80 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



liberty to traverse any part of his forest without fear of 

 challenge. 



One of John's reminiscences here gives a vivid glimpse 

 of the social life of the time. At that period, soap, it 

 seems, was little used by the common people, from its 

 being too expensive ! John used to tell that, in many 

 houses in which he lived, he got no soap to wash himself 

 with; but instead of that, if he wished it, he could have the 

 outside husks of corn when ground, known as "seeds," 

 from which the nutritive gruel called " sowens " and a thin 

 paste required in weaving were made. When rubbed in the 

 hands with water, they raised a kind of saponaceous lather. 

 This substitute he was generally unable to use, on account 

 of the pain caused to -the skin by the sharp-pointed scales, 

 and he was fain to do without it. Several of his friends 

 bear the same testimony, in the experiences of their youth, 

 to the general want of what now seems a necessary of life. 

 When John was calling one day on a farmer who lived 

 above Monymusk, before he entered the house, he actually 

 heard the rasping noise of the man shaving himself within ! 

 He had no soap on his face, and was shearing the stiff 

 bristles of an old beard with a blunt razor, on the bare 

 unmoistened surface ! "Dear me ! " exclaimed John, in real 

 surprise ; " wid ye no be better to use some sape to shave 

 wi' ? " The farmer, turning round, as the water trickled 

 from his eyes with the sheer pain of the operation, replied, 

 in unfeigned astonishment at such extravagance, " Na, na ; 

 sape's daar ! " which, in the broad Aberdeen vernacular, 

 signifies " no, no ; soap's dear." 



Another part of the same neighbourhood where he 

 worked at the loom for some years, was on the north 



