4O2 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



wants and fears even to his friends, who would have 

 hastened to help him. The daily lessening income and all 

 that it meant, known but to himself, only made him drive 

 his shuttle the faster, to maintain himself free of assistance, 

 debt, or the dreaded pauper's dole a dear liberty which it 

 was one of the strongest desires of his heart to preserve 

 inviolate to the end, till he should drop into the grave 

 beneath his beloved flowers. 



His books were numerous and valuable, and, if sold, 

 would have brought a considerable sum, which could have 

 loosened the stern grip of poverty and postponed, if not 

 prevented, the disgrace he feared. But with these, the dear 

 companions of his long life, pleasant studies and scientific 

 struggles, he could not could not bring himself to think 

 of parting, even under such cruel straits ; especially after 

 testing his own endurance of separating from them, by 

 selling a few of the less important. His plants these 

 were still dearer than his books, each a drop of veriest 

 heart's blood ; and he could not, would not, barter them for 

 heaps of gold even in dire extremity. No, no, a thousand 

 times no ! 



But it became daily more painfully plain to the decaying 

 workman that the shuttle could no longer provide even the 

 little portion that formed his daily bread. He was getting 

 into debt to his landlord, and every day made it deeper. 

 To his friends, true though few, he would not apply, to 

 save himself the pain of asking, and them the obligation 

 of giving, what he could now never repay. When need grew 

 greater, he did stoop to tell his only relative and was 

 refused ! When work became still scarcer, he even sought 

 employment at a neighbouring sawmill, willing, anxious, to 



