The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

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.’

‘This is God’s work, it is God’s work!’ screamed James Cardno. I had not noticed the session clerk until now, but he too was on a platform, at the right hand of the minister, the Reverend Robert Guild. The clerk’s face was alive with the certainty of his moment; all the days he had waited, watched, taken orders, been humiliated, they had all led to this. The fervour of his certainty lent a gleam to his eyes only glimpsed at before.

The provost laughed. ‘God’s work? You’re the Devil’s whore, Cardno. Get down off there before I have you shot.’ The laughter was real, and it was the laughter of derision.

The session clerk stumbled slightly as if the blow had been real. When he righted himself there was a trace of desperation on his countenance and panic in his voice. ‘God is not mocked! Provost or no, you will burn for your blasphemy! She was a witch! Satan has walked and danced these streets. It will be found out! It will be hidden no more!’

Some members of the crowd had given off their own demented medley to follow the exchange between provost and session clerk, and some now took up their cries again, encouraged by Cardno’s maniacal defiance. Others, though, kept a watchful silence, or started to mumble amongst themselves. I watched the minister, and others in the crowd had turned to look at him too. He had stepped back, once, and then again from Cardno, but he could step no further, for he had reached his platform’s edge. He had no option but to face the crowd, and his brother-in-law. The provost now addressed him directly.

‘What say you, minister? It is time to stop this madness. There are whores yet in the town who would satisfy your lusts – you and all your like – without this barbarity. Remember you were once a man of God.’

This was almost too much for the Reverend Guild, but Cardno took it as mother’s milk, waiting for his master to respond in kind. Robert Guild, however, was not the man to answer such a moment. Sweat rolled from his forehead down his fleshy cheeks. His chest heaved with indignation and fury and impotence. Cardno, though, would not allow it. ‘Tell him, minister, tell him what you know: of the sabbaths, the girl Arbuthnott and the provost’s own nephew at the Elf Kirk, of their nakedness, their calling on the dead! Your own nephew, provost! Tell him.’

The crowd had fallen silent now. No voice was raised, and all that could be heard was the relentless burn and crackle of the fire and the corpse at its heart, with the quiet sobbing of Edward Arbuthnott. Eyes moved from the minister to the provost. Walter Watt’s face was contorted in disgust. ‘So this is what you have peddled, this filth. You … you sorry excuse for a man. That I have put up with you for my wife’s sake all these years. You and your perversions. And you lead these poor idiots with you. All to garner yourself a name.’

The minister was shaking his head. ‘No, it is true. It is all true. There are witches abroad in this town. We none of us know which of our neighbours has lain with the Devil, has ridden the besom at his side. This town will pay, we will all pay dear, for this turning from godliness. The storm was the first sign. Beggars and famine and pestilence will be our lot. And invaders,’ he said quietly, but with a sly glance at the provost. ‘The witches must burn!’