The Provost

by John Galt

  Having thus gotten the thing determined upon, I then proposed that weshould have the work done by contract, and that notice should be givenpublicly of such being our intent. Some boggling was made to thisproposal, it never having been the use and wont of the corporation, intime past, to do any thing by contract, but just to put whatever wasrequired into the hands of one of the council, who got the work done inthe best way he could; by which loose manner of administration greatabuses were often allowed to pass unreproved. But I persisted in myresolution to have the causey renewed by contract; and all theinhabitants of the town gave me credit for introducing such a greatreformation into the management of public affairs.

  When it was made known that we would receive offers to contract, diverspersons came forward; and I was a little at a loss, when I saw suchcompetition, as to which ought to be preferred. At last, I bethought me,to send for the different competitors, and converse with them on thesubject quietly; and I found in Thomas Shovel, the tacksman of Whinstone-quarry, a discreet and considerate man. His offer was, it is true, notso low as some of the others; but he had facilities to do the workquickly, that none of the rest could pretend to; so, upon a clearunderstanding of that, with the help of the dean of guild M'Lucre'sadvocacy, Thomas Shovel got the contract. At first, I could not divinewhat interest my old friend, the dean of guild, had to be so earnest inbehalf of the offering contractor; in course of time, however, it spunkitout that he was a sleeping partner in the business, by which he made apower of profit. But saving two three carts of stones to big a dykeround the new steading which I had bought a short time before at the town-end, I had no benefit whatever. Indeed, I may take it upon me to say,that should not say it, few provosts, in so great a concern, could haveacted more on a principle than I did in this; and if Thomas Shovel, ofhis free-will, did, at the instigation of the dean of guild, lay down thestones on my ground as aforesaid, the town was not wronged; for, nodoubt, he paid me the compliment at some expense of his own profit.

  CHAPTER XVI--ABOUT THE REPAIR OF THE KIRK

  The repair of the kirk, the next job I took in hand, was not so easilymanaged as that of the causey; for it seems, in former times, the wholespace of the area had been free to the parish in general, and that thelofts were constructions, raised at the special expense of the heritorsfor themselves. The fronts being for their families, and the back seatsfor their servants and tenants. In those times there were no such thingsas pews; but only forms, removeable, as I have heard say, at pleasure.

  It, however, happened, in the course of nature, that certain forms cameto be sabbathly frequented by the same persons; who, in this manner,acquired a sort of prescriptive right to them. And those persons orfamilies, one after another, finding it would be an ease and convenienceto them during divine worship, put up backs to their forms. But still,for many a year, there was no inclosure of pews; the first, indeed, thatmade a pew, as I have been told, was one Archibald Rafter, a wright, andthe grandfather of Mr Rafter, the architect, who has had so much to dowith the edification of the new town of Edinburgh. This Archibald's formhappened to be near the door, on the left side of the pulpit; and in thewinter, when the wind was in the north, it was a very cold seat, whichinduced him to inclose it round and round, with certain old doors andshutters, which he had acquired in taking down and rebuilding the leftwing of the whinny hill house. The comfort in which this enabled him andhis family to listen to the worship, had an immediate effect; and theexample being of a taking nature, in the course of little more thantwenty years from the time, the whole area of the kirk had been pewed ina very creditable manner.

  Families thus getting, as it were, portions of the church, some, whenremoving from the town, gave them up to their neighbours on receiving aconsideration for the expense they had been at in making the pews; sothat, from less to more, the pews so formed became a lettable and avendible property. It was, therefore, thought a hard thing, that in thereparation which the seats had come to require in my time, the heritorsand corporation should be obligated to pay the cost and expense of whatwas so clearly the property of others; while it seemed an impossibilityto get the whole tot of the proprietors of the pews to bear the expenseof new-seating the kirk. We had in the council many a long and weightysederunt on the subject, without coming to any practical conclusion. Atlast, I thought the best way, as the kirk was really become a disgrace tothe town, would be, for the corporation to undertake the repair entirely,upon an understanding that we were to be paid eighteen pence a bottom-room, per _annum_, by the proprietors of the pews; and, on sounding theheritors, I found them all most willing to consent thereto, glad to berelieved from the awful expense of gutting and replenishing such a greatconcern as the kirk was. Accordingly the council having agreed to thisproposal, we had plans and estimates made, and notice given to the ownersof pews of our intention. The whole proceedings gave the greatestsatisfaction possible to the inhabitants in general, who lauded andapproved of my discernment more and more.

  By the estimate, it was found that the repairs would cost about athousand pounds; and by the plan, that the seats, at eighteen pence asitter, would yield better than a hundred pounds a-year; so that therewas no scruple, on the part of the town-council, in borrowing the moneywanted. This was the first public debt ever contracted by thecorporation, and people were very fain to get their money lodged at fiveper cent. on such good security; in so much, that we had a great dealmore offered than we required at that time and epoch.

  CHAPTER XVII--THE LAW PLEA

  The repair of the kirk was undertaken by contract with William Plane, thejoiner, with whom I was in terms at the time anent the bigging of a landof houses on my new steading at the town-end. A most reasonable man inall things he was, and in no concern of my own had I a bettersatisfaction than in the house he built for me at the conjuncture when hehad the town's work in the kirk; but there was at that period among us acertain person, of the name of Nabal Smeddum, a tobacconist by calling,who, up to this season, had been regarded but as a droll and comical bodyat a coothy crack. He was, in stature, of the lower order of mankind,but endowed with an inclination towards corpulency, by which he hadacquired some show of a belly, and his face was round, and his cheeksboth red and sleeky. He was, however, in his personalities, chieflyremarkable for two queer and twinkling little eyes, and for a habitualcustom of licking his lips whenever he said any thing of pith orjocosity, or thought that he had done so, which was very often the case.In his apparel, as befitted his trade, he wore a suit of snuff-colouredcloth, and a brown round-eared wig, that curled close in to his neck.

  Mr Smeddum, as I have related, was in some estimation for his comicality;but he was a dure hand at an argument, and would not see the plainesttruth when it was not on his side of the debate. No occasion or cause,however, had come to pass by which this inherent cross-grainedness wasstirred into action, till the affair of reseating the kirk--a measure, asI have mentioned, which gave the best satisfaction; but it happened that,on a Saturday night, as I was going soberly home from a meeting of themagistrates in the clerk's chamber, I by chance recollected that I stoodin need of having my box replenished; and accordingly, in the mostinnocent and harmless manner that it was possible for a man to do, Istepped into this Mr Smeddum, the tobacconist's shop, and while he wascompounding my mixture from the two canisters that stood on his counter,and I was in a manner doing nothing but looking at the number ofcounterfeit sixpences and shillings that were nailed thereon as anadmonishment to his customers, he said to me, "So, provost, we're to haea new lining to the kirk. I wonder, when ye were at it, that ye didnarather think of bigging another frae the fundament, for I'm thinking thewalls are no o' a capacity of strength to outlast this seating."

  Knowing, as I did, the tough temper of the body, I can attribute myentering into an argument with him on the subject to nothing but someinconsiderate infatuation; for when I said heedlessly, the walls are verygood, he threw the brass snuff-spoon with an ecstasy in to one of thecanisters, and lifting hi
s two hands into a posture of admiration,--cried,as if he had seen an unco--

  "Good! surely, provost, ye hae na had an inspection; they're crackit indivers places; they're shotten out wi' infirmity in others. In short,the whole kirk, frae the coping to the fundament, is a fabric smitten wi'a paralytic."

  "It's very extraordinar, Mr Smeddum," was my reply, "that nobody has seena' this but yoursel'."

  "Na, if ye will deny the fact, provost," quo' he, "it's o' no service forme to say a word; but there has to a moral certainty been a slacknesssomewhere, or how has it happened that the wa's were na subjected to aright inspection before this job o' the seating?"

  By this time, I had seen the great error into the which I had fallen, byentering on a confabulation with Mr Smeddum; so I said to him, "It' no amatter for you and me to dispute about, so I'll thank you to fill mybox;" the which manner of putting an end to the debate he took very ill;and after I left the shop, he laid the marrow of our discourse open to MrThreeper the writer, who by chance went in, like mysel', to get a supplyof rappee for the Sabbath. That limb of the law discerning a sediment oflitigation in the case, eggit on Mr Smeddum into a persuasion that theseating of the kirk was a thing which the magistrates had no legalauthority to undertake. At this critical moment, my ancient adversaryand seeming friend, the dean of guild, happened to pass the door, and thebickering snuff-man seeing him, cried to him to come in. It was a veryunfortunate occurrence; for Mr M'Lucre having a secret interest, as Ihave intimated, in the Whinstone quarry, when he heard of taking downwalls and bigging them up again, he listened with greedy ears to thedubieties of Mr Threeper, and loudly, and to the heart's content of MrSmeddum, condemned the frailty and infirmity of the kirk, as a buildingin general.

  It would be overly tedious to mention, however, all the outs and ins ofthe affair; but, from less to more, a faction was begotten, and grew tohead, and stirring among the inhabitants of the town, not only withregard to the putting of new seats within the old walls, but likewise asto the power of the magistrates to lay out any part of the public fundsin the reparation of the kirk; and the upshot was, a contribution amongcertain malecontents, to enable Mr Threeper to consult on all the points.

  As in all similar cases, the parties applying for legal advice wereheartened into a plea by the opinion they got, and the town-council wasthrown into the greatest consternation by receiving notice that themalecontents were going to extremities.

  Two things I saw it was obligational on me to urge forward; the one wasto go on still with the reparations, and the other to contest the law-suit, although some were for waiting in the first case till the plea wassettled, and in the second to make no defence, but to give up ourintention anent the new-seating. But I thought that, as we had borrowedthe money for the repairs, we should proceed; and I had a vista that thecontribution raised by the Smeddumites, as they were caller, would runout, being from their own pockets, whereas we fought with the publicpurse in our hand; and by dint of exhortation to that effect, I carriedthe 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 contributionalstock of the Smeddumites was entirely rookit by the lawyers, who wouldfain have them to form another, assuring them that, no doubt, the legalpoint was in their favour. But every body knows the uncertainty of alegal opinion; and although the case was given up, for lack of a fund tocarry it on, there was a living ember of discontent left in its ashes,ready to kindle into a flame on the first puff of populardissatisfaction.

  CHAPTER XVIII--THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAIRS

  The spirit by which the Smeddumites were actuated in ecclesiasticalaffairs, was a type and taste of the great distemper with which all theworld was, more or less, at the time inflamed, and which cast the ancientstate and monarchy of France into the perdition of anarchy and confusion.I think, upon the whole, however, that our royal burgh was not afflictedto any very dangerous degree, though there was a sort of itch of it amonga 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 subjectto the flatulence of theoretical opinions; but although this was mynotion, yet knowing how much better the king and government wereacquainted with the true condition of things than I could to a certaintybe, I kept a steady eye on the proceedings of the ministers andparliament at London, taking them for an index and model for themanagement of the public concerns, which, by the grace of God, and thehandling of my friends, I was raised up and set forward to undertake.

  Seeing the great dread and anxiety that was above, as to the inordinateliberty of the multitude, and how necessary it was to bridle popularity,which was become rampant and ill to ride, kicking at all establishedorder, and trying to throw both king and nobles from the saddle, Iresolved to discountenance all tumultuous meetings, and to place everyreasonable impediment in the way of multitudes assembling together:indeed, I had for many years been of opinion, that fairs were become agreat political evil to the regular shop-keepers, by reason of thepackmen, and other travelling merchants, coming with their wares andunder-selling us; so that both private interest and public principleincited me on to do all in my power to bring our fair-days intodisrepute. It cannot be told what a world of thought and considerationthis cost me before I lighted on the right method, nor, without a diveinto the past times of antiquity, is it in the power of man to understandthe difficulties of the matter.

  Some of our fair-days were remnants of the papistical idolatry, andinstituted of old by the Pope and Cardinals, in order to make an incomefrom 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 thecommon. The country folks came in dressed in their best, the schools gotthe play, and a long rank of sweety-wives and their stands, covered withthe wonted dainties of the occasion, occupied the sunny side of the HighStreet; while the shady side was, in like manner, taken possession of bythe packmen, who, in their booths, made a marvellous display of goods ofan inferior quality, with laces and ribands of all colours, hanging downin front, and twirling like pinnets in the wind. There was likewise theallurement of some compendious show of wild beasts; in short, a swatch ofevery thing that the art of man has devised for such occasions, to wileaway 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 timesof trouble, when the trades paraded with war-like weapons, and thebanners of their respective crafts; and in every seventh year we had aresuscitation of King Crispianus in all his glory and regality, with theman in the coat-of-mail, of bell-metal, and the dukes, and lord mayor ofLondon, at the which, the influx of lads and lasses from the country wasjust prodigious, and the rioting and rampaging at night, the brulies andthe dancing, was worse than Vanity Fair in the Pilgrim's Progress.

  To put down, and utterly to abolish, by stress of law, or authority, anyancient pleasure of the commonality, I had learned, by this time, was notwisdom, and that the fairs were only to be effectually suppressed bylosing their temptations, and so to cease to call forth any expectationof merriment among the people. Accordingly, with respect to the fairs ofpious origin, I, without expounding my secret motives, persuaded thecouncil, that, having been at so great an expense in new-paving thestreets, we ought not to permit the heavy caravans of wild beasts tooccupy, as formerly, the front of the Tolbooth towards the Cross; but toorder them, for the future, to keep at the Greenhead. This was, in amanner, expurgating them out of the town altogether; and the consequencewas, that the people, who were wont to assemble in the High Street, cameto be divided, part gathering at the Greenhead, round the shows, and partremaining among the stands and the booths; thus an appearance was givenof the fairs being less attended than formerly, and gradually, year afteryear, the venerable race of sweety-wives, and chatty packmen, that wereso detrimental to the shopkeepers, grew less and less numerous, until thefairs fell into insignificance.

  At the parade fair, the
remnant of the weapon-showing, I proceeded moreroundly to work, and resolved to debar, by proclamation, all persons fromappearing with arms; but the deacons of the trades spared me the troubleof issuing the same, for they dissuaded their crafts from parading.Nothing, however, so well helped me out as the volunteers, of which Iwill speak by and by; for when the war began, and they were formed,nobody could afterwards abide to look at the fantastical and disorderlymarching of the trades, in their processions and paradings; so that, inthis manner, all the glory of the fairs being shorn and expunged, theyhave fallen into disrepute, and have suffered a natural suppression.