But they were different from the outlawed Presbyterians, and to Lily what was happening now in the Canongate seemed like her childhood game turned to terrible true life, with one side ever hunting down its enemies, and ever growing larger, turning all they touched to Covenanters.

When the service ended she was loath to leave the safety of the abbey church, and dragged her feet, and fastened on her blue hood as a knight might don his helmet for protection before heading to a yet uncertain battlefield. And it was just as well she did, for coming up the Canongate, they came into a battle.

If last week there had been disorder outside Mr. Bruce’s house, this afternoon the hatefulness had spread like ink in water, so there were now people tightly crowded along both sides of the street up to the Netherbow.

In such a crush of bodies Lily found it was impossible to know who was a friend and who was someone to be feared.

She saw redcoat soldiers standing to one side and doing nothing, while a guardsman and a grenadier chased down a baxter lad and, having caught him, beat him harshly till he dropped the rolling pin he held and blood showed in a spatter on his baker’s apron.

In a rage a woman called out, “God damn all ye papists and send ye to hell!” and the people around her took up the same cry.

“Stay together,” Mr. Bell told Lily as he gathered her close beside Marion and they pressed on through the bystanders.

Lily tried hard not to look. She held tightly to Marion and Mrs. Bell and tried keeping her eyes on the toes of her shoes, but she was jostled and losing her balance she glanced up and saw the glass windows of the Bruces’ house were smashed through with stones.

“It’s all right.” Mr. Bell’s hand settled steady on her shoulder.

Just in time, for the same young men who had jostled her stepped backward and bumped into her again, and one called out, “There is another papist bitch!”

For one heart-stopping second Lily was afraid that he meant her, but he and his friends had already focused their aggression on a young maid who was coming from the Bruces’ house. They fell on her and chased her, paying no heed to her shrieks for mercy, grabbing at her clothing till her scarf and hood were torn.

Lily put both hands on her own hood and stopped up her ears as best she could to block the sounds and shouts and cries, and looked fiercely at her toes again and did not lift her gaze until they were indoors and Mr. Bell had bolted shut the door and barred the windows.

She discovered she was shaking.

It was Mr. Bell who gently lifted Lily’s hands down from her ears, untied her hood, and reassured her all was well.

She asked him in a small voice, “What did happen to the maid? The one they chased?”