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"Down with them!" put in little Jehan, as counterpoint; "down with Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians, the doctors and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and the rector!" "The end of the world has come!, muttered Master Andry, stopping up his ears. "By the way, there's the rector! see, he is passing through the Place," cried one of those in the window.
Behind him walked his secretary, the Syndic of Subiaco, four gendarmes, and three broken-down, old livery-clad beadles, who carried the umbrellas of these high dignitaries. In truth, had it not been for the unutterable shabbiness of the whole affair, I could have fancied I saw the market scene in "Martha," and "The Last Rose of Summer" seemed to ring unbidden in my ears.
He would say, likewise, of men who wanted to be continually in office, that apparently they did not know their road; since they could not do without beadles to guide them on it. He also reproved the citizens for choosing still the same men as their magistrates: "For you will seem," said he, "either not to esteem government worth much, or to think few worthy to hold it."
A sedentary life had told so severely upon one of the two beadles that he could no longer enter his box with dignity or read his newspaper there with any comfort. He resigned, and John obtained the post by his brothers' interest, in spite of his cork leg. He had now a bright green suit with scarlet pipings, a gold-laced hat, a fashionable address, and very little to do.
They have got money, and they are so stupid you may take it from under their eyes. They will not see you. But of their own hearts they will give you nothing. You see that black building the workhouse. I call it Little England. It is just the same. The naked, hungry, poor wretches lie at the door, and the great fat beadles swell about like turkey-cocks inside."
It did not become him to boast, he said, but he had seen marvellous things in his day: under his unworthy ministry three beadles had been converted to Christianity, and this experience was so final that the conference immediately closed. Times there were, however, when the Presbytery rose to its height and was invested with an undeniable spiritual dignity.
Officials and parsons, soldiers and ballet dancers, schoolmasters and beadles, Greek museums and Gothic towers, civil list and army list the communal seeds wherein all these fabulous existences embryonically slumber are the taxes. And what reasoning citizen would not refer the starving people to the taxes, to the ill-gotten gains of the princes, as the source of their poverty?
He took in good part the jokes and pleasantries pronounced in Latin by the Chancellor, Lord Curzon; but after the ceremonies of initiation were finished, after the beadles had, in response to the order of the Chancellor, conducted "Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum," and after the Chancellor had, this time in very direct and beautiful English, welcomed him to membership in the University, he delivered an address, the serious scholarship of which held the attention of those who heard it and arrested the attention of many thousands of others who received the lecture through the printed page.
Never did a creed possess temples more elegant; as elegant as the Cathedral at Rouen, or the Baptistery at Pisa. But it is changed now. There was nobody at prayers; only the official beadles, and the supernumerary guides, who came for backsheesh. Faith hath degenerated. Accordingly they can't build these mosques, or invent these perfect forms, any more.
I have been told that by birth he is the bastard of an archdeacon and a devil. The name of some festival when the bells are pealed! So he took the liberty of carrying you off, as though you were made for beadles! 'Tis too much. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you? Hey, tell me!" "I do not know," she replied. "The inconceivable impudence!
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