They set out, their bundles on their shoulders, walking openly in the
daylight without attempt at disguise; seeking, it is true, the less
frequented paths, and avoiding observation as much as possible. They
were so inoffensive, so insignificant, this woman and her foster-child;
surely few would notice them or hinder them--now that the bitterness of
the persecution had died down.
Sorrowfully were they mistaken.
They had not lost sight of the white ridge of Mount Friolent, nor
crested the pass leading toward Villaro, before they were stopped and
questioned by a band of preaching friars who were busy establishing
their churches and schools in the country whence ‘the heretics’ had been
driven.
Madeleine’s courage rose with the first hint of danger. She had no idea
of softening or disguising anything, and answered back so dauntlessly
that Rénée’s cheeks grew white as she listened; though the girl herself
had no lack of truth nor of courage. Words are in these
nineteenth-century days little else than easily stirred air; to those
defenceless ones just then they meant all the difference betwixt life
and death.
The friars consulted together and shook their cowled heads, looking not
unlike birds of prey gloating over some poor trapped wild thing. They
said that the women were firebrands, and far too dangerous to be allowed
to go through the land--that the duke allowed none of the so-called
Reformed religion to dwell or pass in Piedmont; and that Mistress Botta
and the girl must travel in their company to Luserna, ‘where further
decisions would be arrived at.’
That night the two women found means of escape. They gained the open
air, the hills, the steep and intricate ways known only to the people of
the valleys; and presently, after some days of wandering, they found
themselves once more in their cavern. The tears rolled down Rénée’s
cheeks as she entered--it was present safety, indeed, but must they
still wait there, and watch for the footsteps that might never come--for
the news which seemed further from them than ever?
Then Madeleine fell sick. Some slow fever consumed her; and for days and
nights she lay so ill that Rénée could find no place in her thoughts for
aught but ‘mother.’ And when at last she seemed to revive somewhat, and
her wandering reason returned to her, she was so exceeding weak and
frail that the girl feared she would die from very weariness.
It was hard to get necessaries, harder still to obtain the food fitted
for a sick woman’s needs, but Rénée never flagged nor faltered all
through that terrible time.
She drove the straying goats from the mountain, that her mother might
have draughts of their milk; she managed to make charcoal of her store
of dry wood, and that so carefully that no volume of smoke or flame
could betray their hiding-place. She ran down to the valley for the few
bunches of grapes which might yet be left on the broken and neglected
vines; and once, but only once, she dared to enter the village of
Rumero, where she bartered her own long silver chain for a warm coverlet
for Madeleine.
And the autumn came, and the winter. And the icicles had been hung
across their cave, and the raging winds had careered there, while the
avalanches thundered amongst the higher Alps, and the sunsets lay
crimson on the bosom of the snows. Then came the creeping warmth and the
blessing of the spring, and the sick woman revived, as did the flowers
where the sunshine made glory on the springing grass.
Madeleine Botta rose from her rock bed almost as hale as ever, and her
voice had scarcely lost anything of its fulness when she sang that
evening hymn, the ‘Psalm of Strong Confidence.’
But Rénée, as the light grew longer and the sweet benediction of the
year stole over the frost-held earth, as the swollen streams leapt
laughing down amongst the flowers, and the song-birds called in music
one to the other, Rénée grew silent and sad.
Life would be easier now. Her mother was in no danger of death or
suffering. There would be little to do up there in their cliff cave.
Little to do but to wait.
Ah, and the waiting time is the hardest time to such hearts as that of
Rénée Janavel.