4O JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



John now first learnt the A B C, in his sixteenth year, 

 under Mary Garvie's tuition, at her pleasant fireside, 

 naming the letters in the old-fashioned Scotch style, " Ah, 

 Bay, Say," and concluding with " Ized and Eppercy And " 

 the last a curious remnant of old school Latinity, which 

 being interpreted is, in the Roman tongue, " et per se, and," 

 and, in the vulgar speech, " & by itself, and." * Having 

 conquered these pregnant hieroglyphics and their first 

 syllabic combinations, his future progress was now greatly, 

 if not wholly, in his own hands ; for, like Edmund Stone, 

 the self-taught mathematician, John Duncan was the very 

 man to believe that " to know the twenty-six letters was 

 quite sufficient to enable a man to learn anything that he 

 wished." 



But he had another tutor, who used to help him after 

 he could read with a little fluency. This was Mary Brand, 

 a girl of twelve when he came to the village, the daughter 

 of a weaver, John Brand, who resided in a cottage next to 

 Pirie's. She was then at school, or had just left it, and 

 used to come into the weaving shop, when Johnnie had 

 any leisure, to hear him read his lesson, correcting in- 

 evitable mistakes and helping him over difficulties. There 

 the two would sit together on the loom, John with the book 

 close to his eyes, laboriously and earnestly groping his 

 way through the page under her bright guidance ; while 

 many a merry laugh rang through the room at the errors 

 made by the slow, sober, diligent, and short-sighted 

 scholar. The two formed a striking picture for a character 



* The so-called letter " & " is merely a short monographic form of 

 the Latin <?/, the letters of which can easily be detected in it, and 

 which is so pronounced in " &c." 



