The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 8

You can be beaten and starved and locked up in a cold, damp cell, but worse than any of these things is to be shamed in public, in front of people who know you. That's what they did to Granny and me that Sabbath morning in Rothesay.

We were hurried the short distance up the hill to the church of St. Mary's, the Virgin mother of Jesus. The Virgin was a kindly woman, so Tam had always told me. I believe he held to her more than to the Lord Jesus, but that was papist thinking, I knew, and so it must be sinful. Anyway, there was no help for Granny and me from the Virgin Mary, nor from anyone else.

The kirk was new, the ground all around it still strewn with the masons' off-cuts, and the sheriff's man was holding me so tightly against himself, I couldn't look down to see where I was going. I stubbed my toe painfully and cried out, and he took the excuse to hold me closer. He was a dirty-minded man.

Granny was in front of me. By the time I came up to her, they had already ripped off her outer dress so that she was standing shivering in her shift. They had the dress of sackcloth ready, a horrible brown shapeless thing, stained with the filthy things people had thrown at the last person they had shamed.

I couldn't help struggling and crying out when it was my turn, but a look from Granny stopped me. It was nearly eight o'clock, time for the service to begin. The church bell was jangling in the steeple, and people were hurrying up the hill—more eager to see us, I'm sure, than to hear Mr. Robertson's sermon.

There was nothing in their faces but hatred and cruelty and malice as we stood there at the church door, tied to the post, and the good people of Rothesay jeered and leered at us, jostling each other to get a good look.

The first gobbet of spit hit me on the shoulder. The second caught me on the cheek. Someone shouted, "Devil's whore! You lay with him, didn't you? Enjoyed it too!"

A hand plucked at my sackcloth robe, then another.

Mr. Robertson came hurrying out of the kirk.

"Get them inside," he said sharply to the sheriff's men. "They shouldn't be tied up here but sitting before the pulpit on the stools of repentance."

He even took a kerchief from his pocket and handed it to me once my hands were free.

"Wipe your face, Maggie. Compose yourself. You are entering the House of the Lord. Pray for forgiveness. The Lord is gracious and merciful. Cast yourself upon him. If you have not consorted with Satan, you have nothing to fear."

I heard Granny mutter, "Hypocrite," but I didn't think it was that simple. I couldn't understand Mr. Robertson. He'd come with the others to arrest us, but he seemed to be trying to protect us too.

The repentance stools were right at the front of the church, under the pulpit. We were shoved down onto them and had to sit there facing the congregation, who could stare at us as much as they pleased throughout the four long hours of the service. I knew what they were thinking. I'd not been to our parish church at Kingarth more than a few times a year, but once or twice I'd seen some poor soul sitting on the repentance stool, in the hideous sackcloth robe, and I'd spent the entire service enjoying my feelings of righteous indignation, despising the poor woman who was being punished for slander, or the red-faced man who'd been riotous and drunk.

There was a great rustling and creaking of stiff Sunday boots and a clatter of wood on stone as the people opened their folding stools and set them down on the flagstones, then settled themselves, ready to work their way through the psalms and prayers, waiting eagerly for the sermon.

Most of them had never heard Mr. Robertson preach before. The minister of Rothesay, Mr. Stewart—who was away on the mainland—was a hot preacher. He loved to denounce sinners and proclaim humiliating punishments. Mr. Robertson was standing in for him. I could see in the faces in front of me how curious the congregation was and how they were looking forward to some thunderous ranting from the pulpit. It was Granny and me they hoped to see condemned. They were longing for it.

It was cold in the church and the sackcloth robes were thin, but I was so nervous that sweat trickled down my back.

All too soon, Mr. Robertson mounted the steps to the pulpit, high above our heads. The congregation had been singing the psalm lustily, and now they coughed to clear their throats, gazing up at him.

"I have been commanded by the presbytery," began Mr. Robertson in a solemn voice, "to preach to you today on the subject of witchcraft. My text"—he ran a bony finger down the page of the Bible open in front of him—"comes from the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter eighteen." He found the place, cleared his throat, looked up, and paused, making sure that all eyes were fixed on him.

"'There shall not be found any among you,'" he read, "'that shall use divination, or is an enchanter, or a witch.'"

A satisfied hiss went from row to row, and though I didn't dare look up, I knew that heads were nodding. "'Or is a charmer, or a consulter of familiar spirits.'"

The silence that followed was uneasy, and glancing up at the faces for a moment, I saw that some were no longer meeting the minister's searching eyes.

"'All that do these things,'" he went on, stabbing at the book with his finger, "'are an abomination unto the Lord, and the Lord thy God doth drive them out before thee.'"

He closed the Bible and looked up.

"Now," he went on, dropping his reading voice and speaking more naturally, "there are those among you who have accused Elspeth Wylie and Maggie Blair of using vile sorcery and witchcraft. But I am punishing them today for the true faults that are proven against them: that they have failed to keep the Sabbath, that they have not come to church at the set times, and that, in the case of Elspeth Wylie, she has used slanderous language and stirred up anger among her neighbors. It is for these sins that they sit before you today in a state of repentance, and if they will confess their sins before the Lord and their neighbors, they will be forgiven in the sight of man and the sight of God. As for the other charge, they will be brought tomorrow morning before a proper court assembled for the purpose, and until that judgment has been given, these women are not to be molested. Let everything be done decently and in order."

The thought of standing before a court made me shudder, but I was comforted by Mr. Robertson's words. He seemed determined that we should be treated fairly and, at the very least, protected from the crowd. I twisted my head around and stared up at him gratefully. Granny, I could tell, was just as surprised. She was blinking rapidly, and a grim little smile creased her cheeks.

"At this point, I shall announce the following punishments," Mr. Robertson went on, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Alison McKirdy has been found guilty of drunkenness and accusing her neighbor of eating the lice off her head..." He paused for the laughter to die down. "She is to stand on the pillar for the next four Sundays. Andrew Macallister was seen plowing his field on the Sabbath day. He has admitted his fault and will be fined forty shillings. Robert..."

A murmur had begun as he had started on his weekly list of dull misdemeanors, and it was growing louder. There was a crash at the back of the church. Mr. Macbean had sprung to his feet, knocking over his stool.

"Exodus chapter twenty two verse eighteen," he roared, shaking his fist at the minister. "'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Do your duty, Mr. Robertson, and clear these evil women out from among us."

To interrupt the minister while he spoke from the pulpit was such a rare and shocking thing that a shudder of delicious horror swept the congregation. They had all turned to stare at Mr. Macbean, but now their heads swiveled around again to see what the minister would do.

"To clear out evil," Mr. Robertson said, fixing Mr. Macbean with such a stare that the man fumbled for his stool, righted it, and sat down again. "Yes, indeed. I have another text to preach to you today."

He laid his palm down on his Bible, quoting from memory: "From the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: 'Woe unto you, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.'"

An inarticulate objection came from the back of the church, but Mr. Robertson ignored it.

"I have heard," he said, his pink face flushed, "of heathenish practices and old superstitions practiced by many on this island. Oatcakes and milk left outside for the fairies and other such uncanny beings. Charms being told over sick cattle. Wicked and fruitless attempts to cure sickness by the use of herbs and ointments. Spells being cast to find a missing shilling or suchlike. Things no Christian soul should tamper with."

"He's got them there," Granny muttered beside me. "The old ways are still alive. The things I could tell!"

"Leviticus, chapter nineteen," Mr. Robertson went on. "'Ye shall not use enchantment!' If these two women are found to be guilty of such sins, of which I have some doubts, they will of course be punished. But I say to you, all of you, look first into your own hearts and see to your own behavior. 'Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone!'"

I didn't hear the rest of Mr. Robertson's sermon. It went on for long enough. The half-hour glass ran out of sand and was turned twice before he'd finished.

Mr. Robertson's words had obviously had an effect, because nobody tried to harm us as we were taken back to the tolbooth. Heads were bent and eyes were cast down as the people hurried by. I heard some disappointed mutterings, though. Mr. Robertson, it was clear, had not come up to Mr. Stewart's thrilling standards.

***

The market cross of Rothesay stands outside the tolbooth, and it was here that everyone gathered to gossip after the service. Mr. Robertson's sermon had impressed one man at least. Our jailer, Donald Brown, looked at us with more doubt than disgust when he opened up the tolbooth to let us in.

"I'm not saying that I think you're innocent, Elspeth Wylie," he said. "You're a crabby old hag with a mean tongue in your head and a wicked heart in your chest. But whether you've lain with the Devil or not is not for me to say. The girl looks as frightened as a mouse. I'll not think ill of her till I have to. I'll do as Mr. Robertson says and give you the benefit of the doubt till I hear the evidence in the court tomorrow."

He seemed to have surprised himself with this long speech and added, "So, I'll let you have a couple of stools to sit on, and if you give me a penny, I'll bring you some porridge."

Granny had been listening with her arms crossed on her chest and the usual deep frown scoring her forehead. I longed for her to smile and show some gratitude and meekness, but it was like wishing for a rose to bloom in February.

"And where would I get a penny?" was all she said.

"I've got some oatmeal in my bundle," I put in. I was smiling for the two of us until my cheeks cracked. "If I give you a cupful, you could get porridge made for us, Mr. Brown."

He took the oatmeal with a grunt and came back a moment later with two stools. Granny sat down on hers, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes, but I set mine beneath the window and found that if I stood on tiptoe I could see the people below.

There was no sign of Mr. Robertson, but Mr. Macbean and Annie were standing with the folk of Rothesay clustered around the pair of them, their heads leaning forward as they listened.

After a moment or two, one of them looked up toward the tolbooth, and I ducked out of sight. When I looked back again, the first drops of a shower of rain were pattering down, and the group was breaking up. Annie and Mr. Macbean were hurrying toward the tolbooth. They stopped to shelter under the eaves, right below our window.

"Now, Annie, if you want to please me, you'll speak up and say what you've said before, slowly and clearly," said Mr. Macbean. "The court will like your evidence. They'll want to hear it. No one will say anything unkind to you."

"Well, I don't know."

They were too close below the window for me to see them, but I could hear doubt in Annie's voice.

"There's things I'm not sure of," she went on. "I—I might have been mistaken. It's like Mr. Robertson said just now. To give false witness is a terrible sin."

"Your witness isn't false, girl." Mr. Macbean's voice was hardening. "You heard what you heard and saw what you saw. You couldn't have made up such details or imagined such wickedness. You have a plain duty, in the sight of God, to—"

"If only I was sure! It seemed at the time ... so ... and when I thought about it, it was like a story in my head. But now—Ouch!"

She broke off, and as clear as if I'd seen it, I knew that Mr. Macbean had grasped her arm in a bruising grip.

"You know my hopes for you. For both of us, Annie. You do as I wish and speak up, and I'll do all I've promised. But if you let me down, you'll be on your own. I'll deny it all. You'll get no help from me."

I heard his footsteps retreat, and a moment later I was looking down on his tall hat as he strode away toward the inn. Below the window Annie was quietly sniveling.

"Annie!" I called out, standing on the stool as tall as I could, though stretch as I might she still could not be seen. "Annie, it's me! Maggie!"

The crying stopped, and I could tell that she was listening.

"Don't say what's not true, Annie. All that about the ashes up the chain, it's lies. You know it is. You'll burn in Hell for lies. I'm not a witch, Annie. You know I'm not. You can keep the buckle if you tell them the truth."

I stopped, listening hard, my heart beating fast. There was a long silence, and I knew that Annie was biting her fingers.

"I'll not stand here listening to you!" she shouted at last. "You're wicked! You're evil!" And then she was off, and I watched her running after her loathsome master, as if she was afraid that I would call the Devil down on her. Which, to be honest, I would have done—if I'd had any inkling how.