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 received
for it in the sixty-nine. Nothing could be more
manifest than that there was some jookerie cookerie
in this affair; but in what manner it was done, or
how the dean of guild’s benefit was to ensue,
no one could tell, and few were able to conjecture;
for my lord was sorely straitened for money, and had
nothing to spare out of hand. However, towards
the end of the year, a light broke in upon us.
Gabriel M’Lucre, the dean of
guild’s fifth son, a fine spirited laddie, somehow
got suddenly a cadetcy to go to India; and there were
uncharitably-minded persons, who said, that this was
the payment for the Niggerbrae job to my lord.
The outcry, in consequence, both against the dean
of guild, and especially against the magistrates and
council for consenting thereto, was so extraordinary,
and I was so openly upbraided for being so long lukewarm,
that I was, in a manner, forced again forward to take
a prominent part; but I took good care to let it be
well known, that, in resuming my public faculties,
I was resolved to take my own way, and to introduce
a new method and reformation into all our concerns.
Accordingly, at the Michaelmas following, that is,
in the eighty-nine, I was a second time chosen to
the provostry, with an understanding, that I was to
be upheld in the office and dignity for two years;
and that sundry improvements, which I thought the
town was susceptible of, both in the causey of the
streets and the reparation of the kirk, should be set
about under my direction; but the way in which I handled
the same, and brought them to a satisfactory completeness
and perfection, will supply abundant matter for two
chapters.