* In Irish the proverb is—­“Ha naha la na guiha la na scuilipagh:”  that is, the windy or stormy day is not that on which the scollops should be cut.  Scollops are osier twigs, sharpened at both ends, and inserted in the thatch, to bind it at the eave and rigging.  The proverb inculcates preparation for future necessity.

“Soon after Tom’s marriage, he comes to Larry one day and says ’Larry, you and I are now going to face the world; we’re both young’, healthy, and willin’ to work—­so are our wives; and it’s bad if we can’t make out bread for ourselves, I think.’

“‘Thrue for you, Tom,’ says Larry, ’and what’s to hinder us?  I only wish we had a farm, and you’d see we’d take good bread out of it:  for my part there’s not another he in the country I’d turn my back upon for managing a farm, if I had one.’

“’ Well,’ says the other, ’that’s what I wanted to overhaul as we’re together; Squire Dickson’s steward was telling me yesterday, as I was coming up from my father-in-law’s, that his master has a farm of fourteen acres to set at the present time; the one the Nultys held, that went last spring to America—­’twould be a dacent little take between us.’

“‘I know every inch of it,’ says Larry, ’and good strong land it is, but it was never well wrought; the Nultys weren’t fit for it at all; for one of them didn’t know how to folly a plough.  I’d engage to make that land turn out as good crops as e’er a farm within ten miles of it.’

“‘I know that, Larry,’ says Tom, ’and Squire Dickson knows that no man could handle it to more advantage.  Now if you join me in it, whatever means I have will be as much yours as mine; there’s two snug houses under the one roof, with out-houses and all, in good repair—­and if Sally and Biddy will pull manfully along with us, I don’t see, with the help of Almighty Grod, why we shouldn’t get on dacently, and soon be well and comfortable to live.’

“‘Comfortable!’ savs Larry, ’no, but wealthy itself, Tom:  and let us at it at wanst; Squire Dickson knows what I can do as well as any man in Europe; and I’ll engage won’t be hard upon us for the first year or two; our best plan is to go to-morrow, for fraid some-other might get the foreway of us.’

“The Squire knew very well that two better boys weren’t to be met with than the same M’Farlands, in the way of knowing how to manage land; and although he had his doubts as to Larry’s light and careless ways, yet he had good depindance out of the brother and thought, on the whole, that they might do very-well together.  Accordingly, he set them the farm at a reasonable rint, and in a short time they were both living on it with their two wives.  They divided the fourteen acres into aquil parts; and for fraid were would be any grumbling between them about better or worse, Tom proposed that they should draw lots, which was agreed to by Larry; but, indeed, there was very little difference in the two halves; for Tom