26 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



stone tower crowned with a belfry, built in 1777, its top 

 having been recently renewed, whence a bell tolls at 

 special times of public assembly. 



When the thin, shy, uncouth-looking, friendless hero 

 of our story entered the village early one morning at 

 the beginning of the century, it presented a very different 

 aspect from the silent, sleepy, retrograding hamlet it is now. 

 The houses were mostly thatched, and stood amidst neat 

 well-tended gardens, and the whole place had an air of 

 vital activity about it that betokened prosperous trade ; 

 while the clatter of the loom resounded from every 

 dwelling. As he passed along the narrow street to the 

 upper end of the village, where he was to spend five 

 important years of his life, he could observe through his 

 sheepish eyes, under their projecting brows which saw 

 deeper and farther, however, than the casual observer might 

 suspect that numerous groups of weavers eyed him from 

 the corners of the streets, where they stood without coat 

 or hat, adorned with the inevitable apron, the badge of 

 their trade, which he was soon to don. His lank, ill-filled 

 figure, his awkward stoop that bespoke bashfulness and 

 toil, his simple, retiring look, his meagre, worn apparel, 

 his small but well-tied bundle that bore all his possessions, 

 did not escape their critical gaze ; and the question went 

 quickly round who this " queer kind o' creatur " could be, 

 that was inquiring for the sharpest and most domineering 

 man in the whole village, the notorious Charlie Pirie 

 another suggestive example of the wolf and the lamb. 



John had entered a town of rural weavers. Every 

 householder had his workshop attached to his house. He 

 rented, moreover, a large garden and a considerable croft of 



