ck and the lash, and the Captain growled
most hideously at him; but latterly, when he saw he was to win, he
improved in strength and spirits every hour till the end. After two
days' rest he went on the Walcheren expedition. When past sixty he
would walk twenty or thirty miles to dinner. I could relate many
interesting reminiscences of Captain Barclay, but as most of them have
been published already, I have only given a few well-authenticated
anecdotes, which, so far as I know, have never before appeared. He was
found dead in his bed in 1854: and in him the tenant-farmers of
Scotland and the poor of his own neighbourhood lost one of their best
friends.

While speaking of Milner I referred to the great feats performed in
those days with the sickle. I remember a Highland woman, "black Bell,"
who made sixteen to eighteen threaves (384 to 432 sheaves) daily in
harvest of good-sized sheaves; but George Bruce, Ardgows, in the parish
of Tough, could shear thirty-six threaves in a day, and bind and stook
it. However incredible this may appear, it is a fact. I have seen him
shearing after he was an old man; he drove the "rig" of say eighteen
feet from side to side, and never lifted his hand till he had a sheaf.
He used a long sickle, and drew the corn to him. I cannot describe his
method properly. He was a tall, thin, wiry man, with very long arms. My
father used to tell how my grandfather sent two men and two women to
give George Bruce a day's shearing, and how George came with a little
girl (who did little or nothing but make bands for her master), and how
my grandfather asked him "if that was the way he intended to pay his
debt." George replied that "he could put his four shearers on one
'rig'"--they were fully an average of the shearers in the country--"and
he and the lassie would take the other." They started accordingly, and
Bruce kept ahead of them throughout the day.

III. THE CATTLE TRADE, THEN AND NOW.

The lean-cattle trade is a most dangerous one, and I would not advise
any young friend of mine to engage in it. I believe for one who has
succeeded twenty have gone down. This is true, at least, as far as
droving from the north to the south of Scotland and England is
concerned. Home jobbers have been more fortunate, though I am not
acquainted with many who have done much good. There are many
temptations connected with it, and it requires a strong mind to resist
them. I have only given the bright side of the pi