"Dear, what for, master?"
"Because if you should take it into your head to coup the creels just now, you know it would be out of the power of man to get you to a Christian burial. We would be obliged to huddle you up in the nook of the kail-yard."
"Ah, master, what's that you're saying to my auld wife? Aye the auld man yet, I hear! a great deal o' the leaven o' corrupt nature aye sprouting out now and then. I wonder you're no fear'd to speak in that regardless manner in these judgment-looking times!"
"And you are still the old man too, Andrew; a great deal of cant and hypocrisy sprouting out at times. But tell me, you old sinner, how has your Maker been serving you this storm? I have been right terrified about your sheep; for I know you will have been very impertinent with him of evenings."
"Hear to that now! There's no hope, I see! I thought to find you humbled wi' a' thir trials and warldly losses; but I see the heart is hardened like Pharaoh's, and you will not let the multitude of your sins go. As to the storm, I can tell you, my sheep are just at ane mae wi't. I am waur than ony o' my neighbours, as I lie higher on the hills; but I may hae been as it chanced, for you; for ye hae never lookit near me mair than you had had no concern in the creatures."
"Indeed, Andrew, it is because neither you nor the creatures are much worth looking after now-a-days. If it hadna been the fear I was in for some mishap coming over the stock, on account of these hypocritical prayers of yours, I would not have come to look after you so soon."
"Ah, there's nae mense to be had o' you! It's a good thing I ken the heart's better than the tongue, or ane wad hae little face to pray either for you, or aught that belangs t'ye. But I hope ye hae been nae the waur o' auld Andrew's prayers as yet. An some didna pray for ye, it wad maybe be the waur for ye. I prayed for ye when ye couldna pray for yoursell, and had hopes that, when I turned auld and doited, you might say a kind word for me; but I'm fear'd that warld's wealth and warld's pleasures hae been leading you ower lang in their train, and that ye hae been trusting to that which will soon take wings and flee away."
"If you mean riches, Andrew, or warld's wealth, as you call it, you never said a truer word in your life; for the little that my forbears and I have made, is actually, under the influence of these long prayers of yours, melting away from among my hands faster than ever the snow did from the dike."
"It is perfectly true, what you're saying, master. I ken the extent o' your bits o' sales weel enough, and I ken your rents; and weel I ken you're telling me nae lee. And it's e'en a hard case. But I'll tell you what I would do—I would throw their tacks in their teeth, and let them mak aught o' them they likit."
"Why, that would be ruin at once, Andrew, with a vengeance. Don't you see that stocks of sheep are fallen so low, that if they were put to sale, they would not pay more than the rents, and some few arrears that every one of us have got into; and thus, by throwing up our farms, we would throw ourselves out beggars? We are all willing to put off the evil day as long as we can, and rather trust to long prayers for a while."