the hollow.
"No!" I called out, too loudly, making heads around me turn. "Come back, Annie!"
"Be quiet!" Aunt Blair hissed at me furiously. "You're making a spectacle of yourself."
Annie had halted and was looking down at the stream where some of the little boys were squatting on the bank, floating sticks on the water, and watching them spin away down the current. She turned to shake her head at Aunt Blair, as if to say that Martha wasn't there. I knew she was only making a pretense of looking. I began to get up to run after her.
"These are Gospel days!" Mr. Renwick was calling out, "when the high places shall be forsaken, and the cities left desolate, and the towers shall be dens for the wild beasts, until the Spirit of God is poured on us from on high!"
Aunt Blair grabbed at my foot and pulled me down again.
"For goodness' sake, Maggie! This jealousy of yours is too much. I thought even your heart would be softened by Mr. Renwick."
I stared at her.
"Oh, Aunt, I'm not jealous of Annie! I'm afraid of her! She's up to something, I know she is. Last night, when she was gone for so long, I'm sure she was meeting the soldiers. I'm so scared—I'm afraid she's running off now to betray us!"
"Don't be ridiculous, girl! This is pure ill-nature. No more fuss, please. People are looking at us."
I subsided unwillingly.
Perhaps she's right, I thought. Perhaps I'm just jealous and suspicious. I looked up and caught sight of Ritchie, who was sitting with his back to the hollow, his musket across his knees.
"We are a church and a people in an extremity of trouble!" Mr. Renwick cried out, "but the sureness of our Covenant sets our feet upon iron ground. We will not turn aside, neither to the right hand nor to the left!"
At least Ritchie and the boys are keeping watch, I thought, my anxiety subsiding. They'll see the Black Cuffs from miles away. They'll see if Annie's meeting up with them. There'll be plenty of warning for us all to get away, if we have to.
Mr. Renwick's tone had changed, and his voice had dropped to a new and terrible pitch. There was no sign of the cough that had racked his chest all through the night.
"Oh, hard-hearted people! Remember that God is a great and a terrible God. A God of revenge on those who sin! Think on this—there is a day coming where you will all be called before his judgment seat, and the question will be asked of each one of you, 'O man! O woman! Why did you do such things against me?' And on that day, how will you answer? Have you failed to keep faith with God and his Covenant? Then he will be revenged! Have you made peace with his enemies? God will be revenged! He will say to you, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed,' and he will cast you into everlasting fire!"
Here it came again, that terrible threat of Hell and fire. For a fleeting moment, I remembered Mr. Lithgow on the mountainside, gazing down at the perfection of a bluebell.
"If God could make all this, why would he bother to make a Hell?" he had said.
I had nearly believed him. I shuddered at the sin I had nearly fallen into. Mr. Renwick knew the truth. I would give my heart and my eyes and my ears and all that I had to Jesus, and stay faithful and true forever, and I would be saved from the fires of Hell.
"Who is on the Lord's side?" Mr. Renwick's voice was cracking with the effort to be heard by those farthest away, above the noise of the waterfall. "Who? There are but two sides, the camp of the Lord and the camp of the enemy. He who is not with us is against us!"
And then came the sounds that I had dreaded—shouts of "Black Cuffs!" from the boys above, and the crackle of musket shot, which made the whole crowd flinch and cower.
Chapter 23
For a moment there was mayhem as everyone jumped to their feet, shouted, and milled about, not knowing which way to run. Then Mr. Renwick, his voice calm and unhurried, called out, "Don't be afraid, brothers and sisters! Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall persecution, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors..."
"Aye, well, but there are women and bairns here," a