Mine Is the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

frayed, at least my hair is presentable.”
    “Someday I shall stitch you a new dress,” Elisabeth promised, still smoothing a few loose strands of hair in place when the kirk bell began to toll.
    Marjory’s stomach clenched.
Not yet, not yet
.
    “We must away,” Anne cautioned, pulling her cape round her shoulders. “The reverend has little patience with stragglers.”
    Marjory hastily brushed the lint from her skirts, then followed the others down the stair and into the marketplace much too quickly for her comfort.
Help me not be afraid, Lord. Help me not be ashamed
.
    The sky was pale blue, and a faint mist hung in the air. Marjory paused at the mouth of the close, taking it all in. Folk streamed past them on foot and on horseback. Dogs and chickens wandered about as they pleased. Pigs rooted through rubbish piled by the sides of houses, and the cobbled streets had no proper drains. Structures that were new in the sixteenth century were showing their age, with broken shutters and ill-fitting doors.
    Still, this was home. However common the streets and buildings of Selkirk, the rolling countryside beyond the town gates soothed the eye. Standing in the marketplace, Marjory spotted Harehead Hill to the west and Bell Hill to the east. Her old estate was two miles north, where the waters of the Tweed and Ettrick meet. When their carriage had passed Tweedsford en route, she’d looked away, unable to bear the heartache of seeing the home that was no longer hers.
    At Anne’s urging they joined the throng flowing up Kirk Wynd, a narrow cobblestone street edged with two- and three-story houses. People crowded them on every side. A woman dressed in rags limped by, followed by two young lads with a barking collie, and a gray-haired man with rheumy eyes.
    Elisabeth took Marjory’s arm. “Have you spied anyone you know?”
    “Not yet,” Marjory said, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed. No one had caught her eye. No one had called out her name.
    “This way.” Anne tugged them toward a humble dwelling on the right, its yawning door an unspoken invitation. “The Mintos will not object if we slip through their house.”
    Marjory frowned, looking a bit farther up the street. “Has the
pend
leading to the kirk been closed?”
    “Oh, the pend is still there,” Anne said, “but so is the kirk elder, standing at the mouth of it with his collection plate.” She ducked through the doorway of the house, signaling for them to follow.
    Marjory felt only a small measure of guilt for avoiding the man. After all, what could she put in his wooden plate? A loose button? A pebble from the street?
    When Anne thanked Mr. Minto as they entered, he nodded sagely. “Ye canna give what ye dinna have, leddies.”
    The Kerrs hastened through one shabby room after another. Marjory politely bobbed her head at various family members, picturing elegant Lady Minto of Cap and Feather Close in Edinburgh with her richly furnished lodgings. If these Mintos were her relatives, her ladyship had sorely neglected them.
    The same way you neglected Anne?
    Heat flooded Marjory’s cheeks. All those years in Edinburgh she’d never inquired about Anne’s welfare. Even now Marjory had no notion of how her cousin provided for herself.
    “This way.” Anne led them through the back door and into the misty kirkyard, not bothering to see if they were behind her.
    With Elisabeth by her side, Marjory continued uphill toward the parish kirk, built two centuries past, with a tall, square steeple over the arched entranceway. As they drew closer, her eyes widened. What a dreadful state the preaching house was in! The roof sagged as if prepared to give way, the walls were crumbling, and the main door appeared unhinged.
    “Cousin!” Marjory quickened her steps, skirting a row of crooked gravestones. “Is it safe for us to enter?”
    Anne paused to look over her shoulder, her expression grim. “You’d best say a prayer, for ’tis far worse within.”
    Marjory