A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [247]
Jamie and Roger both leapt in to try to stifle him, but instead interrupted each other, and in the confusion, Hiram was allowed to go on speaking his mind, which he did. So did Mrs. Wilson, who was no slouch at invective, either.
The pulse in her belly was throbbing under my hand, and I was hard put to it to keep her from leaping off the table and dotting Hiram with the bottle of whisky. The neighbors were agog.
Roger took matters—and Mrs. Wilson—firmly into his own hands, seizing her by her scrawny shoulders.
“Mrs. Wilson,” he said hoarsely, but loudly enough to drown Hiram’s indignant rebuttal of Mrs. Wilson’s most recent depiction of his character. “Mrs. Wilson!”
“Eh?” She paused for breath, blinking up at him in momentary confusion.
“Cease. And you, too!” He glared at Hiram, who was opening his mouth again. Hiram shut it.
“I’ll no have this,” Roger said, and thumped the Bible down on the table. “It’s not fitting, and I’ll not have it, d’ye hear me?” He glowered from one to the other of the combatants, black brows low and fierce.
The room was silent, bar Hiram’s heavy breathing, Mrs. Crombie’s small sobs, and Mrs. Wilson’s faint, asthmatic wheeze.
“Now, then,” Roger said, still glaring round to prevent any further interruptions. He put a hand over Mrs. Wilson’s thin, age-spotted one.
“Mrs. Wilson—d’ye not ken that you stand before God this minute?” He darted a look at me, and I nodded; yes, she was definitely going to die. Her head was wobbling on her neck and the glow of anger fading from her eyes, even as he spoke.
“God is near to us,” he said, lifting his head to address the congregation at large. He repeated this in Gaelic, and there was a sort of collective sigh. He narrowed his eyes at them.
“We will not profane this holy occasion with anger nor bitterness. Now—sister.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Compose your soul. God will—”
But Mrs. Wilson was no longer listening. Her withered mouth dropped open in horror.
“The sin-eater!” she cried, looking wildly round. She grabbed the dish from the table next to her, showering salt down the front of her winding-sheet. “Where is the sin-eater?”
Hiram stiffened as though goosed with a red-hot poker, then whirled and fought his way toward the door, the crowd giving way before him. Murmurs of speculation rose in his wake, only to stop abruptly as a piercing wail rose from outside, another rising behind it as the first one fell.
An awed “oooh!” rose from the crowd, and Mrs. Wilson looked gratified, as the bean-treim started in to earn their money in earnest.
Then there was a stirring near the door, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea, leaving a narrow path to the table. Mrs. Wilson sat bolt upright, dead-white and barely breathing. The pulse in her abdomen skittered and jumped under my fingers. Roger and Jamie had hold of her arms, supporting her.
A complete hush had fallen over the room; the only sounds were the howling of the bean-treim—and slow, shuffling footsteps, soft on the ground outside, then suddenly louder on the boards of the floor. The sin-eater had arrived.
He was a tall man, or had been, once. It was impossible to tell his age; either years or illness had eaten away his flesh, so that his wide shoulders bowed and his spine had hunched, a gaunt head poking forward, crowned with a balding straggle of graying strands.
I glanced up at Jamie, eyebrows raised. I had never seen the man before. He shrugged slightly; he didn’t know him, either. As the sin-eater came closer, I saw that his body was crooked; he seemed caved in on one side, ribs perhaps crushed by some accident.
Every eye was fixed on the man, but he met none of them, keeping his gaze focused on the floor. The path to the table was narrow, but the people shrank back as he passed, careful that he should not touch them. Only when he reached the table