CHAPTER VI.
GASPARD BOTTA was not one to be easily baffled or beaten; he was young, with muscles of iron and thews as of steel, and he had, moreover, the caution and resource of a hunter, the endurance and the keen eyesight of a mountaineer.
His faith was the faith of his fathers, and for it he would die, readily, unshrinkingly, as his fathers died in the terrible days of the past, and as he had himself seen his countrymen die here, in every hamlet, and by every hearth and home.
But of the actual love of God he knew but very little.
He had meant to do his duty. He had prayed a soldier’s prayers, and he had trusted that help Divine would come to him, as it had done to others; to such men as Janavel, and Laurene, and Jayer, men who had gloriously fought in defence of the valleys, and whose names would live while Vaudois hearts yet beat.
But some glimpse of a faith better than this came to him as he left his mother and Rénée in the cave that day.
He could not have put the feeling into words; he scarcely knew when or why, but as he took his lonely way towards the mountains of Angrogna, a sense of God’s presence came over him—a searching, demanding presence—a power and a gentleness that asked, not only for his life, but also for his love.
There was the hoarse note of pain ringing through the valleys, the boundless pain of desolation and distress. Why, then, should such thoughts come to him, one of those smitten ones who had suffered, and who yet must suffer? Gentleness—love? surely here on the south slopes of the Alps there was in those terrible years more evidence of the outpouring of God’s wrath!
But into the young man’s soul there stole some glimpse of the Light that shineth in darkness, of the Love that is behind all wrath, of the Joy that is greater than pain. Not suddenly, but softly and sweetly, even as the spring-time comes upon the coldness and dumbness of the winter-world. He was only a herdsman’s son, and his carpentering trade had left him little leisure even for such poor scholarly lore as penetrated to the valleys, but he had heard of One who had also been an outcast, hunted, and done to death; of One whose days were days of suffering, and whose nights were spent in lonely watchings beneath the stars.
And the remembrance of that One came to him now in his own lonely vigil. The Master who had wandered on the Syrian hills, who had stood silent before murderous men; and in heaven, from the great white height of His glorious throne, He yet feels for His brethren who, through great tribulation, are pressing to His feet.