Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/205

190 here, and remind us of the life these quiet people led in their interval of quiet before the early spring of 1545.

For many years there had been peace. True, that in 1540 the Cardinal de Tournon had secured a writ condemning the head of every household to flame and sword; but before the fearful execution had been carried out, the good William du Bellay had obtained a reprieve, and the quiet of the green Vaudois valleys was still unspotted and calm. By their children's cots the mothers sang, and the maidens sang over their churning and spinning, the old, sweet, monotonous fairy-songs. Sometimes the young voices sang in question and answer. One would take the fairy's part—

And the sister would answer—

And the first voice would ring out clear again—

Or in her long solitudes, when all the household was out of doors and she alone in the dark little house, with the baby at her breast—the mother would sing a strange little song of the Vaudois mountains, with their mists and rainbows, and clouds that suddenly blot the fields from sight and as suddenly pass away. Of course it is all in fairy guise:—

'T was I who saw the fairy;
 * She stood and spread around

Her misty skirts in vapour
 * On the crests of Bariound.