Brown's, Number 3, Little King William's-alley,
which has lived there this fifteen year, and knows me to be very
hard-working and industrious, and when my poor husband was alive,
gentlemen, as died in the hospital'--'Well, well,' interrupts the
overseer, taking a note of the address, 'I'll send Simmons, the
beadle, to-morrow morning, to ascertain whether your story is
correct; and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the
House--Simmons, go to this woman's the first thing to-morrow
morning, will you?' Simmons bows assent, and ushers the woman out.
Her previous admiration of 'the board' (who all sit behind great
books, and with their hats on) fades into nothing before her
respect for her lace-trimmed conductor; and her account of what has
passed inside, increases--if that be possible--the marks of
respect, shown by the assembled crowd, to that solemn functionary.
As to taking out a summons, it's quite a hopeless case if Simmons
attends it, on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of
the Lord Mayor by heart; states the case without a single stammer:
and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a
joke, which the Lord Mayor's head footman (who happened to be
present) afterwards told an intimate friend, confidentially, was
almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler's.
See him again on Sunday in his state-coat and cocked-hat, with a
large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a small cane for
use in his right. How pompously he marshals the children into
their places! and how demurely the little urchins look at him
askance as he surveys them when they are all seated, with a glare
of the eye peculiar to beadles! The churchwardens and overseers
being duly installed in their curtained pews, he seats himself on a
mahogany bracket, erected expressly for him at the top of the
aisle, and divides his attention between his prayer-book and the
boys. Suddenly, just at the commencement of the communion service,
when the whole congregation is hushed into a profound silence,
broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman, a penny is
heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding
clearness. Observe the generalship of the beadle. His involuntary
look of horror is instantly changed into one of perfect
indifference, as if he were the only person present who had not
heard the noise. The artifice succeeds. After putting forth his
right leg now and then, as a feeler, the victim who dropped the
money ventures to make one or two distinct dives after it; and the
beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his little round head, when
it again appears above the seat, with divers double knocks,
administered with the cane before noticed, to the intense delight
of three young men in an adjacent pew, who cough violently at
intervals until the conclusion of the sermon.
Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish
beadle--a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that
has come under our observation, except when the services of that
particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required:
then indeed all is bustle. Two little boys run to the beadle as
fast as their legs will carry them, and report from their own
personal observation that some neighbouring chimney is on fire; the
engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply of boys being
obtained, and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the
pavement, the beadle, running--we do not exaggerate--running at the
side, until they arrive at some house, smelling strongly of soot,
at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity
for half-an-hour. No attention being paid to these manual
applications, and the turn-cock having turned on the water, the
engine turns off amidst the shouts of the boys; it pulls up once
more at the work-house, and the beadle 'pulls up' the unfortunate
householder next day, for the amount of his legal reward. We never
saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once. It came up in
gallant style--three miles and a half an hour, at least; there was
a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot.
