The Provost

by John Galt
INTRODUCTION

During a recent visit to the West Country, among other old friends
we paid our respects to Mrs Pawkie, the relict of the Provost of

that name, who three several times enjoyed the honour of being chief
magistrate in Gudetown. Since the death of her worthy husband, and

the comfortable settlement in life of her youngest daughter, Miss
Jenny, who was married last year to Mr Caption, writer to the

signet, she has been, as she told us herself, "beeking in the lown
o' the conquest which the gudeman had, wi' sic an ettling o' pains

and industry, gathered for his family."
Our conversation naturally diverged into various topics, and, among

others, we discoursed at large on the manifold improvements which
had taken place, both in town and country, since we had visited the

Royal Burgh. This led the widow, in a complimentary way, to advert
to the hand which, it is alleged, we have had in the editing of that

most excellent work, entitled, "Annals of the Parish of Dalmailing,"
intimating, that she had a book in the handwriting of her deceased

husband, the Provost, filled with a variety of most curious matter;
in her opinion, of far more consequence to the world than any book

that we had ever been concerned in putting out.
Considering the veneration in which Mr Pawkie had been through life

regarded by his helpmate, we must confess that her eulogium on the
merits of his work did not impress us with the most profound

persuasion that it was really deserving of much attention.
Politeness, however, obliged us to express an earnest desire to see

the volume, which, after some little hesitation, was produced.
Judge, then, of the nature of our emotions, when, in cursorily

turning over a few of the well-penned pages, we found that it far
surpassed every thing the lady had said in its praise. Such, indeed

was our surprise, that we could not refrain from openly and at once
assuring her, that the delight and satisfaction which it was

calculated to afford, rendered it a duty on her part to lose no time
in submitting it to the public; and, after lavishing a panegyric on

the singular and excellent qualities of the author, which was all
most delicious to his widow, we concluded with a delicate

insinuation of the pleasure we should enjoy, in being made the
humble instrument of introducing to the knowledge of mankind a

volume so replete and enriched with the fruits of his practical
wisdom. Thus, partly by a judiciousadministration of flattery, and

partly also by solicitation, backed by an indirect proposal to share
the profits, we succeeded in persuading Mrs Pawkie to allow us to

take the valuablemanuscript to Edinburgh, in order to prepare it
for publication.

Having obtained possession of the volume, we lost no time till we
had made ourselves master of its contents. It appeared to consist

of a series of detached notes, which, together, formed something
analogous to an historical view of the different important and

interesting scenes and affairs the Provost had been personally
engaged in during his long magisterial life. We found, however that

the concatenation of the memoranda which he had made of public
transactions, was in several places interrupted by the insertion of

matter not in the least degree interesting to the nation at large;
and that, in arranging the work for the press, it would be requisite

and proper to omit many of the notes and much of the record, in
order to preserve the historical coherency of the narrative. But in

doing this, the text has been retained inviolate, in so much that
while we congratulate the world on the addition we are thus enabled

to make to the stock of public knowledge, we cannot but felicitate
ourselves on the complete and consistent form into which we have so

successfully reduced our precious materials; the separation of
which, from the dross of personal and private anecdote, was a task

of no small difficulty; such, indeed, as the editors only of the
autographic memoirs of other great men can duly appreciate.

CHAPTER I--THE FORECAST
It must be allowed in the world, that a man who has thrice reached

the highest station of life in his line, has a good right to set
forth the particulars of the discretion and prudence by which he

lifted himself so far above the ordinaries of his day and
generation; indeed, the generality of mankind may claim this as a

duty; for the conduct of public men, as it has been often wisely
said, is a species of public property, and their rules and

observances have in all ages been considered things of a national
concernment. I have therefore well weighed the importance it may be

of to posterity, to know by what means I have thrice been made an
instrument to represent the supreme power and authority of Majesty

in the royal burgh of Gudetown, and how I deported myself in that
honour and dignity, so much to the satisfaction of my superiors in

the state and commonwealth of the land, to say little of the great
respect in which I was held by the townsfolk, and far less of the

terror that I was to evil-doers. But not to be over circumstantial,
I propose to confine this history of my life to the public portion

thereof, on the which account I will take up the beginning at the
crisis when I first entered into business, after having served more

than a year above my time, with the late Mr Thomas Remnant, than
whom there was not a more creditable man in the burgh; and he died

in the possession of the functionaries and faculties of town-
treasurer, much respected by all acquainted with his orderly and

discreet qualities.
Mr Remnant was, in his younger years, when the growth of luxury and

prosperity had not come to such a head as it has done since, a
tailor that went out to the houses of the adjacent lairds and

country gentry, whereby he got an inkling of the policy of the
world, that could not have been gathered in any other way by a man

of his station and degree of life. In process of time he came to be
in a settled way, and when I was bound 'prentice to him, he had

three regular journeymen and a cloth shop. It was therefore not so
much for learning the tailoring, as to get an insight in the

conformity between the traffic of the shop and the board that I was
bound to him, being destined by my parents for the profession

appertaining to the former, and to conjoin thereto something of the
mercery and haberdashery: my uncle, that had been a sutler in the

army along with General Wolfe, who made a conquest of Quebec, having
left me a legacy of three hundred pounds because I was called after

him, the which legacy was a consideration for to set me up in due
season in some genteel business.

Accordingly, as I have narrated, when I had passed a year over my
'prenticeship with Mr Remnant, I took up the corner shop at the

Cross, facing the Tolbooth; and having had it adorned in a befitting
manner, about a month before the summer fair thereafter, I opened it

on that day, with an excellent assortment of goods, the best, both
for taste and variety, that had ever been seen in the burgh of

Gudetown; and the winter following, finding by my books that I was
in a way to do so, I married my wife: she was daughter to Mrs

Broderip, who kept the head inn in Irville, and by whose death, in
the fall of the next year, we got a nest egg, that, without a vain

pretension, I may say we have not failed to lay upon, and clock to
some purpose.

Being thus settled in a shop and in life, I soon found that I had a
part to perform in the public world; but I looked warily about me

before casting my nets, and therefore I laid myself out rather to be
entreated than to ask; for I had often heard Mr Remnant observe,

that the nature of man could not abide to see a neighbour taking
place and preferment of his own accord. I therefore assumed a

coothy and obliging demeanour towards my customers and the community
in general; and sometimes even with the very beggars I found a

jocose saying as well received as a bawbee, although naturally I
dinna think I was ever what could be called a funny man, but only

just as ye would say a thought ajee in that way. Howsever, I soon
became, both by habit and repute, a man of popularity in the town,

in so much that it was a shrewdsaying of old James Alpha, the
bookseller, that "mair gude jokes were cracked ilka day in James

Pawkie's shop, than in Thomas Curl, the barber's, on a Saturday
night."

CHAPTER II--A KITHING
I could plainlydiscern that the prudent conduct which I had adopted