Chapter XVI

The siege for weeks went on--uselessly. And then, as the days grew cold and dark, the French retired to seek winter quarters. They flung a jibing message to the Vaudois, bidding them have patience, and wait for them there until Easter.

But, meanwhile, how was the Rock of Balsille to be provisioned? The enemy had burned the corn-stacks and granges in the valley, and had carried off every eatable thing to be found. Starvation came very closely into the Vaudois’ reckoning in those early winter days, and starvation might have done the work in which the French had failed and conquered the garrison there and then, had it not been for a discovery of Rénée Janavel’s.

She had wandered into the valley, past the mill of Macel, and along the banks of the river, seeking something, if it were but a few frost-bitten cabbages, wherewith to make soup for her Mother-Madeleine. She was unsuccessful; the ground had been searched over and over again; not a leaf of salad, not an edible root was to be found. Icicles hung to the idle mill-wheel and fringed the edges of the stream. Long wisps of grasses lay dead and drifted in the water; and the dark sky stooped so low and frowningly that the peak of the Balsille had pierced the clouds and was out of sight beyond the lowering vapours.

Rénée was cold, and she was hungry, yet her eye was bright and her heart was lightsome; privation and suffering were not so hard to bear when safe in the love of those who loved her--the trials of the Balsille were small compared to the silence and the waiting-time in that cave in the vale of Luserna. She wrapped her tattered cloak more tightly round her, and shook the loosened hair from her eyes. She might even have been heard singing to herself as she crossed the wide snow-covered land that stretched by the banks of the river.

Suddenly she noticed a spot where some animal had been scratching in the snow. Could it be straw, grain--eatable, useful _food_, that lay there under the white crust, frozen beneath the snow? She flung herself on her knees, and began to search further and deeper. Presently a burning flush came on her cheeks, an eager light to her eyes.

There was rye beneath the snow. Rye, ripe and plentiful! weighed down, hidden and preserved by the thick white covering that had lain unmelted since the heavy storm of last September. Whole fields of rye! unreaped by the fugitive owners, unguessed at by the troops that had trodden across that white expanse, little dreaming of the treasure beneath their feet.

The girl ran back to the Balsille, and, panting, told her tale. Gaspard’s face flushed with proud joy as he heard her; he rejoiced that it was his Rénée that was bringing help to the Vaudois, that it should be the grandchild of Janavel who was the bearer of the best news that could come to the starving and half-desperate people.

‘It is our God’s granary!’ said Henri Botta, solemnly. ‘Our Father, who Himself stored His corn for us thus.’

And were not the words true? The God who feedeth the young lions when they cry had not forgotten His servants in the time of their need.

So the silent mill-stones of Marcel revolved once more, and the scent of the dry grain was as fragrance in the nostrils of the mountaineers. ‘We shall be ready for the foe at Easter,’ they said, and their light-hearted laughter rung out on the wind.

But their case was too grave and their position too perilous for a few acres of rye to be their salvation. When Easter came they were still holding the Balsille; but as Arnaud called them together for the daily service of prayer, he noted how their ranks had shrunk, and he saw how sickness had reduced the strength of such as still called themselves fighting men.

* * * * *

The foe returned in early spring; a foe numbering now no less than twenty-two thousand! Arnaud and his feeble garrison could muster but about six hundred! surely an insignificant garrison to call forth such an armament for its reduction. Cannon were planted on the opposite hill; batteries were cast up on all sides. The Balsille must be taken now, were the Vaudois as obstinate as the _barbets_ their enemies had scoffingly likened them to. A flag of truce was sent to them, and they were summoned for the last time to surrender.

Arnaud’s answer is historical. ‘We are no subjects of the King of France,’ he said. ‘We cannot treat with his officers. We are in the heritage left us by our fathers from times unknown; by the aid and grace of the Lord of Hosts we will live and die therein. Discharge your artillery; our rocks will not be terrified, and we will listen to the thunder with calmness, should there be but ten of us left!’

The defiance was as lofty in tone as ever, but yet the heart of the man who sent that proud answer had been brought very low. His trust did not fail him, nor his submission to God’s will, but he had begun to think that it must be this will of God that he and his men should die there on the hills of their country, and that the race of the Vaudois should perish from the earth. ‘Even so, Father, since it is good in Thy sight!’

On the 14th of May they saw the Balsille could no longer be defended. Flight only remained; and once more they must begin the weary wanderings amongst caves and holes in the rocks, chased as David was chased by Saul on the hills of Palestine. Covered by a dense fog, they crept through the French lines, a woeful wreck and remnant, flying to their hill hiding-places, afraid lest word or step should betray them to immediate slaughter. Southwards they fled; down through Prali towards the mountains of Angrogna.

‘Mother,’ said Rénée, ‘this wild journeying will kill thee. We women can never keep up with the march of our troops. Is it not better to stay here where we stand? we can but die.’

But Madeleine laid her hand against her lips. ‘Courage yet, dear child. It is nearly over now.’

Nearly over--aye, but in another sense than that she meant.

On the 18th of May two men met the flying Vaudois. They were messengers from Victor Amadeus, and messengers to them.

A strange message they bore. England, Germany, Holland, and Spain had formed a coalition against Louis XIV., and had called upon the Duke of Savoy to decide at once whether he would join their alliance or hold to his friendship with France. He had decided; and on the side of the strongest; therefore the French were now his enemies; and he sent to ask whether Arnaud and his mountaineers would enrol themselves on the side of Savoy, and help to drive Louis’ men back across the frontier. If Arnaud consented, the valleys were to be placed there and then under his protection and control.

Could it be true? ‘Protection,’ ‘control.’ Strange words in the ears of the handful of hunted outcasts who were flying for their lives. But to enforce the news and prove its truth the Piedmontese garrison of La Torre sent out food and gifts of clothing, which were indeed sorely needed; and other messengers came from the duke, repeating the same tale and demanding instant reply. And presently--most conclusive proof of all--their minister, Montoux, and others who had been carried prisoners to Turin, came hurrying to meet them in transports of joy.

Yes, it was true! God had remembered His promise, and had been faithful to His word. The trust of the Vaudois had not been in vain, the struggle was over--the victory was won!

Before many months were past the Vaudois were re-established in their homes; from the east and west they came, flocking homewards to their land won for them by Arnaud and his heroes. Or, rather as they themselves would say, the land restored to them by the grace of their Father in heaven.

The sharp endurance, the agony, the exile--all, all was past, and for the years to come they and their children’s children might lift humble hearts in thankfulness that God had honoured them by letting them bear such witness for His truth.

The charter of their freedom was given at last. The valleys were their own; their faith was secure.

* * * * *

A white-walled cottage in Rora stood smothered in vines, and resonant with children’s voices. Here Rénée, sweet-eyed as of old, albeit of matronly air and manner, watches for Gaspard’s coming from his work as her busy hands ply distaff or needle, and her foot keeps the rocker of the cradle moving in time to her song.

It is a song in which an aged voice joins now and again as Mother Madeleine catches the well-known burden of the words--a song which the Vaudois have chanted since the hour of their ‘Glorious Return’; not the ‘Psalm of Strong Confidence,’ but the song of their triumph.

‘If it had not been the Lord was on our side
When men rose up against us,
Then they had swallowed us up quick, and the
stream had gone over our soul:
Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us
As a prey to their teeth!
Our soul is escaped as a bird from the snare.
The snare is broken, and we are escaped!
Our help is in the Name of the Lord,
The Lord who made heaven and earth.’