Pat McIntosh: The Nicholas Feast

One or two Faculty members were about in the court, but judging by the noise most were above in the hall. As Gil turned towards the foot of the stair, William hurried across the court, in too much haste even to lift his hat to a passing Doctor of Laws. He appeared to be making for a tower doorway in the south range, but before he reached it a man in the robes of a Dominican friar emerged from the tunnel which led to the Inner Close. William, catching sight of him, checked and turned to intercept him.

‘Father Bernard,’ he said clearly. ‘I have something here that will interest you.’

As Gil reached the top of the stair he settled on a word for William’s expression: gleeful.

In the outermost hall of the college building a roar of polite Latin conversation rose from the assembled Faculty of Arts of the University of Glasgow, thirty or forty men in woollen copes like Gil’s or the silk gowns of the Masters of foreign universities circulating in an aroma of cedar-wood and moth-herbs. Gil paused in the doorway to look over the crowded heads and decided against making his way to his proper station, among the other non-regent Masters, the graduates of the University who did not hold teaching positions. If he waited here, he could slip into his place as the procession left.

He could recognize many of the company. Yonder was John Doby, small, gentle and balding. He was the Principal Regent in Arts, in charge of teaching and all matters of the curriculum, and had taught Gil Aristotle thoroughly and exactly. Beside him, tall and silvertonsured, Patrick Elphinstone the Dean, whom Gil remembered as a conscientious and alarming teacher. There was David Gray the Scribe, a poor teacher and an ineffectual man, with the red furred hood of a man of law rolled down on his shoulders and straggling grey hair showing round his felt cap.

The procession was forming up. Gil stood aside from the door, and the Dean and the Principal passed him in their high-collared black silk gowns and long-tailed black hoods, each with the red chaperon of a Cologne doctor trailing from his left shoulder. As they reached the doorway the light changed, and the May sunshine gave way to another vicious May shower.

‘Confound it!’ said Dean Elphinstone, stopping abruptly. ‘The hoods will be ruined! Principal, why did you insist on the silk hoods? Fur at least would dry out.’

‘It’s summer, Dean.’ Maister Doby peered past his taller colleague. ‘A wee bittie rain’ll not hurt you.’

Gil looked over their heads at the large drops bouncing off the paving stones of the Outer Close and remarked, ‘Now if only we were allowed to wear plaids with our gowns …’

Both men turned to look at him. Behind him the cry of ‘It’s raining!’ had run round the hall, in Scots and Latin, and some jostling began as people dragged silk-lined hoods and rich gowns over their heads in the crowd.

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ said the Principal, switching to the scholarly tongue. ‘It is good to see you. Do you remember David Cunningham’s nephew, Dean, who was one of our better determinants in — let me see — ’84, wasn’t it? And then — ’

‘Paris, sir,’ Gil supplied. ‘Law. Licentiate in Canon Law.’

‘Oh, aye. And now trained as a notary with your uncle, I believe?’ Gil nodded, and bent a knee briefly in response to the Dean’s inclined biretta. Someone complained as his elbow met a ribcage, and he threw a word of apology over his shoulder. The Dean was speaking to him.

‘Are you the man about to be married?’

‘I am,’ agreed Gil, bracing himself for the usual congratulatory remarks. At least this is an educated man, he thought. Not like Jaikie.

‘Hmf. It seems a pity to waste your education,’ the Dean pronounced. ‘Why marry her? Why not take a mistress, if you must, and pursue the church career?’

Gil swallowed his astonishment.

‘My uncle thought otherwise,’ he said, taking refuge in politeness again.

‘Hmf,’ repeated the Dean, and surveyed him with an ice-blue stare. ‘You have never undertaken the required course of lectures, Gilbert?’

‘What, since I left here? No, sir. The opportunity has not presented itself.’

‘Would you come to see me about that? We cannot get regents from outwith the college, and if you were to carry out your duty in delivering such a course it would benefit both the bachelors and yourself, since the bachelors could add another book to their list, and by it your degree would be completed and you would be properly entitled to the master’s bonnet you are wearing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Gil, torn between annoyance, embarrassment and admiration. Patrick Elphinstone nodded, and turned to look out at the weather.

‘Aha! I think it’s easing a bit. Amid, scholastici,’ he said, pitching his voice without difficulty to reach all ears above the buzz of conversation. ‘We can set out now. Full academic dress, I remind you. The rain is no excuse. Shall we go, Principal?’

Bowing politely to one another, the two men stepped into the drizzle to descend the stair to the courtyard.

‘All right for him,’ muttered a voice behind Gil as the Masters of Arts followed on. ‘The number of benefices he’s got, he can afford a new gown every week if he wants.’

‘He’ll hear you,’ said Gil, turning to look into the black-browed, long-jawed face at his shoulder. ‘Is that you, Nick? I thought I knew the voice.’

‘Aye, Gil.’ Nicholas Kennedy, Master of Arts, grinned briefly at him. They slipped into place behind the last of the graduates, and Maister Kennedy continued, ‘You’re not too grand to speak to me, then, having been to Paris and all that?’

‘I would be,’ Gil responded, ‘but you heard the Dean. I’m not entitled to this bonnet, and I take it you are.’

‘Christ aid, yes.’ His friend grimaced, his shaggy brows twitching. ‘Course of twenty lectures to the junior bachelors on Peter of Spain. This makes the fourth year I’ve delivered it. What an experience. I tell you, Gil,’ he said, making for the horses ahead of his place in the order of precedence, ‘the man who invented the regenting system was probably a torturer in his spare time.’ He hitched gown and cassock round his waist and swung himself into the wet saddle. ‘Did one of the songmen tell me you’re betrothed? Is that what the Dean was on about? I thought you were for the priesthood and the Law, like the Dean said.’

‘That’s right,’ said Gil, standing in his stirrups so that he could bundle the skirt of his own cassock to protect his hose. ‘It’s all changed. Married life awaits me. My uncle and Peter Mason are working out the terms, and we hope to sign the contract this week or next.’

‘And that’s you set up for life. Congratulations, man. You always did have all the luck,’ said his friend enviously. ‘God, what I’d give to get out of this place, chaplain to some quiet old lady somewhere, never see another student in my life.’ He stared round, and nodded at a knot of students in their belted gowns of red or blue or grey. ‘That lot, for instance. They’ll sing Mass for us like angels, Bernard Stewart’ll make sure of that, but they’re a bunch of fiends, I tell you. If we get through the entertainment without someone deliberately fouling things I’ll buy the candles for St Thomas’s for the year. Oh, God, there’s William.’

‘The entertainment,’ repeated Gil. ‘I’d forgotten the entertainment. Don’t tell me you’re in charge, Nick?’

‘Very well, I won’t,’ said Nick, ‘but I am. For my sins.’

‘What are you giving us?’

‘Oh, it’s a play, as prescribed. I won’t tell you any more,’ said Nick rather sourly. ‘I don’t want to raise your expectations. What does your minnie say about your marriage? I mind she had other plans for you.’