He chuckled. “Aye, these good two hours, which is a blessing approaching the miraculous. And it will do him good. He is no longer young and he sleeps too little nowadays—too little and too seldom. There is always someone waiting close by him with matters demanding his attention. I went to bed when he did, but I lay awake until now. I was hoping to walk myself into tiredness, until I saw you sitting here, staring into the fire.”
“And nodding.”
He cocked his head, unsmiling now. “No, you were not nodding. You were deep in thought.”
I nodded then. “Very perceptive of you.” I wondered for a moment if I was being too familiar with him, considering who and what he was, the chancellor of Glasgow Cathedral, but then I remembered who and what he was in truth: a young priest, not too long since ordained and only slightly older than I was. “I was concerned—I am concerned. You met Mistress Wallace tonight, so you will have seen that she is with child. She is expected to be delivered of it within the week, but tonight, after Lady Mirren had retired, I saw the midwife emerge from her hut and huddle in conversation with several of the other women. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but they all looked ill at ease—almost afraid, I thought. I sought to ask them if anything was amiss, but as I started towards them they saw me and exchanged what I took to be warning glances among themselves, and then they all sped away.”
Lamberton was frowning slightly. “You suspect there might be something wrong with Mistress Wallace?”
“No, Father, not really. But I have a reluctant and fearful respect for the way things tend to go wrong at the worst, most inconvenient times, and I should hate it if anything untoward occurred while Will was not here to know of it.”
“Aye. I know what you mean. Believe me, though, the best thing you can do is leave such things to God. All your fretting and concerns will influence nothing when the time comes for the infant to be born. I know, because I have been present at a birth—delivered the child, in fact—and I had no other option that day than to adapt to what had been thrust upon me.”
He saw the astonishment in my eyes and laughed aloud. “Upon my word as a canon of Glasgow, Father, I swear to you it’s true.” He held up his hands as though he had washed but not yet dried them. “I delivered a child with these two hands, alone and unassisted. It happened in France, not one full year ago, on a journey from Paris to a nearby village called Versailles. I was on my way to visit a monastery there, riding in grand estate in a coach owned by Maitre René St. Cyr, a prominent goldsmith of Paris—goldsmith by appointment to King Philip, in fact. Maitre St. Cyr’s wife shared the coach with me, along with her maidservant, Yvette. Madame St. Cyr was enceinte, as they say over there—with child—and was on her way to stay with her mother and sisters in Versailles until her confinement was completed the following month. Her husband’s affairs had unexpectedly obliged him to remain in Paris, and when he found out that I would be travelling to Versailles on foot at that very time—it is little more than ten miles from Paris—he insisted that I should take his place in the carriage and accompany his young wife to her mother’s home.
“Such was the intent with which we set out, on what would normally be a journey of but a few hours, but the route, although otherwise an excellent road, runs through heavy forest, and deep within the woods we were overtaken by a violent storm and met disaster when a large tree, struck by lightning, fell right atop our carriage, smashing two wheels and throwing the vehicle over on its side. The trauma of the incident triggered something within the goldsmith’s wife, for she went into labour then and there, even though she was supposedly a full month short of her term.”
“And you were there?” I was horrified, and I tried to picture what must have happened.
“There?” Again he snorted with half-smothered laughter, shaking his head at the recollection. “Yes, Father, I was there. Right there, by the grace of God, conveniently in the overturned carriage where it all took place, and apart from Madame St. Cyr herself, I was the only person conscious and able to assist with the birth. The maidservant was unconscious, the driver and his footman had been killed by the falling tree, and the full weight of the tree’s trunk lay across the carriage door and window, preventing me from climbing out. And so I stayed, and with God’s own help I delivered a baby boy who lives and thrives today in Versailles and is named Guillaume, in honour of his godfather, who also baptized him.”
He smiled at me. “None of us knows, when we join the priesthood, Father James, that the major disadvantage of our priestly life will be that we are invariably and perennially useless when it comes to involvement in the matters of women.” He laughed again, enjoying my wide-eyed discomfiture immensely. “I fear I have scandalized you, but let me reassure you of one thing.” He sobered slightly. “I can tell that you were raised as I was, in the company of men and monks and priests, in terror of the sins of carnality and the wiles of scheming women. That is true, is it not?”