The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,64
view. There was already a crowd around the door, and though no one would have been indecent enough to call out noisily or laugh out loud on the Sabbath day, there was an atmosphere of mirth, with nods and winks between the women.
Everyone was wearing shoes and looked fine in their Sunday best. I had carried my shoes until we were almost at the church and only remembered to put them on when Nanny whined for me to pick her up and I needed both my hands. The shoes pinched my feet, but I was pleased to be seen in them. I even enjoyed the clatter they made on the kirk's stone floor.
Uncle Blair had brought folding stools for him and my aunt, and he set them up right in front of the pulpit. Ritchie stayed standing by the door with the other young men. Glancing back at them, I had the oddest feeling that they were forming some kind of guard, though none of them seemed to be armed. Grizel and I sat down on the floor, and Martha climbed into my lap at once, annoying Nanny, who tried to push her away. I could see a storm was brewing between them, and I looked to my aunt for help, but she was rocking Andrew, who was wanting to be fed and grizzling fretfully.
A bustle at the door made everyone look around. Mr. Irving, the minister, was clearly used to his church being empty on a Sunday, and he had halted in astonishment at the sight of people jammed in from wall to wall. A smile of triumph split his gaunt face, and he stalked up to the pulpit.
"You have repented of your sins!" he boomed. "Repented, I say! Your necks, stiffened in treason, have come at last to bow beneath the..." He seemed to lose the thread of what he was saying, as Nanny, infuriated by Martha, swiped at her, unluckily hitting her in the eye, so that Martha howled with pain and rage.
Mr. Irving glared at me, making me tremble with embarrassment.
"Control these children of Beelzebub, or remove them from this place," he snapped. I scrambled to my feet, but Uncle Blair shook his head at me.
"Stay where you are, Maggie. Never mind the children," and to my astonishment he winked at me, his face alight with amusement, before turning to look up innocently again at the minister, who was now struggling to pull a long roll of paper from the pocket of his coat. In his haste, he tore it, and as he tried to hold the pieces together, I could see that he was becoming nervous.
Martha and Nanny were brawling now in an all-out, hair-pulling, nail-scratching fight, and baby Andrew, hungry and upset by the noise, was drawing in a shuddering breath as he built up to a full scream. I was red-faced with shame for them all, but then I realized that the same little scenes were going on all around the church. Small children, unrestrained for once by their parents and inspired by the rowdiness of Martha and Nanny, were quarreling and crying and running about. Not a single baby appeared to have been fed that morning, and they were all screaming in protest. Mr. Irving succeeded at last in holding up his paper. He stood, a stiff black pillar of a man, and began to read.
"For non-attendance at the kirk, Barbour of Barnaigh is fined twenty pounds. Fleming of Whinnerstone..."
The noise was now so terrible that I couldn't hear him, close as I was, and I only knew that he was still speaking by the way his lips were moving. A poppy-red flush of rage was spreading up his neck into his cheeks, and his eyes looked as if they would pop out.
Suddenly, he threw down his paper and slammed his fists down on the edge of the pulpit, making a bang so loud that even the hungriest babies were startled into a moment's silence.
"Quiet, I say! I will have quiet! I will have silence in the house of the Lord!"
But the babies were already screaming again, as if the moment's pause had increased their strength. Mr. Irving took out a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
"Mr. Blair," he said, leaning right down from the pulpit and shouting in my uncle's face, "for decency's sake, sir, these people all respect you. Do something! This riot is blasphemous. The Devil is among us!"
"Of course, Mr. Irving, for decency's sake," said my uncle, nodding