The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,5

can't read," I said, lifting it back up to him.

"No, Maggie, you can't, but it's time you learned. You should study the Scripture and follow the path of righteousness before that grandmother of yours leads you to Hell and destruction."

I didn't know what to say. Little Robbie had crept close and laid his head down on my lap. I knelt there, stroking his hair and staring up at Mr. Macbean.

"Well," he said, in a kinder tone, "you're a good lass, Maggie, after all. Mind now, that you don't take on the infection of wickedness from Elspeth. She..."

Then came the sounds from the next room we had been waiting for—a final loud cry from Mrs. Macbean and a thin wail from the new baby. Mr. Macbean's face cracked open in a great smile, and I saw a glimpse of something in him that could be good and loving. I'm glad I did, because later all that came from him toward us was hatred and cruelty.

The door of the next room opened, and Granny came out with the new baby in her arms. The children jumped up and ran to look, but she kicked out at them to shoo them away.

"Elspeth," came a weak voice from the bed behind her, "you're a good soul, whatever they say, and you've saved us both. I can never thank you..."

"The basket," Granny said. "The bread and cheese. It won't work without them."

She was looking at Annie, who was standing sulkily by the corner shelf—jealous, I think, of the way the children had taken to me. Annie picked up the basket beside her, putting into it a loaf and a round cheese from the shelf. Impatiently, Granny grabbed it from her, planted the baby on top of the food, and stamping across to the hearth in the middle of the room, she began to swing the basket around and around on the iron hook from which the cauldron usually hung. She was singing something under her breath. The peat fire had died down, and the only light came from a small flame guttering in the oil lamp by the door. It cast Granny's shadow so monstrously on the wall behind her that even I was frightened.

Mr. Macbean darted forward.

"Stop that! How dare you? I won't have devilish practices, not in my house!"

Granny stopped muttering and jerked the basket to a standstill. The baby inside it set up a wail again. I could see that Granny was tired and her head was aching, and the anger that always simmered inside her was ready to break out. Her eyes, red from the drink and lack of sleep, narrowed, and she thrust the basket into Mr. Macbean's hands.

"Take him, then. It was a favor I was doing you, to protect him from evil. You'd best christen him quickly, for by the look of him he'll not be here long."

Mr. Macbean put the basket gently down on the ground and bent to lift his son out of it. As he held him close to his chest, the three other children clustered around him. They looked afraid.

"John, what are you doing? Bring him back to me!" came Mrs. Macbean's weak voice from the next room. "Elspeth, are you still there?"

Ignoring her, Granny picked up her shawl and flung it over her wild gray hair.

"I wish you joy of him, while he lives," she spat out, and without a glance at me flung out of the house into the cold night.

It wasn't until we had stumbled halfway home and the moon, coming suddenly out from behind the clouds, shone a sliver of light over the water of Scalpsie Bay that I remembered the end of the seal story and was glad after all that Mr. Macbean had stopped me from finishing it. The seal mother goes away and never comes back. It would have been a hard thing for wee Robbie to hear just then.

Perhaps it was the Devil that put the story into my head, to torment those poor children, I thought with a shudder. And to be on the safe side, I chanted to myself, "Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil," all the way home.

Dawn was on its way by then, and a gray wet dawn it was too. It didn't break, as the saying goes, but slithered up upon the land and sea in a misty, ghostly way.

I was ahead of Granny as we reached the cottage, and I jumped with fright because the door of Blackie's