He is all for fowling-piece and salmon-spear, now that pike and musket are out of the question.' 'He has been at soldier, then ?' said I.
'I'se warrant him a soger,' answered Willie; 'but take my advice, and speer as little about him as he does about you.

Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Better say naething about the laird, my man, and tell me instead, what sort of a chap ye are that are sae ready to cleik in with an auld gaberlunzie fiddler?
Maggie says ye're gentle, but a shilling maks a' the difference that Maggie kens between a gentle and a semple, and your crowns wad mak ye a prince of the blood in her een.

But I am ane that ken full weel that ye may wear good claithes, and have a saft hand, and yet that may come of idleness as weel as gentrice.' I told him my name, with the same addition I had formerly given to Mr.Joshua Geddes; that I was a law-student, tired of my studies, and rambling about for exercise and amusement.
'And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' a' the gangrel bodies that ye meet on the high-road, or find cowering in a sand-bunker upon the links ?' demanded Willie.
'Oh, no; only with honest folks like yourself, Willie,' was my reply.
'Honest folks like me! How do ye ken whether I am honest, or what I am?
I may be the deevil himsell for what ye ken; for he has power to come disguised like an angel of light; and besides he is a prime fiddler.

He played a sonata to Corelli, ye ken.' There was something odd in this speech, and the tone in which it was said.