measure, as it was termed--also an effect of the altered
constituency--which suppressed the Irish bishoprics. As I ventured to
tell my minister, who took the other side--if a Protestant Church
failed, after enjoying for three hundred years the benefits of a large
endowment, and every advantage of position which the statute-book could
confer, to erect herself into the Church of the many, it was high time
to commence dealing with her in her true character--as the Church of the
few. At home, however, within the narrow precincts of my native town,
there were effects of the measure which, though comparatively trifling,
I liked considerably worse than the suppression of the bishoprics. It
broke up the townsfolk into two portions--the one consisting of elderly
or middle-aged men, who had been in the commission of the peace ere the
passing of the bill, and who now, as it erected the town into a
parliamentary burgh, became our magistrates, in virtue of the support of
a majority of the voters; and a younger and weaker, but clever and very
active party, few of whom were yet in the commission of the peace, and
who, after standing unsuccessfully for the magistracy, became the
leaders of a patriotic opposition, which succeeded in rendering the seat
of justice a rather uneasy one in Cromarty. The younger men were staunch
Liberals, but great Moderates--the elder, sound Evangelicals, but
decidedly Conservative in their leanings; and as I held ecclesiastically
by the one party, and secularly by the other, I found my position, on
the whole, a rather anomalous one. Both parties got involved in
law-suits. When the Whig Members of Parliament for the county and burgh
came the way, they might be seen going about the streets arm-in-arm
with the young Whigs, which was, of course, a signal honour; and during
the heat of a contested election, young Whiggism, to show itself
grateful, succeeded in running off with a Conservative voter, whom it
had caught in his cups, and got itself involved in a law-suit in
consequence, which cost it several hundred pounds. The Conservatives, on
the other hand, also got entangled in an expensive law-suit. The town
had its annual fair, at which from fifty to a hundred children used to
buy gingerbread, and which had held for many years at the eastern end of
the town links. Through, however, some unexplained piece of strategy on
the part of the young Liberals, a market-day came round, on which the
gingerbread-women took