that "Lawyer G----s kept farmer G----s."

Bell's favourite saying was, "If a job _has_ to be done you may as
well do it first as last," and it was so strongly impressed upon me by
his example that I think I have been under its influence, more or
less, all my life. He was certain to be to the fore in any emergency
when promptitude, courage, and resource were called for; he it was who
dashed into the pool below the mill and rescued a child, and when I
asked if he had no sense of the danger simply said that he never
thought about it. It was Bell who tackled a savage bull which, by a
mistaken order, was loose in the yard, and which, in the exuberance of
unwonted liberty, had smashed up two cow-cribs, and was beginning the
destruction of a pair of new barn doors, left open, and offering
temptation for further activity. The bull, secured under Bell's
leadership and manacled with a cart-rope, was induced to return to its
home in peace. When felling a tall poplar overhanging the mill-pond,
it was necessary to secure the tree with a rope fixed high up the
trunk and with a stout stake driven into the meadow, to prevent the
tree falling into the pond. Bell was the volunteer who climbed the
tree with one end of the rope tied round his body and fixed it in
position. He was always ready to undertake any specially difficult,
dirty, or hazardous duty, and in giving orders it was never "Go and do
it," but "Come on, let's do it." An example of this sort was not lost
upon the men; they could never say they were set to work that nobody
else would do, and their willing service acknowledged his tact.

One day a widow tenant asked me to read the will at the funeral of an
old woman lying dead at the cottage next her own. I consented, and
reached the cottage at the appointed time. It was the custom among the
villagers, when there was a will, to read it before, not after, the