ntage, but reflect on what
small and visionary grounds the popularity of public men will sometimes
rest.

CHAPTER XXIII--THREE THE DEATH OF MR M'LUCRE

Shortly after the affair recorded in the foregoing chapter, an event came
to pass in the burgh that had been for some time foreseen.

My old friend and adversary, Bailie M'Lucre, being now a man well
stricken in years, was one night, in going home from a gavawlling with
some of the neighbours at Mr Shuttlethrift's, the manufacturer's, (the
bailie, canny man, never liket ony thing of the sort at his own cost and
outlay,) having partaken largely of the bowl, for the manufacturer was of
a blithe humour--the bailie, as I was saying, in going home, was
overtaken by an apoplexy just at the threshold of his own door, and
although it did not kill him outright, it shoved him, as it were, almost
into the very grave; in so much that he never spoke an articulate word
during the several weeks he was permitted to doze away his latter end;
and accordingly he died, and was buried in a very creditable manner to
the community, in consideration of the long space of time he had been a
public man among us.

But what rendered the event of his death, in my opinion, the more
remarkable, was, that I considered with him the last remnant of the old
practice of managing the concerns of the town came to a period. For now
that he is dead and gone, and also all those whom I found conjunct with
him, when I came into power and office, I may venture to say, that things
in yon former times were not guided so thoroughly by the hand of a
disinterested integrity as in these latter years. On the contrary, it
seemed to be the use and wont of men in public trusts, to think they were
free to indemnify themselves in a left-handed way for the time and
trouble they bestowed in the same. But the thing was not so far wrong in
principle as in the hugger-muggering way in which it was done, and which
gave to it a guilty colour, that, by the judicious stratagem of a right
system, it would never have had. In sooth to say, through the whole
course of my public life, I met with no greater difficulties and trials
than in cleansing myself from the old habitudes of office. For I must in
verity confess, that I myself partook, in a degree, at my beginning, of
the caterpillar nature; and it was not until the light of happier days
called forth the wings of my endowment, that I became conscious of being
raised into