WEAVING AND A VILLAGE OF WEAVERS. 2$ 



again to the harvest rig, with what advantages it offered ; 

 and in after years, having time greatly in his own hands, 

 as a home weaver and not a worker at a strict-timed 

 factory, he could use his leisure as he pleased for outdoor 

 pursuits. Under the most adverse circumstances, enthu- 

 siasm would make its own opportunities. In every way, 

 therefore, there can be no doubt that to John Duncan the 

 weaver's treddles were better than the ploughman's stilts. 

 At length, in 1809, about the time Thorn, the Inverurie 

 poet, began the same occupation in Aberdeen, when 

 Duncan had entered on his sixteenth year, arrangements 

 were completed for his being apprenticed as a weaver in 

 the birthplace of his parents, a weaving colony, where they 

 also had sat at the loom. 



Drumlithie, to which he now went, is a small inland, 

 rural village, or "toonie," as John called it, seven miles 

 from Stonehaven, and eight from Laurencekirk. It is 

 pleasantly situated amidst some embowering ash trees, 

 in an undulating hollow, cultivated to the summits of its 

 enclosing heights, at the northern extremity of the far- 

 stretching Howe of Strathmore. The centre of a wide 

 agricultural district, it has now a railway station of its 

 own on the busy line between Perth and Aberdeen. Like 

 most quiet country villages, it possesses a comfortable inn, 

 a school-house, and, in this case, several churches ; for, in 

 addition to the Established Church and the representatives 

 of Scotch dissent, it boasts an Episcopal chapel, half of 

 the population having stuck to prelacy from the old days, 

 even in the neighbourhood of Dunnottar and its Covenant- 

 ing dungeons. Architecturally, though an ancient site, 

 it contains nothing peculiar, except a curious solid, circular, 



