seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water
frae the Fairwell spring through a part o' your lands."

'"What the deuce!--have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve
on?--I won't consent, tell them."

'"And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the
rebuff, "and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld
stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."

'"Eh?--what?--Oho! that's another story--Well, well, I'll call upon the
provost, and we'll talk about it."

'"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the
stanes; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be
put with advantage on the front of the new council-house--that is, the
twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robbin and
Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd
Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says,
and just in the style of modern Gothic."

'"Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the
Antiquary,--"a monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian
porch, and a Madonna on the top of it!--_O crimini!_--Well, tell the
provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the
water-course.--It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day."

'They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to
exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an
exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to
remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public
road) and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh, through the
estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon
the pressure of the moment.'

In this single page of Scott, will the reader please note the kind of
prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark and
forecast its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the future
Thirlmere carried to Manchester; the 'auld stanes'[174] at Donagild's
Chapel, removed as a _nuisance_, foretell the necessary view taken by
modern cockneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remind
them of the noble dead, of their father's fame, or of their own duty;
and the public road becomes their idol, instead of the saint's shrine.
Finally, the roguery of the entire transaction--the mean man seeing the
weakness of the honourable, and 'besting' h