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A CALL FOR PATIENCE

servant as a sheriff-substitute, and ultimately a sheriff.

On the other hand, I would advise the young advocate who feels he has the powers of a pleader in him, not too readily to give way to despair of success, because his chances seem to be long delayed. There are many cases of ultimate and brilliant success which seemed for long unable to burst the bud. Lord Jeffrey, after six years at the Bar, told his brother that he did not make £100 a year by his profession, and his income in his ninth year was only £240. Lord Watson, who took such a distinguished position as a pleader and a judge, would at the time I came to the Bar have willingly accepted an outlying sheriff-substituteship. So with these examples before him, let the young pleader not give way to despair because of a meagre row of figures in

his fee-book.

"Some on the Bench, the knotty laws untie."

DRYDEN.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

W

HEN I entered the profession, the Lord Justice-General was Lord Colonsay, and the Lord Justice-Clerk Lord Glencorse, two men each great, though not quite in the same way. Lord Colonsay was a model of sagacity, and one who understood men thoroughly. Patient, and ever courteous, one can recall his rich laugh when, by a few pithy questions, he had pricked the bubble of an argument, a laugh in which it was impossible for the sufferer not to join. Dignified without pomposity, he was a splendid representative of justice, and it was well said of him in one of Alexander Nicolson's clever skits, that he was

"Impatient only to the man
Who vainly hid his hand."

He was a Highlander in the best sense, and spoke like a Highlander. He was one who could not make an enemy, and who was kind to a friend. I had from him many a friendly word, sometimes conveyed to me through his brother, Archibald Macneill, who was a Writer to the Signet and one of his clerks of Court. Speaking of his brother recalls a story of a conversation between two of his people in his island of Colonsay. The incident occurred when Bishop Colenso had published his work, and by doing so created a great sensation. Two cronies meeting, one said:

"Hef ye heard ta news?"

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