to
do any work to Mrs Girdwood, but only to stay out her term, advised her
to do nothing when she went back but go to her bed, which she was bardy
enough to do, until my poor friend, the deacon, in order to get a quiet
riddance of her, was glad to pay her full fee, and board wages for the
remainder of her time. This was the same Jeanie Tirlet that was
transported for some misdemeanour, after making both Glasgow and
Edinburgh owre het to hold her.

CHAPTER XXXIX--THE NEWSPAPER

Shortly after the foregoing tribulation, of which I cannot take it upon
me to say that I got so well rid as of many other vexations of a more
grievous nature, there arose a thing in the town that caused to me much
deep concern, and very serious reflection. I had been, from the
beginning, a true government man, as all loyal subjects ought in duty to
be; for I never indeed could well understand how it would advantage,
either the king or his ministers, to injure and do detriment to the
lieges; on the contrary, I always saw and thought that his majesty, and
those of his cabinet, had as great an interest in the prosperity and well-
doing of the people, as it was possible for a landlord to have in the
thriving of his tenantry. Accordingly, giving on all occasions, and at
all times and seasons, even when the policy of the kingdom was overcast
with a cloud, the king and government, in church and state, credit for
the best intentions, however humble their capacity in performance might
seem in those straits and difficulties, which, from time to time,
dumfoundered the wisest in power and authority, I was exceedingly
troubled to hear that a newspaper was to be set up in the burgh, and
that, too, by hands not altogether clean of the coom of jacobinical
democracy.

The person that first brought me an account of this, and it was in a
private confidential manner, was Mr Scudmyloof, the grammar schoolmaster,
a man of method and lear, to whom the fathers of the project had applied
for an occasional cast of his skill, in the way of Latin head-pieces, and
essays of erudition concerning the free spirit among the ancient Greeks
and Romans; but he, not liking the principle of the men concerned in the
scheme, thought that it would be a public service to the community at
large, if a stop could be put, by my help, to the opening of such an
ettering sore and king's evil as a newspaper, in our heretofore and
hitherto truly royal and loyal burgh; especially as i