The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,8

in fear.

"A fine!" she whined. "Oh, sir, don't take from a poor old widow woman the little she has and leave her destitute!"

Mr. Robertson held up his hands, as if defeated, and began to back away.

"Hear the psalmist's words, Mistress Elspeth, and if you won't hear me, hear him." And he began to intone, in a surprisingly strong voice, "'Enter his gates and courts with praise, to thank him go ye thither...'" but before he could finish, a gust of wind snatched off his hat and sent it rolling down the lane. He ran after it, with Granny's mocking laughter following him.

"The wind heard you, Mister Minister, blowing the empty air out of your mouth, and it couldn't help joining in!" she said, a little too loudly.

Then, turning back toward the cottage, she let out a shriek. Blackie had wandered in from her pasture and was tearing at the shaggy thatch and turf that hung low off the cottage roof.

"You Devil's bit! You creature of Satan!" she screeched, beating Blackie away from the roof with her fists. The wind must have carried her words along the lane because I saw the minister stop in his tracks with shock, then bend over and hurry on, one hand clamping his hat to his head.

***

Annie appeared that afternoon. She came tripping down from the farm, her shawl pinned under her chin just loosely enough to let the curls escape from it to frame her face. I suppose she thought it pretty that way. I thought her plain silly. She carried a basket on her arm, and I guessed she was on her way to ask for contributions from the neighboring farms for the christening feast.

The christening feast. It occurred to me, as I saw Annie, how odd it was that no news of it had come to us. I remembered, too, that in the past few days Mr. Macbean had spurred his horse to go faster as he passed our cottage. The truth hit me as sharp as a blow.

We've not been invited. I'll not get the chance to hold baby Ebenezer. Everyone else is to go, but not Granny and me.

I was desperate not to believe it. I put up a hand to smooth back my hair, made myself smile, and called out, "Hello, Annie. Where are you away to? How's the baby, anyway?"

She raised her eyebrows when she saw me, in the sneering way she had.

"Eb-e-ne-zer's just fine." She separated out the sounds to make the long name seem even grander. "And I'm fetching eggs from the folks at Ambrismore for the christening."

My fingers curled tightly into my palms.

"The christening, eh? When's that to be?"

"Tomorrow of course. Everyone knows..."

She pretended she had made a mistake and clapped her hand over her mouth, but above her twitching fingers her eyes were dark with malice.

"We couldn't have come, anyway," I said, as carelessly as I could. "Granny's not well."

I couldn't help looking down toward the beach where Granny was bent over, vigorously pulling something out of a clump of seaweed. Luckily, Annie didn't notice.

An idea hit me.

"I've three eggs to spare. I'll give them to you if you like. For the christening."

Three eggs. They were a treasure to us. They'd be enough, surely, to buy us an invitation.

Annie nodded without answering, and I opened the little gate into our yard for her. She was right behind me as I went into the cottage, and turning around I caught a curiously greedy expression on her face.

She thinks it'll be all dirty and messy in here, I thought with disgust, and she wants to spread stories about us.

I was glad that I'd swept the floor that morning, washed the table, and arranged the dishes neatly on the shelf.

"I see you're not fussy about spiders, then," she said at last, pointing triumphantly at the tangle of webs in the corner where the roof beam came down to meet the stone wall.

"Annie, you'd never clear away the spiders' webs?" I was genuinely shocked. "Not when there's a baby in the house?"

"And why wouldn't I? Dirty, creepy things."

I was amazed at her ignorance.

"Don't you know that they're lucky? Don't you know that the spiders spun their webs around the baby Jesus to keep him hidden from the soldiers?"

She looked confused for a moment, then frowned suspiciously.

"Did you read that in the Bible? Oh, I forgot. You can't read, can you?"

"No, but it'll be there." I spoke with a confidence I didn't feel. "It must be. Lucky spiders? Everyone