uld receive offers to contract, divers
persons came forward; and I was a little at a loss, when I saw such
competition, as to which ought to be preferred. At last, I bethought me,
to send for the different competitors, and converse with them on the
subject quietly; and I found in Thomas Shovel, the tacksman of Whinstone-
quarry, a discreet and considerate man. His offer was, it is true, not
so low as some of the others; but he had facilities to do the work
quickly, that none of the rest could pretend to; so, upon a clear
understanding of that, with the help of the dean of guild M'Lucre's
advocacy, Thomas Shovel got the contract. At first, I could not divine
what interest my old friend, the dean of guild, had to be so earnest in
behalf of the offering contractor; in course of time, however, it spunkit
out that he was a sleeping partner in the business, by which he made a
power of profit. But saving two three carts of stones to big a dyke
round the new steading which I had bought a short time before at the town-
end, I had no benefit whatever. Indeed, I may take it upon me to say,
that should not say it, few provosts, in so great a concern, could have
acted more on a principle than I did in this; and if Thomas Shovel, of
his free-will, did, at the instigation of the dean of guild, lay down the
stones on my ground as aforesaid, the town was not wronged; for, no
doubt, he paid me the compliment at some expense of his own profit.

CHAPTER XVI--ABOUT THE REPAIR OF THE KIRK

The repair of the kirk, the next job I took in hand, was not so easily
managed as that of the causey; for it seems, in former times, the whole
space of the area had been free to the parish in general, and that the
lofts were constructions, raised at the special expense of the heritors
for themselves. The fronts being for their families, and the back seats
for their servants and tenants. In those times there were no such things
as pews; but only forms, removeable, as I have heard say, at pleasure.

It, however, happened, in the course of nature, that certain forms came
to be sabbathly frequented by the same persons; who, in this manner,
acquired a sort of prescriptive right to them. And those persons or
families, one after another, finding it would be an ease and convenience
to them during divine worship, put up backs to their forms. But still,
for many a year, there was no inclosure of pews; the first, indeed, that
made a pew, as I have b