" And of a lawyer, who combined
legal practice with the hobby of a small farm, that there was no doubt
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.
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