“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.