“It canna be,” retorted John very gruffly, “I measured the coffin wi’ my ain hand, and was very particular about it.”
“Ye made a mistak’ in the measuring, then, John,” said the party, “or ye’ve gane wrang wi’ the howkin’.”
“Me wrang!” snorted the beadle, livid with rage; “see that ye haena brocht the wrang corp.”
A physician in Dumfries, who was also a member of the Kirk-Session, meeting the beadle “the waur o’ a dram,” threatened to expose him.
“Man, doctor,” said the gravedigger, with a twinkle in his eye, “I hae happit mony a faut o’ yours, an’ I think ye micht thole ane o’ mine.”
“Man, doctor,” said the gravedigger, with a twinkle in his eye, “I hae happit mony a faut o’ yours, an’ I think ye micht thole ane o’ mine.”—[Page 138.]
The translation of the Rev. Donald Macleod from Linlithgow to Glasgow was deeply resented by the beadle, who also held the office of sexton. When Mr. Macleod first went to Linlithgow, the beadle took him into the graveyard, and, showing him the resting-places of his predecessors, said, “There’s whaur Dr. Bell lies; and there’s whaur Dr. Dobie lies; and there’s whaur you’ll lie if you’re spared.” As Mr. Macleod was taking his departure, the beadle said, “Weel, sir, ye’re the first minister that was ever lifted out o’ Linlithgow except to the grave.”
In the memoir of the late Dr. William Lindsay Alexander there are some choice beadle anecdotes; and the following, which is identified with his first pulpit appearance in the congregation which had known him “man and boy,” the rev. doctor himself told in a church meeting not very long before his death. “As well as I remember,” he said, “I discharged the duty to the best of my ability. But, on coming down to the vestry, one of the worthy deacons came to me and said some very disparaging things about my sermon, saying plainly that this sort of thing would never do! Among other things he said it was too flowery. Saunders, the church-officer, who was in the vestry and was standing with his hand on the door, turned round and said, ‘Flooers! an’ what for no? What ails ye at flooers?’ After the deacon went out I went up to Saunders and thanked him for taking my part. ‘Weel, Maister Weelum, I jist didna like to see him ower ill to ye; but, atween oorsel’s, he wasna far wrang, ye ken. Yon’ll no dae!”
The Doctor one day told “Jimms,” who had been gardener and minister’s man at Pinkieburn when he (the minister) was a boy, that he had planned a new approach to the house, and intended to set about and have it made at once.