The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 11

We were out of the tolbooth only just in time. The tavern door opened as we reached the bottom of the steps, and people began lurching out into the half light of the May night.

"Oh, look at that now. Oh, we're in trouble!" Tam said, and I could see he was about to panic and have us both caught.

Act. Don't be feeble! I heard Granny say in my head, so I gave Tam a shove in the back and said, "Go on. Join them. I'll be all right. Just act drunk like the rest of them."

He didn't need telling. The fresh air had turned the whiskey in him, and he was half out of his head, anyway. Obediently, he staggered off to join the crowd.

I slipped around the corner into a dark back lane, and then I began to run, the ground flying away beneath my feet. Like an animal freed from a trap, I went the only way I knew—home, to Scalpsie Bay.

I halted at last and bent over, gasping for breath, nursing a stitch in my side. I was desperately hungry and tired to my bones, but fear is a marvelous spur. It was past ten o'clock now, and the short darkness of May had fallen at last. I'd have six or seven hours till the sun rose again. There was no sound of pursuit—no shouts or running feet or pounding horses' hooves.

I set off again at a fast walk, listening out for any strange sounds. Once, a barking dog nearby made me jump half out of my skin, and I realized I was close to the farm at Kerrycrusach, but no door opened. I stole past on tiptoe, and the dog soon quieted down.

There was no moon that night, but a faint grayness still lingered on the western horizon, and when I came at last to the old cottage, I could see enough to find the door and open it. I sensed at once that Blackie had gone. Her byre was silent and empty. She would have been in pain at being left so long without milking, but I'd hoped foolishly to find her here. I'd been longing for a deep drink of warm, frothy milk.

Those thieving Macbeans will have taken her, I thought, and rage nearly choked me. I felt Granny inside me at that moment.

"Sheba!" I whispered. "Are you there?"

But there was no answering meow, and no warm black shape came out of the darkness to greet me.

I knew I couldn't stay in the cottage. To be there at all was dangerous, even in the middle of the night. One of our neighbors might easily come, under cover of darkness, to help himself to whatever he could find. I needed to get going quickly.

The ashes on the hearth were cold, of course, so there was no glow from the fire to see by. I had to feel my way around with my hands.

To my amazement, the oatmeal barrel was still half full. The feel of the soft grain under my fingers cheered me like a kind word. There were even the oatcakes that I'd made the other morning (a lifetime ago) still sitting on the table.

Granny's curse at the hearth, I thought, smiling to myself in the dark. It's keeping them away. She knew it would.

I grabbed the oatcakes and crammed them into my mouth, then went to the pitcher and took a deep draft of water. My hand brushed against the jug beside it, and I heard the slosh of liquid. Milk! I had poured some into it from Blackie's bucket. I raised the jug to my lips and drank the milk down in a long, satisfying gulp.

The food worked on me better than any enchantment could have done. It gave me courage and cleared my head. I sat at the table, looked out through the doorway into the starry night, and thought.

Where can I go? What can I do?

The Isle of Bute is less than one day's ride long from tip to tip, and three hours of walking across the middle. Every man and woman on it would know in the morning that I'd escaped, and they'd all be after me. There was no one who would want to help me, except for Tam, but he'd done what he could. And even though I loved him, I knew he was too foolish to be relied on.

I have to get to the mainland, I told myself. I have to get across the water.

There were boats of all kind that came and went from Bute. They carried men out to fish, took goods and people from island to island and over to the mainland. There wasn't one, I knew, who would have the courage to take a convicted witch on board. My heart failed at the thought of trying to slip onto one of them unseen, but it was the only thing I could do.

There came a clatter of stones outside. Something was moving close to the cottage. I froze with fright, and my hair rose on my scalp. For a long moment I sat motionless, then I heard a splash and let out my breath. It was only an animal, after all—an otter most probably, fishing in the stream. It felt like a warning. I couldn't stay in the cottage any longer. I had to get away.

Dress like a boy, Granny had said.

Our knife lay on the table. I took off my cap and sawed at my long mouse-brown hair. It fell in hanks onto the floor.

They'll find it. They'll know what I've done.

I groped around and picked up what I could, swept the whole area, then carried the hair in my apron out to the kail yard. I dug a hole with my hands, dropped it in, and covered the place with earth.

I was thinking fast and well. I felt my way to the worm-eaten chest in the corner of the cottage, opened it, and found that my father's linen shirt, his leather belt, and his long trousers still lay inside. Granny had never sold them.

A drowned man comes back for his own, she'd always said.

Quickly, I took off my own clothes and put my father's on. They were far, far too big for me. I picked up the knife and sawed away at the trouser legs till they fell only to my ankles, then tied the belt tight around my waist to keep them up. I rolled up the sleeves of the shirt and wrapped my plaid around and over it all to keep everything in place. Then I laid the blanket from my bed on the ground, put my own gown on it, along with a supply of oatmeal tied into a cloth, and bound it all into a bundle. I tied it to the end of the stick Granny had always used to urge Blackie on her way, and I was ready.

I knew where to go. There were caves above Scalpsie Bay, a mile or so from the cottage. People were afraid to go there. Lights had been seen in the night, they said, and strange sounds. Unearthly beings were thought to live there—fairies and kelpies—who were best not disturbed. Granny had said that the fairies only used the biggest cave, and they were friendly enough as long as you left them alone. As for the others, the only beings who went there were strictly earthly, herself and Tam and their vagabond friends, and the music the good folk heard was only Tam's pipes and the party's drunken singing. At any rate, I wasn't afraid of the fairies. It was people of flesh and blood who were after me.

I stepped out of the cottage and closed the door behind me. I needed to hurry—I had to reach the caves before the early May dawn colored the sky, and people began to stir. I couldn't think about tomorrow or the day after. The first thing was to save my skin today.

To reach the caves, I had to edge around the side of the bay and strike up the lower slope to the cliffs above. The caves were tucked in up there, under the overhanging rock. It wasn't easy to find my way in the dark, but the edges of the waves rolling in onto the sand of the bay gave off a faint white glow, and by it I could at least judge my distance from the sea.

I was heading for the smallest cave. Cows and sheep wandered into the large ones for shelter sometimes, and I had no wish to be disturbed by a farm dog looking for them. In any case, the smallest cave looked out over the bay, and I'd be able to keep watch and see if anyone approached.

By the time I found the little cave, I was so tired that I didn't care anymore whether I was safe or not, as long as I could lie down and sleep. I unwrapped my bundle, lay down, and pulled the blanket around me. I must have fallen asleep at once.

***

I don't remember most of the dreams that came to me that night, though I know they were troubled and fearful. But the last one I can't ever forget. I dreamed that I was standing on the ramparts of Rothesay Castle, and I knew that I could fly. I was powerful and filled with evil. My lips drew back from my teeth in a Devil's grin, and my eyes grew wide, green, and slit-pupiled like a cat's. I knew that if I leaped from the ramparts and flew over the heads of the people staring up at me below, I'd become a true witch, a daughter of Satan. I didn't want to. I clung to the parapet behind me.

"No," I called out. "I'm not a witch! I want to be good! Let me come down!"

And then I fell, but I woke, crying, before I hit the ground. The sun had risen hours ago. I sat up, filled with the dread of my dream. The horrors of yesterday came back to me at once, and I shivered at the danger I was in. I sat up and looked out between the bushes that grew in front of the cave.

Scalpsie Bay lay calm and peaceful in the morning light. The oystercatchers—Christ's birds, whose cross was painted black on their backs—were wheeling in the air above the shore. Smoke drifted up through the turf roofs of the farmhouses, making them look like steaming loaves of fresh bread. Above the slow shhh-shhh of the sea, I heard a woman calling to a child. Life was going on around Scalpsie Bay. It was as if a hole had opened, and I'd dropped right through it, and it had closed over my head.

I didn't dare make a fire to cook my oats into porridge, and I was hungry again. I looked longingly down at our cottage. It seemed forlorn, even on this bright morning.

And then I saw that people were moving along the lane in ones and twos, a steady stream, going toward Rothesay. They've gone to see Granny die. They've gone to gloat.

At that moment, I wished my dream had ended differently, that I'd let myself become a witch and could call the powers of Hell down upon them.

But not to little children, I thought. Not to babies. And not to their mammies and daddies either.

I had to admit, too, that I would have followed the crowd if things had been different. I would have walked to Rothesay out of sheer curiosity to see the hanging and burning of a witch.

I could choose to hate and curse and make people fear me as Granny had done, or I could go another way. I'd made my choice already, in my dream.

***

I saw Tam coming late in the afternoon, when the sun was already halfway down to its sinking place behind the mountains of Arran. His bonnet bobbed like a bluebell above the bracken. He was half running on bent legs, looking over his shoulder.

I waited till he was close enough to hear me.

"Tam! I'm here! Up here!"

He bolted up the slope and dived down behind the bush where I was hiding.

"Maidie, I've found you! I was afraid those fools would be back from Rothesay and catch me looking for you. Look at you, now, with your hair all cut off ! A handsome lad, you are, without your skirts and all."

I shook his arm.

"Granny! Is she...?"

He looked away.

"Best not to think about all that."

"Tam, you've got to tell me! Did they..."

"Yes. If you must know, she's gone." His pale, red-rimmed eyes filled with tears. "Hanged and burned, down on the shore, with all of them loons hooting like donkeys."

"Did she say anything?"

He laughed, but it choked on a sob.

"Did she? Oh, yes! Told everyone who'd listen that the Devil had come flying into the tolbooth in the night and broke down the door and snatched you away, so there was no point in looking for you on this island or anywhere else on the earth. Looking after you, you see, even at the very end."

Oh, Granny! I thought, seeing her, stern and defiant in her last hour, as magnificent as a queen.

"She wouldn't let them drag her to the gallows, but she walked to them freely, and the hangman, the butcher from Kingarth, Dickie Greig, he says to her, 'Don't curse me, mistress, for what I have to do,' and she shoots back to him, 'I'm done with cursing, you silly wee man.' She couldn't resist adding, 'But when you get home, ask your wife where she was last Wednesday night.' And that was funny, Maidie, because everyone knows what Sally Greig's been up to with the apprentice, except for Dickie, so the whole crowd cracked out laughing. Then poor old Elspeth, she looked up at the rope that was going to hang her, and her legs gave a bit at the knees and she went pale, but she wouldn't let anyone touch her and just shook herself and walked up the step to it. That Inverkip fool of a minister had been preaching and praying himself hoarse all morning, and he set up a psalm singing, and Mr. Robertson wasn't liking it at all. He was shaking his head and staring at the other fellow with his face all shut up like a clamp. Then he goes up to Elspeth and says kindly and gently, 'Shall I pray with you, Mistress Elspeth? Your judgment is upon you, and an hour from now you will be standing before the Throne of Grace to answer for your sins.' And Elspeth snaps at him, 'Thank you, Mister Minister, but I'll pray for myself,' and she cries out, 'Lord Jesus, I'm no witch, but I'm a sinful old woman and I pray you to forgive me!' and then she adds, 'And your mother, the good Virgin, can put in a word for me too.' Well, they all took that to be sheer blasphemous papistry, Maidie, as well she knew, and it maddened the Inverkip fellow, who shouted, 'Do your duty, Mr. Greig! Let's hear no more from this whore of Satan!' And you know what, I do believe that's why she brought in the Virgin Mary, just for a last poke in the man's eye, and because she wanted to get the business over."

I couldn't speak for a minute. At last I said, "Do you think it hurt her, when Mr. Greig did it?"

"I don't think so. All over in a minute." He patted me kindly. "The crowd went quiet when it was done, then that fool starts up again, preaching and calling for the fire to be stoked up, but I caught sight of Donnie Brown being taken off by the sheriff's men. I was afraid he'd blather about me and get me taken up too. With luck, he'll stick to Elspeth's story about the Devil flying away with you, but he's an old blabbermouth, and I won't trust him to keep quiet. I need to keep out of the way of things, Maidie, till the fuss has died down."

The bark of a dog below made us both shrink back into the little cave. We peered out cautiously but couldn't see anyone.

"You must get going," Tam said, "before all those fools have had enough of fires and burning and come back home."

"Go where? Tam, I've been racking my brains! How can I get away? No one will take me in a boat. There's not a single person..."

His face had broken open into a big, sloppy grin.

"Ah, but there is, Maidie, and I've been so clever I hardly know myself. It's all fixed. You're to swim with the cattle across the narrows to Colintraive on the mainland."

I stared at him in horror.

"Swim? I can't swim! You know I can't! I'll drown!"

He ignored me.

"I saw that fellow in Rothesay—Archie Lithgow, the head drover. You don't know the man, but he comes here every year to round up the cattle and walk them down to the markets in Glasgow. He knew your daddy. He worked with him. Good friends, they were. Well, the idea popped into my head as soon as I saw him walking along the high street of Rothesay. 'Hello, Mr. Lithgow,' I say. 'And have you come to witness the execution of the witch?' He gave me such a look, as if I was a louse he'd found in his hair, but I was very glad to see it. 'What a lot of nonsense!' he says. 'I've known Elspeth Wylie for years. She's a foul-mouthed old cuss of a woman, but she's no more a witch than I am. And neither's her granddaughter. I'm just glad that poor Danny Blair isn't alive to see this day. I don't know how the girl escaped from the tolbooth, but if I could help her now I would.' You see, Maidie? Wasn't I just the brilliant one? 'Oh, but you can help her, Mr. Lithgow,' I say straight out. And I tell him how I got the better of Donnie Brown, and he claps me on the shoulder and bursts out laughing and says if you'll just get yourself up to the muster place at Rhubodach, he'll see you across to the mainland and take you down as far as Dumbarton. 'Once you've crossed the Clyde, it's only five miles or so down to Kilmacolm,' he says. 'She can walk it easy in an hour or two.'"

I was staring at him with horror.

"Tam, I can't! I told you, I can't swim! I'll drown like my father did."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," he said airily. "The men go over in a boat. You'll be all nice and dry and carried across like the little queen you are."

I should have felt grateful, but I felt hollow inside at the thought of leaving my island, my only known world, however dangerous it was for me now.

"Well, then," I said, trying to sound brave. "Well, I suppose I'd better go."

He looked as disappointed as a child.

"And here was I, thinking you'd be pleased. Here was I, expecting a hug and kiss, at least."

I couldn't help smiling and leaned forward to kiss his pitted cheek.

"I'm just scared, Tam. I'm truly grateful. For everything."

"Then get along with you," he said, moving cautiously to his feet. "It's a good fifteen miles up to the muster place." He squinted up at the sun. "Four or five hours at a steady pace. Keep to the west and work your way up the coast to the northern tip of the island. You'll see a couple of islands out in the channel there. The cattle will be down by the shore. There's a bit of a cliff, like this one here. Hide up there in the overhang. Don't show yourself to the drovers yet, because there'll be farmers coming and going, bringing up their cows for the crossing. It's to be first thing in the morning, when the tide is low. I'll come and find you there tonight. Listen out for my whistle, and whistle back."

"Aren't you going to come up there with me?" I said shakily. "Please, Tam."

He looked away from me, his eyes suddenly shifty.

"I can't, darling. There's things I have to do. But I'll see you tonight, I promise."

The thought of the long day ahead alone frightened me. "You didn't bring me anything to eat, Tam, did you?" I said plaintively. "I'm starving."

He clapped both hands to his bonnet.

"Now here's an old fool," he said, watching my face fall even further. Then he grinned and, like a conjuror, whipped off his bonnet and pulled out a hunk of bread with a lump of hard cheese stuck into it.

"I stole it from the inn, didn't I," he said, with simple pride. "It's real wheat bread, Maidie, like the high-ups eat. Hey, don't gobble it down so fast. You'll choke yourself."

***

Until that day I'd never been farther away from Scalpsie Bay than Rothesay, and after half an hour of half running, half walking, I was out of my own known world.

At first I was so scared of being recognized and caught that I darted like a hunted animal from one place of shelter to another, making rushes across the open to duck down behind a wall or drop behind a clump of gorse. But then, just as I was leaping out from under a tree to make a dash across a headland, I ran slap into a farmer, walking silently along with his dog at his heels.

"Watch out, lad. Going like that, you'll knock a body over," he said, in a friendly enough voice. "Where are you running off to?"

I was too terrified to speak and stood poised, ready to bolt again.

"Where are you from?" he said, looking at me more closely. "I've not seen you before."

I managed to point vaguely ahead along the coast and mumbled something, in as gruff a voice as I could manage, about being lost.

His face cleared.

"Oh, you'll be Macallister's new boy. No need to look as if the Devil was after you. Macallister's a good man. He'll not give you a beating for losing your way. Just follow the lane up here, and cut across the top. It'll take you down to Straad."

I didn't dare try to speak again but smiled my thanks and went off at a trot, not too fast, in case he became suspicious.

The best thing was that my disguise had worked. It would be more dangerous for me to skulk about like a fugitive. I could walk boldly along in the open like anyone else.