Page images
PDF
EPUB

"Where's your patr'otism, sir? Where's your loyalty? your love of country? your respect for Church and State? I blush for you! Unbutton my top button, sir! But there, you needn't stir a peg! I am able myself to look him down, and look him up, and look him out of this extensive parish into nothing-nowhere! Keep my collar down, sir!" Meek Master Cobbes complied, and, thinking to "smooth the raven down" of his indignant Head "till he smiled," timidly dared to say, "Good sooth, Mr. Bubb, it is up to-day wonderful high!" meaning his choler, and not the dignified cape of the great coat of the great Bubb.

"Cobbes! Mr. Under-Beadle Cobbes! Sir!" And with an imperious frown he suppressed the irreverent spirit of the inferior, making him to shrink in his shoes; and then magisterially he bade him to "Take notice of that man! I don't know who he is; but this I know, that I've seen him at the church twice if I've seen him once; and I said at the time to Brown, that his hat was not a best hat-by no means a good hat, but a shabby, second-hand, exchangeable-looking hat-a suspicious hat. Keep your eye upon him, Cobbes, for I have my sirmisers! Look to him, sir, for I have my doubts! Seize him, sir, if you observe he's at all partic'lar in picking an empty pew with best prayer-books in it, for I am not without my suspicions! The fellow looks as if he'd steal a bell from a belfry! He's either a bad man or a madman! I saw him give a shilling to one of our paupers the other day; and when I gave him a broad hint that the sun was very warm, and going about this highly extensive parish was dry work in dusty weather, he gave me -what do you think?"

"Half-a-crown," said Cobbes.

"No, sir; he gave me a sircastic screw of his mouth, and told me the parish pump was as wet and as cool as ever! What a reply!-Not bow to me when I bowed-me, the head-beadle of this great parish! What is this world come to? But this is another flagrant proof of the unfidelity of the age, as our doctor says. Oh, Cobbes, we live in awful times!-Beat that boy away!-Awful times!"

Mr. Bubb, I noticed, after this impassioned colloquy, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; and I left the worthy pair looking round to see who had his eyes on "The Red Lion." The doctor's eyes were not in that dsrection.

It must be said in praise of Mr. Bubb, that if he has not the respect of all men, he has all his own. No great man is on better terms with himself-therein setting a good example to the rest of

the world. This self-respect has led him to think lately, that, as beadles are elected to their high state and great trust with much ceremony; after much canvassing, bribery, hubbubbery, appealing to feelings; much repetition of the six small children, and the ailing mother with a seventh; much speechifying of the parochial orators, clattering of cabs, jangling of hackney coaches, opposition of Tories, clamour of old women, indifference of Whigs, raving of Radicals, and roaring of boys (who put no trust in the professions of his canvassing letters); he has thought, I say, that as a beadle comes into office amidst such a stir and parochial uproar, that a foreigner would think that the next revolution of opinion (which everybody says is to take place) has broken out alarmingly in that parish, and all Europe was to be disturbed for the next fifty years, so a beadle should not be suffered to die out of office like the snuff of a candle! And yet kings go out in the same quiet way! But, then, a king is not a beadle!

It is already recorded that the old-womanhood of the parish do not love Mr. Bubb: it must now be recorded that the entire boyhood, including all kinds, rich and poor, dirty boyhood and dandy boyhood, hate him he is so harsh a Herod and tyrant over those young innocents. It is remarkable that beadles never were looked upon with a favourable eye by youth generally. The very word "beadle" seems to them synonymous with " chastisement," in the canons of church discipline; and "canon," as they spell it, is cane-on. Bubb, by his severities, has rendered the office more odious than ever in their young eyes. I was not surprised, therefore, at observing that all the Guys of the fifth of November last past bore a considerably greater resemblance to the burly person of Mr. Bubb, than to the traditional effigy of ancient Master Guido Faux, that gunpowder Percy." Fortunately for the ends of justice, however, as the papers say, the worthy beadle was at that time laid up with his first fit of gout (for he has been in office but two years); and, as fortunately, Cobbes was too dull a beadle and a man to detect the audacious parody of the person of his great chief, or I know not what might not have happened on that memorable day. As it was, Bubb burnt very brilliantly at night, and was squibbed and martyred at the stake in a truly christian manner, to the great edification of the young Protestants who assisted at his auto da fe.

66

Upon the whole, it is due to this great functionary to say, that, notwithstanding his indifference to the poor, and the unlimited use he makes of his cane, he is an extremely becoming BEADLE of the PARISH.

[graphic][merged small]

He hath ribands of all colours 'the rainbow--inkles, cadisses, cambrics lawns: why, he sings them over as they were gods or goddesses.

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

“N▬▬▬▬▬▬o ; n▬▬▬othing else," replies the lady; and ere she has deliberately pulled on her glove, there is something else unrolled before her.

"A beautiful thing, madam! and" (this is said half-confidentially) "the first of the season."

The lady, with a predetermination not to buy, asks (but only in the way of curiosity)" How much?" On this, the linen-draper's man, lowering his voice as though he felt within him a glow of shame to utter to the winds the (to her) absurdly low price for so beautiful an article, blandly smiles, and whispers the sum.

"Humph! ha! I don't much like the colour,' says the lady,the article being very dear.

"I do assure you, madam, the only colour that is,-I mean, that will be, worn ;-a beautiful colour! Upon my honour! a colour that, of all colours-quite a new colour!-so far away from the common !—you really-pray-a thousand pardons!-but allow me to give it the benefit of a little more light;-a delightful colour !— not but what it looks infinitely better in the dress than in the piece."

"Some colours"-and the lady begins to melt; and her husband's pocket (the poor man at the time, perhaps, driving his honest calling in the corn-markets or the Stock Exchange; or, it may be, in the sweet precincts of Furnival's Inn or Chancery Lane, displaying the practical philanthropy of the law to ignorant men who cannot understand the full philosophy of costs in its comprehensive

Ladies have generally a fine eye for colour, albeit they sometimes (if we are to believe Dr. George G. Sigmond) exercise the faculty a little capriciously. The doctor asserts, that even in the article of rhubarb, colour is a great object with the fair; for, says the doctor, "it is a well-known fact, that 'fashionable druggists' (there really ought to be 'fashionable viscera') are obliged to gratify the eye of an elegant customer; and many a fine lady would not take rhubarb if the colour did not come up to the precise standard of her inclinations."

M

« PreviousContinue »