Free The Stolen Voice by Pat McIntosh Page A

though when he had joined in the snatches of chant in the street his deep tones had astonished Gil. ‘I was. It was a bad business.’
    ‘What happened?’ Gil asked.
    ‘He was never much liked, save by the adults,’ said Kilgour, with what seemed to be reluctance, ‘but he’d a good voice, maybe the best mean, the best alto, I ever heard in my life, pure and clear wi a compass to astonish you, so a course he sang in the Play of the Resurrection. In the nave at Pace-tide, you ken.’
    Gil nodded. He knew the kind of thing Kilgour meant, more of a dramatized service than a play as such. The Resurrection would mean at the least three women’s parts, two or three disciples, perhaps an angel, and Christ. Not all the parts would be for boys’ voices.
    ‘Who did he sing?’ he prompted.
    ‘Judas,’ said Kilgour. ‘A big part, and the second year he’d sung it.’
    ‘But the rope slipped,’ said someone else. Gil looked from one face to another in dismay.
    ‘What, you mean he was hanged in earnest? But he’s –’
    ‘No, no,’ said the man called Adam. ‘No that bad. But he fell off the stool, and his throat was hurt bad wi the rope.’
    ‘How did it happen?’ Gil asked. ‘Was anyone to blame, or was it an accident?’
    ‘My brother aye said he’d seen a cord,’ remarked someone in the corner. ‘But he never jaloused who had pulled on it. To upset the stool, you ken,’ he expanded. Gil nodded, taking this in. ‘He said the enquiry was something fierce, but nobody ever owned up nor clyped, the more so as the mannie that was to fix the rope – one of the cathedral servants, you ken – dee’d not long after.’
    ‘What happened to him?’ asked his neighbour. The narrator shook his head.
    ‘My brother never said. I think it was some kind o accident round the building. Fell off the window walk, or the like.’
    ‘And nobody admitted to causing Andrew’s accident,’ said Gil, digesting this.
    ‘Andrew was never well liked,’ said Kilgour.
    ‘Why not?’ Gil asked.
    ‘Boys can take a dislike to someone,’ said Adam. ‘Often enough there’s no accounting for it.’
    ‘The way my brother tellt me,’ protested the man in the corner, ‘there was plenty reasons to dislike Andrew. The football, for one.’
    ‘I’d forgot that,’ said Kilgour. Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘A sorry thing that was, too. One of the fellows had a football, a rare good one, for a yuletide gift. We’d several games wi it, and the boy it belonged to thought he was in Heaven, for everyone would be his friend, you ken.’ Gil nodded, recalling the muddy prints on the wall of Cossar’s manse. ‘Then one day at the noon break it was found under his bench flat as a bannock, knifed beyond mending.’
    ‘Sweet St Giles!’ said Gil, and several people exclaimed with him, obviously hearing the tale for the first time. ‘And Andrew Drummond was blamed for it?’
    ‘It was never proved,’ said Kilgour quickly. ‘Several folk had had the chance. But you ken what boys are. Andrew got the blame among his fellows, for none of the others seemed like to have done such a thing.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Our maisters paid no mind. All that happened was the lad that belonged to the ball got beaten for bringing it into the school.’
    ‘I see,’ said Gil. ‘And then at Easter the rope slipped.’
    ‘And he never got his voice back,’ agreed Adam. ‘That’s how he hates singers.’
    ‘There’s plenty folk sing well as boys and lose it once the voice changes,’ said Kilgour, ‘but this was different, you see, Andrew’s voice was stolen from him, and he’s got no love for those that can still hold a tune. He speaks well enough,’ he added, ‘but kind o hoarse, and he sings when he has to like a heron croaking.’
    ‘Was that before his brother vanished away, or after it?’ Gil asked.
    ‘It must ha been after it,’ said Kilgour, considering, ‘for he was singing well at the time his brother was stolen. It was the two of