Chapter 50
“Harper! I hoped you would be by soon,” Kaitlyn called out. “Sit, I have a plate made up for you.”
“Thank you, truth be told I almost did miss lunch, I lost track of time.” Harper sat. “Hello, Max, what’re you making?”
“The perfect hollandaise,” he replied with careful concentration on his stirring.
“That will not break this time,” Kaitlyn said as she placed a plate in front of Harper that held a large green salad, crisp zucchini chips on the edge, and delicate micro-greens balanced on top.
“Beautiful,” Harper said as she started eating. The dressing was a delicate lemon oil with just a hint of salt. Harper savored the flavors as she chewed slowly.
“Dammit,” Max muttered, then looked over his shoulder. “Sorry, Harper.”
Harper waved off the apology through a mouthful. “What did you do?”
Kaitlyn looked over his shoulder, and then lowered the flame on the burner.
“His heat was too high and I’ll bet a million dollars he incorporated the butter too fast.” She patted Max on the shoulder.
“But he’s getting better. We’re learning sauces this week, and Max’s bechamel is delightful. Hollandaise is hard.”
Harper finished up the last bite on her plate and brought it up to the sink. “Thank you. I need to stop forgetting to eat considering how good the food is.”
Kaitlyn bowed her head appreciatively. “It is my pleasure.”
Harper made her way back out of the kitchen and into the formal sitting room.
It was empty, which made it all the more grand.
Harper was suddenly hit with a memory of cleaning this room.
Polishing the fireplace until the stonework shone, she could feel the ache in her hands, and could feel how glad she was for it.
She was overwhelmed by a sense of belonging, of contributing, of being a part of a family.
Harper staggered, suddenly dizzy, and sat on the ruby-red sofa, feeling the space move around her.
As though in a dream, she saw the room around her as it had been, much the same, but ornate oil lamps on the tables and hanging from wall sconces.
She saw a fire in the fireplace, a uniformed man standing behind the bar, ready to serve.
She saw herself, silver tray in hand, moving from person to person, with ornate glasses of champagne.
The men and women were dressed ornately; the women wore dresses of bright purple and cornflower blue.
Harper passed easily through the space and out to the hallway.
Harper’s head was pounding as the room came back into view, the party, the guests were gone, the bar stood empty, the room vacant.
“Jesus,” she muttered as she stood. She needed to find out what Meg was trying to show her. Her head newly clear, she headed back to the library as the frozen rain poured down outside.
On the tenth day of my torture and imprisonment I felt my soul fly from my body, so great was the torment and pain.
As I sailed into the arms of our Lord, I thought of my sweet Rory and his small hands as they played with my hair and clung to my fingers.
I thought of my mother and the shed where she mixed her herbs and medicines, the smell of sage and pine that hung in her hair.
I thought of my strong and good father, his hard work and kindly spirit.
I saw in my mind’s eye the angry waves as they beat against the side of the ship, only inches from where I am kept, and yet I cannot see it cursing and thrashing the ship back and forth, causing my sisters to moan with sickness in the next room.
I am like to think that it curses this vessel in my name, that it is a vengeful sea and knows the horrors my corporeal form is enduring.
I know this is vanity, but still I think the creatures that dance under the waves can hear my screams. They whisper to me at night, the sea creatures that dwell on the other side of the wood and iron that keeps us afloat.
They whisper to me not to succumb to these devices, that our Lord would reward my spirit and heart.
As they whisper my soul came drifting back to the world though my physical self is failing.
The whisper that on the moonless night I will be freed from my tormente.
My toes are rigid black at the tips, and my bones are threatening to break through my skin so scant has been the bread and porridge.
But the moon wanes ever further, and the sea creatures whisper to me that when it disappears entire I will not be here in this place.
Whether I be cast into our Lord’s kingdom or freed to the world on merit of my innocence, I do not know.
But I refuse my confession to Father Taine even though my sisters look on me with pleading eyes, begging me to confess, however falsely, and end this torture.
I refuse to consent to the words he conspires for me to say.
Why he does not just kill me I dinna ken.
The last time I saw my goodly mother and father, I was young and newly chosen as bride.
I wept and felt the sting of Father’s hand across my cheek as price for my tears.
In the time that followed, my sisters whispered that Father was brought to great trouble for the grief of my parents, that they had been to see the Laird, and a motion had been filed with the Glasgow courts.
The sea creatures whisper in their dream voices that this is the cause of my suffering, that Father seeks retribution for their actions, that I am being punished for their crimes of truthe.
The creatures whisper that I must continue to endure, that this is not my end.
My sweet Rory swims among them, his arms and legs now twining arms that propel him alongside the ship, I can hear him laughing as he plays with the crabs and deep sea herring.
Harper squinted at the next page. The ink had faded and the words were nearly invisible. Carefully replacing the journal, she pulled the historical account close.
Meg’s journal introduces the idea that her punishment aboard The Mary Clarence was in retribution for her parents’ complaints to the Laird MacGregor and his motion filed with the Glasgow Church Court.
Though it is unlikely that Meg was aware, their efforts led to the addition of the Lord Advocate Ireton of Glasgow Proper.
Thomas Ireton was well known as a critic of the Separationists and likened them to “witch cults.” It was Lord Advocate Ireton who called for the investigation of Ewin Taine’s sect, and which led to the ultimate eviction of Taine’s group from the land they had inhabited in Loch Lomond.
All to say that Meg’s indication that the cruel actions taken against her by Ewin Taine were very likely exactly as she states, revenge for her parents’ meddling.
Her child would have provided her with some protection, but in his passing, Meg lost any value she held to Taine.
It was at this time that perhaps the most disturbing and extraordinary happening in the trial of Meg MacGruer occurred.
Ten days after Meg’s initial trouble, it is recorded in Captain Caseling’s log that Taine demanded that The Mary Clarence be taken to anchor, that the voyage pause so that he might employ the test of “Witch Swimming.” A practice that dates back to sixteenth-century Europe and described in great detail in King James’s Daemonologie, it prescribes the accused to be weighted down and cast into a body of water.
If the accused drowned, they were innocent.
If they floated, swam, or otherwise escaped their fate, they were determined to be witches, as such ability in water was seen as the Devil’s work.
This belief plays off a surprisingly broad tradition of the early Puritans and Separatists, as well as those who had preceded them, and hinges on the rarity of the ability to swim.
On 24 August 1690, Taine proposed that Meg MacGruer be bound with ropes and cast into the Atlantic.
The water would have been hovering around 15 degrees Celsius.
Affronted by the brutality of this action as much as the logistics of anchoring the ship, Caseling staunchly refused the demand.
Given little recourse, Taine had no choice but to accept that his “Witch Swimming” test would have to take another form.
The account of this incident comes to us from Caseling’s own journal, as well as a letter written by Liam Kelly that would be delivered to a magistrate in Boston posthumously upon their arrival.
Later this letter would be put on public display after the events of 1692.
It is part of the permanent collection in preserved form at the Boston History Center.
Meg’s account is unclear in this journal entry, it is possible that she lost consciousness or suffered from shock, thus impacting her memory.
Meg was taken to the deck of The Mary Clarence and stripped naked.
Her sister wives were in attendance, but the children were, according to the records, allowed to stay belowdeck.
According to records, Meg was tied to the transom with her hands before her.
Ewin Taine then demanded that she repent, confess her crimes as her sister wives watched and prayed.
Meg refused and Taine attempted to pull the pinky fingernail of her right hand from its nailbed with a pair of pincers.
Caseling’s and Kelly’s accounts describe the piteous screams that came from the girl.
They also note the frustration of Taine, who discovered how very difficult the task was.
Unsuccessful, he left the girl tied to the transom and took the pincers to the galley, where he heated the tool to red-hot in the cookstove.
He returned, in Caseling’s words, “mad as a demon in Heaven and smelling of whiskey …” and again attempted to pull the fingernail from Meg’s flesh.
This time he succeeded in his task, and, according to the written accounts, Meg grew greatly pale so that Caseling and Kelly worried for her survival of the ordeal.
It is noted that one of the wives fainted dead away from the terror of it all.
Even Taine seemed taken aback by the brutality of the act, and Kelly noted that he looked around “as a man lost and looking for the forgiveness not rendered to the damned.”
He then demanded that Meg again confess.
She again refused, though her afflicted finger was bleeding heavily and it was clear that she was near fainting herself.
As Taine moved to denail another finger, Kelly intervened and stepped between him and the girl.
The young man was hit in the face with the still-hot pincers, breaking his nose, but still he stood his ground.
It was in this commotion that it is noted by Caseling that “in a fit of manic strength …” Meg sprang back to life and managed to free herself from her bonds.
Her sister wives carried her belowdeck as Taine raged with Kelly and Caseling.
It is frustrating as a historian that there was no earlier intervention that would have prevented this torture entirely.
Caseling addresses this in one of his many letters to the Boston courts and states that he “did not think the man [Taine] capable of so foul a deed. And when proved that his soul was so dark as to inflict this bloody harm on so innocent a girl …” he did his best to stop the violence.
He believed that when Taine originally failed in his attempt and left for the galley, that he was going for a drink and the incident was closed.
One young woman even attempted to free Meg from her bonds and laid her cloak over Meg’s shoulders upon Taine’s leaving.
His return was unexpected, and Caseling writes that no one knew his intent as he approached Meg.
As for the other sailors aboard The Mary Clarence, the men who manned the passages across the Atlantic during these times were thick with the lore of witches and Devils that the Puritans and Separatists carried to the Americas.
The Salem business was two years away, but already trials had been held and executions carried out in Boston, Beverly, Ipswich, Andover.
Scotland and England had their own witch troubles, and the mere mention of the word was enough to strike fear in the common man.
It is in this way that Meg was returned to her prison in ill health.
Meg would survive another thirteen days on The Mary Clarence.
Harper shuddered and closed the journal.
Meg was obviously suffering from blood loss, hypothermia, starvation, and God knows what else at this point.
This was ten days into what was ultimately a twenty-three-day term.
Harper closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the grief that rose up from a place deeply guarded in the core of her soul.
Flashes of her mother and father, asleep aboard their vessel off the coast of Bell on that terrible night.
She knew not whether she was imagining or seeing an impossible thing, but the flashes sliced through the muddy waters of her mind like a knife.
The rustling of activity overhead, the creeping dread of fear, of the certainty that something was wrong, a flash of light, of pain, of eternity and then … darkness.