HIS OTHER FRIENDS AT NETHERTON. 2O5 



of gooseberry bushes, and it required no little courage to 

 venture near them to gather the tempting fruit. John's 

 intrepidity in regard to bees was surprising. He would 

 coolly sit beside the hives, eating the berries and handing 

 them to others who were too much afraid to venture near, 

 while the swarms flew round his head in clouds without 

 touching him. He seemed to have a special influence over 

 them, Willie standing at a distance in astonishment, and 

 expecting, but in vain, to see him stung. " Puir things ! " 

 John would say, " the bees winna touch onybody, if ye 

 dinna touch them," an immunity largely dependent, how- 

 ever, on the sympathies of their companion. 



Mr. Beveridge never took up the study of Botany, 

 though his friend tried to induce him. He had always the 

 greatest pleasure, however, in listening to all John said about" 

 plants, as extending his knowledge of nature. He con- 

 stantly had his eyes open in his ornithological wanderings, 

 and picked up for the botanist every unusual plant he saw. 

 One day he came upon a rarity there, the Briza media, 

 the common quaking grass, with its ever-tremulous spikes, 

 which grew on a marshy flat on the face of the Red Hill, 

 above the farm of Culthibert. When he handed it to John, 

 the weaver brightened up, as he always did on such occa- 

 sions, and told him the family it belonged to and the kind 

 of places it grew in. " Yes ; but the name, John, tell me 

 that," said William, delighted, in friendly malice, to see him 

 at fault. John hesitated, and scratched his head. " Ou, 

 man," persisted his teaser, " I never saw ye puzzled afore ! " 

 The honour of the sensitive student being at stake, a touch 

 of temper came to his aid, and he exclaimed, " The deil a 

 ken, ken I. A body canna hae a' thing at their finger ends ! " 



