A Bedrule Tale

By H. Rutherford Turnbull

Bedrule Kirk showing part of the church cemetery including a grave marker with a bull's head on it.

When my family and I visited Scotland (from our home in Lawrence, Kansas, USA ) in 1985 or 1986, we hired a car, drove from Edinburgh to Hawick, telephoned Myra Turnbull, and inquired where best to find our roots. “At the Kirk of Bedrule,” she answered firmly. On, then, to Bedrule, I behind the wheel, my wife Ann in the passenger seat, and my two daughters, Amy (10), and Kate (7) in the back. Upon entering Bedrule, it was easy enough to locate the church; Bedrule is not exactly a metropolis. Finding the gate to the church-close locked, we parked our car outside and managed to climb over the fence and enter the graveyard. There, to no surprise but constant delight, we found the Turnbull and Rutherford gravestones. We picked heather and placed it on the horizontal cross of the Cross over William Turnbull’s stone (the oldest of Turnbull stones). Having done so, one of my daughters allowed as how she needed to answer nature’s call. I counseled her, "Go to the back of the church, outside the graveyard, where the land slopes down to the river, and use that area for yourself." No sooner had she done so and returned to us than my family and I were visited by a thunder-clap, heavy rain, and not a few hail-stones." I and my family were visited by a thunder-clap, heavy rain, and not a few hail-stones. We raced to the car, put it into reverse, and barreled down the small single-lane “road” that led to and from the church. Even as the wheels spun and our small motor roared, I heard and swear to it!!—a voice from the clouds proclaim, “Thou shalt not defile the Turnbulls.”  Fleeing that dreadful voice and frightful place, we drove on until, some 300-500 yards down the lane, we were met by calm. The clouds cleared, the sun appeared, and we looked upon ourselves as “visited.” Indeed, we did more than reflect upon what just occurred. We looked out of our windows and found immediately to our side, a large grey stone on which was carved, “Here stood the gallows on which the English hanged the Turnbulls.”  Knowing, now, the origin of the clan diaspora to the colonies that became the USA and Canada, we laughed and drove on. Not, without, however, my wife reading from A History of Hawick the following text: “Down the road from the Kirk of Bedrule stands a grim reminder of the lives and deaths of the unruly Turnbulls.” The text, of course, referenced the stone. It might well have referenced our “visitation” in the close of the Kirk of Bedrule. So much for legend; believe me or not, all of this is true except, perhaps, for the voice, and if indeed there was no actual voice, there most certainly was an actual spirit. As it said, Thou shalt not…” And so say all Turnbulls to all their opponents!

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