and bigging them up again, he listened with greedy ears to the
dubieties of Mr Threeper, and loudly, and to the heart's content of Mr
Smeddum, condemned the frailty and infirmity of the kirk, as a building
in general.

It would be overly tedious to mention, however, all the outs and ins of
the affair; but, from less to more, a faction was begotten, and grew to
head, and stirring among the inhabitants of the town, not only with
regard to the putting of new seats within the old walls, but likewise as
to the power of the magistrates to lay out any part of the public funds
in the reparation of the kirk; and the upshot was, a contribution among
certain malecontents, to enable Mr Threeper to consult on all the points.

As in all similar cases, the parties applying for legal advice were
heartened into a plea by the opinion they got, and the town-council was
thrown into the greatest consternation by receiving notice that the
malecontents were going to extremities.

Two things I saw it was obligational on me to urge forward; the one was
to go on still with the reparations, and the other to contest the law-
suit, although some were for waiting in the first case till the plea was
settled, and in the second to make no defence, but to give up our
intention anent the new-seating. But I thought that, as we had borrowed
the money for the repairs, we should proceed; and I had a vista that the
contribution raised by the Smeddumites, as they were caller, would run
out, being from their own pockets, whereas we fought with the public
purse in our hand; and by dint of exhortation to that effect, I carried
the majority to go into my plan, which in the end was most gratifying,
for the kirk was in a manner made as good as new, and the contributional
stock of the Smeddumites was entirely rookit by the lawyers, who would
fain have them to form another, assuring them that, no doubt, the legal
point was in their favour. But every body knows the uncertainty of a
legal opinion; and although the case was given up, for lack of a fund to
carry it on, there was a living ember of discontent left in its ashes,
ready to kindle into a flame on the first puff of popular
dissatisfaction.

CHAPTER XVIII--THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAIRS

The spirit by which the Smeddumites were actuated in ecclesiastical
affairs, was a type and taste of the great distemper with which all the
world was, more or less, at the time inflamed, and which cast the ancient
s