Part 3 (1/2)
CHAPTER XI--POLICY
Just about the end of my first provostry, I began to make a discovery.
Whether it was that I was a little inordinately lifted up by reason of the dignity, and did not comport myself with a sufficient condescension and conciliation of manner to the rest of the town-council, it would be hard to say. I could, however, discern that a general ceremonious insincerity was performed by the members towards me, especially on the part of those who were in league and conjunct with the town-clerk, who comported himself, by reason of his knowledge of the law, as if he was in verity the true and effectual chief magistrate of the burgh; and the effect of this discovery, was a consideration and digesting within me how I should demean myself, so as to regain the vantage I had lost; taking little heed as to how the loss had come, whether from an ill-judged pride and pretending in myself, or from the natural spirit of envy, that darkens the good-will of all mankind towards those who get sudden promotion, as it was commonly thought I had obtained, in being so soon exalted to the provostry.
Before the Michaelmas I was, in consequence of this deliberation and counselling with my own mind, fully prepared to achieve a great stroke of policy for the future government of the town. I saw that it would not do for me for a time to stand overly eminent forward, and that it was a better thing, in the world, to have power and influence, than to show the possession of either. Accordingly, after casting about from one thing to another, I bethought with myself, that it would be a great advantage if the council could be worked with, so as to nominate and appoint My Lord the next provost after me. In the proposing of this, I could see there would be no difficulty; but the hazard was, that his lords.h.i.+p might only be made a tool of instrumentality to our shrewd and sly town-clerk, Mr Keelivine, while it was of great importance that I should keep the management of my lord in my own hands. In this strait, however, a thing came to pa.s.s, which strongly confirms me in the opinion, that good-luck has really a great deal to say with the prosperity of men. The earl, who had not for years been in the country, came down in the summer from London, and I, together with the other magistrates and council, received an invitation to dine with him at the castle. We all of course went, ”with our best breeding,” as the old proverb says, ”helped by our brawest cleeding;” but I soon saw that it was only a _pro forma_ dinner, and that there was nothing of cordiality in all the civility with which we were treated, both by my lord and my lady. Nor, indeed, could I, on an afterthought, blame our n.o.ble entertainers for being so on their guard; for in truth some of the deacons, (I'll no say any of the bailies,) were so transported out of themselves with the glory of my lord's banquet, and the thought of dining at the castle, and at the first table too, that when the wine began to fiz in their noddles, they forgot themselves entirely, and made no more of the earl than if he had been one of themselves. Seeing to what issue the matter was tending, I set a guard upon myself; and while my lord, out of a parly-voo politess, was egging them on, one after another, to drink deeper and deeper of his old wines, to the manifest detriment of their own senses, I kept myself in a degree as sober as a judge, warily noting all things that came to pa.s.s.
The earl had really a commendable share of common sense for a lord, and the discretion of my conduct was not unnoticed by him; in so much, that after the major part of the council had become, as it may be said, out o'
the body, cracking their jokes with one another, just as if all present had been carousing at the Cross-Keys, his lords.h.i.+p wised to me to come and sit beside him, where we had a very private and satisfactory conversation together; in the which conversation, I said, that it was a pity he would not allow himself to be nominated our provost. n.o.body had ever minted to him a thought of the thing before; so it was no wonder that his lords.h.i.+p replied, with a look of surprise, saying, ”That so far from refusing, he had never heard of any such proposal.”
”That is very extraordinary, my lord,” said I; ”for surely it is for your interests, and would to a certainty be a great advantage to the town, were your lords.h.i.+p to take upon you the nominal office of provost; I say nominal, my lord, because being now used to the duties, and somewhat experienced therein, I could take all the necessary part of the trouble off your lords.h.i.+p's hands, and so render the provostry in your lords.h.i.+p's name a perfect nonent.i.ty.” Whereupon, he was pleased to say, if I would do so, and he commended my talents and prudence, he would have no objection to be made the provost at the ensuing election. Something more explicit might have ensued at that time; but Bailie M'Lucre and Mr Sharpset, who was the dean of guild, had been for about the s.p.a.ce of half an hour carrying on a vehement argument anent some concern of the guildry, in which, coming to high words, and both being beguiled and ripened into folly by the earl's wine, they came into such a manifest quarrel, that Mr Sharpset pulled off the bailie's best wig, and flung it with a d.a.m.n into the fire: the which stramash caused my lord to end the sederunt; but none of the magistrates, save myself, was in a condition to go with his lords.h.i.+p to My Lady in the drawing-room.
CHAPTER XII--THE SPY
Soon after the foregoing transaction, a thing happened that, in a manner, I would fain conceal and suppress from the knowledge of future times, although it was but a sort of sprose to make the world laugh. Fortunately for my character, however, it did not fall out exactly in my hands, although it happened in the course of my provostry. The matter spoken of, was the affair of a Frenchman who was taken up as a spy; for the American war was then raging, and the French had taken the part of the Yankee rebels.
One day, in the month of August it was, I had gone on some private concernment of my own to Kilmarnock, and Mr b.o.o.ble, who was then oldest Bailie, naturally officiated as chief magistrate in my stead.
There have been, as the world knows, a disposition on the part of the grand monarque of that time, to invade and conquer this country, the which made it a duty inc.u.mbent on all magistrates to keep a vigilant eye on the in-comings and out-goings of aliens and other suspectable persons.
On the said day, and during my absence, a Frenchman, that could speak no manner of English, somehow was discovered in the Cross-Key inns. What he was, or where he came from, n.o.body at the time could tell, as I was informed; but there he was, having come into the house at the door, with a bundle in his hand, and a portmanty on his shoulder, like a traveller out of some vehicle of conveyance. Mrs Drammer, the landlady, did not like his looks; for he had toozy black whiskers, was lank and wan, and moreover deformed beyond human nature, as she said, with a parrot nose, and had no cravat, but only a bit black riband drawn through two b.u.t.ton- holes, fastening his ill-coloured sark neck, which gave him altogether something of an unwholesome, outlandish appearance.
Finding he was a foreigner, and understanding that strict injunctions were laid on the magistrates by the king and government anent the egressing of such persons, she thought, for the credit of her house, and the safety of the community at large, that it behoved her to send word to me, then provost, of this man's visibility among us; but as I was not at home, Mrs Pawkie, my wife, directed the messenger to Bailie b.o.o.ble's. The bailie was, at all times, overly ready to claught at an alarm; and when he heard the news, he went straight to the council-room, and sending for the rest of the council, ordered the alien enemy, as he called the forlorn Frenchman, to be brought before him. By this time, the suspicion of a spy in the town had spread far and wide; and Mrs Pawkie told me, that there was a palid consternation in every countenance when the black and yellow man--for he had not the looks of the honest folks of this country--was brought up the street between two of the town-officers, to stand an examine before Bailie b.o.o.ble.
Neither the bailie, nor those that were then sitting with him, could speak any French language, and ”the alien enemy” was as little master of our tongue. I have often wondered how the bailie did not jealouse that he could be no spy, seeing how, in that respect, he wanted the main faculty. But he was under the enchantment of a panic, partly thinking also, perhaps, that he was to do a great exploit for the government in my absence.
However, the man was brought before him, and there was he, and them all, speaking loud out to one another as if they had been hard of hearing, when I, on my coming home from Kilmarnock, went to see what was going on in the council. Considering that the procedure had been in handsome time before my arrival, I thought it judicious to leave the whole business with those present, and to sit still as a spectator; and really it was very comical to observe how the bailie was driven to his wit's-end by the poor lean and yellow Frenchman, and in what a pucker of pa.s.sion the pannel put himself at every new interlocutor, none of which he could understand. At last, the bailie, getting no satisfaction--how could he?--he directed the man's portmanty and bundle to be opened; and in the bottom of the forementioned package, there, to be sure, was found many a mystical and suspicious paper, which no one could read; among others, there was a strange map, as it then seemed to all present.
”I' gude faith,” cried the bailie, with a keckle of exultation, ”here's proof enough now. This is a plain map o' the Frith o' Clyde, all the way to the tail of the bank o' Greenock. This muckle place is Arran; that round ane is the craig of Ailsa; the wee ane between is Plada. Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is a sore discovery; there will be hanging and quartering on this.” So he ordered the man to be forthwith committed as a king's prisoner to the tolbooth; and turning to me, said:--”My lord provost, as ye have not been present throughout the whole of this troublesome affair, I'll e'en gie an account mysel to the lord advocate of what we have done.” I thought, at the time, there was something fey and overly forward in this, but I a.s.sented; for I know not what it was, that seemed to me as if there was something neither right nor regular; indeed, to say the truth, I was no ill pleased that the bailie took on him what he did; so I allowed him to write himself to the lord advocate; and, as the sequel showed, it was a blessed prudence on my part that I did so. For no sooner did his lords.h.i.+p receive the bailie's terrifying letter, than a special king's messenger was sent to take the spy into Edinburgh Castle; and nothing could surpa.s.s the great importance that Bailie b.o.o.ble made of himself, on the occasion, on getting the man into a coach, and two dragoons to guard him into Glasgow.
But oh! what a dejected man was the miserable Bailie b.o.o.ble, and what a laugh rose from shop and chamber, when the tidings came out from Edinburgh that, ”the alien enemy” was but a French cook coming over from Dublin, with the intent to take up the trade of a confectioner in Glasgow, and that the map of the Clyde was nothing but a plan for the outset of a fas.h.i.+onable table--the bailie's island of Arran being the roast beef, and the craig of Ailsa the plum-pudding, and Plada a b.u.t.ter- boat. n.o.body enjoyed the jocularity of the business more than myself; but I trembled when I thought of the escape that my honour and character had with the lord advocate. I trow, Bailie b.o.o.ble never set himself so forward from that day to this.
CHAPTER XIII--THE MEAL MOB
After the close of the American war, I had, for various reasons of a private nature, a wish to sequestrate myself for a time, from any very ostensible part in public affairs. Still, however, desiring to retain a mean of resuming my station, and of maintaining my influence in the council, I bespoke Mr Keg to act in my place as deputy for My Lord, who was regularly every year at this time chosen into the provostry.
This Mr Keg was a man who had made a competency by the Isle-of-Man trade, and had come in from the laighlands, where he had been apparently in the farming line, to live among us; but for many a day, on account of something that happened when he was concerned in the smuggling, he kept himself cannily aloof from all sort of town matters; deporting himself with a most creditable sobriety; in so much, that there was at one time a sough that Mr Pittle, the minister, our friend, had put him on the leet for an elder. That post, however, if it was offered to him, he certainly never accepted; but I jealouse that he took the rumour o't for a sign that his character had ripened into an estimation among us, for he thenceforth began to kithe more in public, and was just a patron to every manifestation of loyalty, putting more lights in his windows in the rejoicing nights of victory than any other body, Mr M'Creesh, the candlemaker, and Collector c.o.c.ket, not excepted. Thus, in the fulness of time, he was taken into the council, and no man in the whole corporation could be said to be more zealous than he was. In respect, therefore, to him, I had nothing to fear, so far as the interests, and, over and above all, the loyalty of the corporation, were concerned; but something like a quailing came over my heart, when, after the breaking up of the council on the day of election, he seemed to shy away from me, who had been instrumental to his advancement. However, I trow he had soon reason to repent of that ingrat.i.tude, as I may well call it; for when the troubles of the meal mob came upon him, I showed him that I could keep my distance as well as my neighbours.
It was on the Friday, our market-day, that the hobleshow began, and in the afternoon, when the farmers who had brought in their victual for sale were loading their carts to take it home again, the price not having come up to their expectation. All the forenoon, as the wives that went to the meal-market, came back railing with toom pocks and basins, it might have been foretold that the farmers would have to abate their extortion, or that something would come o't before night. My new house and shop being forenent the market, I had noted this, and said to Mrs Pawkie, my wife, what I thought would be the upshot, especially when, towards the afternoon, I observed the commonality gathering in the market-place, and no sparing in their tongues to the farmers; so, upon her advice, I directed Thomas Snakers to put on the shutters.
Some of the farmers were loading their carts to go home, when the schools skailed, and all the weans came shouting to the market. Still nothing happened, till tinkler Jean, a randy that had been with the army at the siege of Gibraltar, and, for aught I ken, in the Americas, if no in the Indies likewise;--she came with her meal-basin in her hand, swearing, like a trooper, that if she didna get it filled with meal at fifteen-pence a peck, (the farmers demanded sixteen), she would have the fu' o't of their heart's blood; and the mob of thoughtless weans and idle fellows, with shouts and yells, encouraged Jean, and egged her on to a catastrophe. The corruption of the farmers was thus raised, and a young rash lad, the son of James d.y.k.e o' the Mount, whom Jean was blackguarding at a dreadful rate, and upbraiding on account of some ploy he had had with the Dalmailing session anent a bairn, in an unguarded moment lifted his hand, and shook his neive in Jean's face, and even, as she said, struck her. He himself swore an affidavit that he gave her only a ding out of his way; but be this as it may, at him rushed Jean with open mouth, and broke her timbermeal-basin on his head, as it had been an egg- sh.e.l.l. Heaven only knows what next ensued; but in a jiffy the whole market-place was as white with scattered meal as if it had been covered with snow, and the farmers were seen flying helter skelter out at the townhead, pursued by the mob, in a hail and whirlwind of stones and glaur. Then the drums were heard beating to arms, and the soldiers were seen flying to their rendezvous. I stood composedly at the dining-room window, and was very thankful that I wasna provost in such a hurricane, when I saw poor Mr Keg, as pale as a dish clout, running to and fro bareheaded, with the town-officers and their halberts at his heels, exhorting and crying till he was as hoa.r.s.e as a crow, to the angry mult.i.tude, that was raging and tossing like a sea in the market-place.