Death is a great reformer of corporate bodies, and we found, now and
then, the benefit of his helping hand in our royal burgh. From the time
of my being chosen into the council; and, indeed, for some years before,
Mr Hirple had been a member, but, from some secret and unexpressed
understanding among us, he was never made a bailie; for he was not liked;
having none of that furthy and jocose spirit so becoming in a magistrate
of that degree, and to which the gifts of gravity and formality make but
an unsubstantial substitute. He was, on the contrary, a queer and
quistical man, of a small stature of body, with an outshot breast, the
which, I am inclined to think, was one of the main causes of our never
promoting him into the ostensible magistracy; besides, his temper was
exceedingly brittle; and in the debates anent the weightiest concerns of
the public, he was apt to puff and fiz, and go off with a pluff of anger
like a pioye; so that, for the space of more than five-and-twenty years,
we would have been glad of his resignation; and, in the heat of argument,
there was no lack of hints to that effect from more than one of his
friends, especially from Bailie Picken, who was himself a sharp-tempered
individual, and could as ill sit quiet under a contradiction as any man I
ever was conjunct with. But just before the close of my second
provostry, Providence was kind to Mr Hirple, and removed him gently away
from the cares, and troubles, and the vain policy of this contending
world, into, as I hope and trust, a far better place.
It may seem, hereafter, to the unlearned readers among posterity,
particularly to such of them as may happen not to be versed in that state
of things which we were obligated to endure, very strange that I should
make this special mention of Mr Hirple at his latter end, seeing and
observing the small store and account I have thus set upon his talents
and personalities. But the verity of the reason is plainly this: we
never discovered his worth and value till we had lost him, or rather,
till we found the defect and gap that his death caused, and the
affliction that came in through it upon us in the ill-advised selection
of Mr Hickery to fill his vacant place.
The spunky nature of Mr Hirple was certainly very disagreeable often to
most of the council, especially when there was any difference of opinion;
but then it was only a sort of flash, and at the vote he always, like a
reasonable man, sided with the majority, and never after attempted to rip
up a decision when it was once so settled. Mr Hickery was just the even
down reverse of this. He never, to be sure, ran himself into a passion,
but then he continued to speak and argue so long in reply, never heeding
the most rational things of his adversaries, that he was sure to put
every other person in a rage; in addition to all which, he was likewise a
sorrowful body in never being able to understand how a determination by
vote ought to and did put an end to every questionable proceeding; so
that he was, for a constancy, ever harping about the last subject
discussed, as if it had not been decided, until a new difference of
opinion arose, and necessitated him to change the burden and o'ercome of
his wearysome speeches.
It may seem remarkable that we should have taken such a plague into the
council, and be thought that we were well served for our folly; but we
were unacquaint with the character of the man--for although a native of
the town, he was in truth a stranger, having, at an early age, espoused
his fortune, and gone to Philadelphia in America; and no doubt his argol-
bargolous disposition was an inheritance accumulated with his other
conquest of wealth from the mannerless Yankees. Coming home and settling
among us, with a power of money, (some said eleven thousand pounds,) a
short time before Mr Hirple departed this life, we all thought, on that
event happening, it would be a very proper compliment to take Mr Hickery
into the council, and accordingly we were so misfortunate as to do so;
but I trow we soon had reason to repent our indiscretion, and none more
than myself, who had first proposed him.
Mr Hickery having been chosen to supply the void caused by the death of
Mr Hirple, in the very first sederunt of the council after his election,
he kithed in his true colours.
Among other things that I had contemplated for the ornament and
edification of the burgh, was the placing up of lamps to light the
streets, such as may be seen in all well regulated cities and towns of
any degree. Having spoken of this patriotic project to several of my
colleagues, who all highly approved of the same, I had no jealousy or
suspicion that a design so clearly and luminously useful would meet with
any other opposition than, may be, some doubt as to the fiscal abilities
of our income. To be sure Mr Dribbles, who at that time kept the head
inns, and was in the council, said, with a wink, that it might be found
an inconvenience to sober folk that happened, on an occasion now and
then, to be an hour later than usual among their friends, either at his
house or any other, to be shown by the lamps to the profane populace as
they were making the best of their way home; and Mr Dippings, the
candlemaker, with less public spirit than might have been expected from
one who made such a penny by the illuminations on news of victory, was of
opinion that lamps would only encourage the commonality to keep late
hours; and that the gentry were in no need of any thing of the sort,
having their own handsome glass lanterns, with two candles in them,
garnished and adorned with clippit paper; an equipage which he prophesied
would soon wear out of fashion when lamps were once introduced, and the
which prediction I have lived to see verified; for certainly, now-a-days,
except when some elderly widow lady, or maiden gentlewoman, wanting the
help and protection of man, happens to be out at her tea and supper, a
tight and snod serving lassie, with a three-cornered glass lantern, is
never seen on the causey. But, to return from this digression; saving
and excepting the remarks of Mr Dribbles and Mr Dippings, and neither of
them could be considered as made in a sincere frame of mind, I had no
foretaste of any opposition. I was, therefore, but ill prepared for the
worrying argument with which Mr Hickery seized upon the scheme, asserting
and maintaining, among other apparatus-like reasoning, that in such a
northern climate as that of Scotland, and where the twilight was of such
long duration, it would be a profligate waste of the public money to
employ it on any thing so little required as lamps were in our streets.
He had come home from America in the summer time, and I reminded him,
that it certainly could never be the intention of the magistrates to
light the lamps all the year round; but that in the winter there was a
great need of them; for in our northern climate the days were then very
short, as he would soon experience, and might probably recollect. But
never, surely, was such an endless man created. For, upon this, he
immediately rejoined, that the streets would be much more effectually
lighted, than by all the lamps I proposed to put up, were the inhabitants
ordered to sit with their window-shutters open. I really did not know
what answer to make to such a proposal, but I saw it would never do to
argue with him; so I held my tongue quietly, and as soon as possible, on
a pretence of private business, left the meeting, not a little mortified
to find such a contrary spirit had got in among us.
After that meeting of the council, I went cannily round to all the other
members, and represented to them, one by one, how proper it was that the
lamps should be set up, both for a credit to the town, and as a
conformity to the fashion of the age in every other place. And I took
occasion to descant, at some length, on the untractable nature of Mr
Hickery, and how it would be proper before the next meeting to agree to
say nothing when the matter was again brought on the carpet, but just to
come to the vote at once. Accordingly this was done, but it made no
difference to Mr Hickery; on the contrary, he said, in a vehement manner,
that he was sure there must be some corrupt understanding among us,
otherwise a matter of such importance could not have been decided by a
silent vote; and at every session of the council, till some new matter of
difference cast up, he continued cuckooing about the lamp-job, as he
called it, till he had sickened every body out of all patience.