Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/204

Rh would not swear and would not lie. War was no less to them than murder. They believed in no hierarchy, but only in the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And for holding these tenets they were slaughtered and tormented throughout five centuries.

Like the Quakers, the Vaudois were a quiet, even a timid people. They did not seek the notice or the glory of the world. The life they loved the best was that of their lonely Alpine valleys, the simple days of shepherding among the fairy-haunted hills, the evenings when the head of every house read, in his own dialect, the Bible to his assembled children; the bursting of the flowers in spring (flowers which the Fantines, the Vaudois fairies, watch and water every day until they blow); the long days out on the hills in summer, when the cattle are led to the upper meadows; the cheerful harvest, when all work together, fathers, sons, daughters, and mothers, and the mother sets her baby's cradle among the standing corn for the fairies to guard during her absence, for the fairies to rock and sing to sleep, and to brush the flies from his forehead with their gauzy wings; lastly, the bitter winter, when the whole household sit in the stables for warmth, while the father reads the psalms and the women sing songs of elves and fairies.

They are still left, some of the Vaudois fairy-songs. Innocent, charming little ballads, as simple as nursery-rhymes, it is strange to find them, so sweet and harmless, among the gaunt and horrible memories of crime, slaughter, and agony, with which the Inquisition has seared the pleasant Vaudois meadows. They are more touching than any tale of martyrdom, these happy, childish little songs, which sprang up so sweetly in the gentle Vaudois hearts. Two of them shall stand