CHAPTER VI. 



THE JOURNEYMAN WEAVER DURING HIS FIRST 

 FREEDOM. 



JOHN DUNCAN remained only a short time in Johnshaven. 

 Rejoicing in his new freedom, dear to all young people, 

 and dearer to him from the previous slavery, he began to 

 move from place to place, to see the country, extend his 

 experience of men and things, and improve his skill in 

 his trade. Smitten with a desire to see and be near his 

 mother, he returned to his native town, where he lived for 

 some two years, winning his own bread and helping her. 

 He found Stonehaven considerably extended since he had 

 left it five or six years before, and very much, since he 

 had become a herd on the neighbouring braes. The new 

 town had begun to show the spacious style in which it 

 had been laid out by Captain Barclay's father, and it was 

 evidently only a question of time that the Links would 

 soon be entirely absorbed, and the new town overshadow 

 the old, draining off its best people and gradually aban- 

 doning it to the poorer population that now occupies it. 



John prosecuted his studies with growing fervour, his 

 greater leisure giving him increased opportunities, fully 

 prized by the keen young weaver. Now that the miserable 

 influences that had stunted his physical and mental growth 



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