Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

Dorothea shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here. Someone ought to be with Tib, and someone must tell our uncle when he comes home.’

‘Dawtie, that’s heroism,’ said Gil frankly.

She gave him an affectionate smile. ‘You’ve enough before you the now, Gil. Go on, the pair of you. Away and get some fresh air.’

Before Gil could answer, there was an urgent knocking at the street door. They looked at one another, and the knocking continued, along with a muffled shouting.

‘Tell Maggie I’ll get that,’ Gil said, making for the stairs. As he descended the shouting became recognizable as his name:

‘Maister Cunningham, Maister Cunningham! Come quick!’

He opened the door, and a young man almost fell into the house, saving himself by catching hold of the doorpost. As Gil identified the kitchen-laddie from St Serf’s the youth stared at him, gulped and exclaimed, ‘Can you come quick, maister? You’re wanted at the bedehouse. There’s been a miracle.’

‘A miracle?’ repeated Gil in astonishment. A double echo floated down the stairs from the hall; the women must be listening.

‘Aye, maister, a true miracle. It’s Humphrey,’ said the boy. ‘He’s risen again. And he’s cured of his madness and all.’

Striding up Castle Street in the rain, with Alys hurrying beside him and the boy at their heels, Gil realized he could hear shouting and exclamations from the bedehouse yard. He could not make out what was being said, but it sounded more excited than angry.

‘They’ve all come to witness the miracle,’ said the boy. What did Mistress Mudie call him? Simmie, that was it. ‘Nannie ran out in the street shouting about it. I kenned it wasny right,’ he said earnestly, ‘but I couldny stop her. So then all the folk cam in to see what was going on, and Maister Millar tellt me to fetch you.’

The wooden yett was standing open, and the yard beyond the end of the chapel appeared to be full. As Gil picked his way along the narrow passage, someone’s voice lifted from the courtyard, high and confident in the alto line. It sounded like Millar: ‘ Te Deum laudamus … We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.’ The Church’s great, ancient hymn of thanksgiving and praise. Well, if Simmie was right, the house had something to give thanks for, he thought, as the other voices joined in, one quavering voice to a part.

They rounded the corner of the chapel in time to see Anselm, at the tail of the tiny procession, totter through the door, and the crowd in the yard close in behind him like the waters of the Red Sea. Using his height and his elbows, Gil achieved a place for himself and Alys by the arched doorway, and peered in under the clumsily carved tympanum. Behind them in the yard, exclamations and questions flew.

‘Was that him? Was that the one that’s rose up?’

‘No, it was the young one, she said. They ones were all full old.’

‘What was it, anyway? What did he dee of?’

‘What about the other one that’s deid? Is he risen and all?’

‘Oh, he’ll no rise up. You’ve only to put your head in at the washhouse door to tell that. Quest on him’s the morn’s morn.’

The five old men, with Millar at their head, moved singing into the little choir, settled themselves and finished the Te Deum , following it with a Gloria. Gil, standing by the door, waited until Millar began to recite, and recognized familiar words from the Gospel.

‘ Iesus dixit. . Jesus said, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I shall go and wake him.’

‘The raising of Lazarus,’ said Alys softly. ‘Is it true, then?’

A very proper choice, if so, thought Gil. He turned as Simmie began to tug at his sleeve.

‘Can you come into the house, maister?’

They made their way through the crowded courtyard, avoiding more questions, and through the door which opened as Simmie reached it. The younger maidservant, bright-eyed with excitement, barred it behind them and said, ‘They’ll not be long, they’re just offering thanks the now. Is that no lucky they’d no ordered his grave dug yet?’

‘When did this happen?’ Gil asked.

‘Why just the now. No an hour since. The Douglas’s men’s gone out to find him, but I’m glad Simmie got you first, sir, for Maister Millar was wanting you. Come in and sit a wee bit till they’re done singing.’

‘Did you see it?’ said Alys as they followed her into the empty kitchen. The fire was burning and the charcoal in the range was lit; behind them Simmie picked up his chopping-knife and resumed his endless task of chopping roots for the stew.

‘Is Humphrey really alive?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, maister! Oh, it was the most …’ She paused, lost for words. ‘My mistress knelt wi him all last night,’ she explained. ‘She was praying and mourning him the whole night. Then she came into the kitchen for a bit the morn, and sat as if her tongue was locked.’

‘I saw her then,’ Gil agreed.

The girl nodded. ‘We got her to eat and drink a little, Nannie and me, while his brother was wi him, and she sat a bit longer after that. Then she suddenly rose up about an hour ago and said, He needs me , and went out to the garden. And Nannie and me followed her,’ she continued, her narrative gaining pace, ‘and saw her go into Maister Humphrey’s lodging, and then she screamed out, and came to the door, and called us ower, and said, He’s breathing. And we couldny credit it, but we went in, and there he was. He’d got colour in his face, and his breath going regular, and his hands warm, just as natural as could be. My mistress is wi him now, feeding him a wee bit bread and milk.’

‘ Dieu soît bénit! ’ said Alys, and crossed herself. Gil stared at the maidservant, as unable as she had been to credit the tale.

‘Has he woken?’ he asked.

‘Oh, aye. He’s no said much, but he kens us all, he’s named us, even Simmie and me. But maister,’ she continued, ‘the rarest thing of all, he’s cured of his madness. He’s as clear in his head as you or me, maister.’

‘I recall nothing,’ said Humphrey.

Denial of injury, Gil thought, is the price of forgiveness.

The first, immediate service of thanksgiving was over, and Humphrey himself was washed and fed and seated in invalid state by the hearth in the bedehouse hall, the brothers round him, Gil and Alys standing by the window. Mistress Mudie, unable to let go of her chick, stood by his side fussing with his rug or his garments.

‘Nothing?’ said Millar. ‘Have you no notion what happened?’

‘I have no notion,’ said Humphrey earnestly, ‘save that my dear Sissie here tells me I was found hanging in my own lodging. The last I recall was going to my rest after dinner. I suppose that was yesterday.’

‘His speech is greatly altered,’ said Alys to Gil, who nodded. The whole man was so altered he was hardly recognizable, his bearing and expression confident and pleasant. There was something more, Gil thought, which he could not place.

‘And the day?’ said Cubby. ‘What happened the now, laddie?’

‘I woke,’ he said simply. ‘I woke from the most beautiful dream I have ever had.’

‘So is Mistress Mudie’s,’ added Alys in the same undertone. Gil realized that this was true; the little stout woman had not uttered a word for at least a quarter-hour.

‘Well, and what hast thou dreamt?’ asked Maister Veitch, with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow. Gil recognized a line from the Skinners’ Play, but Humphrey’s face lit up.

‘Oh, my brothers, such a dream,’ he said. ‘I dreamed I was lying in my own bed, in the darkest night that ever was, so dark that I was afraid. Then a single beam of light shone, and I rose and followed it, and looked out of my lodging into the garden, as we’ve all done many times.’ Elderly heads nodded. Mistress Mudie bent and pulled the rug higher across his knees, a glow in her eyes. ‘I saw the garden full of flowers, and filled with a great light, and three beautiful young men dancing in the midst of it.’