together with a sharp remarking of the inclination and bent of men's
minds, to entertain the hope and assurance of rising to the top of
all the town, as this book maketh manifest, and the incidents
thereof will certificate.

Nothing particular, however, came to pass, till my wife lay in of
her second bairn, our daughter Sarah; at the christening of whom,
among divers friends and relations, forbye the minister, we had my
father's cousin, Mr Alexander Clues, that was then deacon convener,
and a man of great potency in his way, and possessed of an influence
in the town-council of which he was well worthy, being a person of
good discernment, and well versed in matters appertaining to the
guildry. Mr Clues, as we were mellowing over the toddy bowl, said,
that by and by the council would be looking to me to fill up the
first gap that might happen therein; and Dr Swapkirk, the then
minister, who had officiated on the occasion, observed, that it was
a thing that, in the course of nature, could not miss to be, for I
had all the douce demeanour and sagacity which it behoved a
magistrate to possess. But I cannily replied, though I was right
contented to hear this, that I had no time for governing, and it
would be more for the advantage of the commonwealth to look for the
counselling of an older head than mine, happen when a vacancy might
in the town-council.

In this conjuncture of our discoursing, Mrs Pawkie, my wife, who was
sitting by the fireside in her easy chair, with a cod at her head,
for she had what was called a sore time o't, said:-

"Na, na, gudeman, ye need na be sae mim; every body kens, and I ken
too, that ye're ettling at the magistracy. It's as plain as a