Provost Pawkie, three times chief magistrate of the Royal Burgh of Gudetown, looks back on his long career in local affairs. In his own complacent Scots voice he recounts guild elections, a bailie’s bankruptcy, bribes refused and accepted, shipwrecks and civic improvements, never quite noticing how much his self-portrait reveals.
Galt’s comic masterpiece of small-town politics, an early political novel still sharp about how power works. Download the free EPUB.