4 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



ban always hard, but at those stricter times almost cruel, 

 is the subject of this history. 



His mother, as he used to tell with pride, was " a 

 strong, pretty woman." Bred up in the healthy country, 

 she could even lift with ease " a boll of barley over a 

 riddle."* She came of a robust, long-lived race, her 

 father surviving to the great age of 105 years. Why 

 his parents never married it is now impossible to say. 

 His father, characterized by the son as a pretty clever 

 man and good weaver, afterwards became a soldier, per- 

 haps on account of this youthful folly, and he seldom saw 

 the lad, though he took some interest in him. The place 

 of both parents, however, was, in most respects, more than 

 filled by the devoted mother, who cherished the child with 

 no common care The poor woman, deserted by her lover, 

 took up house in Stonehaven, not far from the old pier 

 where her son had been born. She supported herself and 

 her boy by taking harvest in the country, at which she was 

 a superior hand, but chiefly, during the rest of the year, by 

 weaving stockings, then a staple trade with the continent, 

 for which houses existed in all the larger towns of the 

 north, and gave out the worsted to be worked at home. 



Throughout life, John Duncan had the highest respect 

 and affection for his mother, and to her memory he always 

 recurred with peculiar pleasure amidst trying experiences. 

 One of her sons, still living, born after John had left his 

 home, speaks of her in the same terms of loving regard, as 

 an unusually hardworking, honest, affectionate woman, and 

 economical housewife. Their combined testimony proves 

 her to have been a good, clever woman, strong in mind and 

 * The sieve used for corn by farmers. 



