CHAPTER XXIII. 



STUDIES AND FRIENDS AT AUCHLEVEN. 



DUNCAN continued his intellectual pursuits in Auchleven 

 with a glowing ardour that nothing could extinguish. He 

 kept some books always beside him in the workshop, and 

 these were daily resorted to in the intervals necessary in 

 such sedentary labour. He read much also, as we have 

 seen, in the quietude of the cosy cottages he frequented. 

 But " the philosopher " was the chief scene of his studies. 

 Many a time, when wakened between two and three in the 

 summer mornings by the rumble of the passing peat carts 

 going to the moss, has his young bedfellow, Sandy Smith, 

 seen John already dressed and seated on the top of his 

 chest at the other side of the den, " mumbling and spelling " 

 at the book he was engaged on, by the light that entered 

 through the glass-less opening in the door, through which 

 also blew the pleasant morning breeze. As he read in an 

 audible monotone, the listener could generally make out the 

 subject. John went over the same sentence or passage again 

 and again till he had mastered it ; but, as Sandy says, 

 " when it did get in, it never got out again ! " This was 

 Duncan's daily practice all through the bright days of 

 summer. 



It was a strict rule of his that no light of any kind 



