180 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



were at once spread out on the ground, amidst the 

 immoderate laughter of the farmer, an easy-going, stout 

 young man of the true bucolic type. This brought out 

 the rest of the family, including his brother, and his father, 

 Joseph. While they stood round, the son took up the 

 largest specimen in the group, one of the Knotted figwort, 

 a handsome plant, with peculiar, dull-coloured flowers, and 

 no very pleasant odour. "Noo, John," says he, "i' yer 

 ain grand lingo, fat ca' ye that grite trailipus o' a thing ? " 

 " Knotty-rooted figwort, Scrophularia nodosa" replied 

 John, all in one continuous run of knotted syllables, the 

 Latin words being scarcely pronounced like an ancient 

 Roman. " Fat, fat ! " cried the dumfoundered man, with 

 bursting laughter ; " fat said ye, man ? Sic gibberish I 

 never heard ! Say't ower again." The strain was 

 repeated in its long-drawn concatenation, and re-repeated 

 at request, amidst the merriment of the whole assembly 

 at the " lang-nibbit " * words, John smiling, and James 

 joining in the irresistible mirth with heart and soul, as he 

 tells. 



Old Joseph, the father, till now a mere spectator, prided 

 himself on his intelligence, having served his apprentice- 

 ship, as he often told, " in the heed boro' toon o' Aiberdeen." 

 He determined to come to John's aid ; affronted, as he 

 said, that his son, "a grown man, was so confounded 

 dull i' the uptak'." f " Though I'm noo an auld man o' 

 near fowr score," remonstrated he, addressing his son, " I 

 ken ilka wird the man's sayin'. Can ye no tak' tent to 



* Long-nebbed, or long-beaked, applied to long-sounding words 

 in Scotland, with picturesque expressiveness. 



t Up-take, that is, power of taking up mentally, understanding. 



