"
"Ay," said his patron, "but ye ken we maun hae turnips for the lang
sheep, billie, and muckle hard wark to get them, baith wi' the pleugh
and the howe; and that wad sort ill wi' sitting on the broomy knowe, and
cracking about Black Dwarfs, and siccan clavers, as was the gate lang
syne, when the short sheep were in the fashion."
"Aweel, aweel, maister," said the attendant, "short sheep had short
rents, I'm thinking."
Here my WORTHY AND LEARNED patron again interposed, and observed, "that
he could never perceive any material difference, in point of longitude,
between one sheep and another."
This occasioned a loud hoarse laugh on the part of the farmer, and an
astonished stare on the part of the shepherd.
"It's the woo', man,--it's the woo', and no the beasts themsells, that
makes them be ca'd lang or short. I believe if ye were to measure their
backs, the short sheep wad be rather the langer-bodied o' the twa; but
it's the woo' that pays the rent in thae days, and it had muckle need.
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