CHAPTER X.
TWO women walking northward through the quiet air of the summer-time, carrying modest bundles on their shoulders, their arms laden with osier-baskets, which they offered in exchange for a bit of bread or a night’s lodging, were not travellers likely to awaken remark or cupidity. Madeleine Botta and her foster-child traversed the Luserna valley unmolested. The hue and cry after the heretics had died away—perhaps even a reaction had set in, and there might be pity mingled with any suspicions that the Papist peasants entertained as the two passed by.
There was a garrison at the town of Luserna, and large monasteries established at La Torre and Bobbio. But these places were easily avoided, the travellers entering only the most retired hamlets and hill-side cottages when seeking a market for their wares, and, unless in want of food, keeping as far as possible from all human haunts. Though immediate danger seemed afar off, they had suffered too bitterly not to be cautious.
The planning and the caution were mostly left to Madeleine, for Rénée still looked round her with indifferent eyes, and seemed too hopeless, too miserable to care whether they ever reached Switzerland or not. She walked by her foster-mother’s side, gentle, indeed, and sweet and bidable, but unlike the gay girl whom Gaspard had wooed before the fury of this last persecution had burst upon Savoy.
One evening, it was the 29th of August, the travellers halted on the slopes of the Giuliano Pass. They had come through Armatier, and up the banks of the torrent that runs down to Bobbio from the mighty glacier-skirts of Mount Cournan. They were weary, for the day’s march had been unusually long.
They had taken shelter in a cottage—deserted as so many Piedmont cottages were in those sad years—and Madeleine, folding her cloak about her, lay down to rest.
Rénée stood by the doorway; the broken hinges told their tale of forcible entry; the few rude articles of furniture were broken likewise; the feet of the spoiler had entered here, and that not so very long ago, judging from the splinters of the fir-wood which showed white in the gathering shadow.
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the snowy dome of the great mountain which shone to the northward in a radiance and purity which might almost befit the hills of heaven, round its feet soft mist, as of opal and of pearl, floated in streaming trails and wreaths. And beyond it the clear sky was fair and stainless in its immensity of blue; one glittering point of sharp silver trembled above—the first shy star of the summer night.