Husbands searched through each arriving company for the wives they had been parted from in the days of the fighting in the valleys. Mothers sought for their sons with hopes that grew fainter with each day that brought refugees, indeed, but not the familiar faces they longed to see. Parents sorrowed for their little ones who had been torn from them and handed over to the Romish convents and schools—the children would grow up to despise them and their religion, and in the coming time, these, who were flesh of their flesh, would be ranked with their enemies.
And how many lay dead, away there beyond the white peaks rising like a giant’s rampart against the eastern sky! Dead, in the nameless prison-graves or beneath the winding-sheet of the Alpine snows.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN a Geneva street, where the steep red roofs almost met across the way, in a tall house with a silversmith’s sign swinging above the door, lived a Vaudois who had been exiled years ago—the hero of Rora, Joshua Janavel.
The coming of his countrymen stirred him as a trumpet-note might stir an old war-horse. He could only see the glory of their trial, the martyr’s crown given to so many, the noble endurance, the faithfulness and steadfastness of heart which they had shown. For him to rejoice at tribulation was no new thing, and he now stood so near to the kingdom of God that he realised more than ever how small are the ‘sufferings of this present time’ when compared with the glory that shall be revealed.
His aged eyes flashed as he heard of weak women standing firm in face of death and danger; and something of his old ardour awoke again as they reckoned up the names of those who had fallen in a cause so holy, in defending rights so sacred. Once only did his head droop and his voice sink tremulous with feeling, and that was when Henri Botta came to tell him of his grand-daughter Rénée.