352 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



"I suggested that 'eerie' might be a corruption of 

 'yarrow;' or that it might be the Scotch word 'eerie/ 

 meaning timorous, because the girl would go tremblingly 

 and timorously to pluck and place the charm in her breast 

 John at once exclaimed, ' Oh, man, that's it ! ' 



" He had a plant called ' Humility,' or ' Aaron's Beard,' * 

 which he said was so called because it threw out long 

 tendrils which hung down over the margin of the pot where 

 it was suspended. ' But,' added John, ' Aaron's beard was 

 nae langer than Moses' beard, as far as we ken ; ' and then 

 he quietly repeated the first verse of the psalm 



' Like precious ointment on the head, 



Which down the beard did flow, 

 Even Aaron's beard, and to the skirts 



Did of his garments go.' 



" ' So you see,' he continued, ' Aaron's beard went down 

 to the skirts o' his garments.' I think the old high priest 

 sank considerably in his estimation when I pointed out 

 that it was the oil, and not the beard, which flowed down 

 to the skirts. 



" I was speaking to him one day about the colours of 

 flowers, and mentioned that the sweet scents and pretty 

 petals attracted insects, whereby the flowers were fertilised. 

 ' Ay,' said he, ' they're attractive to wee flees as well as to 

 us. But some o' the flees are killed by them/ This led 

 him to describe the irritability of the stamens in some plants, 

 and he ended by saying, ' There's nae mony o' them sae 

 cruel, though.' I replied, ' they all hang out their colours 



* Saxifraga sarmentosa, a Chinese species of Saxifrage, having 

 flowers like the other known as " London Pride" (Saxifraga umbrosa), 

 a Lusitanian species, now wild in some places in Britain. 



