fight for?”
Marjory looked round, her vision blurring. Must she confess the rest? Or could she tell Reverend Brown in private and let word travel on its own? Nae, there was no honor in that. The Almighty had not brought her home so she might hide.
Thou art with me. Aye, she was certain of it.
Marjory stood taller, lifting her head not with pride but with confidence. “My sons fought for a cause they believed in,” she said as bravely as she could. “Prince Charlie’s cause, the Stuart cause. Call it what you like, my sons embraced it. And died for it.”
A collective gasp filled the sanctuary. Then the shouting began. She’d heard all the words before. Rebels. Jacobites. Traitors.
When their angry retorts threatened to drown her response, she held up her hands, praying her voice might remain strong and her courage fast. “The king agrees with you,” she assured the crowd, bringing their tirade to a swift end. “On Monday last my late son Donald was declared attainted. Our family title was revoked. And Tweedsford was forfeited to the Crown.”
If the walls had toppled onto them, the congregation could not have looked more shocked.
All held their tongues but one. “Noo ye’re not so high and michty, are ye, Mistress Kerr?”
“I am not,” she told the young man who glared at her beneath the brim of his dirty cap.
She knew it was not King George who’d humbled her. Nae, it was the One who loved her.
With tears spilling down her cheeks, Marjory lifted his sacred words to the farthest reaches of the sanctuary. “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away.” She swallowed her pride, her fear, her shame. “Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Seven
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail,
the poor man’s day.
JAMES GRAHAME
lisabeth gazed down at her mother-in-law, her heart near to bursting. How brave you are, dear Marjory.
“Shall you preach this morn’s sermon, Mrs. Kerr?” a male voice thundered.
They both turned to find the parish minister glaring at them from his lofty pulpit. A tall, stooped man of perhaps seventy years, he wore a plain black robe and a stern expression.
Marjory quickly recovered, drying her tears. “Forgive me, Reverend Brown. I only meant—”
“Oh, I heard every word,” he said evenly. “Glory to God, aye. But no respect for our sovereign king.” His scowl remained in place as he called forth the precentor to lead the gathering psalm. “We shall speak later in private, Mrs. Kerr,” the reverend said, his sharp tone brooking no argument. “You have disrupted the Sabbath enough as it is.”
Marjory lowered her gaze, though Elisabeth could see her mother-in-law dreaded the prospect of meeting with the reverend. In a parish with the Duke of Roxburgh for its patron, unswerving loyalty to King George was expected, if not demanded. Might the Kerrs be banished from the kirk? Driven from the parish? Or would the tolbooth in the marketplace, with its irons and stocks, have two new prisoners before the week was out?
Stop it, Bess. She tamped down her fears, reminding herself they served no useful purpose. Had the Lord not kept them safe thus far?
While the congregation moved to their seats, Elisabeth swiftly brushed the debris from the Kerr pew, thinking to spare Anne’s moss green gown. Their own black dresses were already soiled.
Soon the precentor appeared. “William Armstrong,” Marjory said under her breath, joining Elisabeth on the pew with Anne beside her.
A thin, nervous sort of man with wiry gray hair and spindles for arms, Mr. Armstrong shuffled to the desk where the Psalter lay open and waiting. He shook out the sleeves of his robe, adjusted his spectacles, and peered down at the psalms, translated into a common meter and rhyme for worship.
Elisabeth looked beyond the sagging roof to the heavens above as the precentor duly sang each line, then paused while the congregation responded in unison.
My soul with expectation
depends on God indeed;
My strength and my salvation doth
from him alone proceed.
The truth of those words filled her like a fresh wind. Elisabeth sang out with her whole heart, not caring if heads turned or tongues wagged. She knew the Almighty and was known by him. She trusted him, depended upon him. Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
To think she’d once found solace in worshiping the moon! Like her Highland mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother before her, Elisabeth had prayed on the sixth day of the moon, recited meaningless words to a nameless god, and clasped a silver ring she no longer owned. Those days were well