The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,42
moving about inside. I had slipped off my girls' clothes and belted my father's plaid around me again, fixing the buckle in place with a defiant look at Annie. She had hardly been able to stop herself laughing at the way I was dressed, but she caught my eye and dropped her gaze. I strode ahead with my newfound boy's freedom, while Annie tripped daintily across the expanse of grass and bog reed, holding her skirt up to keep it out of the mud.
Tam kept looking over his shoulder.
"Will you hurry up now, Annie," he kept saying. "There might be other men along any minute with their cows."
It was dark inside the windowless bothy, and it took me a moment to make out the two men. The younger one was stirring a pot over the fire. The older one stood quietly, studying Annie.
"You don't take after your father," he said, looking her up and down with a frown. She had tilted her head charmingly to one side and was smiling up at him.
"You've got the wrong lassie, Archie," Tam said, pushing me forward. "This is Maggie."
I felt Mr. Lithgow's eyes on me and knew that a blush was rising in my cheeks. I didn't like to think how I must look, with my boy's plaid and my legs showing bare beneath my knees. But the leathery skin around his eyes crinkled into a smile.
"You're a boy now? Good. Much better. And you're not afraid of a long journey and the rain and sleeping in the open? Wading through rivers?"
"A bit, but I'll do my best."
"Good," he said again.
He nodded to the other man, who handed me a wooden bowl filled with porridge and a horn spoon.
I moved away into the shadows, ashamed to let them see how eagerly I was gobbling down the food. The light from the open door fell on Mr. Lithgow's face. He was frowning at Annie.
"Oh, Mr. Lithgow," she said, before he could speak. "I'm so grateful to you for taking me. I'll be ever so helpful. I can cook and wash your clothes and—and—" Her eyes fell on the black-and-white collie dog lying silently by the fire, looking up at her with his snout resting on his forepaws. "And look after the dogs," she finished lamely.
"That's what you can do, is it?" Mr. Lithgow said. "Well, there's no call for finicky clothes-washing on a drove. The rain and the river crossings see to that. Peter Boag here cooks up the porridge. And if you were to interfere with the dogs, you'd be away on your own, out of my drove, out of my way."
Annie's lips tightened in disappointment but just then a call came from outside. Mr. Lithgow's face darkened.
"I thought we had the full complement," he muttered. "Here's a chancer wanting a last-minute bargain price."
He stepped out of the bothy.
"Glad I caught you, Archie," came a voice that laid a hand of ice on me. I stood frozen, the last spoonful of porridge suspended in midair. "I've three prime animals here for the market at Dumbarton. What price must I give you for taking them?"
It was Mr. Lamont, the man who had sent my granny to her death and condemned me to the gallows too.
Annie had clapped her hand over her mouth. Tam pursed his lips in a silent whistle and melted back into a dark corner of the bothy. Peter Boag, his face impassive, stood up and walked outside to join Mr. Lithgow.
"What'll I do? He'll find me!" whispered Annie loudly.
"Will you shut up!" I mouthed at her.
The men outside were bargaining. They came to an agreement, sealed with a slap of a handshake, and then we heard the squelch and suck of mud as Mr. Lamont's three cows crossed a patch of bog to join the rest of the herd grazing peacefully by the water's edge.
"When are you off?" Mr. Lamont was asking pleasantly.
"Soon," said Mr. Lithgow. "The tide is low at eight. The ferryman will be rowing up now. He'll be here shortly."
"I'll just wait and watch the crossing," Mr. Lamont said. "A fine sight, I'm sure, and one I've never witnessed."
I held my breath during the silence that followed.
"You can watch all you like," Mr. Lithgow said at last, "but not from here, if you please. The dogs are fussed by strangers when they're working. If you'll kindly retire to the far edge of the stance, beyond that stone wall, you'll see all you want to."