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 social popularity which many beadles enjoyed not unfrequently encouraged them to take certain liberties, which, nowadays at all events, would not be permitted either within or without the ‘sphere’ in which they lived and worked. What would be thought of a beadle, for instance, who would presume to correct the precentor in announcing from his box a proclamation of marriage between parties, as once did a beadle of a parish near Arbroath? The precentor had somehow been provided with a ‘proclaiming’ paper, in which the name of one of the parties had been wrongly stated, as the beadle supposed; and as the precentor duly proceeded to make the announcement that ‘there was a solemn purpose of marriage between Alexander Spink of Fisher’s Loan and Elspeth Hackett of Burn Wynd,’ he was unceremoniously interrupted by the beadle suddenly exclaiming: ‘That’s wrang, that’s wrang! It’s no Sanders Spink o’ Fisher’s Loan that’s gaun to marry Elspeth Hackett, but Lang Sanders Spink o’ Smithy Croft!’ 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. BY GRANT ALLEN, Author of ‘Babylon,’ ‘Strange Stories,’ etc. etc. ‘We’d better go, Tom,’ Mr Dupuy said, almost pitying them. ‘Upon my word, it’s perfectly true; they neither of them knew a word about it.’IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XVII.