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It was a dull affair enough, this introduction of Mr Quiverful; but still it had its effect. The good which Mr Harding intended did not fall to the ground. All the Barchester world, including the five old bedesmen, treated Mr Quiverful with the more respect, because Mr Harding had thus walked in arm in arm with him, on his first entrance to his duties.
'That reiver, Patrick Hepburn, let the priest from Haddington come to assoilzie and housel her, responded Jean. 'Ah! Masses shall be said for her by my bedesmen at St. Cross, and at all my churches, said the Cardinal, crossing himself. 'And you are on your way to your sister, the Dolfine, as your knight tells me. It is well.
He had the exterior appearance of a mendicant. A slouched hat of huge dimensions; a long white beard which mingled with his grizzled hair; an aged but strongly marked and expressive countenance, hardened, by climate and exposure, to a right brick-dust complexion; a long blue gown, with a pewter badge on the right arm; two or three wallets, or bags, slung across his shoulder, for holding the different kinds of meal, when he received his charity in kind from those who were but a degree richer than himself: all these marked at once a beggar by profession, and one of that privileged class which are called in Scotland the King's Bedesmen, or, vulgarly, Blue-Gowns.
"Upon my word these are awful and unnatural times! the very bedesmen and retainers of his Majesty are the first to break his laws. Here has been an old Blue-Gown committing robbery I suppose the next will reward the royal charity which supplies him with his garb, pension, and begging license, by engaging in high-treason, or sedition at least But bring him in."
It gladdened the precentor's heart to think that the old bedesmen whom he loved so well admired the strains which were to him so full of almost ecstatic joy; and he used to boast that such was the air of the hospital, as to make it a precinct specially fit for the worship of St Cecilia.
Good, honest matron, doing thy duty in the state to which thou hast been called, heartily if not contentedly; let the fire burn on; on this occasion the flames will not scorch; they shall warm thee and thine. 'Tis ordained that that husband of thine, that Q. of thy bosom, shall reign supreme for years to come over the bedesmen of Hiram's Hospital.
Bold, now, alas, a widow; and had almost daily visited the wretched remnant of his former subjects, the few surviving bedesmen now left at Hiram's Hospital. Six of them were still living. The number, according to old Hiram's will, should always have been twelve.
And of the Mohune Hospital for that was what the alms-houses were now called Master Glennie was first warden, with fair rooms and a full library, and Master Ratsey head of the Bedesmen.
Obeying these directions, Philip came upon a building which dated from the time of Henry the Fifth. There was a large division of the quadrangular building set apart for the priest who was to say these masses; and to watch over the well-being of the bedesmen.
In doing so, however, he distinctly and repeatedly observed to the men, that though he promised for himself, he could not promise for his successors, and that the extra twopence could only be looked on as a gift from himself, and not from the trust. The bedesmen, however, were most of them older than Mr Harding, and were quite satisfied with the security on which their extra income was based.
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