The Provost | Page 7

more concerning my principles and opinions, but only to show forth the course and current of things proceeding out of the affairs, in which I was so called to form a part requiring no small endeavour and diligence.

CHAPTER IV
--THE GUILDRY

When, as is related in the foregoing chapter, I had nourished my knowledge of the council into maturity, I began to cast about for the means of exercising the same towards a satisfactory issue. But in this I found a great difficulty, arising from the policy and conduct of Mr Andrew M'Lucre, who had a sort of infeftment, as may be said, of the office of dean of guild, having for many years been allowed to intromit and manage the same; by which, as was insinuated by his adversaries, no little grist came to his mill. For it had happened from a very ancient date, as far back, I have heard, as the time of Queen Anne, when the union of the kingdoms was brought to a bearing, that the dean of guild among us, for some reason or another, had the upper hand in the setting and granting of tacks of the town lands, in the doing of which it was jealoused that the predecessors of Mr M'Lucre, no to say an ill word of him, honest man, got their loofs creeshed with something that might be called agrassum, or rather, a gratis gift. It therefore seemed to me that there was a necessity for some reformation in the office, and I foresaw that the same would never be accomplished, unless I could get Mr M'Lucre wised out of it, and myself appointed his successor. But in this lay the obstacle; for every thing anent the office was, as it were, in his custody, and it was well known that he had an interest in keeping by that which, in vulgar parlance, is called nine points of the law. However, both for the public good and a convenience to myself, I was resolved to get a finger in the dean of guild's fat pie, especially as I foresaw that, in the course of three or four years, some of the best tacks would run out, and it would be a great thing to the magistrate that might have the disposal of the new ones. Therefore, without seeming to have any foresight concerning the lands that were coming on to be out of lease, I set myself to constrain Mr M'Lucre to give up the guildry, as it were, of his own free-will; and what helped me well to this, was a rumour that came down from London, that there was to be a dissolution of the parliament.
The same day that this news reached the town, I was standing at my shop-door, between dinner and tea-time. It was a fine sunny summer afternoon. Standing under the blessed influence of the time by myself at my shop-door, who should I see passing along the crown of the causey, but Mr M'Lucre himself and with a countenance knotted with care, little in unison with the sultry indolence of that sunny day.
"Whar awa sae fast, dean o' guild?" quo' I to him; and he stopped his wide stepping, for he was a long spare man, and looting in his gait.
"I'm just," said he, "taking a step to the provost's, to learn the particulars of thir great news--for, as we are to hae the casting vote in the next election, there's no saying the good it may bring to us all gin we manage it wi' discretion."
I reflected the while of a minute before I made any reply, and then I said -
"It would hae nae doubt of the matter, Mr M'Lucre, could it be brought about to get you chosen for the delegate; but I fear, as ye are only dean of guild this year, that's no to be accomplished; and really, without the like of you, our borough, in the contest, may be driven to the wall."
"Contest!" cried the dean of guild, with great eagerness; "wha told you that we are to be contested?"
Nobody had told me, nor at the moment was I sensible of the force of what I said; but, seeing the effect it had on Mr M'Lucre, I replied, -
"It does not, perhaps, just now do for me to be more particular, and I hope what I have said to you will gang no further; but it's a great pity that ye're no even a bailie this year, far less the provost, otherwise I would have great confidence."
"Then," said the dean of guild, "you have reason to believe that there is to be a dissolution, and that we are to be contested?"
"Mr M'Lucre, dinna speer any questions," was my answer, "but look at that and say nothing;" so I pulled