The Provost [22]
were, nor whar they came from; but as I was seeing them served myself at our door, I spoke to them, and they told me that their mother was lying sick and ill at home. They were the orphans of a broken merchant from Glasgow, and, with their mother, had come out to our town the week before, without knowing where else to seek their meat.
Mrs Pawkie, who was a tender-hearted mother herself, took in the bairns on hearing this, and we made of them, and the same night, among our acquaintance, we got a small sum raised to assist their mother, who proved a very well-bred and respectable lady-like creature. When she got better, she was persuaded to take up a school, which she kept for some years, with credit to herself and benefit to the community, till she got a legacy left her by a brother that died in India, the which, being some thousands, caused her to remove into Edinburgh, for the better education of her own children; and its seldom that legacies are so well bestowed, for she never forgot Mrs Pawkie's kindness, and out of the fore-end of her wealth she sent her a very handsome present. Divers matters of elegance have come to us from her, year by year, since syne, and regularly on the anniversary day of that sore Saturday, as the Saturday following the meal mob was ever after called.
CHAPTER XIV--THE SECOND PROVOSTRY
I have had occasion to observe in the course of my experience, that there is not a greater mollifier of the temper and nature of man than a constant flowing in of success and prosperity. From the time that I had been dean of guild, I was sensible of a considerable increase of my worldly means and substance; and although Bailie M'Lucre played me a soople trick at the election, by the inordinate sale and roup of his potatoe-rig, the which tried me, as I do confess, and nettled me with disappointment; yet things, in other respects, went so well with me that, about the eighty-eight, I began to put forth my hand again into public affairs, endowed both with more vigour and activity than it was in the first period of my magisterial functions. Indeed, it may be here proper for me to narrate, that my retiring into the background during the last two or three years, was a thing, as I have said, done on mature deliberation; partly, in order that the weight of my talents might be rightly estimated; and partly, that men might, of their own reflections, come to a proper understanding concerning them. I did not secede from the council. Could I have done that with propriety, I would assuredly not have scrupled to make the sacrifice; but I knew well that, if I was to resign, it would not be easy afterwards to get myself again chosen in. In a word, I was persuaded that I had, at times, carried things a little too highly, and that I had the adversary of a rebellious feeling in the minds and hearts of the corporation against me. However, what I did, answered the end and purpose I had in view; folk began to wonder and think with themselves, what for Mr Pawkie had ceased to bestir himself in public affairs; and the magistrates and council having, on two or three occasions, done very unsatisfactory things, it was said by one, and echoed by another, till the whole town was persuaded of the fact, that, had I lent my shoulder to the wheel, things would not have been as they were. But the matter which did the most service to me at this time, was a rank piece of idolatry towards my lord, on the part of Bailie M'Lucre, who had again got himself most sickerly installed in the guildry. Sundry tacks came to an end in this year of eighty-eight; and among others, the Niggerbrae park, which, lying at a commodious distance from the town, might have been relet with a rise and advantage. But what did the dean of guild do? He, in some secret and clandestine manner, gave a hint to my lord's factor to make an offer for the park on a two nineteen years' lease, at the rent then going--the which was done in my lord's name, his lordship being then provost. The Niggerbrae was accordingly let to him, at the same rent which the town
Mrs Pawkie, who was a tender-hearted mother herself, took in the bairns on hearing this, and we made of them, and the same night, among our acquaintance, we got a small sum raised to assist their mother, who proved a very well-bred and respectable lady-like creature. When she got better, she was persuaded to take up a school, which she kept for some years, with credit to herself and benefit to the community, till she got a legacy left her by a brother that died in India, the which, being some thousands, caused her to remove into Edinburgh, for the better education of her own children; and its seldom that legacies are so well bestowed, for she never forgot Mrs Pawkie's kindness, and out of the fore-end of her wealth she sent her a very handsome present. Divers matters of elegance have come to us from her, year by year, since syne, and regularly on the anniversary day of that sore Saturday, as the Saturday following the meal mob was ever after called.
CHAPTER XIV--THE SECOND PROVOSTRY
I have had occasion to observe in the course of my experience, that there is not a greater mollifier of the temper and nature of man than a constant flowing in of success and prosperity. From the time that I had been dean of guild, I was sensible of a considerable increase of my worldly means and substance; and although Bailie M'Lucre played me a soople trick at the election, by the inordinate sale and roup of his potatoe-rig, the which tried me, as I do confess, and nettled me with disappointment; yet things, in other respects, went so well with me that, about the eighty-eight, I began to put forth my hand again into public affairs, endowed both with more vigour and activity than it was in the first period of my magisterial functions. Indeed, it may be here proper for me to narrate, that my retiring into the background during the last two or three years, was a thing, as I have said, done on mature deliberation; partly, in order that the weight of my talents might be rightly estimated; and partly, that men might, of their own reflections, come to a proper understanding concerning them. I did not secede from the council. Could I have done that with propriety, I would assuredly not have scrupled to make the sacrifice; but I knew well that, if I was to resign, it would not be easy afterwards to get myself again chosen in. In a word, I was persuaded that I had, at times, carried things a little too highly, and that I had the adversary of a rebellious feeling in the minds and hearts of the corporation against me. However, what I did, answered the end and purpose I had in view; folk began to wonder and think with themselves, what for Mr Pawkie had ceased to bestir himself in public affairs; and the magistrates and council having, on two or three occasions, done very unsatisfactory things, it was said by one, and echoed by another, till the whole town was persuaded of the fact, that, had I lent my shoulder to the wheel, things would not have been as they were. But the matter which did the most service to me at this time, was a rank piece of idolatry towards my lord, on the part of Bailie M'Lucre, who had again got himself most sickerly installed in the guildry. Sundry tacks came to an end in this year of eighty-eight; and among others, the Niggerbrae park, which, lying at a commodious distance from the town, might have been relet with a rise and advantage. But what did the dean of guild do? He, in some secret and clandestine manner, gave a hint to my lord's factor to make an offer for the park on a two nineteen years' lease, at the rent then going--the which was done in my lord's name, his lordship being then provost. The Niggerbrae was accordingly let to him, at the same rent which the town