46 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



first introduction to the technical study which was in time 

 to become the enthusiasm of his life. 



Though the lad was naturally so very retiring and 

 bashful, which his harsh treatment had increased, and liked 

 to spend his leisure in solitary walks ; and though he visited 

 very few houses in the village, he had some good friends 

 with whom he occasionally associated, in addition to those 

 already mentioned. Next door to John's weaving shop 

 lived a shoemaker, called Dallas. His house, which looked 

 right out on the shop, was a daily haunt of the apprentice 

 weaver, into which he used to steal, to chat for a little 

 with the intelligent " sooter," and at times confide the 

 grievances received from his bullying master. The shoe- 

 maker had a son, a lad of seven when John first came 

 to the village, called Alexander, or, in daily speech, 

 " Sandy." Knowing few of his own age, John became 

 attached to the little boy, who used to run in and out 

 of the shop, and who was delighted to carry his " pirns," 

 the reels containing the thread for the shuttle. Amongst 

 other things, to please the boy, John put up a swing 

 between the two looms that stood end to end in the shop, 

 the rope being fastened to the great beams that formed 

 their framework. There Sandy used to swing in jubilant 

 glee, after he came home from school for his parents gave 

 him what was then a fair education while John sat busily 

 plying his shuttle. During dinner hour, and at other 

 times when his taskmaster was from home, the young 

 weaver took a swing himself, by way of change from his 

 over-sedentary work ; and not unfrequently the two might 

 be seen on the swing together, standing, as is the custom 

 in such an exercise, face to face, the one alternately 



