Madeleine and Rénée ventured occasionally into the empty villages, and walked abroad upon the upper slopes, even by daylight. There were some cottagers dwelling on the foot-road to Casiana, who, although Romanists, were as friendly as they dared to be; and from them Madeleine now and then heard stray scraps of intelligence; she had been kind to them in years gone by, and even the fury of the death-decrees that had desolated the valleys had not quite extinguished their memories of gratitude.
Indeed, during the last winter they had given more than kind words—many a great cake of black-bread, many a bag of chestnuts and handful of barley-meal had found its way to the refuge on the cliff; and when the two women had expostulated they would be told that it was but part of the produce of their own lands, which had been divided amongst the Catholics by the duke. ‘And,’ the kindly words would finish with, ‘and, if you are so very particular, Henri and Gaspard shall pay us for all when they come back again.’
But Rénée shuddered when she heard that: she had hoped for long and long, but now her hope was dead. Neither the house-master nor Gaspard would ever come back!—so she believed, in her dreary despair.
In the long June days Madeleine heard news which made her decide on trying to light again the dead hope in Rénée’s heart. Some rumours of what was happening in the great centres of life, in Paris, and Vienna, and Turin, penetrated as far as Luserna, and echoes reached the friendly cottage on the Casina road, and finally were heard by Madeleine.
Savoy was stripped of troops; the duke had need of all his soldiers in Piedmont; the King of France was fighting with the emperor and the Dutch; and the Vaudois were massed in the cantons of Switzerland, looking with longing eyes at the hill-ranges of their native land.
‘Child,’ said Madeleine, ‘once, long months ago, you spoke of creeping away to the Swiss country, to live in security where God has granted freedom to serve Him unchidden. Do you remember, dear? and how I felt I could not face the weary journey, nor bear to see you go alone? And—— ’
‘Mother!’—the interruption came with a flash of the girl’s old spirit—‘mother! would it be possible for me to have left you?’
‘Dear child! but there is now no question of leaving me—we will go together, Rénée; and it may be we shall find our dear ones yonder; and God’s sun shall shine upon my eventide in those blessed lands where there is yet the daylight of His truth.’
