456 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



overflowing Droicks burn. The sight of his once beautiful 

 garden 



" Where sweetnesse evirmore inough was ; 

 With flowre' white and blewe, yellowe and rede," 



as Chaucer sings, now saddened him, from its very strength 

 of untended life ; while he that had so diligently watched 

 over its flowers was now fading away. He never stood 

 under the blue heavens again, and only once was able to 

 rise from bed, to which he now retired for the last time. 



His friends still continued to visit him regularly to the 

 end. Some of the neighbouring clergymen kindly came to 

 read and pray with him, services the good man always 

 enjoyed. One day, when very weak, after a special 

 message of emergency had brought the doctor, the Rev. Mr. 

 Brander, of Alford, called. On seeing the man so ill, he sat 

 for some time in silence by his bedside, and then softly 

 asked him if he would like him to read a little. The old 

 man faintly replied, " It winna need to be muckle, than," 

 evidently feeling himself too weak to bear more. The 

 sweetest pastoral of the ancient Hebrew shepherd, so 

 singularly appropriate to the time, was quietly recited ; 

 soothing the dying man with its invigorating assurance, 

 that when he should walk through the Valley of the 

 Shadow, into which he was just entering, he should fear 

 no evil, because accompanied and comforted by the Good 

 Shepherd. 



The whole poem seemed like a rapid review of his life. 

 He had verily, in a more literal sense than common, been 

 surrounded by "green pastures," though at times he had 

 had to pass through trials, which had proved to be "still 



