"That is a supposition, sir," replied the lawyer, "which it would ill become me to put.--But at any rate, if you knew this country formerly, ye cannot but be marvellously pleased with the change we have been making since the American war--hill-sides bearing clover instead of heather--rents doubled, trebled, quadrupled--the auld reekie dungeons pulled down, and gentlemen living in as good houses as you will see any where in England." "Much good may it do them, for a pack of fools!" replied Mr. Touchwood, hastily. "You do not seem much delighted with our improvements, sir?" said the banker, astonished to hear a dissentient voice where he conceived all men were unanimous. "Pleased!" answered the stranger--"Yes, as much pleased as I am with the devil, who I believe set many of them agoing. Ye have got an idea that every thing must be changed--Unstable as water, ye shall not excel--I tell ye, there have been more changes in this poor nook of yours within the last forty years, than in the great empires of the East for the space of four thousand, for what I know." "And why not," replied Bindloose, "if they be changes for the better?" "But they are _not_ for the better," replied Mr. Touchwood, eagerly. "I left your peasantry as poor as rats indeed, but honest and industrious, enduring their lot in this world with firmness, and looking forward to the next with hope--Now they are mere eye-servants--looking at their watches, forsooth, every ten minutes, lest they should work for their master half an instant after loosing-time--And then, instead of studying the Bible on the work days, to kittle the clergymen with doubtful points of controversy on the Sabbath, they glean all their theology from Tom Paine and Voltaire." "Weel I wot the gentleman speaks truth," said Mrs. Dods. "I fand a bundle of their bawbee blasphemies in my ain kitchen--But I trow I made a clean house of the packman loon that brought them!--No content wi' turning the tawpies' heads wi' ballants, and driving them daft wi' ribands, to cheat them out of their precious souls, and gie them the deevil's ware, that I suld say sae, in exchange for the siller that suld support their puir father that's aff wark and bedridden!" "Father! madam," said the stranger; "they think no more of their father than Regan or Goneril." "In gude troth, ye have skeel of our sect, sir," replied the dame; "they are gomerils, every one of them--I tell them sae every hour of the day, but catch them profiting by the doctrine."