Читать книгу Scotch Wit and Humor - Howe Walter Henry - Страница 23

Robbie Fairgrieve was sexton as well as kirk-beadle in a Roxburghshire parish, and despite the solemn duties attaching to his vocation, was on the whole a genial man, about equally fond of a joke and a good dram. In fact, Robbie was affected with a chronic "spark in his throat" which was ill to quench, and was, indeed, never fairly extinguished during the fifty years he officiated as kirk-beadle and sexton. One day, the minister of the parish met Robbie coming home from a visit to Jedburgh fair much sooner than was expected, he (Robbie) having found the fair painfully dry, in the sense of an unprecedented absence of friendly drams. Curious to know the cause of the beadle's quick return, the minister inquired as to the reason of such correct conduct, since most of his fellow-parishioners would likely stay out the fair.

"Oh, sir," said Robbie, "huz yins (us ones) wha are 'sponsible kirk-officers" (alluding to the minister and himself), "should aye strive to be guid ensamples to the riff-raff o' the flock."