THE SCOTTISH BEADLE.

HALF A CENTURY AGO.

Just as the old familiar landmarks of a place undergo in the course of time that change and decay which are the common lot of all things earthly ere they are finally removed from sight, nevermore to exist save as a name or memory, so many of the features or characteristics of our social life are continually being submitted to that process of transformation, and, in many respects, of obliteration, which prevails alike in the moral and the physical world. That process is to be witnessed every day. It is a result of the inevitable law to which everything human, every institution of man’s making or developing, is finally subservient. Assuredly, there is no feature or characteristic of life, whether viewed in a national or in an individual sense, but has to submit sooner or later to this universal order of things; and so, naturally, we may look, and look in vain to-day for that which but yesterday was an interesting and distinguishing trait in a certain aspect of the social life of those who then filled, as we do now, the measure of the time.

This reflection is irresistible in considering such a subject as that of ‘Beadles,’ a class of individuals who once filled a unique and peculiar place in the humbler walks of the social life of their time; for, as a class, they certainly cannot be said to form a feature in the social life of the present day. Of course, even yet the number of persons fulfilling the orthodox functions appertaining to the beadle is as large as ever—in all probability, larger. No minister surely, in Scotland at least, but enjoys his appurtenance in the person of his ‘man’ or officer. But the beadle of fifty years ago, the beadle with whom Dean Ramsay delighted to ‘forgather,’ where now is he? Sadly do we fear that he is at length sleeping his last long sleep within the quiet precincts of his ‘ain kirkyard,’ while another performs, after a fashion, those functions of his office which were ever his delight and pride, and which brought him in their performance not a little of that social renown which assuredly belonged to him, and to him alone.

The many stories told of the doings and sayings of beadles—the old originals—would fill, we believe, a goodly-sized volume. Not a few such stories have already been related by Dean Ramsay in his delightful Reminiscences, while many more are collected in other well-known books of Scottish anecdote. These stories go to prove the beadle to have been a character which, as has been said, is all but extinct in our times. A few remote parishes may yet retain worthy enough representatives of the quaint and ancient ‘bedellus,’ but, generally speaking, they are mere milk-and-water copies of the old originals. Initially, he has lost his very name, which mincing modern speech has corrupted from beadle to ‘church-officer.’ Then, as to his personal identity, in place of the old-time periwig he was wont to wear, he has now—why often, he has nothing to show! Instead of the blue swallow-tail coat with the brightly burnished buttons, and the quaint knee-breeches whereby there were displayed those ‘shrunk shanks’ of his which betokened their possessor to have arrived at that sixth age of the human cycle, he now wears ‘a customary suit of solemn black.’ Instead of that delightful affection and familiarity which existed between himself and his minister, there is now a due and proper regard paid to their respective ‘places.’ Instead of the minister and his elders being ever in awe of their ‘man,’ he has now to bear himself with appropriate respect and deference towards the minister and his session. All, indeed, is now changed; and his ancient worthiness cannot surely be identified among the plain and—in point of public character—featureless individuals who methodically and perfunctorily follow in his footsteps. If he survive at all, it is only here and there in a few stray stories and traditions embodying a pathetic remembrance of him as having lived in a bygone time in that social life of our country to which he was peculiarly indigenous, and of which he was, in a remarkable degree, so distinctive and interesting a feature.

Perhaps the time when the beadle flourished at his best and attracted to himself most of that social renown which made him a personage of no little importance—in rural districts at anyrate—was from half a century to a century ago. Of course many persons will yet vividly remember certain beadles of their acquaintance who were extant even within a decade or two ago, and enjoying in the flesh all that ‘pride of place’ to which their connection with ecclesiastical affairs had elevated them. Indeed, not a few may yet be living in various parts of the country who may not unworthily claim to share in that peculiar notorious regard which so many of their predecessors in office enjoyed; but it is to be feared that even they are every year becoming more and more a minus quantity, and the time is all but come, if it has not already come, when, so far as their social popularity as a class of characteristic individuals is concerned, they will soon, like the flowers of the forest, be ‘a’ wede away.’

Half a century ago or so, however, it was a poor country parish that had not within its confines some entertaining worthy in the person of the beadle; for where the parishioners lacked entertainment, whether of a social or a graver kind, in the efforts of their clergy, which, indeed, was rarely the case, then they were almost certain to obtain it in some form or other in the sayings and doings of the inferior but not less interesting functionaries, their beadles. In not a few places, the popularity of the latter far eclipsed that of the former: a fact which was once at least ludicrously emphasised by the story of the very jovial beadle who excused his too frequent indulgences in strong drink—a propensity which had merited the repeated rebukes of his minister, who naturally enough quoted his own sobriety as an example—on the ground of the greater popularity he enjoyed, and to which the minister could not, he declared, make anything like the same claim.

Nor was this general regard in which, as a class, they were held, derived solely from their connection with the church; for, in addition to their more serious Sabbath-day functions and opportunities, they were by no means unwilling to become, in a secular and an unofficial sense, the valuable receptacles of all the local news and tittle-tattle, albeit they were not unfrequently at the same time the ready mouthpiece for the dissemination of the same. In one or two country districts, we have heard the phrase, ‘to blab like a beadle,’ which gives some colouring to this latter statement; but, on the whole, it is only fair to say in his behalf that there were others who could blab as well as he about those parochial secrets with which it was his business, more or less, to become acquainted. To be a model to his class, there was, in fact, no secret but he knew all about, and at first-hand too; no scandal whispered ominously within the precincts of the manse or session-house but was ‘piper’s news’ to him; and whether the fama in question related to the latest heterodoxy of the minister himself, or to some serious moral defection on the part of the laird, or had regard to the love ongoings of Matty the farmer’s lass, or even had to do with such a temporal matter as the chronic rheumatism of the Doctor’s lady, all was known to his beadleship long before the whisper could be shapen into palpable words; and thus he was ever, Sabbath-day and week-day alike, as wise as Sir Oracle himself.

His local influence, therefore, was by no means despicable. Many persons finding in him a man of information, of ripe wisdom, of undeniable honesty, of excellent counsel, in which neither the village doctor nor the schoolmaster, nor even the minister, could excel, however nearly they may have approached him, looked up to him often with genuine regard and affection, and were easily inclined to forgive whatever faults and failings occasionally exhibited themselves whether in his ‘walk’ or his ‘conversation;’ for sometimes even his human nature was liable to err. Thus, whatever he said, gained the ear of the parish; whatever he did, filled the popular eye; and while the doctor and the schoolmaster, ay, and even the minister, are each and all now well-nigh forgotten, to this day his name is still remembered, and his sayings repeated. In some places, of course, he occasionally figured small and unworthily; but, generally speaking, the beadle of the time indicated was really a very notable and important social character, although his fame did not extend beyond the bourn of the parish to which he belonged; but of the result of the pathetic, although petty part he played on his narrow human stage, all that remains to us to-day is the not uninteresting though sorrowful reflection that he was a distinguishing feature of a quiet, easy-going, giving-and-taking time in the past history of Scotland. But with the advance of the times, the personality of the beadle becomes less striking, grows less interesting. His quondam local gossip and tattle, what are they with the multitudinous-tongued newspaper? What are the village secrets compared with the great doings in the mighty city, humming yonder like a vast human hive? Soon did our worthy friend feel that the big, busy world, of which he and his villagers had heard but little, and knew less, was now beginning to push itself upon them, until at length one day it was discovered that his and their identity were being merged and lost in the ever-increasing crowds of men. But it was only the way of the world, to which even beadles must submit themselves. That they have done so is only too apparent to-day, when, in this little corner of the world, of which they were once as native as the thistle or the heather, perhaps not a score of them are to be found of the good old style of fifty years ago.

A few stories about these worthies may not be out of place in concluding these reflections. Perhaps the most original saying, embodying a rare thought, quaint yet beautiful, ever expressed by a beadle was that attributed to Jamie M——, who served in that capacity for nearly thirty years to the church of B——. His beadleship was, as far as wages were concerned, trifling, and therefore Jamie had to work as a stone-breaker to keep body and soul together. At length, after a long life of patient toil, he took to his deathbed, where one day, in reply to the minister, who had called to see him, and, by way of reminding him of the heavenly joys on which he was about to enter, doubted not that he would soon be joining in the choir celestial, Jamie said that he had ‘full assurance of faith for certain, but that as for the choiring, he was aye bad at a tune. Howsoever, when he got to the New Jerusalem, he was willin’ to work wi’ his hands if the Maister wanted him!’

The office of beadle was frequently, in many country parishes, combined with that of sexton or gravedigger—an office which afforded considerable scope for the display of those pathetic, if oftentimes grotesque, traits of character. We remember one worthy who considered the latter office of much more interest and importance than the former. ‘As beadle he only waited on the living; but as sexton and gravedigger, he waited on the dead!’ Another worthy used to say that for performing the duties of beadle he only got the ‘session’s siller;’ while for assisting at those more solemn and sad burial-rites, he got the ‘deid’s perquisites!’

Dr Begg, in his Autobiography, tells a story—not, however, for the first time—of a grave-digging beadle who, in reply to a question put to him by his minister, said that ‘Trade’s very dull the noo; I hae na buried a leevin’ cratur for three weeks.’ This same beadle, who was very much an eye-servant, was appointed to watch the gooseberries (Scotticé grosets) during the days of the communion, when, amongst a multitude of worthy people, some doubtful characters came about. On one occasion, when the beadle saw some one coming out of the manse, and therefore likely to observe and report, he exclaimed with the greatest apparent zeal to strangers going near the garden: ‘How daur ye touch the minister’s grosets?’ But as soon as the manse-people had vanished out of sight, he proceeded to add, in an undertone: ‘Tak ye a pickle

Apropos of the sexton-beadle, the writer lately heard an excellent story—which has never before been printed—regarding Thomas Carlyle and a late beadle of Ecclefechan. In the churchyard, which has now been made famous by the fact that it contains the mortal remains of the great sage, there stood, and still stands, a very old and dilapidated tombstone, on which are engraven some illegible hieroglyphics, which the beadle pretended to decipher, translating their purport in such a way as to reflect very flatteringly on the moral and social qualities of the persons—his ancestors—to whom they referred. On one occasion, when Carlyle visited this place of the dead, the beadle showed him round, but first of all pointed to this mysterious stone, underneath which reposed all that was mortal of the beadle’s supposed illustrious ancestors, and dilated with his well-known exaggeration on the very high characters which, according to the hieroglyphics of the stone, they bore when in the flesh. Carlyle, knowing the beadle’s soft point with regard to his ‘forebears,’ listened for a time in silence to the glowing description of individuals who never had had any existence save in imagination, and at length quietly remarked as he passed on: ‘Puir cratur, ye’ll sune be gathered to them yersel’!’

The story of Watty Tinlin, the half-crazy beadle of Hawick parish, is another proof of this license, which was, on certain occasions, supposed to be due to his office. One day Wat got so tired of listening to the long sermon of a strange minister, that he went outside the church, and wandering in the direction of the river Teviot, saw the worshippers from the adjoining parish of Wilton grossing the bridge on their way home. Returning to the church and finding the preacher still thundering away, he shouted out, to the astonishment and relief of the exhausted congregation: ‘Say amen, sir; say amen! Wulton’s kirk’s comin’ ower Teyit Brig!’ Such conduct on a Sunday in the present year of grace, if it did not relegate the offender to the police cell, would at anyrate result in a very solemn and serious sitting of the ‘session’ on the following Monday. But the times are changed; and not only have beadles, but ministers and churches, too, changed with them; and the living embodiments of the class whose peculiar and, on the whole, not unpleasant idiosyncrasies of character and ‘calling’ we have thus briefly indicated, are now few and far between.