till he had sickened every body out of all patience.



CHAPTER XXVII--THE PLAINSTONES



The first question that changed the bark of Mr Hickery, was my
proposal for the side plainstones of the high street. In the new
paving of the crown of the causey, some years before, the rise in
the middle had been levelled to an equality with the side loans, and
in disposing of the lamp-posts, it was thought advantageous to place
them halfway from the houses and the syvers, between the loans and
the crown of the causey, which had the effect at night, of making
the people who were wont, in their travels and visitations, to keep
the middle of the street, to diverge into the space and path between
the lamp-posts and the houses. This, especially in wet weather, was
attended with some disadvantages; for the pavement, close to the
houses, was not well laid, and there being then no ronns to the
houses, at every other place, particularly where the nepus-gables
were towards the streets, the rain came gushing in a spout, like as
if the windows of heaven were opened. And, in consequence, it began
to be freely conversed, that there would be a great comfort in
having the sides of the streets paved with flags, like the
plainstones of Glasgow, and that an obligation should be laid on the
landlords, to put up ronns to kepp the rain, and to conduct the
water down in pipes by the sides of the houses;--all which furnished
Mr Hickery with fresh topics for his fasherie about the lamps, and
was, as he said, proof and demonstration of that most impolitic,