It was at the Michaelmas 1813 that I was chosen provost for the third time, and at the special request of my lord the earl, who, being in ill health, had been advised by the faculty of doctors in London to try the medicinal virtues of the air and climate of Sicily, in the Mediterranean sea; and there was an understanding on the occasion, that I should hold the post of honour for two years, chiefly in order to bring to a conclusion different works that the town had then in hand.

At the two former times when I was raised to the dignity, and indeed at all times when I received any advancement, I had enjoyed an elation of heart, and was, as I may say, crouse and vogie; but experience had worked a change upon my nature, and when I was saluted on my election with the customary greetings and gratulations of those present, I felt a solemnity enter into the frame of my thoughts, and I became as it were a new man on the spot. When I returned home to my own house, I retired into my private chamber for a time, to consult with myself in what manner my deportment should be regulated; for I was conscious that heretofore I had been overly governed with a disposition to do things my own way, and although not in an avaricious temper, yet something, I must confess, with a sort of sinister respect for my own interests. It may be, that standing now clear and free of the world, I had less incitement to be so grippy, and so was thought of me, I very well know; but in sobriety and truth I conscientiously affirm, and herein record, that I had lived to partake of the purer spirit which the great mutations of the age had conjured into public affairs, and I saw that there was a necessity to carry into all dealings with the concerns of the community, the same probity which helps a man to prosperity in the sequestered traffic of private life.

This serious and religious communing wrought within me to a benign and pleasant issue, and when I went back in the afternoon to dine with the corporation in the council-room, and looked around me on the bailies, the councillors, and the deacons, I felt as if I was indeed elevated above them all, and that I had a task to perform, in which I could hope for but little sympathy from many; and the first thing I did was to measure, with a discreet hand, the festivity of the occasion.

At all former and precedent banquets, it had been the custom to give vent to muckle wanton and luxurious indulgence, and to galravitch, both at hack and manger, in a very expensive manner to the funds of the town. I therefore resolved to set my face against this for the future; and accordingly, when we had enjoyed a jocose temperance of loyalty and hilarity, with a decent measure of wine, I filled a glass, and requesting all present to do the same, without any preliminary reflections on the gavaulling of past times, I drank good afternoon to each severally, and then rose from the table, in a way that put an end to all the expectations of more drink.

But this conduct did not give satisfaction to some of the old hands, who had been for years in the habit and practice of looking forward to the provost’s dinner as to a feast of fat things. Mr Peevie, one of the very sickerest of all the former sederunts, came to me next morning, in a remonstrating disposition, to enquire what had come over me, and to tell me that every body was much surprised, and many thought it not right of me to break in upon ancient and wonted customs in such a sudden and unconcerted manner.

This Mr Peevie was, in his person, a stumpy man, well advanced in years. He had been, in his origin, a bonnet-maker; but falling heir to a friend that left him a property, he retired from business about the fiftieth year of his age, doing nothing but walking about with an ivory-headed staff, in a suit of dark bluecloth with yellow buttons, wearing a large cocked hat, and a white three-tiered wig, which was well powdered every morning by Duncan Curl, the barber. The method of his discourse and conversation was very precise, and his words were all set forth in a style of consequence, that took with many for a season as the pith and marrow of solidity and sense. The body, however, was but a pompous trifle, and I had for many a day held his observes and admonishments in no very reverential estimation. So that, when I heard him address me in such a memorializing manner, I was inclined and tempted to set him off with a flea in his lug. However, I was enabled to bridle and rein in this prejudicial humour, and answer him in his own way.

“Mr Peevie,” quo’ I, “you know that few in the town hae the repute that ye hae for a gift of sagacity by common, and therefore I’ll open my mind to you in this matter, with a frankness that would not be a judicious polity with folk of a lighter understanding.”

This was before the counter in my shop. I then walked in behind it, and drew the chair that stands in the corner nearer to the fire, for Mr Peevie. When he was seated thereon, and, as was his wont in conversation, had placed both his hands on the top of his staff, and leant his chin on the same, I subjoined.

“Mr Peevie, I need not tell to a man of your experience, that folk in public stations cannot always venture to lay before the world the reasons of their conduct on particular occasions; and therefore, when men who have been long in the station that I have filled in this town, are seen to step aside from what has been in time past, it is to be hoped that grave and sensible persons like you, Mr Peevie, will no rashly condemn them unheard; nevertheless, my good friend, I am very happy that ye have spoken to me anent the stinted allowance of wine and punch at the dinner, because the like thing from any other would have made me jealouse that the complaint was altogether owing to a disappointed appetite, which is a corrupt thing, that I am sure would never affect a man of such a public spirit as you are well known to be.”

Mr Peevie, at this, lifted his chin from off his hands, and dropping his arms down upon his knees, held his staff by the middle, as he replied, looking upward to me,

“What ye say, Provost Pawkie, has in it a solid commodity of judgment and sensibility; and ye may be sure that I was not without a cogitation of reflection, that there had been a discreet argument of economy at the bottom of the revolution which was brought to a criticism yesterday’s afternoon. Weel aware am I, that men in authority cannot appease and quell the inordinate concupiscence of the multitude, and that in a’ stations of life there are persons who would mumpileese the retinue of the king and government for their own behoof and eeteration, without any regard to the cause or effect of such manifest predilections. But ye do me no more than a judicature, in supposing that, in this matter, I am habituated wi’ the best intentions. For I can assure you, Mr Pawkie, that no man in this community has a more literal respect for your character than I have, or is more disposed for a judicious example of continence in the way of public enterteenment than I have ever been; for, as you know, I am of a constipent principle towards every extravagant and costive outlay. Therefore, on my own account, I had a satisfaction at seeing the abridgement which you made of our former inebrieties; but there are other persons of a conjugal nature, who look upon such castrations as a deficiency of their rights, and the like of them will find fault with the best procedures.”

“Very true, Mr Peevie,” said I, “that’s very true; but if his Majesty’s government, in this war for all that is dear to us as men and Britons, wish us, who are in authority under them, to pare and save, in order that the means of bringing the war to a happy end may not be wasted, an example must be set, and that example, as a loyal subject and a magistrate, it’s my intent so to give, in the hope and confidence of being backed by every person of a right way of thinking.”

“It’s no to be deputed, Provost Pawkie,” replied my friend, somewhat puzzled by what I had said; “it’s no to be deputed, that we live in a gigantic vortex, and that every man is bound to make an energetic dispensation for the good of his country; but I could not have thought that our means had come to sic an alteration and extremity, as that the reverent homage of the Michaelmas dinners could have been enacted, and declared absolute and abolished, by any interpolation less than the omnipotence of parliament.”

“Not abolished, Mr Peevie,” cried I, interrupting him; “that would indeed be a stretch of power. No, no; I hope we’re both ordained to partake of many a Michaelmas dinner thegether yet; but with a meted measure of sobriety. For we neither live in the auld time nor the golden age, and it would not do now for the like of you and me, Mr Peevie, to be seen in the dusk of the evening, toddling home from the town-hall wi’ goggling een and havering tongues, and one of the town-officers following at a distance in case of accidents; sic things ye ken, hae been, but nobody would plead for their continuance.”

Mr Peevie did not relish this, for in truth it came near his own doors, it having been his annual practice for some years at the Michaelmas dinner to give a sixpence to James Hound, the officer, to see him safe home, and the very time before he had sat so long, that honest James was obligated to cleek and oxter him the whole way; and in the way home, the old man, cagie with what he had gotten, stood in the causey opposite to Mr M’Vest’s door, then deacon of the taylors, and trying to snap his fingers, sang like a daft man,

‘The sheets they were thin and the blankets were sma’,
And the taylor fell through the bed, thimble and a’.”

So that he was disconcerted by my innuendo, and shortly after left the shop, I trow, with small inclination to propagate any sedition against me, for the abbreviation I had made of the Michaelmas galravitching.