Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘ Per exemplum? ’ Gil prompted, and got another approving glance.

‘There was a silver crucifix when I came here,’ his teacher said. ‘There was still plate in the hall two year since, Barty says. The meals we’re served are wholesome enough, Sissie sees to that, the good soul,’ he grimaced, ‘but we get meat less often and it’s cheaper meat these days.’ He spat at the empty grate in the small hearth. ‘And that’s another of his penny-pinching decisions — we’ve no to get a fire in our own lodgings now. He said it was for safety, and I suppose in Anselm’s case or Humphrey’s that might be true, but we all kenned what he was at.’

‘Where is the money going?’ Gil asked.

‘Into his pocket, we assumed,’ said Maister Veitch. ‘And only yesterday he called us all thegither and announced, among other things, that he would be taking back — those were his words — all our books, since old men ha no need of books, in order to sell them for the bedehouse funds.’ The indignation quivered in his voice. ‘Those books by the desk are mine, dear-bought over a lifetime, and Barty’s two are his. There’s a many missed meals behind each one of them.’

‘Your books? What did you say to him?’ asked Gil in dismay.

‘We tellt him they were ours,’ said Maister Veitch bitterly, ‘but he reminded us that the brothers hold their property in common. I kent that, but I wouldny ha accepted the place if I’d no been assured that books was a different matter. I’ve had time, this past year, to make a start on the Early Fathers, I’ll no see it snatched away.’

Gil eyed his teacher with sympathy. After a moment he said, ‘And yet the man was a clerk — he could read, I think.’

‘A stickit clerk,’ said Maister Veitch in contemptuous Scots, then, reverting to Latin, ‘He was parish clerk to my nephew William in Irvine at one time. It seems he wished to be a priest himself, but there was neither money nor patronage to support him to his ordination. This gave him a dislike of priests and learning, and even William found him difficult and snatched the opportunity to get him another post, first in Irvine and then in Glasgow out of his way. Had I known him better, I would have waited for a place in Hamilton, rather than come here myself.’

‘An unpleasant character,’ Gil said thoughtfully. ‘And had he given the bedehouse folk any other cause to dislike him?’

‘Oh, he had. As well as bullying Sissie about the accounts — ’

‘Bullying her?’

‘Oh, it was all done very civilly but I’ve heard him. He aye forgot,’ said Maister Veitch with another thin smile, ‘that my ears are near as sharp as they ever were. He went over the household outgoings wi Sissie every day after the noon bite, and he’d aye a suggestion about how it could ha been less. She was near weeping the last time I heard them,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘for he’d said we wereny to have wine any more, even on feast days, but only ale. But then he went on to press her about some receipt he’d promised Andrew Slack the ’pothecary She was reluctant to give it over, since it was her granny’s and no to be handed on to just anybody, but he pressed her to it, and if she was to expect any reward for it, my name’s no Frankie Veitch. Much more like that Naismith and Slack would split the profits to be made.’

‘We found two or three receipts in his purse,’ said Gil. ‘And what about these changes he was to make? His marriage, and the use of the hall, and so on.’

‘Aye,’ said Maister Veitch. ‘Aye, he called us all into the hall, after he’d done bullying Sissie, and told us he was planning changes. Andro was to give up his lodging and take one of the empty houses. Sissie was to have another, I think, and she was to leave off the housekeeping, be our nurse only, and be paid less for it. But none of the empty houses is fit to live in. The thatch leaks, the shutters willny fasten. One of the hearths is fallen in.’

‘Was this the first you’d heard of these changes?’

‘It was. Sissie asked who would oversee the housekeeping and the kitchen, and Naismith said she had no need to worry about that, for he was to be married, and his wife would take all into her own hands. And afore he left the hall,’ said Maister Veitch slowly, ‘I said, to him alone, did my niece know of this, and he answered that it was nothing to do wi her. Which I took to mean that he was proposing to marry some other woman.’

‘You don’t know who?’

‘I do not.’

Gil was silent for a space. At length he said, ‘And the sixth brother?’

‘Eh? What did ye say?’

‘You’ve told me about five of the bedesmen,’ Gil prompted. ‘The sixth is Maister Humphrey that quotes the Apocalypse. What quarrel did he have wi Naismith?’

‘Ah.’ Maister Veitch turned to stare into the empty grate. Gil waited. After a pause, the old man said, ‘Do you ken the tale, Gibbie?’

‘No, sir,’ said Gil blankly.

‘Ah. Maybe it was before you left me and came to the school here in Glasgow. Aye, it would be fifteen year or more since. Humphrey Agnew was studying Theology at the college here, wi an altar to mind out at St Thomas beyond the Stablegreen Port.’ Gil nodded. He was acquainted with the crumbling little chapel of St Thomas Becket, which like most churches of its dedication in Scotland was the best part of three hundred years old and looked it. ‘He and a fellow student went fishing one day, no in the Clyde but further afield, up to the Kelvin.’

‘Ah,’ said Gil. ‘Fishing. They used the irresistible bait?’

‘A consecrated Host.’ Maister Veitch pursed his lips, nodding. ‘Which Humphrey stole. Bad enough, though there’s aye a few does it. But the other fellow put his foot in a pothole in the riverbed, and lost his footing and was swept away and drowned. A judgement, I suppose you might say.’

‘A severe judgement,’ said Gil, ‘for a crime which could be said to injure only himself. And Humphrey? What happened to him? Did he escape the judgement?’

‘He went mad,’ said Maister Veitch baldly.

‘Mad? He’s known to be mad, then? I wondered, from something his brother said. So what’s he doing here? Surely there’s some better place for him — one of the big hospitals, Soutra, St Leonard’s?’

‘He didny run mad immediately,’ qualified his teacher. ‘He was ill wi grief for a while, and then it seemed he was back to himself, and he finished his studies. Then he began to see people as birds — I’ve heard him call Naismith a cuckoo and a shrike, which didny best please the man. And then it seems, bit by bit he began to abhor water. First it was rivers, as ye’d understand, and then wells and buckets, and got so he couldny lave the vessels after the Mass, and then couldny witness others at the same task.’

‘Ah, that’s what Nick meant.’

‘Very likely. It’s a problem every morn at the end of the Mass,’ confirmed Maister Veitch. ‘Now he gets difficult if he’s out in the rain, as well as if he’s angered at something. He starts by quoting the Revelation, and then he gets violent. I’ve seen him try to throttle his brother Thomas.’ He sighed. ‘Sissie can control him for now, but he should really be a place he can be shut away, poor fellow, for if he gets any worse we’ll have the whole of Glasgow coming in to bait him like a bear.’

‘I’d a word wi his brother before I came round here, but not about this. I never knew before that he’d such a problem in his life,’ said Gil. ‘Poor devil.’

‘So I’d no recommend you question Maister Humphrey direct,’ said Maister Veitch drily, ‘without a guard. Your father-in-law would be a good candidate.’

‘I’ll maybe no disturb Maister Humphrey at all, then,’ said Gil, ‘but I could do with a word with Anselm if I may.’