The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (12 page)

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.

Fifteen miles is a long way to walk on nothing but a piece of bread and bite of cheese, and by the time I'd reached the northern tip of the island, my feet were sore, my bundle hung heavily on my shoulder, and my head was spinning with hunger and tiredness. I was beginning to think I would never get there, never see those little islands and find the drovers, and I couldn't help but go slower and slower, weighted down with hopelessness. Then, suddenly, I heard the blessed sound of cattle lowing. It came from over the hill ahead. I ran up it with a burst of fresh energy, then slowed down as I reached the crest and went on cautiously, keeping my head low, afraid of being seen.

The coast is rocky at the northern tip of Bute, where the channel of water flowing down from the sea loch above divides around it. There's a good expanse of flatland below the rocky outcrop. I crouched under a tree and looked down onto it.

A hundred or more red, curly-backed cattle were milling about on the expanse of grass and bog reed, shaking their long-horned heads, restless, not settling yet to graze. Beyond them, across the water, were the three little islands. The channels of water between them were no more than a bowshot in length, but they looked terrifyingly wide to me.

Across on the other side, the hills of Cowal rose steeply from the water's edge, dark and forbidding. I felt a dreadful ache of loss for the cottage by the bay, and the beach beyond the field, and the endless change of light on the sea and in the sky, and Blackie, and Sheba, and Granny herself. I sat down and put my head on my knees and cried. I don't know how long I cried for, but you can't go on forever, especially when there's no one nearby to comfort you, and in the end the attack of tears stopped.

Mr. Lithgow knew my father,
I told myself sternly.
He'll look after me. And he knows I'm innocent too. He'll want to help me.

The midges were out now that the wind had dropped and the evening was coming down. They were in my hair and all over my bare legs and arms, biting. Girls' clothes protect you. Your cap, to start with, covers your ears, and your skirts go down to your ankles. But boys' clothes leave you more exposed, as I was finding out. I needed a better place to hide and watch, where Tam had told me to go, under the overhang. Then I could untie my bundle and wrap my gown around the bits of me that my father's shirt and belted plaid didn't cover.

I was about to scramble down the rocky wall to the shelter below when I heard a voice, and peering around the tree, I saw a man standing in the doorway of a little stone bothy that I'd not noticed before. He had his thumbs stuck in the belt that was holding his thick plaid in place, and he was looking over the cattle as if he was counting them.

Even from this distance, I could see that he was a solid sort of person, reassuringly big and strong-looking.

That's got to be Mr. Lithgow,
I thought, feeling better. I felt as if I'd made a friend of him, even before we'd met.

I nearly fell the last bit of the way down the rocks and landed heavily on a boulder, but luckily it was covered in thick moss, and I did no more than bruise myself. I felt my way along under the overhanging rocks and found a cleft with a good soft floor to it. It was damp and very full of midges, but it was a good place to hide, and I decided to stay there, covering myself from the little biters as best I could. I could see well from here, too, and was unlikely to be seen. The sun was setting behind the hills, and my cleft was in deep shade.

Now I could see another man. He was down by a stream that ran near to the little house, squatting to collect water in a leather bag. He had a dog with him. That worried me. If the dog got wind of me, I'd be found out at once. But the man stood up and whistled to the dog, who trotted obediently at his heels back to the little house. They both disappeared inside.

Without my knowing it, my fingers had been picking at the thick moss covering the boulder on which I was sitting. There was already quite a pile of it at my feet.

Make the best of things,
Granny's voice said in my head.
Don't fuss.

Granny! Was she in Heaven now, or had St. Peter turned her away from the Pearly Gates and sent her down into the spitting fires of Hell? He'd have to have been a sharp man to see the good in her. But there was no telling with salvation, I knew that much. God had decided at the beginning of time who was to be saved and who was damned, I'd heard the old minister say, so I supposed there wasn't much you could do about it.

The midges were on me now, in clouds. I opened my bundle, took out my girls' clothes, and put them on. They felt comfortingly familiar after the strange freedom of my legs in the trousers. My cap was on a moment later, so that my head was protected.

I gathered up the moss I'd collected. It was damp, but it made a soft place to lie on. I needed to get some sleep. I was tired to the bones, as I had been the day before, and tomorrow would be worse. I lay down, wrapped my plaid around the rest of me, and was asleep a moment later.

***

A clatter of stones and a gasp of surprise woke me up. For a moment I was confused, not knowing where I was, then everything came back to me. A jag of fear made me scramble to my feet and crouch, ready to run.

"Don't—don't hurt me! Please!" came a girl's voice.

I knew it at once.

"Annie!" I was up and snarling like a springing cat, claws out, reaching for her face to hit and scratch it. "Thief ! Liar!"

"No, Maggie, please, you don't know, you..." she babbled, her hands over her face.

I hit out at her with a great blow, and she fell backwards onto a soft boggy patch, luckily for her. Before I could attack again, she had curled up like a little animal and started to cry loudly.

"Shut up, you little fool. They'll hear you. Or is that your plan—to get me caught again? If you do, I'll kill you."

"No!" she cried, much too loudly. I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the drover's bothy, but it was still too dark to see that far.

"Will you shut
up?
" I hissed at her, but she'd won the first battle. I'd lost the wish to hit her again. She disgusted me so much, I didn't want to soil myself by touching her.

"Maggie, I'm really, really sorry. You don't know—I never thought things would go so far. It was Mr. Macbean who made me say all that, about the ashes up the chain and flying and you taking your clothes off and everything. I didn't want to at all! I..."

I wanted to lift my foot and stamp on her, like you would on a nasty insect, but then I remembered the look on her face when she'd spoken against me, the second time. She had been frightened and even sorry, I had to admit.

"Just let me tell you. You'll understand, I know you will." Her wheedling voice made my skin creep. "You can kill me afterward if you want to. I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't even mind very much."

"Very good, Annie. You think you can get around me, like you get around everyone else. Keep trying. You won't succeed."

"No,
please,
Maggie!" She was half sobbing. "Listen! I'm going to have a baby! It was Mr. Macbean. He—came to me. Often, in the night."

I was so astonished that I sank down onto a boulder. I wanted to burst out laughing but kept it in for fear of the noise.

"The old goat! The old hypocrite!"

"Yes," said Annie eagerly, seeing her advantage. "He's so awful, Maggie—you've no idea—and really hard and stern. And he promises things, and he preaches and prays, and all the time..."

She was coming closer to me, and I was afraid she was going to touch me. I moved back hastily. I didn't want to laugh anymore. The harm this girl had done was rising up in me, and anger was threatening to choke me again.