"'They're no worth the half o't, I manteen,' exclaimed Sandy, energetically.
"'Hush, Sandy, hush, man,' said Mr Darsy. 'I'm sure the horses are a fair bargain. This honest man would never ask more than they are worth.'
"'Wadna he, feth? said Sandy, with a satirical smile. 'Sir, I'm thinkin ye'll fin out that before ye're a week aulder. Wait ye till the horses hae been twa days in the plough, and ye'll see whether he has asked mair than the worth o' them or no. I wadna trust him farrer than I could throw a bull by the tail.'
"'Sandy, Sandy,' exclaimed Mr Darsy, in a deprecating tone, 'you have really a scandalous tongue. Have you forgot that beautiful verse in the universal prayer—
'Teach me to feel another's wo;
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.'
"'That's a' very weel, sir; but I canna agree to hide the cheat I see—that's a different sort o' thing a'thegither.'
"'Sandy,' said Mr Darsy, in a still more angry tone, 'I really will hear no more of this.' And thus rebuked, Sandy said no more; he saw it would be useless.
"Leaving the latter in charge of the horses, Mr Darsy and Willie now went into the house; and there the latter received the price of his cattle, together with a comfortable refection, during which he and his host kept up a running fire of quotations from Pope.
"The former, as the reader will recollect, had cautioned the latter not to make any allusion to the author just named in the hearing of his sister; and this caution Willie observed. He took care to make no quotations while she was present; but he had not been put on his guard against her overhearing them, and the consequence was, that some of them were made in a tone so emphatically loud, that she did overhear them, even from the distance of an adjoining apartment. Perhaps few else than Miss Sarah could have discerned what were the words so spoken; but her ears were so sensitively alive to the language of the abhorred Pope, that she at once recognised them; and on doing so, immediately sent for her brother to come and speak with her, for she had known him to have been repeatedly swindled by Pope-quoters before, some of whom had committed a scrap or two to memory for the express purpose.
"'James,' said Miss Sarah, on his coming into the apartment where she was,'I hear that man quoting Pope. Now, James, I beg you'll be on your guard; for you may depend upon it he intends to cheat you. Recollect how often you have been taken in by Pope-quoters. There was the man that borrowed five pounds from you, on the strength of a quotation; there was the man that got your name to a fifty-pound bill, of which you had afterwards to pay every farthing, through precisely a similar claim on your bounty—for he had no other; then there was the fellow whom you recommended to the wood-merchants, and who forged a bill on his employers; then there were the silver spoons that you bought from the packman, and that turned out to be pewter and tin—all because they quoted Pope; then there was——But it would take me a week to go over half the impositions of which you have been the victim, through that detested and detestable Pope.'