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 Itrow we soon had reason to repent our indiscretion, and none more than myself, who had first proposed him.
