My adventures in Fountain Lake call to mind the story of a boy who in
climbing a tree to rob a crow's nest fell and broke his leg, but as
soon as it healed compelled himself to climb to the top of the tree he
had fallen from.
Like Scotch children in general we were taught grim self-denial, in
season and out of season, to mortify the flesh, keep our bodies in
subjection to Bible laws, and mercilessly punish ourselves for every
fault imagined or committed. A little boy, while helping his sister to
drive home the cows, happened to use a forbidden word. "I'll have to
tell fayther on ye," said the horrified sister. "I'll tell him that ye
said a bad word." "Weel," said the boy, by way of excuse, "I couldna
help the word comin' into me, and it's na waur to speak it oot than to
let it rin through ye."
A Scotch fiddler playing at a wedding drank so much whiskey that on
the way home he fell by the roadside. In the morning he was ashamed
and angry and determined to punish himself. Making haste to the house
of a friend, a gamekeeper, he called him out, and requested the loan
of a gun.
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