464 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



priate emblems, as he could not but think them, of the real 

 glory that had irradiated his lowly pilgrimage, and dispelled 

 the sorrows that brooded there by the blessed influences 

 of nature, the delights of higher thought and the sanctities 

 of religion. The young man stood for a time in silence 

 and veneration, and consecrated himself anew to kindred 

 noble aims. 



Everything was prepared by attentive friends for the 

 funeral, which was delayed for some time that I might be 

 present. I arrived in the Vale on Saturday, and went up 

 that afternoon to Droughsburn, in a beautiful autumn even- 

 ing that flooded the valley of the Leochel with a charming 

 light. " To me alone there came a thought of grief." The 

 exquisite stillness, the quiet sweetness of the hollow in which 

 the cottage nestled, with its blue smoke rising heaven- 

 wards, all spake of "something that was gone." The 

 garden was there in its unconscious vigour, but the kindly 

 hand that had gathered its flowers from far and tended 

 them so well was cold in death. The roof of the old 

 workshop was dilapidated and sunken downwards. Its 

 thatch was broken and covered with parti-coloured moss, 

 where flourished stitchwort, sorrel, groundsel, ragweed, 

 broom, and spiky grass ; and the lintel bent under the 

 weight of the falling roof, as if in sympathy with its de- 

 parted lord. And the dead hero lay in his coffin in the 

 centre of the silent room, while his shrunken face looked 

 upwards with eager marble gaze that seemed straining into 

 futurity. 



His shroud was appropriately adorned with a selection 

 of the plants from which he had drawn his dearest joys. 

 These had been expressly chosen by John Taylor, to 



