"Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain spring first; it's a' ane to Dandie."
"Now, you looby," said the lawyer, "cannot you conceive that your business can be nothing to Colonel Mannering, but that he may not choose to have these great ears of thine regaled with his matters?"
"Aweel, sir, just as you and he like--so ye see to my business," said Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by the roughness of this reception. "We're at the auld wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh and me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthop Rigg after we pass the Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, and Slackenspool, and Bloodylaws, they come in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after ye pass Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed cutlugged stane, that they ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there Dawston Cleugh and Charlies-hope they march. Now, I say, the march rins on the tap o' the hill where the wind and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston Cleugh again, he contravenes that, and says, that it hauds down by the auld drove-road that gaes awa by the Knot o' the Gate ower to Keeldar Ward--and that makes an unco [*Uncommon ] difference."
"And what difference does it make, friend?" said Pleydell. "How many sheep will it feed?"
"Ou, no mony," said Dandie, scratching his head, it's lying high and exposed--it may feed a hog, or aiblins [*Perhaps ] twa in a good year."
"And for this grazing, which may be worth about five shillings a year, you are willing to throw away a hundred pound or two?"
"Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass," replied Dinmont; "it's for justice."
"My good friend," said Pleydell, "justice, like charity, should begin at home. Do you justice to your wife and family, and think no more about-the matter."
