The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

by Shona MacLean

  Duncan made little conversation and that suited me well. His only comment was that he had not been out on this road since he had gone to Banff with the master to fetch back his bride, and that that had turned out well enough. The pony’s pace was steady but slow, and it was into the afternoon before we stopped at Fyvie to rest the beasts and take some refreshment. Elizabeth had packed two baskets – for us, the other for Sarah. There were chicken legs and eggs and cheese, and wheaten scones spread with marmalade, and flasks of good ale. Duncan, a fine Presbyterian, muttered at the excess, and at the numbers of the hungry such a feast would feed. I helped myself to two chicken legs and eyed the third enviously, wondering what poor soul met on the road would have that to his supper on the old fellow’s return journey. He watched accusingly as I put a second slice of apple pie to my mouth. I pretended not to notice.

  We finally reached King Edward as the late afternoon light began to lose its warmth and turn a colder grey, portending dusk. Duncan had instructions from his master to take lodgings in Turriff before dark if it could be done, and not to think of attempting to finish the journey back to Aberdeen by night. Rarely can a warning have been less needful: the old man would never have been so foolish. We went first to the manse, where to my relief I found that the minister was at home. His wife offered us food, of course, but Duncan, thanking the mistress profusely, said we had dined to our fill, and that a drink of water for ourselves and the pony was all that was needed. I had changed my horse at Turriff, and was now once again on Gilbert Grant’s mount. Duncan warmed himself in a seat by the fire while I was shown through to the minister’s spartan study.

  Hamish MacLennan was tall and spare and learned-looking. As we entered at his call, he was standing at the window with a small book in his hands. I recognised it, for it was an identical edition to that I and all teachers used with our children: Craig’s Shorter Catechism. His wife announced me and, nodding in my direction, he invited me to sit down.

  ‘I am sorry to have interrupted you in your work,’ I said.

  ‘I am always at my work. Here in my study, out in the parish, in the kirk, in my every solitude. My life is in my calling.’

  I did not know how to respond and he saw my discomfort.

  ‘I meant no criticism of yourself, Mr Seaton. It is the Lord who judges all.’ He paused for a moment in contemplation of this thought, and I wondered how it was that the town of Banff had to endure the self-serving mediocrity that was the Reverend Guild while this poor country parish was so blessed in its minister. MacLennan might almost have forgotten I was there, but his wife, who had not yet left, called me back to his attention.

  ‘Hamish, Mr Seaton has a favour he would ask of you. For myself, I hope that you might feel able to grant it him.’ Thus having said, she left us to our business.

  MacLennan smiled now, and there was warmth in his austere face. ‘I am intrigued,’ he said. ‘My wife is not a woman who asks for favours, for herself or even others. Please tell me what it is you want.’

  And so I told him of Sarah Forbes. He listened without interruption, once or twice nodding as I spoke. Occasionally, he would look up sharply, and I knew on what points I would be questioned when I had finished. When I had indeed finished, he got up and stood in front of the empty fireplace. The evening was now drawing on and the room was cold, but I had met many men of such frugal habits and self-denial, and it did not surprise me that Hamish MacLennan was one of them. Now he drew a deep breath and began slowly. ‘I think, in all, what you propose is a good thing, and I will do what is in my power to have it effected, but there are one or two things I would know first.’

  And so he asked me all the questions I had known he would ask. He asked first of all, although he asserted he already believed he knew what the answer was, whether I was the father of Sarah Forbes’s baby. I told him I was not, and he lingered no longer on that matter. He asked next about the character of William Cargill, and of his wife, and of the soundness of their marriage and the nature of his household. I told him of William’s respectability, of his kindness, his reliability, his firmness of purpose and his fine mind. I told him of Elizabeth’s joyfulness, her loyalty and her zeal for hard work, and of the fondness she had evoked in his own good sister-in-law and in her husband, Gilbert Grant. I asked that Duncan might be called in, to give testimony as to the nature of his master’s household. It was allowed, and I watched in wonder as these two godly men, one of great learning and the other of little, conversed without dissemblance on the topic, and with mutual respect. The minister shook the servant’s hand and asked God’s blessing on him before dismissing him. He read again the letter from William that I had brought him.

  ‘And they will let her take the child, too. They are indeed good people, I think, and it will go better for the child that way, much better. Sarah is strong, and God willing, if she can be got away from under her uncle’s roof, she and her child will remain so. She will manage the two bairns well enough.’ He folded the letter. ‘It was a blessing on her, the day you met her on your way to visit your friend.’

  ‘And on me also,’ I said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because I do not remember the last time I was called to be an instrument of good and answered that call.’

  He looked at me for a long moment. ‘We are all sinners, but the Lord gives it to us to do good. Like Jonah, we often flee from His presence before we will submit to answering His call, and yet the Lord does not turn His face from us for ever.’ He smoothed the front cover of the small book of catechism, still in his hand. ‘What is taught to the bairns would be well remembered by us all.’

  In little more than ten minutes, Hamish MacLennan, minister of King Edward in the Presbytery of Turriff, had written a testimonial of Sarah Forbes to the kirk session of St Nicholas in Aberdeen. He testified that she claimed her present condition to be the result of a vicious and scandalous assault at the hands of her former master in Banff, and that he, Hamish MacLennan, firmly believed this to be the truth of the matter. He asserted that she had fulfilled the penance and punishment laid upon her by the kirk session of Banff, and he enclosed with his own the letter from the kirk session of Banff to that effect. He petitioned that the session of St Nicholas and magistrates of Aberdeen might raise no objection to the employment of Sarah Forbes by Mr William Cargill, lawyer in Aberdeen, as a servant in his home.

  He did not seal the letter but took it open in his hand and bade me, Duncan and his wife accompany him to the croft of Sarah Forbes’s uncle. The minister’s wife refused a ride on the cart that Duncan brought now ready for the journey away from King Edward, and strode purposefully at her husband’s side. It was not long before worn footpaths gave way to rough ground, and eventually, a miserable effort at cultivation. We reached the mean dwelling at the outer edge of the parish which, I quickly understood, was all the home Sarah Forbes knew.

  A dirty face, a woman’s, looked out at what passed for a window at the approaching party and hastily withdrew, pulling fast the flimsy wooden shutter. A man, small and gaunt with roving, distrustful eyes, appeared in the doorway. He offered no greeting but waited, shifting uneasily until the minister was within ten feet of the house.

  ‘I have done nothing, Mr MacLennan, whatever William West will tell you. I was too ill to be at the kirk yesterday in time of sermon. I could scarce stand.’

  ‘Nothing? Your drunken roar and brawling were heard at the manse itself on the eve of the Sabbath. But that is a matter for the session; I am here concerning your wife’s niece.’

  The man yelled for the aunt, uttering harsh words about the girl. The minister’s wife favoured him with a look of scathing contempt, then turned, more gently, to the woman who had now appeared at the door. ‘Where is your niece, Anna?’

  The woman came forward, past her husband, pleading. ‘She is not a bad girl, Mistress Youngson. Please, she has not gone beyond our toft in four days. She feared to go to the kirk yesterday for the shame …’ But the woman was interrupt
ed as Sarah Forbes emerged behind her. To my confusion, I felt my heart beat faster at the sight of her. Her face had grown paler in the last few days, and there were circles of darkness beneath her eyes, but there was something in those eyes still that spoke to me. She appeared somewhat startled at seeing me, but recovered herself well enough and addressed herself to the minister. ‘I am here, Mr MacLennan. Please tell me your business.’

  And he did. He told her of William Cargill and his wife Elizabeth, of their need for a servant and their coming need for a nurse. She listened to all and then looked enquiringly at me.

  ‘William Cargill is my friend,’ I said. ‘I have known him many years. He is a good and kind man. His wife was kitchen maid in the schoolhouse of Banff. She will be a good mistress.’ I turned to Duncan at this point and he nodded his assent. ‘And they will take the child in also. It will be a good home for you both. Will you go?’

  ‘I will,’ she said.

  It did not take five minutes for Sarah Forbes to gather her belongings – the same bundle she had carried from Banff, only the precious shawl now added to it. Her aunt gave her hand a squeeze as she passed through that doorway for the last time, and Sarah bent a little to kiss the cheek of her dead mother’s sister. While Duncan steadied the pony, I helped Sarah Forbes up onto the cart. William’s servant looked at me suspiciously, but said nothing. Some mischief must have been in me, for just before I mounted my own horse, I whispered in his ear, ‘The bairn is not mine, you know.’

  He continued to busy himself about the bridle. ‘Aye, well, it could have done worse, I dare say.’

  Before she turned towards the road that would take her away from here for good, Sarah Forbes looked at me and her lips opened to mouth a silent ‘Thank you.’ The word echoed through the breeze and carried me the six miles home, to Banff.

  I could feel the nearness of the sea long before I saw it, but there was something else in the air of the falling dusk too. There was fear. As I headed the brae at Doune Hill and started to descend down by the Gellymill, I saw a thick pall of smoke rising from the heart of Banff itself. I could hear nothing, nothing but the sound of God’s retiring creation around me, but the wind was changing, and soon it would bring the smell of that smoke into my very nostrils.

  I was in luck that the ferry had not yet put up for the night and I would not have to spend it in the ferryman’s mean hut on the east bank of the Deveron. It was one of Paul Black’s sons who had the watch that night. I hailed him across the river and he came slowly to his feet and stood looking at me for a while before going to untie the boat. Even at this distance across the river mouth I fancied I sensed some reluctance in him to come across for me. When he finally came to the shore on the other side he did not look at me.

  ‘It is Martin, is it not?’

  ‘Aye, Mr Seaton,’ he replied in a low voice, still avoiding my eye.

  ‘What is the matter? What is happening in the town tonight?’

  He made no reply.

  ‘Martin, come, you know me. Whatever they say, you need have no fear of me.’

  Now he looked at me. ‘It is not you, Mr Seaton, it is … the town. Everything has gone wrong in the town. I think,’ he hesitated before continuing, ‘I think we have been damned.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  His eyes glazed over and he seemed to look past me, at nothing. ‘Marion Arbuthnott is dead, by her own hand. Her body lies at Dr Jaffray’s.’

  I spent some effort in persuading him to ferry me back to the other side. The coining I handed him once the beast and I had disembarked fell from his hand to the ground, but I could not tarry any longer over Martin Black. I mounted Gilbert Grant’s poor horse and sped him into a gallop, books and all, towards the town. Within minutes I was at Jaffray’s door. Tying the beast hastily in the stableyard I hammered on the back door, but to no avail. I ran round to the front, but was not answered there either. I pushed the door open – it was not on the bolt – and went, calling out for the doctor, to his surgical room. Ishbel came stumbling to meet me, her face streaked with tears. I pushed past her into the room. All was in disarray. Glass bottles smashed on the floor, a chair turned over and broken, instruments strewn across the work table and desk and onto the floor, and a bloodied winding sheet trailing from the table on which I knew he laid the dead. The stable boy was trying to make some order in the chaos. In the midst of it all sat the doctor, his clothing torn, an angry gash on his cheek. He stared blankly ahead of him.

  My voice was hoarse. ‘Jaffray. What in the name of God has happened here?’

  He shook his head and slowly looked up at me. ‘Hell has been here, Alexander. Hell has been here tonight. They have taken her, taken her poor dead body from this room, from that table, and burnt her for a witch.’ His head sank forward. Tears of utter despair rolled down his cheeks.

  ELEVEN

  Concerning Witches

  The ashes still blew about the early morning marketplace. All was quiet. The images and sounds that had haunted me through the night were gone now, altogether gone. Alone, at the bottom of the sodden, lifeless pyre, crouched Edward Arbuthnott. He had no cloak or hat about him, and the wind blew through his clothing without remorse. He held his head in black-streaked hands and the tears still flowed down his cheeks. I walked over to him, conscious of the sound of my footfalls amongst the pools and ashes.

  ‘Come, Edward, she is not here. She was never here.’

  The apothecary glanced up at me and slowly shook his head as if I did not understand. ‘They took her; they burnt her. My own girl, my princess. They burnt her here. Black.’

  I took off my cloak and wrapped it around him. ‘She was gone, her soul long gone before they took her from Jaffray’s. She will be buried decently in the kirkyard. They will not triumph over her.’

  ‘In truth?’

  ‘In truth,’ I said.

  ‘And I can take her flowers there.’ He did not resist as I eased him to his feet. He shuffled uncomplainingly forward, like an old woman with no more interest in this world. I would not take him home yet: the hysterics of his wife would be no comfort, do no good to him, and the sight of him in such a condition might well finish her.

  Where were the people, all the people who, on any other weekday morning, would have been here? There was not a soul to be seen but myself and my broken companion, and where there was usually bustle and human warmth there was now just silence and desolation. I glanced up at the town clock as I guided Arbuthnott away from the market cross and towards the schoolhouse and Mistress Youngson’s welcoming kitchen. The provost could wait on our meeting, on the letters in my bag another hour or two; I doubted whether he had yet had leisure to remember me or my business in these last days. Certainly, the man I had seen last night rise above the fury of the flames would have little thought of maps or painters.

  I had heard the baying of the crowd long before I had seen it. As I ran from Jaffray’s door towards the marketplace, I had felt not that I was getting closer to the mob but it to me. The smell first and then the heat of it wrapped around my throat and stung my eyes as the relentless clamour for the flesh of its victim grew louder in my ears. And when I turned the corner to face the market cross the sight before me froze me where I stood. It was a vision of Hell that John Knox himself could not have conjured. The people of Banff had become one heaving mass of thick, blackened clothes, red-glowing faces, some alive with spittle and foaming at the mouth in their excitement, eyes gleaming and glinting with a desire that was not of God’s sending. The mass, consumed with its own success, pressed in on itself as the eagerness for its prey rose. There was a chanting, a rising chanting, and beyond it shrieking and screaming, worse than the gulls. Through it all there pierced an inhuman wailing, issuing from the throat of Marion Arbuthnott’s father. Gilbert Grant and some other decent men held him back from cleaving to his child as she burned. And she did burn. High, high above the heads of the crowd that fed upon her, her body, naked, the skin of the girl who had been so
white as to be almost a ghost in life, burned to a dark and broken black, a gnarled, dry, unspeakable black, the hair on her singeing and crackling and curling and melting, the dead mouth open in a silent scream.

  Disgust and horror overwhelmed me. My first instinct was to run from it, but I could not move. My feet were rooted to the ground and I could do nothing but stare, transfixed, at the terror. An arm grabbed mine and shook me from the stupor of revulsion. ‘Alexander! Thank God you are returned safe. Come, man, we must end this.’ Thomas Stewart, the town notary, was dragging me with him around the side of the crowd to the steps of the tolbooth. It was then that I saw Walter Watt. He was there, shouting instructions to the town serjeants and to the laird of Banff’s men who had been put at his disposal. Some other burgesses I saw too there, who had not succumbed to the clamour of the witch-mongers. Of the baillie there was no sign. The town serjeant was throwing out pistols to the men of the watch as the laird’s men drew their own. I, and some others, were handed swords and clubs. Thomas Stewart shouted to us that we were to circle round the crowd, no further one from the other than the length of a man’s arm with outstretched sword. It was hard to hear over the noise of the fire at its sickening work and the rising hysteria of the mob, yet within a short while, the ring was in place. And then a shot rang through the air. Walter Watt stood atop the scaffold cart, the moon now at its fullest clear behind him, the smoke from his pistol rising into the yellow darkness of the night. His eyes shone through the flames and his voice was clear above the clamour. ‘Get back, you curs, you filthy rabble. What court is this? I have your names, every one. You will never work another day, nor sleep another night in this burgh if you do not leave off this Devil’s work!’ He swung his arm, his pistol arm, towards the tolbooth. ‘You will all sweat there before this night is through.’