When Sir George Sinclair was chosen member of Parliament for his native county, a man came up to him and said: "Noo, Maister George, I'll gie ye some advice. They've made ye a Parliament man, and my advice to ye is, be ye aye tak-takin' what ye can get, and aye seek-seekin' until ye get mair."
Concerning the long-bow, no American effort can surpass one that comes to us from Scotland: It was told that Colonel M'Dowall, when he returned from the war, was one day walking along by The Nyroch, when he came on an old man sitting greetin' on a muckle stone at the roadside. When he came up, the old man rose and took off his bonnet, and said:
"Thank you," said the colonel; adding, after a pause, "I should surely know your face. Aren't you Nathan M'Culloch?"
"Ye're richt, 'deed," said Nathan, "it's just me, laird."
"You must be a good age, now, Nathan," says the colonel.
"I'm no verra aul' yet, laird," was the reply; "I'm just turnt a hunner."
"A hundred!" says the colonel, musing; "well, you must be all that. But the idea of a man of a hundred sitting blubbering that way! Whatever could _you_ get to cry about?"
"It was my father lashed me, sir," said Nathan, blubbering again; "an' he put me oot, so he did."
"Your father!" said the colonel; "is your father alive yet?"
"Leevin! ay," replied Nathan; "I ken that the day tae my sorrow."
"Where is he?" says the colonel. "What an age he must be! I would like to see him."
"Oh, he's up in the barn there," says Nathan; "an no' in a horrid gude humor the noo, aither."
They went up to the barn together, and found the father busy threshing the barley with the big flail, and tearing on fearful. Seeing Nathan and the laird coming in, he stopped and saluted the colonel, who, after inquiring how he was, asked him why he had struck Nathan.
"The young rascal!" says the father, "there's nae dooin' wi' him; he's never oot o' mischief. I had to lick him this mornin' _for throwin' stanes at his grandfather_!"
A Scotch minister, named Downes, settled in a rural district in the north of Ireland, where the people are more Scotch in language and manners than in the land o' cakes itself. One evening he and a brother divine set out together to take part in some religious service.