I recollect in boyish days, when on Deeside taking wasp-nests, an old man looking on was sharply stung by one, and his description was, "Ane o' them's grippit me fine." The following had an indescribable piquancy, which arose from the _Scotticism_ of the terms and the manners.

Many years ago, when accompanying a shooting party on the Grampians, not with a gun like the rest, but with a botanical box for collecting specimens of mountain plants, the party had got very hot, and very tired, and very cross.

On the way home, whilst sitting down to rest, a gamekeeper sort of attendant, and a character in his way, said, "I wish I was in the dining-room of Fasque." Our good cousin the Rev.Mr.Wilson, minister of Farnel, who liked well a quiet shot at the grouse, rather testily replied, "Ye'd soon be _kickit_ out o' that;" to which the other replied, not at all daunted, "Weel, weel, then I wadna be far frae the kitchen." A quaint and characteristic reply I recollect from another farm-servant.

My eldest brother had just been constructing a piece of machinery which was driven by a stream of water running through the home farmyard.

There was a thrashing machine, a winnowing machine, and circular saw for splitting trees into paling, and other contrivances of a like kind.