234 JOHN DUNCAN. WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



suspicion or thought of immodesty in the doing of these 

 things. "Right enough," said James, "but man is a 

 creature, as you know, largely affected by circumstances. 

 The river is no joke, nor the washing-tub either ; but, given 

 youth and beauty, a summer eve, and courting, all com- 

 bined, with this whirling of the distaff of yours, and what 

 then ? " But John stuck to custom, to " use and wont," and 

 held that the idea of immodesty was imported into the 

 subject, and that, in the circumstances they had mentioned, 

 there was not a particle of it present. Was he wrong ? 



Some of his adventures in the south were not without 

 considerable danger. 



One day, as he was quietly walking along the road 

 near the East Neuk of Fife, he was accosted by two coarse- 

 looking tramps, "rag-tag lads, nae very bonnie," whose 

 dress and style did not reassure him. They first asked him 

 to play "pitch and toss" with them, which he refused. 

 Then they offered him a dram out of a black bottle they 

 carried, which he would not taste. Becoming bolder, they 

 threw off all disguise, and advanced menacingly to seize 

 him. But John was prepared for them, and "putting his 

 best fit first," as he said, told them to stand off. They 

 then tried to trip him. John, seeing two to one, at once 

 darted off along the road, in reliance on his fleetness of 

 foot ; and though they followed hard after him for a 

 time, he soon out-distanced them and escaped, " running," 

 he said, "just like a hare." 



On another occasion, he fell among a fraternity 

 certainly calculated to rouse suspicion " a curran Hielant 

 tinklers," the wandering gipsies of the country. They had 

 just arrived, like himself, at a farm-steading where, from 



