understanding, that I was to be upheld in the office and dignity for
two years; and that sundry improvements, which I thought the town
was susceptible of, both in the causey of the streets and the
reparation of the kirk, should be set about under my direction; but
the way in which I handled the same, and brought them to a
satisfactory completeness and perfection, will supply abundant
matter for two chapters.



CHAPTER XV--ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE STREETS



In ancient times, Gudetown had been fortified with ports and gates
at the end of the streets; and in troublesome occasions, the country
people, as the traditions relate, were in the practice of driving in
their families and cattle for shelter. This gave occasion to that
great width in our streets, and those of other royal burghs, which
is so remarkable; the same being so built to give room and stance
for the cattle. But in those days the streets were not paved at the
sides, but only in the middle, or, as it was called, the crown of
the causey; which was raised and backed upward, to let the rain-
water run off into the gutters. In progress of time, however, as
the land and kingdom gradually settled down into an orderly state,
the farmers and country folk having no cause to drive in their herds
and flocks, as in the primitive ages of a rampageous antiquity, the
proprietors of houses in the town, at their own cost, began, one
after another, to pave the spaces of ground between their steadings
and the crown of the causey; the which spaces were called lones, and