But all the work, hard and anxious as it was, could not entirely blunt the pain which lay for him behind all other things, as shadows lie about the clouds. He could not forget that Rénée was still in danger; that whilst he had shelter, food, comfort, liberty, she and his mother were probably yet hiding among the mountains with but little more shelter and sustenance than God gives to the ravens.
There had been just a chance that they too had been driven off to exile with the rest, and Gaspard had searched with mingled hope and dread through every group of forlorn ones arriving in Geneva. But those he loved were not there. There was no news of them either; they had not been amongst those who had died in prison, nor amongst those who had perished on the journey.
If they were still in life they were near Rora, waiting and watching, as Gaspard knew, with weary hearts and sinking hopes for his coming back to them. His white teeth ground themselves together as he thought of it, and his eyes were dim with a mist of tears as he turned them towards the hills. Was it right to stay quietly here in Switzerland, to let his hands peaceably handle saws and planes? Was it right to let the long days pass in peacefulness when his nearest and dearest needed help so sorely?
He could scarcely hold himself back as he looked at the hills. Surely, his faithful heart kept saying, surely he could reach them, surely he could die with them, if the worst must come.
Not Gaspard only, but the whole company of the banished felt bitter longings and heart-sick yearnings drawing them towards Piedmont, as the magnet draws the steel. Their devotedness, strengthened as it had been by centuries of persecution, nourished their patriotism; they had suffered much for the love of God—they reckoned it now but a small thing to suffer for love of their country.
As the days crept on the longing grew. It was not that they were ungrateful; it was not that they did not prize the calm that had succeeded the struggle, the liberty that had come after the bitter oppression—but their simple hearts just drooped and pined for the valleys.
They had watered that land with their tears and with their blood. No other country could be ‘home’ to them. They must return, and lift again—if such were God’s good will—the voice of praise and prayer from the glens and the hills which now lay desolate.
Men with the same anxiety in their hearts as Gaspard had might be reckoned by the score. There was scarcely a Vaudois who would not have willingly died rather than have surrendered the hope of getting home to the valleys, somehow, some day.
