do.  Bodletonbrae was all the time laughing in his sleeve at the way
he was working them on, till at last, after they had flung the
glasses twice or thrice over their shoulders, he proposed we should
throw our wigs in the fire next.  Surely there was some glammer
about us that caused us not to observe his devilry, for the laird
had no wig on his head.  Be that, however, as it may, the
instigation took effect, and in the twinkling of an eye every scalp
was bare, and the chimley roaring with the roasting of gude kens how
many powdered wigs well fattened with pomatum.  But scarcely was the
deed done, till every one was admonished of his folly, by the laird
laughing, like a being out of his senses, at the number of bald
heads and shaven crowns that his device had brought to light, and by
one and all of us experiencing the coldness of the air on the
nakedness of our upper parts.

The first thing that we then did was to send the town-officers, who
were waiting on as usual for the dribbles of the bottles and the
leavings in the bowls, to bring our nightcaps, but I trow few were
so lucky as me, for I had a spare wig at home, which Mrs Pawkie, my
wife, a most considerate woman, sent to me; so that I was, in a
manner, to all visibility, none the worse of the ploy; but the rest
of the council were perfect oddities within their wigs, and the
sorest thing of all was, that the exploit of burning the wigs had
got wind; so that, when we left the council-room, there was a great
congregation of funny weans and misleart trades' lads assembled
before the tolbooth, shouting, and like as if they were out of the
body with daffing, to see so many of the heads of the town in their
night-caps, and no, maybe, just so solid at the time as could have
been wished.  Nor did the matter rest here; for the generality of
the sufferers being in a public way, were obligated to appear the
next day in their shops, and at their callings, with their
nightcaps--for few of them had two wigs like me--by which no small
merriment ensued, and was continued for many a day.  It would
hardly, however, be supposed, that in such a matter anything could
have redounded to my advantage; but so it fell out, that by my
wife's prudence in sending me my other wig, it was observed by the
commonality, when we sallied forth to go home, that I had on my wig,
and it was thought I had a very meritorious command of myself, and
was the only man in the town fit for a magistrate; for in everything
I was seen to be most cautious and considerate.  I could not,
however, when I saw the turn the affair took to my advantage, but
reflect on what small and visionary grounds the popularity of public
men will sometimes rest.

CHAPTER XXIII--THREE THE DEATH OF MR M'LUCRE

Shortly after the affair recorded in the foregoing chapter, an event
came to pass in the burgh that had been for some time foreseen.

My old friend and adversary, Bailie M'Lucre, being now a man well
stricken in years, was one night, in going home from a gavawlling
with some of the neighbours at Mr Shuttlethrift's, the
manufacturer's, (the bailie, canny man, never liket ony thing of the
sort at his own cost and outlay,) having partaken largely of the
bowl, for the manufacturer was of a blithe humour--the bailie, as I
was saying, in going home, was overtaken by an apoplexy just at the
threshold of his own door, and although it did not kill him
outright, it shoved him, as it were, almost into the very grave; in
so much that he never spoke an articulate word during the several
weeks he was permitted to doze away his latter end; and accordingly
he died, and was buried in a very creditable manner to the
community, in consideration of the long space of time he had been a
public man among us.

But what rendered the event of his death, in my opinion, the more
remarkable, was, that I considered with him the last remnant of the
old practice of managing the concerns of the town came to a period.
For now that he is dead and gone, and also all those whom I found
conjunct with him, when I came into power and office, I may venture
to say, that things in yon former times were not guided so
thoroughly by the hand of a disinterested integrity as in these
latter years.  On the contrary, it seemed to be the use and wont of
men in public trusts, to think they were free to indemnify
themselves in a left-handed way for the time and trouble they
bestowed in the same.  But the thing was not so far wrong in
principle as in the hugger-muggering way in which it was done, and
which gave to it a guilty colour, that, by the judicious stratagem
of a right system, it would never have had.  In sooth to say,
through the whole course of my public life, I met with no greater
difficulties and trials than in cleansing myself from the old
habitudes of office.  For I must in verity confess, that I myself
partook, in a degree, at my beginning, of the caterpillar nature;
and it was not until the light of happier days called forth the
wings of my endowment, that I became conscious of being raised into
public life for a better purpose than to prey upon the leaves and
flourishes of the commonwealth.  So that, if I have seemed to speak
lightly of those doings that are now denominated corruptions, I hope
it was discerned therein that I did so rather to intimate that such
things were, than to consider them as in themselves commendable.
Indeed, in their notations, I have endeavoured, in a manner, to be
governed by the spirit of the times in which the transactions
happened; for I have lived long enough to remark, that if we judge
of past events by present motives, and do not try to enter into the
spirit of the age when they took place, and to see them with the
eyes with which they were really seen, we shall conceit many things
to be of a bad and wicked character that were not thought so harshly
of by those who witnessed them, nor even by those who, perhaps,
suffered from them.  While, therefore, I think it has been of a
great advantage to the public to have survived that method of
administration in which the like of Bailie M'Lucre was engendered, I
would not have it understood that I think the men who held the
public trusts in those days a whit less honest than the men of my
own time.  The spirit of their own age was upon them, as that of
ours is upon us, and their ways of working the wherry entered more
or less into all their trafficking, whether for the commonality, or
for their own particular behoof and advantage.

I have been thus large and frank in my reflections anent the death
of the bailie, because, poor man, he had outlived the times for
which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity
that his wily by-hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the
rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner,
that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would
not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and
honour.  However, he got out of the world with some respect, and the
matters of which I have now to speak, are exalted, both in method
and principle, far above the personal considerations that took
something from the public virtue of his day and generation.

CHAPTER XXIV--THE WINDY YULE

It was in the course of the winter, after the decease of Bailie
M'Lucre, that the great loss of lives took place, which every body
agreed was one of the most calamitous things that had for many a
year befallen the town.

Three or four vessels were coming with cargoes of grain from
Ireland; another from the Baltic with Norawa deals; and a third from
Bristol, where she had been on a charter for some Greenock
merchants.

It happened that, for a time, there had been contrary winds, against
which no vessel could enter the port, and the ships, whereof I have
been speaking, were all lying together at anchor in the bay, waiting
a change of weather.  These five vessels were owned among ourselves,
and their crews consisted of fathers and sons belonging to the
place, so that, both by reason of interest and affection, a more
than ordinary concern was felt for them; for the sea was so rough,
that no boat could live in it to go near them, and we had our fears
that the men on board would be very ill off.  Nothing, however,
occurred but this natural anxiety, till the Saturday, which was
Yule.  In the morning the weather was blasty and sleety, waxing more
and more tempestuous till about mid-day, when the wind checked
suddenly round from the nor-east to the sou-west, and blew a gale as
if the prince of the powers of the air was doing his utmost to work
mischief.  The rain blattered, the windows clattered, the shop-
shutters flapped, pigs from the lum-heads came rattling down like
thunder-claps, and the skies were dismal both with cloud and carry.
Yet, for all that, there was in the streets a stir and a busy
visitation between neighbours, and every one went to their high
windows, to look at the five poor barks that were warsling against
the strong arm of the elements of the storm and the ocean.

Still the lift gloomed, and the wind roared, and it was as doleful a
sight as ever was seen in any town afflicted with calamity, to see
the sailors' wives, with their red cloaks about their heads,
followed by their hirpling and disconsolate bairns, going one after
another to the kirkyard, to look at the vessels where their helpless
breadwinners were battling with the tempest.  My heart was really
sorrowful, and full of a sore anxiety to think of what might happen
to the town, whereof so many were in peril, and to whom no human
magistracy could extend the arm of protection.  Seeing no abatement
of the wrath of heaven, that howled and roared around us, I put on
my big-coat, and taking my staff in my hand, having tied down my hat
with a silk handkerchief, towards gloaming I walked likewise to the
kirkyard, where I beheld such an assemblage of sorrow, as few men in
situation have ever been put to the trial to witness.

In the lea of the kirk many hundreds of the town were gathered
together; but there was no discourse among them.  The major part
were sailors' wives and weans, and at every new thud of the blast, a
sob rose, and the mothers drew their bairns closer in about them, as
if they saw the visible hand of a foe raised to smite them.  Apart
from the multitude, I observed three or four young lasses standing
behind the Whinnyhill families' tomb, and I jealoused that they had
joes in the ships; for they often looked to the bay, with long necks
and sad faces, from behind the monument.  A widow woman, one old
Mary Weery, that was a lameter, and dependent on her son, who was on
board the Louping Meg, (as the Lovely Peggy was nicknamed at the
shore,) stood by herself, and every now and then wrung her hands,
crying, with a woeful voice, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh
away, blessed be the name of the Lord;"--but it was manifest to all
that her faith was fainting within her.  But of all the piteous
objects there, on that doleful evening, none troubled my thoughts
more than three motherless children, that belonged to the mate of
one of the vessels in the jeopardy.  He was an Englishman that had
been settled some years in the town, where his family had neither
kith nor kin; and his wife having died about a month before, the
bairns, of whom the eldest was but nine or so, were friendless
enough, though both my gudewife, and other well-disposed ladies,
paid them all manner of attention till their father would come home.
The three poor little things, knowing that he was in one of the
ships, had been often out and anxious, and they were then sitting
under the lea of a headstone, near their mother's grave, chittering
and creeping closer and closer at every squall.  Never was such an
orphan-like sight seen.

When it began to be so dark that the vessels could no longer be
discerned from the churchyard, many went down to the shore, and I
took the three babies home with me, and Mrs Pawkie made tea for