The Provost Part 9

The general election in 1812 was a source of trouble and uneasiness to me; both because our district of burghs was to be contested, and because the contest was not between men of opposite principles, but of the same side. To neither of them had I any particular leaning; on the contrary, I would have preferred the old member, whom I had, on different occasions, found an accessible and tractable instrument, in the way of getting small favours with the government and India company, for friends that never failed to consider them as such things should be. But what could I do? Providence had placed me in the van of the battle, and I needs must fight; so thought every body, and so for a time I thought myself. Weighing, however, the matter one night soberly in my mind, and seeing that whichever of the two candidates was chosen, I, by my adherent loyalty to the cause for which they were both declared, the contest between them being a rivalry of purse and personality, would have as much to say with the one as with the other, came to the conclusion that it was my prudentest course not to intermeddle at all in the election.

Accordingly, as soon as it was proper to make a declaration of my sentiments, I made this known, and it caused a great wonderment in the town; n.o.body could imagine it possible that I was sincere, many thinking there was something aneath it, which would kithe in time to the surprise of the public. However, the peutering went on, and I took no part. The two candidates were as civil and as liberal, the one after the other, to Mrs Pawkie and my daughters, as any gentlemen of a parliamentary understanding could be. Indeed, I verily believe, that although I had been really chosen delegate, as it was at one time intended I should be, I could not have hoped for half the profit that came in from the dubiety which my declaration of neutrality caused; for as often as I a.s.sured the one candidate that I did not intend even to be present at the choosing of the delegate, some rich present was sure to be sent to my wife, of which the other no sooner heard than he was upsides with him. It was just a sport to think of me protesting my neutrality, and to see how little I was believed. For still the friends of the two candidates, like the figures of the four quarters of the world round Britannia in a picture, came about my wife, and poured into her lap a most extraordinary paraphernalia from the horn of their abundance.

The common talk of the town was, that surely I was bereft of my wonted discretion, to traffic so openly with corruption; and that it could not be doubted I would have to face the House of Commons, and suffer the worst pains and penalties of bribery. But what did all this signify to me, who was conscious of the truth and integrity of my motives and talents? "They say!--what say they?--let them say!"--was what I said, as often as any of my canny friends came to me, saying, "For G.o.d's sake, Mr Pawkie, tak'tent"--"I hope, Mr Pawkie, ye ken the ground ye stand on"--or, "I wish that some folks were aware of what's said about them." In short, I was both angered and diverted by their clishmaclavers; and having some need to go into Glasgow just on the eve of the election, I thought I would, for diversion, give them something in truth to play with; so saying nothing to my shop lad the night before, nor even to Mrs Pawkie, (for the best of women are given to tattling), till we were in our beds, I went off early on the morning of the day appointed for choosing the delegate.

The consternation in the town at my evasion was wonderful. n.o.body could fathom it; and the friends and supporters of the rival candidates looked, as I was told, at one another, in a state of suspicion that was just a curiosity to witness. Even when the delegate was chosen, every body thought that something would be found wanting, merely because I was not present. The new member himself, when his election was declared, did not feel quite easy; and more than once, when I saw him after my return from Glasgow, he said to me, in a particular manner--"But tell me now, bailie, what was the true reason of your visit to Glasgow?" And, in like manner, his opponent also hinted that he would pet.i.tion against the return; but there were some facts which he could not well get at without my a.s.sistance--insinuating that I might find my account in helping him.

At last, the true policy of the part I had played began to be understood; and I got far more credit for the way in which I had turned both parties so well to my own advantage, than if I had been the means of deciding the election by my single vote.

CHAPTER XLII--THE NEW MEMBER

But the new member was, in some points, not of so tractable a nature as many of his predecessors had been; and notwithstanding all the couthy jocosity and curry-favouring of his demeanour towards us before the election, he was no sooner returned, than he began, as it were, to snap his fingers in the very faces of those of the council to whom he was most indebted, which was a thing not of very easy endurance, considering how they had taxed their consciences in his behalf; and this treatment was the more bitterly felt, as the old member had been, during the whole of his time, as considerate and obliging as could reasonably be expected; doing any little job that needed his helping hand when it was in his power, and when it was not, replying to our letters in a most discreet and civil manner. To be sure, poor man, he had but little to say in the way of granting favours; for being latterly inclined to a whiggish principle, he was, in consequence, debarred from all manner of government patronage, and had little in his gift but soft words and fair promises.

Indeed, I have often remarked, in the course of my time, that there is a surprising difference, in regard to the urbanities in use among those who have not yet come to authority, or who have been cast down from it, and those who are in the full possession of the rule and domination of office; but never was the thing plainer than in the conduct of the new member.

He was by nature and inclination one of the upsetting sort; a kind of man who, in all manner of business, have a leaven of contrariness, that makes them very hard to deal with; and he, being conjunct with his majesty's ministers at London, had imbibed and partook of that domineering spirit to which all men are ordained, to be given over whenever they are clothed in the garments of power. Many among us thought, by his colleaguing with the government, that we had got a great catch, and they were both blythe and vogie when he was chosen; none doubting but he would do much good servitude to the corporation, and the interests of the burgh. However he soon gave a rebuff, that laid us all on our backs in a state of the greatest mortification. But although it behoved me to sink down with the rest, I was but little hurt: on the contary, I had a good laugh in my sleeve at the time; and afterwards, many a merry tumbler of toddy with my brethren, when they had recovered from their discomfiture. The story was this:--

About a fortnight after the election, Mr Scudmyloof, the schoolmaster, called one day on me, in my shop, and said, "That being of a nervous turn, the din of the school did not agree with him; and that he would, therefore, be greatly obligated to me if I would get him made a gauger."

There had been something in the carriage of our new member, before he left the town, that was not satisfactory to me, forbye my part at the election, the which made me loth to be the first to ask for any grace, though the master was a most respectable and decent man; so I advised Mr Scudmyloof to apply to Provost Pickandab, who had been the delegate, as the person to whose instrumentality the member was most obliged; and to whose application, he of course would pay the greatest attention.

Whether Provost Pickandab had made any observe similar to mine, I never could rightly understand, though I had a notion to that effect: he, however, instead of writing himself, made the application for Mr Scudmyloof an affair of the council; recommending him as a worthy modest man, which he really was, and well qualified for the post. Off went this notable letter, and by return of post from London, we got our answer as we were all sitting in council; deliberating anent the rebuilding of the Crosswell, which had been for some time in a sore state of dilapidation; and surely never was any letter more to the point and less to the purpose of an applicant. It was very short and pithy, just acknowledging receipt of ours; and adding thereto, "circ.u.mstances do not allow me to pay any attention to such applications." We all with one accord, in sympathy and instinct, threw ourselves back in our chairs at the words, looking at Provost Pickandab, with the pragmatical epistle in his hand, sitting in his place at the head of the table, with the countenance of consternation.

When I came to myself, I began to consider that there must have been something no right in the provost's own letter on the subject, to cause such an uncourteous rebuff; so after condemning, in very strong terms, the member's most ungenteel style, in order to procure for myself a patient hearing, I warily proposed that the provost's application should be read, a copy thereof being kept, and I had soon a positive confirmation of my suspicion. For the provost, being fresh in the dignity of his office, and naturally of a prideful turn, had addressed the parliament man as if he was under an obligation to him; and as if the council had a right to command him to get the gauger's post, or indeed any other, for whomsoever they might apply. So, seeing whence the original sin of the affair had sprung, I said nothing; but the same night I wrote a humiliated letter from myself to the member, telling him how sorry we all were for the indiscretion that had been used towards him, and how much it would pleasure me to heal the breach that had happened between him and the burgh, with other words of an oily and conciliating policy.

The indignant member, by the time my letter reached hand, had cooled in his pa.s.sion, and, I fancy, was glad of an occasion to do away the consequence of the rupture; for with a most extraordinary alacrity he procured Mr Scudmyloof the post, writing me, when he had done so, in the civilest manner, and saying many condescending things concerning his regard for me; all which ministered to maintain and uphold my repute and consideration in the town, as superior to that of the provost.

CHAPTER XLIII--MY THIRD PROVOSTRY

It was at the Michaelmas 1813 that I was chosen provost for the third time, and at the special request of my lord the earl, who, being in ill health, had been advised by the faculty of doctors in London to try the medicinal virtues of the air and climate of Sicily, in the Mediterranean sea; and there was an understanding on the occasion, that I should hold the post of honour for two years, chiefly in order to bring to a conclusion different works that the town had then in hand.

At the two former times when I was raised to the dignity, and indeed at all times when I received any advancement, I had enjoyed an elation of heart, and was, as I may say, crouse and vogie; but experience had worked a change upon my nature, and when I was saluted on my election with the customary greetings and gratulations of those present, I felt a solemnity enter into the frame of my thoughts, and I became as it were a new man on the spot. When I returned home to my own house, I retired into my private chamber for a time, to consult with myself in what manner my deportment should be regulated; for I was conscious that heretofore I had been overly governed with a disposition to do things my own way, and although not in an avaricious temper, yet something, I must confess, with a sort of sinister respect for my own interests. It may be, that standing now clear and free of the world, I had less incitement to be so grippy, and so was thought of me, I very well know; but in sobriety and truth I conscientiously affirm, and herein record, that I had lived to partake of the purer spirit which the great mutations of the age had conjured into public affairs, and I saw that there was a necessity to carry into all dealings with the concerns of the community, the same probity which helps a man to prosperity in the sequestered traffic of private life.

This serious and religious communing wrought within me to a benign and pleasant issue, and when I went back in the afternoon to dine with the corporation in the council-room, and looked around me on the bailies, the councillors, and the deacons, I felt as if I was indeed elevated above them all, and that I had a task to perform, in which I could hope for but little sympathy from many; and the first thing I did was to measure, with a discreet hand, the festivity of the occasion.

At all former and precedent banquets, it had been the custom to give vent to muckle wanton and luxurious indulgence, and to galravitch, both at hack and manger, in a very expensive manner to the funds of the town. I therefore resolved to set my face against this for the future; and accordingly, when we had enjoyed a jocose temperance of loyalty and hilarity, with a decent measure of wine, I filled a gla.s.s, and requesting all present to do the same, without any preliminary reflections on the gavaulling of past times, I drank good afternoon to each severally, and then rose from the table, in a way that put an end to all the expectations of more drink.

But this conduct did not give satisfaction to some of the old hands, who had been for years in the habit and practice of looking forward to the provost's dinner as to a feast of fat things. Mr Peevie, one of the very sickerest of all the former sederunts, came to me next morning, in a remonstrating disposition, to enquire what had come over me, and to tell me that every body was much surprised, and many thought it not right of me to break in upon ancient and wonted customs in such a sudden and unconcerted manner.

This Mr Peevie was, in his person, a stumpy man, well advanced in years.

He had been, in his origin, a bonnet-maker; but falling heir to a friend that left him a property, he retired from business about the fiftieth year of his age, doing nothing but walking about with an ivory-headed staff, in a suit of dark bluecloth with yellow b.u.t.tons, wearing a large c.o.c.ked hat, and a white three-tiered wig, which was well powdered every morning by Duncan Curl, the barber. The method of his discourse and conversation was very precise, and his words were all set forth in a style of consequence, that took with many for a season as the pith and marrow of solidity and sense. The body, however, was but a pompous trifle, and I had for many a day held his observes and admonishments in no very reverential estimation. So that, when I heard him address me in such a memorializing manner, I was inclined and tempted to set him off with a flea in his lug. However, I was enabled to bridle and rein in this prejudicial humour, and answer him in his own way.

"Mr Peevie," quo' I, "you know that few in the town hae the repute that ye hae for a gift of sagacity by common, and therefore I'll open my mind to you in this matter, with a frankness that would not be a judicious polity with folk of a lighter understanding."

This was before the counter in my shop. I then walked in behind it, and drew the chair that stands in the corner nearer to the fire, for Mr Peevie. When he was seated thereon, and, as was his wont in conversation, had placed both his hands on the top of his staff, and leant his chin on the same, I subjoined.

"Mr Peevie, I need not tell to a man of your experience, that folk in public stations cannot always venture to lay before the world the reasons of their conduct on particular occasions; and therefore, when men who have been long in the station that I have filled in this town, are seen to step aside from what has been in time past, it is to be hoped that grave and sensible persons like you, Mr Peevie, will no rashly condemn them unheard; nevertheless, my good friend, I am very happy that ye have spoken to me anent the stinted allowance of wine and punch at the dinner, because the like thing from any other would have made me jealouse that the complaint was altogether owing to a disappointed appet.i.te, which is a corrupt thing, that I am sure would never affect a man of such a public spirit as you are well known to be."

Mr Peevie, at this, lifted his chin from off his hands, and dropping his arms down upon his knees, held his staff by the middle, as he replied, looking upward to me,

"What ye say, Provost Pawkie, has in it a solid commodity of judgment and sensibility; and ye may be sure that I was not without a cogitation of reflection, that there had been a discreet argument of economy at the bottom of the revolution which was brought to a criticism yesterday's afternoon. Weel aware am I, that men in authority cannot appease and quell the inordinate concupiscence of the mult.i.tude, and that in a'

stations of life there are persons who would mumpileese the retinue of the king and government for their own behoof and eeteration, without any regard to the cause or effect of such manifest predilections. But ye do me no more than a judicature, in supposing that, in this matter, I am habituated wi' the best intentions. For I can a.s.sure you, Mr Pawkie, that no man in this community has a more literal respect for your character than I have, or is more disposed for a judicious example of continence in the way of public enterteenment than I have ever been; for, as you know, I am of a constipent principle towards every extravagant and costive outlay. Therefore, on my own account, I had a satisfaction at seeing the abridgement which you made of our former inebrieties; but there are other persons of a conjugal nature, who look upon such castrations as a deficiency of their rights, and the like of them will find fault with the best procedures."

"Very true, Mr Peevie," said I, "that's very true; but if his Majesty's government, in this war for all that is dear to us as men and Britons, wish us, who are in authority under them, to pare and save, in order that the means of bringing the war to a happy end may not be wasted, an example must be set, and that example, as a loyal subject and a magistrate, it's my intent so to give, in the hope and confidence of being backed by every person of a right way of thinking."

"It's no to be deputed, Provost Pawkie," replied my friend, somewhat puzzled by what I had said; "it's no to be deputed, that we live in a gigantic vortex, and that every man is bound to make an energetic dispensation for the good of his country; but I could not have thought that our means had come to sic an alteration and extremity, as that the reverent homage of the Michaelmas dinners could have been enacted, and declared absolute and abolished, by any interpolation less than the omnipotence of parliament."

"Not abolished, Mr Peevie," cried I, interrupting him; "that would indeed be a stretch of power. No, no; I hope we're both ordained to partake of many a Michaelmas dinner thegether yet; but with a meted measure of sobriety. For we neither live in the auld time nor the golden age, and it would not do now for the like of you and me, Mr Peevie, to be seen in the dusk of the evening, toddling home from the town-hall wi' goggling een and havering tongues, and one of the town-officers following at a distance in case of accidents; sic things ye ken, hae been, but n.o.body would plead for their continuance."

Mr Peevie did not relish this, for in truth it came near his own doors, it having been his annual practice for some years at the Michaelmas dinner to give a sixpence to James Hound, the officer, to see him safe home, and the very time before he had sat so long, that honest James was obligated to cleek and oxter him the whole way; and in the way home, the old man, cagie with what he had gotten, stood in the causey opposite to Mr M'Vest's door, then deacon of the taylors, and trying to snap his fingers, sang like a daft man,

'The sheets they were thin and the blankets were sma', And the taylor fell through the bed, thimble and a'."

So that he was disconcerted by my innuendo, and shortly after left the shop, I trow, with small inclination to propagate any sedition against me, for the abbreviation I had made of the Michaelmas galravitching.

CHAPTER XLIV--THE CHURCH VACANT

I had long been sensible that, in getting Mr Pittle the kirk, I had acted with the levity and indiscretion of a young man; but at that time I understood not the nature of public trust, nor, indeed, did the community at large. Men in power then ruled more for their own ends than in these latter times; and use and wont sanctioned and sanctified many doings, from the days of our ancestors, that, but to imagine, will astonish and startle posterity. Accordingly, when Mr Pittle, after a lingering illness, was removed from us, which happened in the first year of my third provostry, I bethought me of the consequences which had ensued from his presentation, and resolved within myself to act a very different part in the filling up of the vacancy. With this intent, as soon as the breath was out of his body, I sent round for some of the most weighty and best considered of the councillors and elders, and told them that a great trust was, by the death of the minister, placed in our hands, and that, in these times, we ought to do what in us lay to get a shepherd that would gather back to the establishment the flock which had been scattered among the seceders, by the f.e.c.kless crook and ill-guiding of their former pastor.

They all agreed with me in this, and named one eminent divine after another; but the majority of voices were in favour of Dr Whackdeil of Kirkbogle, a man of weight and example, both in and out the pulpit, so that it was resolved to give the call to him, which was done accordingly.

It however came out that the Kirkbogle stipend was better than ours, and the consequence was, that having given the call, it became necessary to make up the deficiency; for it was not reasonable to expect that the reverend doctor, with his small family of nine children, would remove to us at a loss. How to accomplish this was a work of some difficulty, for the town revenues were all eaten up with one thing and another; but upon an examination of the income, arising from what had been levied on the seats for the repair of the church, it was discovered that, by doing away a sinking fund, which had been set apart to redeem the debt incurred for the same, and by the town taking the debt on itself, we could make up a sufficiency to bring the doctor among us. And in so far as having an orthodox preacher, and a very excellent man for our minister, there was great cause to be satisfied with that arrangement.

But the payment of the interest on the public debt, with which the town was burdened, began soon after to press heavily on us, and we were obligated to take on more borrowed money, in order to keep our credit, and likewise to devise ways and means, in the shape of public improvements, to raise an income to make up what was required. This led me to suggest the building of the new bridge, the cost of which, by contract, there was no reason to complain of, and the toll thereon, while the war lasted, not only paid the interest of the borrowed money by which it was built, but left a good penny in the nook of the treasurer's box for other purposes.

Had the war continued, and the nation to prosper thereby as it did, n.o.body can doubt that a great source of wealth and income was opened to the town; but when peace came round, and our prosperity began to fall off, the traffic on the bridge grew less and less, insomuch that the toll, as I now understand, (for since my resignation, I meddle not with public concerns,) does not yield enough to pay the five per cent on the prime cost of the bridge, by which my successors suffer much molestation in raising the needful money to do the same. However, every body continues well satisfied with Dr Whackdeil, who was the original cause of this perplexity; and it is to be hoped that, in time, things will grow better, and the revenues come round again to idemnify the town for its present tribulation.

CHAPTER XLV--THE STRAMASH IN THE COUNCIL

As I have said, my third provostry was undertaken in a spirit of sincerity, different in some degree from that of the two former; but strange and singular as it may seem, I really think I got less credit for the purity of my intents, than I did even in the first. During the whole term from the election in the year 1813 to the Michaelmas following, I verily believe that no one proposal which I made to the council was construed in a right sense; this was partly owing to the repute I had acquired for canny management, but chiefly to the perverse views and misconceptions of that Yankee thorn-in-the-side, Mr Hickery, who never desisted from setting himself against every thing that sprang from me, and as often found some show of plausibility to maintain his argumentations. And yet, for all that, he was a man held in no esteem or respect in the town; for he had wearied every body out by his everlasting contradictions. Mr Plan was likewise a source of great tribulation to me; for he was ever and anon coming forward with some new device, either for ornament or profit, as he said, to the burgh; and no small portion of my time, that might have been more advantageously employed, was wasted in the thriftless consideration of his schemes: all which, with my advanced years, begat in me a sort of distaste to the bickerings of the council chamber; so I conferred and communed with myself, anent the possibility of ruling the town without having recourse to so unwieldy a vehicle as the wheels within wheels of the factions which the Yankee reformator, and that projectile Mr Plan, as he was called by Mr Peevie, had inserted among us.

I will no equivocate that there was, in this notion, an appearance of taking more on me than the laws allowed; but then my motives were so clean to my conscience, and I was so sure of satisfying the people by the methods I intended to pursue, that there could be no moral fault in the trifle of illegality which, may be, I might have been led on to commit.

However, I was fortunately spared from the experiment, by a sudden change in the council.--One day Mr Hickery and Mr Plan, who had been for years colleaguing together for their own ends, happened to differ in opinion, and the one suspecting that this difference was the fruit of some secret corruption, they taunted each other, and came to high words, and finally to an open quarrel, actually shaking their neeves across the table, and, I'll no venture to deny, maybe exchanging blows.