各聽天命 Each Abide By Heaven
行者道：「不打緊，不打緊，等我替你拿他來。」老者道：「你若果有手段拿得他，我請幾個本莊長者與你寫個文書：若得勝，憑你要多少銀子相謝，半分不少；如若有虧，切莫和我等放賴，各聽天命。」行者笑道：「這老兒被人賴怕了。我等不是那樣人，快請長者去。」行者道：「不打紧，不打紧，等我替你拿他来。」老者道：「你若果有手段拿得他，我请几个本庄长者与你写个文书：若得胜，凭你要多少银子相谢，半分不少；如若有亏，切莫和我等放赖，各听天命。」行者笑道：「这老儿被人赖怕了。我等不是那样人，快请长者去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "No matter, no matter. Let me go and take him for you."
不打緊 — "it doesn't signify" — is the brush-off he has used at every stage of this negotiation.
The old man said, "If you really have the skill to take him, I will ask some elders of this village to draw up a paper with you. If you prevail, name what silver you please in thanks and you shall have it, not a fraction short; and if you come to grief, do not turn round and lay it on us — each abides by what heaven decrees."
Two conditions in one sentence, cut by a semicolon in the original and rejoined here: 若得勝 against 如若有虧, each with its consequence and its closing clause, sixteen characters against fifteen. 得 appears twice with different jobs inside this single segment — the light de in 拿得他, "manage to catch him," and the full verb dé in 得勝, "to win."
Pilgrim laughed and said, "Somebody has laid blame on this old fellow before and frightened him of it.
賴 is to renege, or to pin blame where it does not belong. The old man used the same character in his own clause a moment earlier.
"We are not that sort. Go and fetch the elders, and be quick."
那 is nà, "that" — that sort, the sort just described.
The old man's answer to an offer of help is a contract, and he draws it both ways: payment on success, no liability on failure. He has been burned twice and does not intend to be burned a third time.
What he wants is a written instrument witnessed by village elders. That is the second time this chapter has reached for a commercial form — the bow was a deposit, and now the deposit is to become a document.
Pilgrim's reading of the clause is shrewd and a shade unkind. He raises no objection to the terms; he diagnoses the man who drafted them. And then he sends for the elders anyway, which is agreement.