'If he dinna,' quo' I, 'he's no what I think him.' Then he began a lang serious harangue about the riches o' free grace, and about the wickedness o' our nature; and said, that we could do naething o' oursells _but_ sin. I said it was a hard construction, but I couldna argy the point ava wi' him--I never was a dab at these lang-winded stories. Then they cam on about prelacy and heresies, and something they ca'd the act of abjuration. I couldna follow him out at nae rate; but I says, I pit nae doubt, callants, but ye're right, for ye hae proven to a' the warld that ye think sae; and when a man feels conscious that he's right, I never believe he can be far wrang in sic matters. But that's no the point in question; let us consider what can be done for ye e'en now--Poor souls! God kens, my heart's sair for ye; but this land's mine, an' a' the sheep around ye, an' ye're welcome to half-a-dozen o' the best o' them in sic a case.'
'Ah! lack-a-day, lack-a-day! If ye be the gudeman o' the Chapelhope, ye'll rue the day that ever ye saw us. If it's kend that ye countenanced us in word or deed, ye're a ruined man; for the blood-hounds are near at hand, and they'll herry ye out and in, but and ben--Lack-a-day! lack-a-day! in a wee while we may gang and come by the Chapelhope, and nouther see a lum reek nor hear a cock craw; for Clavers is on the one hand and Lag on the other, and they're coming nearer and nearer us every day, and hemming us in sairer and sairer--renounce us and deny us, as ye wish to thrive.'
'Na, na, lads, let them come--let them come their ways! Gin they should take a' the ewes and kye on the Chapelhope, I can stock it o'er again. I dinna gie a bawbee about your leagues, and covenants, and associations, for I think aye there's a good deal o' faction and dourness in them; but or I'll desert a fellow-creature that's oppressed, if he's an honest man, and lippens to me, od, I'll gie them the last drap o' my heart's bluid.'