OUT OF THE MIST
Grigge gave the note to Anastasius Grubb and watched him as he read it.
He was not thinking so much about the note, or what Anastasius would do,
as he was about the man himself, for he was the oddest man that he had
ever seen; his beard was so rich and full and brown, his voice so deep,
so like a bellows, and his eyebrows so thick and frowning. After he had
read the note he looked Grigge over as though he thought he was rather
curious also. Then he destroyed the note. It was the one that Humphrey
had written, and that Dian had sent, with his own, to Grigge, first by
Raoul and then by Champar. Champar had gone back to Paris. Grigge was
watching for him every day now, and he knew that the little party of
fugitives in the forsaken barn near the city were watching, too.
Anastasius knew some French, having picked it up while carrying on his
trade back and forth, and he used it now on Grigge.
“I’ll be waiting every night with a rowboat by the willow woods three
miles south of the light-house station. I’ll keep hidden, and I’ll see
that the schooner doesn’t bring suspicion on itself. Tell them I’ll be
waiting. I’d do that and more for Humphrey Trail. We’ve played together
as lads and, please Heaven, we’ll continue friends this many a year to
come.” Anastasius relapsed into English at the last, but Grigge
understood about the willow woods and the boat. He thought of Dian and
that he would soon be seeing him and he smiled. That made him look so
different that the skipper exclaimed:
“Th’art na so ugly when tha smiles; that th’art not!”
Then Grigge left him and went back through long circuitous ways through
the country roads to the barn. He walked slowly and with the satisfied
air of one who has at last accomplished something of moment. He had
waited patiently day after day near the docks at Calais for a glimpse of
the skipper of the _Sandlass_. Champar had been gone over a week and
still there was no sign of this Anastasius Grubb, who alone, of all the
owners of fishing crafts in and around the harbor, could take safely to
England the little band of people who were at his mercy in Champar’s
uncle’s barn, near the coast.
Grigge shuffled along in the dust that reminded him of the highway in
Pigeon Valley. He thought of the croak of the frogs at night in the
brook that ran along the back of the meadow behind the huts. He thought
of the black bread that he had always eaten, and of the low-ceilinged,
one-roomed hut that was his home. He had never meant anything to these
people who awaited him in the lonely barn. Not one of them at Les
Vignes, except the Little Mademoiselle, had ever given him more than a
passing nod. All that he had done for them was because of Dian, but he
had expected to taunt them with it, to humiliate them as they had so
often, perhaps unthinkingly, humiliated him. He had thought that it
would be fun to tease them, to tell them that the plan had fallen
through and that there would be no possibility of the others reaching
them; but he had not done any of these things, and as he walked along
the quiet road that lovely May night, he felt closer to the sheltering
greenness and the peaceful, drifting wind than he had ever felt before.
When he came within the region of the barn he dropped to his knees and
crawled slowly through the dark underbrush. It would never do for a late
passer-by on the road to Calais to see him going to the barn, which was
so unusually isolated, half hidden by brush and trees. It was a
remarkable hiding place.
Cécile met him, having slid back the door when she heard his faint rap.
The main part of the barn was lighted by three lanthorns which hung from
the ceiling, but the light was dim, and there was a thick blanket hung
across the one window, so that no glimmer could reach the fields beyond.
“I delivered the letter. He’s to wait every night by the willow woods.
He says this Humphrey Trail’s his best friend. He’s safe. He won’t
desert you.” There was a kinder tone in Grigge’s voice, for something in
the eager way they listened to him touched him.
Madame le Pont said, “Thank God.”
Cécile shut her eyes for a moment and then she said:
“They will come. I know they are safe. We had word that they were going
to try to get through. That blessed cross-eyed Champar sent the message
to us.” Cécile turned and put her arms about Denise who had come close
to her. “We’ll see them, chérie, soon,” she whispered. Denise could only
sob on Cécile’s shoulder. She at last was learning what it was to be in
a revolution.
Hortense touched Grigge’s arm. “There is some supper here for you, an
omelette that I’m cooking. It’s made with two of the eggs you brought us
yesterday. Proté has taught me to cook it, and I want you to say it’s
good!” She spoke in a friendly way, and nothing could have showed
plainer than her manner how they were all learning to know one another
and to help. It was necessary that they keep occupied, and Hortense and
Proté had many a laugh over the former’s attempt at cooking. Bertran was
the greatest problem, for he was determined to go out, and they trembled
that he would in some way, in spite of his disguise, make trouble by
causing suspicion. The days had gone by and they had not seen a living
soul but themselves. Grigge had gone away every morning and stayed away
all day, searching for Anastasius Grubb, whom at last he had found, and
who had promised them his aid when the dear ones from Paris should come.
And the wayfarers—they who had come through the gates of Paris, through
danger so great that it had seemed a simple thing to take one’s chance
at once and without question when it came one’s way—where were they?
They were thundering through the countryside, sometimes on the main
highroad, but mostly through back lanes and untraveled pasture roads.
The cart bumped about so much that their very heads whirled and they had
to hold on just as hard as they could. They became so exhausted that
they fell asleep in spite of themselves and their excitement. They ate
what was given them by Champar and Dian, swallowing their food with dry
lips and throats. Always there was the dread of meeting advancing
outposts of the army. Once they had to hide, coach and all, for a day
and part of a night in a copse in the woods.
One morning Champar turned to them, his eye cocked severely.
“If no one asks me once to-day if we’ll see the others surely, and if
they really are safe in the barn, and if I am sure that Grigge was able
to find Anastasius Grubb, I’ll tell you all something!”
They were all growing used to Champar, and Marie Josephine and Rosanne
answered at once, “Tell us, Champar, hurry, tell us!” Lisle and Dian
were walking beside the cart, and they came close to the side of it when
Champar spoke, but he calmly urged his horse on and seemed suddenly lost
in thought.
“What is it, Champar? Tell us!” Lisle put his hand on the side of the
coach and looked up at the driver. Lisle was pale and tired and covered
with dust. He had driven all night, so that Dian and Champar, who had
had the brunt of the journey, could rest. “Shall we see our mother? Tell
us, Champar.” Lisle’s lips quivered ever so slightly as he spoke. “Tell
us,” he repeated, and there was the old imperious ring in his voice as
he spoke.
So Champar told them. At noon they would meet the cart that had taken
their mother out of Paris. It would be waiting for them at a farmhouse
he knew well. It had had a day’s start and was lightly loaded and there
had been no reason for making détours as their mother’s passport was en
règle and no one would suspect Henri Berier’s sister of being an
aristocrat! They would see their mother by noon that day!
Marie Josephine and Rosanne jumped out at the next hill and walked up it
together. Toward the top they were joined by Lisle. Marie Josephine
picked a bunch of wild lilies, putting them in the buttonhole of her
jacket. Jean was on the box talking to Champar as on that night that
Champar had given the two runaways a lift. Now and then the driver put
his hands over his ears as Jean plied him with questions.
“It’s been so wonderful! Sometimes it seems like a terrible, interesting
dream—but we won’t see Dian after we go to England.” Marie Josephine
turned her face away from the others toward a sweep of golden wild
lilies which gleamed like flakes of racing sunshine through the wood on
their right. She did not want them to see her tears. They fell unseen on
the lilies she had gathered.
“Maman! Maman! Maman!” The next moment she was screaming in an agony of
joy, all her acting forgotten, all her poise and self-control lost. The
coach had stopped by a lane which led from a farmhouse, and there stood
a dark-eyed, slovenly woman in a faded homespun dress—her maman!
Lisle and Marie Josephine sat on each side of the comtesse inside the
coach, Jean and Dian sat on the wide seat in front with Champar, who was
so ashamed of the tear that splashed over his big nose that he swore
under his breath and was cross to the horses. Maman could only hold
Marie Josephine in her arms; nothing seemed to matter except that and
the touch of Lisle’s hand on hers.
“My little dear one, my pigeon, my chérie,” she murmured over and over
to Marie Josephine, holding her close to her fast-beating heart.
“Darling, you came! It was you, my own little baby. I said there was
something—do you remember, chérie, how I told you, there by the garden
door, that there was something about you that reminded me of—of——?”
Maman’s head went down over Marie Josephine’s shock of tangled locks,
and she sobbed for a moment. Then she became more like her quiet,
self-contained self.
It all seemed a dream, the sweet afternoon air, the haze of heat, the
scent of the field lilies and early poppies. It was all a dream to Marie
Josephine, for she was very tired, but she felt her mother’s arms about
her and heard her mother’s endearing words, which sounded sweeter than
any she had ever heard before. They had always been there, locked deep
in the comtesse’s heart, but she had never known how much she wanted to
say them until it was, as she had thought, too late.
They told her of Denise and the others, but they were too tired, all of
them, to do more than that. There would be many a long winter evening in
England when they could tell each other’s adventures. Now they must keep
their thoughts on the barn, on the others, and on the blessed fishing
schooner which would mean life for them.
Dian sat with his eyes closed, unmindful of Jean’s chatter with Champar.
Vivi was safe. She had gone through with her own passport the morning
before, fortunately unknown to her friend who had night duty at the
gate, and who had so unsuspectedly let the other Vivi and her friends
through the gates. He would see that the others were safe, and then he
would take Vivi and Jean back to his own Pigeon Valley, to the comfort
and welcoming blessing of Mother Barbette and the quiet protection of
the little low-roofed house in the wood of the Les Vignes demesne. He
felt sure that the little house was there, safe among its ferns and
flowers, whatever may have happened to the big one. Grigge! He had great
hopes and plans for Grigge!
He walked up the next hill with Lisle.
“You and Humphrey for friends! Maman safe! Dian, what have any of us
done to deserve it? Dian, it isn’t for always; France is my home. Dian,
I’m not forgetting that I am the last one of the Saint Frères. Whatever
happens, you’ll take some of the gold for—no, you’ll never want it, but
for Grigge. Tell me, Dian, is that a way of helping a little?” Lisle
looked up almost entreatingly into the shepherd’s face.
“That is one way. Making Grigge your friend is a better one,” Dian
answered him.
“Grigge my friend? Yes, I see that that can be,” Lisle answered.
They had reached a lane and Champar stopped his horses.
“It was out here, wasn’t it, my young citizeness, that you shoved your
dog off on some farm children? What’s that!”
Something was dashing toward them down the fern-scented lane, something
long and slender and grey. It was Flambeau!
They drove on, encumbered by a dog who leaped from one to the other of
them in wild delight, barking so sharply that Champar swore out loud,
declaring he was tired of the whole lot of them, at the same time
winking back a tear and urging the horses on furiously.
“We should not take Flambeau, but, yes, we must, for he is a part of
us,” exclaimed the comtesse as the dog’s warm tongue licked her face. He
saw through the disguise of each one of them, as though his very love
for them would not let him be deceived.
“I would never, never have left you, Flambeau, angel, if I hadn’t been a
tramp girl, dearie. You are so—so——” Marie Josephine murmured.
“Such an aristo,” said Rosanne with a little choke, and just then Madame
Saint Frère drew her close to her other side, and, putting an arm around
each girl, she said: “Rosanne will see her mother one day. When last we
heard from her she was safe in the hospital with your father. She begged
us to see you safely out of the country and wrote that she and your
father would join us when they could.”
“Dian will care for them both, and will see that they come to us,”
answered Marie Josephine, and her mother looked at the shepherd, who sat
beside Champar, with a world of confidence and gratitude in her eyes.
The lights of Calais glowed faintly through a sea mist. Champar drove
very slowly. He knew the way, but the mist was thick and seemed to
frighten the horses. They were near the gates that led to his uncle’s
barn. It was almost time for them to alight and to walk through the
field. A voice reached them suddenly, a breathless, hoarse voice which
seemed to come out of the very heart of the grey night.
“Champar, quick! Listen! There isn’t a moment to lose. We’re discovered,
suspected! It was that fool of a Bertran. He met a citizen who
discovered he was disguised. He was followed. Then the man ran toward
the town. They’ve all left the barn and gone to the willow wood. Grubb’s
anchored near the shore there. Hurry! The mist will hide the cart.
That’s it, jump. I’ll catch you, Little Mademoiselle. This way. Don’t
let the dog bark. Yes, this way, this way——”
They were off through the mist, Grigge leading. The ground was soggy,
and once Rosanne fell, but Dian caught her up and carried her. They did
not speak at all, and through the silence Dian thought he heard the
sound of horses’ hoofs on the highroad.
They were making slow progress. Once Flambeau barked.
“Take care, maman, see, this way. I’ll guide you.” Lisle took his
mother’s arm, as he whispered this. He held fast to Marie Josephine’s
arm with his other hand, and every time she tried to get away from him,
he whispered authoritatively, “You are to stay right here beside me!”
His desire to protect his family was so great that it made him fierce.
When Marie Josephine fell against a boulder, he caught her up and
carried her toward a faint, flickering white spot, which was the light
at the bow of Anastasius Grubb’s rowboat.
Grubb’s deep voice boomed softly through the still air.
“They’re coming. One of my men from the schooner has been on the ground,
listening. It means hurry. He’s heard horses’ hoofs. Here you, boy, I’ll
take the little girl. Humphrey, you—Good! That’s it. You help the
woman, and you, shepherd, take the boy Grigge and get away as quick as
you can, or your lives will not be worth a ha’penny.”
The water splashed about them as they waded to the rowboat, which was
resting in shallow water. Strong arms caught them, and in little more
than a breath they were seated close together, Denise with her mother’s
arms about her, Hortense and Marie Josephine and Cécile huddled together
in a tense embrace. The schooner waited for them just beyond, through
the mist.
There had been no time to say good-by. Marie Josephine dashed the tears
from her eyes, leaning forward.
“Dian,” she called softly. “Dian, Dian, Dian!” Then she took the faded
gold flower, which she had gathered on the hill road a few hours before,
from the belt of her dirty smock and threw it toward the shore. It fell
at Dian’s feet, where he stood with Jean and Grigge close beside him.
“You will come back, all of you, Little Mademoiselle,” he said. In his
eyes was the light which they all knew so well; not even the mist could
hide it. He stooped and picked up the flower. It was a lily of France.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s notes
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors; retained
non-standard spellings and dialect, especially French expressions.
2. Italic text in the original is delimited by _underscores_.