CHAPTER X.

Two women walking northward through the quiet air of the summer-time, carrying modest bundles on their shoulders, their arms laden with osier-baskets, which they offered in exchange for a bit of bread or a night’s lodging, were not travellers likely to awaken remark or cupidity. Madeleine Botta and her foster-child traversed the Luserna valley unmolested. The hue and cry after the heretics had died away--perhaps even a reaction had set in, and there might be pity mingled with any suspicions that the Papist peasants entertained as the two passed by.

There was a garrison at the town of Luserna, and large monasteries established at La Torre and Bobbio. But these places were easily avoided, the travellers entering only the most retired hamlets and hill-side cottages when seeking a market for their wares, and, unless in want of food, keeping as far as possible from all human haunts. Though immediate danger seemed afar off, they had suffered too bitterly not to be cautious.

The planning and the caution were mostly left to Madeleine, for Rénée still looked round her with indifferent eyes, and seemed too hopeless, too miserable to care whether they ever reached Switzerland or not. She walked by her foster-mother’s side, gentle, indeed, and sweet and bidable, but unlike the gay girl whom Gaspard had wooed before the fury of this last persecution had burst upon Savoy.

One evening, it was the 29th of August, the travellers halted on the slopes of the Giuliano Pass. They had come through Armatier, and up the banks of the torrent that runs down to Bobbio from the mighty glacier-skirts of Mount Cournan. They were weary, for the day’s march had been unusually long.

They had taken shelter in a cottage--deserted as so many Piedmont cottages were in those sad years--and Madeleine, folding her cloak about her, lay down to rest.

Rénée stood by the doorway; the broken hinges told their tale of forcible entry; the few rude articles of furniture were broken likewise; the feet of the spoiler had entered here, and that not so very long ago, judging from the splinters of the fir-wood which showed white in the gathering shadow.

The girl’s eyes were fixed on the snowy dome of the great mountain which shone to the northward in a radiance and purity which might almost befit the hills of heaven, round its feet soft mist, as of opal and of pearl, floated in streaming trails and wreaths. And beyond it the clear sky was fair and stainless in its immensity of blue; one glittering point of sharp silver trembled above--the first shy star of the summer night.

‘Rénée,’ Madeleine called to her in tones which were full of love--of yearning love that longed to help her child. ‘Rénée, of what thinkest thou now in the evening silence? Of the difficult ways we have trodden? or of those we yet must tread? Shall our prayer to our Father this night begin with thankfulness? or with pleading for yet more of His help? Come here to me, Rénée, and let me hear thy voice.’

The girl turned and came to her side. The listless mood had lifted, and there was a sense of surpressed emotion in her gait, in her voice, and her very hands, as she stretched them out to Madeleine.

‘Is there ever an answer, mother?’ she said.

‘An answer?’

‘Aye, to these prayers of ours? And to all the sighs and burden of prayer that has gone up from the valleys these centuries past? Does He hear us at all, our God? or are the places of His dominion too wide for Him to have thought to spare for the narrow shelters where the Vaudois have tried to hide from the spoiler and oppressor? Look there, mother! see where the head of that mountain lifts itself into the skies; it is the same, always the same, silent and cold and cruel, though our forefathers were hunted across its ridges in the past years, and we are now creeping wearily towards its feet. It cares nothing. It smiles in the sun or it frowns in the tempest, and heeds not Savoyard, nor Frenchman, nor Vaudois! Mother, is it not like this Power that we implore?--this Power that is deaf to our cries--indifferent, though we His servants are dying here on His earth?’

There was no reply to this outpouring of long pent-up emotion. Madeleine drew the girl’s figure close to her side, and laid her forehead against the throbbing breast. A faint wind sighed amongst the pine boughs, and a far-off rustle and dull roll told of the passage of a distant avalanche. Rénée shivered.

‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,’ repeated Madeleine, the fervent words coming distinct and brave, although her lips were trembling.

‘It is through suffering that we must follow our Lord,’ she went on, after a long pause. ‘He refused the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, and chose to wander homeless, and to die in shame. O child, thou hast lost much, and even yet more may be asked of thee--home and dear ones are gone; food, raiment, life itself may be wrenched away--but, Rénée, do not give up thy faith!--thy faith in the rest that remaineth for the Vaudois--thy faith in thy Saviour, who loveth even thee and me!’

The girl was weeping. Not the burning tears of a passionate despair, but the blessed drops that ease the heart from whence they flow. Into her soul there came some faint fair imagining of the meaning of it all--this trial and torture, this desolation and weariness of waiting. Just such a glimpse as had come to Gaspard when he knelt alone on Mount Vadolin came now to her. Life, and the wreck of such riches as life had held for her, was small indeed compared with this higher weal and wealth--the unsearchable riches of Christ.

And, presently, when the purple shade crept over the gleaming snows of the upper pass, and even the mountain’s mighty brow was shadowed--two voices sang the ‘Psalm of Strong Confidence,’ albeit the notes fell quaveringly, and the words were mingled with the echoes of sobs.

‘The earth trembled and was still, when God arose To help the meek upon the earth. Then the fierceness of man shall be turned to His praise, And the fierceness of the violent shall be restrained.’