Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/206

Rh Where'er the fairy wandered
 * A serpent went as well:

A rainbow-coloured serpent,
 * On the summit of Castel.

Like Traveller's Joy in blossom,
 * Like snow upon the pass,

She drifted o'er the mountain,
 * Nor ever touched the grass.

Now all my sheep had rambled.
 * "Come hither up the steep,

Come hither," cried the fairy,
 * "And I will find the sheep."

A timid, gentle, visionary race, they lived in their secluded upland valleys, thankful when the cruel world forgot them for a time. A race of shepherds and martyrs, not of heroes. They could not do battle for their faith and wrestle for centuries with a stronger power, like the indomitable Huguenots of La Rochelle. They could not fight, but they could suffer. And their mild persistence it was impossible to subdue.

In 1530 the tidings of the Reform had penetrated into these quiet valleys. The Vaudois heard with delight that the faith which they had held through pain and death for centuries had arisen, stronger and more able, in the crowded world outside. They opened a correspondence with Bucer and Farel, and in 1536 they formally gave in their adhesion to the Church of Geneva. Thus, the Vaudois thought to strengthen their position; to make themselves more redoubtable to their enemies, and to avoid the introduction of strange doctrines into their belief; for they remembered still, how, in the thirteenth-century, the insidious pantheism of Amaury de Bène had won nearly half the