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."

"And then the brutes are turned mercenary, madam," said Mr. Touchwood,
"I remember when a Scottishman would have scorned to touch a shilling
that he had not earned, and yet was as ready to help a stranger as an
Arab of the desert. And now, I did but drop my cane the other day as I
was riding--a fellow who was working at the hedge made three steps to
lift it--I thanked him, and my friend threw his hat on his head, and
'damned my thanks, if that were all'--Saint Giles could not have
excelled him."

"Weel, weel," said the banker, "that may be a' as you say, sir, and nae
doubt wealth makes wit waver; but the country's wealthy, that cannot be
denied, and wealth, sir, ye ken"----

"I know wealth makes itself wings," answered the cynical stranger; "but
I am not quite sure we have it even now. You make a great show, ind