The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 10

Once I had come to myself again and we were back in our cold, cheerless cell, I was attacked with such a fit of trembling that I could hardly stand upright. It was then I understood properly that I was going to die.

Pictures kept rising in my mind of all the things that I would never see and feel again. They were small, silly things that I didn't know I'd loved: the yellow irises flowering in the bogs by Loch Quien; Sheba twisting around to lick her back; the geese coming back in the springtime to nest in Scalpsie Bay; the warmth of the summer sun on my face, and then the winter again, with the door closed against the cold night and Tam telling stories by the fire.

How can it all go on without me being there? I thought. How will Blackie and the cottage and the sea exist if I'm not there?

Worst of all, I thought of the man I'd always secretly dreamed of, who I would now never meet, and the baby I would never carry about in my arms.

The sweetness of living pierced me, and a deep, choking sob came up from the depths of my lungs. It was as if I'd been punched in the stomach. I had to gasp for air.

A stinging slap from Granny shocked me into silence.

"Stop sniveling. What good does it do? You're not dead yet. It's not over till it's over."

"It'll be over tomorrow! We'll be dead tomorrow!"

I wanted to slap her back, to claw and bite her, to tell her that this was all her fault with her endless quarreling, but my old fear of her held me back, even then.

"We'll be dead, eh? That's what they say."

Her eyes were darting about the cell as if there was a door she might yet notice that would lead us out to freedom. "That court was a sham. There was no person of authority to condemn us. And all the evidence was malicious lies, as half of them knew."

My heart pounded in a sudden wild flight of hope.

"What do you mean, Granny? They might still put a stop to it?"

"It's possible." She began to march about, her heavy bare feet slapping down on the stone floor. "The sheriff, he won't like things being done behind his back. And that minister man, when he hears about this, he'll be for saving you, anyway. To condemn a girl like that! For nothing! On the say-so of that wicked little thief!"

"Mr. Robertson!" I cried, clutching at the thought. "Yes! He'll find a way. He tried to help us before!"

Shouts came from outside. I could hear the clop of horses' hooves and laughter. I picked up my stool and set it below the window.

"Leave it, Maggie. Don't show your face, for God's sake," Granny said, and I think she was sorry that she'd hit me, because she spoke quite gently.

But I had to see what was happening. I climbed onto the stool and peered out.

"There's four—no, five—pack horses with loads of wood," I told Granny.

"For the burning," she muttered.

I don't think she meant me to hear, but I had.

"For burning us?"

The thought was so terrible that I had to hold the bars with both hands to stop myself from falling off the stool. My eyes were fixed on the bundles of wood. I could imagine them flaring up into flames, hear the crackling, smell the smoke.

"Will it hurt?"

"What?"

"The burning."

"Are you out of your wits? We'll—I'll—be dead by then. They'll have made sure of that on the gallows."

"The hanging, then. Will that hurt?"

"How should I know?" Oddly, I found her exasperation almost comforting. It was familiar, anyway. "I've never been hanged before, so I've no way of telling. If I had, I'd tell you all about it."

She was smiling grimly.

A voice came, louder and clearer than the rest. A man dressed in black with the white collar bands of a minister had stepped up onto the bottom of the market cross and was holding up his hands for silence. I peered at him, but I was sure I had never seen him before.

"Good people of Rothesay!" he began. "We are called here today, in the sight of God, to prepare ourselves with prayer and fasting to cleanse our community of the evil of witchcraft, which has so grievously flourished in our midst."

The other voices had fallen silent. The children were hushed, and people put out their folding stools, settling themselves to listen to the preacher. I didn't dare stay at the window any longer. I was afraid he might point, and they would all turn and stare at me.

I could still hear him clearly, though.

"I say to you all, beware! The Devil prowls amongst you like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He tempts you with the lusts of flesh, with greed, and envy and adultery. These two women"—I shrank as I imagined heads turning to stare up at our window—"these wicked women have sold their souls to Satan, and tomorrow we shall send them to an eternity of Hell with their evil master."

"Wait! Stop this!"

A familiar voice had cut the preacher off in midflow.

"Mr. Robertson! Granny, it's Mr. Robertson!" I cried. "You were right! He's come to save us!"

"What's going on here?" Mr. Robertson sounded out of breath. I had to know what was happening. I hopped up onto the stool and peered out cautiously, keeping my head as low as possible. This time Granny brought her stool over and joined me.

Mr. Robertson was holding his horse by its bridle. His face was flushed, and he was talking angrily to the other minister. They were too far away for us to pick out their words, and the crowd was buzzing with talk now too.

At last, Mr. Robertson turned his back on the other man and held up his hand.

"Things are going too fast here. I'm not satisfied that the court set up to try Elspeth Wylie and her granddaughter was a proper one. They haven't confessed! To condemn without a confession is absolutely against the law. And where is the proof brought against them? The testimony of a hysterical girl!"

I was looking for Annie as he spoke, but couldn't see her sly, deceitful face in the crowd.

"Well said, Mister Minister," Granny said under her breath. "I'm sorry I insulted you, after all."

The other minister came forward and laid a soothing hand on Mr. Robertson's sleeve.

"My dear brother in Christ! Your compassion does you credit. But think of the danger of allowing the witches to live, even for another day! When I heard that there was going to be a witch trial here in Rothesay, I knew that the Lord intended me to be here, even before the minister of Rothesay, Mr. Stewart, asked me to come and represent him. My own congregation in Inverkip, over the water on the mainland, have discovered and executed six witches. Six! You see how widespread this evil has become."

"Aye, we've heard about you!" someone shouted. "In Inverkip, the witches skip!"

"They skip no longer," the minister said with horrible joviality. "They've gone where, God willing, the witches of Rothesay will go tomorrow."

"That's right! Hang them! Burn them!" people started shouting.

Mr. Robertson tried to speak again, but his horse, which he had had no time to tether, was excited by the noise and began to kick out and whinny. By the time he had calmed it, the crowd had turned away from him and was running across the short space that separated the market cross from the tolbooth.

"Hang them! Burn them!"

Granny pulled me down from the window and for a long moment held me in her old arms.

"He's lost them. He might have done it, but he's lost it."

We could hear feet running up the outer steps, then a deafening hammering came on the outer door. I thought that at any moment they would burst through and kill us with their bare hands. I clung to Granny with all my strength, and she actually let me bury my face in her side.

"The door will hold. It's got to hold," she was muttering. Aloud she shouted, "Donnie Brown, don't let them in! They'll tear us to pieces!"

"I know my work, witch," Mr. Brown growled from the far side of our cell door. "Don't worry. I'll keep you safe for your hanging in the morning."

Then from the outside came different shouts, the sound of horses, the thwack of cudgels on flesh, and indignant shouts of protest.

"Get away from that door!"

"It's the sheriff's man," I said to Granny. "That's his voice."

"Get back, all of you!" someone else shouted. "Clear the square!"

"Yes," came the fluting, odious voice of the strange preacher. "Come to the kirk. The cleansing of Rothesay must be performed with prayer and the singing of psalms and the preaching of the word. Follow me!"

The steps receded and an uneasy silence fell over the market square. All I could hear now was the scream of a gull as it swept on its white wings above the little town's smoking chimneys.

"That was our chance and it's gone," I said, hoping that Granny would contradict me, but she didn't.

The afternoon crawled past. Granny said very little. She suddenly looked old and tired. Her cheeks had sunk in, and her face had paled to a sickly gray. She sat slumped on her stool, her head leaning back against the damp stone wall. I couldn't keep still. I would sit for a moment, then horror would come over me and I would jump up and pace the cell talking to myself, then try to sit and get up again. Granny let me be.

The townsfolk came back hours later, when darkness had already fallen. We heard them singing as they marched down the hill from the church. The sheriff's men were ready though and hurried them past the tolbooth. We heard no more from them than a few hoots and catcalls, and a couple of frightening thuds as stones were hurled against the wall below our window.

"Will you close the shutter, Donnie Brown?" Granny called out at last, as the evening wind got up.

"You get no more service from me, witch!" he called back. "I heard them condemn you this morning. You can freeze for all I care, like my wife's cousin froze in the cold water when you drowned him. You'll be hot enough in Hell tomorrow."

"Then we won't get supper either," Granny said grimly. The minutes dragged by.

Then, when I had stopped my restless pacing and was sitting hunched over with my arms wrapped around my body for warmth, came the last sound in the world that I expected. It was a dear, familiar voice. A cheerful, friendly voice. Tam's voice! He was singing, right under our window, the very song he'd sung to me ever since I could remember:

"Fy, let us all to the bridal,

For there will be lilting there,

For Jock's to be married to Maggie,

The lass with the golden hair."





"Tam!" I called out. "Oh, Granny, did you hear that? It's Tam!"

She jerked upright, and though it was now too dark to see, I knew that a grin had spread over her face.

"Tam, you old..." she began.

"Shhh!" Tam whispered urgently. "Don't talk to me."

"Who's there? What is it now?" Mr. Brown sounded as if he'd been woken out of a deep sleep. We could hear his steps drag as he went to the outer door and saw the chink of light move below our cell door as he walked past it with his lantern, the ring of keys clinking in his belt as he moved.

"Donnie, is that you?" came Tam's cheerful voice. "You know me. I'm Tam the piper."

"Go away, Tam the ruddy piper," Mr. Brown said crossly. "You've no call to come here. If you want to see the witches, you'll have to wait till morning and watch them swing along with everyone else."

"The who? Oh, you mean those women?" Tam did a wonderful impression of a man innocently surprised. "What would I want with them? It's you I've come to see. There's a wee job I've been wanting to ask you to do for me."

"A job? What nonsense are you on about now?"

"A lock, of course. I've a chest from my father's day. A beautiful thing. Carved on both sides. Brass bound. I need a proper lock made for it."

"Who are you fooling, Tam?" snorted Mr. Brown. "You think I don't know that you've no money to pay for locks? You're in debt over your ears. By rights you should be locked up, along with the witches."

Tam's laugh was a marvel of cheerful amusement.

"That's where you're wrong, Donnie my man. I've been piping so busily my lips are bleeding raw. Weddings, processions—on and on. I'm a clear man. No more debt. And I've got a picture in my head of just the lock I want. What's more, I've a fine bottle of whiskey here. We could share a drop or two, maybe, while I tell you what's in my mind."

"The cunning old devil," Granny said, her eyes alight with amusement.

"I'm on duty here," Mr. Brown said, after a doubtful pause. "There'll be a terrible song and dance if they catch me away from my post."

"I wouldn't take you away from your post!" Tam sounded shocked at the very idea. "Just let me in, and you can lock the door behind us, and I'll show you my plan and take a tot or two."

"Tam, Tam, you know I can't do that."

"Suit yourself, Donnie. No doubt you've too much work on already. Don't worry about it. I'll have a word with that new man, the locksmith in Kingarth. Peter Thomson. He's getting good business now, I hear. No hard feelings. I'll just raise a toast to you before I go."

He clinked the bottle, and we heard the whiskey gurgle in the neck of it.

"Good night, Donnie!" he called out, and started to move slowly away.

My heart had leaped with hope at the arrival of Tam, and now it was sinking deeper and deeper with every one of his retreating steps. And then came the familiar rasping noise as the bolts on the outer door scraped back, and we heard Mr. Brown whisper hoarsely, "Come back here, man, and bring the bottle with you. It's cold enough in this tomb to freeze the blood in my veins."

"Ha!" said Granny softly. "Well done, Tam. Now we'll see what's what."

Tam was already running up the outer stair to the door, which Mr. Brown had opened a crack. He paused on the way up and pushed our shutter closed, cutting out the worst of the freezing wind.

I'd always hated watching Tam and Granny drinking themselves to silliness, but the sound of Mr. Brown going under the whiskey was the sweetest I'd ever heard. Tam was clever. He didn't rush things. We couldn't catch all the words as they sat outside our cell and talked, but we could tell he was talking first about the lock for his mythical chest, and then Mr. Brown started on about his wife's cousin drowning, and Tam was murmuring sympathetically.

Granny and I sat in the dark, hugging ourselves, laughing at every new stage of Mr. Brown's drunkenness.

"Let's hope Tam has the sense to stay off the stuff himself, that's all," Granny kept saying.

At last, Mr. Brown got to roaring and singing, and we sat terrified in case someone heard him and came to see what was going on, but luckily the tavern nearby was full of people come in from all over the Isle of Bute to see the execution in the morning, and they were making such a din that Mr. Brown's rants were drowned out.

At last, after a couple of hours, he quieted down to indistinct mumblings, and then there was a thud as something heavy hit the floor.

"That's him out cold," Granny said with satisfaction. "I wish him joy of the headache he'll have in the morning."

There came a jingle of keys and a rattle and scrape at our lock, and at last the cell door swung open.

For one second, behind the figure that stood in the doorway, I saw a flutter, almost like wings. It was probably just a trick of the shadows cast by the lantern that Tam was holding up high, but I'd thought for an instant there was an angel standing there. Then I saw Tam's dirty blue bonnet and his gap-toothed mouth as he cackled, "Come on, you two. Let's get away from here."

He was swaying and flushed, but he was sober enough.

"Tam, you—you—!"

I couldn't say another thing but threw myself at him and hugged him till he panted for breath.

"That's enough of that," Granny snapped behind me. "Get going while you've got the chance."

"Yes, come on!" I was out of the cell already, struggling to draw back the heavy bolts on the big outer door. Tam came up behind me, stepping over the snoring body of Mr. Brown.

The bolts were back, and I was turning the great door handle with both hands, when Granny called out, "Take care, Maggie. Don't open it till I've checked if there's anyone outside."

I could hear her stool clatter on the floor as she set it below the window and the rustle as she climbed up on it.

"Good. No one's about. Get going now, the pair of you."

I had the door half open before her words had sunk in. I shut the door again.

"What do you mean, 'the pair of you'?"

"I'm not coming with you," Granny said, glaring at me. "Get out of here. Hurry."

"What?" I couldn't believe my ears. "Granny, you've got to! They'll kill you in the morning. You've got to escape. This is our only chance!"

She was standing in the obstinate stance I knew too well, her mouth set in a grim line, her arms folded on her chest, her feet planted wide apart as if she was conquering the very ground she stood on.

"It's your only chance, Maggie. How can we both get away? There'll be a hue and cry all over the island. They'll not leave one stone unturned. Where could we hide? Who would help us? But if you cut your hair and Tam gets you some breeks in place of your skirts, you could maybe get off the island on a fishing boat, or—"

"Get away with you, you old fool," said Tam, tugging at her arm. "Do you think I've gone to all the trouble of pouring good whiskey down that idiot Donnie's throat for nothing?"

"Not for nothing! For Maggie!"

She had seized his arm in turn and was shaking him.

"Listen, Tam. I'm right. You know I am. Maggie can get away. You can think of how to do it. It's me they really hate. I'm the one they want. And you know what? I don't care anymore. I'm an old woman. My hips hurt. It's a quick death on the gallows. I'm not afraid of dying. Heaven or Hell, God will judge me. And I'll have the satisfaction of knowing they've all damned themselves for condemning me. All I want—all I want—is for Maggie to live! Do you hear me? Maggie must live!"

Outside there was a burst of noise from the tavern as someone opened the door. It died away as the door was closed again.

"For God's sake, Tam, will you get her away from here before it's too late!"

She let go of Tam, who stood nursing his bruised arm, an aggrieved look on his face.

"You were always an awkward old cuss, Elspeth Wylie," he said, sounding like a sulky child. "I thought you'd be grateful."

"Oh, Tam!" Her anger dropped off her like a cloak. "If you only knew! And I'd be even more grateful if you'd just get going and take her to safety."

I'm ashamed to say that I was so desperate to get out of that awful tolbooth that I didn't try to make Granny change her mind. In any case, I knew, in my heart of hearts, that she was right. Tam knew it too.

"I'll not see you again then, this side of death," he said, tears in his voice.

She ignored him and fixed me with an urgent look.

"Go to Kilmacolm, Maggie. Go to your uncle Blair's home there. It's called Ladymuir. You heard your father speak of it. Hugh Blair is your father's brother—who else should care for you?"

"I don't know how to get there!" I could hear my voice rising in a wail. "I don't know where it is! How am I going to manage on my own?"

"Stop all that I can't, I don't," she snapped. "Feebleness, Maggie. Your great fault. Learn to master it. Anyway, I've shown you often enough. You know the peak of Misty Law you can see from Rothesay Bay, over on the mainland to the east? Kilmacolm's right to the other side of it. Now get going. Get on!"

"Oh, Granny!"

I ran to her and hugged her. I couldn't help myself. Granny had never been one for love and affection, and I'd hardly ever dared do such a thing before. As usual, she pushed me away. And then I felt her hand on my head. It was trembling. And she said, "I've not done much for you, Maggie, but I'll give you all I've got. My blessing." And she shut her eyes and intoned, in the voice she used for spells, "I will put an enchantment on the eye, from the bosom of Peter and Paul. The one best enchantment under the sun that will come from Heaven to earth." Then, in her ordinary voice, she said, "Is that bread and cheese that drunken fool's lying on top of? Give it to me before you go. The sides of my stomach are sticking together."