UNHAPPY DOMESTIC EXPERIENCES. 65 



of John Duncan now survives, if we except his half-brother, 

 his mother's second son, already mentioned. 



His wife's son, Andrew Durward, or " Durratt," as the 

 name is popularly called and as he himself spelled it, seems 

 to have grown a respectable, kindly man, though brought 

 up under the untoward circumstances in which he had been. 

 He became a soldier, and letters of his, written to his 

 sister Mary, from Colombo in Ceylon, in 1842, still exist, 

 full of religious feeling. In one of these, he wished to know 

 how his father, John Duncan, was getting on a proof that he 

 retained a kindly remembrance of the man in whose house 

 he had been sheltered for six years ; and promised to send 

 his mother ten shillings a month, if he knew how to do so. 

 He returned to this country after obtaining his discharge, 

 married, and made a living, in addition to his small pension, 

 by traversing the country with various wares, and was 

 known as "an honest creature." Unfortunately, like his 

 mother and sister, he at last became paralytic, and had to 

 be supported by his wife. She is still remembered by 

 many as a clean, tidy woman, selling wares from a basket 

 which she carried about. He at last died, in October, 1867, 

 in the poor-house of Clatt, in Aberdeenshire, to which he 

 and his wife had then come in their wanderings, and where 

 she remained till her death. An attempt was made, by the 

 Parochial Board there, to prove John Duncan to be his 

 father, which of course failed, but which caused him some 

 trouble and expense. A son of Durward's, a strong 

 vigorous young man, walked a long distance from the farm 

 at which he was engaged, to attend John's funeral, and 

 helped, as a relative, to lower him into the grave. 



