were caller, would run out, being from their own pockets, whereas we fought with the public purse in our hand; and by dint of exhortation to that effect, I carried the majority to go into my plan, which in the end was most gratifying, for the kirk was in a manner made as good as new, and the contributional stock of the Smeddumites was entirely rookit by the lawyers, who would fain have them to form another, assuring them that, no doubt, the legal point was in their favour. But every body knows the uncertainty of a legal opinion; and although the case was given up, for lack of a fund to carry it on, there was a living ember of discontent left in its ashes, ready to kindle into a flame on the first puff of popular dissatisfaction.
CHAPTER XVIII–THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAIRS
The spirit by which the Smeddumites were actuated in ecclesiastical affairs, was a type and taste of the great distemper with which all the world was, more or less, at the time inflamed, and which cast the ancient state and monarchy of France into the perdition of anarchy and confusion. I think, upon the whole, however, that our royal burgh was not afflicted to any very dangerous degree, though there was a sort of itch of it among a few of the sedentary orders, such as the weavers and shoemakers, who, by the nature of sitting long in one posture, are apt to become subject to the flatulence of theoretical opinions; but although this was my notion, yet knowing how much better the king and government were acquainted with the true condition of things than I could to a certainty be, I kept a steady eye on the proceedings of the ministers and parliament at London, taking them for an index and model for the management of the public concerns, which, by the grace of God, and the handling of my friends, I was raised up and set forward to undertake.
Seeing the great dread and anxiety that was above, as to the inordinate liberty of the multitude, and how necessary it was to bridle popularity, which was become rampant and ill to ride, kicking at all established order, and trying to throw both king and nobles from the saddle, I resolved to discountenance all tumultuous meetings, and to place every reasonable impediment in the way of multitudes assembling together: indeed, I had for many years been of opinion, that fairs were become a great political evil to the regular shop-keepers, by reason of the packmen, and other travelling merchants, coming with their wares and under-selling us; so that both private interest and public principle incited me on to do all in my power to bring our fair-days into disrepute. It cannot be told what a world of thought and consideration this cost me before I lighted on the right method, nor, without a dive into the past times of antiquity, is it in the power of man to understand the difficulties of the matter.
Some of our fair-days were remnants of the papistical idolatry, and instituted of old by the Pope and Cardinals, in order to make an income from the vice and immorality that was usually rife at the same. These, in the main points, were only market-days of a blither kind than the common. The country folks came in dressed in their best, the schools got the play, and a long rank of sweety-wives and their stands, covered with the wonted dainties of the occasion, occupied the sunny side of the High Street; while the shady side was, in like manner, taken possession of by the packmen, who, in their booths, made a marvellous display of goods of an inferior quality, with laces and ribands of all colours, hanging down in front, and twirling like pinnets in the wind. There was likewise the allurement of some compendious show of wild beasts; in short, a swatch of every thing that the art of man has devised for such occasions, to wile away the bawbee.
Besides the fairs of this sort, that may be said to be of a pious origin, there were others of a more boisterous kind, that had come of the times of trouble, when the trades paraded with war-like weapons, and the banners of their respective crafts; and in every seventh year we had a resuscitation of King Crispianus in all his glory and regality, with the man in the coat-of-mail, of bell-metal, and the dukes, and lord mayor of London, at the which, the influx of lads and lasses from the country was just prodigious, and the rioting and rampaging at night, the brulies and the dancing, was worse than Vanity Fair in the Pilgrim’s Progress.
To put down, and utterly to abolish, by stress of law, or authority, any ancient pleasure of the commonality, I had learned, by this time, was not wisdom, and that the fairs were only to be effectually suppressed by losing their temptations, and so to cease to call forth any expectation of merriment among the people. Accordingly, with respect to the fairs of pious origin, I, without expounding my secret motives, persuaded the council, that, having been at so great an expense in new-paving the streets, we ought not to permit the heavy caravans of wild beasts to occupy, as formerly, the front of the Tolbooth towards the Cross; but to order them, for the future, to keep at the Greenhead. This was, in a manner, expurgating them out of the town altogether; and the consequence was, that the people, who were wont to assemble in the High Street, came to be divided, part gathering at the Greenhead, round the shows, and part remaining among the stands and the booths; thus an appearance was given of the fairs being less attended than formerly, and gradually, year after year, the venerable race of sweety-wives, and chatty packmen, that were so detrimental to the shopkeepers, grew less and less numerous, until the fairs fell into insignificance.
At the parade fair, the remnant of the weapon-showing, I proceeded more roundly to work, and resolved to debar, by proclamation, all persons from appearing with arms; but the deacons of the trades spared me the trouble of issuing the same, for they dissuaded their crafts from parading. Nothing, however, so well helped me out as the volunteers, of which I will speak by and by; for when the war began, and they were formed, nobody could afterwards abide to look at the fantastical and disorderly marching of the trades, in their processions and paradings; so that, in this manner, all the glory of the fairs being shorn and expunged, they have fallen into disrepute, and have suffered a natural suppression.
CHAPTER XIX–THE VOLUNTEERING
The volunteers began in the year 1793, when the democrats in Paris threatened the downfall and utter subversion of kings, lords, and commons. As became us who were of the council, we drew up an address to his majesty, assuring him that our lives and fortunes were at his disposal. To the which dutiful address, we received, by return of post, a very gracious answer; and, at the same time, the lord-lieutenant gave me a bit hint, that it would be very pleasant to his majesty to hear that we had volunteers in our town, men of creditable connexions, and willing to defend their property.
When I got this note from his lordship, I went to Mr Pipe, the wine- merchant, and spoke to him concerning it, and we had some discreet conversation on the same; in the which it was agreed between us that, as I was now rather inclined to a corpulency of parts, and being likewise chief civil magistrate, it would not do to set myself at the head of a body of soldiers, but that the consequence might be made up to me in the clothing of the men; so I consented to put the business into his hands upon this understanding. Accordingly, he went the same night with me to Mr Dinton, that was in the general merchandising line, a part-owner in vessels, a trafficker in corn, and now and then a canny discounter of bills, at a moderate rate, to folk in straits and difficulties. And we told him–the same being agreed between us, as the best way of fructifying the job to a profitable issue–that, as provost, I had got an intimation to raise a corps of volunteers, and that I thought no better hand could be got for a co-operation than him and Mr Pipe, who was pointed out to me as a gentleman weel qualified for the command.
Mr Dinton, who was a proud man, and an offset from one of the county families, I could see was not overly pleased at the preferment over him given to Mr Pipe, so that I was in a manner constrained to loot a sort a-jee, and to wile him into good-humour with all the ability in my power, by saying that it was natural enough of the king and government to think of Mr Pipe as one of the most proper men in the town, he paying, as he did, the largest sum of the king’s dues at the excise, and being, as we all knew, in a great correspondence with foreign ports–and I winkit to Mr Pipe as I said this, and he could with a difficulty keep his countenance at hearing how I so beguiled Mr Dinton into a spirit of loyalty for the raising of the volunteers.
The ice being thus broken, next day we had a meeting, before the council met, to take the business into public consideration, and we thereat settled on certain creditable persons in the town, of a known principle, as the fittest to be officers under the command of Mr Pipe, as commandant, and Mr Dinton, as his colleague under him. We agreed among us, as the custom was in other places, that they should be elected major, captain, lieutenants, and ensigns, by the free votes of the whole corps, according to the degrees that we had determined for them. In the doing of this, and the bringing it to pass, my skill and management was greatly approved and extolled by all who had a peep behind the curtain.
The town-council being, as I have intimated, convened to hear the gracious answer to the address read, and to take into consideration the suggesting anent the volunteering, met in the clerk’s chamber, where we agreed to call a meeting of the inhabitants of the town by proclamation, and by a notice in the church. This being determined, Mr Pipe and Mr Dinton got a paper drawn up, and privately, before the Sunday, a number of their genteeler friends, including those whom we had noted down to be elected officers, set their names as willing to be volunteers.
On the Sunday, Mr Pittle, at my instigation, preached a sermon, showing forth the necessity of arming ourselves in the defence of all that was dear to us. It was a discourse of great method and sound argument, but not altogether so quickened with pith and bir as might have been wished for; but it paved the way to the reading out of the summons for the inhabitants to meet the magistrates in the church on the Thursday following, for the purpose, as it was worded by the town-clerk, to take into consideration the best means of saving the king and kingdom in the then monstrous crisis of public affairs.
The discourse, with the summons, and a rumour and whispering that had in the mean time taken place, caused the desired effect; in so much, that, on the Thursday, there was a great congregation of the male portion of the people. At the which, old Mr Dravel–a genteel man he was, well read in matters of history, though somewhat over- portioned with a conceit of himself–got up on the table, in one of the table-seats forenent the poopit, and made a speech suitable to the occasion; in the which he set forth what manful things had been done of old by the Greeks and the Romans for their country, and, waxing warm with his subject, he cried out with a loud voice, towards the end of the discourse, giving at the same time a stamp with his foot, “Come, then, as men and as citizens; the cry is for your altars and your God.”
“Gude save’s, Mr Dravel, are ye gane by yoursel?” cried Willy Coggle from the front of the loft, a daft body that was ayefar ben on all public occasions–“to think that our God’s a Pagan image in need of sick feckless help as the like o’ thine?” The which outcry of Willy raised a most extraordinary laugh at the fine paternoster, about the ashes of our ancestors, that Mr Dravel had been so vehemently rehearsing; and I was greatly afraid that the solemnity of the day would be turned into a ridicule. However, Mr Pipe, who was upon the whole a man no without both sense and capacity, rose and said, that our business was to strengthen the hands of government, by coming forward as volunteers; and therefore, without thinking it necessary, among the people of this blessed land, to urge any arguments in furtherance of that object, he would propose that a volunteer corps should be raised; and he begged leave of me, who, as provost, was in the chair, to read a few words that he had hastily thrown together on the subject, as the outlines of a pact of agreement among those who might be inclined to join with him. I should here, however, mention, that the said few words of a pact was the costive product overnight of no small endeavour between me and Mr Dinton as well as him.
When he had thus made his motion, Mr Dinton, as we had concerted, got up and seconded the same, pointing out the liberal spirit in which the agreement was drawn, as every person signing it was eligible to be an officer of any rank, and every man had a vote in the preferment of the officers. All which was mightily applauded; and upon this I rose, and said, “It was a pleasant thing for me to have to report to his majesty’s government the loyalty of the inhabitants of our town, and the unanimity of the volunteering spirit among them–and to testify,” said I, “to all the world, how much we are sensible of the blessings of the true liberty we enjoy, I would suggest that the matter of the volunteering be left entirely to Mr Pipe and Mr Dinton, with a few other respectable gentlemen, as a committee, to carry the same into effect;” and with that I looked, as it were, round the church, and then said, “There’s Mr Oranger, a better couldna be joined with them.” He was a most creditable man, and a grocer, that we had waled out for a captain; so I desired, having got a nod of assent from him, that Mr Oranger’s name might be added to their’s, as one of the committee. In like manner I did by all the rest whom we had previously chosen. Thus, in a manner, predisposing the public towards them for officers.
In the course of the week, by the endeavours of the committee, a sufficient number of names was got to the paper, and the election of the officers came on on the Tuesday following; at which, though there was a sort of a contest, and nothing could be a fairer election, yet the very persons that we had chosen were elected, though some of them had but a narrow chance. Mr Pipe was made the commandant, by a superiority of only two votes over Mr Dinton.
CHAPTER XX–THE CLOTHING
It was an understood thing at first, that, saving in the matter of guns and other military implements, the volunteers were to be at all their own expenses; out of which, both tribulation and disappointment ensued; for when it came to be determined about the uniforms, Major Pipe found that he could by no possibility wise all the furnishing to me, every one being disposed to get his regimentals from his own merchant; and there was also a division anent the colour of the same, many of the doucer sort of the men being blate of appearing in scarlet and gold-lace, insisting with a great earnestness, almost to a sedition, on the uniform being blue. So that the whole advantage of a contract was frustrated, and I began to be sorry that I had not made a point of being, notwithstanding the alleged weight and impediment of my corpulence, the major-commandant myself. However, things, after some time, began to take a turn for the better; and the art of raising volunteers being better understood in the kingdom, Mr Pipe went into Edinburgh, and upon some conference with the lord advocate, got permission to augment his force by another company, and leave to draw two days’ pay a-week for account of the men, and to defray the necessary expenses of the corps. The doing of this bred no little agitation in the same; and some of the forward and upsetting spirits of the younger privates, that had been smitten, though not in a disloyal sense, with the insubordinate spirit of the age, clamoured about the rights of the original bargain with them, insisting that the officers had no privilege to sell their independence, and a deal of trash of that sort, and finally withdrew from the corps, drawing, to the consternation of the officers, the pay that had been taken in their names; and which the officers could not refuse, although it was really wanted for the contingencies of the service, as Major Pipe himself told me.
When the corps had thus been rid of these turbulent spirits, the men grew more manageable and rational, assenting by little and little to all the proposals of the officers, until there was a true military dominion of discipline gained over them; and a joint contract was entered into between Major Pipe and me, for a regular supply of all necessaries, in order to insure a uniform appearance, which, it is well known, is essential to a right discipline. In the end, when the eyes of men in civil stations had got accustomed to military show and parade, it was determined to change the colour of the cloth from blue to red, the former having at first been preferred, and worn for some time; in the accomplishment of which change I had (and why should I disguise the honest fact?) my share of the advantage which the kingdom at large drew, in that period of anarchy and confusion, from the laudable establishment of a volunteer force.
CHAPTER XXI–THE PRESSGANG
During the same just and necessary war for all that was dear to us, in which the volunteers were raised, one of the severest trials happened to me that ever any magistrate was subjected to. I had, at the time, again subsided into an ordinary counsellor; but it so fell out that, by reason of Mr Shuttlethrift, who was then provost, having occasion and need to go into Glasgow upon some affairs of his own private concerns, he being interested in the Kilbeacon cotton- mill; and Mr Dalrye, the bailie, who should have acted for him, being likewise from home, anent a plea he had with a neighbour concerning the bounds of their rigs and gables; the whole authority and power of the magistrates devolved, by a courtesy on the part of their colleague, Bailie Hammerman, into my hands.
For some time before, there had been an ingathering among us of sailor lads from the neighbouring ports, who on their arrival, in order to shun the pressgangs, left their vessels and came to scog themselves with us. By this, a rumour or a suspicion rose that the men-of-war’s men were suddenly to come at the dead hour of the night and sweep them all away. Heaven only knows whether this notice was bred in the fears and jealousies of the people, or was a humane inkling given, by some of the men-of-war’s men, to put the poor sailor lads on their guard, was never known. But on a Saturday night, as I was on the eve of stepping into my bed, I shall never forget it–Mrs Pawkie was already in, and as sound as a door-nail– and I was just crooking my mouth to blow out the candle, when I heard a rap. As our bed-room window was over the door, I looked out. It was a dark night; but I could see by a glaik of light from a neighbour’s window, that there was a man with a cocked hat at the door.
“What’s your will?” said I to him, as I looked out at him in my nightcap. He made no other answer, but that he was one of his majesty’s officers, and had business with the justice.
I did not like this Englification and voice of claim and authority; however, I drew on my stockings and breeks again, and taking my wife’s flannel coaty about my shoulders–for I was then troubled with the rheumatiz–I went down, and, opening the door, let in the lieutenant.
“I come,” said he, “to show you my warrant and commission, and to acquaint you that, having information of several able-bodied seamen being in the town, I mean to make a search for them.”
I really did not well know what to say at the moment; but I begged him, for the love of peace and quietness, to defer his work till the next morning: but he said he must obey his orders; and he was sorry that it was his duty to be on so disagreeable a service, with many other things, that showed something like a sense of compassion that could not have been hoped for in the captain of a pressgang.
When he had said this, he then went away, saying, for he saw my tribulation, that it would be as well for me to be prepared in case of any riot. This was the worst news of all; but what could I do? I thereupon went again to Mrs Pawkie, and shaking her awake, told her what was going on, and a terrified woman she was. I then dressed myself with all possible expedition, and went to the town- clerk’s, and we sent for the town-officers, and then adjourned to the council-chamber to wait the issue of what might betide.
In my absence, Mrs Pawkie rose out of her bed, and by some wonderful instinct collecting all the bairns, went with them to the minister’s house, as to a place of refuge and sanctuary.
Shortly after we had been in the council-room, I opened the window and looked out, but all was still; the town was lying in the defencelessness of sleep, and nothing was heard but the clicking of the town-clock in the steeple over our heads. By and by, however, a sough and pattering of feet was heard approaching; and shortly after, in looking out, we saw the pressgang, headed by their officers, with cutlasses by their side, and great club-sticks in their hands. They said nothing; but the sound of their feet on the silent stones of the causey, was as the noise of a dreadful engine. They passed, and went on; and all that were with me in the council stood at the windows and listened. In the course of a minute or two after, two lassies, with a callan, that had been out, came flying and wailing, giving the alarm to the town. Then we heard the driving of the bludgeons on the doors, and the outcries of terrified women; and presently after we saw the poor chased sailors running in their shirts, with their clothes in their hands, as if they had been felons and blackguards caught in guilt, and flying from the hands of justice.
The town was awakened with the din as with the cry of fire; and lights came starting forward, as it were, to the windows. The women were out with lamentations and vows of vengeance. I was in a state of horror unspeakable. Then came some three or four of the pressgang with a struggling sailor in their clutches, with nothing but his trousers on–his shirt riven from his back in the fury. Syne came the rest of the gang and their officers, scattered as it were with a tempest of mud and stones, pursued and battered by a troop of desperate women and weans, whose fathers and brothers were in jeopardy. And these were followed by the wailing wife of the pressed man, with her five bairns, clamouring in their agony to heaven against the king and government for the outrage. I couldna listen to the fearful justice of their outcry, but sat down in a corner of the council-chamber with my fingers in my ears.
In a little while a shout of triumph rose from the mob, and we heard them returning, and I felt, as it were, relieved; but the sound of their voices became hoarse and terrible as they drew near, and, in a moment, I heard the jingle of twenty broken windows rattle in the street. My heart misgave me; and, indeed, it was my own windows. They left not one pane unbroken; and nothing kept them from demolishing the house to the ground-stone but the exhortations of Major Pipe, who, on hearing the uproar, was up and out, and did all in his power to arrest the fury of the tumult. It seems, the mob had taken it into their heads that I had signed what they called the press-warrants; and on driving the gang out of the town, and rescuing the man, they came to revenge themselves on me and mine; which is the cause that made me say it was a miraculous instinct that led Mrs Pawkie to take the family to Mr Pittle’s; for, had they been in the house, it is not to be told what the consequences might have been.
Before morning the riot was ended, but the damage to my house was very great; and I was intending, as the public had done the deed, that the town should have paid for it. “But,” said Mr Keelivine, the town-clerk, “I think you may do better; and this calamity, if properly handled to the Government, may make your fortune,” I reflected on the hint; and accordingly, the next day, I went over to the regulating captain of the pressgang, and represented to him the great damage and detriment which I had suffered, requesting him to represent to government that it was all owing to the part I had taken in his behalf. To this, for a time, he made some scruple of objection; but at last he drew up, in my presence, a letter to the lords of the admiralty, telling what he had done, and how he and his men had been ill-used, and that the house of the chief-magistrate of the town had been in a manner destroyed by the rioters.
By the same post I wrote off myself to the lord advocate, and likewise to the secretary of state, in London; commanding, very properly, the prudent and circumspect manner in which the officer had come to apprize me of his duty, and giving as faithful an account as I well could of the riot; concluding with a simple notification of what had been done to my house, and the outcry that might be raised in the town were any part of the town’s funds to be used in the repairs.
Both the lord advocate and Mr Secretary of State wrote me back by retour of post, thanking me for my zeal in the public service; and I was informed that, as it might not be expedient to agitate in the town the payment of the damage which my house had received, the lords of the treasury would indemnify me for the same; and this was done in a manner which showed the blessings we enjoy under our most venerable constitution; for I was not only thereby enabled, by what I got, to repair the windows, but to build up a vacant steading; the same which I settled last year on my dochter, Marion, when she was married to Mr Geery, of the Gatherton Holme.
CHAPTER XXII–THE WIG DINNER
The affair of the pressgang gave great concern to all of the council; for it was thought that the loyalty of the burgh would be called in question, and doubted by the king’s ministers, notwithstanding our many assurances to the contrary; the which sense and apprehension begat among us an inordinate anxiety to manifest our principles on all expedient occasions. In the doing of this, divers curious and comical things came to pass; but the most comical of all was what happened at the Michaelmas dinner following the riot.
The weather, for some days before, had been raw for that time of the year, and Michaelmas-day was, both for wind and wet and cold, past ordinar; in so much that we were obligated to have a large fire in the council-chamber, where we dined. Round this fire, after drinking his majesty’s health and the other appropriate toasts, we were sitting as cozy as could be; and every one the longer he sat, and the oftener his glass visited the punch-bowl, waxed more and more royal, till everybody was in a most hilarious temperament, singing songs and joining chorus with the greatest cordiality.
It happened, among others of the company, there was a gash old carl, the laird of Bodletonbrae, who was a very capital hand at a joke; and he, chancing to notice that the whole of the magistrates and town-council then present wore wigs, feigned to become out of all bounds with the demonstrations of his devotion to king and country; and others that were there, not wishing to appear any thing behind him in the same, vied in their sprose of patriotism, and bragging in a manful manner of what, in the hour of trial, they would be seen to do. Bodletonbrae was all the time laughing in his sleeve at the way he was working them on, till at last, after they had flung the glasses twice or thrice over their shoulders, he proposed we should throw our wigs in the fire next. Surely there was some glammer about us that caused us not to observe his devilry, for the laird had no wig on his head. Be that, however, as it may, the instigation took effect, and in the twinkling of an eye every scalp was bare, and the chimley roaring with the roasting of gude kens how many powdered wigs well fattened with pomatum. But scarcely was the deed done, till every one was admonished of his folly, by the laird laughing, like a being out of his senses, at the number of bald heads and shaven crowns that his device had brought to light, and by one and all of us experiencing the coldness of the air on the nakedness of our upper parts.
The first thing that we then did was to send the town-officers, who were waiting on as usual for the dribbles of the bottles and the leavings in the bowls, to bring our nightcaps, but I trow few were so lucky as me, for I had a spare wig at home, which Mrs Pawkie, my wife, a most considerate woman, sent to me; so that I was, in a manner, to all visibility, none the worse of the ploy; but the rest of the council were perfect oddities within their wigs, and the sorest thing of all was, that the exploit of burning the wigs had got wind; so that, when we left the council-room, there was a great congregation of funny weans and misleart trades’ lads assembled before the tolbooth, shouting, and like as if they were out of the body with daffing, to see so many of the heads of the town in their night-caps, and no, maybe, just so solid at the time as could have been wished. Nor did the matter rest here; for the generality of the sufferers being in a public way, were obligated to appear the next day in their shops, and at their callings, with their nightcaps–for few of them had two wigs like me–by which no small merriment ensued, and was continued for many a day. It would hardly, however, be supposed, that in such a matter anything could have redounded to my advantage; but so it fell out, that by my wife’s prudence in sending me my other wig, it was observed by the commonality, when we sallied forth to go home, that I had on my wig, and it was thought I had a very meritorious command of myself, and was the only man in the town fit for a magistrate; for in everything I was seen to be most cautious and considerate. I could not, however, when I saw the turn the affair took to my advantage, but reflect on what small and visionary grounds the popularity of public men will sometimes rest.
CHAPTER XXIII–THREE THE DEATH OF MR M’LUCRE
Shortly after the affair recorded in the foregoing chapter, an event came to pass in the burgh that had been for some time foreseen.
My old friend and adversary, Bailie M’Lucre, being now a man well stricken in years, was one night, in going home from a gavawlling with some of the neighbours at Mr Shuttlethrift’s, the manufacturer’s, (the bailie, canny man, never liket ony thing of the sort at his own cost and outlay,) having partaken largely of the bowl, for the manufacturer was of a blithe humour–the bailie, as I was saying, in going home, was overtaken by an apoplexy just at the threshold of his own door, and although it did not kill him outright, it shoved him, as it were, almost into the very grave; in so much that he never spoke an articulate word during the several weeks he was permitted to doze away his latter end; and accordingly he died, and was buried in a very creditable manner to the community, in consideration of the long space of time he had been a public man among us.
But what rendered the event of his death, in my opinion, the more remarkable, was, that I considered with him the last remnant of the old practice of managing the concerns of the town came to a period. For now that he is dead and gone, and also all those whom I found conjunct with him, when I came into power and office, I may venture to say, that things in yon former times were not guided so thoroughly by the hand of a disinterested integrity as in these latter years. On the contrary, it seemed to be the use and wont of men in public trusts, to think they were free to indemnify themselves in a left-handed way for the time and trouble they bestowed in the same. But the thing was not so far wrong in principle as in the hugger-muggering way in which it was done, and which gave to it a guilty colour, that, by the judicious stratagem of a right system, it would never have had. In sooth to say, through the whole course of my public life, I met with no greater difficulties and trials than in cleansing myself from the old habitudes of office. For I must in verity confess, that I myself partook, in a degree, at my beginning, of the caterpillar nature; and it was not until the light of happier days called forth the wings of my endowment, that I became conscious of being raised into public life for a better purpose than to prey upon the leaves and flourishes of the commonwealth. So that, if I have seemed to speak lightly of those doings that are now denominated corruptions, I hope it was discerned therein that I did so rather to intimate that such things were, than to consider them as in themselves commendable. Indeed, in their notations, I have endeavoured, in a manner, to be governed by the spirit of the times in which the transactions happened; for I have lived long enough to remark, that if we judge of past events by present motives, and do not try to enter into the spirit of the age when they took place, and to see them with the eyes with which they were really seen, we shall conceit many things to be of a bad and wicked character that were not thought so harshly of by those who witnessed them, nor even by those who, perhaps, suffered from them. While, therefore, I think it has been of a great advantage to the public to have survived that method of administration in which the like of Bailie M’Lucre was engendered, I would not have it understood that I think the men who held the public trusts in those days a whit less honest than the men of my own time. The spirit of their own age was upon them, as that of ours is upon us, and their ways of working the wherry entered more or less into all their trafficking, whether for the commonality, or for their own particular behoof and advantage.
I have been thus large and frank in my reflections anent the death of the bailie, because, poor man, he had outlived the times for which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity that his wily by-hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner, that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and honour. However, he got out of the world with some respect, and the matters of which I have now to speak, are exalted, both in method and principle, far above the personal considerations that took something from the public virtue of his day and generation.
CHAPTER XXIV–THE WINDY YULE
It was in the course of the winter, after the decease of Bailie M’Lucre, that the great loss of lives took place, which every body agreed was one of the most calamitous things that had for many a year befallen the town.
Three or four vessels were coming with cargoes of grain from Ireland; another from the Baltic with Norawa deals; and a third from Bristol, where she had been on a charter for some Greenock merchants.
It happened that, for a time, there had been contrary winds, against which no vessel could enter the port, and the ships, whereof I have been speaking, were all lying together at anchor in the bay, waiting a change of weather. These five vessels were owned among ourselves, and their crews consisted of fathers and sons belonging to the place, so that, both by reason of interest and affection, a more than ordinary concern was felt for them; for the sea was so rough, that no boat could live in it to go near them, and we had our fears that the men on board would be very ill off. Nothing, however, occurred but this natural anxiety, till the Saturday, which was Yule. In the morning the weather was blasty and sleety, waxing more and more tempestuous till about mid-day, when the wind checked suddenly round from the nor-east to the sou-west, and blew a gale as if the prince of the powers of the air was doing his utmost to work mischief. The rain blattered, the windows clattered, the shop- shutters flapped, pigs from the lum-heads came rattling down like thunder-claps, and the skies were dismal both with cloud and carry. Yet, for all that, there was in the streets a stir and a busy visitation between neighbours, and every one went to their high windows, to look at the five poor barks that were warsling against the strong arm of the elements of the storm and the ocean.
Still the lift gloomed, and the wind roared, and it was as doleful a sight as ever was seen in any town afflicted with calamity, to see the sailors’ wives, with their red cloaks about their heads, followed by their hirpling and disconsolate bairns, going one after another to the kirkyard, to look at the vessels where their helpless breadwinners were battling with the tempest. My heart was really sorrowful, and full of a sore anxiety to think of what might happen to the town, whereof so many were in peril, and to whom no human magistracy could extend the arm of protection. Seeing no abatement of the wrath of heaven, that howled and roared around us, I put on my big-coat, and taking my staff in my hand, having tied down my hat with a silk handkerchief, towards gloaming I walked likewise to the kirkyard, where I beheld such an assemblage of sorrow, as few men in situation have ever been put to the trial to witness.
In the lea of the kirk many hundreds of the town were gathered together; but there was no discourse among them. The major part were sailors’ wives and weans, and at every new thud of the blast, a sob rose, and the mothers drew their bairns closer in about them, as if they saw the visible hand of a foe raised to smite them. Apart from the multitude, I observed three or four young lasses standing behind the Whinnyhill families’ tomb, and I jealoused that they had joes in the ships; for they often looked to the bay, with long necks and sad faces, from behind the monument. A widow woman, one old Mary Weery, that was a lameter, and dependent on her son, who was on board the Louping Meg, (as the Lovely Peggy was nicknamed at the shore,) stood by herself, and every now and then wrung her hands, crying, with a woeful voice, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord;”–but it was manifest to all that her faith was fainting within her. But of all the piteous objects there, on that doleful evening, none troubled my thoughts more than three motherless children, that belonged to the mate of one of the vessels in the jeopardy. He was an Englishman that had been settled some years in the town, where his family had neither kith nor kin; and his wife having died about a month before, the bairns, of whom the eldest was but nine or so, were friendless enough, though both my gudewife, and other well-disposed ladies, paid them all manner of attention till their father would come home. The three poor little things, knowing that he was in one of the ships, had been often out and anxious, and they were then sitting under the lea of a headstone, near their mother’s grave, chittering and creeping closer and closer at every squall. Never was such an orphan-like sight seen.
When it began to be so dark that the vessels could no longer be discerned from the churchyard, many went down to the shore, and I took the three babies home with me, and Mrs Pawkie made tea for them, and they soon began to play with our own younger children, in blythe forgetfulness of the storm; every now and then, however, the eldest of them, when the shutters rattled and the lum-head roared, would pause in his innocent daffing, and cower in towards Mrs Pawkie, as if he was daunted and dismayed by something he knew not what.
Many a one that night walked the sounding shore in sorrow, and fires were lighted along it to a great extent; but the darkness and the noise of the raging deep, and the howling wind, never intermitted till about midnight: at which time a message was brought to me, that it might be needful to send a guard of soldiers to the beach, for that broken masts and tackle had come in, and that surely some of the barks had perished. I lost no time in obeying this suggestion, which was made to me by one of the owners of the Louping Meg; and to show that I sincerely sympathized with all those in affliction, I rose and dressed myself, and went down to the shore, where I directed several old boats to be drawn up by the fires, and blankets to be brought, and cordials prepared, for them that might be spared with life to reach the land; and I walked the beach with the mourners till the morning.
As the day dawned, the wind began to abate in its violence, and to wear away from the sou-west into the norit, but it was soon discovered that some of the vessels with the corn had perished; for the first thing seen, was a long fringe of tangle and grain along the line of the highwater mark, and every one strained with greedy and grieved eyes, as the daylight brightened, to discover which had suffered. But I can proceed no further with the dismal recital of that doleful morning. Let it suffice here to be known, that, through the haze, we at last saw three of the vessels lying on their beam-ends with their masts broken, and the waves riding like the furious horses of destruction over them. What had become of the other two was never known; but it was supposed that they had foundered at their anchors, and that all on board perished.
The day being now Sabbath, and the whole town idle, every body in a manner was down on the beach, to help and mourn as the bodies, one after another, were cast out by the waves. Alas! few were the better of my provident preparation, and it was a thing not to be described, to see, for more than a mile along the coast, the new- made widows and fatherless bairns, mourning and weeping over the corpses of those they loved. Seventeen bodies were, before ten o’clock, carried to the desolated dwelling of their families; and when old Thomas Pull, the betheral, went to ring the bell for public worship, such was the universal sorrow of the town, that Nanse Donsie, an idiot natural, ran up the street to stop him, crying, in the voice of a pardonable desperation, “Wha, in sic a time, can praise the Lord?”
CHAPTER XXV–THE SUBSCRIPTION
The calamity of the storm opened and disposed the hearts of the whole town to charity; and it was a pleasure to behold the manner in which the tide of sympathy flowed towards the sufferers. Nobody went to the church in the forenoon; but when I had returned home from the shore, several of the council met at my house to confer anent the desolation, and it was concerted among us, at my suggestion, that there should be a meeting of the inhabitants called by the magistrates, for the next day, in order to take the public compassion with the tear in the eye–which was accordingly done by Mr Pittle himself from the pulpit, with a few judicious words on the heavy dispensation. And the number of folk that came forward to subscribe was just wonderful. We got well on to a hundred pounds in the first two hours, besides many a bundle of old clothes. But one of the most remarkable things in the business was done by Mr Macandoe. He was, in his original, a lad of the place, who had gone into Glasgow, where he was in a topping line; and happening to be on a visit to his friends at the time, he came to the meeting and put down his name for twenty guineas, which he gave me in bank-notes–a sum of such liberality as had never been given to the town from one individual man, since the mortification of fifty pounds that we got by the will of Major Bravery that died in Cheltenham, in England, after making his fortune in India. The sum total of the subscription, when we got my lord’s five-and-twenty guineas, was better than two hundred pounds sterling–for even several of the country gentlemen were very generous contributors, and it is well known that they are not inordinately charitable, especially to town folks–but the distribution of it was no easy task, for it required a discrimination of character as well as of necessities. It was at first proposed to give it over to the session. I knew, however, that, in their hands, it would do no good; for Mr Pittle, the minister, was a vain sort of a body, and easy to be fleeched, and the bold and the bardy with him would be sure to come in for a better share than the meek and the modest, who might be in greater want. So I set myself to consider what was the best way of proceeding; and truly upon reflection, there are few events in my history that I look back upon with more satisfaction than the part I performed in this matter; for, before going into any division of the money, I proposed that we should allot it to three classes–those who were destitute; those who had some help, but large families; and those to whom a temporality would be sufficient–and that we should make a visitation to the houses of all the sufferers, in order to class them under their proper heads aright. By this method, and together with what I had done personally in the tempest, I got great praise and laud from all reflecting people; and it is not now to be told what a consolation was brought to many a sorrowful widow and orphan’s heart, by the patience and temperance with which the fund of liberality was distributed; yet because a small sum was reserved to help some of the more helpless at another time, and the same was put out to interest in the town’s books, there were not wanting evil-minded persons who went about whispering calumnious innuendos to my disadvantage; but I know, by this time, the nature of the world, and how impossible it is to reason with such a seven-headed and ten-horned beast as the multitude. So I said nothing; only I got the town-clerk’s young man, who acted as clerk to the committee of the subscription, to make out a fair account of the distribution of the money, and to what intent the residue had been placed in the town-treasurer’s hand; and this I sent unto a friend in Glasgow to get printed for me, the which he did; and when I got the copies, I directed one to every individual subscriber, and sent the town- drummer an end’s errand with them, which was altogether a proceeding of a method and exactness so by common, that it not only quenched the envy of spite utterly out, but contributed more and more to give me weight and authority with the community, until I had the whole sway and mastery of the town.
CHAPTER XXVI–OF THE PUBLIC LAMPS
Death is a great reformer of corporate bodies, and we found, now and then, the benefit of his helping hand in our royal burgh. From the time of my being chosen into the council; and, indeed, for some years before, Mr Hirple had been a member, but, from some secret and unexpressed understanding among us, he was never made a bailie; for he was not liked; having none of that furthy and jocose spirit so becoming in a magistrate of that degree, and to which the gifts of gravity and formality make but an unsubstantial substitute. He was, on the contrary, a queer and quistical man, of a small stature of body, with an outshot breast, the which, I am inclined to think, was one of the main causes of our never promoting him into the ostensible magistracy; besides, his temper was exceedingly brittle; and in the debates anent the weightiest concerns of the public, he was apt to puff and fiz, and go off with a pluff of anger like a pioye; so that, for the space of more than five-and-twenty years, we would have been glad of his resignation; and, in the heat of argument, there was no lack of hints to that effect from more than one of his friends, especially from Bailie Picken, who was himself a sharp-tempered individual, and could as ill sit quiet under a contradiction as any man I ever was conjunct with. But just before the close of my second provostry, Providence was kind to Mr Hirple, and removed him gently away from the cares, and troubles, and the vain policy of this contending world, into, as I hope and trust, a far better place.
It may seem, hereafter, to the unlearned readers among posterity, particularly to such of them as may happen not to be versed in that state of things which we were obligated to endure, very strange that I should make this special mention of Mr Hirple at his latter end, seeing and observing the small store and account I have thus set upon his talents and personalities. But the verity of the reason is plainly this: we never discovered his worth and value till we had lost him, or rather, till we found the defect and gap that his death caused, and the affliction that came in through it upon us in the ill-advised selection of Mr Hickery to fill his vacant place.
The spunky nature of Mr Hirple was certainly very disagreeable often to most of the council, especially when there was any difference of opinion; but then it was only a sort of flash, and at the vote he always, like a reasonable man, sided with the majority, and never after attempted to rip up a decision when it was once so settled. Mr Hickery was just the even down reverse of this. He never, to be sure, ran himself into a passion, but then he continued to speak and argue so long in reply, never heeding the most rational things of his adversaries, that he was sure to put every other person in a rage; in addition to all which, he was likewise a sorrowful body in never being able to understand how a determination by vote ought to and did put an end to every questionable proceeding; so that he was, for a constancy, ever harping about the last subject discussed, as if it had not been decided, until a new difference of opinion arose, and necessitated him to change the burden and o’ercome of his wearysome speeches.
It may seem remarkable that we should have taken such a plague into the council, and be thought that we were well served for our folly; but we were unacquaint with the character of the man–for although a native of the town, he was in truth a stranger, having, at an early age, espoused his fortune, and gone to Philadelphia in America; and no doubt his argol-bargolous disposition was an inheritance accumulated with his other conquest of wealth from the mannerless Yankees. Coming home and settling among us, with a power of money, (some said eleven thousand pounds,) a short time before Mr Hirple departed this life, we all thought, on that event happening, it would be a very proper compliment to take Mr Hickery into the council, and accordingly we were so misfortunate as to do so; but I trow we soon had reason to repent our indiscretion, and none more than myself, who had first proposed him.
Mr Hickery having been chosen to supply the void caused by the death of Mr Hirple, in the very first sederunt of the council after his election, he kithed in his true colours.
Among other things that I had contemplated for the ornament and edification of the burgh, was the placing up of lamps to light the streets, such as may be seen in all well regulated cities and towns of any degree. Having spoken of this patriotic project to several of my colleagues, who all highly approved of the same, I had no jealousy or suspicion that a design so clearly and luminously useful would meet with any other opposition than, may be, some doubt as to the fiscal abilities of our income. To be sure Mr Dribbles, who at that time kept the head inns, and was in the council, said, with a wink, that it might be found an inconvenience to sober folk that happened, on an occasion now and then, to be an hour later than usual among their friends, either at his house or any other, to be shown by the lamps to the profane populace as they were making the best of their way home; and Mr Dippings, the candlemaker, with less public spirit than might have been expected from one who made such a penny by the illuminations on news of victory, was of opinion that lamps would only encourage the commonality to keep late hours; and that the gentry were in no need of any thing of the sort, having their own handsome glass lanterns, with two candles in them, garnished and adorned with clippit paper; an equipage which he prophesied would soon wear out of fashion when lamps were once introduced, and the which prediction I have lived to see verified; for certainly, now-a-days, except when some elderly widow lady, or maiden gentlewoman, wanting the help and protection of man, happens to be out at her tea and supper, a tight and snod serving lassie, with a three-cornered glass lantern, is never seen on the causey. But, to return from this digression; saving and excepting the remarks of Mr Dribbles and Mr Dippings, and neither of them could be considered as made in a sincere frame of mind, I had no foretaste of any opposition. I was, therefore, but ill prepared for the worrying argument with which Mr Hickery seized upon the scheme, asserting and maintaining, among other apparatus-like reasoning, that in such a northern climate as that of Scotland, and where the twilight was of such long duration, it would be a profligate waste of the public money to employ it on any thing so little required as lamps were in our streets.
He had come home from America in the summer time, and I reminded him, that it certainly could never be the intention of the magistrates to light the lamps all the year round; but that in the winter there was a great need of them; for in our northern climate the days were then very short, as he would soon experience, and might probably recollect. But never, surely, was such an endless man created. For, upon this, he immediately rejoined, that the streets would be much more effectually lighted, than by all the lamps I proposed to put up, were the inhabitants ordered to sit with their window-shutters open. I really did not know what answer to make to such a proposal, but I saw it would never do to argue with him; so I held my tongue quietly, and as soon as possible, on a pretence of private business, left the meeting, not a little mortified to find such a contrary spirit had got in among us.
After that meeting of the council, I went cannily round to all the other members, and represented to them, one by one, how proper it was that the lamps should be set up, both for a credit to the town, and as a conformity to the fashion of the age in every other place. And I took occasion to descant, at some length, on the untractable nature of Mr Hickery, and how it would be proper before the next meeting to agree to say nothing when the matter was again brought on the carpet, but just to come to the vote at once. Accordingly this was done, but it made no difference to Mr Hickery; on the contrary, he said, in a vehement manner, that he was sure there must be some corrupt understanding among us, otherwise a matter of such importance could not have been decided by a silent vote; and at every session of the council, till some new matter of difference cast up, he continued cuckooing about the lamp-job, as he called it, till he had sickened every body out of all patience.
CHAPTER XXVII–THE PLAINSTONES
The first question that changed the bark of Mr Hickery, was my proposal for the side plainstones of the high street. In the new paving of the crown of the causey, some years before, the rise in the middle had been levelled to an equality with the side loans, and in disposing of the lamp-posts, it was thought advantageous to place them halfway from the houses and the syvers, between the loans and the crown of the causey, which had the effect at night, of making the people who were wont, in their travels and visitations, to keep the middle of the street, to diverge into the space and path between the lamp-posts and the houses. This, especially in wet weather, was attended with some disadvantages; for the pavement, close to the houses, was not well laid, and there being then no ronns to the houses, at every other place, particularly where the nepus-gables were towards the streets, the rain came gushing in a spout, like as if the windows of heaven were opened. And, in consequence, it began to be freely conversed, that there would be a great comfort in having the sides of the streets paved with flags, like the plainstones of Glasgow, and that an obligation should be laid on the landlords, to put up ronns to kepp the rain, and to conduct the water down in pipes by the sides of the houses;–all which furnished Mr Hickery with fresh topics for his fasherie about the lamps, and was, as he said, proof and demonstration of that most impolitic, corrupt, and short-sighted job, the consequences of which would reach, in the shape of some new tax, every ramification of society;- -with divers other American argumentatives to the same effect. However, in process of time, by a judicious handling and the help of an advantageous free grassum, which we got for some of the town lands from Mr Shuttlethrift the manufacturer, who was desirous to build a villa-house, we got the flagstone part of the project accomplished, and the landlords gradually, of their own free-will, put up the ronns, by which the town has been greatly improved and convenienced.
But new occasions call for new laws; the side pavement, concentrating the people, required to be kept cleaner, and in better order, than when the whole width of the street was in use; so that the magistrates were constrained to make regulations concerning the same, and to enact fines and penalties against those who neglected to scrape and wash the plainstones forenent their houses, and to denounce, in the strictest terms, the emptying of improper utensils on the same; and this, until the people had grown into the habitude of attending to the rules, gave rise to many pleas, and contentious appeals and bickerings, before the magistrates. Among others summoned before me for default, was one Mrs Fenton, commonly called the Tappit-hen, who kept a small change-house, not of the best repute, being frequented by young men, of a station of life that gave her heart and countenance to be bardy, even to the bailies. It happened that, by some inattention, she had, one frosty morning, neglected to soop her flags, and old Miss Peggy Dainty being early afoot, in passing her door committed a false step, by treading on a bit of a lemon’s skin, and her heels flying up, down she fell on her back, at full length, with a great cloyt. Mrs Fenton, hearing the accident, came running to the door, and seeing the exposure that perjink Miss Peggy had made of herself, put her hands to her sides, and laughed for some time as if she was by herself. Miss Peggy, being sorely hurt in the hinder parts, summoned Mrs Fenton before me, where the whole affair, both as to what was seen and heard, was so described, with name and surname, that I could not keep my composure. It was, however, made manifest, that Mrs Fenton had offended the law, in so much, as her flags had not been swept that morning; and therefore, to appease the offended delicacy of Miss Peggy, who was a most respectable lady in single life, I fined the delinquent five shillings.
“Mr Pawkie,” said the latheron, “I’ll no pay’t. Whar do ye expeck a widow woman like me can get five shillings for ony sic nonsense?”
“Ye must not speak in that manner, honest woman,” was my reply; “but just pay the fine.”
“In deed and truth, Mr Pawkie,” quo she, “it’s ill getting a breek off a highlandman. I’ll pay no sic thing–five shillings–that’s a story!”
I thought I would have been constrained to send her to prison, the woman grew so bold and contumacious, when Mr Hickery came in, and hearing what was going forward, was evidently working himself up to take the randy’s part; but fortunately she had a suspicion that all the town-council and magistrates were in league against her, on account of the repute of her house, so that when he enquired of her where she lived, with a view, as I suspect, of interceding, she turned to him, and with a leer and a laugh, said, “Dear me, Mr Hickery, I’m sure ye hae nae need to speer that!”
The insinuation set up his birses; but she bamboozled him with her banter, and raised such a laugh against him, that he was fairly driven from the council room, and I was myself obliged to let her go, without exacting the fine.
Who would have thought that this affair was to prove to me the means of an easy riddance of Mr Hickery? But so it turned out; for whether or not there was any foundation for the traffickings with him which she pretended, he never could abide to hear the story alluded to, which, when I discerned, I took care, whenever he showed any sort of inclination to molest the council with his propugnacity, to joke him about his bonny sweetheart, “the Tappit-hen,” and he instantly sang dumb, and quietly slipped away; by which it may be seen how curiously events come to pass, since, out of the very first cause of his thwarting me in the lamps, I found, in process of time, a way of silencing him far better than any sort of truth or reason.
CHAPTER XXVIII–THE SECOND CROP OF VOLUNTEERS
I have already related, at full length, many of the particulars anent the electing of the first set of volunteers; the which, by being germinated partly under the old system of public intromission, was done with more management and slight of art than the second. This, however, I will ever maintain, was not owing to any greater spirit of corruption; but only and solely to following the ancient dexterous ways, that had been, in a manner, engrained with the very nature of every thing pertaining to the representation of government as it existed, not merely in burgh towns, but wheresoever the crown and ministers found it expedient to have their lion’s paw.
Matters were brought to a bearing differently, when, in the second edition of the late war, it was thought necessary to call on the people to resist the rampageous ambition of Bonaparte, then champing and trampling for the rich pastures of our national commonwealth. Accordingly, I kept myself aloof from all handling in the pecuniaries of the business; but I lent a friendly countenance to every feasible project that was likely to strengthen the confidence of the king in the loyalty and bravery of his people. For by this time I had learnt, that there was a wake-rife common sense abroad among the opinions of men; and that the secret of the new way of ruling the world was to follow, not to control, the evident dictates of the popular voice; and I soon had reason to felicitate myself on this prudent and seasonable discovery. For it won me great reverence among the forward young men, who started up at the call of their country; and their demeanour towards me was as tokens and arles, from the rising generation, of being continued in respect and authority by them. Some of my colleagues, who are as well not named, by making themselves over busy, got but small thank for their pains. I was even preferred to the provost, as the medium of communicating the sentiments of the volunteering lads to the lord- lieutenant; and their cause did not suffer in my hands, for his lordship had long been in the habit of considering me as one of the discreetest men in the burgh; and although he returned very civil answers to all letters, he wrote to me in the cordial erudition of an old friend–a thing which the volunteers soon discerned, and respected me accordingly.
But the soldiering zeal being spontaneous among all ranks, and breaking forth into ablaze without any pre-ordered method, some of the magistrates were disconcerted, and wist not what to do. I’ll no take it upon me to say that they were altogether guided by a desire to have a finger in the pie, either in the shape of the honours of command or the profits of contract. This, however, is certain, that they either felt or feigned a great alarm and consternation at seeing such a vast military power in civil hands, over which they had no natural control; and, as was said, independent of the crown and parliament. Another thing there could be no doubt of: in the frame of this fear they remonstrated with the government, and counselled the ministers to throw a wet blanket on the ardour of the volunteering, which, it is well known, was very readily done; for the ministers, on seeing such a pressing forward to join the banners of the kingdom, had a dread and regard to the old leaven of Jacobinism, and put a limitation on the number of the armed men that were to be allowed to rise in every place–a most ill-advised prudence, as was made manifest by what happened among us, of which I will now rehearse the particulars, and the part I had in it myself.
As soon as it was understood among the commonality that the French were determined to subdue and make a conquest of Britain, as they had done of all the rest of Europe, holding the noses of every continental king and potentate to the grindstone, there was a prodigious stir and motion in all the hearts and pulses of Scotland, and no where in a more vehement degree than in Gudetown. But, for some reason or an other which I could never dive into the bottom of, there was a slackness or backwardness on the part of government in sending instructions to the magistrates to step forward; in so much that the people grew terrified that they would be conquered, without having even an opportunity to defend, as their fathers did of old, the hallowed things of their native land; and, under the sense of this alarm, they knotted themselves together, and actually drew out proposals and resolutions of service of their own accord; by which means they kept the power of choosing their officers in their own hands, and so gave many of the big-wigs of the town a tacit intimation that they were not likely to have the command.
While things were in this process, the government had come to its senses; and some steps and measures were taken to organize volunteer corps throughout the nation. Taking heart from them, other corps were proposed on the part of the gentry, in which they were themselves to have the command; and seeing that the numbers were to be limited, they had a wish and interest to keep back the real volunteer offers, and to get their own accepted in their stead. A suspicion of this sort getting vent, an outcry of discontent thereat arose against them; and to the consternation of the magistrates, the young lads, who had at the first come so briskly forward, called a meeting of their body, and, requesting the magistrates to be present, demanded to know what steps had been taken with their offer of service; and, if transmitted to government, what answer had been received.
This was a new era in public affairs; and no little amazement and anger was expressed by some of the town-council, that any set of persons should dare to question and interfere with the magistrates. But I saw it would never do to take the bull by the horns in that manner at such a time; so I commenced with Bailie Sprose, my lord being at the time provost, and earnestly beseeched him to attend the meeting with me, and to give a mild answer to any questions that might be put; and this was the more necessary, as there was some good reason to believe, that, in point of fact, the offer of service had been kept back.
We accordingly went to the meeting, where Mr Sprose, at my suggestion, stated, that we had received no answer; and that we could not explain how the delay had arisen. This, however, did not pacify the volunteers; but they appointed certain of their own number, a committee, to attend to the business, and to communicate with the secretary of state direct; intimating, that the members of the committee were those whom they intended to elect for their officers. This was a decisive step, and took the business entirely out of the hands of the magistrates; so, after the meeting, both Mr Sprose and myself agreed, that no time should be lost in communicating to the lord-lieutenant what had taken place.
Our letter, and the volunteers’ letter, went by the same post; and on receiving ours, the lord-lieutenant had immediately some conference with the secretary of state, who, falling into the views of his lordship, in preferring the offers of the corps proposed by the gentry, sent the volunteers word in reply, that their services, on the terms they had proposed, which were of the least possible expense to government, could not be accepted.
It was hoped that this answer would have ended the matter; but there were certain propugnacious spirits in the volunteers’ committee; and they urged and persuaded the others to come into resolutions, to the effect that, having made early offers of service, on terms less objectionable in every point than those of many offers subsequently made and accepted, unless their offer was accepted, they would consider themselves as having the authority of his majesty’s government to believe and to represent, that there was, in truth, no reason to apprehend that the enemy meditated any invasion and these resolutions they sent off to London forthwith, before the magistrates had time to hear or to remonstrate against the use of such novel language from our burgh to his majesty’s ministers.
We, however, heard something; and I wrote my lord, to inform him that the volunteers had renewed their offer, (for so we understood their representation was;) and he, from what he had heard before from the secretary of state, not expecting the effect it would have, answered me, that their offer could not be accepted. But to our astonishment, by the same post, the volunteers found themselves accepted, and the gentlemen they recommended for their officers gazetted; the which, as I tell frankly, was an admonition to me, that the peremptory will of authority was no longer sufficient for the rule of mankind; and, therefore, I squared my after conduct more by a deference to public opinion, than by any laid down maxims and principles of my own; the consequence of which was, that my influence still continued to grow and gather strength in the community, and I was enabled to accomplish many things that my predecessors would have thought it was almost beyond the compass of man to undertake.
CHAPTER XXIX–CAPTAIN ARMOUR
In the course of these notandums, I have, here and there, touched on divers matters that did not actually pertain to my own magisterial life, further than as showing the temper and spirit in which different things were brought to a bearing; and, in the same way, I will now again step aside from the regular course of public affairs, to record an occurrence which, at the time, excited no small wonderment and sympathy, and in which it was confessed by many that I performed a very judicious part. The event here spoken of, was the quartering in the town, after the removal of that well-behaved regiment, the Argyle fencibles, the main part of another, the name and number of which I do not now recollect; but it was an English corps, and, like the other troops of that nation, was not then brought into the sobriety of discipline to which the whole British army has since been reduced, by the paternal perseverance of his Royal Highness the Duke of York; so that, after the douce and respectful Highlanders, we sorely felt the consequences of the outstropolous and galravitching Englishers, who thought it no disgrace to fill themselves as fou as pipers, and fight in the streets, and march to the church on the Lord’s day with their band of music. However, after the first Sunday, upon a remonstrance on the immorality of such irreligious bravery, Colonel Cavendish, the commandant, silenced the musicians.
Among the officers, there was one Captain Armour, an extraordinar well demeaned, handsome man, who was very shy of accepting any civility from the town gentry, and kept himself aloof from all our ploys and entertainments, in such a manner, that the rest of the officers talked of him, marvelling at the cause, for it was not his wont in other places.
One Sabbath, during the remembering prayer, Mr Pittle put up a few words for criminals under sentence of death, there being two at the time in the Ayr jail, at the which petition I happened to look at Captain Armour, who, with the lave of the officers, were within the magistrates’ loft, and I thought he had, at the moment, a likeness to poor Jeanie Gaisling, that was executed for the murder of her bastard bairn.
This notion at the time disturbed me very much, and one thought after another so came into my head, that I could pay no attention to Mr Pittle, who certainly was but a cauldrife preacher, and never more so than on that day. In short, I was haunted with the fancy, that Captain Armour was no other than the misfortunate lassie’s poor brother, who had in so pathetical a manner attended her and the magistrates to the scaffold; and, what was very strange, I was not the only one in the kirk who thought the same thing; for the resemblance, while Mr Pittle was praying, had been observed by many; and it was the subject of discourse in my shop on the Monday following, when the whole history of that most sorrowful concern was again brought to mind. But, without dwelling at large on the particularities, I need only mention, that it began to be publicly jealoused that he was indeed the identical lad, which moved every body; for he was a very good and gallant officer, having risen by his own merits, and was likewise much beloved in the regiment. Nevertheless, though his sister’s sin was no fault of his, and could not impair the worth of his well-earned character, yet some of the thoughtless young ensigns began to draw off from him, and he was visited, in a manner, with the disgrace of an excommunication.
Being, however, a sensible man, he bore it for a while patiently, may be hoping that the suspicion would wear away; but my lord, with all his retinue, coming from London to the castle for the summer, invited the officers one day to dine with him and the countess, when the fact was established by a very simple accident.
Captain Armour, in going up the stairs, and along the crooked old passages of the castle, happened to notice that the colonel, who was in the van, turned to the wrong hand, and called to him to take the other way, which circumstance convinced all present that he was domestically familiar with the labyrinths of the building; and the consequence was, that, during dinner, not one of the officers spoke to him, some from embarrassment and others from pride.
The earl perceiving their demeanour, enquired of the colonel, when they had returned from the table to the drawing-room, as to the cause of such a visible alienation, and Colonel Cavendish, who was much of the gentleman, explaining it, expressing his grief that so unpleasant a discovery had been made to the prejudice of so worthy a man, my lord was observed to stand some time in a thoughtful posture, after which he went and spoke in a whisper to the countess, who advised him, as her ladyship in the sequel told me herself, to send for me, as a wary and prudent man. Accordingly a servant was secretly dispatched express to the town on that errand; my lord and my lady insisting on the officers staying to spend the evening with them, which was an unusual civility at the PRO FORMA dinners at the castle.
When I arrived, the earl took me into his private library, and we had some serious conversation about the captain’s sister; and, when I had related the circumstantialities of her end to him, he sent for the captain, and with great tenderness, and a manner most kind and gracious, told him what he had noticed in the conduct of the officers, offering his mediation to appease any difference, if it was a thing that could be done.
While my lord was speaking, the captain preserved a steady and unmoved countenance: no one could have imagined that he was listening to any thing but some grave generality of discourse; but when the earl offered to mediate, his breast swelled, and his face grew like his coat, and I saw his eyes fill with water as he turned round, to hide the grief that could not be stifled. The passion of shame, however, lasted but for a moment. In less time than I am in writing these heads, he was again himself, and with a modest fortitude that was exceedingly comely, he acknowledged who he was, adding, that he feared his blameless disgrace entailed effects which he could not hope to remove, and therefore it was his intention to resign his commission. The earl, however, requested that he would do nothing rashly, and that he should first allow him to try what could be done to convince his brother officers that it was unworthy of them to act towards him in the way they did. His lordship then led us to the drawing-room, on entering which, he said aloud to the countess in a manner that could not be misunderstood, “In Captain Armour I have discovered an old acquaintance, who by his own merits, and under circumstances that would have sunk any man less conscious of his own purity and worth, has raised himself, from having once been my servant, to a rank that makes me happy to receive him as my guest.”
I need not add, that this benevolence of his lordship was followed with a most bountiful alteration towards the captain from all present, in so much that, before the regiment was removed from the town, we had the satisfaction of seeing him at divers of the town- ploys, where he received every civility.
CHAPTER XXX–THE TRADES’ BALL
At the conclusion of my second provostry, or rather, as I think, after it was over, an accident happened in the town that might have led to no little trouble and contention but for the way and manner that I managed the same. My friend and neighbour, Mr Kilsyth, an ettling man, who had been wonderful prosperous in the spirit line, having been taken on for a bailie, by virtue of some able handling on the part of Deacon Kenitweel, proposed and propounded, that there should be a ball and supper for the trades; and to testify his sense of the honour that he owed to all the crafts, especially the wrights, whereof Mr Kenitweel was then deacon, he promised to send in both wine, rum, and brandy, from his cellar, for the company. I did not much approve of the project, for divers reasons; the principal of which was, because my daughters were grown into young ladies, and I was, thank God, in a circumstance to entitle them to hold their heads something above the trades. However, I could not positively refuse my compliance, especially as Mrs Pawkie was requested by Bailie Kilsyth, and those who took an active part in furtherance of the ploy, to be the lady directress of the occasion. And, out of an honour and homage to myself, I was likewise entreated to preside at the head of the table, over the supper that was to ensue after the dancing.
In its own nature, there was surely nothing of an objectionable principle, in a “trades’ ball;” but we had several young men of the gentle sort about the town, blythe and rattling lads, who were welcome both to high and low, and to whom the project seemed worthy of a ridicule. It would, as I said at the time, have been just as well to have made it really a trades’ ball, without any adulteration of the gentry; but the hempies alluded to jouked themselves in upon us, and obligated the managers to invite them; and an ill return they made for this discretion and civility, as I have to relate.
On the nightset for the occasion, the company met in the assembly- room, in the New-inns, where we had bespoke a light genteel supper, and had M’Lachlan, the fiddler, over from Ayr, for the purpose. Nothing could be better while the dancing lasted; the whole concern wore an appearance of the greatest genteelity. But when supper was announced, and the company adjourned to partake of it, judge of the universal consternation that was visible in every countenance, when, instead of the light tarts, and nice jellies and sillybobs that were expected, we beheld a long table, with a row down the middle of rounds of beef, large cold veal-pies on pewter plates like tea- trays, cold boiled turkeys, and beef and bacon hams, and, for ornament in the middle, a perfect stack of celery.
The instant I entered the supper-room, I saw there had been a plot: poor Bailie Kilsyth, who had all the night been in triumph and glory, was for a season speechless; and when at last he came to himself, he was like to have been the death of the landlord on the spot; while I could remark, with the tail of my eye, that secret looks of a queer satisfaction were exchanged among the beaux before mentioned. This observe, when I made it, led me to go up to the bailie as he was storming at the bribed and corrupt innkeeper, and to say to him, that if he would leave the matter to me, I would settle it to the content of all present; which he, slackening the grip he had taken of the landlord by the throat, instantly conceded. Whereupon, I went back to the head of the table, and said aloud, “that the cold collection had been provided by some secret friends, and although it was not just what the directors could have wished, yet it would be as well to bring to mind the old proverb, which instructs us no to be particular about the mouth of a gi’en horse.” But I added, “before partaking thereof, wel’ll hae in our bill frae the landlord, and settle it,”–and it was called accordingly. I could discern, that this was a turn that the conspirators did not look for. It, however, put the company a thought into spirits, and they made the best o’t. But, while they were busy at the table, I took a canny opportunity of saying, under the rose to one of the gentlemen, “that I saw through the joke, and could relish it just as well as the plotters; but as the thing was so plainly felt as an insult by the generality of the company, the less that was said about it the better; and that if the whole bill, including the cost of Bailie Kilsyth’s wine and spirits, was defrayed, I would make no enquiries, and the authors might never be known.” This admonishment was not lost, for by-and-by, I saw the gentleman confabbing together; and the next morning, through the post, I received a twenty-pound note in a nameless letter, requesting the amount of it to be placed against the expense of the ball. I was overly well satisfied with this to say a great deal of what I thought, but I took a quiet step to the bank, where, expressing some doubt of the goodness of the note, I was informed it was perfectly good, and had been that very day issued from the bank to one of the gentlemen, whom, even at this day, it would not be prudent to expose to danger by naming.
Upon a consultation with the other gentlemen, who had the management of the ball, it was agreed, that we should say nothing of the gift of twenty pounds, but distribute it in the winter to needful families, which was done; for we feared that the authors of the derision would be found out, and that ill-blood might be bred in the town.
CHAPTER XXXI–THE BAILIE’S HEAD
But although in the main I was considered by the events and transactions already rehearsed, a prudent and sagacious man, yet I was not free from the consequences of envy. To be sure, they were not manifested in any very intolerant spirit, and in so far they caused me rather molestation of mind than actual suffering; but still they kithed in evil, and thereby marred the full satisfactory fruition of my labours and devices. Among other of the outbreakings alluded to that not a little vexed me, was one that I will relate, and just in order here to show the animus of men’s minds towards me.
We had in the town a clever lad, with a geni of a mechanical turn, who made punch-bowls of leather, and legs for cripples of the same commodity, that were lighter and easier to wear than either legs of cork or timber. His name was Geordie Sooplejoint, a modest, douce, and well-behaved young man–caring for little else but the perfecting of his art. I had heard of his talent, and was curious to converse with him; so I spoke to Bailie Pirlet, who had taken him by the hand, to bring him and his leather punch-bowl, and some of his curious legs and arms, to let me see them; the which the bailie did, and it happened that while they were with me, in came Mr Thomas M’Queerie, a dry neighbour at a joke.
After some generality of discourse concerning the inventions, whereon Bailie Pirlet, who was naturally a gabby prick-me-dainty body, enlarged at great length, with all his well dockit words, as if they were on chandler’s pins, pointing out here the utility of the legs to persons maimed in the wars of their country, and showing forth there in what manner the punch-bowls were specimens of a new art that might in time supplant both China and Staffordshire ware, and deducing therefrom the benefits that would come out of it to the country at large, and especially to the landed interest, in so much as the increased demand which it would cause for leather, would raise the value of hides, and per consequence the price of black cattle–to all which Mr M’Queerie listened with a shrewd and a thirsty ear; and when the bailie had made an end of his paternoster, he proposed that I should make a filling of Geordie’s bowl, to try if it did not leak.
“Indeed, Mr Pawkie,” quo’ he, “it will be a great credit to our town to hae had the merit o’ producing sic a clever lad, who, as the bailie has in a manner demonstrated, is ordained to bring about an augmentation o’ trade by his punch-bowls, little short of what has been done wi’ the steam-engines. Geordie will be to us what James Watt is to the ettling town of Greenook, so we can do no less than drink prosperity to his endeavours.”
I did not much like this bantering of Mr M’Queerie, for I saw it made Geordie’s face grow red, and it was not what he had deserved; so to repress it, and to encourage the poor lad, I said, “Come, come, neighbour, none of your wipes–what Geordie has done, is but arles of what he may do.”
“That’s no to be debated,” replied Mr M’Queerie, “for he has shown already that he can make very good legs and arms; and I’m sure I shouldna be surprised were he in time to make heads as good as a bailie’s.”
I never saw any mortal man look as that pernickity personage, the bailie, did at this joke, but I suppressed my own feelings; while the bailie, like a bantam cock in a passion, stotted out of his chair with the spunk of a birslet pea, demanding of Mr M’Queerie an explanation of what he meant by the insinuation. It was with great difficulty that I got him pacified; but unfortunately the joke was oure good to be forgotten, and when it was afterwards spread abroad, as it happened to take its birth in my house, it was laid to my charge, and many a time was I obligated to tell all about it, and how it couldna be meant for me, but had been incurred by Bailie Pirlet’s conceit of spinning out long perjink speeches.
CHAPTER XXXII–THE TOWN DRUMMER
Nor did I get every thing my own way, for I was often thwarted in matters of small account, and suffered from them greater disturbance and molestation than things of such little moment ought to have been allowed to produce within me; and I do not think that any thing happened in the whole course of my public life, which gave me more vexation than what I felt in the last week of my second provostry.
For many a year, one Robin Boss had been town drummer; he was a relic of some American-war fencibles, and was, to say the God’s truth of him, a divor body, with no manner of conduct, saving a very earnest endeavour to fill himself fou as often as he could get the means; the consequence of which was, that his face was as plooky as a curran’ bun, and his nose as red as a partan’s tae.
One afternoon there was a need to send out a proclamation to abolish a practice that was growing into a custom, in some of the bye parts of the town, of keeping swine at large–ordering them to be confined in proper styes, and other suitable places. As on all occasions when the matter to be proclaimed was from the magistrates, Thomas, on this, was attended by the town-officers in their Sunday garbs, and with their halberts in their hands; but the abominable and irreverent creature was so drunk, that he wamblet to and fro over the drum, as if there had not been a bane in his body. He was seemingly as soople and as senseless as a bolster.–Still, as this was no new thing with him, it might have passed; for James Hound, the senior officer, was in the practice, when Robin was in that state, of reading the proclamations himself.–On this occasion, however, James happened to be absent on some hue and cry quest, and another of the officers (I forget which) was appointed to perform for him. Robin, accustomed to James, no sooner heard the other man begin to read, than he began to curse and swear at him as an incapable nincompoop–an impertinent term that he was much addicted to. The grammar school was at the time skailing, and the boys seeing the stramash, gathered round the officer, and yelling and shouting, encouraged Robin more and more into rebellion, till at last they worked up his corruption to such a pitch, that he took the drum from about his neck, and made it fly like a bombshell at the officer’s head.
The officers behaved very well, for they dragged Robin by the lug and the horn to the tolbooth, and then came with their complaint to me. Seeing how the authorities had been set at nought, and the necessity there was of making an example, I forthwith ordered Robin to be cashiered from the service of the town; and as so important a concern as a proclamation ought not to be delayed, I likewise, upon the spot, ordered the officers to take a lad that had been also a drummer in a marching regiment, and go with him to make the proclamation.
Nothing could be done in a more earnest and zealous public spirit than this was done by me. But habit had begot in the town a partiality for the drunken ne’er-do-well, Robin; and this just act of mine was immediately condemned as a daring stretch of arbitrary power; and the consequence was, that when the council met next day, some sharp words flew from among us, as to my usurping an undue authority; and the thank I got for my pains was the mortification to see the worthless body restored to full power and dignity, with no other reward than an admonition to behave better for the future. Now, I leave it to the unbiassed judgment of posterity to determine if any public man could be more ungraciously treated by his colleagues than I was on this occasion. But, verily, the council had their reward.
CHAPTER XXXIII–AN ALARM
The divor, Robin Boss, being, as I have recorded, reinstated in office, soon began to play his old tricks. In the course of the week after the Michaelmas term at which my second provostry ended, he was so insupportably drunk that he fell head foremost into his drum, which cost the town five-and-twenty shillings for a new one– an accident that was not without some satisfaction to me; and I trow I was not sparing in my derisive commendations on the worth of such a public officer. Nevertheless, he was still kept on, some befriending him for compassion, and others as it were to spite me.
But Robin’s good behaviour did not end with breaking the drum, and costing a new one.–In the course of the winter it was his custom to beat, “Go to bed, Tom,” about ten o’clock at night, and the reveille at five in the morning.–In one of his drunken fits he made a mistake, and instead of going his rounds as usual at ten o’clock, he had fallen asleep in a change house, and waking about the midnight hour in the terror of some whisky dream, he seized his drum, and running into the streets, began to strike the fire-beat in the most awful manner.
It was a fine clear frosty moonlight, and the hollow sound of the drum resounded through the silent streets like thunder.–In a moment every body was a-foot, and the cry of “Whar is’t? whar’s the fire?” was heard echoing from all sides.–Robin, quite unconscious that he alone was the cause of the alarm, still went along beating the dreadful summons. I heard the noise and rose; but while I was drawing on my stockings, in the chair at the bed-head, and telling Mrs Pawkie to compose herself, for our houses were all insured, I suddenly recollected that Robin had the night before neglected to go his rounds at ten o’clock as usual, and the thought came into my head that the alarm might be one of his inebriated mistakes; so, instead of dressing myself any further, I went to the window, and looked out through the glass, without opening it, for, being in my night clothes, I was afraid of taking cold.
The street was as throng as on a market day, and every face in the moonlight was pale with fear.–Men and lads were running with their coats, and carrying their breeches in their hands; wives and maidens were all asking questions at one another, and even lasses were fleeing to and fro, like water nymphs with urns, having stoups and pails in their hands.–There was swearing and tearing of men, hoarse with the rage of impatience, at the tolbooth, getting out the fire- engine from its stance under the stair; and loud and terrible afar off, and over all, came the peal of alarm from drunken Robin’s drum.
I could scarcely keep my composity when I beheld and heard all this, for I was soon thoroughly persuaded of the fact. At last I saw Deacon Girdwood, the chief advocate and champion of Robin, passing down the causey like a demented man, with a red nightcap, and his big-coat on–for some had cried that the fire was in his yard.– “Deacon,” cried I, opening the window, forgetting in the jocularity of the moment the risk I ran from being so naked, “whar away sae fast, deacon?”
The deacon stopped and said, “Is’t out? is’t out?”
“Gang your ways home,” quo’ I very coolly, “for I hae a notion that a’ this hobleshow’s but the fume of a gill in your friend Robin’s head.”
“It’s no possible!” exclaimed the deacon.
“Possible here or possible there, Mr Girdwood,” quo’ I, “it’s oure cauld for me to stand talking wi’ you here; we’ll learn the rights o’t in the morning; so, good-night;” and with that I pulled down the window. But scarcely had I done so, when a shout of laughter came gathering up the street, and soon after poor drunken Robin was brought along by the cuff of the neck, between two of the town- officers, one of them carrying his drum. The next day he was put out of office for ever, and folk recollecting in what manner I had acted towards him before, the outcry about my arbitrary power was forgotten in the blame that was heaped upon those who had espoused Robin’s cause against me.
CHAPTER XXXIV–THE COUNTRY GENTRY
For a long period of time, I had observed that there was a gradual mixing in of the country gentry among the town’s folks. This was partly to be ascribed to a necessity rising out of the French Revolution, whereby men of substance thought it an expedient policy to relax in their ancient maxims of family pride and consequence; and partly to the great increase and growth of wealth which the influx of trade caused throughout the kingdom, whereby the merchants were enabled to vie and ostentate even with the better sort of lairds. The effect of this, however, was less protuberant in our town than in many others which I might well name, and the cause thereof lay mainly in our being more given to deal in the small way; not that we lacked of traders possessed both of purse and perseverance; but we did not exactly lie in the thoroughfare of those mighty masses of foreign commodities, the throughgoing of which left, to use the words of the old proverb, “goud in goupins” with all who had the handling of the same. Nevertheless, we came in for our share of the condescensions of the country gentry; and although there was nothing like a melting down of them among us, either by marrying or giving in marriage, there was a communion that gave us some insight, no overly to their advantage, as to the extent and measure of their capacities and talents. In short, we discovered that they were vessels made of ordinary human clay; so that, instead of our reverence for them being augmented by a freer intercourse, we thought less and less of them, until, poor bodies, the bit prideful lairdies were just looked down upon by our gawsie big-bellied burgesses, not a few of whom had heritable bonds on their estates. But in this I am speaking of the change when it had come to a full head; for in verity it must be allowed that when the country gentry, with their families, began to intromit among us, we could not make enough of them. Indeed, we were deaved about the affability of old crabbit Bodle of Bodletonbrae, and his sister, Miss Jenny, when they favoured us with their company at the first inspection ball. I’ll ne’er forgot that occasion; for being then in my second provostry, I had, in course of nature, been appointed a deputy lord-lieutenant, and the town-council entertaining the inspecting officers, and the officers of the volunteers, it fell as a duty incumbent on me to be the director of the ball afterwards, and to the which I sent an invitation to the laird and his sister little hoping or expecting they would come. But the laird, likewise being a deputy lord-lieutenant, he accepted the invitation, and came with his sister in all the state of pedigree in their power. Such a prodigy of old-fashioned grandeur as Miss Jenny was!–but neither shop nor mantuamaker of our day and generation had been the better o’t. She was just, as some of the young lasses said, like Clarissa Harlowe, in the cuts and copperplates of Mrs Rickerton’s set of the book, and an older and more curious set than Mrs Rickerton’s was not in the whole town; indeed, for that matter, I believe it was the only one among us, and it had edified, as Mr Binder the bookseller used to say, at least three successive generations of young ladies, for he had himself given it twice new covers. We had, however, not then any circulating library. But for all her antiquity and lappets, it is not to be supposed what respect and deference Miss Jenny and her brother, the laird, received–nor the small praise that came to my share, for having had the spirit to invite them. The ball was spoken of as the genteelest in the memory of man, although to my certain knowledge, on account of the volunteers, some were there that never thought to mess or mell in the same chamber with Bodletonbrae and his sister, Miss Jenny.
CHAPTER XXXV–TESTS OF SUCCESS
Intending these notations for the instruction of posterity, it would not be altogether becoming of me to speak of the domestic effects which many of the things that I have herein jotted down had in my own family. I feel myself, however, constrained in spirit to lift aside a small bit of the private curtain, just to show how Mrs Pawkie comported herself in the progressive vicissitudes of our prosperity, in the act and doing of which I do not wish to throw any slight on her feminine qualities; for, to speak of her as she deserves at my hand, she has been a most excellent wife, and a decent woman, and had aye a ruth and ready hand for the needful. Still, to say the truth, she is not without a few little weaknesses like her neighbours, and the ill-less vanity of being thought far ben with the great is among others of her harmless frailities.
Soon after the inspection ball before spoken of, she said to me that it would be a great benefit and advantage to our family if we could get Bodletonbrae and his sister, and some of the other country gentry, to dine with us. I was not very clear about how the benefit was to come to book, for the outlay I thought as likely o’ergang the profit; at the same time, not wishing to baulk Mrs Pawkie of a ploy on which I saw her mind was bent, I gave my consent to her and my daughters to send out the cards, and make the necessary preparations. But herein I should not take credit to myself for more of the virtue of humility than was my due; therefore I open the door of my secret heart so far ajee, as to let the reader discern that I was content to hear our invitations were all accepted.
Of the specialities and dainties of the banquet prepared, it is not fitting that I should treat in any more particular manner, than to say they were the best that could be had, and that our guests were all mightily well pleased. Indeed, my wife was out of the body with exultation when Mrs Auchans of that Ilk begged that she would let her have a copy of the directions she had followed in making a flummery, which the whole company declared was most excellent. This compliment was the more pleasant, as Lady Auchans was well known for her skill in savoury contrivances, and to have anything new to her of the sort was a triumph beyond our most sanguine expectations. In a word, from that day we found that we had taken, as it were, a step above the common in the town. There were, no doubt, some who envied our good fortune; but, upon the whole, the community at large were pleased to see the consideration in which their chief magistrate was held. It reflected down, as it were, upon themselves a glaik of the sunshine that shone upon us; and although it may be a light thing, as it is seemingly a vain one, to me to say, I am now pretty much of Mrs Pawkie’s opinion, that our cultivation of an intercourse with the country gentry was, in the end, a benefit to our family, in so far as it obtained, both for my sons and daughters, a degree of countenance that otherwise could hardly have been expected from their connexions and fortune, even though I had been twice provost.
CHAPTER XXXVI–RETRIBUTION
But a sad accident shortly after happened, which had the effect of making it as little pleasant to me to vex Mr Hickery with a joke about the Tappit-hen, as it was to him. Widow Fenton, as I have soberly hinted; for it is not a subject to be openly spoken of, had many ill-assorted and irregular characters among her customers; and a gang of play-actors coming to the town, and getting leave to perform in Mr Dribble’s barn, batches of the young lads, both gentle and semple, when the play was over, used to adjourn to her house for pies and porter, the commodities in which she chiefly dealt. One night, when the deep tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots was the play, there was a great concourse of people at “The Theatre Royal,” and the consequence was, that the Tappit-hen’s house, both but and ben, was, at the conclusion, filled to overflowing.
The actress that played Queen Elizabeth, was a little-worth termagant woman, and, in addition to other laxities of conduct, was addicted to the immorality of taking more than did her good, and when in her cups, she would rant and ring fiercer than old Queen Elizabeth ever could do herself. Queen Mary’s part was done by a bonny genty young lady, that was said to have run away from a boarding-school, and, by all accounts, she acted wonderful well. But she too was not altogether without a flaw, so that there was a division in the town between their admirers and visiters; some maintaining, as I was told, that Mrs Beaufort, if she would keep herself sober, was not only a finer woman, but more of a lady, and a better actress, than Miss Scarborough, while others considered her as a vulgar regimental virago.
The play of Mary Queen of Scots, causing a great congregation of the rival partizans of the two ladies to meet in the Tappit-hen’s public, some contention took place about the merits of their respective favourites, and, from less to more, hands were raised, and blows given, and the trades’-lads, being as hot in their differences as the gentlemen, a dreadful riot ensued. Gillstoups, porter bottles, and penny pies flew like balls and bomb-shells in battle. Mrs Fenton, with her mutch off, and her hair loose, with wide and wild arms, like a witch in a whirlwind, was seen trying to sunder the challengers, and the champions. Finding, however, her endeavours unavailing, and fearing that murder would be committed, she ran like desperation into the streets, crying for help. I was just at the time stepping into my bed, when I heard the uproar, and, dressing myself again, I went out to the street; for the sound and din of the riot came raging through the silence of the midnight, like the tearing and swearing of the multitude at a house on fire, and I thought no less an accident could be the cause.
On going into the street, I met several persons running to the scene of action, and, among others, Mrs Beaufort, with a gallant of her own, and both of them no in their sober senses. It’s no for me to say who he was; but assuredly, had the woman no been doited with drink, she never would have seen any likeness between him and me, for he was more than twenty years my junior. However, onward we all ran to Mrs Fenton’s house, where the riot, like a raging caldron boiling o’er, had overflowed into the street.
The moment I reached the door, I ran forward with my stick raised, but not with any design of striking man, woman, or child, when a ramplor devil, the young laird of Swinton, who was one of the most outstrapolous rakes about the town, wrenched it out of my grip, and would have, I dare say, made no scruple of doing me some dreadful bodily harm, when suddenly I found myself pulled out of the crowd by a powerful-handed woman, who cried, “Come, my love; love, come:” and who was this but that scarlet strumpet, Mrs Beaufort, who having lost her gallant in the crowd, and being, as I think, blind fou, had taken me for him, insisting before all present that I was her dear friend, and that she would die for me–with other siclike fantastical and randy ranting, which no queen in a tragedy could by any possibility surpass. At first I was confounded and overtaken, and could not speak; and the worst of all was, that, in a moment, the mob seemed to forget their quarrel, and to turn in derision on me. What might have ensued it would not be easy to say; but just at this very critical juncture, and while the drunken latheron was casting herself into antic shapes of distress, and flourishing with her hands and arms to the heavens at my imputed cruelty, two of the town-officers came up, which gave me courage to act a decisive part; so I gave over to them Mrs Beaufort, with all her airs, and, going myself to the guardhouse, brought a file of soldiers, and so quelled the riot. But from that night I thought it prudent to eschew every allusion to Mrs Fenton, and tacitly to forgive even Swinton for the treatment I had received from him, by seeming as if I had not noticed him, although I had singled him out by name.
Mrs Pawkie, on hearing what I had suffered from Mrs Beaufort, was very zealous that I should punish her to the utmost rigour of the law, even to drumming her out of the town; but forbearance was my best policy, so I only persuaded my colleagues to order the players to decamp, and to give the Tappit-hen notice, that it would be expedient for the future sale of her pies and porter, at untimeous hours, and that she should flit her howff from our town. Indeed, what pleasure would it have been to me to have dealt unmercifully, either towards the one or the other? for surely the gentle way of keeping up a proper respect for magistrates, and others in authority, should ever be preferred; especially, as in cases like this, where there had been no premeditated wrong. And I say this with the greater sincerity; for in my secret conscience, when I think of the affair at this distance of time, I am pricked not a little in reflecting how I had previously crowed and triumphed over poor Mr Hickery, in the matter of his mortification at the time of Miss Peggy Dainty’s false step.
CHAPTER XXXVII–THE DUEL
Heretofore all my magisterial undertakings and concerns had thriven in a very satisfactory manner. I was, to be sure, now and then, as I have narrated, subjected to opposition, and squibs, and a jeer; and envious and spiteful persons were not wanting in the world to call in question my intents and motives, representing my best endeavours for the public good as but a right-handed method to secure my own interests. It would be a vain thing of me to deny, that, at the beginning of my career, I was misled by the wily examples of the past times, who thought that, in taking on them to serve the community, they had a privilege to see that they were full-handed for what benefit they might do the public; but as I gathered experience, and saw the rising of the sharp-sighted spirit that is now abroad among the affairs of men, I clearly discerned that it would be more for the advantage of me and mine to act with a conformity thereto, than to seek, by any similar wiles or devices, an immediate and sicker advantage. I may therefore say, without a boast, that the two or three years before my third provostry were as renowned and comfortable to myself, upon the whole, as any reasonable man could look for. We cannot, however, expect a full cup and measure of the sweets of life, without some adulteration of the sour and bitter; and it was my lot and fate to prove an experience of this truth, in a sudden and unaccountable falling off from all moral decorum in a person of my brother’s only son, Richard, a lad that was a promise of great ability in his youth.
He was just between the tyning and the winning, as the saying is, when the playactors, before spoken off, came to the town, being then in his eighteenth year. Naturally of a light-hearted and funny disposition, and possessing a jocose turn for mimickry, he was a great favourite among his companions, and getting in with the players, it seems drew up with that little-worth, demure daffodel, Miss Scarborough, through the instrumentality of whose condisciples and the randy Mrs Beaufort, that riot at Widow Fenton’s began, which ended in expurgating the town of the whole gang, bag and baggage. Some there were, I shall here mention, who said that the expulsion of the players was owing to what I had heard anent the intromission of my nephew; but, in verity, I had not the least spunk or spark of suspicion of what was going on between him and the miss, till one night, some time after, Richard and the young laird of Swinton, with others of their comrades, forgathered, and came to high words on the subject, the two being rivals, or rather, as was said, equally in esteem and favour with the lady.
Young Swinton was, to say the truth of him, a fine bold rattling lad, warm in the temper, and ready with the hand, and no man’s foe so much as his own; for he was a spoiled bairn, through the partiality of old Lady Bodikins, his grandmother, who lived in the turreted house at the town-end, by whose indulgence he grew to be of a dressy and rakish inclination, and, like most youngsters of the kind, was vain of his shames, the which cost Mr Pittle’s session no little trouble. But–not to dwell on his faults–my nephew and he quarrelled, and nothing less would serve them than to fight a duel, which they did with pistols next morning; and Richard received from the laird’s first shot a bullet in the left arm, that disabled him in that member for life. He was left for dead on the green where they fought–Swinton and the two seconds making, as was supposed, their escape.
When Richard was found faint and bleeding by Tammy Tout, the town- herd, as he drove out the cows in the morning, the hobleshow is not to be described; and my brother came to me, and insisted that I should give him a warrant to apprehend all concerned. I was grieved for my brother, and very much distressed to think of what had happened to blithe Dicky, as I was wont to call my nephew when he was a laddie, and I would fain have gratified the spirit of revenge in myself; but I brought to mind his roving and wanton pranks, and I counselled his father first to abide the upshot of the wound, representing to him, in the best manner I could, that it was but the quarrel of the young men, and that maybe his son was as muckle in fault as Swinton.
My brother was, however, of a hasty temper, and upbraided me with my slackness, on account, as he tauntingly insinuated, of the young laird being one of my best customers, which was a harsh and unrighteous doing; but it was not the severest trial which the accident occasioned to me; for the same night, at a late hour, a line was brought to me by a lassie, requesting I would come to a certain place–and when I went there, who was it from but Swinton and the two other young lads that had been the seconds at the duel.