114 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



" Sairey Gamp," under his arm ; a staff in his hand, and great 

 boots with iron toes, full of big tackets, on his feet ; while 

 his trousers were generally rolled up half-way to his knees, 

 to keep them clean, " for fear o' bladdin' them." His taut 

 ensemble and stooping gait gave him the general look of a 

 quaint country Paul Pry prying, however, not into other 

 people's affairs, like that well-known worthy, but into 

 matters his compeers knew nothing of, and cared less for. 

 From thinking of other things within, or conning over some 

 of the technicalities of the studies he pursued, he generally 

 had an absorbed look, which at times became an almost 

 vacant stare ; so that by many, if not by most, he was 

 considered "odd." Some said that he "looked like a 

 fule," and others did accuse him, in their charity, of being 

 silly." 



He was extremely cleanly in his disposition, dress, and 

 habits, brushing his clothes with fastidious care, and never 

 putting down his hat, even in the finest room he entered, 

 without wiping off any dust that might lie there, with his 

 handkerchief. His tastes were singularly abstemious, and 

 his food of the simplest his bed, board, washing and dress, 

 not costing him, then, more than four shillings a week. 

 Yet no one accused him of being mean, and he was 

 reckoned " liberal within his ability ; " and ' it should be 

 remembered that his wife and family, even after his 

 daughters were married, were a constant drain upon his 

 slender resources. Could simplicity and thrift go farther 

 than this ? 



About this period, he stayed for some years two miles 

 north of Auchleven, at the village of Insch. Here he also 

 studied astronomy, " wasting his time," as the people thought 



