Once clear of the defile, with its perils, the two women hurried
onwards, each turn of the hills revealing some well-remembered scene to
Madeleine. There, below, was Prali, where she had lived when a girl;
those tall poplars by the waters seemed to be unchanged since the days
when she had driven her cows into their shadow; and there away to the
right was the gleam of water where the thirteen lakes lay in the snowy
mountain spurs like dew-drops in the bosom of a rose; and surely no rose
could be lovelier than was the snow at that moment, as the sun broke
through the level mists that veiled his dawning.
‘It was my father’s home, Rénée,’ the woman murmured wistfully, ‘my
home, where I played with my brothers, where I sat spinning at my
mother’s side, where Henri Botta came and taught me how to love him.
Long ago--ah, yes, so long ago! There is the church, look, Rénée; there
was a bell in the wooden tower that used to ring for prayer. The papists
say often that we Vaudois do not pray; had they lived in Prali they had
learned better things of us. Rénée, child, tell me canst thou see the
tower? thine eyes are clearer than mine, canst thou see it, the little
red tower with its painted bell-cage? It was Henri, my brave Henri, that
reared it, it was that building-task that brought him to Prali. Ah, how
long ago!’
‘And I shall never see him on earth again!’ she went on more to herself
than to Rénée.
‘I shall never hear his voice, as when evening brought him home to me at
Prali and at Rora; but he is in higher hands than ours, ah, yes. And I
know that in the land of light I shall see him and hear him, when these
turmoils and troubles are past. Only a little while more, a very short
while, and our Master will call me too.’
‘It must not be that I am left behind,’ said Rénée, with a girl’s swift
thought of self. ‘Thou art all I have, mother, and we must die
together.’
The woman turned slowly from regarding the distance, and let her eyes
rest upon the sweet sad face so near her own. ‘That is as the Master
wills,’ she answered softly. ‘He loves thee better than I do.’
‘Yes,’ answered Rénée, a smile breaking over the sorrow of her mouth.
‘Yes, I know it now.’
It was true; in the thick darkness the Day-star had arisen for her, the
faint and far-off glimmer of God’s great light of truth. Earthly trial
and torture bites sharply, and such griefs as had beaten on Rénée
Janavel and on her people may well demand human courage and break human
hearts; but the truth was true for them, as it is true for all time,
that God’s love is stronger than pain, that in the midst of sorrow His
comfort can be sweet, and that even ‘men’s fierceness shall turn to His
praise.’
They were far from the crest of the Giuliano Pass by this time, and they
could hear no sign of pursuit. They turned aside to rest awhile on a
grassy slope which broke the hill-side with its long terrace, a lovely
stretch of sward, where flowers gleamed amongst the grass, and the bees
were flying heavily above the patches of wild-thyme. The shadow of a
birch-tree crossed it, making a trembling play of light and shade in the
strong sunshine; and below this clear space of grass and flowers there
came a tossed and tangled brake, full of creeping plants and broken
stones, and tussocks of moss, and the stately spires of some alpine
larkspur crowded thick with bloom.
Here they sat, silent for the most part, for their hearts were too full
for much speech, but between them lay a sacred sympathy that scarcely
needed words.
Madeleine’s yearning eyes were still seeking out familiar landmarks,
her memory was busy with the past; but her fingers were closed tightly
over her foster-child’s hand, and the sense of Rénée’s presence lay in
the background of her thoughts as the blue sky lay behind those birchen
boughs. And the girl’s head drooped and her eyes were downcast, but her
soul was steady and stilled. God’s ways might be mysterious and His
lessons hard, but the ways and the lessons were those of her Father, and
she could trust His love.
Then, suddenly, over the peace and the stillness there fell a horror of
alarm.
Down below them, coming by the poplar rows and the river-bank, were
armed men. They could see the regular ranks, and catch the gleam of
steel. _Soldiers!_ And to these hunted women of the valleys that word
meant terror and the danger of death.
Should they hide themselves amongst the stones and trees? Should they
fly to the right or left?
‘Ah,’ Rénée’s hand clutched her mother’s convulsively as the cry left
her lips, ‘they are all about us; see!’
Dark forms were climbing the hill-side on either hand. Below them was
that marching troop. Behind them was the guard of the Giuliano Pass. Was
there then any hope in flight?
They shrank back into the shadow of the birch, a flickering and slight
shadow at best, but any movement might betray them if they crossed the
bare slope; sunlight so strong as that which bathed the grass would
reveal them only too sharply. Madeleine hid her face in her hands, and
lifted her heart in prayer. Rénée watched the approaching figures with
wide-open defiant eyes, her beautiful head held back like a stag at bay;
she threw her black cloak over the white coif and kerchief of her
foster-mother, and flung her own scarlet capucin into the shadow; it
came naturally to her to protect her mother--Madeleine, but even as she
covered and sheltered her the thought came flashing through her brain
that it was now for the last time. Surely the end had come.
There could be no escape. The troops were advancing rapidly, led by
those who apparently knew every feature of the ground. The scouts were
close upon them now, the sound of their feet crashing through the
underwood could be distinctly heard, even the hoarse tones of their
voices and the clank of their accoutrements. Madeleine cowered yet
lower, and a whispered word of prayer came like a groan from her lips.
And then, starting forwards with a jerk as of a bow released from its
tension, Rénée snatched her hands from her mother’s hold, and held them
out with a ringing cry.
‘Gaspard!’ she called, ‘Gaspard!’
The hill above her echoed it, the dear, long-unuttered word; and
Madeleine, bewildered, repeated it in her turn, as if speaking in a
dream. ‘Gaspard! Gaspard!’
And there were hurrying steps bounding over the brake, and a voice loud
and strong calling across the distance. And then....
But neither Rénée nor Madeleine could remember very clearly what
happened then. They knew that, instead of danger, help had come, instead
of death a newer and dearer life, instead of the faces of their foes the
sight of their best-beloved.
And there on the hill-slopes where he had first beheld her Henri Botta
met his wife again. Safe after perils unspeakable; together after
bitterest separation. Was it strange that for the moment they forgot
that there was still trouble and trial in God’s fair world, and that
while the golden sunshine lay bright upon the grass they should, for
those brief minutes at least, forget that the Vaudois had yet to win the
valleys?
‘Rénée,’ whispered Gaspard, holding the girl’s hands in both his own,
and looking down into her frank eyes as he spoke, ‘Rénée, I trusted thee
to the
[Illustration: ‘GASPARD!’ SHE CALLED, ‘GASPARD!’]
care of our Father above, and He has preserved thee alive.’
‘But I,’ and her answering voice sunk and broke, ‘but I have been
faithless--unworthy. I have doubted. I have despaired.’
The tramp of the main body of Arnaud’s army was close upon them. Gaspard
remembered his place, which was on the advance guard.
‘I must go,’ he said hurriedly. ‘At our noonday halt I shall find thee.
My father and mother and thee--keep together, keep with the troops.
Farewell for a short while, dear one; and may God grant us each a braver
faith, and then a larger heart of thankfulness!’