The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (37 page)

A woman standing by me cried out, "Well done, George my man! The Lord is with you!"

Then she fell sobbing into the arms of another.

I listened with every nerve straining to hear my uncle's name.

"William McMillan. Peter Russell. Robert Young..."

The crowd by the window was shifting. Those whose relatives had refused the Test and been sentenced to banishment had already drifted away. They stood by the edge of the quay, talking quietly.

"Was that Hugh Blair? Did they call out Hugh Blair?" I called up to the man at the window.

He waved a hand to silence me.

"Shhh. I can't hear. No, it's John Blackburn. He's broken! He's taken the Test!"

A man emerged from the courtroom a few moments later, rubbing his wrists from which the manacles had been struck off.

"Bessie!" he called out. "Are you there? Bessie! I can't—I couldn't—Oh,G od helpm e!"

A woman ran up to him. As she passed the others, they turned their backs on her.

"You should be ashamed," a man called out. "You have betrayed your Savior!"

The woman called Bessie turned on him fiercely.

"Hold your tongue, Simon Ballingall! Hasn't the man suffered enough? Come away, John. The children are waiting for you."

Hostile muttering broke out as she led him away. He was weeping uncontrollably, like a child.

I twisted my hands together. Which was the worse fate? Banishment and slavery, or shame? I couldn't bear the thought of either for Uncle Blair.

The long afternoon wore on. Several more distraught men and a few women slunk out of the courtroom and hurried away to freedom. One or two, with rich friends behind them, paid for a bond and were freed with honor, but it was clear that most of the prisoners were refusing the Test and accepting their fate with defiance.

They must have called him,
I thought.
I must have missed hearing his name.

In spite of myself, I felt a surge of pride. Only those who had taken the Test had been let go. He must be one of the brave ones.

There were only a few of us now, under the window. The man on the barrel had gone. I scrambled up in his place and could at last see inside the courtroom.

The judge, under his heavy robes with a great wig on his head, was red-faced and sweating in the heat of the close-packed, stuffy room. He was taking frequent gulps from the wineglass by his elbow and was clearly tired and impatient with the slow proceedings. Below me, the prisoners who had already refused the Test were standing under close guard, but their backs were turned to me and I couldn't see their faces, or tell if Uncle Blair was among them. The ones still to be tried were out of sight.

In front of the judge's great chair was a row of clerks sitting at a table. Some were scratching away with their quills, but the one at the far end was holding what looked like a list. And leaning over him, stabbing at a name on the list with his forefinger, was Musketeer Sharpus. The clerk was shaking his head. Musketeer Sharpus whispered in his ear. The clerk hesitated, then picked up his quill and drew a line through one of the names. Musketeer Sharpus stepped back, and as he did so he glanced up at the window and saw me. A tight smile creased his pitted cheeks, which he quickly suppressed, but then he gave me an unmistakable wink.

I didn't dare to interpret what I'd seen, but a flower of hope burst open in my chest.

"What's happening in there? Have they called Janet Holm yet?" a man below me asked.

"Look for yourself if you like," I said, hopping off the barrel.

A quarter of an hour later, my uncle suddenly appeared at the courtroom door, chafing his wrists as the others had done.

He broke. He said it,
I thought, my heart illogically dropping with disappointment.

Then I saw that Musketeer Sharpus was pushing him forward.

"I keep telling you, man. Your name's not on the list. You're free to go," he was saying.

Uncle Blair was shaking his head, bewildered.

"But the Test! I haven't been called yet. How can I be free?"

Musketeer Sharpus prodded him sharply.

"That's enough. You're wasting the court's time. Get out of here."

Musketeer Sharpus beckoned me over.

"Take this man away, for Heaven's sake," he said loudly. "He's making a nuisance of himself." Then he leaned over and said quietly in my ear, "Will you be in Edinburgh tomorrow?"

I hadn't dared to think so far ahead.

"I suppose so. Is he really free to go?"

"Yes! But take him away quickly! Meet me at six in the evening, at the door of the High Kirk. I'd like to tell you ... I need to ask you..."

He looked down, unable to meet my eyes.

Another guard was coming to the door.

"Come on, Uncle," I said, tugging at Uncle Blair's arm. "It's over. It really is over! Quick, let's go before they change their minds and call you back inside."

***

It was the strangest thing, to be walking freely beside my uncle out of the town of Leith and up the hill to Edinburgh. The hot August sun was tempered by a cool wind from the sea, which sparkled in the distance. Larks rose from the stubble in the harvested fields. Ahead, a golden mist was forming around the crown of Arthur's Seat, which rose on the far side of the city. I had the oddest feeling that I had left Hell behind me and was walking up to Heaven.

"Isn't this wonderful?" I burst out, facing my uncle again. "You can go home, Uncle! You're free! And there's no shame to you. They never asked you. You didn't betray anyone."

I saw with dismay that he didn't share my joy. He had stopped to lean against a wall.

"I must sit for a minute." He sank down on the bank. "How did this happen, Maggie? Why did they let me go? I didn't offer money for a bond. I couldn't have afforded it."

I longed to tell him what I suspected, that Musketeer Sharpus had persuaded the clerk to take his name off the list, but I held my tongue. I didn't understand myself why he would have done such a thing, and, anyway, I thought it would be dangerous to let Uncle Blair probe too closely. His tender conscience might oblige him to return to Leith and give himself back into custody. I said nothing and waited to see which way his mind would turn.

"This is the Lord's doing," he said at last, to my relief. "But why have I been singled out for this great blessing? Why has he chosen me for freedom and sent my poor brethren far away into foreign lands?"

I saw that I didn't need to answer. He was lost in his own thoughts.

"I'll never know!" he cried out. "I can never be sure!"

"What do you mean, Uncle? What won't you know?"

He sighed.

"As I stood there in that awful place, waiting for my name to be called, I was in such an agony of spirit, Maggie. I heard the voice of my Savior urging me to be faithful even unto death, but at the same time I could see the face of my dear wife, calling me home. My courage was weakening. I saw several fail and submit, and in my heart I despised them. But would I have been one of them? If I had stood before that proud and sinful judge, the instrument of our cruel king, would I have had the courage to stand firm?"

"Well," I said briskly, jumped to my feet and putting a hand under his elbow to help him rise. "If God had wished you to be put to the Test, he would have let it happen. But he has freed you, and you should be glad and rejoice."

He gave me a wavering smile.

"Oh, my dear, how wise you are! How easy it is to forget to offer praise and thanks to our Heavenly Father for the blessings he showers upon us!"

"And, anyway," I went on. "We'd better keep going, because we have to find somewhere to lodge tonight."

I didn't tell him that I'd spent the last of my Dunnottar earnings and had handed the rest of Tam's money in payment to Musketeer Sharpus for the food he'd helped me procure along the way. I knew what I had to do. After all this time, when I'd held on to it through thick and thin, the moment had come to sell my father's buckle.

But Uncle Blair surprised me by saying tranquilly, "We'll have no difficulty over lodging. I have a cousin who lives in Bells Wynd. He'll be pleased to take us in."

I was startled. A cousin of my uncle's must be a cousin of mine. My family was unexpectedly expanding once again.

I was so intrigued by the idea of these new relations that I gave no thought to the problem of how we were to get in through the city gates until we were almost at them. But I need not have worried. No papers were being asked for, now that the invasion panic was over.

Uncle Blair surprised me by walking straight up the High Street of Edinburgh and turning into a narrow close without hesitation.

"You've been here before?" I asked.

"Aye, in my youth. When my father—that was your grandfather—died, I had to come here to sort out the title to Ladymuir. It's a fine city, no doubt, but awfully stinky."

We had to flatten ourselves against the wall of the narrow canyon-like close to let a couple of laden packhorses squeeze past.

My grandfather!
I thought.
Another relative!

"And your mother," I said. "What was she like?"

I'd never thought of my other grandmother. Granny had been more than enough for me.

He seemed to find the question difficult.

"She was a good woman," he said at last. "She loved the Scriptures. She spared not the rod on her children." He smiled suddenly. "Your father, Danny, he was a rascal. She never managed to beat the spirit out of him. A rover, he was, by nature. Full of mischief. I miss him to this day."

The horses had passed by now. We went on down the close, trying to avoid the worst of the putrefying slime under our feet. Uncle Blair turned in through a low entrance, and I followed him, hardly noticing the narrow stone stairway we were climbing.

Uncle Blair knocked on a door. It swung open. A short, red-faced woman stood gaping at him, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Hugh!" she said at last. "What brings you here? We heard you'd been taken prisoner."

She was looking anxiously past him as if she feared to see a cohort of Black Cuffs at his heels. Her eyes came to rest on me.

"Praise the Lord, Sarah," said Uncle Blair cheerfully. "I'm a free man. He has delivered me from the pit and the miry clay. And this your wee cousin Maggie. Danny's daughter."

"Danny!" Sarah's face lit up. "I heard he had a daughter. I can't believe she's grown up already. Come away in, dear, and let me see you. There's a look of your father, maybe, around the eyes." She turned to call over her shoulder. "Thomas! You'll never guess who's here!"

***

They were kind people, Cousin Thomas and Cousin Susan, but they made little impression on me. They were more concerned with their tailoring business than with matters of religion. They were alarmed at first to be harboring one of the notorious covenanting prisoners of Dunnottar, but when Uncle Blair explained that he'd been freed and that no more charges stood against him, they were reassured. They listened, horrified, to his account of the prison vault, tutted over his hands, deplored the state of his clothing, then moved the subject on as if to dwell on such things was somehow indecent.

"You're not the first I've heard of, to slip out of their clutches," Cousin Thomas said with a nod. "There's quite a few who have passed money into the right hands and have been let go. There's a price for everything, if you know how to go about it. How much did the Laidlaws pay to free their brother, Sarah?"

They began to discuss the price of freedom as if it was a length of woolen cloth. Uncle Blair sat by in polite silence, but I could see that the conversation troubled him as the puzzle of his release weighed on him again.

I didn't know how late it was, but through the narrow window I could see that the shadows were lengthening toward sunset. Cousin Sarah was busy at the table, rolling out the oatcakes for our supper. I tugged at Uncle Blair's sleeve.

"There's a person who helped me that I promised to call on when I came back to Edinburgh. May I go out, Uncle? I won't be long."

Uncle Blair nodded, but Cousin Sarah raised her eyebrows. Before she could say anything, I had fled down the stairway and was running up the close.

Musketeer Sharpus was waiting for me. He stepped out of the High Kirk's great doorway so suddenly that I was startled. I'd been trying to frame my gratitude into suitable words, but at the sight of him I found I couldn't say anything. He was ill at ease, and under my gaze his face was turning an uncomfortable shade of red.

"I don't know how to thank—" I began.

"I did it for—" he said at the same time.

We both stopped and there was an awkward silence.

"Listen," I said, seeing that he was tongue-tied. "I saw through the window that you were talking to the clerk. It was you, wasn't it, who got my uncle's name taken from the list?"

"Yes." Beads of sweat were breaking out under the wisps of greasy fair hair that fell over his forehead, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "It was for you. I did it for you. You got under my skin. I never knew anyone like you. Any girl. I gave the clerk all the rest of the old man's money. Thirty silver shillings! He struck a hard bargain."

"You're a good man," I said lamely.

He grabbed my hand and held it. His hand was trembling and clammy with sweat.

"Maggie," he said. "Maggie."

I was feeling more and more uncomfortable. I wanted to pull my hand away, but I was fearful of appearing ungrateful.

"I'm a soldier," he said. "I haven't got much, just a bit put by. But I'd leave the army. My father's a stonemason. I'd work with him. Get a little place of our own."

He stopped. Gently, I pulled my hand away.

"Will you?" he said desperately. "Will you?"

"I can't. I'm sorry." I was scarlet myself now with embarrassment. "But I'll never forget you, Musketeer Sharpus."

"Neil. Call me Neil."

"All right, then. Neil. I'll be thankful to you forever, for what you did. I'll pray for you."

He crossed his arms over his chest as if to draw his feelings back into himself.

"I knew it wouldn't be any good. I knew I didn't have a chance with a girl like you."