The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (25 page)

"Well, well." He was looking directly at me so that I thought for a minute I would faint. "If you wish it so much." And he took the oatcake, to my intense delight, and ate it all.

"Shall we go now, brother, and begin the Lord's work?" he said, when the last crumb had gone.

"Ritchie will come and tell us when they're all assembled," said Uncle Blair, going to the door and peering out. "Look there, up on the hills, more are coming. The young men are posting themselves all around on vantage points, watching for the troops. They'll come and fetch us when the time is right."

"Then I'll go aside into the other room and pray, to prepare myself," said Mr. Renwick.

Everything seemed duller—the light dimmer, the colors more gray—when he had left the room.

"Girls, take the children now and get on up to the meeting place," said Uncle Blair. "Grizel, you know where to go. Watch out all the time for Black Cuffs. If you see them coming, call to warn the others, then creep home down the gully, where you'll be hidden."

Aunt Blair gave a little bleat of anxiety. "Don't take Andrew and Nanny. Just Martha. I'll bring the little ones with me." She snatched Nanny's hand out of mine as if she was afraid she was about to lose her forever.

It was a relief to get away from the tense mood inside the house. The morning was fine and fair, the sun not long risen, and everything bright and gleaming after rain. Heavy droplets clogged the heather and sparkled on the new green grass. I took a deep breath and felt my anxious heart lift. Surely nothing bad could happen on such a beautiful spring morning, out here on this ordinary, familiar hillside?

In all my time at Ladymuir, I had never been to the place where the meeting was to be held. Grizel led the way to the stream, which I knew well enough, but instead of jumping over it, as I had expected, she turned along the bank and followed a little path that led up around the curve of the hillside. Below, the stream ran along the bed of a deep gully.

It was easy to see that many people had just passed that way. The print of feet was fresh in the mud, and the wet grass along the edges of the path was beaten down. I looked up to the hilltop above, where a young man was standing, scanning the horizon, his gun on his shoulder. Then ahead, as we rounded a spur of hillside, I saw a slow-moving family walking wearily along, the small children's sleeping heads nodding over their parents' shoulders.

A quarter of an hour later, we came around the last curve of the stream, and though I was expecting it, I was still astonished at the sight of hundreds of people, men and women, the old and the very young, milling about on a high flat bank above the fast-running stream. Opposite us, spouting down the black rocks, was a waterfall, rushing and foaming white. The pounding of the water as it fell into the pool below was so loud that it muffled the buzz of the people's excited voices. It was a perfect place to hide a crowd of people, out of sight of anyone looking across even from the highest vantage point of the hills above.

Above the flat space was a slope dotted with mossy rocks. Some people were already settled on these, as if they were sitting on their own stools in their own kirk, while others stood about, talking eagerly and looking down the burn as they waited for Mr. Renwick to appear.

"Is there news of Stephen Barbour?" I heard someone ask.

"He's been taken to Glasgow, to the tolbooth. There's to be a full trial."

"A trial! There's many who don't even get that. Muir of Rashiefield was taken up last week, told to renounce the Covenant and swear loyalty to the king, and when he refused, he was shot dead, right there in his own field."

Looking up, I could see the young men now posted about on each side of the gully. Ritchie himself stood on the highest point. He was signaling to Mungo to get into the right position. High above them, dark against the blue sky, a buzzard wheeled on tilted wings. On the far side of the narrow gully rose a steep hillside, covered with trees.

In the same quiet way that he had appeared in the farm kitchen, Mr. Renwick slipped into the crowd milling about the hollow so unobtrusively that at first no one realized he was there. People had arranged themselves in groups. Some were already praying together, their heads bowed. Mothers were calling sharp warnings to their children, who, unused to being with so many people at once, were running around excitedly. Silence washed in like a slow wave as people realized that the preacher had arrived. Uncle Blair signaled with a sweep of his arm, and everyone began to settle themselves against the hollow side of the hill and on the flat ground below. They laid their thick plaids down on the wet grass before they sat and turned their faces up eagerly to listen.

Uncle Blair and Mr. Renwick stood with their backs to the waterfall cascading down behind them.

"Dear friends, dear neighbors," began Uncle Blair. "You have come—we are here—the honor of welcoming you to Ladymuir—the danger we face today..."

He was unable to go on. For a moment I thought he was tongue-tied by nervousness at addressing such a large crowd, but when he turned to Mr. Renwick and signaled to him to carry on, I saw that he was moved beyond bearing with emotion, and my own eyes pricked with tears in response.

Mr. Renwick stood silent for a long moment, his head bowed in prayer, then he raised it and swept the expectant crowd with a long, penetrating look, as if assuring himself that all eyes were upon him. Only then did he begin to speak, and his voice, thrilling and deep, penetrated to the edge of the crowd, even through the sound of the water, and made the goose pimples rise on my arms.

"Those that choose Christ make the right choice, yes, and a noble choice, for if Christ is theirs, all is theirs. His glory is theirs, and he will be a hiding place to them in the days of trouble."

He took a small Bible from the pocket of his coat, opened it, and read, "
'For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is a storm against the wall.'
"

"Amen!" several voices called back in response.

"
A strength to the needy in his distress,
" I thought. "A
shadow from the heat.
"

Was that true for me? Was it Christ who had rescued me from the gallows and the fire? Or just Tam?

It was Tam,
I thought.
It must have been.

I knew that I wasn't pure enough—I had never been good or faithful enough—to deserve that Christ himself would make such an effort to rescue me. I could believe much more easily in Tam's love and his delight in making mischief.

While my mind had wandered, Mr. Renwick had been turning the pages of his Bible, and now he was tapping it with his forefinger.

"Oh, brothers and sisters!" he cried. "Listen to the love thoughts, bound here in this book in a bundle of precious promises! Every one of them drops like honey from the honeycomb! See how Christ shows his love to us." And he read out, "
'He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love, and he fed me with apples, and comforted me with wine.'
"

My chest tightened with longing as he spoke.

Nobody ever loved me like that. But does Jesus? Is it really tr ue?

"And what does he want from you in return?" I could hardly bear to look at Mr. Renwick now. I felt as if his words were burning me, singeing my soul. "Jesus wants to have your heart and all that you have and are. If he calls for your eyes, give them to him! If he calls for your ears, give them to him! If he calls for your heart—oh, brothers and sisters, give! Give!"

"I do! I give everything!" I whispered, and my heart seemed to bound in my chest. "I give..."

"Maggie!" said my aunt, pulling on my sleeve. "Where's Martha?"

I looked around. I could see Nanny with a knot of other little girls. They had crept away to the side of the congregation and were playing quietly with sticks of wood wrapped in little cloths, cradling them like babies. But Martha wasn't there.

"I don't know, Aunt. I thought she was with you."

Annie, sitting right behind us, leaned forward and whispered, "I'll go and look for her, Mistress Blair."

"Oh, thank you, dear." Aunt Blair nodded gratefully. "She can't have wandered far."

I turned back to Mr. Renwick, ready to sink back under the spell of his sermon, but as Annie stepped over my outstretched legs, I looked up and saw a glint of fierce purpose in her eyes. She was suppressing a smile of triumph, as if she'd been waiting for something and it had happened as she'd hoped.

A jag of fear shot through me.

"Stay here, Annie. I'll go," I said, catching hold of her skirt.

She shook me off without looking at me or answering and was already slipping away to the edge of the crowd where the path led out of the hollow.

"No!" I called out, too loudly, making heads around me turn. "Come back, Annie!"

"Be quiet!" Aunt Blair hissed at me furiously. "You're making a spectacle of yourself."

Annie had halted and was looking down at the stream where some of the little boys were squatting on the bank, floating sticks on the water, and watching them spin away down the current. She turned to shake her head at Aunt Blair, as if to say that Martha wasn't there. I knew she was only making a pretense of looking. I began to get up to run after her.

"These are Gospel days!" Mr. Renwick was calling out, "when the high places shall be forsaken, and the cities left desolate, and the towers shall be dens for the wild beasts, until the Spirit of God is poured on us from on high!"

Aunt Blair grabbed at my foot and pulled me down again.

"For goodness' sake, Maggie! This jealousy of yours is too much. I thought even your heart would be softened by Mr. Renwick."

I stared at her.

"Oh, Aunt, I'm not jealous of Annie! I'm afraid of her! She's up to something, I know she is. Last night, when she was gone for so long, I'm sure she was meeting the soldiers. I'm so scared—I'm afraid she's running off now to betray us!"

"Don't be ridiculous, girl! This is pure ill-nature. No more fuss, please. People are looking at us."

I subsided unwillingly.

Perhaps she's right,
I thought.
Perhaps I'm just jealous and suspicious.
I looked up and caught sight of Ritchie, who was sitting with his back to the hollow, his musket across his knees.

"We are a church and a people in an extremity of trouble!" Mr. Renwick cried out, "but the sureness of our Covenant sets our feet upon iron ground. We will not turn aside, neither to the right hand nor to the left!"

At least Ritchie and the boys are keeping watch,
I thought, my anxiety subsiding.
They'll see the Black Cuffs from miles away. They'll see if Annie's meeting up with them. There'll be plenty of warning for us all to get away, if we have to.

Mr. Renwick's tone had changed, and his voice had dropped to a new and terrible pitch. There was no sign of the cough that had racked his chest all through the night.

"Oh, hard-hearted people! Remember that God is a great and a terrible God. A God of revenge on those who sin! Think on this—there is a day coming where you will all be called before his judgment seat, and the question will be asked of each one of you, 'O man! O woman! Why did you do such things against me?' And on that day, how will you answer? Have you failed to keep faith with God and his Covenant? Then he will be revenged! Have you made peace with his enemies? God will be revenged! He will say to you, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed,' and he will cast you into everlasting fire!"

Here it came again, that terrible threat of Hell and fire. For a fleeting moment, I remembered Mr. Lithgow on the mountainside, gazing down at the perfection of a bluebell.

"If God could make all this, why would he bother to make a Hell?" he had said.

I had nearly believed him. I shuddered at the sin I had nearly fallen into. Mr. Renwick knew the truth. I would give my heart and my eyes and my ears and all that I had to Jesus, and stay faithful and true forever, and I would be saved from the fires of Hell.

"Who is on the Lord's side?" Mr. Renwick's voice was cracking with the effort to be heard by those farthest away, above the noise of the waterfall. "Who? There are but two sides, the camp of the Lord and the camp of the enemy. He who is not with us is against us!"

And then came the sounds that I had dreaded—shouts of "Black Cuffs!" from the boys above, and the crackle of musket shot, which made the whole crowd flinch and cower.

For a moment there was mayhem as everyone jumped to their feet, shouted, and milled about, not knowing which way to run. Then Mr. Renwick, his voice calm and unhurried, called out, "Don't be afraid, brothers and sisters! Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall persecution, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors..."

"Aye, well, but there are women and bairns here," a man close to me muttered. He called up to the guards above, "How close are they, lads? How many?"

Before an answer could come, I saw the flash of a red coat in the trees on the far side of the gully, a mere stone's throw away, and then came another terrifying crack as the soldier, steadying himself against a tree, took aim with his musket and fired.

He would have hit Mr. Renwick if the preacher hadn't at that moment bent down to pick up his fallen Bible. The man hid behind the tree to reload his musket. Dandy Fleming, from his high vantage point, had a good sight of him and fired. I saw that the ball had hit its mark, because the soldier toppled forward and, slowly gaining speed, rolled down the slope to splash face-down and motionless in the stream below.

"Well done, Dandy! You've killed the scunner!" one of the lads shouted, but then I noticed nothing more, for the panic all around me swept me up in a great whirl of terror. I wanted to hit out at everyone in front of me and scratch and claw my way out of that narrow place, and I would have lost control completely if Aunt Blair hadn't screeched in my ear, "Take Nanny! Get her home! Go the other way, up the gully and over the top. Martha! Where's Martha?"