140 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



character had been shown in his discreet and harmonious 

 management of affairs at Whitehouse. His after history, 

 were it written, would be more than sufficient evidence that 

 the homage and affection which John yielded him from the 

 first were securely placed and wisely directed a power 

 felt by all who have come into close contact with Charles 

 Black. Notwithstanding the unattractive aspect of the 

 one, and the vigorous, hilarious immaturity of the other, 

 these two men felt drawn to each other by that instinctive 

 alchemy which, at rare intervals, welds two diverse natures 

 together. They entered into an unspoken covenant of 

 friendship of the diviner type, which remained undimmed 

 till the death of the senior, and still survives in the old age 

 of his friend. 



At the close of the spring of 1836, shortly after he had 

 settled at Netherton, John Duncan ascended the hill to 

 Whitehouse, bearing a letter of introduction to the bota- 

 nical gardener, from his friend William Mortimer, of 

 Auchleven. William had known Charles Black when he 

 was a farm servant, and when he himself was an appren- 

 tice shoemaker at Raehill on the Gadie, near Oyne. 

 John had donned his best, to do honour to his expected 

 friend. He had on his usual kenspeckle dress, with trousers 

 turned up half-way to the knee, and his high-crowned hat, 

 set at John's own angle on the back of his head. He 

 certainly looked, Charles Black said, " a queer fish." From 

 his extreme near-sightedness, general stoop caused thereby, 

 and strange but striking countenance, he also conveyed the 

 impression, at first sight, of " surely being half daft." The 

 Whitehouse family were expected shortly from Aberdeen, 

 and the gardener was busily superintending some workmen 



