CHAPTER XIV. 



JOHN'S INTRODUCTION TO HIS " ALTER EGO." 



NOT far from Netherton, and at the time of our story 

 nearly opposite to it, is the entrance to the mansion and 

 grounds of the Farquharsons of Whitehouse. The house 

 is one of those substantial, old-fashioned, long and narrow 

 buildings, with broad, plain front, sunk flat, and outside 

 staircase to the hall, that were common at the beginning of 

 the century, before modern taste and pretension had risen 

 in country architecture. Standing amidst a fine, sloping 

 park of splendid trees, some of them old and striking, on 

 an open terrace high above the surrounding country, it 

 commands a grand prospect towards the south, over the 

 hollow of Tough to the top of Corennie Forest and the 

 woods of Craigievar, behind which rises the fine peak of 

 Lochnagar. Well-stocked flower plots beautify the front, 

 and a fine enclosed garden faces the sun to the left. The 

 outlook behind is still more expansive, where from a farm 

 close by, rightly named Prospect Hill, an unrivalled view 

 may be had over the whole variegated Vale of Alford, 

 terminating in the Buck of the Cabrach and Ben Macdhui. 

 It was then the custom, and so continued long after, for 

 the Aberdeenshire county familes to have their chief man- 



