfill a mission—trusted! Dian had chosen him. He
had written, “I trust you!” Whatever he did he would do like Champar,
for Dian’s sake!
Why should he save the inhabitants at Les Vignes? There was nothing that
they had ever done for him. Days of vengeance were at hand! He stood
still in the roadway, the letter clasped tight in his hand.
“You understand that if they are to get away it must be at once. I can
take them some of the way at no great risk to myself. I will take them
to a barn near Calais. The shepherd, in his note to me, says they must
go there. He trusted these letters to that farmer boy, Raoul. Well, the
shepherd is not afraid to trust! Come, we must go up to the house. A
coach driver has the chance to learn many things, and I know the rabble
have shouted the name Saint Frère and Les Vignes. I know they will
come!” As he spoke, the coach driver took Grigge’s arm.
Grigge never, as long as he lived, forgot those few minutes there in the
dusky twilight. He often lived them over in the after years. He was
fighting with himself. At last he said, “I must go, too, for I have a
mission to look after in Calais. Come, we will go to them.”
The coach driver talked very fast as they went through the woods. They
must have some sort of a disguise, all of them. They could wear the
servants’ clothes, and have, at least, the look of decent farmer people.
They must be made to understand that they must come with them in order
to save their lives, and that they must do as they are told. This
pleased Grigge very much! At least he would show them that they were
entirely at the mercy of himself and the driver! They would do as they
were told!
They found everyone out on the terrace, and when Grigge and the driver
approached, Bertran and Denise ran to meet them.
“Tell us the news!” they cried.
Cécile and Hortense, each with an arm about the governess, came slowly
down the terrace steps. Their eyes were red with crying. It was nearly a
week since the children had gone, and there had been no word of them.
The coach driver did not bow, for he was a good republican at heart, and
in those days of the revolution bowing had gone out of fashion. He was
doing this for the sake of a friend who had done much for him, and he
wanted them to understand this.
“Citizeness, you and your charges are in grave danger. I hope you
deserve the good chance for your life which I am giving you. I have a
note from Dian, the shepherd, who is in Paris——”
Madame Le Pont gave an exclamation, and Denise ran up to the driver and
caught his hand.
“Tell me, did he speak of maman and Lisle, and have you heard news of my
little sister?” she cried. Her hair fell in disorder about her
tear-stained face and her lips trembled.
The driver shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean. I only know what
I’m to do, and that is in case of danger, to take you as near to Calais
as I dare; and that will be a good ways from the Calais gates, I can
tell you. I think something of my own head and have no wish to have it
chopped off by Madame La Guillotine. Well, there’s danger right enough.
You must come with us at once. Have you wits enough about you to rig
yourselves up in plain, decent, sensible farmer clothes? I often take
farmer folks into the towns. Hurry! You’ve no time to lose. They are
burning houses all along the line and yours is on the list!”
While the driver had been speaking they had all gathered about him, too
amazed to utter a sound. When the governess started to protest, the
driver put up his hand.
“You are stupid, citizeness, and by your stupidity may loose your own
life and the lives of those in your care. Get yourselves dressed at
once. My coach is in the highroad. We must start within an hour. Every
rod nearer to Calais means safety for you, and just that much farther
away from some of your enemies.”
“I’ll ride my horse,” said Bertran a little stupidly. He was dazed by
all that the man had said.
“You’ll do it if you want to lose your fine, black head, but not
otherwise, my young popinjay,” answered the driver calmly.
Cécile came up to him and spoke to him gently, her eyes looking straight
into his as she held out her hand.
“In spite of all you say, you are saving our lives,” she said. “May I
see the note from Dian? I know his writing. We must be very sure, you
understand, at a time like this!”
The driver put his hand inside his belt and drew out his note from Dian.
Cécile read it and then addressed Madame le Pont.
“It is from Dian. He says that we are in danger and in an emergency this
man is to help us. We are to go to some hiding place near Calais and
wait there for help.” Cécile’s voice shook with excitement, in spite of
her outward calmness.
The driver turned to Grigge.
“The boy here will see to you after that. I have to go straight to
Calais and dare not be late. All you can expect from me is the use of my
coach as far as I think it best to take you without too much risk to
myself. I’ll tell the shepherd where you are, or get word to him safely,
but be sure to understand that it’s for his sake I’m doing this, and not
yours!”
There was no time to lose, the driver had said. It seemed as though the
minutes had wings. They planned, discussed, rummaged in the servants’
old apartments, found suitable clothes, and put them on. Then they
packed special valuables which Neville buried in the ground. At last
they were ready to start. First they went through the woods to Mother
Barbette’s cottage. They had sent Grigge and the driver to beg her to go
with them, but she insisted that nothing could induce her to do so. She
would wait there for her naughty, darling Jean. The driver told her she
was right. “Nothing can happen to you if you go to your cousins in the
hovel,” he told her.
Mother Barbette wept bitterly as she saw them coming toward her through
the clearing in the woods. They did not seem at all funny to her in
their disguise, though at another time she would have had a hearty laugh
at Bertran in his farmer boy’s smock, his hair flapping about his face,
and at the dignified Hortense in faded grey homespun, her hair in stiff
braids on each side of her ears. It was no time for laughter. They were
all tense and white. The governess put her head on Mother Barbette’s
shoulder with a sob as she said good-by.
“We will surely find the children and bring them safely back with us
when we come,” she said brokenly.
“They are safe. I’m sure of it, and I don’t worry half as much as you
think I do, Madame. I know them both so well. They are so smart. I know
my Jean will come back to me, and I think that Dian will bring him,”
answered the simple soul bravely, though the tears ran down her cheeks.
“Dear Mother Barbette, this isn’t good-by. It’s just au revoir. We will
not rest until we find Marie Josephine and Jean.” As she spoke, Cécile
put her arms around Mother Barbette and kissed her.
The driver, who was really a kind-hearted soul, cleared his throat.
“The moon’s up and it’s time to start. No more of this good-by business,
or it’ll be good-by for good,” he said, as they all stood at the cottage
door, the pine-filled air from the forest blowing about them.
Grigge spoke to his aunt.
“You’d best go to the hut and stay if there’s trouble. You’ll be safe
enough there,” he said, and he did not sneer as was his wont. There was
a dignity about him that none of them had seen before. He was risking
his life for people whom he despised, and he was doing it for the sake
of a friend. Perhaps, sometime, he would do the like for sheer love of
his brother man. At any rate, he had taken the first step in that
direction.
They were off at last, all of them in the great roomy coach, Bertran and
Grigge sitting beside the driver. The horses, after a good rest and
feed, went like the wind itself! It seemed as though they knew that
danger lay behind!
The girls and the governess were tired and bewildered and heartsick.
They could think of nothing but Marie Josephine. Finally, after they had
thought and said all that they could about the runaways, Denise
remarked:
“It’s so wonderful to think they dared to go to Paris. The road is
direct enough and Marie Josephine knows it well by coach, but little
Jean knows nothing.”
“I teased him once because he had never been anywhere, and he said some
day he was going to visit his cousins near Melon,” said Bertran.
The driver turned and looked at him. “Melon—let me see—Melon. Why, I
took in two children the other day. They seemed dead beat out, and slept
all day in the back of the coach. The boy told me, in the evening, that
he had cousins near Melon!”
The exclamations and the questions were so numerous that Champar was
sorry he had spoken.
“Stop and tell us at once. We must know about the children going to
Melon,” they begged, but he paid not the slightest attention to their
entreaties and only urged the horses to go faster. He intended driving
all night, and it was not until he stopped to rest the horses before
they took a hill, that he spoke again at all.
“Now just you listen to me, citizeness, and you young people. You’ve got
yourselves to think about and you’re not going to help the young brats
who’ve run away by getting your heads snapped off by the guillotine,
which,” he went on, speaking impressively and with something of a
relish, “is what is happening to most of your acquaintances, and serves
them right, too, some of them. Now, maybe the two I picked up were the
parties you’re talking about. The boy certainly did look a great deal
like the woman you went to say good-by to at the cottage. A fine woman,”
he went on meditatively, “a good, honest, sensible woman. Well, I’ll
tell you what I think, and you needn’t have any fits about it. I think
them two parties is just as lively to-day as you are yourselves. I think
they’re in Paris, and I’ll get word to the shepherd about them, too!”
After he had delivered this long speech, the driver picked up his whip
to go on when the governess spoke again.
“Above everything we must find the little girl and boy, you know,” she
said, holding her odd striped shawl drawn tightly about her shoulders.
Her face looked wan and pinched under her dark bonnet.
“Above everything, citizeness, you ought to want to save the necks of
these children even though you may not care a fig about your own,”
Champar replied. Then he began to sing a gruff doggerel, drowning
entirely Madame le Pont’s fervent reply.
Toward dawn they slept for a few hours. In the morning they stopped
under a blooming apple tree and ate some food. Champar seemed pleased
with the progress they were making and condescended to sing them a song
or two. People passed by in farmer carts and waved a greeting. No one
thought it at all strange to see a farmer’s family having a picnic under
an apple tree.
They were off again, their coach making a cloud of dust behind them. All
that day Champar and Grigge talked earnestly together, ignoring Bertran
who sat beside them, and whom Grigge snubbed at every occasion. It was
decided that they were to stay in a barn, back of a small farmhouse,
which had met with a fire the year before, and which belonged to an
uncle of Champar’s. The coach driver would leave food with them on his
way back from Calais, and would report to Dian as to their whereabouts.
That was all that he could do, and it was a risk at any cost, though the
barn was in a lonely bit of country near the sea, and quite the other
way from the main road to Calais.
It was midnight before they saw the lights of Calais and the first grey
outline of the sea. Champar knew his way well for he had often visited
his uncle. Sure enough there was the barn, grey, and deserted by
everything but rats! Champar and Grigge and Bertran carried in the rugs
and blankets and enough food to last overnight. Then Grigge turned to
them all.
“There is a mission I have to do. I will come again,” he said.
There was a moment’s silence as they watched the two climb up on the
coach. Grigge turned and spoke to them again. “You are to stay here
until I come,” he said.
“We trust you, Grigge.” It was Cécile who spoke, her lovely face very
white in the starlight.
They called their thanks after the coach driver. Champar’s cross-eye
leered at them over his shoulder. He waved his hand.
“Keep to yourselves, and keep an eye on that fat boy or he will give you
all away!” he called.