ch their chief magistrate was held. It reflected down, as it were,
upon themselves a glaik of the sunshine that shone upon us; and although
it may be a light thing, as it is seemingly a vain one, to me to say, I
am now pretty much of Mrs Pawkie's opinion, that our cultivation of an
intercourse with the country gentry was, in the end, a benefit to our
family, in so far as it obtained, both for my sons and daughters, a
degree of countenance that otherwise could hardly have been expected from
their connexions and fortune, even though I had been twice provost.

CHAPTER XXXVI--RETRIBUTION

But a sad accident shortly after happened, which had the effect of making
it as little pleasant to me to vex Mr Hickery with a joke about the
Tappit-hen, as it was to him. Widow Fenton, as I have soberly hinted;
for it is not a subject to be openly spoken of, had many ill-assorted and
irregular characters among her customers; and a gang of play-actors
coming to the town, and getting leave to perform in Mr Dribble's barn,
batches of the young lads, both gentle and semple, when the play was
over, used to adjourn to her house for pies and porter, the commodities
in which she chiefly dealt. One night, when the deep tragedy of Mary
Queen of Scots was the play, there was a great concourse of people at
"The Theatre Royal," and the consequence was, that the Tappit-hen's
house, both but and ben, was, at the conclusion, filled to overflowing.

The actress that played Queen Elizabeth, was a little-worth termagant
woman, and, in addition to other laxities of conduct, was addicted to the
immorality of taking more than did her good, and when in her cups, she
would rant and ring fiercer than old Queen Elizabeth ever could do
herself. Queen Mary's part was done by a bonny genty young lady, that
was said to have run away from a boarding-school, and, by all accounts,
she acted wonderful well. But she too was not altogether without a flaw,
so that there was a division in the town between their admirers and
visiters; some maintaining, as I was told, that Mrs Beaufort, if she
would keep herself sober, was not only a finer woman, but more of a lady,
and a better actress, than Miss Scarborough, while others considered her
as a vulgar regimental virago.

The play of Mary Queen of Scots, causing a great congregation of the
rival partizans of the two ladies to meet in the Tappit-hen's public,
some contention took place about the merits of their respe