The Precentor's Dream

Nicholas Dickson, The Auld Scottish Precentor as Sketched in Anecdote and Story (1894), pp. 146-148:

The foregoing incident reminds us of another sick-room experience in the life of a precentor connected for many years with one of the churches in Glasgow. To the minister visiting him during convalescence, the precentor related the following remarkable dream.

"Man, Doctor, it was sic a real dream that I canna help thinkin' it wasna a dream after a', but something as real as if I seen and read it in the newspapers."

"A dream which was not all a dream," replied the Doctor, quoting Byron.

"Exactly. I thought I was takin' a wee bit daun'er round George Square ae lovely munelicht nicht. I was admirin' the mune in a' her grandeur, but a very singular sicht drew my attention frae her in the heavens an' made me wonder in my dream if I was really dreamin'. Frae east an' wast, frae north an' south, a great body o' men, bigger than the biggest giants I ever heard tell o', cam marchin' into the Square. Round an' round they marched, like the Israelites about Jericho, till the captain at their head roared out in a voice of thunder—Halt!

"In an instant, the giants halted like a weeldrilled regiment o' sodgers, an' waited for the word o' command. What that word was I canna tell ye, Doctor, but no sooner did they get it than the giant regiments a' marched back the way they had come, an' left the Square to the munelicht an' to me. No for lang, however, for back they all inarched wi' the maist extraordinar' bands at their head. What d'ye think, Doctor, the bands were playin' on?"

"Oh, big drums and that sort of thing."

"Not at a'; naething o' the kind, Doctor. Ilka bandsman had a big kirk, a real kirk, below his oxter, like a bagpipe, and the end o' the steeple in his mouth like the chanter—playin' and blawin' away like ten thousand Hielandmen let lowse in Glasgow."

"And what tunes did they play?"

"That's weel asked, Doctor; ye may be sure that was the thing that interested me maist; for as ilka band passed me, I kent the kirk that was being played on, an' the tunes that were played were just the psalm-tunes the precentor o' that kirk sang best."

"A remarkable dream, Andrew," observed the Doctor, rising to go. "Which dream, however, is an allegory and foreshadows things that must shortly come to pass."

"An' what may they be, Doctor?"

"The introduction of instrumental music in our churches, the choirmaster surrounded by his choir, and an empty precentor's desk."

"Amen !" replied the old precentor. " As for me, I'm dune with the desk, an' for the organ an' the choir—they may be very fine. But I'll ne'er forget the auld precenting days wi' the swing o' the Auld Hunder on special occasions, an' Coleshill at the Sacrament."