Vic Mathews, a teacher at the Blessed Edith Semple School in Glasgow, is irritated by the school's obsession with seeking canonisation for the Blessed Edith. Bitterly sceptical, bedevilled by fainting spells and willing to jeopardise a romance with Ruth to air his views, Vic insists that the real miracle at the school is not the recovery of a paralysed pupil but his own breakthrough with a withdrawn boy.