LETTER IX


The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and
Session-Clerk of Garnock--LONDON.

Dear Sir--I have written by the post that will take this to hand, a
letter to Banker M-y, at Irvine, concerning some small matters of
money that I may stand in need of his opinion anent; and as there is
a prospect now of a settlement of the legacy business, I wish you to
take a step over to the banker, and he will give you ten pounds,
which you will administer to the poor, by putting a twenty-shilling
note in the plate on Sunday, as a public testimony from me of
thankfulness for the hope that is before us; the other nine pounds
you will quietly, and in your own canny way, divide after the
following manner, letting none of the partakers thereof know from
what other hand than the Lord's the help comes, for, indeed, from
whom but HIS does any good befall us!

You will give to auld Mizy Eccles ten shillings. She's a careful
creature, and it will go as far with her thrift as twenty will do
with Effy Hopkirk; so you will give Effy twenty. Mrs. Binnacle, who
lost her husband, the sailor, last winter, is, I am sure, with her
two sickly bairns, very ill off; I would therefore like if you will
lend her a note, and ye may put half-a-crown in the hand of each of
the poor weans for a playock, for she's a proud spirit, and will
bear much before she complain. Thomas Dowy has been long unable to
do a turn of work, so you may give him a note too. I promised that