Free The Prodigal Son by Anna Belfrage Page B

at his muffled exclamation.
    “I’m sure we would,” she said, and danced away.

    “What’s he doing here?” Alex said a few days later, her eyes shooting darts into the back of Sandy Peden, who disappeared into the house.
    “Joan asked for him, so I went and found him.”
    “Joan? Why would she want to see him?”
    “Mayhap because he’s a man of God?” He wiped a hand over his face. His sister’s apathy had him worried, and if Sandy could rouse her out of it, he’d be eternally grateful. “She blames herself; one bairn, and a lass at that.”
    Alex muttered something about living in a man’s world, eyes still stuck on the door.
    “He’s not staying.”
    “Nay, of course not,” Matthew hastened to say. “He knows that.”
    Alex tightened her shawl around her shoulders, turning to sweep their yard, the lane, the surrounding slopes with her eyes.
    “Alex,” he sighed, “I’m no fool. I have Gavin sitting at the top of the lane.”
    Sandy sat for hours with Joan and when he came out of her room so did she, gripping the minister’s arm as she made her way down the stairs.
    “Well done,” Alex said, ushering Sandy in the direction of the kitchen. “It sort of brings to mind the tale of Lazarus.”
    Matthew choked on a gust of laughter.
    “She wasn’t dead,” Sandy corrected, accepting the food she put in front of him.
    “Minor difference, she’s been staring at the wall for days on end – more dead than alive.”
    “I heard that,” Joan said with a touch of asperity.
    “A miracle, a miracle,” Alex muttered. “Look, she moves, she talks, she even hears.”
    Matthew threw her a reproving look, but Alex just snorted and disappeared in the direction of the parlour, where a succession of loud noises indicated wee Rachel was doing something she shouldn’t.
    Matthew lifted Jacob to sit in his lap and smiled at his sister. “It is good to see you up.”
    “Aye, well, ‘tis good to be up.” She didn’t sound convinced, but smiled when Sarah placed Lucy in her arms. “Will you christen her?” she asked Sandy, handing him the wean.
    “He’s not allowed to,” Alex voice cut in. “He’s been formally ejected, and mustn’t perform any sacraments.” She entered the kitchen, frowning at all three of them.
    “He’s a minister of my Kirk, and I’ll much rather hide out in the moss to hear Minister Peden preach than go to Cumnock and hear a mealy mouthed representative of the Church of England offer us salvation if we just recognise the authority of the king over the church.” Joan sounded more animated than she’d done for weeks, with two spots of bright red on her cheeks.
    “He baptised Jacob,” Matthew said, stroking back the thick, fair hair of his son.
    “That was two years ago,” Alex said. “Before it began to get really nasty.”
    Sandy smiled down at the child in his arms. “I’ll be glad to baptise the wean,” he said, “and if you want we can do it now.” He threw a challenging look in the direction of Alex, who opened her mouth to say something but clearly thought better of it. Instead she lifted Jacob out of Matthew’s lap and left the room.
    “She fears for them, and for me,” Matthew tried to explain, watching Alex cross the yard with all their children and Ian in tow.
    “Aye well,” Sandy said, “she’s but a woman – weak of body and of mind.”
    Matthew met Joan’s eyes, suppressing a smile at this description of Alex.
    Once the wean had been christened, Joan took Lucy upstairs, and Matthew and Sandy sat in the kitchen, talking of this and that. Hesitantly, Matthew told him of the coming oath taking, and Sandy sat up straight.
    “You can’t swear that oath. It would be to renounce your faith!” Sandy looked mulish, grey eyes so sharp Matthew twisted on his stool.
    “But the bairns and Alex… I can’t risk them, can I?”
    “It’s her, isn’t it? She has no concern for your immortal soul.”
    “She fears for us,” Matthew reproved.
    “She is