"Deacon, what has vexed you so sorely? what has happened to keep you so late?" he broke forth-- "What vexes me? what has kept me so late? You may with good reason inquire that, woman. Our pretty Provost is the sole cause. You may be thankful that you have seen my face this night." And he commenced and gave an exaggerated account of the immense wall that the Provost had caused to be built, from the Crames to the Royal Exchange, reaching as high as the third storey of the houses; and the great length of time he had been detained in examining it, to discover a way to get over or through it--all which the simple Deaconess believed, and heartily joined her husband in abusing the Provost. "Had a wall been built across the Castlehill," she said, "when the Highlandmen were in the town, and the cannon balls flying down the street, I could have known the use of it; but to build a wall between the Crames and the Royal Exchange, to keep the Lawnmarket and Castlehill people from kirk and market--surely the man's mad!" The Treasurer had been for some time gone ere the worthy couple retired to rest, big with the events that were to be transacted on the morrow, for the downfall of the innovating Provost. The morning was still grey, the sun was not above the horizon, when the Deaconess, as was her wont, arose to begin her household duties; but, anxious to communicate the strange conduct of the Provost, in raising the wall of partition in the city, she seized her water stoups, and hurried to the public well at the Bow-head, to replenish them, and ease her overcharged mind of the mighty circumstance. Early as the hour was, many of the wives of the good citizens were already there, seated on their water stoups, and awaiting their turn to be supplied--their shrill voices mixing with those of the more sonorous tones of the Highland water-carriers, and rising in violent contention on the stillness of the morning, like the confusion of Babel. The sensation caused by the relation of the Deaconess of her husband's adventure of the preceding evening, was nothing impaired by the story being related at second-hand. Arms were raised in astonishment as she proceeded with her marvellous tale of the high wall built in so short a space by the Provost. After some time spent in fruitless debate, it was agreed that they should go down in a body and examine this bold encroachment upon the citizens--and away they went, with the indignant Deaconess at their head. For some hundred feet down the Lawnmarket, the buildings of the jail and Luckenbooths hid that part of the street from the phalanx of Amazons; but, intent to reconnoitre where the wall of offence was said to stand, they reached the Luckenbooths, and a shout of laughter and derision burst from the band. The Deaconess stood petrified, the image of shame and anger. No wall was there--everything stood as it had done for years!