280 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



by the blue sky, clasped by the friendly hills, and turned to 

 the sunny south the very home and congenial retreat of 

 a lover of nature and flowers. 



The first door in the larger cottage was the entrance 

 to the house of a crofter ; a second opened on a weaver's 

 workshop ; a third led into a barn ; and the last into a byre, 

 with the crofter's cows. On entering the shop by the low 

 door, beneath which you had to stoop, you found yourself 

 in a little room crowded with two large looms, a wheel, a 

 winding machine, and other appurtenances of the weaving 

 craft. It was very dimly lighted by three little windows 

 in the front and one behind, which were obscured by the 

 dust of the loom and the webs of busy spiders. 



This small workroom was Duncan's home for nigh 

 thirty years, till he was borne to his last resting-place in 

 the churchyard at Alford. 



The whole space of the floor was occupied with the 

 various apparatus required for his trade, except a small 

 part near the door, which was filled with his chests and 

 boxes. Yet that room constituted the whole of his 

 dwelling-place, and there he spent his days and nights. 

 Where was his sleeping-room ? There also. Close by the 

 door stood a short home-made ladder, leaning against the 

 wall. On looking upwards, there could be seen some 

 planks laid across the couples of the roof at that end of the 

 room, and extending towards the other end two-thirds of 

 the available space above, the rest being open to the rafters. 

 These boards formed a kind of " bunk " or cabin supporting 

 a bed, to which the ladder led up. It contained just 

 sufficient space for the bed and a narrow passage by its 

 side. That was John's bedroom. Its roof was the thatch, 



