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 Cocket, 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 ingratitude, 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 Dyke 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-
shell. 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 hoarse as a crow, to the angry
multitude, that was raging and tossing like a sea in the market-place.
Then it was that he felt the consequence of his pridefulness towards me;
for, observing me standing in serenity at the window, he came, and in a
vehement manner cried to me for the love of heaven to come to his
assistance, and pacify the people. It would not have been proper in me
to have refused; so out I went in the very nick of time: for when I got
to the door, there was the soldiers in battle array, coming marching with
fife and drum up the gait with Major Blaze at their head, red and furious
in the face, and bent on some bloody business. The first thing I did was
to run to the major, just as he was facing the men for a "charge
bagonets" on the people, crying to him to halt; for the riot act wasna
yet read, and the murder of all that might be slain would lie at his
door; at which to hear he stood aghast, and the men halted. Then I flew
back to the provost, and I cried to him, "Read the riot act!" which some
of the mob hearing, became terrified thereat, none knowing the penalties
or consequences thereof, when backed by soldiers; and in a moment, as if
they had seen the glimpse of a terrible spirit in the air, the whole
multitude dropped the dirt and stones out of their hands, and, turning
their backs, flew into doors and closes, and were skailed before we knew
where we were. It is not to be told the laud and admiration that I got
for my ability in this business; for the major was so well pleased to
have been saved from a battle, that, at my suggestion, he wrote an
account of the whole business to the commander-in-chief, assuring him
that, but for me, and my great weight and authority in the town, nobody
could tell what the issue might have been; so that the Lord Advocate, to
whom the report was shown by the general, wrote me a letter of thanks in
the name of the government; and I, although not provost, was thus seen
and believed to be a person of the foremost note and consideration in the
town.
But although the mob was dispersed, as I have related, the consequences
did not end there; for, the week following, none of the farmers brought
in their victual; and there was a great lamentation and moaning in the
market-place when, on the Friday, not a single cart from the country was
to be seen, but only Simon Laidlaw's, with his timber caps and luggies;
and the talk was, that meal would be half-a-crown the peck. The grief,
however, of the business wasna visible till the Saturday--the wonted day
for the poor to seek their meat--when the swarm of beggars that came
forth was a sight truly calamitous. Many a decent auld woman that had
patiently eiked out the slender thread of a weary life with her wheel, in
privacy, her scant and want known only to her Maker, was seen going from
door to door with the salt tear in her e'e, and looking in the face of
the pitiful, being as yet unacquainted with the language of beggary; but
the worst sight of all was two bonny bairns, dressed in their best, of a
genteel demeanour, going from house to house like the hungry babes in the
wood: nobody kent who they 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.