hich we had been long
prepared; and indeed, to his family and connexions, except for the loss
of the stipend, it was a very gentle dispensation, for he had been long a
heavy handful, having been for years but, as it were, a breathing lump of
mortality, groosy, and oozy, and doozy, his faculties being shut up and
locked in by a dumb palsy.

Having had this early intimation of the doctor's removal to a better
world, on the Sabbath morning when I went to join the magistrates in the
council-chamber, as the usage is to go to the laft, with the
town-officers carrying their halberts before us, according to the ancient
custom of all royal burghs, my mind was in a degree prepared to speak to
them anent the successor. Little, however, passed at that time, and it
so happened that, by some wonder of inspiration, (there were, however,
folk that said it was taken out of a book of sermons, by one Barrow an
English Divine,) Mr Pittle that forenoon preached a discourse that made
an impression, in so much, that on our way back to the council-chamber I
said to Provost Vintner, that then was--

"Really Mr Pittle seems, if he would exert himself, to have a nerve. I
could not have thought it was in the power of his capacity to have given
us such a sermon."

The provost thought as I did, so I replied--"We canna, I think, do better
than keep him among us. It would, indeed, provost, no be doing justice
to the young man to pass another over his head."

I could see that the provost wasna quite sure of what I had been saying;
for he replied, that it was a matter that needed consideration.

When we separated at the council-chamber, I threw myself in the way of
Bailie Weezle, and walked home with him, our talk being on the subject of
vacancy; and I rehearsed to him what had passed between me and the
provost, saying, that the provost had made no objection to prefer Mr
Pittle, which was the truth.

Bailie Weezle was a man no overladen with worldly wisdom, and had been
chosen into the council principally on account of being easily managed.
In his business, he was originally by trade a baker in Glasgow, where he
made a little money, and came to settle among us with his wife, who was a
native of the town, and had her relations here. Being therefore an idle
man, living on his money, and of a soft and quiet nature, he was for the
reason aforesaid chosen into the council, where he always voted on the
provost's side; for in controverted questions e