as that the reverent homage of the Michaelmas dinners could have
been enacted, and declared absolute and abolished, by any

interpolation less than the omnipotence of parliament."
"Not abolished, Mr Peevie," cried I, interrupting him; "that would

indeed be a stretch of power. No, no; I hope we're both ordained to
partake of many a Michaelmas dinner thegether yet; but with a meted

measure of sobriety. For we neither live in the auld time nor the
golden age, and it would not do now for the like of you and me, Mr

Peevie, to be seen in the dusk of the evening, toddling home from
the town-hall wi' goggling een and havering tongues, and one of the

town-officers following at a distance in case of accidents; sic
things ye ken, hae been, but nobody would plead for their

continuance."
Mr Peevie did not relish this, for in truth it came near his own

doors, it having been his annual practice for some years at the
Michaelmas dinner to give a sixpence to James Hound, the officer, to

see him safe home, and the very time before he had sat so long, that
honest James was obligated to cleek and oxter him the whole way; and

in the way home, the old man, cagie with what he had gotten, stood
in the causey opposite to Mr M'Vest's door, then deacon of the

taylors, and trying to snap his fingers, sang like a daft man,
'The sheets they were thin and the blankets were sma',

And the taylor fell through the bed, thimble and a'."
So that he was disconcerted by my innuendo, and shortly after left

the shop, I trow, with small inclination to propagate any sedition
against me, for the abbreviation I had made of the Michaelmas

galravitching.
CHAPTER XLIV--THE CHURCH VACANT

I had long been sensible that, in getting Mr Pittle the kirk, I had
acted with the levity and indiscretion of a young man; but at that

time I understood not the nature of public trust, nor, indeed, did
the community at large. Men in power then ruled more for their own

ends than in these latter times; and use and wont sanctioned and
sanctified many doings, from the days of our ancestors, that, but to

imagine, will astonish and startleposterity. Accordingly, when Mr
Pittle, after a lingering illness, was removed from us, which

happened in the first year of my third provostry, I bethought me of
the consequences which had ensued from his presentation, and

resolved within myself to act a very different part in the filling
up of the vacancy. With this intent, as soon as the breath was out

of his body, I sent round for some of the most weighty and best
considered of the councillors and elders, and told them that a great

trust was, by the death of the minister, placed in our hands, and
that, in these times, we ought to do what in us lay to get a

shepherd that would gather back to the establishment the flock which
had been scattered among the seceders, by the feckless crook and

ill-guiding of their former pastor.
They all agreed with me in this, and named one eminentdivine after

another; but the majority of voices were in favour of Dr Whackdeil
of Kirkbogle, a man of weight and example, both in and out the

pulpit, so that it was resolved to give the call to him, which was
done accordingly.

It however came out that the Kirkbogle stipend was better than ours,
and the consequence was, that having given the call, it became

necessary to make up the deficiency; for it was not reasonable to
expect that the reverend doctor, with his small family of nine

children, would remove to us at a loss. How to accomplish this was
a work of some difficulty, for the town revenues were all eaten up

with one thing and another; but upon an examination of the income,
arising from what had been levied on the seats for the repair of the

church, it was discovered that, by doing away a sinking fund, which
had been set apart to redeem the debt incurred for the same, and by

the town taking the debt on itself, we could make up a sufficiency
to bring the doctor among us. And in so far as having an orthodox

preacher, and a very excellent man for our minister, there was great
cause to be satisfied with that arrangement.

But the payment of the interest on the public debt, with which the
town was burdened, began soon after to press heavily on us, and we

were obligated to take on more borrowed money, in order to keep our
credit, and likewise to devise ways and means, in the shape of

public improvements, to raise an income to make up what was
required. This led me to suggest the building of the new bridge,

the cost of which, by contract, there was no reason to complain of,
and the toll thereon, while the war lasted, not only paid the

interest of the borrowed money by which it was built, but left a
good penny in the nook of the treasurer's box for other purposes.

Had the war continued, and the nation to prosperthereby as it did,
nobody can doubt that a great source of wealth and income was opened

to the town; but when peace came round, and our prosperity began to
fall off, the traffic on the bridge grew less and less, insomuch

that the toll, as I now understand, (for since my resignation" target="_blank" title="n.辞职(书)；放弃；顺从">resignation, I
meddle not with public concerns,) does not yield enough to pay the

five per cent on the prime cost of the bridge, by which my
successors suffer much molestation in raising the needful money to

do the same. However, every body continues well satisfied with Dr
Whackdeil, who was the original cause of this perplexity; and it is

to be hoped that, in time, things will grow better, and the revenues
come round again to idemnify the town for its present tribulation.

CHAPTER XLV--THE STRAMASH IN THE COUNCIL
As I have said, my third provostry was undertaken in a spirit of

sincerity, different in some degree from that of the two former; but
strange and singular as it may seem, I really think I got less

credit for the purity of my intents, than I did even in the first.
During the whole term from the election in the year 1813 to the

Michaelmas following, I verily believe that no one proposal which I
made to the council was construed in a right sense; this was partly

owing to the repute I had acquired for canny management, but chiefly
to the perverse views and misconceptions of that Yankee thorn-in-

the-side, Mr Hickery, who never desisted from setting himself
against every thing that sprang from me, and as often found some

show of plausibility to maintain his argumentations. And yet, for
all that, he was a man held in no esteem or respect in the town; for

he had wearied every body out by his everlasting contradictions. Mr
Plan was likewise a source of great tribulation to me; for he was

ever and anon coming forward with some new device, either for
ornament or profit, as he said, to the burgh; and no small portion

of my time, that might have been more advantageously employed, was
wasted in the thriftless consideration of his schemes: all which,

with my advanced years, begat in me a sort of distaste to the
bickerings of the council chamber; so I conferred and communed with

myself, anent the possibility of ruling the town without having
recourse to so unwieldy a vehicle as the wheels within wheels of the

factions which the Yankee reformator, and that projectile Mr Plan,
as he was called by Mr Peevie, had inserted among us.

I will no equivocate that there was, in this notion, an appearance
of taking more on me than the laws allowed; but then my motives were

so clean to my conscience, and I was so sure of satisfying the
people by the methods I intended to pursue, that there could be no

moral fault in the trifle of illegality which, may be, I might have
been led on to commit. However, I was fortunately spared from the

experiment, by a sudden change in the council.--One day Mr Hickery
and Mr Plan, who had been for years colleaguing together for their

own ends, happened to differ in opinion, and the one suspecting that
this difference was the fruit of some secret corruption, they

taunted each other, and came to high words, and finally to an open
quarrel, actually shaking their neeves across the table, and, I'll

no venture to deny, maybe exchanging blows.
Such a convulsion in the sober councils of a burgh town was never

heard of. It was a thing not to be endured, and so I saw at the
time, and was resolved to turn it to the public advantage.

Accordingly, when the two angry men had sat back in their seats,
bleached in the face with passion, and panting and out of breath, I

rose up in my chair at the head of the table, and with a judicial
solemnity addressed the council, saying, that what we had witnessed

was a disgrace not to be tolerated in a Christian land; that unless
we obtained indemnity for the past, and security for the future, I

would resign; but in doing so I would bring the cause thereof before
the Fifteen at Edinburgh, yea, even to the House of Lords at London;